Spoofing the iPhone using Firefox

For any of you kids out there wishing to hit a server with Firefox as if using an iPhone here's something that might come in handy.

Install this Firefox add-on:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59

After you install the add-on:

Go to Tools in your browser
Select User Agent Switcher
Select Options
Select Options again
Select User Agents
Click on the Add button

Enter the following information in the box:

Description: iPhone
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en)
App Name: AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko)
App Version: Version/3.0
Platform: Mobile/1A543 Safari/419.3

Once you store the information you will be able to select iPhone from the User Agent Switcher under tools.

No abusing though...

Android Apps Lack Innovation

I agree with Andrew Seybold’s statement about Android developer challenge applications lacking innovation. It is true that even for mobile standards most of these applications are remakes of past attempts.

I believe, however, that the problem is not a lack of creativity. Many of the participants were not even aware of those past applications that never took off. And given what the developers do know (or don’t) their applications are creative and well designed. More importantly, their timing is more on target than any old-school mobile developers could have ever wished for.

To close this note, I extend my criticism to those “more experienced” in the mobile field, myself included. Given this much awaited opportunity to have direct access to a superior platform, it is really a shame we are much too jaded to participate. And instead, would rather sit back, observe, and criticize.

Oh, Verizon Stealing the Thunder from the G1... or Trying to

So much for the anticipation for the G1, which is due to be released tomorrow by T-Mobile. Today's big news, at least on my radar, is that Verizon is removing the long term contract requirement. Verizon now lets new subscribers sing up with just a month-to-month commitment. Even more surprising is that the operator will now accept any un-locked device.

There are obviously conditions for this to take effect. Customers must pay the actual cost of the device, which can amount to more than twice what customers are used to paying. Customers must also sign up for a Nationwide plan.

As expected, there is much speculation as to why Verizon would make this move. I do not buy the possibility that it was to prepare for 4G and the promise to attract AT&T subscribers then. It may be to deflect potential scrutiny from the FCC. One thing is for sure: given the high cost of devices and the fact that the only other CDMA network in the US is Sprint's month-to-month subscribers will have to think twice, and very hard, about bailing on Verizon.

Perhaps Android phones will be the reason. The iPhone on AT&T's slow and unreliable network is far from being it for me.

Shameless Plug: hi5 mobile

Back in April while reading Danah Boyd’s blog I stumbled upon a research paper about mobile usage by Palestinian teenage girls. Given to these girls by their boyfriends, the mobile phone had become a symbol of relationship status, and no longer just a communication tool.

The authors’ quote “…the nature or the effect of technology is not inherent in the medium and cannot be presupposed.” captures the essence of that phenomenon. And it also sums up the key challenge of designing services for mobile.

Especially with mobile it is difficult to predict how users will welcome the application and interact with it, and what the social implications might be. In mobile the most seemingly cumbersome of activities turn out to be extremely popular, such as entering SMS messages. In contrast, the most obvious of use cases, such as mobile video or LBS, often times fail to capture the audience. In my experience, this challenge is exacerbated when trying to port an existing Web product to the mobile realm.

Little did I know at the time that soon I would face this challenge yet again, but on mass scale. I spent the past two months working on the mobile version of hi5, which is the 3rd largest social network in the world with 56 million active subscribers.

Context

During the process of coming up with hi5 mobile, at hi5 we avoided at all costs the temptation of simply trying to cram hi5 into the mobile device. The process involved really understanding the medium itself and the context in which this medium is used. As a result, hi5 mobile does not emulate the Web experience like other SN mobile services do. hi5 mobile really brings out what matters most when both the medium (screen, keypad) and time are limited.

Not a Utility

The mobile phone is the ultimate and most widely used communication tool in the world. In youth, in particular, mobiles are a tool for establishing and nurturing relationships. Much like hi5 itself, for youth the mobile is all but a utility. As a result hi5 mobile is a fun place for nurturing friendships through messaging, commenting, and updating status. It is very much about contributing and reciprocating. It is not a phonebook.

About status

Traditionally, the mobile phone has been a powerful tool for building status. Possession of a mobile phone signals to the world that one belongs to a social circle, has relationships; it also signals independence. According to Danah Boyd many of the activities that promote peer status in the real world also take place in social networks. With hi5 mobile we want to contribute to users’ ability to build status within hi5. Initially, this could be as simple as showing when someone is utilizing a mobile phone to access hi5. But over time this theme could expand to other users’ interactions within hi5.

