Reliance Mobile, today, announced the launch of Braille Bill service for the visually impaired.
The Braille Bill will provide details of current usage, bill amount, last dues, last payment and adjustments made. Breakup of the current charges payable by the customer will also be provided.
Anurag Prashar, president corporate, Customer Service, Reliance Communications said, “There are currently 45 million people suffering from complete visual impairment across the globe. Out of these, nearly 12 million reside in India.”
The service will be available for Postpaid customers across all products lines of RCOM’s Wireless Business. The bill will be dispatched to the visually impaired customers through post every month without any extra charges.
The service is in line with Reliance ADA Group’s Corporate Social responsibility objectives, said the press release.
Reliance Mobile launches Braille bill service
HTC, Tata Docomo bring Desire to India
HTC Corporation and Tata Docomo have announced a tie up to launch the HTC Desire handset in India. It is the latest Android 2.1 smartphone that offers the enhanced HTC Sense experience to users.
Telecom Yatra first reported about the launch plan in May.
HTC Desire comes with a 3.7-inch touch-sensitive screen with 480 X 800 WVGA resolution and a 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. For Tata Docomo users in India, the handset is available with an exclusive offer wherein postpaid subscribers will get free data download of 500 MB per month for six months. To avail this offer, customers will have to SMS Android to 54321 from their HTC Desire handset.
The handset also comes with the new HTC Sense, which focuses on improving mobile interactions. It has a new HTC application and widget called Friend Stream that aggregates all social communication including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr into one organised flow of updates.
The HTC Desire will be available at a market operating price of Rs 28,900 at all authorised HTC resellers across the country.
Ultra Mobile plans to enter the Indian handset market
Ultra Mobile Technology is the latest to be lured by the Indian mobile handset market.
On Thursday, the company announced its plans to launch a range of mobile handsets and services to view TV channels on mobile phones.
The company in its press release said it will bring the service with the highest Resolution display ever built into a phone, in the coming months.
Other than facilitating TV viewing, Ultra Mobiles will have features such as dual SIM, GPRS, Bluetooth and FM radio.
The company commenced operations in June this year with its corporate office based in Mumbai. Ultra Mobile aggregates premium entertainment content from many content providers, and then optimises the content for small screen or mobile viewing.
Buy, use, recycle
Mobile subscription all over the world has crossed the 5 billion mark. India alone contributes more than 600 million subscribers to this mammoth total.
Combine this number with the fact that on average, each person changes his cell phone every six months. With this in mind it is not difficult to ascertain the large number of mobiles being disposed of all over the world.
Huge BurdenOld mobile phones form a major part of the total e waste not only in India but across the world. And although the handset industry’s contribution to e waste still isn’t very alarming, looking a few years ahead, the case might be totally different.
A Nokia spokesperson agreed. “By virtue of its weight and size, the contribution of mobile waste to overall e waste is not very high. However, this does not have any implication on the responsibility that this industry has in creating awareness on recycling of e waste,” he said.
The spokesperson added, “The total number of mobile phones sold in the country could be an indicator of the potential size of the market. According to Gartner, India will sell 138.6 million mobile phones up 18.5 per cent over the previous year.”
While e waste inventory based on obsolescence rate in India for the year 2005 was estimated to be nearly 1.5 lakh tonnes, the number is expected to exceed 8 lakh tonnes by 2012. Mobile phones constitute a major component of this waste.
A report released by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) this year in February stated that total e waste generated in India is about 4.3 lakh tonnes, of which mobile phones contribute about 1,700 tonnes.
The unfortunate part is that while developed countries have a proper system for recycling these disposed devices, such a system is lacking in India. It’s not just about a system, even awareness on recycling e waste is lacking in the second largest mobile market in the world.
Of approximately 3.8 lakh metric tonnes of e waste generated in 2007-2008, about 1.5 metric tonnes were available for recycling, as per a study sponsored by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and conducted by the Electronics Industries Association of India. The study also stated that the share of mobile phones and televisions towards e waste is considerable.
Even now, most people have at least phones lying unused at their homes, piling in their almirah or at the most given away to the local scrap man. The reason being they simply didn’t know what to do with them.
In addition to this, approximately 50,000 tonnes of e waste is dumped into India every year through imports, according to a source. The main reason for this is that the cost of recycling products in India is ten times less than it is in the USA.
