Mobile Concerns

Following Apple's 4th quarter report, Steve Jobs has said that iPhone 3G sales have eclipsed Blackberry sales for the most recent quarter, making Apple the no. 3 mobile phone vendor. Whether Apple can sustain this growth in coming quarters remains to be seen but there is no doubt the iPhone 3G is this year's "must have" device.

There are reports that Orange in the UK has suspended shipments of the Blackberry Bold to customers due to problems with the device's software. I don't want to focus on RIM specifically, but rather explore the issue of software reliability on mobile devices. Why should creating software for mobile be any more challenging than for the desktop or the enterprise? I believe there are four factors at play here:

The current crop of devices and their operating systems are still severely limited in their ability to manage scarce resources (processor, memory, threads);

Applications for mobile are typically integrated very closely with other applications on the device such as PIM;

Mobile devices can connect using a variety of protocols. Not only do they connect to the Internet but they also support voice, sms and mms and;

Mobile applications may make use of device hardware such as cameras and GPS, that can vary across device makes and models.

These four factors increase the complexity of writing software for mobile and these are the issues mobile operating system makers should focus on to simplify the work for mobile application developers.

Following on from the previous post, I thought it may be useful to compare the form factors and features of some current mobile devices.

Note: Dimensions are in mm and weight is in gr.

Manuf.	Model	H.	W.	D.	Weight.	Res. (H)	Res. (V)	Camera (Mpx)	GPS	Keyboard
Apple	iPhone	115.0	61.0	11.6	135.0	320	480	2.0
Apple	iPhone 3G	115.5	62.1	12.3	133.0	480	320	2.0	Yes
HTC	Touch Diamond	102.0	51.0	11.4	110.0	240	320	3.2	Yes
HTC	Touch HD	115.0	62.8	12.0	146.4	480	800	5.0	Yes
HTC	Touch Viva	104.5	59.0	15.8	110.0	240	320	2.0
HTC	Touch Pro	51.0	102.0	18.1	165.0	240	320	3.2	Yes	QWERTY
HTC	Touch Dual	107.0	55.0	15.8	120.0	240	320	2.0		Numeric
HTC	Touch Cruise	110.0	58.0	15.5	130.0	240	320	3.0
HTC	Touch	99.9	58.0	13.9	112.0	240	320	2.0
HTC	G1	55.7	117.7	17.1	158.0	480	320	3.2	Yes	QWERTY
HTC	P3300	108.0	58.0	16.8	130.0	240	320	2.0
HTC	P3400	109.0	58.0	17.7	126.0	240	320	2.0
HTC	P3470	108.0	58.3	15.7	122.0	240	320	2.0	Yes
HTC	P3600	108.0	58.2	18.4	150.0	240	320	2.1
HTC	P4350	109.0	59.0	17.0	168.0	240	320	2.0		QWERTY
HTC	P6300	129.7	69.8	18.8	200.0	240	320	2.0
HTC	P6500	137.4	72.9	20.5	220.0	240	320	3.0	Yes
HTC	TyTN II	112.0	59.0	19.0	190.0	240	320	3.0	Yes	QWERTY
HTC	S620	111.5	62.5	12.8	130.0	320	240	1.3		QWERTY
HTC	S710	101.5	50.0	18.6	140.0			2.0		QWERTY
HTC	S730	105.8	51.0	19.4	150.0	240	320	2.0		QWERTY
HTC	S740	116.3	43.4	16.6	140.0	240	320	3.2	Yes	QWERTY
Blackberry	Bold	114.0	66.0	15.0	136.0	480	320	2.0	Yes	QWERTY
Blackberry	Curve	107.0	60.0	15.5	111.0	320	240	2.0	Yes	QWERTY
Blackberry	Pearl	107.0	50.0	14.5	89.0	240	260	1.3	Yes	Numeric
Blackberry	7100g	117.0	59.0	21.0	120.0					Numeric
Blackberry	7100v	114.0	56.0	20.0	120.0					Numeric
Blackberry	7130g	115.0	56.0	18.0	120.0	240	260			Numeric
Blackberry	7130v	115.0	56.0	18.0	120.0	240	260			Numeric
Blackberry	7230	113.0	74.0	20.0	136.0	240	160			QWERTY
Blackberry	7290	113.0	74.5	22.0	139.0					QWERTY
Blackberry	8700g	110.0	69.5	19.5	134.0	320	240			QWERTY
Blackberry	8700v	110.0	69.5	19.5	139.8	320	240			QWERTY
Blackberry	8707g	110.0	69.5	19.5	139.8	320	240			QWERTY
Blackberry	8707h	110.0	69.5	19.5	140.0	320	240			QWERTY
Blackberry	8707v	110.0	69.5	19.5	139.8	320	240			QWERTY
Blackberry	8800	114.0	66.0	14.0	134.0	320	240		Yes	QWERTY
Blackberry	8820	114.0	66.0	14.0	134.0	320	240		Yes	QWERTY
Blackberry	8830	114.0	66.0	14.0	134.0	320	240		Yes	QWERTY
Palm	Treo Pro	114.0	60.0	14.0	113.0	320	320	2.0	Yes	QWERTY
Palm	Centro	107.0	53.0	19.0	124.0	320	320	1.3		QWERTY
Palm	Treo 500	110.0	61.0	16.0	120.0	320	240	2.0		QWERTY
Palm	Treo 500v	110.0	61.0	16.0	120.0	320	240	2.0		QWERTY
Palm	Treo 680	113.0	59.0	21.0	158.0	320	320	0.3		QWERTY
Palm	Treo 750	115.0	58.0	22.0	154.0	240	240	1.0		QWERTY