It is quite possible that even in spite of the highly contextual design of hi5 mobile the net impact it could have on hi5’s users may surprise us. But in the mean time, all usage and feedback points to a good reception by our users.

To try out hi5 mobile, visit us at www.hi5.com.

> liliamcoburn.hi5.com

Maximizing User Adoption during Phone Validation Process

Sometimes the most effective end-user experience can be counterintuitive.

Here is one example of how this can be true for even the simplest of processes. With the Internet crossing over into mobile more and more sites will require to authenticate the mobile number to ensure it truly belongs to the end-user providing it.

The right way:

A number of mobile content sites that have been in the space for years have perfected device authentication:

When adding the mobile device through the Web, the most effective way to validate the handset is to send the PIN to the phone and have the end users enter it on the PC.

Also, keep the PIN simple. This example "SHKCQWENLS" won’t do. Four digits is the ideal way to go, as long as security measures for generating the PIN are kept in mind. Avoid letters and numbers that resemble eachother, such as '1' and 'l', and '0' and 'o'.

The wrong way:

Getting this process wrong could mean up to a higher than 50% opportunity cost in terms of end-user adoption. Examples of this are:

1) Some sites send a text to the mobile phone and then require the end user to reply with a key word. While this seems might seem quite intuitive, studies have revealed that this will deter adoption by up to 80%

2) Others display a PIN on the PC and require end user to send the pin from their phone to a short code.

The worst way:

Some sites do not validate the device in the first place. This is not kosher at so many levels. A user could easily enter the wrong number accidentaly. This could result in spamming other end-users with text messages they will be charged for. Even worse, this could result in sensitive information being sent to the wrong person!

Short follow up on Ribbit

I just thought I would do a quick post on what "Randy" from Ribbit shared in his comment to my post: to get more info on Ribbit, check out their blog or their RSS feed.

Good nite!

Android ditched for LiMo by Verizon… for Now

The Google versus evil carrier saga continues. Verizon Wireless announced today that it has joined the LiMo Foundation.

LiMo is an alliance that aims to create an open handset operating system based on Linux for Mobile. To date they not only have attracted 40 big industry names, but they have also launched a number of handsets:

• MOTO U9, MOTO Z6w, MOTOROKR Z6, RAZR2 V8, RAZR2 V8 Luxury Edition and MOTOROKR E8 from Motorola;

• NTT DoCoMo FOMA N905i, FOMA N905iμ, FOMA N705i and FOMA N705iμ from NEC;

• NTT DoCoMo FOMA P905i, FOMA P905iTV, FOMA P705i and FOMA P705iμ from Panasonic Mobile Communications, and

• SGH-i800 from Samsung.

(Source: http://www.limofoundation.org/)

While Verizon may not necessarily limit its support to LiMo, today’s move represents a blow for Android. It will be much more difficult to secure a significant footprint on mobile devices.

One thing that Google still has going for itself is the traction it has gained among developers (almost 1,800 Android Developer Challenge submissions). The only problem with this is that in the short term developers will gravitate to the fad of the moment. In the long term, however, it is those platforms that make the most economic sense that will result the winners.

All in all the jury is still out. The truth is there is plenty of room for all players. But as an important reminder… with fragmentation (and this seems to be getting worse instead of better), it is the developers who suffer in the process… and the ultimately loser is the consumer…

Incumbent Beware

One might expect that especially given the recent announcement of Google's I/O Web Forward open source conference during which Android will likely take the front stage, Verizon Wireless would be building some serious buzz around its own Open Development conference.

Rule number one: make sure that the main link on your press release works!! Yup, you know that link that points to all of the details about the thing you are announcing? Make sure the page is up especially if the conference is only but two days away (and the hot shot new entrant is stealing your thunder)!!!

So much for the anticipation... Hmm... although perhaps someone got an early start on that maintenance window...

On the other hand, here are the deets on Google I/O:



When: May 28-29 2008
Where: San Francisco @ West Moscone
Early Bird registration is $300
Attendee Registration is $400
And they even have the very generous gesture to offer student passes for just $50 each.

Why? (as if a reason was needed) An opportunity to see all of the best of Google's developers talk about all of Google's development platforms. Need I say more?

Regarding Verizon's open development conference, which is supposed to start this week on the 19th, I've been combing the Web for details today without much success. As soon as I find more information I'll be sure to post it.

