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PCS Phone + UP.Browser == Killer App?
gkostolny asks: "So I've had a Sprint PCS phone
for about a year, and I finally decided to upgrade. I ran across a
new Samsung SCH-3500 for $119 at Fry's and jumped on it. After
waiting very impatiently for a day and a half, the 'Wireless Web'
capability was activated, and I've been going crazy with it. You can
access pages written in HDML and WML on the phone, and the default
menus include yahoo, mapquest and infospace. This afternoon, I was
able to go into the Yellow Pages, punch in the name 'Computer Literacy' (a local bookseller) and my zip code, and it came back with the number. I selected 'call', and was connected and able to ask if they had a book on WAP in stock.
My question is, has anyone else played with these phones much, and if so, what do you think? Is implementing sites and various online capabilities for them worthwhile? Will wireless be the next big wave? (And are there any good reference books on this stuff?)"
(Currently playing around with a Nokia 7110.)
The Nokia developer's kit is quite useful. I
can't remember the URL offhand but you should be
able to get to it from their main site.
One less-than-thrilling development with WAP in
Ireland is that the two providers (Esat and
Eircom) are only offering access to specific
services through their gateways, as opposed to
general access. I suppose eventually one of
them will offer general access and the other
will follow suit or die, but in the short term
it's bound to hurt WAP uptake.
AFAIK the two services are going to be heavily
publicised over Xmas, along with Ericsson and
Nokia phones that support WAP. WAP phones are
not yet easily available here, from what I've
heard.
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
People have pointed out the technical disadvantages of WAP, particularly as a specification controlled by a "cartel". Well, technical standards are nice, but not necessary for commercial success. I suppose it is a bit naive to expect these manufacturers to give up the control of standards (see, Microsoft has shown how a pure software business model can really work). Businesses are in the process of making money, and if artificial scarcity drives up the entry barriers, so much the better (ever wonder why airlines offer frequent flyer points instead of just lowering the ticket-price?). Whether it is high switching costs, bundled tools, or the ability to impose rules that enforce the status quo, Linux hackers would be foolish to expect the business world to let go of a potentially lucrative cash cow. Without the ability to exclude, it would be impossible to create a monetary differential or perceived value. Heck, if they could meter the air you breathe (which they can already do for gas, bandwidth, electricity, and water) they would. Conditioning the consumer is a prime goal as it is easier to convince people to continue paying on a time-based charge a la mobile phone charges rather than the freebies people expect from the internet (even though the underlying technology is identical). If you haven't got a way of lining up the sheep ... err... consumers to be fleeced, then you might as well not be in business.
As for Linux, it still remains to be seen whether giving away your technology and time can create sustainable business models.
LL
For many people not wedded to the desktop metaphor, the cellular phone route is much more convenient as an internet appliance than personal computers or their retarted cousins, the set-top box. NTT DoCoMo has had great success with i-MODE, which unlike WAP uses HTML. 2 Million people have signed up so far since service started this year.
It looks like millions of first-time internet users in Japan are taking advantage of some basic server-side services to leapfrog the whole modem thing. Check out Mobile Phone Subscribers to Eclipse NTT's Fixed Telephone Customers. And what can you do with an i-MODE phone? Internet-Capable Mobile Phones Support Games, Music, E-Commerce. And what do you care, anyway? DoCoMo plans i-MODE everywhere. These phones are all under 70g and 70cc. In other words, smaller and lighter than your average Snickers bar. Small screens though :) Next up: high-bandwidth streaming video and music, color displays, Java, etc.
By the way, some simple ideas like Motorola's iTAP can reduce keypad time. And of course new phones have basic voice recognition already.
If you're looking for WML content, try WAPAW.COM
Slightly offtopic, I know... but the current European killer app is the GSM Short Messaging Service. You can send about 160 chars (varies by network) to any digital phone (and we're all digital, here) for a few pennies. Furthermore, in the UK, you can get free email forwarding to SMS (http://www.genie.co.uk), so integration is well on its way. Tastic
--Remove SPAM from my address to mail me
OK, so a lot of the posts have gone on about screen size, lack of content, cost, etc. Most issues will be solved with time so are really not compelling arguments against the technology. We must really think how will we use these devices. Take these situations:
:) )
I have a day job doing NT/SQL work which requires me to be out and about lugging around my notebook. I need access to the net to download data, access technical articles, etc. Of course I can't do that on a mobile phone but I don't want to either.
