History of Mobile
Applications
MAS 490: Theory and Practice of Mobile Applications
Professor John F. Clark
Overview
Mobile communication is so integrated into our lives
that many people feel uncomfortable without a cell
phone.
Once upon a time, the most popular functions of phones
were calling and sending texts.
A smart phone is a multifunctional device that not only
communicates, but helps to learn, earn, and have fun.
This is made possible by the development of mobile
applications.
Overview, cont.
Mobile applications date back to the end of the twentieth
century.
Typically, they were small arcade games, ring tone editors,
calculators, calendars, and so forth.
The beginning of the new millennium saw a rapid market
evolution of mobile content and applications.
Operating systems for smart phones (Windows Mobile,
Symbian, RIM, Android, Mac iOS), are open to the
development of third-party software, unlike the conventional
programming environment of standard cell phones.
Overview, cont.
Manufacturers tried to make their products more
attractive for customers by introducing more and more
applications.
But quality matters as well. Cell phone development
needs to be easy and intuitive. Every company tries to
facilitate the process of development so that users are
able to customize their devices.
Motivation: Juniper Research estimates in 2014 the
direct and indirect revenues from sales of mobile
applications will total 25 billion dollars.
So, to conclude:
Mobile users demand more choice, more opportunities
to customize their phones, and more functionality
Mobile operators want to provide value-added content
to their subscribers in a manageable and lucrative way.
Mobile developers want the freedom to develop the
powerful mobile applications users demand without
restrictions.
Finally, handset manufacturers want a stable, secure,
and affordable platform to power their devices.
Remember the Brick?
Remember the Brick?
The Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was the first commercially
available cell phone.
First marketed in 1983, it was 13 x 1.75 x 3.5 inches in
dimension, weighed about 2.5 pounds, and allowed you
to talk for a little more than half an hour.
It retailed for $3,995, plus hefty monthly service fees
and per-minute charges.
It made calls, and there was a simple contacts
application included in the operating system.
History: the first apps
First-generation mobile phones were designed and
developed by the handset manufacturers.
Competition was fierce and trade secrets were closely
guarded. They didn’t want to expose the secrets of
their handsets, so they developed the phone software
in-house.
Developers that weren’t part of this inner circle had no
opportunity to write applications for the phones.
History: the first apps
It was during this period the first “time-waster” games
begin to appear.
Nokia was famous for putting the 1970s video game
Snake on some of its earliest phones. Other followed,
adding games like Pong, Tetris, and Tic-Tac-Toe.
These early phones changed the way people thought
about communication. As mobile phone prices dropped,
batteries improved, reception areas grew, and more and
more people began carrying these handy devices.
Soon mobile phones were more than just a novelty.
History: the first apps
Customers began pushing for more features and more
games.
But handset manufacturers didn’t have the motivation
or the resources to build every application users
wanted.
They needed some way to provide a portal for
entertainment and information services without
allowing direct access to the handset.
What better way to provide these services than the
Internet?
History: We Need WAP
It turned out direct phone access to the Internet didn’t scale
well for mobile.
By the late 90s, professional Web sites were full color and
loaded with text, images, and other types of media.
They relied on JavaScript and Flash to enhance the user
experience and were often designed at 800×600 pixels.
Early phones had very small monochrome low-res screens and
limited storage and processing power. They couldn’t handle
the data-intensive operations required by traditional Web
browsers. The bandwidth requirements for data transmission
were also costly to the user.
1G Cell Phones
History: WAP is the answer!
The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) standard was
developed to address these concerns.
WAP was a stripped-down version of HTTP, which is the basic
protocol of the World Wide Web.
WAP browsers were designed to run within the memory and
bandwidth constraints of the phone.
Third-party WAP sites served up pages written in a markup
language called Wireless Markup Language (WML).
The pages were much simpler in design than the WWW pages.
History: WAP is the answer!
The WAP solution was great for handset manufacturers.
They could write one WAP browser to ship with the
handset and rely on developers to come up with the
content users wanted.
The WAP solution was great for mobile operators. They
could provide a custom WAP portal directing their
subscribers to the content they wanted to provide, and
wallow in the high data charges associated with
browsing.
But there was one problem –
History: Is WAP the answer?
Developers and content providers didn’t deliver, except
in a limited way.
