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Is an era of open-ness in mobile upon us?

Started by brisbourne · 6 months ago

In a good sign for the mobile eco-system T-Mobile is planning to open an app platform for all their phones. This is good news because mobile apps have historically been a graveyard for entrepreneurs and investors and like the Apple App Store the T-Mobile open app platform takes out one of the big b ... Continue reading »

5 comments

  • jamescoops

    10 months ago

    It's been obvious for a while now that operators should focus on search and discovery on their portals and push everything else down the value chain to developers, media companies etc. imode in Japan followed this model years ago - basically it was just a directory of third party sites. However, we will have see if T-Mobile manage to produce a decent open app store within the next 18 months but the track record suggests not...
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  • Neil Mendoza

    10 months ago

    I think it was probably Google that inspired all this movement towards an open app platform with Android: http://code.google.com/android/ Apple probably realised that they had to open up their platform or risk loosing customers when Android handsets come on the market in the near future.
    reply
  • Dino Joannides

    10 months ago

    Google Android Open ? Apple iPhone Open ? I think relatively closed is a better description.
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  • nic

    10 months ago

    Hi Dino - tks for all the comments, and listening to some Piano as I right.

    To your last point - Google Android and Apple iPhone are big advances in open-ness from the current situation in mobile. Not much compared to open source and where the PC is today admittedly, but a step forward for mobile.
    reply
  • Dino Joannides

    10 months ago

    Nic in what way is Android or iPhone more open than Symbian or Microsoft Mobile 5/6 Pocket PC Phone Edition & Smartphone OS ?

    Lets see what happens with Android Market Store but what is new in terms of the iPhone is that initially Mobile Operators were prepared to share some voice/data revenues with Apple and allow Apple to deliver apps via App Store - however in terms of the former since the launch of the 3G version the old subsidised device model is back and Apple is focused on bigger volume targets.

    In terms of the iPhone yes you can download and SDK and develop tightly controlled apps for the closed OS that Apple uses on the device ! The lack of support for Flash for instance is a clear example of a closed proprietry approach.

    You could argue that what has actually happened is that Apple has simply added another OS to the Smartphone mobile device segment increasing fragmentation. Granted both the Apple OS and Android are likely to move down to the mass market in due course as will Symbian Foundation.
    reply

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