6/15/09  Few companies innovate with the vigor of those working in the cellular industry. While most of us happily soak up new innovation as mere consumers, a growing number of firms are already working on the next big thing — the phones we will be carrying around in our back pockets in 2012 and beyond and the applications that will drive their usage.

This is really not a U.S. phenomenon but instead a global driven force as Apple’s App Store is currently available in 77 countries and mobile phones are the lifeline in some of the poorest developing countries.

At a recent lunch in our office, I observed four of our design and programming staff sitting together each with an iPhone either playing games, texting or sharing their latest download discoveries. This scene goes on across campuses, companies and in social settings across the world everyday. The mobile phone has become the business and entertainment device of choice.

First on the application side, Apple’s App Store success of late been well documented; more than 30,000 new applications, $30 billion in the first 30 days of operation, and close to 1 billion downloads since launch.
Mobile Application Stores (MAS) are a not really a market but have become a new revenue stream for operators, handset manufacturer’s and application developers. The key MAS solutions, namely Qualcomm’s BREW shop, Apple’s App Store, BlackBerry App World, Nokia’s Download.

Mobile Applications Stores have been around long before the iPhone – in fact since 2001 Qualcomm BREW has offered an application platform for developers, but also a complete developer-to-consumer channel. Naturally, there are a number of other vendors offering partial MAS solutions, namely Cellmania, GetJar, Handago, Motricity, Jamba, Buongiorno and Handmark.

In 2009 we are clearly seeing a turn towards complete Mobile Application store offerings in the footsteps of Apple’s App Store. There’s been plenty of coverage on Google’s Android Market, RIM’s Application Center, Microsoft’s SkyMarket and Adobe’s Appzone.

Next the hardware, the future isn’t really about hardware. At least as far as I see it, sure there will be great innovations with new screen technology, wireless integration, and broader integration.

Some of the most exciting innovations we’ve seen in recent years have come from mobile services. Innovation for many is centered more around what you can do with a mobile device, rather than what you can make out of one. The belief is that many future mobile innovations will be borne out of the realities of the developing world. In my world, where we leave household devices on standby for weeks on end, energy efficient mobile devices are seen as something of a luxury. For a mobile phone owner in, say, Sierra Leone — with little access to mains electricity — it’s more of a necessity. As devices get smarter, faster and more powerful, the challenges of power consumption will continue to consume large chunks of R&D effort. The recent announcement from the Chinese Academy of Sciences of a highly-efficient solar cell that can effectively be embedded in plastic could give us a glimpse of a future where the housing of mobile phones becomes one large solar panel. Advances in harnessing kinetic energy could also give us self-charging mobiles, akin to our already-present self-winding watches. Perhaps the challenges of keeping mobile devices powered up will lead to a convergence where a number of charging technologies are present in a single device.

Again, this technology would most likely emerge from developing countries, where vast numbers of potential customers are excluded from phone ownership because they lack of access to power to charge them.
Despite the march of the integrated mobile device, we’re still some way off making them as easy and convenient to use as our old friend the computer. Once I leave my laptop at home and start writing regularly on my phone, maybe I’ll finally know that my future has arrived.