Still, this all got me thinking – why isn’t it possible for my phone or PC to monitor the apps and features I actually use and once I’ve been using it for a certain period of time then offer me a simplicity button which hides the things I never use? Microsoft does have a variation on this with the taskbar on Windows and its “you have unused items on your taskbar” message. However, with Word it would be truly great – a single button to hide all the complexity, cutting things down to a really simple, interface tailored to me. Similarly on the mobile, where UI space is at far more of a premium, it would rid me of everything from SMS delivery reports to the pointless EA Games Pack (which currently has top billing on my phone’s menu).

As per my One Button Phone concept, I’ll stand by the phone for the investors wanting in on my latest big idea.

Apparently nobody in the industry has escaped the dreaded mobile broadband capacity crisis without at least a few sleepless nights. It was only relatively recently that operators were desperately wishing their 3G networks could get a little action. The old adage, be careful what you wish for, has rarely seemed so apt and backhaul providers have been milking it ever since. We once thought a dazzling combination of fibre backhaul and LTE would save the day but it’s becoming clear that data usage is rising much faster than the wireless upgrades. LTE simply isn’t the knight in shining armour coming to rescue us from this crisis.

Naughty HTC Desire

So where does this leave operators? Well, scrapping the all you can eat bundles can only be step one of the strategy. Actually, the data caps aren’t designed to limit the rocketing traffic on mobile broadband networks, they simply allow operators to charge the bandwidth hogs more than the honest Joes who are terrified of being separated from Facebook during their journey to and from work. They actually allow operators to derive more revenues from those who are most responsible for their rising costs (ie. network upgrades). However, if network upgrades won’t resolve the capacity challenge they still have a problem. The likely solution seems to be, at least in a large part, traffic management. This allows operators to improve the consumer’s mobile broadband experience without having to add more capacity. Put simply, it prioritises certain traffic, such as time sensitive voice or video – nobody really minds if their email has a two second delay but that kind of gap in a multimedia session is unbearable.

The interesting thing is that the technology behind traffic management might also present a better solution than data caps. The problem with data caps is consumers don’t really know what, for example AT&T’s new 200Mb limit actually means. In the world of modern smartphones the situation is further complicated as your phone is frequently consuming data even when you’re not using it. Case in point – a friend of mine just got the much lusted after HTC Desire from 3 on tariff with ‘unlimited’ internet which in reality only covers 500Mb. Within one week she received a warning that she was about to exceed her monthly data allowance. She consumed no multimedia. None. She just downloaded and used a small number of apps all of which have been synching and pinging the network non stop. This isn’t an isolated incident either as the Android forums attest.

So what’s the solution? Either, subscribers are going to have to just suck it up and download a data counter app – something that may simply be anathema to the non-tech savvy – or operators could start charging by application rather than data. Traffic management solutions can enable exactly this. Operators could then offer an expensive tariff for the most time sensitive applications, and therefore most network intensive, such as heavy video and VoIP and then offer dirt cheap tariffs for email and basic browsing. Consumers would understand the tariffs (thereby increasing their appeal significantly) as well as receive a user experience tailored for their usage while operators would monetise their networks most effectively and ease the mobile broadband crisis. Trust me, traffic management and the whole issue of network intelligence is set to be the new IMS, WiMAX, UMA .. err rock and roll.

The Dell Streak is much more of a traditional mobile device, with built-in cellular connectivity and the ability to make phone calls. The iPad conversely is not only physically less mobile (being bigger), but only comes with cellular connectivity as an optional extra and even with this is unable to make phone calls.

Dell’s Streak runs Android on a five-inch touch screen and boasts a Qualcomm Snapdragon 1GHz processor, along with 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity as well as GPS.

0range, Vodafone, O2 and 3 are now offering iPad specific tarrifs, with T-Mobile the only one not joining the party (http://www.telecoms.com/20529/3-pushing-tablets-to-uk-users/).

While these new devices might have slightly different dimensions and functions, making them suitable for different uses, what is clear is that neither quite fit in the traditional smartphone or laptop categories. We have had a couple of iPads in the office for a few weeks now and had a chance to play with them.

While the device has some interesting features, such as instant-on and ease of use, making it ideal for hassle-free couch-surfing, I question how much they are likely to get used outside the home. Anyway, it’s certainly a new and interesting market, but we will see over the next few months if there is a need and as such demand for this new category of device.

On a general note, despite rumors before the show that attendee numbers would be down from last year, the show certainly seemed as busy as previously and was definitely more upbeat than 2009’s show.

