Screens on mobile phones is getting bigger. That is good because Jakob Nielsen says bigger screens leads to better usability. One reason mobile phones is getting bigger screens is that mobile phones just isn’t mobile phones anymore. They have become cameras, mp3-players and internet devices as well. All this new functionality requires a bigger screen compared to what is necessary for just making phone calls.

But even though i do agree with Jakob Nielsen that bigger screens leads to better usability, the usability is of course also depended of the design presented on the screen. As Buchanan et. al. state it in Improving Mobile Internet Usability one problem is that the design isn’t tailored to the screen size. Designers try to fill a sheet of paper even though what they are designing for is a Post-it.

The article The Myth of a Big Screen, Treating the symptoms rather than the cause state it this way:

“Making the screen bigger is just the current fashionable red herring to distract you from the plain and simple fact that the vendors can’t get the design right.”

These articles are from 2000 and 2001 and therefore im surprised to witness the new Samsung Instinct and specially the design of the browser on the Instinct.

But let’s first have a look on how Apple designed Safari on their iPhone. Both the iPhone and the Instinct have big screens. But they still have small screens for web surfing. To give the user the best experience it may be logic to use every possible pixel on the screen for content.

When scrolling in Safari on the iPhone the URL text field will disapear as you scroll down the page giving more space for content. But still there is 20 pixels used for the Status bar in the top and 44 pixels being used in the Button bar in the bottom.

I think it’s a good decision made by the Safari designers to let the URL text field disapear because on such a small device every single pixel used for content counts.

Therefore i was kind of puzzled when i saw the design of the browser on the Instinct. The Instinct as well as the iPhone has a URL text field in the top. Instead of a Button bar in the bottom, the Instinct designers have chosen to use space on both the left and the right side of the screen for buttons. This gives very little space for the content.

Luckily the designers have made it possible to enter a Full Screen View by touching an icon. The strange thing is, that a Full Screen View on an Instinct isn’t what i would expect from a Full Screen View. The only thing that disapears when you touch the icon is the URL text field leaving all buttons in on the left side of the screen.

The best aproach i have seen so far on designing a browser for mobile phones is Firefox. Though Firefox for mobile phones isn’t released yet a video shows how the Firefox mobile phone team have aproached the design challenge and have understood that on a small screen every single pixel used for content counts. All pixels are used for content which i think will lead to a better user experience than on both Safari on the iPhone and especially the browser on the Samsung Instinct.

To reach the navigation buttons on Firefox you have to scroll your finger to the right which reveals navigation bottons on the left side of the viewpoint. This aproach is very clever. Firefox use every single pixel for content which is what users are interested in when they read/scan pages.

It seems odd to me that the Firefox browser and the Samsung Instinct browser are designet the same year. The Safari browser does a deasent job but could learn from Firefox. But the Instinct seems to be designet before 2000 where the article mentionet at the top stated

“Making the screen bigger is just the current fashionable red herring to distract you from the plain and simple fact that the vendors can’t get the design right.”

It’s great mobile phones now have bigger screens which makes it easier to surf the internet on mobile phones. But to what use is the bigger screens when designers just don’t understand that we are not interested in their design but content?

Russel Beattie, udvikleren af den mobile tjeneste Mowser som er en søgemaskine, der tilpasser websider så de kan læses på små skærme, anser det mobile internet for dødt. Med det mobile internet mener Russel Beattie websider der er 100% tilpasset til mobiltelefoner og som ikke har synlige fællestræk med det internet vi kender fra vores desktopcomputere.

Argumentet for det mobile internet, siger Russel Beattie, var, at der rundt regnet er 3 milliarder mobiltelefoner og når de kommer på internettet vil de langt overgå antallet af computere og derfor vælte trafikken mod mobiltelefonen som den primære enhed til at tilgå internettet. Det vil bare ikke ske, før der kommer bedre mobiltelefoner og “rigtige” browsere.

The problem is that these billions of users *haven’t* gotten on the Internet, and they won’t until the experience is better and access to the web is barrier-free – and that means better devices and “full browsers”. Let’s face it, you really aren’t going to spend any real time or effort browsing the web on your mobile phone unless you’re using Opera Mini, or have a smart phone with a decent browser – as any other option is a waste of time, effort and money. Users recognize this, and have made it very clear they won’t be using the “Mobile Web” as a substitute for better browsers, rather they’ll just stay away completely.