After work I might go shopping for stuff. I would like to be able to compare online prices to what is in the shop and I sure ain't going to stand around the middle of a shop with my notebook out connected to my mobile phone. A wireless palm/Visor would be ideal. A quick look at MySimon.com and I can start to bargin with the sales guy.
Of course after shopping I might be around at friends hanging out. With my Nokia 7110 at my side I can check the movie listings without having a Visor in my pocket which is to big to be comfortable when loungin'
Later we go to a club and you can't hear your phone in a club and its liable to get broken anyway as your state of mind gets altered..What I might want then is a Wireless WAP watch so I can (Not sure what I would do with a wireless watch, read the time maybe?
The point being is that each device fits a specific purpose. The PC is great as a general tool for computing and I will never trade mine in for a mobile phone. I will however one day have them talking to each other accessing my home network and all sharing the same information wirelessly. Global address books that can be accessed from any device, email notification on all your devices, and any number of apps that currently require wired syncing will benefit from this technology.
Glen
[Please type your sig here.]
more and more evidence is appearing that links cell phone use with a myriad of health problems, including memory loss, dna damage, and brain tumors. After all, we're talking about holding a high-powered microwave transmitter about an inch from the brain! Duh! This is one techno-gadget us geeks should avoid- otherwise in a decade or so all the technoliterate members of the population will be dead!
However, in light of this, i cannot understand why anyone would consider doing anything with HDML as its a dead technology. HDML is a predeseccor to WML, that phone.com developed. Phone.com is now one of the founders of the standards commission Wap Forum.
And stop whining about small screens and no HTML support!
People seem to have the misconception that WML is dumbed-down HTML. Not so! It improves on HTML in several important ways, notably variables (with variable interpolation in text) and the deck-of-cards concept. Please read the spec on www.wapforum.org before passing judgement. There are a lot of things that you can do easily and elegant with WML that are difficult or impossible with HTML.
As for the disadvantage of the semi-open nature of wapforum.org: The advantage of having a tight connection between the industry and the standards body is that new functionality gets adapted FAST -- how long did it take until we had decent CSS1 support in common web browsers? Having said that, i'm not sure the advantages balance the disadvantages.
Check out http://www.wapgateway.org/ -- a GPL'ed WAP gateway
My boss has said he will pay for my high speed internet access. DSL and Cable are unavaiable where I live (though most people here have one or the other) However with Qualcomm (or similear) trying to get high speed wireless over PCS out, that may be avaiable first. Then I can buy a laptop, a big battery, and spend the entire day fishing while still getting paid. Yeah, I'd probably browse from the boat while working from home, but at the moment I'm waiting for a new code download while checking /., so it won't cost productivity.
I really hope this works out. Are you listening Sprint?
Wap is like Windoze, the demo is nice but it can't deliver on it's promise ... Read this for further details.
I have a Sprint PCS phone - it doesn't work indoors or while driving - only outside and stationary. Sprint has told me "it's a software problem" which is supposed to make me believe its not their fault. They also have informed me that they no longer upgrade phone software via the network and I need to stop into their store every 3-4 weeks to ask if my phone needs an upgrade and have men with gold teeth try to sell me phone accessories. (No, they won't let me know when one is available.) The following is their response to a complaint that I frequently can not use my phone in a major urban area: "the results of the service order it indicates that there are many factors that affect your service, such as coverage holes, pilot pollution (too many signals in one area) and capacity issues" that's funny, the coverage map shoes the whole metropolitan area as being serviced! And I'm supposed to believe they have a wireless data service that works?!?!?
So, how free is it? Apparently you can get the specs and start making WML pages for free. But can you make a stack to run their protocols in Linux and GPL that?
The way I see it, it's fair that members make the spec, but if using the spec to implement a server requires you to buy into their 'fair priced essential IP' it's not something I'd call 'free'. Or even semi-free for that matter.
--
Pirkka
Be sure to read your SprintPCS Agreement very carefully. It states that your cellular phone number is sent with each and every request you are making to these websites. I don't know about you, but I don't really want Yahoo sifting through their logs and selling my phone number to marketeers!
Here's some links to resources where you can learn more about HDML (WML), and WAP (Wireless Application Protocol).
A quick definition of HDML from whatis.com
"What is HDML?", at w3.org
Another short definition of WML from whatis.com
The Wireless Application Forum - good resource for wireless info.
WAP, from both a technical and practical perspective.
It should be noted that HDML (Handheld Devices Markup Language) and WML (Wireless Markup Language) are, more or less, the same thing.
