Web 2.0 Asia

Continued from the previous post...

6. Equivalent of ALT+TAB on mobile

If the small screen is one of the biggest limiting factors of mobile UI, why not provide a larger "virtual screen" that consists of layers of "sub-screens"? User can navigate through different layers by clicking on a hot key, equivalent of ALT+TAB on the PC. I'm talking about something like Apple's Spaces concept, only on mobile.

Yes, something similar to this may be available on smartphones today, but smartphones represent only (at max) 20% of the market - the rest 80% of users are still suffering from small screens, although to me this concept of "mobile ALT+TAB" doesn't sound something terribly difficult for the manufacturers to implement even on non-smart phones.

7. Better Java

Java certainly has its own limits, especially under mobile environment, but there's no doubt Java is currently the ruling platform for mobile applications.

The problem: mobile Java is supposed to enable platform-independent "one source multi use", but we all know that's not exactly the way it is now. The main culprit is different handset specifications - different MIDP versions, different screen sizes, etc.

So what should we do? Of course we should continue our efforts to move the whole Java ecosystem forward. But we should look to the present as well as into the future, and try to make the life easier for current Java content providers despite today's market inefficiencies.

So we can conceive a "Java sweatshop" - not so much a politically correct term, but I can't think of a better term. It's like this: Every manufacturer sends like 3 sets of every Java phone the company makes, as well as all the spec documents, to this Java sweatshop company. The company (can be either a non-profit or a for-profit) has specialists for optimizing Java apps for different phones, and also has applications testers. A Java application provider then just develops a single version using a standard Java SDK, submits the copy to this sweatshop, which will then optimize the app for all required phones. Possibly a good offshore opportunity here.

8. Killer accessories

With billions of people using mobile phones globally, I guess the world can now have a global-scale moblie phone accessories company. The Belkin of cell phones, so to speak.

No matter where you are in the world, you can check out this company's local online store to find the coolest phone accessories like audio speakers, arm bands, car kits, gaming pads, etc. Wouldn't that be cool?

I guess one hurdle to be overcome is the manufacturers not opening up their phone specs and software to the external parties, who can only produce these cool accessories after having full specs of the phones. This is especially true on the feature phones, which do not support "plug and play" by any means.

9. 10x better batteries

People talk about all kinds of reasons why the mobile data service market isn't taking off as expected, but the battery problem, arguably the most important issue, doesn't get mentioned very prominently.

I don't know if it's just me, but I assume quite a few people will have peace of mind only when they know they have at least one bar left on their phone's battery level indicator before they get an access to the charger.

You don't care as much when your iPod's battery goes dead as when your cell phone battery goes dead. Why? You don't know when someone will call you up or send a text message. The idea that the cell phone should be alive till the last minute deters some people from consuming multimedia content (music, TV, etc) in a lavish, free-of-worries way on their mobile phones.

By the way, I think I've read something about the cell phone holder-cum-charger I can clip onto my waistbelt. You attach your phone to this holder, plug the whole thing into the socket, and you charge the phone and the holder at the same time. Then the holder goes to your waistbelt, and when you put the phone back onto this holder, you are charging up the phone. So, in effect this is just like carrying two batteries, but more in style. I thought that was a cool idea - Is this thing around and used by many people ?

10. Improved refurb phone market

Indeed, no one wants a refurb phone. But what I'm talking about here is the specific practice of buying well-maintained secondhand phones from the developed world at a lower price and selling them to the underdeveloped part of the world.

Believe me, quite a few guys (especially youngsters) change their phones every 6 months. By the time they are trading their phones in, those phone are not exactly in bad shape - after all they've been around for only 6 months.

Even after 1-2 years of use, many phones remain still pretty usable - with a few quick fixes, the condition can improve even more.

To help things, can't we think of some kind of phone lease program, where deposits will be deducted depending on the phone's conditions as of the lease-end? To get more piece of the original deposit back, people might try to keep the phone's conditions good. This way we can source well-maintained secondhand phones in bulk, which can be shipped to underdeveloped areas and sold at a reasonable price.

