Good: The Metro UI Design

Few people think of great design when they think of Microsoft. With WP7's Metro UI, however, the company has managed to reimagine what a mobile user interface should look like. Developers have the ability to bring a fresh new design to all of their creations that is consistent across virtually all of the apps on the phone. As Paul Thurrott noted in his in-depth review of WP7, "one of the neatest things about Metro is that it gets out of the way. With Metro, your content - i.e. what's important to you - becomes the UI."

The design's focus on whitespace, modern typography and glanceable information makes it a welcome change from iOS and Android.

Good: "Glanceable" Homescreen

The first thing you see when you turn your WP7 phone on is a homescreen with numerous "live" tiles. This is a very different concept from what Apple and Google are doing with their mobile operating systems. The screen looks deceptively simple, with flat, monochromatic tiles, but these squares represent your email inboxes, phone calls, the people hub (which shows pictures of contacts that recently updated their social networking profiles) and other apps, all of which can update in real time. One of the best examples for this is the calendar tile, which always shows your next appointment. You can pin any app to this screen, which scrolls vertically.

A swipe to the right from there brings up an alphabetical list of all the installed apps. Microsoft decided to go for simplicity here, so there are no folders or multiple screens that allow you to organize your apps in different groups.

This homescreen is part of what sets WP7 apart from the competition and - in this author's opinion - represents a step forward from the experience on Android and iOS devices. On the other hand, though, once you install a large number of apps, WP7's focus on simplicity breaks down and folders would be a nice feature to have.

The unlock screen, too, includes a lot of glanceable information. Just by hitting the power button, you get to see your next appointment, as well as the number of unread email and unheard voicemails.

Good: The "Right" Apps are Available at Launch

There are already over 1,000 apps in the Marketplace and the U.S. launch will surely herald the beginning of a new wave of apps that will appear over the next week or so. Microsoft clearly understood that getting developers on board early and making app development easy was going to be a major factor in the platform's success.

The main apps you would expect to see on a mobile phone, including Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, Netflix, the Weather Channel and others are already available. So are streaming music apps from Pandora and Slacker and social networking apps like Seesmic. There are also plenty of good news apps (including AP and Huffington Post apps), photo apps, e-book apps (Kindle) and productivity apps, ranging from PDF readers to a number of to-do lists.

By working directly with the developers, Microsoft also ensured that popular games like Flight Control, Guitar Hero 5, Need for Speed and the Sims are available on the phone, as well as some good games from Microsoft's own Game Studios, including the excellent The Harvest.

In the briefings we had with Microsoft in the last few months, the company always stressed that it was more interested in getting the "right" apps on the phone and not 200,000 other apps that nobody would be interested in.

Looking at the current lineup of apps, there are still some gaps in the lineup, especially when it comes to turn-by-turn navigation apps (though there are plenty of interesting mapping apps for WP7 out there already). Of course, not everybody has jumped on the WP7 bandwagon yet, so it's to be expected that some apps are still missing. Frequent travelers, for example, won't find any airline apps, and there is also no Instapaper app for WP7 yet.

Good: Hubs and Integration with Third-Party Services

WP7 makes extensive use of hubs. These are built-in apps that can aggregate data from a multitude of services (typically configured online on Live.com). The photo hub, for example, can aggregate images from Windows Live, as well as from Facebook, Flickr, SmugMug and others. The people hub works similarly and can display recent social media updates from your contacts. Third-party apps will be able to extend the functionality of these hubs, though we haven't quite seen this in action yet.

Microsoft didn't shy away from integrating third-party services here. This may come as a bit of a surprise to some, but this move is quite consistent with how the Windows Live team, for example, currently approaches the online ecosystem.

Mixed Bag: Giving Carriers Their Own App Stores and Ability to Delay Updates

Carriers and OEMs can run their own WP7 app stores and our demo unit featured both an AT&T and HTC store. Carriers can also pre-install their own apps on the phone's homescreen. While this is somewhat annoying, the good news is that the carriers can't stop you from deleting these apps.

