Just months after Eathlink could not give away its WiFi network, its already built and operating WiFi network, in the heart of Philadelphia, Cablevision is planning to create its own in New York. Meanwhie, Clearwire and other are looking to roll out their own WiMAX next work across the country.

Once again, the business case for this NY network just is not clear. According to the article, Kevin Curran, Cablevision’s senior vice president of wireless product development sees the network as another cool features for keeping customers and getting new ones. They are planning to spend $300 million to create this network. That seems like a lot just for what is described an incremental add-on service.

Nullriver came out with a cute iPhone app that was banished from the iPhone App store as soon as Apple realized what it did. Their app lets a 3G iPhone user access the Internet through the 3G connection of the iPhone and share this connection through the iPhone WiFi connection to his laptop. This tethering app sold for $10.

This is not a new application. There are lots of hardware cards that allow users to do this already. The iPhone version is definitely new, but it should not have been considered against the rules. After all, the user is still paying for access to the Internet. It is just that the Internet connection is being used by another device that the user owns.

The latest report is that the app is back up and ready for more downloads. I just hope that AT&T has improved their 3G network enough to handle the increase in traffic.

Attended my first meeting of Mobile Monday (http://www.mobilemonday.us/) yesterday.  It was an unusual meeting because it was demo night.  There were about 6 different presentations.  Some presentation had the gods of demos smiling down peacefully while others had to survive the loss of the WiFi connection.  It was not pretty.

Two points came to mind while I was watching these demos.  The first was that most of the demos and two in particular tried to create simple ways to search the net using a mobile phone.  Unfortunately, it may be a while before any winners in this area appear.  The second point had less to do with the particular demo as opposed to the review of the current technology.  One person showed an application that he had created for linux-based WiFi phones.  I had not realized that the Open source programming for cell phones had advanced so far so fast.  His description of calling his parents in India for free using his WiFi phone just showed what a tight position the cell phone companies are going to be in.  He said that his parents preferred that he phoned using his WiFi phone as opposed to his cell phone because it sounded better.  The WiFi phone sends voice as 64kbs streams vs. the 32kbs stream of the cell phone.  Once again, I can’t figure out why anyone would pay billions for a 3G license.

One of the most interesting/scary demos was for Loopt (https://loopt.com/loopt/sess/index.aspx).  It lets you located your friends and lets you know when they are within a certain distance.  I realize that his is a great technology for tracking people and places.  I also realize that this type of technology is exactly the thing that will make Geogad Mobile Tours even easier to use.  However, it is a little creepy to see the screen of the demo cell phone map your friends, even down to saying that they are currently in a McDonalds that is 7.12 miles away from you.

On the way out, I bumped into a person who worked for NTT Japan.  Since Japan has had this “find friends” and “broadcast my position to my friends” technology for ages, I asked him if it has taken off in Japan yet.  He confirmed what I have always heard, that people don’t use this technology because they don’t what others to be able to track them.

I can understand this idea.  In fact, I asked the guy from Loopt a question along these lines during his presentation.  He said that they have considered many privacy issues and have included the ability to turn off your “broadcast my position” functionality by using the on-phone application, a SMS, or by dialing a phone number.  I asked if they had come up with any excuses for their customers to use when they shut off their broadcast position function and their girlfriends were no longer able to track them.

Technorati tags: Mobile Monday, Loopt, Linux phone, WiFi, mobile internet    

 Today at Macworld I spoke to RouteBuddy and Garmin about the idea of making a open source method to allow users to upload Geogad Mobile Tours and similar content to their GPS products and solutions.  Let’s hope that they are interested in a nice, simple open format as I discussed in my previous post.  It would make a killer app from their side and allow regular people (and Geogad, of course) to create and post their own tour content.  All in all, very Web 2.0. 

Today at Macworld, Steve Jobs finally put the rumors to rest.  Yes, Apple is introducing the much rumored iPhone.  Judging by today’s demo, it will be a hot device.  It is quite literally the merging of the iPod (music, video, and photo) with a phone with an Internet browser.  Just to review the basic features, it is a device with a single button that has a 3 1/2 inch touch sensitive hi-res screen.  It will only be available on Cingular (soon to be the rebranded AT&T, …it’s BACK) for $499 for a 4G model and $599 for a 8G model.  Both versions require a 2-year plan.  The iPhone will be available in the US in June, which will give everyone a chance to start saving their latte money to buy this new phone. 

From Geogad’s point of view, the new iPhone looks great.  Its large screen and iPod functionality will allow travelers to view and play their Geogad Mobile Tours as a selected playlist.  The iPhone will even allow the user to see the album art in each MP3 as if they were books in a bookshelf so the user can see what is coming up and what they have already listened to.  The Internet browser seems to be able to view regular web pages in vivid detail.  If so, then it may be possible to surf to the regular Geogad web pages without having to deal with the limited WAP-type pages.

On the downside, the Iphone was reported by CNET to not have 3G capabilities.  They create a multimedia phone with a low speed connection.  What are they thinking? Maybe they are planning to have the user handle high speed communications with WiFi.  Now we just need to roll out WiFi.

Another downside for Geogad is how to best support providing our content to mobile devices.  After all, the big mobile streaming standard were MP4 and Microsoft WMV and WMA.  The other major trend in mobile content is also one of the biggest.  Verizon and YouTube/Google are teaming up to offer limited YouTube downloadsvia Flashlite.  It seems that the future of mobile content standards are going to be determined by the big cell phone and content companies teaming up to offer their content flavor to their customers. 

Let’s just hope that they work among themselves to provide some interoperability.  It is still a messy, mobile world out there. 

Speaking of messy, how do you suppose that you keep the screen clean if you are always touching it.  Also, how do you protect the screen from scratches if you are always testing it.  iPod are great devices, but they are notorious for how easily they are damaged.  Will this be an issue with the iPhone?  After all, is there any standard portable electronic device that has to take as much punishment as a regular old cell phone?

Another downside is the pricing.  But given that Apple does not want to lower the margins on their iPods, they really could not have sold the iPhone at the standard pricing for smart phones in the $200-400 range.  After all, that is the price of the standard Video iPod now.  Since the iPhone is also a phone and Internet browser, it would have to be price at least $100 higher than the Video iPod while still below the important mental price point of $700.  After all, you are starting to get in the range of a good laptop computer at that point. 

iPhone, Real, Flash, Cingular, MacWorld, Garmin, RouteBuddy, open source, GPS, multimedia, Verizon, WiFi, Geogad