“Is the Mobile Web Dead?” – enough already!

EclecticGuy April 15, 2008 blog, mobile, rant, technology 1 Comment

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I’ve noticed more and more doom & gloom blog posts and other writings about the death of the Mobile Web and/or mobile applications. Enough Already! Here is my take on what is going on and why mobile has taken so long to flourish.

1) Mobile device manufacturers are keeping tight controls on application development on their platforms

With the exception of Apple’s iPhone and the future possibility of Google’s Android, developers have to jump through hoops and pay for the privilege of developing on the platform. Talk about stifling innovation! These same mobile device manufacturers have not put any significant effort in to improving their Web browsers – the technology that can either make or break the “Mobile Web”. If the mobile browser is inadequate, the mobile browsing experience will suffer and users will not flock to the web. If these platforms were developer friendlier, innovation on the browser would have started sooner. The Mobile Firefox project could provide some relief.

2) The mobile carriers are gouging the market with high cost data services

With the high cost of data services (upwards of $35/month), only hard core technophiles and those with corporate expense accounts can afford/justify it. Think about how ridiculous .25 an SMS message or $10/month for unlimited text messaging is! Text Messaging – the stuff you do for free on IM on your laptop! And with the pitiful browsing support on most handsets, the Mobile Web is not going to drive users to subscribe. The folks at RIM have at least got email “right” and that does indeed drive a lot of corporate usage.

Have the device manufacturers and carriers killed the Mobile Web? I don’t think, so but they have kept it languishing for a long time. Back in 1999, the wireless Palm VII offered the first glimmer of how powerful and simple the Mobile Web could be. The service was $15/month (for the base limited page view service) and special “Web Clipping” apps were required (and there was no fee to develop them). But you know what, they worked really well and a lot of companies jumped on the “PQA” (Palm Query Application) bandwagon. I bought a lot of books from Amazon using the Amazon PQA and finding the nearest Starbucks was dead simple. Without GPS, the Palm VII could locate you based on the cell network – this was in 1999! How cool is that? I finally have this capability again on my iPhone.

I see a change in the tide coming. Firstly, the iPhone is truly spectacular. It tears down the barriers of a closed system – which will allow real unimpeded innovation. It provides an amazing Web browser, the Mobile Safari browser. Granted, Mobile Safari has some limitations in its first release but, wow, what an amazing browser it is. The touch interface is superb and the resolution and colors are spectacular.

Secondly, the carriers are starting to see competitive pricing pressure. Sprint recently announced their Simply Everything Plan that gives unlimited everything – voice, SMS, email, Web browsing, GPS, picture and video messaging – for $99.99/month. Still a big premium to pay but a step in the right direction. Even the iPhone rate plans are attempting to reduce the cost of unlimited data services.

So, what does all this mean? If you’ve ever used a Palm VII, Blackberry or, especially, an iPhone, you know how convenient and powerful mobile Web, email and data services done “right” can be. The iPhone is mere weeks away from ripping down the walls that have held in innovation for too long, Android will (hopefully) follow within a year. We are not hearing the last gasps of the Mobile Web, rather, I am reminded of that scene at the end of Braveheart when William Wallace takes in a breath of air and clearly yells … “FREEDOM”!

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One Response to ““Is the Mobile Web Dead?” – enough already!”

  1. James said:

    Oct 30, 08 at 7:11 am

    Yeah – so only as much as the “web was dead” in 1995 when the browsers were poor, modems were expensive, there wasn’t much content, and the on-line world was ruled by the business models of AOL and Compuserve.

    40 years ago we sat around a lonely radio in the living room to listen to recorded music. Now music is everywhere, pervasive, er, mobile.

    The web is no different. Today’s lonely sedentary web experience is directly analogous to our forbears sitting in the corner of a room to listen to music. But the web wants to be everywhere, pervasive, er, mobile.

    Its gradual untethering – to become the mobile web – is inevitable. 10 years, and we’ll think it hilarious that we ever thought differently.

    (I hope no-one doubts it simply because of the parochial business models and power struggles of today’s current ecosystem.)

    So yes, I think you’re right in your analysis.

    The rise and rise of sites that are made-for-mobile (indeed, even made-for-iPhone) have already busted the myth that a browser’s ability to render any type of markup means that the user on the other side of the screen (a human!) will actually be getting what they want.

    If a mobile human is equally satisfied by a service that was designed for a non-mobile human, then it can only be by chance.

    That’s when the mobile web will really excel: when people start to treat it as the unique, ubiquitous medium that it really is – rather than some poor pastiche of their current comfort zone.

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