.------------ - - -
| big bad mr. frosty
`------------ - - -
One of the things all these comments are mentioning, is what a pain it is to type in information into a touch tone phone.
Hello? Products like Dragon Naturally Speaking are going to be making this unecessary in the very near future. Speech-to-text applications will make browsing the web on a phone/pilot/what have you much more convenient than it is now.
It's all just a matter of time.
---
"To frolic, like a llama, is to live." - The Naked Dancing Llama at frolic.org
If you have the patience to punch this long
l
URL into your WAP-phone:
http://www.stud.ifi.uio.no/~erikkri/slashdot.wm
You might see the slasdot headlines...
This is my last "naked and petrified" post, for a long time at least. I apologize to my many fans for stopping. But I want to retire while I'm ahead, and before the pundits and blowhards and "WE NEED AUTOMODERATION!!!!! AND IP BANNING!!" folks get TOO bent out of shape and have an anxiety attack or something. Poor guys.
If anybody wants to reach me, you can stop by the Hall of Statuary (http://www.oaktree.net/argoforg/) or the Medusa Realm (http://members.xoom.com/meddie/Medusa), visit the message board, and post a message for "Slashdot Poster X." Nobody there knows about my little Slashdot trolling experiments, so I can't use my real handle.
I'll be back someday, probably in a few months, when I can find some new material. "Naked and petrified" will never die, but I DO want to look into taking it in fresh, new directions. I'd appreciate any feedback.
Until then, friends, KEEP TURNING TEENAGE GIRLS TO STONE
POKEY IS YOUR HAPPY FRIEND:
http://www.yellow5.com/pokey/
Hello friends! I just poured magic grits down the pants of a cute teenage girl, and caused her to become petrified! I love magic grits!
Important Poll for Slashdot, please answer
If you could transform any 5 (or 10, or 50, whatever you feel like) young women into statues:
1. What females would you choose, in order from my favorite downwards?
2. Why would you choose those females?
3. What kind of stone (or other immobile substance, natural or manmade) would you transform them into?
4. Describe the pose each girl would be in.
5. Describe the facial expression each girl would have.
6. Explain what each girl would be wearing, if anything.
7. Explain what you would do with the girls after they were petrified.
8. Anything else you'd care to add here.
Thanks for your participation!
Ladies (and faeries), you can list men instead of women if you're so inclined. I don't discriminate.
Just hacked get_slashdot_news to produce HDML. It's available now for HDML browsers at www.csh.rit.edu/~airwick/s.hdml Thanks to leaf who helped me hack perl for the first time. Next project ideas are a Internet Drink Machine gateway or a Slashdot article gateway.
As cool as new gadgets are, this one strikes me as kind of dangerous. As if drivers not paying attention while they're yapping away wasn't bad enough, at least they were able to fix that with hands free phones. I don't think think that the solution for the wireless web will be quite as straightforward. OTOH, think of the headlines:
Yahoo causes 27 car pileup on 101
Andover IPO on E-Trade results in 12 deaths
Mapquest sends man over cliff
Wince phone crashes
(Or whatever they're calling it at the time) But then this might not be headline news, depending on how you interpret it.
I was one of the first to discover that Sprint's Wireless Web was alive and working here in Austin shortly after I bought my QCOM ThinPhone.
/. replied to an earlier post of mine with a link to a paper he wrote (pretty good, really) about what he called the "W* Effect", the trend toward needlessly reinventing all Internet protocols for "wireless" use - I'm sure the proprietary control is just an incidental artifact, aren't you?
There are several significant problems with this technology that can (and should) keep it from becoming popular. (Summary: VERY proprietary, text-only, slow, expensive - other than that, it's OK.)
First of all, you're limited to WAP/HDML (Wireless Application Protocol/Handheld Device Markup Language) web sites. WAP/HDML are about the most restrictive, closed, and proprietary protocols imaginable, and only exist to give Unwired Planet/Phone.com a proprietary lock on the market. There is absolutely no reason why existing protocols wouldn't work just fine, especially for a text-based browser. Note that this means you can't just go your own web page or portal (which could actually be useful...), since you'll need the proprietary W* tools to be able to create the content. Someone here on
Second, this *is* just a text-based browser, and the whole system assumes that text is all that matters. I confess I don't understand this - I don't expect people to be navigating complex Vignette or CSS sites from handhelds, but support for graphics does not have to imply a lot of overhead. (Remember when all browsers supported X bitmaps?) This may make sense now, but within the next year, these things wil go the way of the dinosaur as real browsing capabilities come to handhelds.