Som argument henviser han til tal fra M-Metrics der viser, at i USA går 85% af iPhoneejere på nettet fra deres mobiltelefon mod 58% smartphoneejere og kun 13% af det samlede mobilmarked. Om de tal så siger noget som helst om, om det er iPhonen i sig selv, der er skyld i det høje tal, eller om det er fordi der automatisk følger fri internet med iPhonen, når man husker at aktivere det “obligatoriske” AT&T-abonnement er en helt anden diskussion.

Jeg tror ikke, at det er én faktor, der er afgørende for, om folk tilgår internettet fra deres mobiltelefon, men at det bestemmes af en række faktorer, som alle er med til at bestemme brugernes samlede user experience af det mobile internet og dermed deres adoption af det. Det kunne blandt andet være faktorer som skærmens størrelse, at man selv skal installere en ordentlig browser, opsætningen af teleudbyderens internetindstillinger på telefonen, tastaturet, uigennemskuelige priser (afregning pr. mb), hastigheden, generel usability på telefonen og så videre.

Men det er en helt tredje diskussion, som jeg forhåbentlig ved meget mere om, når jeg afleverer mit speciale 1 august, som netop handler om brugeroplevelsen af det mobile internet.

Det kan hænde at man bare må blogge. Uanset hvor man befinder sig. Når en mand skal, så skal han sgu, som Erik Clausen siger i Den Store Badedag da han sætter sig til at skide på en avis på køkkengulvet.

Til det formål er der lavet et Wordpress plugin, mobileadmin. Når plugindet er indstalleret og aktiveret får man administrationsdelen i Wordpress i det velkendte iPhone websidelook.

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mobileadmin

World’s first ‘newspaper’ phone launched in Sweden
While Sweden is generally considered technologically advanced, DN says the Scandinavian nation lies far behind countries like Japan and South Korea when it comes to the number of people who use mobile phones to surf the Internet.

“Many people (in Sweden) think it’s complicated (to Internet surf on their mobile phones) and they don’t know how much it costs,” the paper’s head of marketing Johan Othelius told DN.

Introducing the futuristic mobile phone that can buy your clothes for you
A revolutionary new mobile phone will soon be able to let shoppers snatch a photo of clothes they want before ordering them online.

Mobiles for the ‘world’s poorest’
As part of a UN programme to tackle poverty in rural Africa, 79 villages across 10 African countries will be hooked up to cellular networks.

It is hoped that the connections will help improve healthcare and education, as well as boosting the local economy.

A 2005 study showed that an increase of 10 mobile phones per 100 people could increase GDP growth by 0.6%.

Mobile Phones in Ethiopia
So, we spent a good part of a Thursday morning in Addis Ababa in this month of May – the month of surprises – talking to ordinary Addis Ababans and taking some pictures to get a sense of the prevalence of this technology. We visited the city’s cafes, souks, and work places and talked to taxi drivers, SIM card vendors, businessmen and businesswomen in Merkato, coffee exporters, and even gardeners. The pictures here show just a glimpse of what we found out. The city and the country are poised for an explosive growth in mobile phones.

Nokia-krav kan få dramatiske konsekvenser for telebranchen
Nokias topchef har netop luftet tanken om at gå Apple i bedene og tage sig betalt for den trafik, som deres nye tjenester vil generere i operatørernes netværk. Det kan få dramatiske konsekvenser for hele branchen, hvis Nokia får held med det, vurderer en teleanalytiker.

Skulle det komme så langt, så ender kunderne med at blive taberne i det spil. De bør være skeptiske overfor Nokias udmelding, for det er ikke godt for kunderne, hvis det udarter sig, så det bliver producenten, der leverer indholdet.

Betal busbilletten over mobilen
500 London-borgere farter netop nu billetløse rundt i den britiske hovedstad. De skal nemlig afprøve, hvordan alle senere vil kunne bruge mobiltelefonen til at betale for at tage med bussen, toget eller undergrundsbanen.

