Moving over to www.timkilroy.com

Hey gang, after writing mostly about mobile for a couple of years, my aspirations have grown, and I am writing about mobile, search engine optimization, social media, internet marketing and more over at www.timkilroy.com....hope to see you there!

iPhone Jailbreaking Illegal?

From our friends over at TUAW, the latest reports are that Apple considers jailbreaking a violation of their copyright. Now listen, I am a big Apple fan. I only use Windows computers under duress, and I simply love my iPhone (and my iPod, and my wife's MacBook, and the 9 other Apple computers that I have owned). I think Apple is a great company that makes wonderful products.

But come on...seriously? Jailbreaking is a violation of your copyright?

I believe that taking oneself too seriously is one of the most serious infringements to human happiness. If you really believe that what you do is so important that it can't be done with humor and good sharing, well then, frankly you perhaps need to head back to kindergarten for some manners.

I understand that Apple spent umpteen billion dollars creating the iPhone. I understand that they want to protect their investment. I also understand that Apple has a vision for the way the device works. I get that stuff. I appreciate it. But seriously, some enterprising geeks want to tweak your software and you complain to the trademark office? Holy Christmas! I am astounded by Apple's decision to pursue this kind of action. Perhaps there are more significant issues of technology secrecy and business protection here, but on the simple face of it, this is just plain silly. Apple has clearly gone bonkers here...

Once you buy the device, it is yours to do with what you will. Sure, jailbroken phones do potentially derive Apple of some revenue (especially if they are older iPhones that have a rev-sharing plan with ATT) but for new phones, since this is a traditional subsidized phone sale, Apple is completely whole, even if someone jailbreaks a phone. They are still getting that subsidy payment from ATT. (This could be a complaint by ATT made through Apple to stop jailbreaking, I suppose).

The only folks that I can imagine Apple really going after are people that sell jailbreaking software (if there are any). Then I can understand that Apple is going after a company that facilitates the act of jailbreaking, which Apple feels impinges on its copyright. And, in order to maintain the copyright on something, you need to zealously defend it. But really, can you imagine if cars had copyrights, that Ford or Toyota or GM would go after the millions of tuners and mechanics out there? Does Microsoft freak out if people tweak Windows? I guess I am lost as to Apple's reasoning. It just doesn't make any sense to me. In fact, since I am not a copyright lawyer, I have to think that Apple should be pretty proud of themselves. They have created a device that millions are thrilled with and use as Apple intended. And then there are thousands (millions?) of people who are so inspired by by the promise of the device that Apple had made that they go out of their way to expand on its capabilities. Jailbreaking, to me, is a real compliment. Jailbreaking is using the building blocks of Cupertino's imagination to create a unique user experience. Should Apple be mad? I don't think so. They ought to be honored.

Hey, Apple, stop taking yourself so seriously...this just makes you seem vain and vituperative. (And if it makes you feel better, I was tempted to jailbreak my iPhone after hearing about this, but T-Mobile has even worse coverage that ATT where I live, so my iPhone is just as you made it...are you happy now?)

Why are the "cross-platform" mobile developers dying?

Last week, a startup that I worked for moved on to the great start up graveyard. They had a "write once, run anywhere platform". It was a terrific idea with great technology. Another, larger company I worked for is now 20% of its former size. They create rich multi-media applications that scale massively. They are chugging along, but it seems like the sure-fire glory that they were headed towards won't materialize.  Action Engine famously imploded.


The premise behind all of these companies is sound. Create a platform that allows publishers to gracefully navigate the fragmented handset landscape and achieve massive distribution through a single publishing feed. This makes sense: a single XML feed gets your content onto millions of handsets across manufacturer, carrier, etc. So why are these companies falling apart.


Contrary to your instinct, it has nothing to do with the economy (well maybe a little). Primarily it is the fault of two factors:

1. Pricing
2. Friction

Pricing: The platform companies typically work in reverse of usual logic. The cost of developing an application on one of these platforms typically costs MORE than if you were to hire someone to develop the application from scratch. (This ma in  y not universally be true, but humor me.) The reasoning behind this is that the platform is scalable, has built-in billing and subscription management solutions, advanced multi-media encoding and decoding, etc, etc, etc. The feature set can be very deep. But because of the complexity of accommodating hundreds of handsets, the cost of the platform is enormous. It might actually be cheaper, if less elegant, to build unique instances of the application for specific handsets. That seems simply CRAZY. So why are these amazing application development platforms fall apart? Let's look at some corollaries in the web world: WordPress and Drupal. Both are fundamentally sound web development platforms. They are flexible, offer 100% standards compliance, and are found everywhere from blog sites to major e-commerce sites to rich media sites. These development platforms have been huge successes because they are flexible, scalable and FREE. Unlike they mobile developers, the organizations behind Drupal and WordPresss are looking to monetize the platforms, but rather the applications and services that results from the platform.

