Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

I’ve written many blog posts and articles for magazines about the mobile Web. It’s a subject that I’m quite passionate about and one that Segala invests heavily in by helping to create W3C standards. We’re also investing heavily in testing and certification products for mobile Web standards compliance, which help our partners to deliver services in this area.

This post has two messages.

1. Why I think the Web is likely to become more readily available with the launch of Apple’s iPhone as it acts as a new benchmark for the industry.
2. Why I’ve now got second thoughts about buying an iPhone.

End users now realising the difference between WAP (premium content created specifically for mobile phones) and the open Web is the main reason I think the iPhone will act as a new benchmark for the industry.

Take a look at the comments on an older post if you want to read what some very qualified people think. Be warned, the comments alone total more than 17,000 words, but as I said, they’re very qualified sources and people I respect from companies such as Microsoft, Google, .mobi, MobileAware and Opera.

Until now, I’ve been hearing the same argument against small screens, standard-less browsers, speeds and price points, as I did during my AOL days in the mid 90’s. People need to look forward. The growth rate of Mobile technology improvements in particular, is far greater than any other major landscape change in IT.

I also had a run in with the CTO of Mozilla (owner of Firefox) on the BIMA blog that I edit, but I was proved right when Mozilla canned it’s mobile browser just weeks after my post. Interestingly, I used the iPhone back then to demonstrate how the Web will appear on phones.

I also believe the iPhone will help the Web become more accessible to people in developing countries. I’m not saying people in India will now access the Web through an iPhone. What I am saying is that mobile vendors will now need to wake up and start designing phones are are more supportive of Web browsing and are extremely easy to use. Mobile networks are cheaper than fixed line networks, so users are more likely to use a mobile than a PC. As Bill Gates once said (either that or I had a dream and came up with a great quote):

If I had a choice, I’d put a mobile phone in the hands of every customer, not a PC.

BANGALORE, India (AFP) - Google vice president and chief Internet evangelist Vinton G. Cerf has predicted that mobile phones, not personal computers, will fuel growth of the worldwide web as countries like India snap up millions of handsets monthly.

From 50 million in 1997, the number of people who have logged onto the Internet has exploded to nearly 1.1 billion, Cerf, who is considered one of the founding fathers of the Internet, said Tuesday.

Yet, the Internet only reaches a sixth of the world’s population, Cerf told reporters during a visit to this southern city, known as India’s Silicon Valley, where Google has a research and development facility.

You will get those other 5.5 billion people only when affordability increases and the cost of communication goes down,” said Cerf, 63, who joined Google in 2005. “The mobile phone has become an important factor in the Internet revolution.

I can’t help but feel that Operators will soon be forced into providing lower data tariffs when customers demand and consume more data through surfing the Web also. The iPhone demonstrates that it is feasible to browse the Web from a small screen. It’s not just about the weather and train timetables as I’ve previously stated when debating with my colleagues in the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (where I’m a member of the Steering Council and Segala is a founding sponsor and co-editor of the conformance document).

So, will you buy an iPhone? Steve Clayton says he’s not interested. After reading his post, I was reminded of how much I really hated the LG Chocolate device, which also has a touch screen. In fact, his opinion persuaded me to rethink my position on the iPhone. The LG was so annoying that I still have marks on the wall where it received a well deserved bashing every other week. The trouble is, it took a while before I grew to hate it. I wonder if the same will be said for the iPhone.

Carly Taylor from mobile operator Three made a similar statement to Steve regarding the slow response of text messaging. In an email to the Mobile Monday list, Carl wrote

One point that takes away some of the shine for the cool types who will buy it for its looks:

• My experience was that the touch UI is poor for texting.
• No feel, and fingernails get in the way (bad for most women).
• For volume text addicts this will turn them off quickly.

This has also got me thinking, as it’s something that would bug the hell out of me. In fact, I think this issue alone would turn me off the iPhone.

So, my verdict is to wait for feedback from people who have used it as their daily lifestyle device for a few months. I’d like to hear what users think about the slow texting and annoying touch screen quirks when the novelty has worn off.

Are you going to buy one?

I would greatly appreciate some help with my new Mac. I’m currently in a W3C meeting so I’m unable to call anyone, or drop into a Mac store.

All my files and preferences for everything are gone. For example, my email client is asking me to setup accounts and my browsers don’t appear to have any history or passwords stored. The bin is empty so I’m confident (hoping!) my stuff hasn’t been deleted.

It’s as if I’m using a PC and have signed in as a new user. I’m the only user setup on this machine.

Is it obvious that it has been 12 years since I last used a Mac?! It’ll be another 12 years before I use this again if everything is gone for good.
Please feel free to comment on this blog and/or on my Facebook note where I’ve also solicited help.

Thanks in advance!

I’m reading more and more reports coming in that O2 is going to sell the Apple iPhone in the UK. However, this doesn’t make sense to me because it’ll mean users will have open access to the Web and quickly realise that iMode (premium content which makes up for most of O2’s data revenue) isn’t what they want. What they’re looking for is the ability to access whatever Web site they want and not just what O2 want them (you) to see.

Then again, if O2 is to ship the all singing and all dancing device, they’re likely to either remove the Web browser altogether, or make it difficult to find. This approach isn’t unusual for Operators when installing their own ‘variant software’ before distribution to retail outlets. Just because mobile vendors include specific applications, it doens’t mean Operators will include them when selling on to customers.

