Back To School Mobility

According to this CNET article, students going back to college are gravitating toward mobility - laptops, smartphones and digital cameras.

Nine of Amazon.com's 10 best-selling PCs are laptops, dominated by Toshiba's satellite and Apple's MacBook. As notebook technology ages, prices have dropped, allowing for more to be purchased.

The most surprising development has occurred with smartphones. The market is becoming younger and younger as more text messaging teens and twenty-somethings are taking advantage of the full QWERTY keyboards and the mobile web. Just a few years ago only suit laden businessmen and women could be seen on the streets glued to their PDA. Now, more students are finding a need to take advantage of various PDA's numerous features.

With these continuing patterns, the future of the Mobile Web seems to be in great shape.

Smartphones - Why Does Size Matter (and what does it mean for the Mobile Web)?

According to this Wirelessweek article, screen size is the key factor to a successful smartphone. Smartphone sales are ramping up; their sales have grown by 50% over the last year, distributing over 72.9 million units. Gartner even estimates that 450 million smartphones will be shipped internationally by 2010. This is a huge number, and a great indicator of the power of the Mobile Web.
A study by Berg Insight predicts that 113 million smartphones will be sold this year, reaching 365 million units in 2012.

According to Thomas Thornton, a senior research scientist at Perceptive Sciences in Austin, Texas, screen size matters. As the screen size increases, the displayed content also increases. Thus, popular websites like MySpace and YouTube can be accessed with higher quality displays. With the screen resolution available on some smartphones, specifically the iPhone, loads of multimedia options are readily available.

Also, with the developing high speed wireless broadband networks emerging, the experience on a smartphone will further resemble the experience through a wired connection. As more and more smartphones are sold, the Mobile Web will inevitably develop. If the goal is for the "Mobile Web" and "Web" to converge and have the experience be consistent, then larger displays on smartphones will be necessary. With the hardware keyboard taking up valuable real estate on the phone's body, the most logical solution is to implement a software solution, much like the iPhone. Another solution, as seen on AT&T's 8525, can be a sliding keyboard, but this just creates a brick of a phone - and there's nothing hip about a square smartphone.

Mobile Tech Daily

Testing, testing. This blog will chronicle my exploration into the Mobile Technology sector. It will be focused on upcoming mobile technologies - phones/smartphones, pda's, laptops and other gear, nationwide networks, emerging standards, chipsets, telecom companies, etc. Here you will find my thoughts on data transfer in general - its convergence toward the mobile space and who's playing a big role bringing it there. From iPhones to WiMax, Mobile Tech Daily will provide interesting and insightful commentary.