The Mobile Web is NOT helping the Developing World… and what we can do about it.
The phones that are designed and marketed for the ‘developing world’ today aren’t data enabled, they have no browser or any ability to function as a traditional data device. We’re dumping hundreds of millions of devices into these regions that are essentially crippled – and their legacy (the average life span of a phone in Africa is many times that of it’s Western counterpart) will affect mobile internet usage in these regions throughout the next decade. Furthermore, in the small Kenyan village where I live it’s significantly less than 1 in 10 phones that can support the traditional ‘mobile Web’ experience, and it’s probably closer to 1 in 1000 phones that have ever successfully connected to the web.

Computeren er på vej ud og alt bliver mobilt
Antallet af solgte computere i Japan er faldet de seneste fire kvartaler, for der er ikke længere brug for dem. Man kan downloade musik direkte til MP3-afspilleren – udenom computeren. Man kan slutte digitalkameraet direkte til printeren eller tv’et, og film kan downloades direkte til tv’et. Computerspil er langt bedre på en spilkonsol. E-mail klares bedre med mobiltelefoner og PDA’er. Computeren er ganske enkelt overflødig for stadig flere mennesker.

7 User Experience Lessons from the iPhone
internal presentation, given in mid January 2007, to introduce our newly formed user experience group to the development team.

Mobile takes the web back to the 90s
Does this mean that mobile internet is effectively 8 years behind the web as we know it today?

Certainly the content that can be delivered is basic. I am sure if we scour the industry we can still find some die-hard HTML coders to build these sites. I am sure designers can be prized away from Flash to build some basic 16 colour designs.

Mobile phone use increases tumor risk
The current study showed, according to an Israel newspaper, that people used mobile phone for more than 22 hours per month faced 50 percent increased risk for a parotid gland tumor.

Why The Mobile Web Had Such A Terrible Start
First attempts by mobile phone manufacturers to mobilize the web were a big disappointment for quite a number of reasons. In the fixed line world the web got an incubation time of at least a decade to grow, to be refined and to be fostered by researchers and students at universities before being used by the public who already had sufficiently capable notebooks, PCs and a reasonably priced connection to the Internet. In the mobile world, things were a lot different when first web browsers appeared on mobile phones around the year 2001.

JupiterResearch Finds Creating Better Browser Alternatives Would Stimulate Mobile Internet Adoption
“Browser alternatives such as widgets or applets, which are mini applications that allow for content to be easily accessed from a home screen or with just a few clicks, can meet consumer demands for quick access to information,” said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch. “The goal should be to engage the user through ease of operation so that accessing information in this manner will eventually become second nature.”

Nokia sees HD video on cellphones in a few years
Video recording on cellphones is set to reach high definition (HD) quality in a few years’ time, an executive at the world’s top cellphone maker Nokia said on Wednesday.

“It’s coming. Technically, we are a couple of years away,” Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer Tero Ojanpera told Reuters in an interview. “It’s still a few years away.”

Google’s Android targets iPhone power
London’s role is to come up with brilliant new ways to use the internet on a mobile phone. European mobile internet may not be mass market yet, but users here are leagues ahead of their American cousins. Which makes the UK one of the best places to test new products and find software developers who understand the medium.

JupiterResearch Finds Creating Better Browser Alternatives Would Stimulate Mobile Internet Adoption
Overall, 63 percent of cell phone owners are not using cell phones to access such Internet services as search engines or to gather such information as the daily news, which are both popular activities on computers. However, the fact that 37 percent of cell phone owners are accessing some kind of information or services on their cell phone is a clear indicator of demand from cell phone users for more than voice services.

Usability test: Does iPhone match the hype?
Let’s cut to the bottom line: In terms of usability, iPhone blew away its two competitors. Its overall score in the usability tests was 4.6 out of 5. The HTC Touch was a distant second at 3.4, and the Nokia N95 scored 3.2.

“Testers were [typically] about twice as fast doing specific tasks on the iPhone, which is pretty remarkable,” Thornton said.

Phone revolution makes Africa upwardly mobile
“This phone has become my office,” he added, smiling as he held up a Nokia registering a full bar of signal. Mr Gakungi and others like him are helping to drive a wireless revolution that has made Africa the world’s fastest-growing mobile phone market. At the start of 2000, there were eight million subscribers in Africa. According to a report by Informa, a telecoms analyst, there are now more than 100 million mobiles in use on the continent — one for every nine Africans.