Recycling RequiredEvery journey begins with a small step, so if we need to tackle the problem of e waste, the start may as well be made by proper disposal of mobile waste (m waste).
Cellphones contain many different substances that are toxic and potentially hazardous to the environment, as well as to human health. These include ferrous and non-ferrous metals, lead, magnesium, copper, mercury, plastics, glass, liquid crystals, barium, concrete, ceramics, rubber, arsenic etc.
Hence, it becomes crucial that m waste is disposed of in a proper manner. Also, after recycling, the materials obtained can be used to make useful items such as utensils, benches etc. In fact, metals extracted from e waste are resold in the commodity market by recycling agencies not only in India but worldwide.
Status CheckIn India, the handling of e waste, from collecting to dismantling to recycling e waste, is mainly taken care of by the informal sector.
At some places in Delhi, printed circuit boards (PCBs) of mobile phones are sold to scrap dealers for as low as Rs 6 per piece. And it’s not just PCBs, almost all parts of phones are up for sale. Batteries and fiber bodies are sold by the dozen.These are then burnt, usually in slum areas, in open air. What remains are a few grams of copper, aluminum and other metals. This process does irreparable damage to the environment and to the health of people inhaling the toxic fumes in the air.
Many organisations in India are trying to put in order the way recycling is done in the country. These organisations collect e waste through their collection centres and transport them to recycling plants. Once the scrap reaches a plant, metallic and non metallic components are separated.
Telecom giants such as Nokia, LG and Tata Teleservices (TTSL) have now started generating awareness about the issue. Nokia has started a ‘take back’ scheme in various cities wherein mobile phone users can dispose their used handsets and accessories, regardless of the brand, at recycling bins in Nokia Priority Dealers and Nokia Care Centers.
Nokia passes on m waste to companies that reclaim materials from the phones and accessories. These companies are assessed on a regular basis to make sure they’re doing things properly and that anything handed over to them is recycled responsibly, said the Nokia spokesperson.
Nokia had collected close to 16 tonnes of e waste (mobile phones and accessories) till April this year as part of their ‘take back’ campaign started in January 2009. Nokia’s Planet Ke Rakhwale community already has a member base of 20,000 people.
On the other hand, recycling companies such as Attero Recycling work with various companies including telecom giants such as LG and TTSL. They also try to touch base with the informal sector and try and minimise damage to the environment and to human health by open air burning.
Regulation regarding e wasteIn India, there are no specific environmental laws or guidelines for e waste. None of the existing environmental laws have any direct reference to electronic waste or refer to the way it is handled as being hazardous. However, as some components of electronic waste fall under the ‘hazardous’ and ‘non-hazardous’ waste categories, they are covered under the purview of ‘The Hazardous Waste Management Rules, 2003’.
This regulation defines hazardous waste as “any waste which by reason of any of its physical, chemical, reactive, toxic, flammable, explosive or corrosive characteristics causes danger or is likely to cause danger to health or environment, whether alone or when on contact with other wastes or substances.”
As per the guidelines for environmentally sound management of e waste, Maharashtra ranks first followed by Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Delhi, Karnataka, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab in the list of e waste generating states in India.
In these guidelines, the Ministry of Environments and Forests’ central Pollution Control Board has proposed the extended producer responsibility (EPR) as an environment protection strategy.
This makes the producer responsible for the entire life cycle of the product, especially for take back, recycle and final disposal. Thus, the producers’ responsibility is extended to the post consumer stage of the product life cycle. This needs to be included in the legislative framework making EPR a mandatory activity associated with the production of electronic and electrical equipment over a period of time.
“The EPR law is already present is Europe, certain parts of US and Japan. In India, it is already in draft stage and the law should be coming out soon. It will give boost to proper disposal of e waste in India. And companies like us will get more e waste,” said the Nokia spokesperson.
Welcoming the move by the government, the Nokia spokesperson added, “Nokia welcomes the government’s initiative for management of the e waste in the country. The draft notification is a significant move towards better management of e waste in the country. The regulation would help in development of the recycling infrastructure and would provide a framework for action by all stakeholders.”
However, the fact remains that policies and regulations will prove ineffective until consumers take action and start contributing.
