Prompt's TechBlog

This week I attended the Chinwag MoSo Rising panel discussion The panel was filled with many mobile social networking gurus and was lead by well-know mobile journalist, Bena Roberts from GoMo News . It was a great opportunity to hear about the future of mobile LBS (location based services), mobile pricing for application usage and what the next steps will be in mobile convergence.

Out of the guru panel came some interesting ideas:

The mobile world is still seen as separate from the digital world by consumers
With the exception of MVNOs like Blyk (the world's first MVNO based on mobile advertising) mobile advertising has not been living up to expectations and it not yet a sustainable business on its own

Successful mobile social networks need to be niche i.e. based around a football club at the moment. Sites like Facebook have not been developed for the mobile space but there is lots of untapped potential for them in this space

The Apple iPhone has started to pave the way for more mainstream consumers to use mobile web apps and to set the expectation that the mobile user should have the same UI as the PC user

Some really effective mobile web campaigns include a recent one from Strongbow and flirtomatic to give friends and flirts a virtual pint of Strongbow where they can register to receive a free pint mobile voucher, along with details of the nearest pubs where it can be redeemed during Bowtime (5pm to 7pm each Tuesday). Clever indeed!

What does the future hold for mobile? Greater personalisation of location based services and making applications easy to use. The catch phrase of the night was 'sharing your life in real time'. No doubt this will be a hot topic at the 2009 Mobile World Congress - watch this space!

Labels: Chinwag, Facebook, iPhone, LBS, mobile phone, Mobile World Congress

We went out to Apple's largest store in the US (and probably the world) today and filmed people's reactions to the most anticipated gadget of the year, Apple's iPhone 3G.

It was a fun morning of filming and we met a lot of interesting people, from someone who waited in line since Wednesday (and didn't get the iPhone!) to a VP of AT&T.

Labels: 3G, apple, Boston, interview, iPhone, launch, Prompt Communications

When the iPhone launched last year, an awful lot of people lined up to say an awful lot of gushingly good things about it. And why not? On the face of it, it's a brilliant little convergence device: the interface is superb, the screen is gorgeous, it fits nicely in your shirt pocket and iPhone owners genuinely smile when they use them (do try and stop that though).

However, there were at least two obvious drawbacks that prevented me and many other gadget-happy people becoming early adopters of iPhones.

Firstly, they are extremely expensive to own - partly because of the wanton wallet-opening lust they inspire in an endless line of consumers happy to pay almost any asking price, and partly because of some very shrewd exclusive regional mobile operator deals struck by Apple at the direct expense (literally) of its customers.

Secondly, for a smartphone, the current generation of iPhones really isn't all that smart. You can't add more memory, you can't swap out the battery, you can't run MS Exchange or Office on them and worst of all, what were Apple thinking not supporting 3G, the fastest mature mobile network out there, on the ultimate convergence phone? We still don't get it.

Well, as far as the Total Cost of Ownership issue goes, we can't see anything changing very quickly. Unless you're happy to buy an iPhone unlocked on eBay and gamble on avoiding any automatic updates drawbacks or other form of censure, every indication suggests you'll need to sign-up to a costly 18-month contract with your local iPhone purveyor - O2 in the UK - whether you want one of the current batch of iPhones or the next generation.

However, there ARE lots of rumblings that a proper 3G iPhone is just around the corner. TrustedReviews originally hoped for a January 2008 launch. The Register then predicted a May 2008 release. TimesOnline now thinks we'll see them in the UK in June.

Overall I think we can agree 3G iPhones will 'probably be here in the Summer', but that's about all. What we still still can't fully fathom is why Steve Jobs really had such a downer on 3G in the first place? Was it truly all down to battery life and his belief just a year ago that WiFi support somehow made up for a lack of genuine mobile web browsing? (You've got to see this MacWorld clip from September 2007 by the way) Or do you think offering a huge suckered install base a rapid upgrade path and a new locked-in 18-month contract only halfway into their current deal was just too damn lucrative and dastardly a plot to resist?

If you see us smiling into our pockets on a commuter train this Summer, we might admit to being overly cynical. Watch this space.

Labels: 3G, apple, iPhone