Blog Entries

Network operators beware. Google will eat your lunch

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0100

As far as those hoping to “do no evil” in Mountain View are concerned, mobile differs from desktop in one key respect.

Forget about screen size, disregard download speeds and ignore the dramatic differences in levels of advertising expenditure.

Because, to anybody wanting to make money out of mobile internet, there is one fundamental inescapable reality.

Between them, the network operators and handset ma [...]

The days of flat-rate data plans will soon be over

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Before leaving primary school most of us have learnt that whenever anything appears too good to be true, it usually is.

So some of us were sceptical when politicians were first heard to claim to have “put an end to boom and bust.” We had our doubts on being warned bird flu would be the death of us. We were unconvinced by promises of a “barbecue summer”.

The fact is forecasters, regardless of their persua [...]

Social networks: the next major mobile battleground

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Now that many of us measure our self worth by the number of friends we have on Facebook and followers on Twitter, it is perhaps no surprise to learn that social networking is to become the next mobile battleground.

Handset manufacturers and network operators have both been quick to realise that praying on the paranoid addictive insecure craving that requires people to remain in continuous uninterrupted contact with each other is going to provide the next big profit o [...]

Windows Phone leaves the door for Android wide open

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Knowing what people want is no guarantee that you can provide it.

For proof, look no further than Windows Phone, iteration 6.5 of Windows Mobile, Microsoft’s operating system for mobile phones.

Begin by reading the words of Liz Sloan, Senior Marketing Manager for Windows Phone, on the Windows Phone blog. She writes:

“Bottom line is people want great phone experiences wherever they are.”

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iPhone users can pay. Others still get news for free

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Since the start of October two interesting but otherwise unrelated pieces of research have been published. Read in combination, they help explain why The Guardian is to introduce a paid app for the iPhone but not, as yet, for any other platform.

Leave aside for the moment the fact that both the iPhone and the iPod Touch share the same screen size, the same operating system and come from the same manufacturer.

Thanks to their uniformity, app [...]

Your call may be recorded for whatever purpose

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Next time you call someone on their mobile, they might record your conversation.

Everything you say could be preserved for posterity, to be subsequently abused against you in evidence.

It’s a disconcerting thought. You have a bad day at the office. You tell a colleague what you really think of your boss. Not long after, excerpts from that conversation appear on the internet for all to hear.

Or perhaps you expl [...]

The smart money says Microsoft will launch its own phones

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

In the past few days the rumour mill has ground in to overdrive.

At the start of July American ad industry trade magazine Adweek first reported that McCann Erickson had won the pitch “for a new Microsoft mobile offering” codenamed ‘Pink’.

On the same day ZDNet claimed “Pink is the codename for a Microsoft-branded phone and set of accompanying premium consumer services being develope [...]

For Bath, Bluetooth is the cheaper option

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

First Blackpool. Now Bath. Around Britain Bluetooth is fast becoming an inexpensive substitute for the boys in blue.

Back in July police in the North West’s leading leisure resort proclaimed that using the technology would help them catch criminals and prevent crime.

Having acquired four laptops for the purpose, officers intended to send unsolicited messages to anybody carrying a Bluetooth enabled mobile within a 300 metre ra [...]

Driving with your mobile could yet save your life

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Just as we had all begun to accept the unavoidable reality that some mobiles, such as those of the auto and phone varieties, were forever incompatible, along comes the European Commission to tell us otherwise.

For many months we have been lectured, chastised and coerced. Using your mobile while driving, we have been told, is even more dangerous than drinking and driving.

Reaction speeds slow significantly. Concentration is seriously imp [...]

The coming conflict between privacy and profitability

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

It is no secret that a large number of people, from your network operator to the likes of Google, all intend to make money from advertising on your mobile.

The potential rewards, they think, are significant.

The fact is, how you use your mobile can say so much about you, advertising can be targeted at you with considerable precision. As a result, advertisers can be persuaded to pay noticeably higher rates.

