Apps, Apples, Androids

August 17, 2010
For an informed view on connected entertainment in the UK & Ireland, visit Cue Entertainment 

Today, thanks to wireless technology, most of us now carry a mobile phone capable of sending and receiving live audio and video across the world. We can browse the internet and locate our position to within a small footprint anywhere on the planet, so with a few clicks (or taps, if you have an iPhone), you can find the closest source for almost anything, from a place to lay your head for the night to the nearest 24-hour superstore selling DVDs. What’s more, we take such technology for granted.

The mobile phone has gone from being an annoyance on the average train journey to a must-have device that packs more computing power than the average laptop did only a few years ago. Jonathan Beardsworth, VP Sales and Marketing Europe at Technicolor, remarked recently that he had long held the view that only two devices will matter in the future: the TV and the phone. Many people would share his view, though perhaps the younger generation might wonder why he included the TV.

Nick Lansley has been at Tesco since 1987, working his way up the technology ladder until today he is Head of R&D for the supermarket chain. His most recent achievement has been the introduction of a Tesco-branded shopping list for Nokia mobile phones, which was launched last week and has already been downloaded several thousand times. Nokia was so thrilled with the response that it promoted it in its TV commercials last Friday.

It must have been quite a thrill for Nokia that someone actually noticed. As downloads of free and paid-for iPhone apps soar beyond 5 billion, the Ovi Store run by Nokia has received precious little attention from developers and public alike. It is significant that it should take the PR machine of a major supermarket to catch public interest and it will be interesting to see how many me-too products follow.

Which is where Tesco and the Brighton-based app developer Ribot have been very clever. Instead of being a “Tesco shopping list”, the app is simply a generic shopping list. It can be used as easily at the corner grocery store or in a high street competitor as it can online or within a Tesco superstore. As Lansley explains in his “Tech for Tesco” blog, when they first saw the presentation they smiled and raised this with Ribot, thinking that they had misinterpreted the brief. Then they realised the power of the design.

“Anyone can use this app for their grocery lists, shopping anywhere — and if that’s they way they want it to stay, fine,” writes Lansley, “Nevertheless, the app might convince users to see if Tesco might sell their items for a cheaper price, perhaps with special offers. When customers see the prices and offers, the app might persuade them to see if they could save time by having their shopping list delivered.”

And then we’ve got ‘em, he might have added.

By Friday, Lansley was reporting that consumer usage was exactly as planned; the concept of a shopping list in your pocket (or bag) that you can take anywhere was being welcomed by Nokia owners. Comments on the Ovi store included this one, “Whoever thought of this deserves a bonus! You can see why Tescos are the leaders of the pack. Easy to download, even easier to use, had all my regular items already stored and ready for picking.” 

Let’s hope Lansley’s bosses are listening!

The Tesco app is a free download from the Ovi store and given its success, there is no reason why it should not become ubiquitous. The iPhone app is not far behind and it seems likely that other versions are already in development, particularly since a pilot version was tested on the Android app store a few months ago. Today groceries, tomorrow packaged media?

Android phones are gradually increasing their market share in the UK. According to figures from research organisation GfK Retail and Technology, in Q2 2010 around one in eight smartphones employed the Google Android platform. This compares with an estimated one in six smartphones being Apple iPhones. The latest information from the US, where Android and iPhone both claim around a quarter of the market, seems to show that demand for Android handsets is pulling ahead, selling 200,000 units a day according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

While Google might be very pleased with the progress of its smart phone system, on Friday Aug. 13 Schmidt woke up to find that the business systems and software firm Oracle had decided to rain on Android’s parade.

“Google knowingly, willingly and unlawfully copied, prepared, published and distributed Oracle America's copyrighted work”, according to the “Complaint for copyright infringement” filed in a Californian court. There’s nothing like the smell of success to bring out the litigation instinct, especially in America.

Apple boss Steve Jobs has his own headache, a spot of bother with iPhone 4, which could be the reason for its loss of market share. The week saw the sudden departure of Mark Papermaster, who joined Apple from erstwhile arch-enemy IBM less than two years ago as SVP of Devices Hardware Engineering.

Some iPhone 4 users have reported that holding the metal band around the phone results in a loss of signal; a symptom that Steve Jobs at first said was common to other smartphones and then denied was a problem. Heads had to roll and it seems that Papermaster was the delegated sacrificial victim. The message is clear, failure will not be tolerated, even when there is a fault that the company claims does not exist.

Connected TV’s and smartphones alike are fighting for bandwidth on an overcrowded internet and the problem is unlikely to improve. As soon as new infrastructure is put in place, online products and services queue up to display the message we have come to know and love. “Buffering” will rest in the folk memory of those who use the internet in the first 10 years of the 21st century.

The CEO of the US telecoms giant Verizon, Ivan Seidenberg, and Google’s Schmidt this week proposed an “internet fast lane”, which would split the open internet into first and second class services, giving paid-for web traffic priority. The plan involves exempting wireless broadband from the “Net neutrality” principles that have governed ISPs until now and delivering all first class services over the air. Land-based connections would have to fight for bandwidth as they do today.

If the Google/Verizon proposal were adopted, it would mean that any company could ensure buffering-free access to the highest speed data delivery service available, if it is prepared to pay for it. Premium applications, such as health monitoring, 3D TV and emerging services wanting to profit from this advantage would be separated from existing internet traffic and delivered wirelessly for a fee. In the US, the plan would also include the imposition of a charge on consumer phone services to fund expansion of the broadband network — now where have we heard that before?

Net neutrality is a fiercely protected principle that is intended to prevent ISPs from charging site owners to make their web sites work better than others. Web founder Tim Berners-Lee is opposed to the proposal. He says, “Freedom of connection with any application to any party is the fundamental social basis of the internet.”

A press release from the US consumer group Free Press notes, “This framework, if embraced by Congress and the Federal Communications Commission, would transform the free and open internet into a closed platform like cable television.”

Free Press political advisor Joel Kelsey adds “It’s a signed-sealed-and-delivered policy framework with giant loopholes that blesses the carving up of the internet for a few deep-pocketed internet companies and carriers.”

At last week’s announcement, Google and Verizon claimed, “Wireless broadband is different from the traditional wireline world, in part because the mobile marketplace is more competitive and changing rapidly.”

Those of us not prepared to pay a premium might have to go back to the screwdriver and bell-wire method of accessing the internet.