Even small steps such as not mixing old phones with household garbage and dropping them instead at recycling centres set up by NGOs and manufacturers will make a huge difference.
Mobile games: A goldmine to be explored
At a time when telecom ARPUs are constantly declining despite tremendous growth in subscriber numbers, telecom operators have started looking at mobile value added services (MVAS) for an increase in revenue.
MVAS, which currently constitutes about 9 per cent of operators’ revenue in India, is expected to become bigger than voice in the coming years. The MVAS industry is estimated to be worth over Rs 5,400 crore by the end of this year and over Rs 12,000 crore by the end of 2015.
One segment of VAS that is picking up very fast is mobile gaming. A recent report by the internet and mobile association of India (IAMAI) and the Indian market research bureau (IMRB) estimated mobile gaming to be Rs 289 crore in June 2008, which was about 5 per cent of the mobile VAS industry. The report also expected this figure to go up to Rs 813 crore by June this year.
Present scenario:Mobile games in India are currently either embedded in the device, or can be downloaded via GPRS. There are both paid and non paid games available in the marketplace.
According to the mobile marketing association (MMA), a growing number of mobile game developers; and better integration among mobile operators, handset manufacturers and software providers have created a sound ecosystem to provide mobile games to Indian consumers.
Moreover, lesser scope for piracy and duplicity on mobile devices as compared to computers has further generated interest in this platform among developers.
Manish Malik, general manager, gaming, Hungama, says, “In terms of audience and adoption, mobile gaming has the largest base of consumers. The GPRS penetration amongst the current subscriber base is around 15 per cent and the gaming penetration is around 3 per cent and growing rapidly.”
Rohit Dadwal, managing director, MMA, says, “The average customers are from the tech savvy younger generation of urban India. Kids and young adults from the top eight metros are currently driving growth. A recent survey showed that approximately 40 per cent of all mobile gamers belong to 22-35 years of age, followed by 13-21 years and 35 plus.”
Of all gaming genres, cricket, racing and Bollywood games are most popular in India. However, lately, gamers have started enjoying role playing (player assumes the role of a character) and multi player games.
Hungama is working with some big Bollywood studios to create, publish and distribute content for movies and has created a series of games around Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh.
Malik says, “The games have performed extremely well in the market, the primary reason being Bollywood and cricket are a good connect with the target audience.”
Rohith Bhat, managing director and chief executive officer, Robosoft, had earlier told Telecom Yatra, “Mobile games market in India has a huge potential. Indian market will straight away hop onto the mobile gaming scene without going through the consoles and web gaming revolution. We are already seeing increased uptake of social networking. Social gaming, I think, will be a similar success.”
Revenue models:The present mobile gaming ecosystem consists of game developers, game publishers, mobile operators, handset manufacturers, software developers and advertisers. Developers are the ones who create, design and test the games before launching them in the market, while publishers are responsible for promotion and marketing.
Various business models for gaming have evolved over the past couple of years. It started with the pay per download model and the introduction of subscription packs such as pay per day or per week, and unlimited access to content at a fixed price.
But now the concept of advergaming has emerged, with advertisers and publishers targeting the audience with ads inserted in the games. This is being viewed as a major revenue source for the gaming ecosystem.
The Freemium and ad funded model has been gaining traction. It involves the consumer either being allowed to play the first few levels of a game free of cost, and then being given the option to download; or the games being available free to the customer and the funds being generated through advertising.
According to Mahesh Narayanan, country manager, Admob, “Inventory for mobile gaming is definitely in demand and advertisers are targeting it. Relevance of mobile gaming for advertising would increase once the addressable base of consumers becomes big. Advertising on mobile games is still at a nascent stage, but lot of work is happening. Adoption of gaming is still good amongst consumers, but marketers need to be educated on the potential of this medium.”
Speaking on the international market, Narayanan says, “Advertisers are doing a lot on mobile gaming front in developed markets such as US and Europe, where users of iPhones and Andriod based phones download lot of games and the inventory is large.”
“India is still slow and brands are still getting a grasp on what possibilities the medium of mobile offers. In India, there is a lot of opportunity on cricket based games as they do really well. Also, event based games have started picking up. During FIFA World Cup, soccer games were doing very well,” he adds.
