jeff's blog

Mobile Web Platforms - Ready to Rumble in 2008

jeff — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:22:50 -0800

Paul Kedrosky on the under-appreciation of mobile web platforms:

People just don't get how good web apps on mobile can be. I get stuck in many conversations about native apps on mobile, which always strikes me as vestigial. The same way that I live in mostly browser-based apps on my desktop and laptop, I am convinced I will live in web apps on my mobile device. Pretending otherwise seems wrong-headed and self-defeating.

At MobileCamp Vancouver I pushed just this point on the industry panel. I'm not sure the other telco folks on the panel were convinced. But - what I found after the panel among the broader development community there, was intense interest in targeting mobiles through web-based runtimes - be they web sites, widgets, Adobe AIR, Google gears, etc.

There are really two issues to consider here.

Are web runtimes capable of delivering the necessary functionality and experience equal to native runtimes? The answer is yes although not everybody gets this yet. See my post on Adobe AIR / Google gears like platform for iPhone for an argument in favor of mobile runtimes over native runtimes.
Recognition of another under-appreciated benefit of mobile web runtimes - they drastically expand the world of people that can develop mobile applications. In this sense web runtimes are poised to play a role similar to that played by Visual Basic for desktop apps in the 90's. To be clear - I am not comparing the two in technical terms, but in terms of "developer reach". Undeniably (and to many developers' deep regret) VB drove a huge developer population.

There's something in the AIR at Macworld - and I think I know what...

jeff — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:41:35 -0800

Earlier today AppleInsider posted photos of the banners hanging at San Francisco's Moscone Center in preparation for the Macworld Expo.

They feature a teasing phrase - "2008. There's something in the air."

Today Bob Cringely also posted an article on why Apple will buy Adobe.

There's something in the air.

Adobe AIR.

Will Apple announce an acquisition of Adobe? I don't know, but I'm betting that Steve Jobs will at a minimum announce the delivery of Adobe AIR support in not only the next iPhone firmware, but in the next Apple TV. I wrote about the argument for delivering Adobe AIR or an AIR-like platform on the iPhone back in October. It made sense then and it makes sense now.

Back to the potential acquisition - who doesn't love Cringely? He's always entertaining and thought provoking, but not right all that often (which is understandable because he dares to predict big and bold). But the idea of this acquisition makes a lot of sense on many levels.

Not to mention - can you imagine Steve Jobs' glee at sitting atop a triumvirate of Apple, Adobe, and Disney? That's a powerful combination.

Nominate EQO for The Crunchies

jeff — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 17:06:16 -0800

It's been quite a year in the world of mobile apps and we've had a ton of fun building out the EQO service at the front of the pack this year. There is a huge amount of pride among the team here at what we've accomplished both inside the company and among our community of EQO users.

For all the users who have joined the EQO network and given feedback to the team and on the to improve the service - Thank You!

To all the EQO users and fans out there, please take a moment to nominate us for one or more of the following awards ("The Crunchies") run by techcrunch.com.

Thanks!

Debating the future of mobile platforms at MobileCamp Vancouver

jeff — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:05:06 -0800

This past weekend Vancouver had its very own MobileCampVancouver event organized by the Handi Mobility team.

I was on the mobile industry panel with Dennis Knothe of Nokia, Harmander Gill of Wavefront, Dr. Richard Smith of SFU, and Jim Udall of QuickMobile.

Jim and I ended up debating very different views on the future of mobile web platforms, making for a spirited discussion. The ultra short version - I was very bullish on mobile web technologies to expand the mobile developer base, Jim saw mobile web tech as over-hyped and that existing platforms (SMS / MMS / J2ME / Symbian) will rule at the expense of web technologies. Proof that reasonable people can differ even on fundamental issues.

As is always the case, the time allotted was very short - Jim, I hope we can continue the discussion another time!

Jeff

Facebook ad targeting - More data

jeff — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 11:14:59 -0700

Following on the results of the Facebook ad-targeting "factfinding mission" that Chris @ EQO kicked off yesterday, I present a bit more data. Since reading Chris' analysis on the topic I have a heightened awareness to what get served up to me on the 'book. I'm proud to say that Facebook still considers me part of the MTV generation even if Chris doesn't.

Today's serving:

The text is a bit small in the resized ad, but it says "16 Lesbians, 16 Dudes - A Shot at Love".

Targeted ads on Facebook? Seems so.

