For me, the most interesting part of the Apple announcement is the MobileMe service. Some existing dot Mac users have been expecting a significant movement towards ‘the cloud’ for some time. This is a great first step, especially if you have multiple Macs and an iPhone. It is also close to my heart. I spent a good deal of sweat and money developing a constant-sync solution for calendar, contacts and email back in 1999 and 2000. I’m just staggered that it has taken this long for a consumer service like this to see the light of day. I remember attending an O2 Blackberry conference, also early 00s and asking when we would see a consumer version of the full push service. The fact that we’ve had to wait so long to get this (i.e. since Blackberry) shows the ridiculous pedestrian pace of the mobile-data services industry.

It also demonstrates that innovation can only come from outside. In his recent post, Ajit Jaokar asks:

So, the fundamental question regarding the implementation of Mobile Web 2.0 is: How does the mobile industry adopt the ethos of the Web (openness, no walled gardens etc) and yet maintain some unique advantages?

If, by mobile industry, he means operators, then the answer is not much. In the iPhone offering, what is the role of the operator? It is to provide connectivity and billing, the same utilitarian services that they’ve always offered. Perhaps some customer care, but then I suspect that a good deal of support really comes from Apple’s online forum.

And, let’s face it, better that these services do come from Apple and not from the operators. Which single and successful innovation in software services has the operator club brought us? MMS? WAP? IMPS? PTT? No. No. No. No. All attempts to build cathedrals in a world of multifarious bazars.

There is no technological feat that they can achieve to bring us innovative and useful experiences. They invented IMS many years ago now and it still hasn’t seen the light of day as a platform for innovative services, which it could be. It is out there as just another network technology that operators struggle to justify in terms of investment. But, it’s a bit like inventing HTTP and then asking what it’s good for. We needed the Web to get the answers, not the protocol.

When I designed the Zingo ‘mobile internet portal’ for Lucent Technologies back in 1998, the debate that it caused then was all about who’s going to own the customer. This is still the issue. In the world of Web 2.0, the technological apparatus is nowhere near as important as the basic fact that the user owns their ‘data’ experience, not any single operator or company. If I don’t like Gmail, then I switch it off and click somewhere else. Moreover, if a developer doesn’t like Gmail, they go create an alternative. Operators could never get their heads around this and have simply put blind faith in the principle of control. Look at the ridiculous ‘developer forums’ that operators have run, or attempted to run. ‘You spend your time and money inventing something and we’ll probably ignore it or, if not, then we’ll control who gets to use it.’

I don’t believe that it was necessary to wait for Apple, with all their technical brilliance, to get to where we are now with the superb iPhone offering (which is a lot more than just technology). Operators, had they wanted to, had more than enough resources and technological partners (i.e. network suppliers) with Apple’s brilliance. However, they weren’t inclined towards innovation as it didn’t fit with their business model. After all, why innovate when you own the customer?

What next? Let’s hope that something will come of other outsider ventures, such as Android, and that we’ll see some real competition for the iPhone, which is light years ahead. Personally, I think that Google should have stuck to the ‘Google Phone’ idea that was widely touted before Android. I’m still not sure that Android is in anyway a strategic advantage for Google, more of a Google Labs experiment.

It is clear that the field is still wide open for innovation. I still envisage seeing something like a ‘Nintendo Phone’ that offers a game-centered communications offering. There’s also so much room for innovation in video and television. There are lots of ‘iPhones’ waiting to happen. If it’s going to go this way, then some operators will get the partnership deals and some won’t. This is where network technologies like IMS could be an advantage, so long as the operator opens up the stack and offers it to their partner.

I’m looking forward to getting my iPhone 3G!

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