http://www.mobilestartup.com/ The Journal of a Mobile Startup en Copyright 2007 Tue, 03 Jul 2007 06:30:40 -0800 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420+ (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/1A543a Safari/419.3 For statistics purposed you might want to be detecting this as a phone or PDA, but for rendering it should be treated just as any desktop browser; one that doesn't support flash. There is no WML or xHTML-MP support, and from a mobile content provider standpoint, there is not a lot you can do with the iPhone. Just feed it regular HTML or xHTML pages. Also note that the iPhone is not using the AT&T mobile gateway so you are not going to get any of the headers that tip you off that it's a mobile device; not even an x-up-subno. Good thing it supports cookies, although as always I recommend session tracking for all mobile devices using URL rewriting. Right now it's obvious that the iPhone is coming from AT&T, but as other network operators launch it, it may become difficult to detect the network operator due to lack of headers. You can track the remote-host or remote-addr, but if the phone is in WiFi mode, you are going to end up with Host/IP data that doesn't map to a network operator.]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/07/apple_iphone_device_detection.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/07/apple_iphone_device_detection.html Tue, 03 Jul 2007 06:30:40 -0800 Here are some random thoughts/observations about the iPhone now that it's launched. As someone who has a daily hands-on experience with a ton of different mobile devices, hopefully I've got something to add to what's already been written. - EDGE network. No thanks. You couldn't get me to plop down $50 for an EDGE phone, let alone $500. I don't want to hear about WiFi either. WiFi is not a mobile technology and I need to connect when I am mobile. I use my phone to connect my laptp to the internet when I'm on the road (don't think you can do that with the iPhone either, for sure not with Bluetooth like my LG CU500) - SIM Cards. I've seen it written in a few places on the web that you can't take the SIM out of the iPhone. Yes you can. The iPhone is using OEM parts, and an OEM SIM cradle, just like every other phone. Just poke a paperclip in the little hole on top and your SIM will pop out. Maybe you still have the paperclip you used with your first Mac for getting 3 inch floppies out of the drive. - AT&T's data network was down (in Seattle at least) today from around 12:00 til 2:00 ish. I and several others that I checked with weren't able to get any data at all on phones or iPhones. We weren't able to get any data even in the downtown AT&T store. Was this due to the sudden influx of iPhone owners using their phones for the first time away from their WiFi networks? - No iSync over Bluetooth? (Yes, I'd like to return this iPhone please.) - Not to be totally negative; the user interface is stunning. This is definitely the best iPod ever. http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/07/has_the_revolution_started_yet.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/07/has_the_revolution_started_yet.html Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:12:39 -0800 .mobi domain for their site. I've given this a lot of thought lately and have discussed the benefits of having specific domain names for a mobile site with colleagues and have come to form the following opinion about domain names in regard to mobile sites: The domain name of your mobile site is only relevant insomuch that it is relevant to mobile search engines. So the top level domain (i.e. .com, .net, .mobi) probably doesn't make a whole lot of difference. Here's my argument; domain names are not a good way of addressing content. Entering a domain name into your desktop browser is an easy thing to do, and if you are not sure of the spelling or can't remember the address perfectly, it's no big deal to try until you get it right. Companies like Marchex are making bank on the fact that some people will just type in www..com when they are looking for information on whatever. This is not the case with a mobile browser. Mobile users are not going to risk entering a domain name that they don't know for sure is going to take them to the content they want. If the domain name is a long one they might not even be willing to enter it at all. No, the way that we navigate to content on mobile devices for the most part is going to be search. This is becoming clear and we are starting to see a lot of press and recent renewed focus on mobile search because of it. So if the mechanism for finding information/content on a mobile browser is search, you need to be making sure your content is relevant, not your top level domain. While the mobile search engines do give weight to the words that appear in your domain name, it's apparent that they do not discriminate based on top level domains. Why would they. Having a .mobi TLD does not ensure that the content is mobile content, just look at http://pc.mtld.mobi . No, the way they determine the content type of your site is by looking at the doctype of your page. So if TLDs are irrelevant to the mobile search engines, the primary user interface for finding content, you are just as well off with a $.99 .info domain from GoDaddy as you are with the $18.99 .mobi domain for your mobile site. ]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/04/whither_mobi.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/04/whither_mobi.html Fri, 27 Apr 2007 16:45:53 -0800 If you are doing any mobile website development where you are using device detection or adaptive content, you know how unreasonable it is to use a mobile phone/device to test your site live. There are a few plugins that you can use with Firefox that allow you to basically emulate a live mobile device. These shouldn't be used in place of actual live device testing but for testing while developing, these have been invaluable to me. Firefox Plugins:

• wmlbrowser - Add WML markup support to your browser.