I know that new phones are sold at under $100 in those markets - But then these phones are stripped-down versions that don't offer a lot of features. On the other hand, second hand phones from more developed countries will likely have a lot more multimedia features.

I haven't crunched the numbers yet so I'm not entirely sure if those secondhand phones can be sold at comparable prices as low-end new phones - but if they can, then these "high-end secondhand" models might be a quite good alternative to the sub-$100 new phones.

I'm sure there are folks already busy working to address these -- if not, I think these can present some nice business opportunities for mobile industry.

1. Smart handover agent

I want a piece of software on my mobile phone that automatically switches me to the most effective network (in terms of cost and/or performance), out of multiple protocols that are simutaneously available to me.

If I'm in a local cafe, my phone will switch to the free Wifi and by default run Skype when I make a phone call. Once I get in my car and start driving, my phone will then switch to Wibro (one of last week's hottest topics, with Sprint's announcement). Of course it can always revert to my good old cellular network if necessary.

Right now it seems all these different protocols (HSDPA, W-CDMA, Wibro, Wimax, Wifi...) are vying for the leader's spot. But as the 4G comes along, these protocols will learn how to live together, and accordingly, this so-called smart handover agent will become more significant.

2. My life cache

I want my service provider to back up all my mobile content - pics, video clips, podcasting, messaging, etc. for free and automatically. The service provider will capture this data in an "auto-sync" way using off-peak network, so that I don't have to do any additional work. I would be subscribed to the unlimited plan, so I dont't have to worry about additional data charges.

The tagline here is "Just use your phone, and we'll cache your life." Since all the content comes from mobile devices, the footprint (ie. file size) would not be huge, and therefore this kind of service won't likely cost the carriers huge investment. Google is giving 3GB to everyone and is not broke so far.

If the carrier has all the life's records of a user, it wouldn't be easy for her to change the carrier. So this would be a great way of customer retention. However, the carrier should not hold onto one's data in a walled garden manner - this goes against my assertion in the "Sleeping pills effect" post.

3. Very effective sync software

I want something like Micosoft ActiveSync on my feature phone. I just put the phone in the cradle hooked up to my PC, and the phone auto-syncs with Outlook, music playlists, newly updated content from my Widsets, etc. This could be neat.

4. Decent (yet simple) podcasting / videocasting client

I want to produce podcast and videocast right on my phone. Caution: I don't want anything fancy or overly complex - all those "media mixer" programs I've seen so far, especially mobile versions, have been too complex. I just want something very simple, that will let me "talk (shoot), send, and post". I can always go back to my post later on my PC and do any heavy-duty editing there. But being a simple service doesn't necessarily mean a barebone service: relevent actions such as server-side transcoding will have to take place.

5. Better voice technologies

I think I've seen SMS auto reader but I don't think I've seen an SMS auto generator. I want my mobile phone to write an SMS message for me when I just speak to it. This will come in handy while I'm driving.

Some might say "why don't you just call?" But text messaging is a great asynchronous way of communication, and under certain contexts, people prefer asynchronous communication. (For example, when you try to make up after a small argument with your girlfriend, you send a message, not call.)

Better voice-handling technologies will also allow on-spot language translation using mobile. With some carriers transitioning from CDMA to GSM, world's wireless networks are becoming more ubiquitous. This means you will be able to do the roaming nearly everywhere. If your phone can do the on-spot translation, you will be able to speak with foreigners even when you are traveling abroad. You will call a certain number or access a certain URL and start talking. Then the speech-to-text engine will change your voice into text, send the text to the translation server, which will translate the content and "tell" the result to the other person using text-to-speech engine. This way, you can effectively "talk" with foreigners.

In a subsequent post, I'll write about the other 5 things I wish. For a sneak preview:

6. Equivalent of ALT+TAB on mobile

7. Better Java

8. Killer accessories

9. 10x better batteries

10. Improved refurb phone market