Imagine if the mobile application development environment was open-sourced, and if the platform developers didn't charge for access to their platform, but rather just the professional services. The cost of a large scale mobile development project might be cut in half, or even more. The game that has been learned so well on the web has yet to be learned in mobile. Few will pay for your software, they'd rather pay for the results. No one will pay for Drupal, but thousands of site will pay for someone to develop in Drupal. Give away the platform, and get paid for your work. That will drive more business. It may be too little too late if someone were to open source their platform (are you listening folks that I used to work with...open source) but it would be a breath of fresh air. (And, if you make the platform FREE to develop on (iPhone SDK or Android anyone?) imagine how much more exciting the opportunity is for creative deployments when the content owner doesn't need to worry about a $200K platform licensing fee?)

The second reason why these folks have/are failed/failing is friction. The friction is the non-standard application of the underlying platform (Java, mainly) and business friction in the mobile ecosystem. There are just too many secrets, too many tricks, and too many "exceptions" in mobile development because of proprietary interests. Everyone in the system wants control of the experience and the money that results from the experience. Handset folks develop funky implementations of Java so that they can control the final experience, carriers block certain functionality because they want to maintain the integrity of the network and monetize specific functionalities, and developers make it hard on themselves for insisting that their secret sauce is better than someone else's.

The pricing and the friction make large scale mobile development a nearly impossible solution that is so full of compromises that the end result isn't satisfactory. The eco-system will only get better as the development tools get more standardized (iPhone SDK) and the platforms get more open source (Android) or the manufacturer starts to actively court and support developers (BlackBerry).

The mobile handset landscape is very fragmented, and the mobile application development community  mirrors it completely. I challenge any of the platform development players to open source their platform. Proprietary platforms will only result in greater fragmentation. Open platforms are the only way to create massive, lasting change, and frankly, the company that does this best could become THE standard in the industry. Billions and billions of dollars of corporate and personal wealth are at stake. Somebody please take the risk.

Palm Pre: Too Little Too Late?

I was ALWAYS a huge Palm fan. I had a Palm III, IIIx, V, VII, Treo 600 & Treo 650. They completely rocked, all of them. Then Palm ran into trouble, couldn't get their OS working and with $100m from Elevation Partners, they snagged Jon Rubenstein and then went into hiding. Until yesterday...when the unleashed the Palm Pre . 


Frankly, the Pre looks HOT. It has a unique "deck of cards" interface, and the OS is completely geared to connectivity, with all kinds of hooks into the internet. Threaded SMS and instant message is nice, a unified inbox is nice (are you listening Apple?), the Webkit-based browser is very nice. The hardware seems really terrific. All in all, I think this is a great-looking, potentially awesome device. If it came from RIM, or Microsoft, or even Nokia, it could be considered a "game-changer" for that company. But it is from Palm, the OS/Hardware company that gave up their own OS to run Windows Mobile. This is from a company that hasn't released a device that moves them dramatically ahead since the Treo 600 (everything else has been iterative). So is the Palm Pre too little too late, or is it exactly the bold advancement that get Palm back into smartphone prominence (after all, they created the category)?


Here is my opinion. It is too little to late. The phone will sell like hotcakes. It will rocket to the top of Sprint's bestsellers (see you later, Samsung Instinct). It will add some needed revenue and clients to both Sprint and Palm. But will it make a big enough difference? I wouldn't think so. The impact that any device that isn't a wild jump ahead of everything else of the market isn't going to change the playing field. Palm did it with the Treo, Moto did it with the RAZR, RIM did it with the Blackberry, and Apple is doing it with the iPhone. Unless the Pre is a dramatic advancement on the iPhone (which it doesn't seem to be, it seems competitive with the iPhone on a feature level), then it can't change the category. And, the category is so competitive that anything short of a game changer amounts to incremental customer acquisition. And the stakes are really high. Look what has happened with the Blackberry Storm. It is a wildly popular device that has been ridiculed by a lot of the press and has had 4 software updates since it launched a month ago. Buggy, not-well-implemented features simply aren't tolerated. The bar is set really high. Palm can certainly meet the bar, but being as good as Apple or RIM isn't good enough.