• XHTML Mobile Profile - Add xHTML MP support to your browser.
• User Agent Switcher - Use this plugin to send the user-agent string of whichever mobile browser you want to emulate. Try a diverse range of user-agents to make sure your app can handle all the different formats.
• ModifyHeaders - Allows you to spoof headers. Use this to add an x-up-subno, x-wap-profile, etc. header to your browser session so your app thinks you are coming from a network operators proxy.

With these few Firefox plugins you can get close enough to looking like whichever mobile device you'd like without having to suffer the delay of testing with a real phone.]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/04/firefox_plugins_for_mobile_web.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/04/firefox_plugins_for_mobile_web.html Mon, 09 Apr 2007 07:24:34 -0800 So despite what I was told by T-Mobile, it looks now like if you have an unlimited plan, you can access the net again using your third party applications. What hasn't been mentioned much on any of the news sites is that T-Mobile is disabling their feature phones from allowing network access. Most if not all of the T-Mobile phones that we have profiled in the last 6 months have not allowed network access. The phones either have the network access permisions disabled or the phones simply will not connect.
Anyone out there have any insight into why T-Mobile would want to close off their network to 3rd party application and game developers? Unless it is some very poorly (in my opinion) take on the market and what customers want, I'm forced to suspect it has to be network related.
Are we really back to closed gardens again? We can work around it, even though it's a pain, but mobile games are going multi-player, applications are going networked and have been for a few years. Why would T-Mobile take themselves out of the eco-system like this?]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/03/tmobile_us_woes.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/03/tmobile_us_woes.html Tue, 13 Mar 2007 21:49:14 -0800 We had a really great turnout for Monday's Mobile Monday meeting here in Seattle. Over 55 people showed up to network and hear some great presentations from AdMob and Telephia. It's always great to meet new people and hear about what mobile companies in the Seattle area are doing. Seattle isn't Silicon Valley but there is a very good sized mobile industry here. The Seattle Mobile Monday seems to finally be hitting critical mass. We are getting a great turnout at all the events and I think the word is getting out that we are here. I credit the free beer, so we are going to try to keep that going. We have started to get a lot of interest from potential sponsors, so we might be doing some nice events this year. Thanks to everyone who showed up on a cold Monday, and especially Mike Mettler and Zubair from AdMob and Levi Shapiro from Telephia for their great presentations.]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/02/great_meeting_monday_night.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/02/great_meeting_monday_night.html Wed, 28 Feb 2007 12:39:08 -0800
February's Mobile Monday Seattle is being held tonight at the Harbor Steps. We haven't had a meeting with presenters in a few months so I'm excited about this month's meeting. We've got a couple of great presenters lined up: AdMob will be giving a presentation about their mobile advertising network and Telephia will be talking about their mobile metrics data solutions as well as sharing some current mobile market data. Should be a great meeting. We are back at the Harbor Steps this month which means there will be beer and wine available as well as snacks.
If you are in the Seattle area, this should be a great meeting. Please pass the info along to anyone you like. Here is the link for more info: Mobile Monday Seattle]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/02/mobile_monday_seattle.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2007/02/mobile_monday_seattle.html Mon, 26 Feb 2007 07:00:43 -0800 http://www.flickr.com/photos/sgotterbarn/270203969/]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/10/motorola_brick_halloween_costu.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/10/motorola_brick_halloween_costu.html Mon, 16 Oct 2006 12:02:58 -0800 http://www.mariotapia.com/photos/momo_la_at_cit/index.html
Update: There is also an article up on the Mobile Monday main site.
