Innovation Mobile Blog

Another 40th anniversary… the Internet!

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:30:46 +0000

On the 29th of October 1969, the first two servers were interconnected between UCLA’s School of Engineering and Applied Science and Stanford Research Institute. They eventually became ARPANET, the predecessor of today’s Internet.

40 years ago in the Universe…

admin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:26:09 +0000

40 years ago, in 1969, a man made his first step on the Moon.

At the same time a boy made his first sight of the Earth. What have these two man have in common?
Omega Speedmaster watch!

Apollo 11 images courtesy of NASA

30 Years of Sony TPS-L2

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 07:42:00 +0000

Obviously the model number above does not tell you much. If I tell you, 30 years from the launch of the first Walkman? Yes, in 1979, Sony launched its first personal mobile stereo system. Better known as Walkman, that small device marked decades to come and generations with “music everywhere”. These days, no more tapes, but we can’t live without the music around us, in our pockets within iPods, in our mobile phones…

Unlike Newton’s apple falling from a tree on his head, Apple computers are on the rise

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:07:43 +0000

Even during the current economic slowdown when all computer distributors and manufacturers report drop in sales, I suggest that Apple is on the rise. Report sales of Apple Macs in quarter 2 of the fiscal year ending in March 2009 was 3% lower than the Q2 2008, totaling 2.22 million Macs sold. In Q3 of the last year Apple sold total of 2.496 million Macs. This year third quarter was marked with new Mac releases, characterized with lower prices and increased performance. In addition, traditional iPod offering for students who purchase a new Mac is already available at the beginning of summer instead of waiting for early September. I’ve already witnessed new Macs among friends and colleagues, although at this time people usually save money for vacations.
Whatever results in Mac sales Apple announces for Q3 2009 at the end of July, the trend in Mac popularity over Windows based PCs is much higher. Add to that the announced upgrade of the Operating System announced for September and you’ll get the bunch of happy new Mac users…
If Apple would consider selling Mac OS independently from Mac computers, I am sure it would generate an army of fresh Apple users just like new flocks of iPhone users migrate from other mobile phone vendors daily…

Unhappy users of Nokia OVI store

admin — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:56:10 +0000

My last post on Nokia Ovi application store seems to proove the points. One month after its launch the online store provokes negative impressions and comments on the Internet. I’ll cite one of them related to poor customer support posted by Matthew Miller on Nokia Experts blog. I totally agree with arguments in that article and comments from Nokia users. In this time of economic slow down when users are desperately trying to get more for less, Nokia allows such an arogance to strip down the customer support to lower levels yet rise high revenue margins for their application distribution services. That obviously does not make them competitive to other mobile phone and application developpers and they continue to loose the market.

Last weekend I’ve met friends, a small mobile application development team, and discussed their view on the future of Nokia. They’ve totally agree that Nokia’s attitude does not favour small developers with restricted budget and they are turning to Apple. I bet there are many others in the mobile development industry that will follow the same trend with catastrophic results of Nokia Ovi store. That explains why there is such a poor offer of new contents for Nokia phones. Nokia continues its old strategy to release plenty of new phone models but they don’t realize that it is not what customers want.

Now I’ve regret even less that I’ve switched from N95 to iPhone…

Nokia’s Ovi store, is it enough to beat Apple’s iTunes?

admin — Tue, 26 May 2009 07:49:33 +0000

Long time announced Ovi store has been launched worldwide. Is it enough to bring Nokia back to the trone?
In my opinion it’s not only Nokia to play the main role in this “come back”. It will depend even more on software developers. Currently the average price of a game on Nokia store is about 10 US$. Compare that to average iTunes game of 1 US$ and you’ll understand my point.
As I wrote before, it is difficult to maintain the business case for Symbian development where one may count on pricing the application at 1 US$ and counting on short-term return on investment. Unless Nokia simplifies further the licensing and testing costs and times with their accredited test house partners and improves device interoperability.

