<\/p>\n
Now that the year is over it’s time to look back at the predictions I made a year ago and compare them with what actually happened with mobile browsers,\u00a0 web apps and\u00a0 platforms in 2010.<\/p>\n
Prediction: There will be major improvements in smartphone mobile browser technology.<\/strong> Mozilla, Opera, Nokia, Skyfire, Google and RIM will compete to deliver a near desktop experience on high end devices. Expect to see better and faster JavaScript engines and increased support for HTML 5’s offline storage, geolocation, SVG and video features.\u00a0 Desktop level Adobe Flash support will also appear on most smartphone platforms, although probably not on\u00a0 the iPhone.<\/em><\/p>\n
Reality: <\/strong>Mostly true,\u00a0 Opera Mobile 10.1 delivers up to 4-8X faster JavaScript<\/a> execution and HTML5 geolocation support to\u00a0 Symbian and Android. Google and Apple made constant incremental HTML5, feature set, usability, performance and rendering improvements to the Android and iOS browsers. Froyo\u00a0 gave the Android browser\u00a0 a 2-3X JavaScript speed boost. Firefox Mobile has matured into a useful browser on high spec Android devices. RIM and Samsung launched WebKit based browsers and Netfront launched\u00a0 an Android browser.\u00a0 The iOS, Opera Mobile and Firefox Mobile browsers support SVG. 1 point<\/strong><\/p>\n
But mobile Flash has mostly been a bust. Adobe has been promising a full desktop Flash mobile player or plug-in for all the major smartphone platforms “next year” for at least a couple of years. Flash 10.1 did finally make it to some high end Android 2.2 phones in 2010 but reviewers generally found it sluggish<\/a>.\u00a0 As Flash failed to deliver I’m only giving myself 1\/2 a point<\/strong> on this one.<\/p>\n
“Middle-Web” sites will proliferate<\/strong>. These are what used to be called “iPhone Web Apps”\u00a0 They render as a single column like traditional mobile sites but with larger page sizes, more and larger images and judicious use of JavaScript for asynchronous partial page updates and eye candy like rollover effects.\u00a0 Some Middle-Web sites only support Webkit based touch browsers (iPhone, WebOS and Android) but the better ones will use graceful degradation and progressive enhancement<\/a> to support the less capable\u00a0 full-web browsers of feature phones.<\/em><\/p>\n
Prediction: Traditional mobile web sites will start to disappear – prematurely. <\/strong>With interest and development effort centered around the middle-web, publishers and developers will tend to neglect their legacy mobile sites. This will be a mistake. Even though the handset replacement cycle averages 18 moths in the US and Europe, old phones live on for five years or more in the developing world. Case in point, according to AdMob<\/a> (PDF), the most popular handsets in Indonesia are the\u00a0 Nokia N70 and 6600\u00a0 which are\u00a0 five and seven years old. Developing markets are also where mobile traffic is growing the fastest; according to Opera<\/a> betwen Nov 2008 and Nov 2009 Opera Mini page views\u00a0 increased by\u00a0 604.5% in Indonesia, 445.3% in South Africa and 1091.1% in Vietnam.\u00a0 Those increases are on top very significant traffic volume as the three countries are in the top ten in the world in overall Opera Mini traffic.<\/em><\/p>\n
Reality<\/strong>:\u00a0 Correct, unfortunately the latest versions of many\u00a0 web services to not work well or at all with the browsers on older and low end phones. Even Yahoo has started displaying “We’re sorry! Yahoo! Mobile, the starting point to the mobile Internet, does not support your device..<\/em>.” messages on many devices. Proxy browsers that make the web accessible on low end phones do help to fill the gap and their adoption is going through the roof.\u00a0 Opera Mini users nearly doubled to 80 million<\/a> in 2010 and the UC Browser claims 100 million users. 1 point<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
The mobile web will look more and more like the desktop web.<\/strong> Publishers, developers and advertisers are waking\u00a0 up to the fact that more people are now browsing with phones than with PCs!<\/a> Things that are taken for granted in the desktop web like SEO, thematic consistency and big name, big dollar ad campaigns will increasingly come to the mobile web.<\/em><\/p>\n
Reality: <\/strong>Correct, US mobile ad spend increased by 138% in 2010<\/a>. Mobile web sites are morphing into mobile web apps with rich feature sets that rival their desktop equivalents. Web designers are increasingly catering to special attributes of the mobile context using features like location awareness, SMS alerts and click to call. 1 point<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Reality<\/strong>: Correct, data caps and limited data bundles are here.\u00a0 In the US, AT&T has capped new subscriber’s data plans at 2 GB\/month,\u00a0 T-Mobile USA has a 5 GB soft cap with speeds reduced t0 2.5G (Edge) levels on anything over the cap.\u00a0 Verizon has capped 4G LTE data at 5 GB\/month<\/a>.\u00a0 The UK’s O2, Orange and Vodafone have instituted caps of 1 GB\/month or less for new subscribers. 1 point.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Prediction: Less impacted networks will see the rising demand for data an opportunity for growth.<\/strong> Expect to see some innovative low cost and data offerings from operators who still have surplus data capacity.\u00a0 These will tend to be through MVNO’s so that they don’t cannibalize revenue from current customers locked into higher cost plans by contracts.\u00a0 A couple of examples have already appeared;\u00a0 MVNO StraightTalk<\/a>‘s $45\/month unlimited voice, messaging and data plan on the Verizon 3G network\u00a0 and a $40\/month unlimited data-only offering\u00a0 from DataJack<\/a>, a MVNO using T-Mobile USA”s 3G network. There is some doubt about DataJack’s legitimacy<\/a>, but StraightTalk is real,\u00a0 owned by Am\u00e9rica M\u00f3vil<\/a>, the 4th largest mobile operator in the world, and sold by WalMart, the nation’s largest retailer.<\/em><\/p>\n
Maemo is not normob<\/a> ready yet\u00a0 but will be widely embraced by the tech savvy. With almost no current market share it can only go up.<\/em><\/p>\n
Reality<\/strong>: Half right. It’s more like more Android, less of everything else.\u00a0 Android was amazing in 2010 growing from a global market share of 3.5%\u00a0 to 25.3% according to Gartner<\/a>.\u00a0 Android took market share from everyone else. Symbian<\/strong>‘s unit sales rose from 18.3 million to\u00a0 29.5 million but its market\u00a0 share still fell from 44.6% to 36.6%.\u00a0 The N900’s UI, browser and openness excited a lot of people but then Maemo<\/strong> became MeeGo and Meego phones have yet to ship.\u00a0 Half a point.<\/strong><\/p>\n
Photo by over_kind_man – Some rights reserved Now that the year is over it’s time to look back at the predictions I made a year ago and compare them with what actually happened with mobile browsers,\u00a0 web apps and\u00a0 platforms in 2010. Prediction: There will be major improvements in smartphone mobile browser technology. Mozilla, Opera, Nokia, Skyfire, Google and RIM will compete to deliver a near desktop experience on high end devices. Expect to see better and faster JavaScript engines … Continue reading