Most of the early WAP sites were extensions of popular
branded Web sites, such as CNN.com and ESPN.com.
Users accessed the news, stock market quotes, and
sports scores on their phones.
Some of the most popular commercial WAP applications
that emerged during this time were simple wallpaper
and ring tone catalogues, allowing users to personalize
their phones for the first time.
History: WAP is not the answer!
Commercializing WAP applications was difficult, and
there was no built-in billing mechanism.
Users browsed a WAP site and requested a specific item,
then filled out a simple order form with their phone
number and the handset model of their phone. It was up
to the content provider to deliver an image or audio file
compatible with the phone.
Payment was handled through various premium-priced
delivery mechanisms such as Short Message Service
(SMS), Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS), Multimedia
Messaging Service (MMS), and WAP Push.
History: WAP is not the answer!
WAP browsers were slow and frustrating.
Typing in long URLs with the numeric keypad was a
tremendous pain.
Most WAP sites were one version and did not account for
individual phone specifications. It didn’t matter if the
end-user’s phone had a big color screen or a postage
stamp-sized monochrome one.
The developer couldn’t tailor the user’s experience. The
result was a mediocre and not very compelling
experience for everyone involved.
History: WAP is not the answer!
WAP fell short of commercial expectations, except in
Japan and a few other places.
Small handset screens were too small for surfing.
Reading a sentence fragment at a time and then waiting
seconds for the next segment to download ruined the
user experience, especially because every second of
downloading was charged to the user.
Critics began to call WAP “Wait and Pay.”
It came as no surprise when users wanted more – they
will always want more.
Proprietary Mobile Platforms
Writing graphic-intensive video game applications with
WAP was nearly impossible
The kids most likely to personalize their phones with
wallpapers and ring tones looked at their portable
gaming systems and asked for a device that was both a
phone and a gaming device or a phone and a music
player.
If devices like Nintendo’s Game Boy could provide hours
of entertainment with only five buttons, why not just
add phone capabilities?
Proprietary Mobile Platforms
Memory was getting cheaper; batteries were getting better;
and PDAs and other embedded devices were beginning to run
compact versions of common operating systems like Linux and
Windows.
The traditional desktop application developer was suddenly
involved in the embedded device market, especially with
Smartphone technologies like Windows Mobile, which they
found familiar.
Handset manufacturers realized that if they wanted to
continue to sell their products, they needed to change their
protectionist policies regarding handset design and expose
their internal workings to some extent.
Proprietary Mobile Platforms
A variety of different proprietary platforms emerged—
and developers are still actively creating applications
for them.
One of the first was the Palm OS (now Garnet OS) and
RIM Blackberry OS. Sun Microsystems popular Java
platform became Java Micro Edition (Java ME).
Qualcomm developed its Binary Runtime Environment
for Wireless (BREW). Symbian OS was developed by
Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, and Samsung. The Apple
iPhone iOS joined the ranks in 2007. Google’s Android
came along a year later.
Platform Wars
Most platforms have associated developer programs that keep
the developer communities small, vetted, and under
contractual agreements on what they can and cannot do.
These programs are often required and developers must pay
for them.
Each platform has benefits and drawbacks. The truth is no
one platform has emerged victorious.
Some platforms are best suited for commercializing games
and making millions if your company has brand backing. Other
platforms are more open and suitable for the hobbyist.
No mobile platform is best suited for all possible applications.
Platform Wars
The mobile phone market has become increasingly
fragmented, with all platforms sharing part of the pie.
For manufacturers and mobile operators, handset
product lines have become complicated fast.
Platform market penetration varies greatly by region
and user demographic.
Instead of choosing just one platform, manufacturers
and operators have been forced to sell phones for all
the different platforms to compete.
Platform Wars
The mobile developer community has become as
fragmented as the market.
Mobile software developers work with different
programming environments, different tools, and
different programming languages.
Porting among the platforms is often costly and not
straightforward. Keeping track of handset configurations
and testing requirements, signing and certification
programs, carrier relationships, and application
marketplaces have become complex spin-off businesses
of their own.
Platform Wars
What is the Acme Dynamite Company to do when it
wants to develop an app to sell dynamite to coyotes
with a road-runner bloodlust?
Acme is forced to choose one or, worse, all of the
above.
The eternal question: Proprietary or open-source?
In other words, Apple vs. Google.
What are the pros and cons?