Third, it's just painfully difficult to do any input at all (now THIS is dangerous cellphone activity when driving!), and the response times are far too slow to be of much use. The response time is often glacial, and the menu/site layouts often require extra needless hops to ge to the info you want.
At first, I thought perhaps I wasn't giving it a fair trial, so I actually made an effort to get comfortable with it and use it, but it just doesn't work well enough to be really useful. It's novelty/toy value wears off after the first month or two (and certainly after the first bill or two), and I probably haven't used it once in the past month or so.
I think this will turn out to be a flash in the pan, and something that is forgotten in a year or so. The value just isn't there - not for geeks, not for anybody.
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
Our 'group' recently had a bunch of Motoral PCS cell phones donated for research in portable computing. I must say I'm unimpressed. These phones are supposed to rock your world with badwith rate up to 44k/s and no convertion from digital to analog.. ever! (The older model gave you a phone line 'interface', so the signal ended up converting between digital and analog about 5 times.)
Anyways, these phones suck. Packets are dropped on a regular basis, the connection stops working completely at times, ping times average 600ms, and the bandwidth is horrible if you're lucky enough to get any. I'm still trying to figgure out if it's the phones our the carrier's network, but the net result it disapointing.
That said, I think they'll iron out the problems and these will be standard issue soon.
At MIT's Lab for Computer Science (LCS) there are many groups working on the Oxygen project. The purpose of this project is to develop handheld devices that serve as personal links to the iternet as well as communications between people. These devices are voice activated and ahve features above and beyond a cell-phone with a web browser. Scientific American had an interesting article on the whole topic some time this summer. here's a link.
sorry the html got screwed up here's the url http://sciam.com/1999/0899issue/0899dertouzos.html
My Nokia 6162, with PCS service from AT&T has it's own e-mail address (my-number@mobile.att.net). Messages sent to this address (up to 150 chars) are then forwarded into the phone as part of their text-messaging service.
/. headlines or whatever, and forward them to my phone via a cron tab.
It didn't take me very long, but I set up a quick procmail rc file to analyse all of my incoming mail, and if the from line matched the address of someone I knew, it would carbon copy the mail and forward it to my phone's address. Messages over 150 chars are truncated and only the subject line is sent, in case it might be a non-encrypted personal mail.
Every once in a while my phone will make a single beep, and I know that there's new mail from someone I know (spam is filtered because only addresses that i listed in the file get forwarded) waiting for me. I shut off the sound during classes, but it's still pretty cool when I notice a message on the machine.
The next thing that I'm going to do is set up a few perl scripts to download information about the weather or maybe
Hmmm... maybe "push technology" has it's uses afterall...
--Cycon
Your Brain + EEG + LEGO Robots = Brainstorms
Don't see it mentioned yet that Sprint charges 40 cents a minute to use the minibrowser on their PCS phones. I have the Samsung SCH-3500 and was charged 80 cents just to see it time out and return nothing. Anyone who needs web access that badly also needs counseling. (Regardless of the minibrowser, the phone kicks ass.)
Scandinavia, and especially Sweden is the number one spot to look out for when it comes to wireless stuff. Intel just opened a new office in Stockholm explicitly to tap the knowledge about wireless. When Amazon wanted people to design their wireless service, they advertised in Swedish computer magazines only!
Ok enough boasting (I'm just proud my crappy country manages to do one thing right for once.)
So anyway, what you should keep an eye out for is news about Symbian (Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Psion) and Bluetooth (3Com, Ericsson, Intel, IMB, Lucent, Motorola, Toshiba, and most recently, Microsoft *puke*). Of these, Ericsson is most defenitely the driving force behind Bluetooth. They have recently presented the first real Bluetooth products, among other things a small headset with voice recognition you put behind your ear that connects to your mobile phone. So even if your phone is in your bag next door, you can just put your hand up to your ear like the agents in the Matrix and answer a call, or make one by just pressing a button and saying the name of who you want to call to. Pretty cool! The transmission energy is much less than a normal mobile phone too, which is a good thing considering that many recent experiments show mobile phones might damage cell walls in the brain, causing yummy thing like early Alzheimers.
With Bluetooth you will also be able to put your speakers anywhere in the room without connecting them to your stereo (though a power cord is probably a good thing). Same thing with computer components, you could put your printer and your scanner somewhere where they don't take up any place. Your mobile phone will be "smart". When you are home, it will use Bluetooth to connect to your home phone, so you will pay local call fees. When you step out of your home, it will start to work like a normal mobile phone. You will be able to use it on an airplane as well, and of course to send emails and such.