35% of U.S. Tweens Own a Mobile Phone, According to Nielsen
According to Nielsen, 5% of tweens access the Internet over their phone each month. While 41% of tween mobile Internet users say they do so while commuting or traveling (to school, for example), mobile content such as the Internet is also a social medium for this audience: 26% of tween mobile Internet users say they access the web while at a friend’s house and 17% say they do so at social events.

The impact of the mobile phone
What was first considered a luxury item is now a necessity in our everyday lives. The mobile phone ranks right up there with the wallet, as items that I can’t leave home without. And if I did, well, I would feel something amiss and it would completely throw my day off.

The mobile phone also lets me do a lot more than make phone calls, play games and take photos. For example, OCBC Bank in Singapore has turned the mobile phone into a two-factor authentication device for Internet banking transactions. Newer mobile phones are also starting to incorporate GPS navigation, and wireless payment is emerging.

Mobile Manufacturers – Obsessed by cool?
I have the dubious pleasure of sitting in on a lot of focus groups with mobile users and I am always surprised at how many users want and need a phone that is robust. For example – many still treasure their Nokia 6310s and go all nostalgic when they talk about its reliability.

Festival for mobile phone films in Japan
Films made entirely on mobile phones are competing in Japan’s First Pocket Film Festival this weekend, with 48 titles in the running for the first prize of 500,000 yen (£2,200).

Ask the IntoMobile Magic 8-Ball – What is the future of mobile phones?
The UI is the future, and manufacturers are starting to realize that fact. Nokia is going with a touch-based S60. Motorola just bought a 50% stake in UIQ. Samsung has Croix. Apple has the iPhone. And therein lies the key to why the iPhone is such a success. The user interface on the iPhone is un-rivaled. Sure, it’s lacking in the hardware department, but Apple will eventually get it together and offer the same hardware specs that we’ve come to expect from high-end phones. But, the UI. Wow, the UI is incredible.

Ny portal giver det mobile overblik
Folkene bag MobStart mener nemlig, at portalen snart vil være sidestykket til Jubii og Yahoo – bare på mobiltelefonen. MobStart fokuserer specielt på hjemmesider, der er tilpasset det mobile internet.

Fuld fart på de mobile portaler
Både Sonofon og TDC jubler over deres respektive portaler, E-go og Fly.
»Inden for det sidste år er antallet af brugere steget med over 70 procent,« siger Peter Berg, der er markedsdirektør hos Sonofon.
Den markante fremgang har bragt E-gos besøgstal op på 192.000 unikke brugere, der skaber 1,5 millioner sidevisninger om måneden.
Hos TDC er der samme begejstring for portalen Fly.
»Vores opfattelse er, at Fly er en af de største mobile portaler. Vi har i øjeblikket 225.000 unikke besøgende om måneden, og vi ser en konstant vækst,« siger Morten Hother Sørensen, der er markedsdirektør i TDC Mobil Norden.

Apple trimmer iPhone til forretningsfolk
Indtil videre er det især inkarnerede Apple-entusiater og gadget-freaks, der har kastet sig over Apple-hittet iPhone. Men nu satser Apple på at udvide kredsen, og lancerer en erhvervsløsning, der skal gøre iPhone til forretningsmandens følgesvend.

Mobiler der stråler mindre
SonyEricsson S500i, SonyEricsson W580 og Samsung SGH-i600 er gode valg, hvis du ønsker en mobiltelefon med lav stråling.

A bank in every pocket?
Leonard Waverman of the London Business School has estimated that an extra ten mobile phones per 100 people in a typical developing country leads to an extra half a percentage point of growth in GDP per person.

As mobile phones have spread, a new economic benefit is coming into view: using them for banking, and so improving access to financial services, not just telecoms networks. Pioneering m-banking projects in the Philippines, Kenya and South Africa show the way. These “branchless” schemes typically allow customers to deposit and withdraw cash through a mobile operator’s airtime-resale agents, and send money to other people via text messages that can be exchanged for cash by visiting an agent.

Mobile Web: So Close Yet So Far
Similarly, surveys by Yankee Group, a Boston research firm, show that only 13 percent of cellphone users in North America use their phones to surf the Web more than once a month, while 70 percent of computer users view Web sites every day.