Malik says, “On the B2B side, games are a hot property when it comes to embedding on devices at the manufacturing level. This is a good step in terms of getting the early bird users and then they become a significant part of the value chain.”
“A lot of brands are also showing genuine interest in creating advergames, but it is difficult to target a specific customer due lack of correct data,” he further says.
On revenue sharing in the Indian market, operators have an upper hand. It also depends on the quality of content that is available where content providers get into exclusive relationships with third party vendors.
Challenges for mobile gamingTaking into consideration the tremendous potential of this segment, the Indian mobile gaming industry is still at a nascent stage. There are several infrastructural, industrial and cultural barriers to the growth of this industry.
According to Malik, “Consumer education on accessing content through GPRS is critical for adding new consumers. The educated audience already has access to various sources for downloading content. It is all about creating the right level of awareness as the best of international content is already available to be downloaded.”
In India, consumers are also very price sensitive and customers are unwilling to pay for games as they view games as luxury or unnecessary items. This forces developers to lower their prices and profit margins, which in turn stunts the innovations in the gaming market.
Moreover, many Indians view gaming as something meant for children and youngsters, and thus the gaming base becomes smaller. There is a need to eliminate this perception in order to increase the reach of mobile games.
Dadwal says, “There are some fundamental challenges that hinder mass usage of content on mobile phones. These include lack of knowledge among users, mobile Browser constraints leading to poor content quality and experience and the data charges associated with the use of internet over the phone.”
He also says that due to the different types of mobile phones and applications available, content providers have to develop games to suit phones with varied capabilities.
Apart from these factors, network speed is also extremely critical for the growth of mobile gaming. With the advent of 3G, this issue will be solved and developers will be in a better position to develop complex and advanced games. Speed will then no longer be an issue for game downloads.
Way forwardThe share of gaming in VAS will continue to increase in the coming years due to greater availability of interactive and feature rich mobile devices. It will also get a boost from the launch of 3D, Bluetooth and multi player mobile games.
The majority of gamers is usually in the 15-30 years age group. They are always on the lookout for new stuff. Thus, it is important for developers to constantly innovate both in terms of design and platforms.
In coming times, traditional games will give way to other advanced forms of gaming such as Bluetooth gaming, multi-player gaming, 3D gaming and motion and sensor gaming.
Malik says, “Future is all about connected gaming. As infrastructure and networks evolve, multi-player gaming will become an important aspect of every game being launched in the market. The base of mobile games should increase to 10 to 12 per cent of the mobile base over the next two years.”
Dadwal is of the view, “Gaming offerings in the Indian market will continue to evolve into more complex and engaging formats as Indian mobile users become more and more interested in technology and continue to upgrade their mobile phones. Given the lively market, a host of India-based game production companies have sprouted, enriching the competition and providing ever increasing variety of games for all ages. The share of gaming in mobile would get a further boost by the launch of 3D mobile games.”
Social networking games which at present are only available online, might also have scope on mobile platforms.
Mobile games have a bright future ahead. With customers craving for more and more games, it is bound to make a mark on the balance sheet of VAS providers.
Pay per site data plan launched by Tata Docomo
Extending the pay per use paradigm for its mobile Internet users, Tata Docomo, the GSM brand of Tata Teleservices, launched a tariff plan, which will allow users to pay only for websites they regularly browse.
The tariff plan allows the subscribers to pay only for the websites they surf regularly instead paying hefty monthly rentals for data, Tata Docomo said in a statement.
The plan offers customers the power to decide on what they surf the most and purchase plans suited and tailored to specific needs.
Pay Per Site offers two combination packs—those only interested in single websites need to pay Rs 10 per site, whereas those with multiple site browsing needs can opt for a combo pack at Rs 25 per month, Tata Docomo’s Head of Marketing Gurinder Singh Sandhu said.
There are two different genres under which each service is categorised–Social Networking Site and Emailing and Instant Messaging.
Customers will have a bundle of options within various categories of social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, Linked-In, Orkut), mail options (Gmail, Yahoo, Rediff) and chat messengers (GTalk, Yahoo! Messenger, Nimbuzz).
India’s first mobile TV spiritual channel launched
ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), with over 90 temples spread across the length and breadth of the country and millions of Krishna devotees all over the globe, went digital and announced a separate TV channel on Mobiles.