More Strides towards Openness: Funambol

Funambol offers open source email, contacts and calendars. It provides connectors between Microsoft Exchange and IBM Domino email servers, and a range of mobile devices. It also provides an open community for other open source and standard solutions that service providers and mobile device manufacturers can benefit from.

So one might ask what the value prop of Funambol is when Android promises to be the answer to mobile open source. The answer is that Android is a software stack, while Funambol is a platform. Therefore, they are very complementary to eachother.

Take the following example:

As a potential consumer of Funambol I have already found a problem using its consumer service. As usual, the problem is porting. My phone, being one of the most popular phones, the LG chocolate, is not supported by Funambol. Also, in my case, Funambol assumes Verizon’s phones are open. When I tried to set up my account Funambol gave me clear instructions on how to tweak my phone settings to synchronize with Funambol’s server. The problem is Verizon does not allow for that because they either want me to pay for the sync application on a smartphone, or to download and pay for a Brew email client on my feature device.

The bottom line is that this problem makes for a stronger case for Android and the power it has to forge relationships with operators and OEM’s, and lowering the porting barriers.

If unlike me, you do have access to an open device and furthermore, to an outlook server here are some quick easy resources to help you through the steps: setting up Outlook and Blackberry.

One Small Step for Verizon, One Big Step for Mankind

Mark your calendars! March 19-20 is Verizon’s Open Development conference.

But what does this mean exactly? If you are an application developer, don’t book your flight to NYC just yet. For starters, the conference is not for all developers.

The first step towards enabling an open platform environment is getting device manufacturers on board and in sync with each other. This explains why the first conference targets device developers. During the conference Verizon will review its technical device standards. The question is are these “standards” standard with respect to the rest of the devices in the world?

On a side note: another, perhaps even bigger announcement is the “company’s desire to encourage innovation, give customers wireless choices, and quickly address opportunities to expand the wireless market”. I just love the sound of that!

Related posts: GigaOm, mobilebuzz

Guitar Hero Any Time, Any Where!

Since this has become my latest addiction I thought I would post a quick review:

It is a really good app based on an outstanding video game. Hands On Mobile has done a superb job transposing the guitar-based UI to a handset.

• It works just like Guitar Hero, except there are only three keys (instead of five)
• The graphics are also pretty good and true to the game
• The AV synchronization is almost perfect (every once in a while a note will be slightly off, but this is barely noticeable to someone who has worked on mobile video applications before)
• The sound on the Verizon Chocolate is pretty good, especially with stereo head phones

What I didn't find optimal:

• No free-demo available?! That’s kind of sketchy! So in order to try the game I had to pay for the 1st month’s subscription. Talk about a deterrent for some folks out there
• Interesting pricing strategy going on here: only four songs available with the 1st month’s subscription. One can work his way up to fifteen songs total (three at a time). But given how addictive the game is, unless more songs are available soon, there will be little incentive for folks to renew their subscription beyond five months. This makes it better to simply pay the indefinite package upfront
• The biggest drawback is that one can only have two songs residing in the phone at the same time. To switch from resident songs to the other two songs, the full songs must be downloaded. Translation: almost a minute to download each song (too bad one can’t take a Guitar Hero break during)
• And the ever present problem with mobile anything: when I play to “Suck my Kiss” (by the Red Hot Chili Peppers) it feels more like “Suck My Battery” just after a few plays
  

The game is currently sold exclusively on Verizon phones. One can download it through Fun & Games on GetItNow (or the Brew deck for mobile geeks out there familiar with the term). One can pay $4.49 for a month to month subscription, or $11.99 to have indefinitely.

In the Spirit of the New Year: Mobile Awareness

My first post of 2008 goes out to RareEarthTones. Unlike the vast majority of mobile content providers, RareEarthTones is leveraging the most ubiquitous access technology to promote awareness about endangered species. It does so by offering FREE ringtones featuring the sounds of animals at the brink of extintion.

I tried it on my Verizon phone and it worked like a charm.

This is truly liberating. The economics of SMS are very unlike the Internet. There is a considerable cost that the Center for Biological Diversity (or some very generous donor) must be incurring. I cannot think of a better purpose!

My Location: Google is Not Always Watching Me over the Airwaves

Google surprised us again this week with yet another bold announcement. With My Location Mobile Maps will be able to tell you where you are. But fear not, big-brother or stalker phoebes. In contrast to Google’s free WiFi service, Mobile Maps has made the very intelligent decision to not bother to know where you are. All My Location knows is an arbitrary identification number (not your MDN, which is your seven digit phone number) that is associated with your mobile device.