From our perspective, the major themes at the show were:

Operating systems

• Windows Phone Edition 7 - With a design dating back nearly 10 years, Windows Mobile was well overdue an overhaul. With a dramatic redesign, this is Microsoft’s attempt to both catch up with Android and iPhone from a UI perspective and also to reduce fragmentation across the platform by standardising the look and feel of the OS. We will have to wait and see how much of a success it is, because there aren’t any phones available with the new OS yet.

• Android - A slew of new Android handsets were announced as expected. The majority of these were very similar touch screen offerings of which there are many, though there were some new form factors, most notably the XPERIA X10 Mini Pro from Sony Ericsson. The Nexus One, despite the confusion it might have caused Google’s partners and the wider handset community was undoubtedly a central part of Google’s move to reign in fragmentation on the Android platform, caused by the custom interfaces built by HTC and Motorola among others. However, with a large percentage of the new Android handsets sure to be shipping with custom Android builds, it doesn’t look like this move did much to stem this tide.

Sub-Smartphones

Two significant handset launches at the show heralded the emergence of a new category of handsets - the “sub smartphone”. The Samsung Wave and the HTC Smart both exhibit traits of feature phones and smartphones and they fit somewhere between the two, either as a dumbed down smartphone or souped up featurephone, depending on how you look at it. With the iPhone creating interest for smartphone features such as downloadable applications, there is clearly an opportunity here for handset manufacturers to capitalise on this by bringing these features to cheaper, mass market phones.

Applications

With the launch of the Wholesale Applications Community and the inaugural “App Planet” zone in Hall 7, applications were clearly a hot topic at this year’s show. Contrary to popular belief, Apple didn’t invent the mobile application (just speak to a Java developer if you are unconvinced), but the real success Apple has seen is due to its excellent delivery system which simplifies the discovery, payment and installation of apps to the point where your granny could do it. If anyone else hopes to also succeed in this market, this will be a vital focus for them.

Networks

On the infrastructure side of things, MWC ‘10 wasn’t a vintage year in terms of flashy announcements or big news. However, there was a growing consensus that the ‘capacity crunch’ much touted over the past two or three years by the majority of vendors is finally upon us, with smarter phones and datacards stretching networks to breaking point. What has become clear is that there is no one solution that will provide the instant fix (while retaining the all important profit margins) but rather a combination including the likes of LTE, traffic management and femtocells. While the hype around these technologies was less than in previous years, there was very much a feeling of work being done and progress being made.

HTC

HTC Legend

HTC had a busy day, announcing three new handsets: HD Mini, Desire and Legend. All 3 have GPS, WiFi and dual-band (900/2100MHz) 7.2Mbps HSDPA connectivity but otherwise are quite different. Th HD Mini is effectively a scaled down, powered down version of the HD2 that will be running Windows Mobile 6.5 and will not be receiving an update to the recently announced Windows Phone 7 Series.

HTC Desire and Legend handsets

The Desire, previously known as the Bravo, was also unveiled and as expected is pretty much an unbranded Google Nexus One. It has the 1GHz Snapdragon processor and runs Android 2.1 and looks almost identical. There are a few superficial differences such as an optical trackpad opposed to a trackball but most importantly the Desire has the latest version of the HTC Sense UI.

The Legend is the long-awaited successor to the HTC Hero and looks in every way a worthy replacement. The prettiest of the new launches has a case made from a single piece of aluminium and has the ‘chin’ that made the Hero so striking. The Legend also comes with Android 2.1 of HTC Sense, a  3.2″ HVGA AMOLED display, 5 megapixel camera and an optical joystick. The Legend is expected to be with us in the next month while the Desire and HD Mini will be releases in both Europe and Asia in Q2.

Puma Phone

Puma Phone

One particularly interesting phone announcement came in the form of the Puma Phone. Made by Sagem Mobile and carrying Puma branding the unimaginatively named Puma Phone looks to be quite a fun and interesting handset; the phone not only comes with a pet puma called Dylan but also has an audio player with a ’scratchable’ turntable. It also comes with a GPS speedo, GPS run tracker, stopwatch and, somewhat bizarrely, a yachting compass. Most interesting is the solar panel on the back of the phone which can provide up to 15 minutes talk time or two hours audio playback for an hour of charge. Essentially a feature phone, the device is aimed at a young active market and lands in Europe this April. All the software on the device was developed by one of our clients Myriad Group.