A mobile phone with a Bluetooth chip will be able to communicate with any thing that has a Bluetooth chip in it. Therefore, you might be able to use it as a universal remote in your home, as an electronic car key, and so on. Symbian and Bluetooth have some intersting "use cases" for how this will work, you can read them here (travelling to Paris) and here (the three-in-one phone, the portable PC as a speaker phone, and others).
In the future, the mobile will of course merge with Palm type computers to create something that will be your phone, watch, calendar, wallet, remote, key, ID card, passport, gameboy, workstation all into one. Check out the sci-fi book "Bloom" by Wil McCarthy for an interesting vision of how these personal assistants will work. In the book they are worn as glasses, and called Specs. Some people get totally lost in their ideal virtual words, this is frowned upon as a sort of addiction. The main plot of the book is about nano-technological ascension though.
************************************************ ***
Being bitter is drinking poison and hoping someone else will die
Recently at Wireless IT, all the companies were touting location based information. Just think for a second here about all the applications you can build around location based services. Say you're in a new city and you need to find the closest (fill in your own) and you have a gps unit. Now you can find what you want and get directions to it. How cool is that? Some french company is working on games, so one day we may all be playing games online w/o wires. Here are some recent articles about wap http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-345962.html?t ag=st.ne.1002. , http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1006-200-1475187.html? tag=st.ne.1002. ,http://www.zdnet.com/products/stories/reviews/0,4 161,2386437,00.html
Actually GPS & GSM phone has been already introduced. Benefon's Esc! is dual-band (900MHz & 1800MHz) GSM phone with GPS with few quite neat features. You can for example send your coordinates with SMS to a friend who can then locate you from map if one available. Local maps can be downloaded to phone. Screen is quite nice for a phone, 100x160 pixels, up to 20 rows of text. Phone itself isn't that big 129x29x23 mm, weight 150g. It has also the usual data staff, internal modem etc..
Just a few thoughts...
Sprint uses SMS while AT&T uses CDPD. Problem with SMS is its connectionless, not the best choice for dispatching.
Phone.com (aka Unwired Planet) owns the market in Phone Browsers, HDML/WAP. They also have software that will convert HTML to HDML/WAP on the fly. (Check thier stock lately? PHCM)
With AT&Ts network, you can use any CDPD device, wireless modem, wireless palm pilot, or Pocketnet phone. Every device has an IP.
SMS still uses SS7, while CDPD uses IP networking. (Can you say VOIP?, SS7 Over IP?)
Oh forgot to mention, isnt AT&T having unlimited pocketnet service for $19.99? Think that goes for wireless modems too.
I am holding out on buying one of those new PCS phones for now. I'm content with my old on (you know, the old Sony with the push-up earpiece). Anyway, I think the wireless web technology is going to be advancing a great deal in the near future. I expect to see phones with long lasting batteries, and color screens by 2001. But, who actually wants to browse the web from their cell phone. *shrug* Life will be complete when I can IRC from my phone though :P
I just finished reviewing the Qualcomm pdQ 1900, combo PCS phone and Palm IIIe. Its amazing. This is what the Palm VII should have been. Web browser, POP mail, anything else the Palm can run is hard to beat. It's small yes but not impossible to read long articles. It is also fairly bulky and only for the true geek at heart Sprint's charges for Wireless Web is $9.99 for 50 minutes/mo. separate from the talk time but you can get combo voice and data plans for $59.99 for 300 minutes At $699 its still pretty expensive compared to most cellphones and even Palms but its got the largest usable screen and is the most versatile system around. Hard to beat that.
Forgive my ignorance but what is WAP? And why is the link to info about it in the article broken?
lcase - @home in cyberspace
If you are interested in developing your own "WAP pages", there are several Developer's Toolkits to choose from. Check out WAPsight.com for the links to the free downloads.
from their homepage:
"Users of the popular Sprint PCS Wireless Web service can access their e-mail for free here at MailandNews.com. If you have a phone that is wireless Internet ready, check out how here"..
fwiw, I also use mailandnews to access my pop accounts and usenet...
cheers,
V.
Don't think of these as browsers with small screens and limited functionality. Look at them as pagers on speed: Wow! Look at those big screens! Two way communications!
As I recall, when the Palm Pilot came out and people compared them to full function computers, they were considered just short of useless. Small screen. No memory. No disk. No color. No modem. No. No. No. No.