The iPhone SDK announcement - The big takeaways from today's news

jeff — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 11:21:14 -0700

Like this post? Jeff is now blogging at BillionsConnected.com/blog.

The big takeaways from today's announcement of iPhone native SDK availability in February:

1. Partly this is a preemptive strike for the holiday season - remove a reason for some people not to buy, and take away the only real "down" side to the iPhone story in consumers minds post-launch. Instead turn it into another focus of desire for consumers - let the lust begin for the native apps just around the corner.

2. Give app developers the confidence to begin writing apps now on hacked iPhones, knowing that with a bit of tweaking they will be deployable on non-hacked devices when the SDK arrives.

3. Predictably, application signing will be part of the equation. Much depends on the signing model. The big questions - will compliance testing be required to get signed? what capabilities will be restricted?

4. The SDK release coincides roughly with the reported release date of the first GPS-enabled iPhones. Prediction: Apple is going to make 2008 the year location-based services go mainstream.

The actual announcement:

Third Party Applications on the iPhone

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

Where is the iPhone's answer to Adobe AIR, or Google Gears?

jeff — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:45:38 -0700

Adobe's AIR platform has shown that the web development model is fundamentally capable of delivering applications every bit as rich as native platform apps. Hence the outcry over the idea of web applications as the primary development model for the iPhone is overblown. Yes, the current iPhone development environment sucks but it's important to keep in mind that we haven't seen the true power of this model.

So what will Apple do if they are serious about the web development platform?

First up, a JavaScript bridge into native device capabilities on the iPhone. Right now in terms of access to device functions via web technologies, the iPhone offers nothing beyond the microbrowsers on feature phones. Yes, the AJAX support enables a quantum leap in usability, but we need more.

Top of the list - "the basics"

file access
camera access
location
address book
calendar

But beyond these now familiar mobile device capabilities, there is an opportunity for Apple to provide powerful APIs that would provide an unparalleled mobile development environment, web or otherwise:

SQLite local store
Access to iTunes account-based charging
Event subscriptions with persistent ECMAScript object handlers

timers

calendar events

location

support for installable URI handlers

Key to app usability is that these capabilities should be provided through a user consent system which does not take away the user's choice to make use of device features with a given application, a la the restrictions in many J2ME runtimes:

On first load, present the list of "privacy affecting" services being requested by the application - and listen to what the user wants! Empower the user already - they bought the damn thing.

When can we expect such features? Who knows, but I would be very surprised if the first GPS-enabled iPhones, expected in Q1 2008, ship without at minimum a JavaScript bridge to location data following soon after.

Gut check: For anyone with development experience on J2ME, can you imagine going back to the underachiever that is the J2ME RMS storage API after being provided with a local SQL store?

The native app vs. web app argument is stale!

Jeff
Chief Software Architect, EQO

MIT Emerging Technologies Conference '07

jeff — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 11:20:48 -0700

Last week I was at the EmTech conference at MIT to be recognized among this year's TR35 recipients. I had the pleasure of meeting a number of recipients doing truly amazing work in a variety of fields - biofuels was a particular hotspot this year.

Overall: Fantastic sessions, good connection value, very poor exhibitors.

Conference highlights: Charles Simonyi's session with big claims for progress on the fundamental bottleneck in software engineering, Ann Winblad's fireside chat with Jason Pontin, and a pair of great panels by TR35 recipients in the synthietic biology and biofuels area.

Ann Winblad was fantastic. Enough to make an entrepreneur love VCs, not just their money (I kid, I kid). Very smart, very insightful. Watch the video, it's worth it.

Despite the overall poor exhibitors in the showcase part of the conference, the highlight was MIT Sloan MBA student Eric Silverberg's Numberpedia.org. The idea is to aggregate openly available statistics on everything under the sun (but most interestingly market data). Could be quite useful if executed well.

Jeff
Chief Software Architect, EQO

Mobile Operators Stumble on Billable Identities, Apple Swoops In

jeff — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 18:05:59 -0700

The mobile operators have made a huge mistake on the identity front. The one long-term point of value they have aside from being a bit pipe is the possession of validated identities tied to a mobile billing platform. But with their continuing efforts to maintain their walled gardens, they have passed on the opportunity to become the identity and billing providers of choice on the mobile.

Now there is another mobile player with this capability. Apple. Not only does the new iTunes wifi store not deliver music over the operator network, the billing is not enabled by the operator.

Oops.