The challenge for operators is that whether their LBS platforms provide anonymity or not, it will be difficult for them to shake off the perception that they do not. The network knows the MDN associated with the device; the MDN is associated with the account. The account not only holds information about the identity of the subscriber, but even other facts such as mailing address and credit card number.

Google’s announcement also sparked new discussions about how the carriers ought to release LBS APIs that application developers can take advantage of. This only speaks for the U.S. operators’ inability to effectively educate the media. After all, as I have posted before, some operators do have open (or semi-open, depending on whether economics are part of the definition) APIs. So here is a quick snapshot of carrier supported LBS APIs for developers:

Verizon Wireless
Sprint
ATT

Right now Mobile Maps is limited to smart devices such as Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian. However, in America it is feature phones that occupy the largest footprint today. So why doesn’t Google take advantage of the semi-open API’s provided by operators? Hmm… perhaps they will soon… Or perhaps the economics get a little murky since operators impose revenue share models on subscriptions to on-deck applications. To make things even more complicated, with Brew operators a third party is also involved: Qualcomm. In contrast, Google’s model is based on advertising, which means giving the service away for free. So perhaps with a little creativity, and suppression of egos, all players could come to friendly terms that would ultimately benefit us, the end users.

Regardless of how this will pan out, the truth is Google’s is definitely a good long term strategy; eventually most, if not all, devices will be open smart devices.

I end this post with the real question that I have: will Google make Mobile Maps open like its online counterpart some day?

(Here is a good interview with the Google Maps product manager, Steve Lee).

Oh, It’s a Wonderful and Predictable World

Why is Om wasting his analytical mind and his words on his post today? The reasons behind the news from Verizon Wireless today can be simply narrowed to the first once he mentions: It’s all about the upcoming spectrum auction. And it is also about Android… Oh, which by the way is also all about the upcoming spectrum auction…

So it is only a matter of time before the rest of the herd follows. The big question for me is which carrier will embrace Android? Just for fun, my money goes to T-Mobile.

Finally, as soon as I figure out how exactly Verizon’s open platform will work and how it will benefit (or hurt – always a possibility) the industry, I will post some more….

Consumers should not have to pay

As a follow up to my previous post, here is a good example of how working with U.S. carriers to develop new economic models can create opportunities for growth in the mobile econsystem.

mBlox, Inc. is making inroads with U.S. carriers to make SMS free for end consumers. Why would carriers care to lend an ear to this seemingly ludicrous proposal? And who will pay for these messages?

Today when you receive an alert from your favorite Web application, such as Twitter, your carrier collects money from you for the delivery of the message. On the other hand, your carrier does NOT charge a fee to the aggregator who delivered the message to it, nor to Twitter for delivering you your message.

mBlox’ proposition is that by removing the charge to the end user will drive more user adoption of messaging applications. In other parts of the world the model has been proven to work better for the players in the ecosystem, beginning with end consumers. In Europe the amount of traffic for simple mobile terminated messages by far exceeds that of premium content (e.g., ringtones, wall papers).

The most interesting part of the proposition is that the carriers would receive a bigger payout for each individual message. This is due to the higher willingness to pay that exists in specialized services and applications, where the ability to send a message to an end user signifies a cost saving. Examples are financial institutions and brands, which otherwise have to invest significantly to reach consumers through other means; and which, presumably, should be willing to pay for the ability to make messages received by end users feel less intrusive.

Quit Complaining

I get sick and tired of Web developers complaining about how closed they are finding the mobile space. I find the complaints ignorant and whiny. The arguments for the need for an open mobile ecosystem are not only shallow, but also obviously selfish and poorly disguised as idealism and altruism.

It is not that I do not believe in openness and opportunity for all. It is not like I do not realize that the consumer is who will benefit the most from access to a broader, more compelling, more discoverable, and price competitive range of services and applications. It is not like I do not perceive the potential that mobile has of surpassing the Internet in terms of availability and profitability of services and applications (in terms of reach, mobile has long gone surpassed the Web).

My dilemma is that as a capitalist I strongly believe that the parties who have invested heftily in laying down and maintaining infrastructure to connect the world are entitled to protect their investment to capture as much of the returns as possible. Carriers are also entitled to protect their physical assets from abuse, malice, and tear and wear. It is, however, also investors’ entitlement, if not their duty, to also maximize their ROI.