To win at this game, you need to change the paradigm. And while the Pre changes Palm's paradigm, it simply seems to get Palm competitive with the market. While that isn't a bad spot to be in, Palm's reduced visibility over the last 3 years really hurts them in the minds of consumers and businesses. (And let's not talk about developers, there are very few Palm developers in the mobile world. Few mobile platform companies and few big gaming companies even think about Palm.) So, while the WebOS and the Pre look great, and may make people respect Palm a little more, they don't change the market. And without that, I think that the competition is too tough. Better than you used to be and competitive with the market simply won't cut it. You have to be dramatically better.


Good luck Palm. You were great. And, well, I stopped buying Palm products years ago because they simply weren't getting better. And now that they have, I have moved on. I am an iPhone guy now. And, I suspect, Palm, that a lot of your audience has moved on. I will always remember you fondly. But, frankly, I just don't feel that way about you any more.

The Rise of Social Media, Mobile Style

I just recently wrote about how Twitter has become my default source of conversation. My company is virtual, meaning that we are always mobile. I have a home office, or sometimes I work at the local cafe (where my wife won the local Apple Pie Bake-Off!), but I never use a desktop computer, haven't been reliant on a big corporation infrastructure since 2000, so I am always mobile. Mobility has its advantages. I can work where I wish, when I wish, and often, if I wish. But there is a drawback to not being tied to a place. There is no water cooler discussion. There are no office shenanigans (I am not sure that my kids clamoring to play games on my iPhone count as office mayhem). So, increasingly, being mobile is about creating a mesh of relationships that must be forced into existence and continually fed to grow. When you live in a town with as many dairy cows as people, the chances that you will run into a hard-charging mobile aficionado who thinks about Web 2.0 (3.0?) who can be your go-to sounding board are pretty slim. So, I must drive relationships and create remote connections that are valuable and lasting. This is different than creating friends. Friends are rare. But social networks are critical to business, information and community.


I was just reading with great interest, Charlene Li's posting on The Future of Social Media . She paints a great picture of social networks that are aware of what you do rather than what you profile. So, for instance, Facebook would be able to see that you e-mail or Tweet or IM your friend, Susan, on a daily basis. Facebook would make you two friends automatically. LinkedIn would know that you work with Bob, so you'd automatically join in each other's network. That is a fantastic notion, and, I suspect, where we are headed.


But what about today? How do mobile workers create this loose mesh of social contacts and relationships. Here are a few ways that I do, and that make my life richer. And, I use all of these from my laptop or iPhone, and I am always on the move:

1. Twitter : It is my constant companion. Frankly, I am a little shy about posting things like "I am headed to the Mall to return my Old Navy sweater" This seems like a bit of grinding minutiae that I don't even care about. But as a source of inspiration, news, and provocation, I have found nothing more exciting. I use TweetDeck on my laptop and Twinkle on my iPhone.
2. GMail Contacts: The suggested contacts feature. while not revolutionary, is really nice. It reminds me of whom I am communicating with at the moment and that spurs me to connect with them.
3. Facebook : Frankly, I use Facebook almost exclusively via my iPhone. I love catching up on the photos of my distant friends. Facebook, for me, is more about keeping up with my real friends, more than social network contacts. And for me, the most important part about Facebook is looking at and uploading photos. Love it.
4. TripIt : I travel often, and TripIt lets me see where my friends and professional colleagues (who have also opted into TripIt) are traveling. It would be infinitely cooler if this were integrated into my personal profile on Facebook, or wherever, but it keeps me in touch with others on the go.
5. Yelp : Like Facebook, I almost always use Yelp via mobile. It helps me decide where to eat or grab coffee when I am someplace new. I follow a few Yelpers in various cities. In this case, I am largely a lurker, not contributing to the discussion, but benefiting from the aggregate experiences. Perhaps I will get more active. I just have soooo many things to update. (And OpenTable is pretty good too)
6. Hulu /You Tube : While not really a social activity, traveling brings with it some missed television shows. I can almost always find them on Hulu or YouTube. You Tube, with its commenting features, is vastly superior than Hulu in a social way, but the content is better on Hulu. 
7. Instant Messaging: There was a time, specifically when I worked in a big company, that instant messaging was all the rage. Now I use it sporadically, but Skype and GTalk are wonderful phone replacements.