An enlightened move by Apple would be to break the lock the operators have on billable mobile identities permanently wide open by giving every iTunes account an associated OpenID, and publishing an open payment API around OpenID identifiers. This would cause a few things to happen:

- a 100% uptake of OpenID within days by makers of iPhone apps
- a practical, simple billing mechanism for OpenID apps of all types
- overnight Apple could become the largest payment provider in the mobile space. Not just on the iPhone, but on any reasonably web capable phone owned by an iTunes user. Not just in the mobile space. Anyone with an iTunes account would be a payment-capable.

Will it happen?

Jeff
Chief Software Architect, EQO

Canadian cellphone class-action goes ahead

jeff — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:15:01 -0700

A class-action suit against the long-running practice of Canadian mobile operators to charge unadvertised additional fees has just been certified by a judge in Saskatchewan.

Any Canadians that would like to join the class action can do so here. (Roland, that means you!)

Here is Michael Geist (Canada's answer to Lawrence Lessig) on System Access Fees:

"Emboldened by limited competition, [Canadian] providers have not hesitated to pad their prices by adding the deceptive "system access fee." Contrary to popular belief, the fee, which adds nearly $100 per year to every wireless phone bill (MTS Mobility in Manitoba just increased its system access fee to $107.40 per year), is not a government-mandated charge but rather a slick method of camouflaging higher prices."

Jeff

The internet is global, the wireless internet is feudal

jeff — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:33:06 -0700

"To see what is right in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."
- George Orwell

Sometimes it's helpful to point out the obvious, to take stock of where we are.

The wired Internet is the real Internet. Geographic boundaries for nearly all purposes are irrelevant.

The wireless Internet is the Internet stillborn. Geographic boundaries are very real and impact everything you do. It is a 1960s long distance plan, only for data.

Want to use the Internet on the mobile device you carry daily while traveling? Better watch out, outrageous bills ahead.
Want to connect while traveling, via another provider with a prepaid SIM? Hope you understand APN settings. Hope you don't run into an especially restrictive carrier proxy that doesn't like your favorite application.
Want to develop an application for phones that anyone can use, anywhere? Hope you've got the resources (like EQO does) to work around a multitude of deficiencies and roadblocks of the access networks, both incidental and intentional.

Like other wireless users, I want to use cutting-edge, revolutionary apps and services on my phone. There are a few out there... but there could be so many more.

The Internet is not a thing - it is an agreement. 3G will not bring the internet to your phone. Only a new system of agreements will.

The wireless Internet is broken - it is the internet 15 years behind the real Internet. In fact in the absence of the agreements that make the Internet work, it is not the Internet at all.

Jeff

Steve Jobs to Operators: Bend Over

jeff — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:07:38 -0700

Jobs is known for being cheeky - but check this out, then imagine the cursing going on in the boardrooms of Apple's operator partners after today's launch of the iPod Touch:

Jobs: “Wi-Fi, as you know, is not only faster than 2.5G, but it’s faster than any 3G network”.
Song playing on the iPod Touch: "Cellphone's Dead - Beck"
On the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store: "We're gonna do something else, too: we're gonna bring it to the iPhone"

What Apple has done is make the carrier networks look old and stale. They are saying, remember the iPhone? Of all the things you loved about it, none of them were enabled by your operator. Just the contract. Here's one without the contract.

And reading between the lines: Oh, but you want voice? Stay tuned.

Cellphone's dead indeed.

Blast from the recent past: "When asked about a give-and-take leading to the Apple-Cingular partnership, [Cingular CEO] Lurie said, "I'm not sure we gave anything." Later, he commented, "I think they bent a lot."

Jeff

iPhone, Gphone, A-B-C-D-E-phone!

jeff — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 11:50:49 -0700

Domainers have snapped up aphone, bphone, etc... for every letter in the alphabet.

Gphone, FCC approval, worldwide launch - WTF?

jeff — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 11:30:48 -0700

Rumors and innuendo - it all was all so much fun the first time with the iPhone, who isn't looking forward to doing it all over again with the gPhone?

Rediff reports that

"Google, the nearly $13.5 billion search engine major, is believed to be a fortnight away from the worldwide launch of its much-awaited Google Phone [...] Sources close to the development said a simultaneous launch across the US and Europe is expected, and announcements would be sent to media firms in India and other parts of the world. US regulatory approval, which is expected soon, is the only hurdle that Google is waiting to cross."