The new channel is launched in collaboration with Apalya Technologies and Neuron Mediatech, a content and software infrastructure company.
Irfan Khan, co-founder, Neuron Mediatech said, “We have designed rich media spiritual content based on multimedia device experience and have produced the same in multiple languages like English, Hindi, Gujarati and Sindhi.”
Vamshi Krishna Reddy, chief executive officer and co-founder, Apalya Technologies said, “ Initially, this service will be on-demand, however, given its viewership pattern it can be provided as part of the standard package from Apalya, further on.”
ISKCON spokesperson, Haridas Prabhu said, “ ISKCON will now reach you On-Demand for we know that not everyone can come to our temples everyday but with this tie-up the temple will come to you.”
Neuron Mediatech would soon be deploying their spiritual content offerings across other platforms, as well including Internet. They are also planning to launch a dedicated IVR for spiritual content.
Hungama Digital brings new offer to music lovers
Artistaloud.com, a digital platform for independent artists, has announced that consumers can access and buy songs of their choice through all three digital screens – mobile, internet and DTH.
The Paisa Vasool offer, valid only till August 31, enables consumers to buy four songs by any of the available 12 artists for Rs 20. It also allows them to sample, review and own them legally through all three channels.
To experience the sound, the audience on Artistaloud.com can listen to song previews of one minute free of cost. To listen to the complete song, it must be downloaded using either of two price packs, single download at Rs 10, or a value pack that allows the user to download four songs at Rs 20. The songs are in MP3 format.
The offer has been conceptualised and designed by Hungama Digital Media.
Are there too many mobile platforms?
Over the last two to three years, there has been a spurt in mobile App stores. Especially after the grand success of the iPhone, applications are the new gold mine.
To tap this gold rush, many biggies in the telecom space are launching their own application markets and mobile platforms.
The examples include Apple iOS, Android, Sybian, Blackberry, Palm and bada. Although many of these OSs existed before iOS came into being, applications as a separate area of focus didn’t exist.
These were mostly proprietary OSs, mainly created to become unique selling propositions of the devices they worked on. But with the emergence of applications as a source of additional revenue, these platforms are opening up to the developer community.
Even telecom operators such as Airtel and Vodafone do not want to be left behind and have joined the bandwagon with their own app stores.
Opening up the OS has multiple benefits. The first one being revenue earned to distribute apps created by independent developers; and second, it also makes the OS more attractive for the buyer as he gets more options and flexibility.
For the developer community it means an easy market for their products, an opportunity which doesn’t require much investment. These platforms are creating new entrepreneurs every day, with an entire industry springing up. Some of these companies are four to five people teams which create applications and sell them across the world without the need for a huge marketing budget, or having to travel to the customer to sell.
However, as with anything else, the applications business has it own set of pit falls. And the biggest of them is that there are too many application platforms. Lokesh Gupta, chief executive officer, Spice Labs, says, “I agree that there are too many application platforms and this is not sustainable in the long run; there will be some short of consolidation. However, in the current context, it (numerous app platforms are) fuelling entrepreneurial skills and innovation, and will continue to do so in the near future.”
With so many platforms, it becomes very difficult to test and optimise applications for each and every device.
This problem gets accentuated when you have multiple form factors. “In iPhone kind of environment you have only slight variation between devices and thus it is easier to handle, but with Android or Symbian, you have multitude of devices with different screen size, Processor and inputs. In such a situation you choose the best seller and create applications accordingly,” said Rohith Bhat, managing director and chief executive officer of Robosoft.
The problem grows further with operator run application stores, where there is no end to device variation.
As the industry moves forward, standardisation is the key and there are strong signs that the mobile industry is moving in that direction. Lokesh said, “We are already seeing signs of standardisation. For instance, we have capacitive technology as becoming the norm; same is true with the screen size, 240×320, 320X480, 640X200 etc becoming the most common screen sizes in up coming phones. Same is true for the processor.”
In the mobile processor space also, ARM and Qualcomm have a majority of the market share. If these are indications of the future, then surely we are moving in the direction of the PC industry in which we have reached a level where there are a couple of standards which are most popular.
As far as platforms are concerned, none of the existing platforms need to die, however some of the underlying features of the platform will get standardized, thereby enabling cross platform application development and reducing the testing and customisation time and in turn, reducing development time and complexity itself.
