[FoRK] More iPhone analysis

[Ian Andrew Bell]

On 8-Mar-08, at 4:44 AM, Jeff Bone wrote:

> On Mar 7, 2008, at 9:17 PM, Lucas Gonze wrote:
>
>> Also, no VoIP apps or anything else which threatens their own product
>> line.  Apple has to approve of your business purpose, just like the
>> phone companies.
>
> Small correction, VoIP over wi-fi is apparently fine;  just no VoIP  
> over the WAN.

.. which is about as useful as, oh, public WiFi.  But of course if you  
have to keep the VoIP app in the foreground in order to receive any  
incoming calls, the whole rest of your handset is utterly useless.

I think this does not bode well for things like Android, even.  The  
mid-term analysis is that the Mobile OS is NOT going to open up  
anytime soon.  I feel sorry for anyone hoping to monetize exclusively  
in the mobile space for the next 2-3 years.  If you can't have  
background apps then you can't have keep alives and push-style  
signalling... effectively mobile phones are about as capable as a web  
browser, which is to say not very.

Since mobile is an occasional (and usually a push-signaling) medium  
then any successful application has to be able to push stuff from the  
server to the handset.

Ultimately this is supposed to be self-correcting, but for the  
collusion which has existed in the telecom industry for many decades  
-- now extending to the vertical handset and application providers who  
are trying to advance the ball.  It is a model that can only change  
with the introduction of new spectrum owned by an outsider whose prime  
interest is disrupting the marketplace.

-Ian.