RIM

Blackberry stand at MWC

One company not to announce a new handset yesterday was RIM. It was widely expected that the BlackBerry Magnum, a cross between the Bold 9000 and Storm, would be unveiled in Barcelona this year but it seems that will have to wait. RIM, however, did not leave us empty-handed announcing the BlackBerry Enterprise Server Express. The free BESX software will allow small and medium sized businesses with a Microsoft Exchange to wirelessly synchronise contacts, edit Microsoft Office documents and manage emails all from their BlackBerries. The introduction of this software will be quite the incentive for small and medium businesses to standardise on BlackBerries in future.

GSMA Awards

The Palace at the Fira

Yesterday also saw the Global Mobile Awards Ceremony take place. Hosted and presented by celebrity technophile Stephen Fry awards were given out in 19 different categories with the HTC Hero winning in the Myriad-sponsored Best Mobile Handset or Device category. Other categories included Best Mobile Money Service, Best Mobile Game and Best Network Technology Advance. Perhaps most exciting was the evening celebration party where, straight out of 1982, Duran Duran performed. I’m not sure it gets better.

MWC Awards Party

Departures Board

So after 2 days, 3 airports and 3 airlines, the Temono team finally arrived in Barcelona on Sunday evening.

After a tapas dinner, it was early to bed for all as we had an 8am start on the show ground. It was a busy day of managing press and analyst meetings for our clients, but I managed to get a quick look around the Fira to check out the hot news from the day.

The “Windows Phone”

The only Windows Phone at MWC

The most disappointing news of the day came from Microsoft who launched the “Windows Phone”, which wasn’t Microsoft’s own brand mobile phone as hoped, but just a rename of their mobile phone operating system.

Samsung gives us a Wave

Samsung Wave

After announcing the platform at the end of last year, Samsung launched their first phone on the Bada OS, the Wave, on Sunday evening.

The Wave is really a high end feature phone rather than a smartphone, and probably more accurately fits into the the burgeoning sub smartphone market, which sits between feature phones and smartphones. 2010 is due to see a number of phones launch in this category which is yet to be defined. I’m currently torn between “the not so smartphone” or possibly the “smarter than your average feature phone” or Yogi phone for short. You saw it here first people.

Anyway, judging by the amount of Samsung’s (huge) stand which was dedicated to the Wave, I would say this is a big focus for the handset manufacturer for the near future.

Sony Ericsson EXPERIA X10 Mini Pro

Although it’s still early on in the week, this is the phone of the show for me so far. Running Android with Sony Ericsson’s custom TimeScape user interface and managing to pack a Qwerty keyboard into a tiny package, this is certainly the most interesting Android phone I’ve seen to date and is a very strong contender to replace my excellent HTC Hero. The only downside is it is a little on the thick side, but ain’t it cute?

Tiny

Wholesale Applications Community is not whack

In other (non handset) news, 15 operators today announced they are joining a cross operator application store called the Wholesale Applications Community (or WAC for short). It’s early days, but depending on how well this gets implemented, it could be the operator’s strongest chance yet to cash in on the lucrative applications market which Apple has dominated to date.

Here at Temono we are constantly on the lookout for the next exciting trends in mobile. One thing we’ve noticed gathering a head of steam is the idea of mHealth and we fully expect it to take off in a much bigger way than Ed’s brainchild the ‘One Button Phone’ has. As the topic seems to be gaining more and more traction in the news I have been tasked with doing a little research into the area and seeing what it is all about.

First things first, what is mHealth? mHealth is another way of saying mobile health. A sub-section of eHealth, mHealth deals with the use of mobile technologies for a variety of healthcare purposes. Mobile technologies are being used for a range of healthcare purposes. Earlier this year the mHealth Alliance was formed by the UN, Vodafone Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation with the aim maximising the effect and use of mobile health in the developing world. Throughout Africa, and the rest of the developing world mobile technologies are being used to educate the populace and collect information. The Text to Change initiative and the Project Masiluleke in South Africa have simply used SMS to spread awareness of contagious diseases such as TB and HIV. Meanwhile, the EpiSurveyor from DataDyne has made it possible for medical data to be collected and transmitted in rural areas using a mobile phone.

In the developing world mHealth has taken a different shape, most notably the use of mobile technologies for home health monitoring. Companies such as MedApps and Alive Technologies develop products which allow monitoring, management and diagnosis of diseases from the home. Rather than visit the hospital or doctor’s surgery, for routine check-ups of chronic illnesses, this can be done from the home using equipment connected to your mobile phone or a dedicated device which transmits data remotely for healthcare professionals to review.

At the consumer end of the mHealth market there a variety of fitness monitors that utilise mobile technology and even a set of scales. Apple and Nike have the Nike + iPod Sport Kit which wirelessly connects a pedometer in your shoe to your iPod and logs your distance travelled, average speed and calories burned. French company Withings have created a set of scales which use WiFi to update your weight and BMI on their dedicated website or for you to view on you iPhone with their dedicated app. The Apple appstore even has its own dedicated health section.