The other possibility is that only few will survive, the way it is in the PC industry where only three are big and Windows is the biggest with more than 90 per cent market share.
Mobile platforms in the world market
Mobile platforms, commonlyknown as mobile operating systems, control mobile handsets in the same way asan operating system (OS) such as Mac OS, Linux or Windows controls a desktop computer or laptop.
Mobile platforms are undergoing rapid change with the growth of the smartphone industry. Here we’ve analysed the different operating systems in the market today:iPhone and iOS 4Apple’s iPhone iOS is the most popular mobile operating system for smartphones. As a developer, one needs to use Mac tools on an Apple Mac to write applications for this platform. This is a problem as most developers use PCs and PC based tools. This means additional cost (to acquire hardware), as well as additional skill development.
iOS is based on the Mac OS X. To develop programs, engineers have to use objective C for the procedural code and the Xcode designer to generate the user interface. Objective C is a lot like any modern object-oriented language and doesn’t take long to master. One can create iOS apps using .NET languages with the help of Mono, and using Javascript with the help of PhoneGap. However, in both cases one still needs a Mac and the software development kit (SDK) for development.
iOS web apps have an unofficial app store called OpenAppMkt.
Developers can only distribute the apps they make for the iOS through Apple’sApp Store. Authors receive 70 per cent royalty on sales. Apps can be free, but the author still has to pay the App Store a membership fee of $99 (about Rs 4,500). Apps can also earn revenue by showing advertising arranged by Apple. The App Store has over 200,000 applications and developers can be charged a one-off fee for subscription.
One of the big advantages of developing for iOS 4 is that apps made for it run on the iPhone, i Pod as well as the iPad.There are many reasons for iPad application development to be more interesting and profitable in the long run than targeting the iPhone – a recent survey suggests that iPad users tend to click on adverts more and spend more time playing games and generally interacting.
Another advantage is that iOS 4 devices are single manufacturer devices and therefore the developer only has to test on one, the iPhone, iPad or the iPod.
However, for developers who plan to develop apps for consumers in India, the market is fairly limited due to very few iPhones in India; iPod numbers are better, but not enough to be attractive.AndroidAndroid is an operating system and development environment from Google targeting mobile phones, tablets and netbooks. It has become a serious challenger to the iOS. Most common on mobile phones, Android has a higher percentage share of the market – iPhone 23 per cent, Android 28 per cent.
The operating system is based on the Linux kernel. App development is generally in Java, although in principle you can use other languages. In particular, libraries are often created using C and are callable from Java. The Java is compiled to byte code and runs on a special virtual machine (VM), the Dalvik VM. The SDK contains a plugin for the Eclipse integrated development environment and everything needed to create and test an application.
Android applications can be created using almost any hardware and OS including a PC running Windows or Linux and the Mac running OS X.
Android doesn’t support Java micro edition applications because it doesn’t provide the necessary class libraries.
Android is a fairly open platform and developers are free to sell native apps anywhere, but there is an Android Market run by Google. Currently it has over 60,000 applications and charges a $25 (nearly Rs 1,200) submission fee. Royalties belong 70 per cent to the developer, but it doesn’t support subscription charging.
Currently, in-app advertising isn’t supported.
Android devices are made by a number of companies and this makes it harder to ensure that apps run on all devices.
It has gained momentum in India thanks to many launches from HTC, Samsung and even Huawei.BlackBerry OSThe BlackBerry OS, as the name suggests, is from the maker of BlackBerry phones Research In Motion. It is arguably the current number one platform in the USA. It is very different from other smartphones as it is mostly used by enterprises and is considered a serious smartphone. However BlackBerry is trying to break this mould by adding fun features and new advertisements.
All BlackBerrys are good for corporate email, and working with Exchange, Domino or Groupwise is their forte.
BlackBerry OS 6 has just been released and this has introduced features that seem to be an attempt to bring the BlackBerry into the same arena as the iPhone, Android etc. More recent BlackBerry devices will be able to upgrade to OS 6, but if a programmer wants to cover the full range of devices, supporting older versions of the operating system will be necessary.
The latest devices have a touch screen, but BlackBerrys have always been known for their keyboard input rather than anything trendy, and many devices have trackpads or trackwheels for additional input.