Two weeks to complete FCC certification and do a multi-operator worldwide launch would be a daunting task. Could Google out-secret Apple in a worldwide launch more complex than the single operator launch of the iPhone?

The is only one likely scenario in which a launch in 2 weeks makes sense - if the "gPhone" will launch as a device taken through FCC certification by some other manufacturer, with Google providing the software on the handset.

Anybody out there up for trolling through FCC filing database for enigmas in the past two or three months?

Jeff

Mobile Newsreaders - Viigo is Tops

jeff — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:32:58 -0700

Mobhappy has the 86th Carnival of the Mobilists up. They plug Wap Review's look at NewsGator's mobile version finding it tempting but sunk by showstoppers.

I would highly recommend that Dennis try Viigo Personal. Having used it on the Blackberry Pearl for some time now I consider it the best mobile newsreader I've come across. On the desktop I'm a Newsfire user. Viigo is as usable on the mobile as Newfire is on the desktop, and that is saying a lot.

Jeff

AT&T: Telephone Company or Molten Metal Monster from the Future?

jeff — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 16:24:24 -0700

You decide.

Mobile Ownership in the UK is 90% by Age 12

jeff — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:08:53 -0700

Via ajit at Open Gardens, the Carphone Warehouse Mobile Life Report .

Some remarkable numbers on mobile ownership in the UK from the youth report:

It seems there could be something to this mobile thing after all :-)

Direct links to the PDFs:

Mobile Life Report 2006

Mobile Life Youth Report 2006

- Jeff

Blackberry CEO Tries to Drive a Wedge Between Apple and Mobile Operators

jeff — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:41:33 -0700

From the Toronto Star via Engadget Mobile:

[RIM Co-CEO Balsillie] is also intensely critical of what appears to be an effort by Apple to wrest control of the customer experience in the consumer market. For example, the iPhone is being sold through Apple's own stores, instead of strictly through AT&T Inc., which signed an exclusive U.S. deal with the computer maker. The phone is free of AT&T's logo and software and is tied closely to Apple's iTunes music store, which is where subscribers will need to go to activate their phones and browse rate plans.

"It's a dangerous strategy," says Balsillie. "It's a tremendous amount of control. And the more control of the platform that goes out of the carrier, the more they shift into a commodity pipe."

This post could alternately be titled "Blackberry CEO Whispers Sweet Nothings in Operators Ears".

This is really about trying to drive a wedge between Apple and its current and potential mobile network partners. Of all the big mobile device manufacturers, RIM has the least to gain if the industry moves to a more open mobile market with weakened operators, and enjoys a very comfortable position in the current operator-dominated environment. Unlike most mobile device manufacturers, RIM derives a large chunk of their revenue from service subscriptions. They sell into the least price-sensitive segment of the mobile market - business and government users. They have gotten their current market position by providing internet services on networks with poor data capabilities.

But all of this is changing. RIM's centralized email relay infrastructure is becoming dated and their services like push email and calendaring are in danger of becoming commoditized by copycat devices and internet cloud services.

I love my Blackberry Pearl and it's a great device. But I expect I'll be even happier as an iPhone user when it arrives in Canada...

Jeff

Live in Vancouver, Work at EQO!

jeff — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:06:47 -0700

What's it like to live and work in Vancouver?

Here's an interesting guy I met while taking the train back home from downtown after last week's Demo Camp Vancouver.

Yes, the bird is real. A slice of Vancouver life.

EQO is currently hiring Mobile App Developers and Softswitch Developers as well as other positions.

We have a work hard / play hard environment and we're growing fast but are still small enough that everybody knows everybody. We love doing what we do and are looking for people to join our team who feel the same way. Apply to careers@eqo.com

Jeff
EQO Co-Founder and Chief Software Architect

Mobile Access Market in Canada - We're Only 29th Out of 30, eh?

jeff — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 11:41:38 -0800

Canada ranks 29th out of 30 OECD countries for rate of cell-phone uptake according to a story on the Canadian mobile access market in Vancouver's major daily.

Canada has a very strong wireless technology sector - but the mobile access market needs a big shakeup.

Canadians just got the ability to port mobile numbers between carriers last week - great news but very late to the mobile number portability party:

Kudos to John Boxall and Igor Faletski quoted in the article for raising the profile on our mobile competition issue in Canada.

For those who don't know John and Igor, they are the organizers of the SFU Mobile Monday group here in Vancouver - bright guys and a couple of good Canadian hosers.