In another concession to the carriers, Microsoft is also allowing them to stay one step behind Microsoft's official release cycle for WP7 and delay updates. Given that Microsoft is setting rather stringent rules for the minimum hardware in every WP7 device, this is somewhat odd. On the other hand, though, this is still better than the situation many Android users find themselves in, where they can never be sure when and if they will get the next version of their operating system.

WP7's Achilles Heel: Internet Explorer

The browser is one of the central apps of every modern smartphone and sadly, Internet Explorer can sometimes drag down the overall positive experience with the phone. We ran into numerous issues with sites that just didn't work or look right. Among these were Techmeme and Digg's mobile site. We didn't come across these problems too often, but when we did, these were usually showstoppers and made for a rather frustrating browsing experience.

For the most part, Internet Explorer on WP7 felt more than fast enough for browsing most sites, but the browser sometimes slowed down to a crawl when looking at more complex AJAX-driven sites.

There are, of course, still a number of other minor issues and missing features. For the time being, for example, there is no way to copy and paste content. There is also no unified inbox for those who need to juggle multiple email accounts, and the lack of folders makes managing large app collections harder than it should be.

That said, though, Windows Phone 7 is fun and easy to use. It doesn't just bring numerous interesting design ideas to Microsoft's mobile platform but introduces quite a few novel concepts that its competitors will hopefully bring to their own platforms as well.

That same desire to have our data at any time doesn't influence mobile development as much because our phones are portable and are already with us all day. Web apps for mobile will instead have to rely on other ways to attract users away from native applications. To do that they will first need strength in numbers, and that means attracting developers, and as Amirzada explained, there are several reasons developers should be excited about mobile Web development.

Attracting the Mobile App Developers

The first is the simplicity of the coding itself. Experienced Web developers are more likely to pick up mobile Web development than, say, iPhone app development. Developers can use HTML, CSS and JavaScript to create Web apps instead of learning new languages to code native applications. Native app development may not be the hardest of tasks from a developer's point of view, but Web development is a skill they have likely already mastered and are adept at.

Secondly, as Amirzada pointed out, the mobile Web market is much larger than native applications markets. By coding for the mobile Web, app developers can reach a broader audience on multiple devices and platforms in a single stroke. Platforms like iPhone, Android and Windows Mobile (which all use unique languages and techniques to develop applications) only represent a fraction of the overall mobile device market, while the mobile Web is accessible from a much larger number of handsets.

The third and possibly most important reason developers should be attracted to mobile Web apps is that the Web is an open platform. Developers don't have to spend weeks on an application only to see it rejected for increasingly strange reasons. Steve Jobs can't censor the Web like he can the iPhone, and there is no waiting for applications to be approved.

Hurdles to Overcome

Unfortunately for mobile Web app fans, these benefits also come with equal and opposite disadvantages. While coding for the Web may be simpler than creating native apps, the native platforms allow the apps to take advantage of the device's functions and features. From a user perspective, native apps are more appealing because of this. I would rather use an app that felt like it belonged on my phone rather than use a Web app that seems shoehorned onto my device through HTML.

Another problem with Web apps is their performance when compared to native apps, which are streamlined to run as efficiently as they can on the device they are designed for. Amirzada said that this is changing, however, as HTML5 improves on the infrastructure of the Web and makes applications faster and more functional.

He also demonstrated how using open-source JavaScript frameworks, like Cappuccino, on Qualcomm's Brew mobile platform can give developers access to various device sensors to create richer Web-based mobile apps. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is also working on bringing mobile Web apps up to speed by creating a standard for Web-based push notifications.

But the question still remains - will mobile Web apps one day outpace native applications? The largest push in this direction seems to be the openness of the Web, as closed platforms have turned many developers away from popular native platforms like the iPhone and iPad. But those developers could just switch to Android or Windows Mobile. Once we reach a point where mobile devices have the computing power of our desktop machines, mobile Web apps could make a run on native apps, but that is still likely a few years out.

Let us know what you think about mobile apps versus native apps in the comments below!

Disclosure: Qualcomm covered the author's travel costs to attend Uplinq 2010.