“The user experience has been a disaster,” says Tony Davis, managing partner of Brightspark, a Toronto venture capital firm that has invested in two mobile Web companies.

The power of the mobile phone to end poverty
His own experience as a child in Bangladesh and later a banker in New York brought him to realize that “connectivity is productivity” — and that a simple cell phone has enormous power. Now his telecom company, GrameenPhone, offers service to most of rural Bangladesh, creating new opportunities by connecting villages to the world.

Cellphone could be boarding pass, too
Continental Airlines passengers in Houston will be able to board flights using just a cellphone or personal-digital assistant instead of a regular boarding pass in a three-month test program launched Tuesday at Bush Intercontinental Airport.

European Commission scientists launch first mobile application that uses your mobile phone to track your carbon footprint
mobGAS©® is a new mobile phone application available in 21 European languages that allows users to see how their daily choices impact on climate change. This smart technology, developed by scientists working at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, allows users to see the implications of the choices they make every day, in terms of the three major greenhouse gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

Cellphone records reveal new patterns of human activity
The data can also suggests how to monitor the way people behave in emergencies in realtime. For example, a pile up on the freeway causes lots of rapidly moving phones grind to a halt, a few call the emergency services while others call the office/spouse/lovers. Spot that pattern and its a pretty good indication that an event has occurred. Location information might even help to determine exactly where the accident took place.

7 steps to better handheld browsing
Delivering web content to handheld media devices is becoming more and more important, as browser-enabled mobile phones become popular, and more of us want to stay updated whilst on the move.

Mobile internet set for take-off?
The mobile internet is more toll road than superhighway, but the logjam could clear up.

On the face of things there is little reason to be confident that mobile internet will ever fully catch on with consumers. It’s expensive, awkward to use, and lacks the content and functionality of a traditional PC-based browser.

Dating moves from the PC to the mobile
Romi Parmar is hoping it will be third time lucky with 3G Dating Agency, a Clerkenwell-based company using the neglected video camera on 3G phones to launch a secure global dating service. He believes that the increasing availability of 3G phones and the belated arrival of “all-you-can-eat” data tariffs – meaning you no longer need to take out a mortgage to make a 3G call – have boosted the chances of success.

How to make your site mobile friendly
It is a cliché to talk about the rapid growth of mobile devices for phone, chat, texting, etc. What draws far less consideration is the impact of the growing trend toward accessing the internet on mobile devices.

Reuters Mobile Journalism Roundtable: Rolling Out The MoJo, Planning For HD Mobiles
A Reuters reporter will this week embark on an experiment to report the arrival of Tesco in the US with little more than a Nokia N95 mobile phone. The news agency has been using the “mobile journalism toolkit”, developed through close partnership with Nokia, for a couple of months now, but mostly to have TV reporters shoot video for the web – now a text reporter will file to the wire from LA and Las Vegas using the handset and a Bluetooth keyboard.

Det næste skridt for nettet er at blive mobil
“Det næste skridt for nettet er at blive mobil – det ved alle, og det er derfor næsten banalt at påpege,” siger Nokias vicepræsident Anssi Vanjoki.

Over halvdelen af tiden bruges derimod på at surfe eller chatte over nettet, 16 procent af tiden bruges på multimedier og 14 procent går på kalenderfunktioner og håndtering af aftaler.

Guitar Hero Mobile’ rocks your cell phone hard
Addicts of Activision’s Guitar Hero console game will no longer be confined to fretting their faux guitar in the living room, game room, or basement. Soon they’ll be able to play from their mobile phone.

Apple boosts iPhone CPU clockspeed with iPhone v1.1.2 firmware update
It seems all the updates hidden within the v1.1.2 firmware are more geared towards stability, security, and speed. In this case, the v1.1.2 update boosts your iPhone’s CPU clockspeeds by about 12Mhz and system bus speed by 3Mhz.

Mobile phones are lifeline for the homeless
While we’re on the subject of improving lives with mobile technology, apparently homeless people are also increasing using mobile phones. As a matter of fact, a mobile phone is considered a “critical tool in getting off the streets.” Without a phone number where they can be reached, filling out applications for jobs or housing is often useless for the homeless.