The problem I see in the carrier ecosystem is that by being so over protective and paranoid of opening the flood gates carriers may be selling themselves short. One major downfall of the walled garden is the stifled user adoption.

My call to action then to the Web developer community is to stop complaining. Instead, get your creativity juices flowing and think of ways to turn the situation around. It is time to develop innovative ways to show carriers ways to maximize their returns by opening up their platforms, and forcing OEM’s towards a less fragmented device platform environment. Successful models will be those in which all carriers, OEMs, developers, and end-consumers alike will reap benefits.

Off-Carrier LBS platform

Hats off to the folks over at Yahoo! Research Berkeley for developing something truly disruptive!

The Yahoo! Research Berkeley team has come up with an open LBS platform that allows the community to generate and openly obtain the location information. This is in contrast to other LBS platforms, most of which are owned by carriers.

“Fire Eagle”, code name for YRB’s open LBS platform, allows location-based applications to connect to it and 1) post end-users’ location information, and/or 2) get end-users’ location information. Here is an example of how it works: Suppose you, as a developer, come up with the “Totally Rad” Social Networking location-based application and connect to “Fire Eagle” using its soon to be made public API. Now, let’s say one of your users also uses Zone Tag. While out and about, this user takes a picture, tags it, and uploads it to Zone Tag. Zone Tag will determine the user’s location by means of its Cell Site ID database. Zone Tag will then post the user’s location information to the “Fire Eagle” platform. Next, the end-user will log in to the Totally Rad Social Networking application. The Totally Rad application will get the user’s location information from Fire Eagle. With this information Totally Rad will be able to serve your end-users with location information about their friends or love interests, or even highly targeted ads.

So what about the security of users’ privacy?

Privacy has always been the number one concern with location-based services and continues to be. YRB promises the platform will be armed with privacy features. First, the location history of users will not be maintained. Fire Eagle will only cache each user’s latest posted location information. Second, users will be able to manage through a Web UI which applications should or should not have access to their location information. I would add to that the ability to specify windows of time, ability to turn off the disclosure on information from the device, etc.

How good will the information be?

Unlike a carrier supported LBS application, a user’s Latitude and Longitude may not always be available.

What might the carriers say/do?

They may not do anything until a user’s location information is compromised and used in a bad way… or until they see that this significantly eats into their revenues. For now, though, this is probably will be just noise to them.

What’s Fire Eagle’s status?

Currently “Fire Eagle” is about to go through alpha testing. Enter your email address on the Fire Eagle Website to be notified when it becomes open to the public.

Welcome back Russ! (and mobilebuzz)

This being my first post in a while, I thought I would commemorate the occasion with a welcome to a fellow mobilite, Russell Beattie, who is back on the scene again too.

I attended last month’s Silicon Valley's MobileMonday at UC Berkeley. The most pleasant surprise was to see Russell Beattie present. I will post about what he talked about, which was mainly a plug (a very informative and well done one, by the way) for his latest venture Mowser.

Russ broke the ice with his BS-meter about mobile Web – which I found so true, so I thought I would post it here:

- “Users only care about x and y”
- “Users don’t need a, b, or c”
- “Networks are too slow” (my personal favorite)
- “Mobile Web is too expensive”

Russell synthesized the approaches to Mobile Web to the following three. The first is the “Dedicated” (all xHTML) approach, which is ubiquitous today. It has its limitations because it is not what we would expect as an Internet-like experience, but it is very good for mobile-specific functionality to complement other services (banks, weather, maps, etc.). Lastly, it is very easy to create applications using this approach. The problem: low-end mobile browsers. Not that I would call this a “problem” personally, but a way around the many limitations of feature phones, which is what the majority of consumers can afford today.

The second approach Russ named the “Internet of Phones” (smartphones, that is). This approach is possible thanks to next generation browsers, such as DeepFish (MSFT), the Nokia Mini Map, and the Access Netfront 3.5. There was mention of the iPhone browser, but by the way, most of us have yet to see and for all we know is nothing but vaporware – and as Russ cleverly mentioned, it will only operate in GPRS, at least at launch. The problem with this approach is that the PC experience is still too difficult to mimic.

The third approach is Widgets. Russ’ perspective: mobile widgets are difficult to find, they need to be downloaded and installed, there are steep learning curve for users, and take time to develop.

I will continue to comment on Russ’s extremely insightful presentation later (he spoke about Transcoding and obviously, Mowser.com). For now, I close with the hopeful thought Russ will continue to honor us with more posts of his own, as he promised at MobileMonday.