Just catching up with some links. Worth noting is that over half the world's Internet users now use only a phone for access, according to Tomi T Ahonen, reporting on an OPK interview. Tomi's the right person to believe when big numbers are being bandied around, of course, even if the headline is set to shock most Western geeks.
Read on in the full article.
I hope this will correct any out of date views people have about accessing the internet via a mobile phone. It's the dominant method, full stop. We're seeing the natural evolution of computers too - what people are still naturally calling 'mobile phones' are in fact the true personal computer, far more so than the big grey box under your desk running the clunky operating system ever was or will be. Sure UI paradigms and use cases change, in the same way that we did not all have to flick switches and load paper cards to use the PC. This generation of personal computer will offer far more potential than PCs ever did.
Critics of Nokia miss the point in their tech-geek lust for iPhone and Android shininess. Nokia are to be highly commended for helping power this revolution on two main fronts - firstly by putting webkit into S40 phones (and previous efforts to make non smartphones more high powered) and secondly (along with the Symbian Foundation's stated intentions) for pushing smartphones hard down into the lower end, cheap, mass market. This is SO much more important for almost all the world's mobile users, for who iPhone and Androids are basically irrelevant and always will be.
Can you imagine the health and safety problems of spending a full working day every day working on a phone sized workstation? I use dual 19 inch screens, a sepeaate mouse and ergo keyboad. The clunk OS is Snow Leapard and there is no box under the desk because everything is in the monitor. The processor, RAM and storage is like nothing ever imagined in a portable handset.
I can see the day arriving when the portable mobile device can be docked and will be the processor and storage for a proper workstation, but a compromised squinty/scrolly display isn't going to be any kind of multi window workstation any time soon. Even with some knd of Borg'd retinal projection technology. If I have have no other choice (rare) I use the phone and then only for brief lookups. When there is a big screen available it is infinitely superior, and the only place I will work for a sustained period.
@ 2nd unregistered:
> "Can you imagine the health and safety problems of spending a full working day every day working on a phone sized workstation?"
Oh dear, you really don't get it do you? Like I said in the 1st post above, UI paradigms and use cases change with each generation of personal computer. I'll go back a computer generation or two and consider the home PC in light of the old room-sized computers, and ask "Can you imagine the health and safety problems of trying to fit all the generators, punched card readers, and staff to operate all teh equipment, in the bedroom of a suburban house? All that heat and noise would make people ill and disturb the neighbours! Not to mention the fire risk from all those valves - you could burn down an entire street!"
There, get my point? 😉
There is no problem if fifty percent of the world population intends to get internet-accessed through their phone. It allows them to minimize their internet bills they ought to pay in the cafe. It also let them get accessed wherever they are with just a browse through their phones.