There&rsq [...]

WinMo 6.5 still offers all kinds of everything

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

As General of the Army Douglas MacArthur said: “War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision.”

So you might wonder why Stephanie Ferguson, general manager of the Windows Mobile Group at Microsoft, having “met with people all over the world who were likely to buy a smartphone and talked with them about what’s important to them in their phone,” should be so pleased to conclude that the “one thing that was very clear after a [...]

For now, Android apps are a not for profit opportunity

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0100

No sooner had AdMob made the announcement than the headline writers went in to overdrive.

For every $1 spent on Android apps each month, AdMob claimed, the Apple app store generates $40.

The message was simple. Software developers wanting to make money should disregard the Google offering.

Even though Android users make use of their apps for 88 minutes each day, 4 minutes more than iPhone users, it seems few bother [...]

Your mobile is your remote control

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Thinking about it, your television remote control is pretty limited in its capabilities.

It lets you change channels, alter the volume, toggle subtitles, read teletext, set the recorder, press the red button and, perhaps most important of all, turn the idiot machine off.

However, should a number of American companies have their way, your mobile will soon become your remote. And, because it is your mobile, it will also offer you increased functiona [...]

Now Big Brother can watch you on his mobile

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

At this time of year, many of us are away from home and office. We may be on a beach. We might be up a mountain. We could be cruising the seven seas. Or standing, hoping, throwing coins in to a fountain.

We have made our escape. We have got away from it all. We are, finally and thank goodness, on holiday.

Yet even as we relax, we occasionally wonder what is happening in our absence.

Is all well at work? Is the compa [...]

How apps can make news on your mobile profitable

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Humility and taramasalata have much in common. Neither is much of a meal in itself.

The first is but one ingredient in a pie, the other more normally consumed with pitta bread. And both are seldom more than appetisers to the main course.

So I will rapidly ingest the option encased in pastry, hopefully without suffering too badly from indigestion.

Because last week I argued apps were not the answer to extra [...]

Those who want news on their mobile may have to pay

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Two weeks ago The Independent launched its app for the iPhone. And it is likely to prove highly popular.

As long ago as the turn of the year Comscore estimated that nearly 80% of all UK iPhone owners used their browsers to access news and other information, a percentage four times higher than for all mobile phone users.

Worldwide, there are now over 1,500 news apps for the iPhone, with the number having increased by a staggering 25 [...]

Househunting on your mobile

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Signs of life may be returning to the property market.

Loans to homebuyers were 23% higher in June than they were in May. Over the same period, month on month house prices rose by 1.6%. And, for property website Rightmove, the week ending July 11 was its busiest ever.

However, before swarms of estate agents start fantasising about new Ferraris, there are those who believe this recovery may be short lived.

For exampl [...]

2 mch txtng mks kdz dum

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Predictive texting can prove problematical for young people.

By letting their mobiles formulate words for them, many learn how to act fast, but with little or no concern for accuracy.

That is the finding of researchers at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, who analysed the cognitive capacities and mobile phone use of 317 children aged between 11 and 14.

As part of the research programme, the children were re [...]

Mobile phone insecurity is inescapable

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Increasingly our lives revolve around our mobile phones. And we are right to be paranoid.

If we are not already we will soon be using our handsets for everything from banking to browsing the internet, emailing, messaging and listening to music, watching videos, taking photographs and social networking, checking train and plane times, getting directions and finding restaurants, doing office work, keeping our diary, buying stocks and shares, playing games, shopping via [...]

WinMo problems, say Microsoft, are not our fault

richard@highernorrisfarm.co.uk — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Everybody realises that software requires hardware on which to run. And, if the performance of the hardware falls short, even the most carefully crafted code will also disappoint.

Conversely inadequate software will handicap even the most innovative hardware.

Yet up to now few commentators have thought the problems associated with Windows Mobile might be caused solely by inadequacies in the handsets on which the OS has been installed.

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