Developers can download a development SDK from the BlackBerry site free of cost. Development is in Java and the IDE is provided as an Eclipse plugin, complete with emulator and debugger. The latest OS 6 includes an improved browser and better location services.
One complication with developing for BlackBerry is if one wants to work with the push service. This is now available to every application and in some cases doesn’t need registration.
BlackBerry provides App World as a place to sell apps. Currently, this has around 8,000 applications. The royalty rate is 80 per cent to the developer, but the submission charge is $200 (close to Rs 9,500), and it doesn’t support subscriptions.
In-app advertising isn’t supported and probably isn’t an option for such a business oriented platform.
The BlackBerry is a different development ball game. It isn’t a difficult platform to write for, but it has a different user profile with a predominance of serious business applications. However, this doesn’t mean that users never take time off and play.
With threats of a ban looming large here in India, BlackBerry’s future is uncertain.SymbianSymbian is an open operating system originating from Nokia. It is a descendent of the Psion operating system an early and very popular handheld device when it was launched.
It is used by a number of manufacturers, but Nokia is the dominant device type and it isn’t unreasonable to equate the Symbian market with the Nokia market – although this is complex and becoming more so. Sony Ericsson, Fujitsu, Mitsubishi and others have devices based on the Symbian operating system, but for India only Sony Ericsson is of any importance among the new device manufacturers using Symbian.
It is estimated that Symbian devices account for 45 per cent of the world’s smartphones – making Symbian the number one market for apps. Developing for Symbian is done in C++, optionally using the Qt framework.
Programming under Symbian is often described as difficult because of the number of special facilities designed to increase its efficiency and speed. However, apps that use Qt are fairly easy to create.
An SDK is freely available as the Carbide Express edition from Nokia anEclipse based integrated development environment. More capable versions are available but aren’t free. Other languages can also be used for Symbian development, but the situation is very complicated and often requires additional software to be installed on the phone for the code to work.
Symbian developers mainly target Nokia devices and hence the Nokia Ovi Store is the main market place. This works in much the same way as other app markets, but as it sells apps for Nokia devices, it offers a range of technologies: Symbian, Maemo (another OS Nokia uses), Java, Flash and web runtime widgets.Currently, it has around 6,000 applications. The royalty rate is 70 per cent to the developer with no subscription billing and a submission fee of 50 euros (about Rs 3,000). There is no in-app advertising scheme.
The Symbian OS represents a huge potential market for software developers, especially so since the ratio of devices to available apps is so high. The big problem is fragmentation of the market. Only Nokia devices can be easily targeted via the Ovi store and these come in a range of specifications diverse enough to make it difficult to ensure that an app will run on any given device.
A second serious problem is that Nokia isn’t giving particularly clear signals about its intentions towards developers. Its latest phone is a Symbian device but future phones in the top of the range N series are going to use MeeGo.
Also, the Symbian foundation is planning to launch an app store but at the moment all there is on offer is a catalog.
So the bottom line is that Symbian development is fragmented with potential profits to be made from an underexploited existing user base, but it still has an uncertain future.PalmThe Palm OS started life on hand held devices and even today its role as a phone OS is minor. Indeed, Palm Inc switched to webOS in 2009 and this is the environment that most developers should be targeting.
Even the future of WebOS looks uncertain as HP has recently acquired the company and rumours are that it will abandon phone production to concentrate on using WebOS as a tablet OS.
WebOS has an SDK that can be downloaded free from the Palm website. The OS is a Linux kernel and development is in C/C++.
The Palm App Catalog has around 1,500 apps; royalties are 70 per cent to the developer and the submission fee is $99 (or around Rs 4,500). It doesn’t support subscriptions or in app advertising.
Developing for Palm looks fun and fairly straightforward but given its low market share and uncertain future it really isn’t attractive except as a risky niche in an otherwise booming market.Windows Phone 7The problem with Windows Phone 7 is that, as yet, it doesn’t exist. This is Microsoft’s attempt to catch up with iOS and Android. It is the latest version of the Windows mobile operating system, but it is so radically different that it is better treated as something new. It also runs on a new range of hardware and isn’t backward compatible with existing Windows based mobile phones – it really does represent a new start and therefore, it is next to impossible to gauge the size of its potential market.