"Firefox Home for iPhone is part of a broader Mozilla effort to provide a more personal Web experience with more user control," the company said in a blog post Wednesday night. "For devices or platforms where we're unable to provide the 'full' Firefox browser (either technically or due to policy), we aim to provide users with 'on the go' instant access to their personal Firefox history, bookmarks and open tabs on their iPhones, giving them another reason to keep loving Firefox on their desktops."

Fans of Firefox with iPhones may be disappointed they aren't getting a full browser on their device like Android, Windows Mobile and Maemo users, but this app is still pretty useful due to the over-the-air syncing. The inability to browse at will may turn some off, and it remains to be seen how well the Firefox Sync technology works, but this could be an interesting spin on mobile browsing from Mozilla.

The company has also confirmed that they're working on an Android app, which is likely to launch on the "select Motorola phones" Blockbuster previously hinted at when they partnered with the handset manufacturer last summer. Motorola is the maker of several popular Android-powered handsets including the Droid, Backflip, Devour, Cliq and Cliq XT, but Blockbuster won't yet confirm which of these will be able to utilize the new mobile service.

Although Blockbuster's annual report to the SEC hints at the company's financial troubles - troubles exacerbated by competitors like Netflix and the pop-up video rental kiosks from Redbox - the company has clearly not given up its will to compete. With offerings already available for PCs, Samsung Blu-ray players, Samsung TV sets and Tivos, Blockbuster's strategy going forward is attacking the mobile front with full force. In the works is an updated iPhone application, an Android application (apparently for the Motorola phones, although the company won't directly confirm this), the Windows Mobile application for the HD2 and the expectation that more carriers and manufacturers will want to partner with them once they see what the company's mobile apps can do.

Blockbuster vs Netflix: New Releases vs. Back Catalog

Where Blockbuster differs from Netflix is in its desire to forgo "streaming" in favor of downloads when it comes to their on demand options. Unlike Netflix's desktop streaming service and newly announced Silverlight-powered app for Windows Phone 7 Series devices, Blockbuster's OnDemand service for both desktop and mobile actually downloads content to whatever hardware it runs on. According to Scott Levine, Blockbuster's VP of Digital, it's not that the company is against streaming per se - it's just that streaming over 3G is more of a challenge.

Instead of dealing with the network connectivity issues brought on by overloaded wireless carriers or relegating themselves to putting out a limited "Wi-Fi only" type of application, the company's free mobile apps will actually download the movie a customer rents or purchases to the handset and protect it using DRM (digital rights management) technology.

This solution allows Blockbuster to serve new releases to their mobile customers as opposed to the "back catalog" content which is what, for the most part, Netflix's streaming service currently provides, says Levine.

No Downloads on Apple Devices, but Working On Other Solutions

However, the technology Blockbuster uses now to serve its movies to mobile devices limits what the company can offer to iPhone, iPod Touch and soon, iPad users. This is due to the fact that Apple restricts apps from saving movies to the device's hard drive, Levine explains. When asked if they had plans to work around these restrictions in order to launch an iPhone/iPad app, he would only say that the company was "exploring different options" and that they would "love to be there."

For now though, iPhone owners who use Blockbuster's mail service can manage their account with the mobile application which will soon be updated with more features. In the new release, there will be improved remote control options for queue management plus tools that help you determine Blu-ray store inventory, games store availability and the availability status for movies in your Blockbuster queue.

More Details on Devices

T-Mobile has just launched the site for the new HTC HD2 smartphone which lists the Blockbuster service among its many features. The status of which Motorola phones will include the new mobile app is still unknown but Motorola's Android lineup includes several devices running different versions of the Android OS. Both the Backflip, Cliq and Cliq XT come with Android 1.5, but only the Blackflip is upgradeable to 2.1, according to Motorola's website. The Devour runs Android 1.6 and the Droid runs 2.0. However, Verizon is pushing out the 2.1 update to the Motorola Droid starting this Thursday. 

"SLARToolkit is a flexible Augmented Reality library for Silverlight with the aim to make real time Augmented Reality applications with Silverlight as easy and fast as possible," says Schulte. "It can be used with Silverlight's Webcam API or with any other CaptureSource or a WriteableBitmap."

The SLARToolkit supports detection of multiple markers, both from simple black and white, and custom markers, and is based on the Matrix3DEx Silverlight library. The port to Silverlight is another important step for augmented reality, and could lead to the further expansion of AR both on the desktop and on mobile devices running Windows Mobile.

