Potential Mobile applications

ilikerashers

Anyone up for putting up some ideas for mobile development and trying to see where it's all going to go/.

Example: was in a taxi in Dublin and was looking at the hardware he was surrounded by....
A big lump of grey plastic which was provided by the taxi-call-center job, had GPS to select calls (115 euro a week) and a display that looked like it was made in 1970
A GPS device attached to his windscreen
A telephone for private calls

Hmm, bit of a no-brainer application sitting there.

Atomic Pineapple

Some sort of GPS social location app where an SMS contains GPS data on the senders position so the receiver can then get the location to the person and directions by walking or by car.

This could come in handy in organising group meetings at certain locations, say a pub or for giving people directions to a party/wedding/21st.

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A city wide guide to tourist sights, info/pics of the sight as well as a GPS location allowing the tourist to find there way to the sight via directions on the phone.

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As you have stated above, simply follow Taxi drivers or fleet cars via the GPS in there mobile phone rather than having a separate GPS device in the Cab, might have some privacy issues here if the cab driver uses a personal mobile device though.

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An application that shows crime hot spots in cities and alerts a person if they are near a crime hot spot could also be useful, this could also be used to track out breaks of diseases and make a user aware of potential risks to there health in certain areas

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For the future there is some even more interesting ideas when the mobile world becomes more stanardised and we can link all sorts of machines together.

Such as having your mobile as a credit card, you simply walk onto the train and the distance you travel is calculated by GPS and the fee is taken straight out of your account from the mobile device.

Or you ring up a restaurant and book a meal, they then send you the menu and prices and from here you can order what you want before you even get there, the restaurant will have the gps location of your device and know when and how far away you are from the restaurant and can prepare your meal accordingly.

Obviously there is some flaws in the above ideas but they are just general ideas off the top of my head

ilikerashers

Nice,

I've seen golf score trackers that corporations use on company days out. They charge to upload scores via specialist handheld devices and send the scores to a local server and put em against each other.

The application would just sit on a phone and put scores onto a website. Track your game development for free!

ilikerashers

Right, another 2 here

A phone migration app, so when you get a new phone, all your texts and numbers and setup is transferred to your new phone

Restaurant booking, find a nearby restaurant and have your food ready for when you're finished your pint!

ilikerashers

(woops just realised you mentioned the restaurant one already)

The Corinthian

A few Comments:

draffodx wrote: »

Some sort of GPS social location app where an SMS contains GPS data on the senders position so the receiver can then get the location to the person and directions by walking or by car.

Nice one and actually not that difficult to develop with some integration to Google Maps to handle the geographical logistics.

Speaking of which, I think Google are already looking at doing this and tying it in with their mobile maps app.

Edit: Indeed they are: http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/latitude/intro.html

A city wide guide to tourist sights, info/pics of the sight as well as a GPS location allowing the tourist to find there way to the sight via directions on the phone.

Done to death. Vindigo was one of the first in this space, AFAIR.

As you have stated above, simply follow Taxi drivers or fleet cars via the GPS in there mobile phone rather than having a separate GPS device in the Cab, might have some privacy issues here if the cab driver uses a personal mobile device though.

Done - Nokia Maps, etc.

An application that shows crime hot spots in cities and alerts a person if they are near a crime hot spot could also be useful, this could also be used to track out breaks of diseases and make a user aware of potential risks to there health in certain areas

Where do you get your data?

Such as having your mobile as a credit card, you simply walk onto the train and the distance you travel is calculated by GPS and the fee is taken straight out of your account from the mobile device.

This is already being done to a lesser extent, without the mCommerce functionality (naturally), to set the default departure location - using GPS or cell ID. As for the mCommerce functionality, well that's another can of worms...

Or you ring up a restaurant and book a meal, they then send you the menu and prices and from here you can order what you want before you even get there, the restaurant will have the gps location of your device and know when and how far away you are from the restaurant and can prepare your meal accordingly.

Been done (without the LBS functionality), as far back as 2000. Problem was, and still is, that few of these restaurants have PC's or constant Internet access. This limits them to using a mobile to access the data, which they will be too busy to do during most of the day.

ilikerashers wrote: »

A phone migration app, so when you get a new phone, all your texts and numbers and setup is transferred to your new phone

Been done.

Atomic Pineapple

yep, most ideas would actually already be covered already.

On the crime/health app its actually already been done on Android too, not too sure how they get the data though

ilikerashers

Bang bang, he shot me down....

Some nice potential ideas there discussed
"been done"

DoneDeal.ie Duh, ever heard of eBay, will never work
MyHome.ie been done, tons of property sites, will never work
The location based mobile companies in ireland that're getting VC atm, isn't google doing that already?