The basic specs for a Windows Phone 7 device include a four point touch screen, DirectX 9 compatible GPU, Accelerometer with compass, proximity sensor, assisted GPS, five mega pixel or better camera, FM radio and five hardware buttons. No Windows Mobile 6 phone meets this level of specification, and so upgrading to Phone 7 isn’t going to be possible. From a developer’s point of view the basic platform looks very capable.
The SDK can be downloaded free from Microsoft, but at the time of writing it is still in beta. Applications can only be developed using C# but there is no reason why other .NET languages shouldn’t be used in the future. The biggest problem for the developer is that two types of native applications are supported, Silverlight and XNA. The reason for this split is that the phone’s graphics are based on DirectX, but Silverlight can’t access DirectX; Hence the need for XNA, which can. As a result, most applications will need to use Silverlight with its well developed user interface, and games will tend to use XNA with it good 2D and 3D graphics.
Microsoft, learning from both Apple and Google, plans to host an application market and provide in-app advertising but at the time of writing, no details, let alone web sites, are finalised. It is also unclear whether the Microsoft store will control applications as tightly as Apple or as openly as Google – at the moment it looks as if the control will be light.
The original Windows Mobile had a reasonably healthy 11 per cent of the USA market. It also has a market place with around 1,000 apps. It offers a royalty of 70 per cent, one of billing no subscriptions, no in app advertising and a submission charge of $99 (Rs 4,500).But despite Microsoft promising to keep Windows Mobile going as a sort of Windows Phone Classic, developing for this non compatible system would be a good bet.
Microsoft is also working hard at getting developers to write for the new system – providing tutorials and lending development phones, and paying for apps from programmers who have a track record in creating apps. So far there is no Phone 7 app competition or prize give away – but watch this space.
The biggest problem with developing for Windows Phone 7 is simply the lack of devices to test one’s app on. The emulator is reasonable, but it lacks support for many of the hardware features that characterise the Windows Phone 7. This is also the case with iPhone and Android emulators, but in these cases the programmer can actually try the application out on a real device. There is also the risk that Windows Phone 7 will be a market failure and one’s app will simply not have a user base to exploit.MeeGoMeeGo is yet to be released so it is difficult to judge its market impact. It is being created by an alliance of Nokia and Intel, with Intel planning to use it on netbooks and tablets, and Nokia targeting its next generation N series. MeeGo is a fusion of the Intel Moblin OS and the Nokia Maemo OS. It supports a range of architectures including ARM and Intel processors.
At the moment, the programming environment is slightly underdeveloped. The SDK includes Qt and the Touch Framework, and runs on a Linux workstation. Applications are written in C/C++. A programmer can use both Clutter and GTK+ to create user interfaces. The emulator is very general and not targeted at any particular device.
MeeGo is an open source project and is basically just a Linux distribution. Programmers can download the source code and modify it. In practice, MeeGo will be highly customised when running on a particular device and the customised version’s source code is unlikely to be available.
Currently, Nokia is suggesting that the Ovi Store is where MeeGo apps will be sold and Intel is offering its AppUp facility for its MeeGo devices.
It is still too early a stage in MeeGo’s development to make hard and fast pronouncements on what it is worth. It clearly has the potential to become an operating system on a range of devices. If Nokia does use it in a successful next generation N series phone, then its potential market could be very big indeed. At the moment, however, none of the partners in the MeeGo project are offering much in the way of incentives for developers to consider the platform.badabada is an OS created by Samsung and available on the Wave S8500, a touchscreen phone.
The Bada OS uses a C++ based application programming interface (API) and the SDK, which includes an emulator, can be downloaded free of cost. The emulator only runs on Windows XP or later. A user interface builder is used to create the interface. There are lots of tutorials and even a free book at the Samsung website.
Samsung also offers a lot of prizes in a competition to build the best apps in various categories. The company had sold a miillion bada phones by July this year (2010) and hopes to have 7,000 apps available in its app store by the end of the year.
The bada seller office is the only source of applications for bada devices. Developers have to submit their applications for approval and the whole process is much like it is in the Apple App Store.
There are criticisms of bada – its sensor application programming interface is closed; apps can’t access SMS and so on.
The question is, can Samsung make it big enough?