O2 is certainly not likely to place the Web and iMode browsers where they have equal prominence. Or are they? Perhaps they productised iMode to make it’s proposition more attractive to Telefonica and now realise it’s time to offer off-portal content.

The last time I wrote about the Mobile Web vs the Mobile Internet (cough; premium WAP stuff) I received a stunning word count of more than 17,000 words in comments alone. That’s a small book. To add to this, they were from very qualified people I trust at organisations such as Google, MobileAware, .mobi, WURFL and Opera. As a founding member of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative Steering Council, this is a subject close to my heart. It’s an area which attracts a lot of much needed debate too, which I quite like.

In short, I haven’t seen the iPhone yet, but I’ve always believed (before Apple announced its launch) that it will revolutionise how people perceive, consume and create content for small devices such as PDAs and mobile phones. It will demonstrate that the Mobile Web is not only about train timetables and weather information for business people traveling from Slough to London, as most mobile specific experts seem to believe.

There are more people in the world without access to the Web than there are who do. Most of these people live in developing countries. They’re likely to use mobile devices as their primary access point to the Web as it’s cheaper to roll out mobile networks than it is fixed line. Don’t be fooled into thinking users in developing countries don’t use the latest devices either, because they do. They’re fantastic early adopters.

If we were to sneeze in the European mobile market today, the US would catch a cold 2 to 3 years later. However, this may soon change with the release of the iPhone if the yanks finally realise the full potential of mobile devices and how they can engage consumers. As I see it, the iPhone is on par with the release of the first Intel Pentium chip, which helped to revolutionise our thought process regarding the capabilities of personal computers and the applications that could run on them.

If you decide to take a look at my original post about Mobile Web vs Mobile Internet, make sure to read the comments as they splintered off into a separate conversation to the original post. Even the original title is a little different to the main conversation.

OR

I was astonished to read (on Dan’s blog) that Mozilla doesn’t think users want to access the Web on mobile devices. Hence my picture above of what Mozilla must have in mind when it comes to the Web on the move, anytime, anywhere.

Dan was commentating on the Browser Panel at SXSW which was run by Arun from AOL (a colleague of mine from the W3C MWI). My buddy Charles from Opera took part too.

Brendan Eich, CTO of Mozilla is the reason for this post though. According to Dan, Brendan said

I don’t believe people are going to browse the Web on their phone. I don’t believe people want to use Wikipedia from their phone.

I’m absolutely amazed by Brendan’s view and I sincerely hope it’s his personal view and not Mozilla’s. Otherwise this $300m business faces the prospect of ending up in the bin alongside it’s parent, Netscape. For a guy who’s incredibly smart working for an organisation that has gained a market share of 10% to 12% of desktop browsers within 2 years, his comments are a little surprising to say the least. Brendan’s comments in my opinion, lack vision. Hell, they lack logic.

I couldn’t disagree more with Brendan. There are more people in the world who don’t have access to the Web than there are people who do. Of those people, most of them are in developing countries. The vast majority of them are extremely likely to use a mobile devices as their primary access point to the Web as it’s more difficult and more expensive to roll out fix lined networks than it is mobile.

Google announced some statistics recently that back up my view. BANGALORE, India (AFP) - Google vice president and chief Internet evangelist Vinton G. Cerf has predicted that mobile phones, not personal computers, will fuel growth of the worldwide web as countries like India snap up millions of handsets monthly.

From 50 million in 1997, the number of people who have logged onto the Internet has exploded to nearly 1.1 billion, Cerf, who is considered one of the founding fathers of the Internet, said Tuesday.

Yet, the Internet only reaches a sixth of the world’s population, Cerf told reporters during a visit to this southern city, known as India’s Silicon Valley, where Google has a research and development facility.

Worldwide there are 2.5 billion mobile-phone users, whose numbers are growing rapidly in developing countries led by China and India, the world’s most populous countries, Cerf said in his presentation.

India, a country of 1.1 billion people, alone is adding seven million mobile-phone users a month, a powerful enough lure for British telecom giant Vodafone to pay 11.1 billion dollars for a controlling stake in local mobile firm Hutch-Essar this month. Read the original new article.

I feel so strongly about helping to bring the Web to more people, I decided to become a founding sponsor of the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI). One of the goals of the MWI is to create best practice guidelines to help developers build Web sites that will work on desktop computers, but importantly, work better on mobile devices too.

Other founding sponsors include Vodafone Group, Nokia, HP, Opera, MobileAware, ftgroup and Volantis. Other active participants within the initiative include companies such as AOL, .mobi, Google and Telefonica.

One of my recent posts amassed a staggering word count that exceeded 17,000, with comments from Google, .mobi, Opera, WURFL and more. I had to splinter the conversation into a different post which is still ongoing and awaiting a response from me.

The mobile web is a hot topic and there’s always room for disagreement. However, I’m still amazed to hear the fastest growing desktop browser say that it doesn’t think people will want to use a mobile to browse the Web. Perhaps they should have a chat with Apple.

Mozilla, I love what you’re doing. Hell, we’ve got a cool Firefox extension ourselves. However, please pull your head out of the sand if you really believe mobile is only for calling your granny.

Thanks to Keith Waters (France Telecom) for the picture above.