Kill the thread if this is gonna be the level of discussion!

One of the key factors is stuff that should be there but not currently used in Ireland, you know, entrepreneurship? Highlighting competitors is important though so the post was some way useful.

On that note, any more potential ideas?

The Corinthian

ilikerashers wrote: »

Bang bang, he shot me down....

Some nice potential ideas there discussed
"been done"

DoneDeal.ie Duh, ever heard of eBay, will never work
MyHome.ie been done, tons of property sites, will never work
The location based mobile companies in ireland that're getting VC atm, isn't google doing that already?

Kill the thread if this is gonna be the level of discussion!

One of the key factors is stuff that should be there but not currently used in Ireland, you know, entrepreneurship? Highlighting competitors is important though so the post was some way useful.

Then think like an entrepreneur and not as a techie - just because a technology does something clever does not mean it will make money.

A case in point is the restaurant idea above. In theory the technology could be cleverly applied in a very useful manner for that market segment. In practice, restaurants have limited technical infrastructure and even more limited resources where it comes to handling such infrastructure. So your average restaurant would have little or no Internet access, likely no computer (outside of the restaurant's administrative office - assuming the accounts are not simply done at home by the owner). This would leave mobile as the only practical access to the Internet, and if you are going to have bookings come through via this medium (often with only one or two hours before the requested sit-down time) the person in question would have to check the Internet every few minutes, and he/she does not have time to do this, assuming they are even computer literate enough to do that (which is a big if).

Technology is only one piece, arguably the smallest, in an enterprise like this. By far the largest is your market; what do they need? How much are they willing to pay for that need? Do they have the skills/resources to access/utilize your product/service? All of which is before you even consider whether someone else is already doing this or if the market is big enough to support competition, or if the market is one that will still be around in a few years.

And then you have to turn a profit.

In many respects, being an entrepreneur is about first thinking about your market and then the technology. Who cares if it is a clever application of a technology? All the person who is paying for it cares about is that it works, useful and usable - and in this some of the most profitable IT enterprises are actually simplistic to the point of boring.

On that note, any more potential ideas?

I'd look at mCommerce applications. While the holy grail of an mCommerce standard was never achieved (mainly due to the political wranglings of operators who wanted to be banks, blocking everyone else, then failing to come up with any truly accepted standard), the technology has reached a point whereby an mCommerce standard is no longer necessary and people can with newer phones pay using good, old fashioned eCommerce systems.

Of course, when I say people, I don't mean all of them. How many people have higher end phones? How many actually can use the clever stuff on them?

Techies (start with what you know) are one demographic to consider in the smartphone market. Another, arguably more important, is the multinational white-collar market. These are people who are on site or travelling 40 - 80% of the time. Their phone charges are paid. They have often generous expense accounts (I've handed in over €1,500, in the past and on a regular basis, in weekly expenses without anyone batting an eyelid). They book flights a few days or hours in advance. Often the same with accommodation. Expense is a secondary consideration to getting it done and done fast and conveniently. So look at that market.

Macca07

ilikerashers wrote: »

Nice,

I've seen golf score trackers that corporations use on company days out. They charge to upload scores via specialist handheld devices and send the scores to a local server and put em against each other.

The application would just sit on a phone and put scores onto a website. Track your game development for free!

This was my FYP last year, well part of it. Thinking about updating it for more functions

ilikerashers

With the restaurant app I think there's a need to introduce something like that. Being at a fast food restaurant around 2-3 is a nightmare, queues out the door to order food then waiting to pick it up. If there was some way of being able to order (and pay) in advance , the fast-food restaurant could effectively just be a place for putting food on the counter, eliminating the need to have someone sitting at a register.

They don't even need to have a particularly complex IT system in place, maybe just some way of predicting waiting times based on numbers of orders.

I do agree with the "shoe-horning" effect that the mobile development market is gonna encounter. It's still very much at "next big thing" phase with very few people actually making money, yet I've heard of developers leaving jobs to set up companies on their own which is a dangerous route.

The golf app is interesting, do you mind telling us how it worked and it there was any take up?

ilikerashers

The Corinthian wrote: »

Techies (start with what you know) are one demographic to consider in the smartphone market. Another, arguably more important, is the multinational white-collar market. These are people who are on site or travelling 40 - 80% of the time. Their phone charges are paid. They have often generous expense accounts (I've handed in over €1,500, in the past and on a regular basis, in weekly expenses without anyone batting an eyelid). They book flights a few days or hours in advance. Often the same with accommodation. Expense is a secondary consideration to getting it done and done fast and conveniently. So look at that market.

