A strangely cryptic article in the New York Times today announced that several companies had banded together “to build the first of a new generation of nationwide wireless data networks” in the US (link). I read it and thought to myself: what, another…

Today Adobe announced a series of changes to its emerging web applications platform. The changes include:–The next version of the mobile Flash runtime will be free of license fees. Adobe also confirmed that the mobile version of the Air runtime will…

Microsoft announced last week that it’s discontinuing its Spot data watch program.The trouble with predicting the future is that it’s always easy to do in retrospect. Looking back, it’s obvious that Microsoft’s Spot products were a dumb idea. The con…

Earlier today I told you about the survey of US iPhone users that Rubicon Consulting just conducted (link). When you publish a big study like this, there are always a few secondary data points that don’t fit into the whitepaper — kind of like outtake…

I think it’s safe to say that the iPhone is the most publicized new mobile product of the last several years, especially in the United States. But although there has been endless commentary on the iPhone, there hasn’t been much solid data on how it’s …

In school they teach you that one of the drivers of economic progress over the centuries has been society’s increasingly accurate management of time. The seasons had to be tracked so that farming cultures would know when to plant. Once people started…

A year ago I wrote a frustrated critique of the CBS television network’s online coverage of the US national college basketball tournament, which we fans affectionately call “March Madness” even though half of it happens in April (link).In the tournamen…

I never thought I’d say that, but Apple’s making me wonder. Apple says 100,000 developers have already downloaded the iPhone SDK (link). For comparison, it took Palm a couple of years of heavy evangelism to hit the same milestone. That’s a deceptive…

I have time tonight for only a quick note on Apple’s iPhone software developer kit announcement. Overall, it is deeply impressive how many things Apple got right. We still need to see more details on terms and conditions, and a lot will depend on App…

There’s so much hype in the mobile industry that I’m always reluctant to use a word like “shocking,” but nothing else fits Nokia’s announcement today that it will support Microsoft Silverlight.If you missed the press release (link), Nokia said that it’…

The other day when I was writing about the fate of mobile apps (link), I mentioned one of the laws of technology strategy. It made me realize that although we in the industry talk about those laws all the time, I’ve never seen them all written down in…

I was very surprised by the volume of responses to last week’s post on the decline of the mobile applications business. Many of the comments were passionate and well reasoned, and if you haven’t seen them I recommend that you check them out here.My bi…

I was very surprised by the volume of responses to last week’s post on the decline of the mobile applications business. Many of the comments were passionate and well reasoned, and if you haven’t seen them I recommend that you check them out here.My bi…

Summary: The business of making native apps for mobile devices is dying, crushed by a fragmented market and restrictive business practices. The problems are so bad that the mobile web, despite its many technical drawbacks, is now a better way to deli…

I’ve been invited to moderate a panel on mobile operating systems at the CTIA conference this April. No doubt this will be the highlight of the entire conference , so make your travel reservations early.Participants tentatively will include Symbia…