Make mobiles utility-oriented

COMMUNICATION

So far, I have done little else with my mobile phone except store numbers and make calls. Though, I have often dreamt of cooler uses. Like a mobile computer which can process and display useful information, sourced via GPRS et al. Or video chats and streaming television. Obviously, all this has not really happened.

I have been following the mobile phone spectrum controversy (raging in New Delhi) somewhat peripherally. The bottomline is that the mobile phone companies are running out of spectrum in which to operate and there are new players still coming in.

In such a situation, even making a straight telephone call without facing network congestion or call drops will become a challenge, if it isn't one already. I could narrate the same excuse most mobile companies will give you at this juncture but it might be a good idea to move forward.

Since we are still fighting for spectrum, obviously, we should forget about higher speed data transfers over mobile "" notwithstanding the fact that some day the era of 3G might dawn upon Indian telecom. Incidentally, the first thing that will happen when spectrum auctions are announced, I assure you, is that two telecom operators will race to the courts filing injunctions against each other. Why I don't know. But that's how things happen here.

The question I am asking is, do the really cool user applications need high data speeds and 3G and the like. Also recognise that data speeds on mobile phone networks have been constant for around five years, if not more. I am saying so as a user, if you have had a vastly different experience, please raise your hand.

I have also assumed so far that video streaming and advanced gaming are dependent either on a massive technology leap or spectrum. Neither has happened. So given the mobile phone instruments I have, the connectivity standards and the quality of information (or lack of it) that has been streamed, the 'rich' mobile phone experience has not happened.

And yet it has. I hate to plug Apple's iPhone once more, but for the first time in some time, I am feeling that a strong hardware cum software interface can truly make mobile computing something to look forward to "" even in the restricted spectrum environment we operate in. Actually, spectrum or speeds have little to do with it.

To illustrate now, on an iPhone, you can check precise time and weather in ten different locations (if not more), including at Cupertino in California which Apple has 'thoughtfully' included in all iPhones. You can of course amend it to a location of your own choice. My friends have Goa, New Delhi and Bombay for instance.

Take stocks. Again, on the iPhone, one touch and you can check the current status of the Dow Jones and the Nasdaq indices or the Apple stock as it is trading right now. In hindsight, I wonder why the other phones could not integrate GRPS as effectively into their handsets combined with a nicely designed front-end application. Which, in the case of iPhone, has been done by Yahoo.

You could extend that argument to the Google powered applications on iPhone like maps, You Tube and so on. The extent of customisation is quite amazing and quite clearly does not seem to have been done elsewhere.

The point is this. Speed-based killer apps are a long time away. The opportunity for markets in general, and India in specific, is to create the right software-hardware interface that makes mobile computing useful. And truly exciting. There are a lot more data points that you and I are interested in that we currently don't access or are constrained by the absence of a friendly front-end, on mobile.

This can change if the instrument manufacturers truly apply their minds to making the mobile phone more utility oriented. And think beyond just converting mobile phones into cameras and mp3-players.