http://www.mobilemonday.net/mm/story.php?story_id=4973]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/09/momo_la_ctia.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/09/momo_la_ctia.html Mon, 18 Sep 2006 09:12:29 -0800 Mobile Monday LA at the Finnish Consulate General's house in Bel Air (very nice) and that went until about 10:00, so I wasn't able to get over to any other parties. LA is so spread out, that it just takes forever to get from one place to the other. The Mobile Monday event was great. It was nice to be able to meet the guys who run Mobile Monday in Finland, where it started. Had some good meetings as well and the show floor was a nice manageable size and the Staples center was was pretty nice compared to other venues (although $2.53 for a can or pop? c'mon). Shows like CTIA are great for getting a chance to meet face to face with people from companies and customers that I otherwise get few chances to meet. Also nice to be able to see folks who I don't get a chance to see much: friends, colleagues and people from other Mobile Mondays. I spent the entire time in meetings or focusing on Mobile Research business so didn't get a very good view of what else was going on. That's the problem with running a business; there is never a good time for anything else. =) Also, there was a ninja. ]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/09/ctia_trip.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/09/ctia_trip.html Sun, 17 Sep 2006 12:08:18 -0800

We'll be the CTIA Wireless IT conference in Los Angeles next week Mon 11 - Thur 14. I am giving a presentation at the LA Mobile Monday mixert on Tuesday night at the Finish consulate. It is promising to be a great mixer.
If you are attending the show and are interested in meeting up to discuss what we are doing at Mobile Research, please feel free to contact me.]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/09/well_be_at_ctia_conference_nex.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/09/well_be_at_ctia_conference_nex.html Fri, 08 Sep 2006 09:33:46 -0800
I've finally moved to a 3G phone. I am a Cingular customer so I've been waiting for 3G for a while, while my friends and colleagues who are Verizon and Sprint customers get to play with their EV-DO phones. Cingular finally rolled out UMTS a few months ago and has a couple of phones available. I've got an old Motorola a845 UMTS phone but that thing is a brick. So I decided to use the LG CU500 for my personal phone (we have had them in house for testing for a while). Normally I'm a Nokia user, have been since the 8290 came out about 6 years ago, but Cingular is only offering the LG and the Samsung ZX10. I've had enough testing time with Samsungs to avoid that one. The LG CU500 is sweet. I am able to use it as a high speed connection (HSDPA) for my laptop via bluetooth. I am able to get over 600kbps download speeds (According to the Speakeasy speed test ). I think that is probably constricted by the Bluetooth and guess I could probably do better if I was to use the USB cable. The really great thing though is I am now able to connect to the internet, anywhere in the Cingular UMTS network. No more being pissed off at the airport becuase the there's no free WiFi. I'm pretty happy with the LG CU500 as a phone as well. It's my first flip-phone. I've always been a fan of the candy-bar form afactor. The jury is still out on the reception. It's a pretty well thought out user experience as well and I have been very pleased with how easy the interface is to navigate and how well thought out everything is. The only real downside so far is the battery life. I've taken to turning the Bluetooth off when not using it, but the batter life is still not stellar compared to my previous phone, the Nokia 6682. So I am a believer in 3G now. No way I could go back to GPRS. After almost 7 years, WAP is FINALLY usuable!]]> http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/08/3g_finally.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/08/3g_finally.html Sat, 19 Aug 2006 11:58:47 -0800 I've taken a few month hiatus from blogging. I've had friends and colleagues ask me if it was blog-burnout or worse. The truth is that my blogging software corrupted the database and I haven't been able to post since April. I've made a few attempts at fixing it, but nothing has worked. Finally this weekend I've had enough spare time on my hands to upgrade the software. It is still using the default style sheets but I'm hoping to get it looking the way I'd like this week. I also need to migrate what's left of the old blog over to this one. Lot's of exciting things going on in mobile right now and also with Mobile Research. We've got a couple of new partnerships that we'll be announcing in the weeks leading up to CTIA in early September as well as some new product. http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/08/test.html http://www.mobilestartup.com/2006/08/test.html Sun, 06 Aug 2006 15:58:24 -0800