Windows Mobile – it’s a man’s world
A study conducted by Microsoft found that only 14.6% of the Windows Mobile users are women, 85.4% of users being of the male persuasion.

Lag bedre mobiler
Hollywood-produsent Lucas Foster bannet kraftig i kjerka da han på Nokia World-konferransen i Amsterdam krevde bedre mobiler, før film og video på mobilen kan bli noen suksess.

- Mobilene må få et langt bedre brukergrensesnitt en i dag. Det skal være gøy å sitte å utforske og leke med mobilens muligheter, det er det ikke i dag.

iPhone browsing market share demonstrates usability drives use
Net Applications reports that in November 2007, iPhone browsing market share was 0.09% — nearly 0.1% — of all browsers in their sample. Now that may not seem like much until you compare it with the share for all Windows Mobile/Windows CE devices, which only tip the scales at 0.06%. Said another way, the approximately 2.5 million iPhones sold to date are being used about five times more than the nearly 7 million Windows Mobile phones sold over the past six years.

Don’t think this usability matters?

iPhones Take Over the Internet
We’ve always felt that the iPhone’s game-changing feature was its Web browser. Now we have proof: iPhone owners were responsible for nearly one out of every 1,000 Web page views last month. This erases any doubt that the future of mobile devices most certainly includes the Web.

It’s obvious that people have a need for Web access even when they aren’t at their desks or at home or wherever else they have a PC. We think that businesses could make their employees more productive by making sure that the mobile devices they give them have a full-fledged browser. We’re not saying companies should go out and buy everyone an iPhone – although if you do we’d love to hear about it. But presumably, it’s just a matter of time until an iPhone-like browser is a standard feature on mobile devices.

Mobile internet is the next battleground
The mobile internet is finally taking off, and will be an important part of Vodafone’s future. The company’s results last week showed a big jump in revenues from people using data functions such as web-surfing.

Google Pre-Launches New iPhone Interface
If you visit Google.com from an iPhone, you now get a menu of services to choose from – home (search box), Gmail, Calendar, Reader and More (docs, sms, goog-411, news, photos, blogger and notebook). It’s basically all of the core Google services, accessible from a single easy to use menu.

EA makes more money on mobile than on PS3 and PSP games
The latest numbers from Electronic Arts suggest the gaming giant made twice as much money from mobile as from PlayStation 3.

SAP Unveils Its First Software for iPhone
SAP is breaking with precedent by introducing versions of the new software that are compatible with the iPhone ahead of programs for mobile devices businesses traditionally use, such as Research in Motion’s Blackberry, Palm’s Treo and devices that run on software from Microsoft Corp.

“The iPhone has become such a popular thing,” said Bob Stutz, a SAP senior vice president who is responsible for developing customer relationship management software. “Everybody wants the ease of use of the iPhone.”

Kritikere har ellers hævdet, at iPhonen ikke var anvendelig som forretningsmobil. Men det mener SAP altså ikke.

Google Android gets positive early reviews
After downloading and examining Google’s Android software development kit, some software developers gave the platform favourable initial reviews and praised it as a breath of fresh air for an industry that has long been characterised by closed devices and software.

“What you see with platforms like Windows Mobile is that there’s more of a concentration on bringing Windows applications to mobile platforms,” says Evan Prodromou, a writer and programmer who lives in Montreal. “But it seems that what we’re seeing with Android is a ground-up approach to application development… It’s a pretty decent first effort. I’m going to guess that we’ll see a lot more refinement, but it’s a good start.”

Google teaches industry how to be open but closed
Anyone coming new to the mobile industry will immediately notice its love affair with the word ‘open’: Open operating systems; Open access; and of course Open source. Without exception, open is viewed as good and closed is bad, or even evil, depending on who¡¦s doing the evangelising. But the reality is that there’s a tremendous amount of inconsistency in how the word ‘open’ is employed in the wireless industry and it is far from clear-cut that open is always good. It can sometimes be bad.

One ironic, and quite amusing misuse of the word open is in the context of handset operating systems. The likes of Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm are frequently referred to as open OSes when they’re not open at all. In fact, they’re quite tightly closed. If you don’t believe me, ask Microsoft or Symbian for their platform source code and count the seconds it takes for the laughter to begin.