After months of complaints since the launch of the iPhone, Apple just announced the a Software Developer’s Kit will be released in February. Mac Rumors noted that the letter from Jobs suggested that they might use a digital signature to control who can develope applications, a strategy the Nokia is using.

For this reason, and the iPhone’s relatively small user base, I’m not sure that we’ll see the applications on the scale of Facebook. However, I’m looking forward to what software developers can come up with.

That being said, iPhone apps might be more profitable, because people are getting more used to downloading and paying for apps and content to mobile phones.

A recent Telephia report on mobile applications, found that in Q2 2007, 5% or 13 million mobile users downloaded a mobile app, which generated $USD 118 million. Compare that with Business Week reporting the estimate that the entire monthly Facebook revenue from widget advertising is less than $USD 1 million, or $USD4 million for the quarter.

Image source: nytimes.com

New York Times reported that Nokia is priming a relaunch of the N-Gage after two failed attempts at providing a portable phone and gaming platform. Following two attempts to market the N-Gage in 2003 and 2004, Nokia pulled the line of devices from Europe and North America in 2005, after lukewarm sales, well below their sales targets. Not giving up, Nokia hired the legendary design firm IDEO, for a user-centric design approach for the next iteration. Now, the new N-Gage will allow people to play games with their friends and strangers, and try-out and purchase games from their phones. They will also know more about the skill levels of the other people they are playing against, so they can find people of similar abilities, which was a user need that was discovered through IDEO research. If the re-launch is successful, the N-Gage could become a textbook example of user need driven product design.

Combining a portable gaming device and a phone seems like a no brainer, but success has still been elusive. Besides Nokia, the other obvious places to look have been slow in making progress as well. Sony presents yet another example of the Japanese giant having a difficult time getting their individual arms to work together, but it looks like they are starting to work it out. After years of rumors, Sony has filed a patent on a mobile gaming platform that will combine the PSP with Sony Ericsson phone technology. Seeing that the patent was only filed in May 31, 2007, seeing a product to market in the US, could take time. However, as unwired review notes, if it can play PSP games, it could have immediate impact.

Putting aside the success of the DS line and the Wii console, Nintendo is still strangely silent, despite filing a similar mobile phone gaming patent way back in 2001.

Of course, Sony, Nokia, and Nintendo will also have to deal with the US carriers, who lean heavily toward restrictions on their ondeck services, as they too want to earn revenue from the mobile gaming market. It’s not clear to me, how the N-Gage will integrate with US mobile carrier services. I’m definitely going to follow up on the agreements that will be made, and how the services will play out. The complexity of the current system definitely makes it even more clear that, the FCC mandate of device and software interoperability for 700 MHz auction was important, even if some people think the FCC compromised too much.

I went to another fine event tonight put up by the fine folks at Mobile Monday New York, “Beyond Scores. Sports Brands & Their Mobile Game Plan.”

The panel discussion was packed with good representatives from the content side as well as infrastructure. The line up included:
- Oke Okaro, ESPN
- Bhavesh Patel, NBA
- Lincoln Hochberg, MLB
- Rich LaBarca, Clearspring
- Moderator: Evan Neufeld, VP and senior analyst, M:Metrics

I appreciated that candor and openness to the responses from the panelists. The discussion lived up to its name and covered more than reading scores in an SMS message. Topics ranged from integrated marketing (an industry standard), carrier support (still a bottleneck), interface standardizations (still impeding mobile growth), and working with OEMs (they can only do so much). I’m a bit tired today, so I’ll keep it short with the best take aways.

On successful mobile initiatives:
“Boredom is a key driver.” - Lincoln Hochberg, MLB

On the mobile killer app:
“It may not be tv on your mobile… I can see things like breaking news video alerts [being the killer app]…” - Lincoln Hochberg, MLB

On mobile experimentation:
“Stick with what you know.” - Oke Okaro, ESPN

On the iPhone:
“But, it’s a closed system.” (several times) - Rich LaBarca

And the best line came from the moderator….
“… and now comes the part where we complain about the carriers…”

So, the Research In Motion servers went down, and some users didn’t have access to their email.

My first thought was that’s pretty scary. Having never owned one, I didn’t realize that the email of enterprise users had to past through the RIM servers, which sort of runs against the philosophy of how the internet work. That is keep everything decentralized, so when one node in the network goes down, traffic does not come to a stand still.

My second thought, was reading about an interesting occurrence of crackberry addicts report a night off from constant connectivity. Of course, client service professionals such as stock brokers potentially could lose money. And a doctor’s blackberry failure could have put patients at significant risk.

However, USA Today reported that many of them got a night off to actually be present and focus on what was in front of them, instead of dealing with constant interruptions. All they hand to do was deal with smirks from Treo users.

Way back when in grad school, I had the fortune to hear the extremely clever Linda Stone, then a researcher at Microsoft. She coined the phrase, “continual partial attention.” You don’t hear about it a lot because for me and most people in the US, it’s just our natural state of being. So, when we find ourselves unconnected and free from distractions, we find it troublesome or a pleasure. Both cases reflect a change from our normal behaviors.