Earlier this month we saw Adobe Flash and AIR gain support on the Android Mobile OS, and Flash on the iPhone has been a recurring rumor since the device was first released. AR may not be the biggest mobile market, or a killer feature for mobile phones, but with the expansion of the ARToolkit to Silverlight, and the Flash support on Android, it has taken a big step toward wider exposure to more users.

SLARToolkit - Silverlight Augmented Reality 3D projection sample from Rene Schulte on Vimeo.

Free Vs. Paid Apps

One of their most recent reports looked at which application stores have the highest percentage of free apps. Not surprisingly, the Android Market was the winner here. In an interview with Venture Beat, Distimo co-founder and CEO Vincent Hoogsteder said this was due to multiple factors: the nature of the open-source operating system from Google attracts the sort of developers that enjoy giving away their works and the open nature of the application- approval process (that is, no review board middleman exists between app creation and public release) makes it easier for casual developers to launch. Also, anecdotal evidence points to developers' dissatisfaction with Google Checkout - paid Android apps are required to implement this payment method for purchase, a much slower process than Apple's 1-click buying process.

The different ratios of free apps versus paid was one of the findings presented during MWC 2010. In the chart below, you can see the varying percentages by store. (Note that Distimo's findings were focused on the U.S. market only). Android has the most free applications (57% free) and Nokia has the most paid (85% paid). The next closest store to Android in terms of free is Palm, followed by Apple, Blackberry, Windows Phone, and finally Nokia.

Another interesting finding had to do with the prices for the paid applications. Apple, Android and Palm were all in the same range when it came to the average price for paid apps ($3.27 to $3.62). However, RIM and Microsoft were more than twice as high ($8.26 and $6.99, respectively). This didn't necessarily have to do with the different types of applications available in each store - sometimes, the exact same app was just priced higher on other platforms. For example, Tetris was $4.99 on Apple and $6.99 on Windows. IM+ was $4.99 on Apple and $29.99 on Blackberry.

Store Size and Growth: Look Out for Android!

Android is now the second-largest application store, reports Distimo, with 19, 297 apps. It's still a far cry from Apple's 150,998 apps, though. And other competitors are farther still. Ovi, we were surprised to discover, is the third largest with 6,118 apps available while Blackberry has a respectable 4,756. Palm has only 1,492 and Windows has 693. Apple is also the fastest growing store with a shocking 13,865 new applications added per month. Android's growth is picking up too - they now have 3,005 new apps per month (15%). Relative to the number of apps housed, Android is actually the fastest growing store.

Games, Games, Games

Also discussed were the popularity of applications by category. On Apple's store, games and entertainment were the most popular categories (58% and 18%, respectively). Somewhat more surprising was the popularity of games on Blackberry, the platform often used more by enterprise and SMBs than by consumers. Here, games were also in the lead with 29% popularity to only 18% for utilities. One would have thought that would be the other way around - that corporate users would be more likely download apps that helped them work, not play. Apparently, that's not the case.

For more details on this presentation, you can view the entire slideshow on Slideshare or contact the company itself for a more in-depth marketing report.

Once installed, HipLogic users can access the included free applications like Facebook, Twitter, CBS News and Sports, Entertainment Tonight, Disney, and WeatherBug as well as other various apps for monitoring news, finance information, and RSS feeds. As expected, the Facebook and Twitter applications allow for status updates, however they don't appear to be as robust as the applications found in either the Windows Mobile or Nokia Ovi stores. Take the Facebook application, for example. The Windows Mobile version integrates with the phone's camera for uploading of photos and videos. Nokia's app does the same. HipLogic's version, on the other hand, appears much more basic.

HipLogic, Before & After

In addition to the included applications, there's also a HipLogic app store where even more applications are found, both free and paid. The software also works as an alternative web browser of sorts as users can pull up a search box with a click and perform Google searches without ever having to launch the phone's browser.

Another App Store?