It will also take some time to get to the market. Have all the average Nokia users known that Ovi store is being launched? Don’t think so, while all iPhone and iPod users know about iTunes even before buying their device. Also, what about already known and well established application distribution Web sites and mobile operators? Will they continue to distribute applications? Will average user then visit them all to check for the featured application, and to compare the price? Will operators still charge less then developers?

Too many questions to confuse a phone user…

Gundam 30th anniversary

admin — Fri, 22 May 2009 08:04:26 +0000

In April 1979 a TV series called Mobile Suite Gundam featured a giant robotic suite piloted by a human who was seated inside machine. Not only innovative in the world of manga and anime this serie, still popular 3 decades later, inspired creation of biosuites and robotic design.
Sunrise studio started construction of a full scale Gundam at Tokyo’s Odaiba to mark the anniversary. gundam30th

From N95 to iPhone

admin — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:52:46 +0000

Three years ago I’ve migrated from Windows to Mac OS. I wrote already about all the advantages and I’m pretty sure you all know about them already, so I won’t repeat them.
This time I’d like to share some toughts on migration to iPhone. Two years ago I’ve got Nokia N95. That amazing small marvel packed with hardware features and connectivity. I tought, that was the ultimate mobility gadget. What else might one want. When Apple released IPhone I was so dissapointed it was not 3G. A year later, as I wrote last July, I was watching very few fans waiting in front of Softbank store in Tokyo to get the latest 3G iPhone. Still remember Japan Times article highlighting all that was still missing on the latest IPhone. I tought that Apple still has to go a long way to reach Nokia’s success with their handsets.
Than came the iTunes store. Quickly filling with tens of thousands applications. In all categories, if not free than very reasonably priced. Almost free compared to prices of equivalent Nokia applications.
At the end of my two years contract with my phone operator I’ve decided that the choice of applications outweighs all dissadvantages. Here I am blogging from my new iPhone while old N95 is off- line waiting to transfer remaining photos and videos to my Mac. The “fruit vendor” from Infinity loop won!

Microsoft and IBM down, Oracle and Apple up…

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:45:52 +0000

Just as I wrote earlier, Microsoft reported the second consecutive drop the first in its 34 years history. Who among you cybernauts out there remembers when IBM abandoned their OS/2 operating system with its nice GUI and left the PC desktop to Microsoft?

The time has come for Microsoft to admit that the marriage with PC industry is not enough to maintain its dominant position. Linux and Mac OS made a dent in desktop OS huge cake.

On the server side, after IBM’s attempt to acquire SUN failed and Oracle succeeded, the collateral damage to Microsoft is also iminent. Giant like Oracle will certainly make a fresh push on Solaris operating system as the main platform for their software products. Hmmm, what will Oracle do with Open Office?

Cloud computing is also weakening Microsoft office market position. More and more individual users are switching to Google docs and other Web application services. The traditional safehaven of Microsoft is corporate world, but that is also quickly changing as companies are cutting costs by switching to centralized Web based services instead of costly for maintenance and licensing client applications.

After the boom in the wired decade, the time has come for the progress in software development in this wireless decade.

Another reflection on the mobile phones industry

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:55:28 +0000

Checking headlines from mobile phones industry one can see a striking similarity with the PC industry shifts in recent years. The world is saturated with hardware and people are not interested in spending money just on the gadgets but they want content. To illustarte this Nokia reported 90% quarterly profit drop from the Q1 last year. This is mainly due to the significant drop in mobile devices sales. They have decided to transform MOSH mobile content sharing Web site to Ovi online store (in a move similar to Apple opening iTunes store to iPhone applications). Obviously Nokia is not interested to share application and content distribution revenues with third parties. But we’ll see during the month of May if this strategy is not a little bit late.

PC sales are also on a significant drop. While analyists are blaming on economic crisis, it might be that personal computer users are just tired of buying hardware for the sake of it, and are more interested in the high quality applications and content. Is this why Microsoft is rushing into the new version of desktop Operating System leaving Vista with the record shortest life time? We’ll know more on Thursday when the operating systems giant reports its financial results. So far it is clear that those who invest in innovation win…