The commercial applications for these will be huge. Like a Palm Pilot with your company's entire data base on board. Updated instantly. Designed for the small screen.
For those who don't see the power of a wireless web application, let me remind you that the motherload power of the internet is not in the rich content, or the snappy interfaces. Its the ability to access vast amounts of Data. Now think of the implications of having that data at your fingertips no matter where you are (okay, as long as your in a cloud of radio signals) I no longer need to stop and find a phone book for the address of that bar/restaurant, I just look it up in my phone. Add in the FCC's mandate for E-911 auto location services and I dont even need to know specifically what Im looking for. The phones will know where Im at, and the back end will be able to relate that to geographically relevant data (Hmm.. where is the closest chinese restaurant...) What we're seeing is the tip of the geographically sensitive data iceberg. Ever needed to know where an ATM is at? Ever been lost? The user interface is sufficient and there is a lot of ways around the tedious input (from a deveopers perspective) Oh, and access to relevant personal data anywhere is a real treat too. For a truly amazing look at what is available right now, check out www.yodlee.com They have a PQA for the Palm VII that gives you access to everything that you could ever want to take with you. Online banking, Slashdot, Frequent flyer programs, package tracking.. etc.. all in one login.. this site may in and of itself need to be slashdotted.. I've been developing wireless "web" pages for 2 months, tinkered with the SDK's from Ericsson, Nokia, Phone.com, RIM, Palm, and tested a whole pile of hardware (Mitsu t250,ma120, Motorola i1000, Neopoint 1000, Denso Touchpoint, Nokia i9000, RIM Pager, Palm VII, Palm V with a minstrel) And had dealings with many of the service providers (sprint, palm, at&t) Some of the technology leaves a lot to be desired, and some smokes from both barrels. Look forward to CDPD implementation for the web phones (19.2Kbps on my T-250.. awesome phone, awesome service..)
For anyone interested in wireless Internet access that is unlimited for, say $60/month, and comes in the form of a PCMIA modem, then have a look at goamerica.com. I'm not affiliated with them, by the way.
i have the same model phone (sch-3500) (i was one of the first to get it). the phone itself is a beauty, incredibly functional, the voice-activated dialing is a lifesaver.
but the wireless web is another matter.
the only things you can access on it are yahoo and a few other worthless things. no slashdot, no wired news, no userfriendly. what's the point?
you can still recieve email with it, with this messaging service (i don't remember the name).
[yoursprintpcsnumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com]
give that address to a select few, and you're golden.
i got the w* web option for the rebate. at the moment, i can't find my reciept, which sucks. i'm calling sprintpcs to cancel my w* web as i hit 'post.'
If anything, it's a leap backwards... 14.4? Per-minute charges?! Give me a break! Better solution: www.metricom.com $30 bux a month FLAT RATE, 28.8k (soon 128k and nationwide). Total geek device, but hey...
My phone spends more time on the battery charger than serving up wireless service. I've got a Motorola StarTac, and I'm lucky to make it through the day on a charge just making periodic calls. Surfing the web and checking email would force me to keep it plugged in twice as much. The next big thing should be better batteries...
In the Mobile Multi Media Protype labs, we made everything you can do today look cramped and useless.
;)
Bieng that I cna't talk about it becuase of the NDA I signed, let me toss out a few things I cna say.
1. Current handsets (terminals) won't go any faster than 14.4 If you are hoping some sort of network upgrade will allow that, expect to buy a new phone to go with it. (1XRtt is the current favoured 3G protocol, though you'll probably see WCDMA and an upgrade to iDen as well.)
2. The Q Phone is the shape of things to come, though in and of itself, it's got nothing next gen in it.
3. The underlying protocol for faster wireless access still hasn't been decided, and don't expect it to make an appearance soon.
4. New, faster terminals will be expensive.
5. The FCC (and CRTC) are incredibly slow, lumbering beasts. Don't count on anything getting approved anytime soon.
5. Small Windows CE devices are the current champs at web surfing, as most have a fully HTML compliant web browser and color displays. The Cleo is probably the best at this, though the Sharp Mobilon + Camera is the funnest. PalmOS has a lot of catching up to do on the web browser and email front.
6. No one get too hyped, surfing in a car is impossible, and surfing on the bus is boring. The first roll out of these type of things will sell best to people who go and play Solitare and Hearts online all the time.
That's all I can say.
Can this thing to form submits? if so I do have my own killer app for it.