These are the tools that I use, everyday, to make my world both smaller and bigger. What do you use?

How I Came To Love Twitter

It was just about a year ago, in my Obligatory Year End Post that I highlighted Twitter as a service that I wish would die. Well, fast forward 50 weeks, and I am a regular tweeter (@timkilroy). I have TweetDeck on my laptop and Twinkle on my iPhone. In fact, Twitter has become a more emotionally important mobile activity than e-mail. (E-mail is usually about work, and Twitter is an active conversation. Frankly, Twitter just appeals to the AAD monkey in my head that is constantly looking for some great, interesting thing to ponder.)


Twitter, especially in its mobile component, allows me the opportunity to engage with folks in the UK, Egypt, SF, wherever. I suddenly have conversations with an incredibly diverse array of folks. I have had questions answered about Drupal , had conversations about Dustin Pedroia , and learned of a friend's major life event via Twitter. It is more real-time than Facebook, more conversational that e-mail, and more diverse than you might find on a single focus chat board (like AppleInsider or something).


I think the change for me has come from the growth in population on Twitter. There is enough of an audience for Twitter to be a tool, for Twitter to become a community, and for Twitter to take on a customizable voice. Most of the folks that I follow are talking about their interests, their professional opinions, and the exciting discoveries that they make. It has become a critical information for me. Frankly, when Twitter goes down, I am depressed. I miss the constant stream of conversation. 


Twitter is definitely NOT on my list of services that ought to die. I want to add more voices to the conversation!

M-Commerce Arrives (Finally): Amazon iPhone Mobile Client

Finally, there is something really exciting to talk about in mobile. Well, not finally, as I have been talking about this since 2005, but M-Commerce has arrived in a really well integrated fashion on mobile, Amazon Mobile. Let's run down the quick list of hits and misses in m-commerce, and then, let's see where Amazon Mobile points us.

Hits (Let's honest, none of these are really hits, your Mom has never heard of any of them...but I bet she's heard of Amazon):
ScanBuy: The granddaddy of mobile commerce allows the user to take a photo of a barcode and get back some results. Used to be clunky, but now is pretty useful, and the ScanBuy technology is pretty promising on a lot of fronts. 2-D barcode reading as mobile marketing device has some interesting promise, but their ScanLife m-commerce (well, not really the commerce part) comparison shopping service has been available for a long time and set the standard.

S'Lifter: S'lifter took a novel approach to m-commerce. They aggregated local stock levels of real world retailers and returned comparison shopping results in a stock and location aware fashion. Nice approach. It has some good success, available via Sprint and Virgin Mobile (and maybe others). Big issues are friction around getting inventory levels from retailers and no way to close the loop on a purchase. (How does a retailer know that you found the product via S'Lifter?) Would be terrific if integrated with a buy online pick up in store idea. (Disclaimer, I used to work for S'Lifter...I think they are terrific people that work really hard and have a good vision.)

That is about it. There are thousands of misses. Obopay, MobileLime, the list goes on and on.

So why has m-commerce not become a significant channel? Well, there are two obvious reasons carriers and retail point of sale issues. So, whatever. Carriers got in the way. They are starting to get out of the way. Eventually they will. Retail point of sale is a bigger issue. Commerce via mobile (using the mobile device as a payment channel) is a nearly intractable problem because of the infrastructure needed to support it. (Imagine every 7-11 or Macy's with an NFC terminal attached to their POS...impossible). 

But, there is this in-between world of delayed fulfilment via mobile that Amazon is hitting really well. It isn't a new idea, because lots of retailers (including Amazon) have had WAP sites where you could buy goods via mobile devices for a long time. But Amazon takes things to a new level by leveraging the strengths of mobile. 

Amazon has created the "Remember" function which allows you to take a picture of an item with your iPhone camera. The image is sent to Amazon, crunched, munged and played with and in a few minutes you get an e-mail with a link for to your item in the iPhone app or the web. I did it with my Jawbone headset sitting on my desk. It analyzed the photo (not a good one, mind you) and found my headset in a different color. It took about 5 minutes. Perhaps longer than I want if I want to do some comparison shopping in a store, but perfect if you see something while you are out and want to check it out later. 

Perhaps, best of all, Amazon uses its One-Click checkout and automatically handles the payment and shipping. I suspect that later iterations will use your Amazon address book to let you send things to other people.

And, Amazon is now letting other merchants use their checkout...this is the start of something terrific. It has taken a few weeks, but I am jazzed about mobile again!