Jeff

Lifting the Fog Around the Stupid Network - iPlane

jeff — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 10:58:36 -0800

"Deliver the Bits, Stupid."

- David Isenberg - Rise of the Stupid Network

Stupidity is a virtue - for networks.

But not all networks should be stupid - only the underlying IP network our applications are built on.

Case in point: the overlay networks implemented by today's new breed of distributed applications are getting smarter and smarter - and this is a very good thing. But overlay networks have been severely limited by the fogginess of the stupid network.

The fog of the stupid network is unknown loss, unknown latency, unknown bandwidth. Packets get dropped into the ether and there only are a few strategies an application developer can turn to in dealing with issues of latency, loss or congestion. The common techniques revolve around passive mechanisms for dealing with network conditions as they occur. Jitter buffering and streaming media throttling fit this description. Good techniques - but not good enough.

The solution to this problem is not to get rid of the stupid network, but to map it. Lift the fog.

That's what the Systems and Networking team at UW has done with iPlane. Instead of making guesses with path-local information (think ping, traceroute) about properties of the network that are essentially non-local, applications can make direct use of a global view of these properties.

iPlane consists of two pieces:

A set of mechanisms for collecting network connectivity and path information and supplementing the resulting map with hints that implies routing (location, topology, and other details)
A simple query interface to the resulting map database

The iPlane team was kind enough to provide me with access to an early version of the query interface - it's rough around the edges but has huge potential for improving the performance of today's most interesting new applications (Joost comes to mind).

iPlane is a leap ahead of the baby steps made so far towards active techniques for dealing with poor network conditions. Skype attempts to route voice traffic through relay peers - but as any Skype user knows the resulting call quality can still run the whole range from very good to very bad. Many P2P networks preferentially remain connected to faster hosts while disconnecting from under-performers - but this behavior, while able to improve download speeds, is based on simple heuristics and "converges" towards more optimal sets of download hosts fairly slowly. iPlane will enable application overlay networks to go far beyond these techniques.

Check out the excellent talk on iPlane by Tom Anderson on Google TechTalks.

Jeff

Freebase - The Best Thing to Happen to the Creative Commons since Lawrence Lessig?

jeff — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 16:37:34 -0800

Like this post? Jeff is now blogging at BillionsConnected.com/blog.

For those who don't know what Freebase is yet, read Tim O'Reilly's post on the topic first, then come back here.

Now, for the rest of you compulsive blog readers - consider Freebase vs. Google.

Google organizes information by creating indexes of that information - using the fair use exception to create those indexes. Freebase is different.

They're pulling in all the CC-licensed material they can find on the web - hence the emphasis on the bootstrapping of their database with Wikipedia content.

This makes sense. Freebase can only do its semantic magic by making entire documents open to the web for the addition of semantic annotation. In other words - building indexes is not good enough anymore. If Freebase is to fulfill its purpose to bootstrap the semantic web it must exceed the bounds of fair use. Hence the necessity of fueling Freebase with CC-licensed content.

So does Freebase become a CC freeloader? Not at all.

In fact Freebase seems likely to give CC-licensed content a strategic advantage over non-CC-licensed content. Given a web enabled with meaning vs. the web of today, which would you rather surf? Traditionally copyrighted material that is harder to pull into the semantic sphere due to legal barriers could end up looking static and tired by comparison.

So it seems that Freebase may be able to catalyze a virtuous cycle of Creative Commons licensing.

This raises the possibility of a new intersection between copyright law and the web:

The success of Google and the search economy as a whole is driven off of the fair use exception of copyright law. Could it be that the CC licensing model turns out to be an a key enabler of Web 3.0?

It's an intriguing possibility.

Jeff LaPorte
EQO Founder and Chief Architect

T-Mobile, Tear Down this Wall (ed Garden)!

jeff — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 15:39:56 -0800

The net neutrality debate has a tendency to get too abstract for the average user to care. Pricing this - tiered service that - enough already. Users just want something that works. Is it working right now? Close enough for most.

Enter the Mobile Operators.

As Gearlog reports, T-Mobile is taking steps to block popular mobile applications like Opera Mini that will make the average user stop and ask what is going on. Other mobile operators are threatening similar action.

As a well known congressman once said, "If you're explaining, you're losing".

The bright side to heavy-handed actions like T-Mobile's is that they show ordinary users why Net Neutrality matters better than any long-winded explanation by the likes of a techno-geek ever could.

Jeff
EQO Founder and Chief Architect