I recently met someone developing an application kinda related to flight booking etc. Was an app and site to manage all travel details. An attempt to do something like tripit (http://www.tripit.com/) on a bigger wider scale. Seemed well planned and funded but don't know if it'll take off. Think this is similar to what you were suggesting here.

The Corinthian wrote: »

I'd look at mCommerce applications. While the holy grail of an mCommerce standard was never achieved (mainly due to the political wranglings of operators who wanted to be banks, blocking everyone else, then failing to come up with any truly accepted standard), the technology has reached a point whereby an mCommerce standard is no longer necessary and people can with newer phones pay using good, old fashioned eCommerce systems

How do you think this could be implemented?
Square seem to be a company already pushing into this market http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/01/square-worth-40-million-before-launch/, that said being first is not necessarily a good thing

dumac

On the image recognition front, anyone tried the PlinkArt app yet? It's the one that recognises paintings
http://www.science.ie/science-news/app-recognises-paintings.html

And is there an app that recognises tunes yet?

The Corinthian

ilikerashers wrote: »

I recently met someone developing an application kinda related to flight booking etc. Was an app and site to manage all travel details. An attempt to do something like tripit (http://www.tripit.com/) on a bigger wider scale. Seemed well planned and funded but don't know if it'll take off. Think this is similar to what you were suggesting here.

What I suggested was really just off the top of my head. My main point was that you should focus on the market and then look at the technology, not the other way around.

How do you think this could be implemented?

From a technical viewpoint, in much the same way as on a fixed line Web site - except gearing the UI and overall user experience to a mobile site.

Effective mCommerce has been one of the things holding back the mobile Internet; it's all very well being able to build something clever, but you still have to make a living. In this regard we've gone from the initial WAP implementations that relied upon the flawed WTLS protocol, through to attempting to use premium rate SMS (where the operator take was so greedy that you needed to grossly overcharge) and now are finally at a point where you can just pay using SSL.

Another area that is frankly screaming for an effective mobile offering is the massive multi-player on-line game. There's been a number of dreadful attempts in the past, largely because they've tried to simply recreate a poor man's WoW on a mobile, and that simply does not work. This lot appear to be making a half decent stab at it though.

ChRoMe

The Corinthian wrote: »

What I suggested was really just off the top of my head. My main point was that you should focus on the market and then look at the technology, not the other way around.

From a technical viewpoint, in much the same way as on a fixed line Web site - except gearing the UI and overall user experience to a mobile site.

Effective mCommerce has been one of the things holding back the mobile Internet; it's all very well being able to build something clever, but you still have to make a living. In this regard we've gone from the initial WAP implementations that relied upon the flawed WTLS protocol, through to attempting to use premium rate SMS (where the operator take was so greedy that you needed to grossly overcharge) and now are finally at a point where you can just pay using SSL.

Another area that is frankly screaming for an effective mobile offering is the massive multi-player on-line game. There's been a number of dreadful attempts in the past, largely because they've tried to simply recreate a poor man's WoW on a mobile, and that simply does not work. This lot appear to be making a half decent stab at it though.

The biggest problem in getting mCommerce going in retail is the nightmare of actually getting all those physical units into shops.

The Corinthian

ChRoMe wrote: »

The biggest problem in getting mCommerce going in retail is the nightmare of actually getting all those physical units into shops.

I don't follow. By mCommerce I mean the ability to make online payments using your phone.

ChRoMe

The Corinthian wrote: »

I don't follow. By mCommerce I mean the ability to make online payments using your phone.

I was speaking about the idea of being able to use the phone as a replacement for a credit card in a retail situation. If your definition is just to be able to do credit card processing in a mobile browser thats just SSL.

However I think I might be misunderstanding you.

The Corinthian

I meant the ability to make payments through a mobile phone as one can already through fixed-line Internet, although with mobile other possible functionality, such as micro-payments and the use of the phone as a 'wallet', as you described, are also desirable.

Of the first, SSL is now usable through mobiles - at least many of them - however it will still be some time before all phones have SSL support to the level required, let alone that the interfaces used will be mobile friendly or that it becomes commonplace.

In the past, before both bandwidth and browsers got to this stage, we've had numerous attempts at mCommerce, from WAP's WTLS through to using PSMS, with the operators actively attempting to control such transactions or actively blocking them. For example, Paypal has been, in theory, available in the US since about 2005 - except the opco's, such as Verison have been (or were) blocking the service.

Instead, there's been a number of utterly unusable opco backed payment systems that have been introduced, such as Pay4It in the UK. All have been failures IMO.

As with many things I've witnessed in mobile services in the last ten years, in the end it came down to technology progressing until we could bypass the opcos who have never really gotten past the 'walled garden' mentality they started with around 1999 when WAP started appearing.

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