Given that some of the platforms HipLogic aims to support already offer their own application stores - and both Nokia and Windows Mobile allow background applications, too - it's somewhat confusing as to what problem HipLogic is trying to solve here. While it's true that HipLogic's software is designed to provide real-time notifications, those notifications will only appear when the alternative HipLogic UI is running.

On the plus side, however, HipLogic does provide one single access point for all your apps. When you launch HipLogic, you can get to everything that's been downloaded and when it's closed, you return to your phone's regular UI. And if the software, a JavaScript virtual machine platform, can be installed on more low-end "feature phones" in the future, it could indeed bring an iPhone-like app store to those who wouldn't otherwise have access to mobile applications.

Acer, currently the world's second-largest computer vendor, mentioned the application store among a series of initiatives designed to boost the company's profitability, according to a report on Bloomberg.com. From what it sounds like, Acer is glomming onto every major tech trend with plans that include everything from an e-reader to a Tablet PC. In fact, Acer chairman J.T. Want even admits this is the case: "We'd like to proactively purse any opportunity," he said.

One of those opportunities is the new Acer application store, an online venture that will offer hundreds of different applications, both free and paid. However, the company wouldn't share pricing details or name developers, noted the Bloomberg story.

Although application stores are typically associated with mobile phones, Acer wouldn't be the first vendor to launch an applications store designed for use on PCs. Earlier this month, chip maker Intel launched the AppUp site, an application store designed specifically for netbook computers. Interestingly enough, AppUp is meant to be a white-label offering that PC manufacturers can customize to their own needs. At the time of its launch at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Intel announced several partnerships with other PC makers to bring the AppUp store to consumers. Included among those launch partners was Acer. Gianpiero Morbello, Acer's worldwide marketing VP said that by accessing the AppUp catalog, their company would be able to distribute "innovative software downloads to Acer Atom processor-based netbook customers and move to easily support additional Acer customers on any device powered by an Intel processor."

So Is This Yet Another App Store?

However, despite the sparse details surrounding the upcoming Acer app store, it does sound like the manufacturer is planning their own venture of sorts. Intel's store only supports Windows netbooks and the Moblin Linux operating system - not mobile devices like Windows Mobile or Google Android and definitely not Google's new netbook OS, Google Chrome.

Intel confirms that the previously announced joint venture is still on, with their company providing behind-the-scenes support for infrastructure, testing, and validation of apps. And while Intel isn't privy to Acer's other plans, it does appear that this would be a separate store from whatever Acer is envisioning for the other platforms outside of Atom-based netbooks.

It's understandable that Acer wants to generate some hype surrounding their products by offering an app store to their customers, but at this point they may be simply confusing the issue. Many of the platforms Acer plans to support already offer their own application stores - even Google's Chrome OS, the Web-based operating system set to launch by year-end. And, of course, one could argue that the Internet itself has been the app store for Windows computers for many years now.

The iPhone has been outselling Windows Mobile for some time, so it was only a matter of time until there were more iPhones in peoples' hands. Android is still at the back of the pack but is showing signs of significant momentum.

"Of those American consumers in the market for a smartphone," comScore writes, "17 percent are considering the purchase of an android-supported device in next three months, compared to 20 percent indicating they plan to purchase an iPhone.

Android's prospects may fare even better in the global marketplace.

"Android will continue to pick up market share, especially in the global smartphone market, because of Symbian's lack of innovation in the last 3-4 years," mobile blogger Jason Harris told us today. "Symbian is said to have 37% worldwide market share, and this will further erode as more folks give Android a look. Especially with the Nexus One coming out - a phone that is sold directly from Google and not from your carrier - that's very cohesive with the European model. Right now Android has only been available from carriers, leading to OS fragmentation. Now with the Nexus One, the phone will come from Google itself, meaning your OS updates will be direct from the source, not via the carrier, who has customized the Android OS to their liking. That might work in the US, where we are carrier-centric, but not in other markets, especially emerging markets."

Not sure if your flight will leave on time? Surprisingly, the airlines often don't have the most accurate information. Flights will show up as 'On Time,' even though your plane, which is supposed to take off in 15 minutes, is still sitting on another airport 500 miles away. FlightCaster looks at data from the airlines, FAA and combines this with historical data and weather information to give you a more accurate picture. The result is a good prediction whether your flight will leave on time.

