A few years ago, people weren’t doing much with their cellphones. People were just making phone calls. Isn’t that what a phone is for? That was the previous thinking. A few companies like Nokia,and Rim started experimenting and expanding the concept of what a phone was. Then the term smartphone got coined. People started emailing and surfing the web; albeit in mobile versions, but nonetheless the web. But then these features started coming into feature phones. And the line was suddenly becoming blurred. Phones had color screens,music playback abilities and the like. Then the iPhone was released. Everyone wanted a color touchscreen phone even if it wasn’t the best screen technology. Apple literally made people stop and think what a phone was. As we come full circle from our desktops and laptops to our smartphones, the lines are becoming blurred. Our iPhones, Droids and Galaxy S devices now do a lot of the same things that our big laptops do. Not quite everything, but enough to keep people on their phones.
In this world of smartphones there are 2 separate worlds. Make no mistake about it. The world of native applications and of the open web. I think both of these worlds can co-exist and they will continue to co-exist. Some people will argue that native applications are walled gardens away from the web, and in a way they are true. But as we move towards more open web services like REST(which isn’t exactly a new technology or concept btw) that expose the web and information to its simplest form, our native applications all of a sudden begin to consume information in a much different way, but information that is freely available. Mobile matters because it gives users different ways to consume information and the web in a more meaningful and semantic way. Instead of just seeing text, information becomes more useful to users. This year, Medina Labs is gearing up to offer iPhone and iPad development services. Watch for more information coming out this year!
Post Date: 2011-02-03