20070215Series60.jpgI think that most of us went through the experience of unpacking a new Microsoft based Personal Computer. You turn it on and you start the configuration process that finally will lead you to your desktop.

Very often you will find your tray filled with pre-installed applications like Messengers, Anti Virus Software, CD/DVD Burning software and so on.

The next step is, obviously, removing most of them since each of us has its own preferences for these applications.

If we look at what’s happening in the mobile world today we see a lot of applications coming from the big internet players into your mobile.

The problem is that if on your PC you have plenty of ram and disk space to use the situation is quite different on you mobile phone.

Some questions need to be answered:

  • How many single applications can you run at the same time?
  • How many of them will basically do the same thing?
  • What are your personal preference while you are hitting the road?
  • How the different applications will interact with each other?

This is something that need to be sorted out by operators very soon.

I believe that the customer has to be given the opportunity what’s going to be installed on his handset.

We can probably think at the same exact process you find today on some personal computers. You switch on your mobile phone for the first and you decide which applications you want to install on it.

If I have a quick look at my mobile phone today (Nokia N73) I found myself with:

  • Jaiku (Great application btw)
  • Opera Mini
  • Gmail
  • Google Maps
  • WWW (3 implementation of the Novarra web browser)
  • amAze
  • Widsets
  • ShotCode
  • Kaywa Reader
  • Fring
  • Some other minor geeky stuff

I think that I have spent at least a couple of hours setting up the whole thing.

In the near future this process has to be automated in some way. I do not want to load each single application by myself and I do not want to find all of the pre-installed on my phone.

There are only two options here:

  • A phone centric solution where and installer like software will manage that for you.
  • A network centric solution where you configure your mobile phone on the fixed web and applications are pushed to your mobile phone at a later stage.

There will be several applications doing the same thing on the same thing. I have three web browsers on my mobile phone (the native Nokia web browser, Opera Mini and WWW). As it happens on Personal Computers I want to be able to decide which is my default web browser.

This is definitely another critical aspect if we want to transfer the PC user experience on a mobile phone.

There are several usability issues that need to be addressed here but it pretty much clear that this has to be done if we want to keep our customers happy.

Why do I blog this? Even if operators may have their strategies on mobile internet I think that the best approach is to let the customer free.

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