The Praized Blog

It seems like everyone is excited about the new iPhone that was introduced by Apple on Monday (many people are actually calling it the Jesusphone) but I think everyone’s missing the big picture.

Flickr photo by nedrichards

What triggered those thoughts was today’s blog post from Mashable, discussing what was really revolutionary about the new iPhone:

And, The Really Big Thing About The New iPhone Is… GPS. Global Positioning System . Geo-anything. Location based services. (…) Why hasn’t all this happened before? Three words: ease of use. While you could have done all these things for the Symbian or Blackberry or Windows ME platforms (provided the device had GPS capabilities), it just took too many clicks and required too much fidgeting for any of it to get mass appeal.

I actually agree with that statement. The iPhone is well designed, it’s very easy to use, it’s now location-aware and the touchscreen navigation is amazing…

BUT…

• RIM (Blackberry) is working on a similar device
• Nokia is working on a similar device
• Samsung is working on a similar device
• HTC is probably working on a similar device
• Google might be working on a GooglePhone

I give kudos to Apple for innovating, creating a user-focused device and forcing change in a market that badly needed the kick in the pants but, the same way the social Web is not about Facebook, Friendfeed or Twitter, the mobile Web is not about Apple and the iPhone. It’s about permanent change in the way we access the mobile Web and that’s good. But, it’s certainly not about the iPhone…

Update1: David Pogue from the New York Times reviews the Samsung Instinct.

As this week’s Mobile World Congress slowly winds down (tomorrow’s the last day), I thought it was appropriate to summarize the top 10 trends of the conference as identified by Infoworld magazine.

1. GPS on board. Amongst the manufacturers, Nokia “plans to sell 35 million phones with GPS” this year.
2. Better cameras with “face detection, image stabilization, and the ability to take better pictures in the dark”.
3. Linux. Google Android prototypes. ’nuff said.
4. Movies on your phone.
5. Geotagging that “combines built-in support for navigation and photography. When you take a picture, your location is also saved. Then you can overlay that information on services like Google Maps and see where you’ve been.”
6. Windows Mobile. “Four out of five of the biggest phone makers have phones based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile operating system”
7. High-speed mobile Internet
8. Wi-Fi on board.
9. FM transmitters.
10. Touch-based interfaces.

What it means: phones are becoming more and more like mini-portable computers and trying to be at the center of your mobile life. In addition, more GPS on board and the geotagging functionality are very exciting stuff for a local search freak like me! I was also intrigued by the better face detection. Expect a day where you can take a picture of someone and, with his/her permission, become a “friend” in a social network…

Nokia announced this morning at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona the launch of their Maps 2.0 service, for its Series 60 and 40 phones. According to the BBC News Web site,

Nokia has launched navigation tools designed to make the paper street map obsolete for pedestrians. The firm’s next generation of digital maps gives real-time walking directions on the mobile phone screen, just like sat-nav systems which guide drivers. “Nokia is taking navigation services out of the car so it can always be with you,” said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and CEO of the firm. “Struggling with oversized paper maps will become a thing of the past.”

What it means: another local application attached to mobile devices. This one is squarely competing against any mapping web site or any site that relies heavily on mapping as a main attraction. It could also be a threat to paper travel guides (see also Travel Guides Still Selling Well, Saved by Portability) (pictures by Nokia)

CNET’s News.com reports on a new forecast from Swedish analyst firm Berg Insight predicting that “the number of GPS-enabled handsets is set to more than triple during the next five years”.

Growth in the GPS-handset user base should also lead to more applications that use such information, Malm (a telecommunications analyst at Berg Insight) added, pointing to the success of currently available location-based services like Google Maps. “Perhaps it is not right to call them services, but small apps that use location as a filter or enhancement–we will see a lot of that going forward, once developers and users get more used to using location,” he said.

Berg’s press release adds “The availability of accurate position data in mobile devices creates exciting new opportunities for developers of local search, navigation and social networking applications”, said Mr Malm. “Nokia and Google will be two of the foremost players in this arena but there is a good chance that the development will also give birth to the next Facebook or MySpace.”

Flickr photo by Jimmy_Joe

What it means: I am truly excited about these numbers as local, social and mobile combined really has the potential to create the next big web phenomenon. But one thing concerns me currently in that space: the creation of an even playing field. In 1995, barriers to entry on the World Wide Web were low (even non-existent) and allowed the creation of Yahoo and eBay (current combined market cap: $67B). Still today, the barriers to entry for new Web projects remain very low. It’s not the same in mobile where there are a lot of gatekeepers. Handset manufacturers and Telcos come to mind, but the position of strength major portals and search engines enjoy through their relationships with the aforementioned gatekeepers make their stranglehold very difficult to break. Because of that, I wonder if we will see a real innovation burst in mobile/local in the short term. It will come, I have no doubt about it, but it might not come as quickly as it potentially could be.

(via eWeek and Reuters)

Nokia said on Oct. 1 it will offer $8.1 billion for U.S.-based digital map supplier Navteq in one of its largest takeovers ever, but its shares fell as analysts dubbed the deal “expensive.” The acquisition would give the world’s top cellphone maker—which is looking for new revenue sources as the cellphone industry matures—a stronghold in the navigation business, one of the fastest-growing segments in the technology industry.

What it means: in a deal that underlines the importance of mobile in the local space (and vice-versa!), Nokia makes its biggest bet so far and buys an important piece of the local search ecosystem. I think it confirms some of the things I was writing about last week in my When will Mobile Become the Next Big Thing? post.