So why do we think this will be big? For one it has the potential to save lives. From the use of SMS to help educate people of the risks of HIV, to the management of diabetes, mHealth can genuinely improve quality of life. It will save money for healthcare providers. Improving patient compliance for those with chronic diseases will keep people out of hospital and reduce the chance of requiring urgent and expensive medical care. Above all, mHealth is innovative and of genuine use, and I for one am all for something that turns an iPhone into something more than a lightsaber or farting device.

Junior Account Executive Wanted

Are you passionate about mobile and IT? Are you a self-starter who pays great attention to detail?

Temono is a three year old PR consultancy, based on the Southbank in London, which works exclusively with companies in the mobile and wireless telecoms space. Our work spans everything from defining company messaging and planning PR campaigns to conducting media/analyst relations, writing contributed articles and whitepapers and handling award and event speaking entries. We pride ourselves on having an unrivalled knowledge of the telecoms industry and a strong insight into where it is going which in turn means we can put together PR campaigns with real impact. Our current clients include Ubiquisys, IPWireless, Masabi and RAD Data Communications.

We are looking for an intelligent graduate (2:1 or higher) with strong geek tendencies. Prior knowledge is not required, but a strong interest in technology and a willingness to learn are key. Whilst this is a PR role, we are looking for a candidate that is more interested in telecoms than PR itself.

The job will initially entail working within a team across a range of clients, pitching journalists, compiling reports and liaising with clients. As we operate a flat hierarchy and are currently experiencing rapid growth there is great potential for the right candidate to rapidly progress.

Interested parties should email a CV and covering letter to jobs@temono.com with the subject Junior Account Executive Job

You can find out more information about Carnival of the Mobilists here: http://mobili.st/

The original iPhone?

Back when I used to work in manufacturing, there was a commonly held belief that in the automotive market, the Mercedes S-Class is somewhat of a trailblazer in the industry, in that the majority of features which are now common in many cars were first introduced in the S-Class. Technologies such ABS, Airbags, ESC, Crumple zones, 3 point seat belts (plus several others) all first saw light in the S-Class.

We were talking about this in the office recently and it got us thinking if a similar trend is present in the mobile phone industry. Is there a single manufacturer or product range which is responsible for introducing cutting edge features which are now common in mobile phones? To answer this question, I drew up a list of what we considered to be mainstream features in mobiles and tracked down which handset they first appeared in. From this list I would easily be able to see if there was one dominant handset range or manufacturer who can truly be called the most innovative.

Well, the simple answer was no. Although some of the large players (Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola) crop up several times in the list, it’s hard to say that there is one single manufacturer which is the most innovative, as you can see the list of features and handsets below. What is interesting is how many of these phones are relatively unknown - they are the unsung heroes of the mobile phone industry, blazing the way with new features, but lacking the praise of other phones which popularised the features. One example is the MP3 player; mention music phone to most people and they will think of a Sony Ericsson Walkman or the iPhone, although few would know it was the humble Siemens SL45 which started the trend way back in 2001.

So here is my list of mainstream mobile phone features, and the (GSM) phones they first appeared in:

• T9 / Predictive text – Nokia 3210
• WAP Browser – Nokia 7110
• Bluetooth - Sony Ericsson T36
• Triband – Motorola Timeport L7089
• Removable memory – Siemens SL45
• MP3 Player – Siemens SL45
• GPRS – Motorola Timeport T-260
• MMS – Nokia 7210
• Colour Screen – Ericsson T68
• Camera – Sharp GX10
• Touch-screen - Ericsson R380
• WiFi - Nokia 9500
• GPS – Benefon Esc!
  
• Java -Siemens SL45i
  
• 3G – Motorola A830
  
• Polyphonic ringtones - Alcatel One Touch 511
  

Footnote - As I very quickly found out, there is no one single resource which has all this information, so the list has been cobbled together from a range of sources, including, but not limited to:

http://www.mobiles.co.uk/mobile-phone-history-uk.html

http://www.gsmarena.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phone_features

http://www.umtsworld.com/umts/history.htm

The list is correct to the best of my knowledge, but if you reckon I’ve got anything wrong, please let me know in the comments section below.

UPDATE - 22/05/09

Thanks to this excellent blog post about handset design, I have discovered the Benefon Esc! - which had GPS way before the Nokia N95 (by about 7 years). I’ve updated the list to reflect this.

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