Flightcaster is available as an iPhone and Blackberry app. The service is also available on FlightCaster's website.

WorldMate

WorldMate, which is available in a free and Pro version for the iPhone, BlackBerry and most other mobile phone operating systems, gives you a one-stop shop for all your travel info. You can simply email receipts for your flight and hotel bookings to a private Worldmate address and the software will automatically update your itineraries on the mobile app. What makes the pro version so useful is that WorldMate also alerts you of delays and gate changes through push notifications and SMS messages. WorldMate also offers a list of nearby hotels and the ability to search for alternative flights if yours gets cancelled.

TripIt's iPhone app offers similar service.

TripCase

TripCase offers fewer features than WorldMate, but it's free and also comes with push notifications. It's available for the iPhone, Blackberry and Windows Mobile. Besides flight information and baggage claim info, TripCase also allows you to send out information about your flight status to your friends and family. You can also publish photos on your personalized TripCase site.

Next Flight

If you get bumped off an oversold flight or miss a connection, Next Flight can help you find alternative flights. The company indexes schedules from over 1,100 airlines and 4,200 airports around the world. Next Flight currently sells for $2.99 in the App Store.

Flight Status

If you are just picking somebody up at the airport, Flight Status is a nice iPhone app that gives you arrival information, including which baggage claim to go to. Flight Status is only available for the iPhone and costs $4.99. Flight Status was developed by the same company as Next Flight and also features data from 1,100 airlines.

Bonus: Flight Advisor Twitter Feed

If you just want to get a quick overview of airport delays in the US, also have a look at the Flight Advisor Twitter feed.

What About You?

Do you have your own favorite travel apps that we didn't mention here? Let us know in the comments.

Unlike other mobile navigation apps, Waze "crowdsources" its map-making process, reliant on its users to switch the app on when driving around town. Then, using the phone's built-in GPS capabilities, Waze uses the information sent back to create base maps and determine traffic patterns in order to warn other users of traffic jams ahead.

Making Maps is Just a Game

To encourage users to contribute to the map-building process, the company came up with an idea to make it more of a game. Originally, the Waze character would appear and munch dots on the screen when you ventured onto a road that didn't previously exist in the company's database.

Now, with Waze 2.0, the gaming elements have been enhanced even further. Users will now munch on other goodies like cherries, hammers, and small gift packages which generate bonus points. The extra goodies will be placed on locations where the map has issues with the higher-point items on maps with the most issues.

To kick off this new release, the company is also hosting a contest dubbed the "Holiday High Points Challenge" which runs from November 25th through December 9th. During this time, which includes the busy traveling period of the Thanksgiving holidays, Waze hopes to tap into the high number of drivers who will be trekking around town and across the country to visit relatives. The top three users who earn the most points during this period will win Amazon gift cards in the amounts of $500, $300 and $200, for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places respectively.

Crowdsourcing: Better Maps, Faster

The Waze application was one of the more innovative companies to appear at the most recent DEMO conference where they launched their turn-by-turn directions feature. Because they're not using map data from Tele Atlas or Navteq - the two big names that license map data to other companies for use in applications - Waze saves money while also being able to sell their own data to other companies at reduced rates. The company also claims that their crowdsourced method has dramatically shortened the months-long update cycle for maps.

While Waze may not be ready to replace your in-dash GPS just yet, it gets closer every day as more roads are mapped and more users join the service. Early adopters who want to contribute to the project can download the mobile application from the company's homepage here.

In the Beginning

When handheld computers went mainstream, developers had only one choice: Palm Pilot. Within five years, they had Symbian and Pocket PC (later Windows Mobile) to consider also. By 2009, there were no less than eight major operating systems for smartphones: two versions of Windows Mobile, two versions for Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Symbian, and webOS, not to mention traditional feature phones running various flavors of Java.

The Impact

Developers were forced to make the tough choice of which operating system to develop for. Making it harder, customers were scattered and were requesting versions of a variety of platforms, with no one platform controlling the market, unlike the desktop world. Until a few months ago, they had only one choice: develop for each platform independently, picking and choosing which to support, each with huge costs and unknown payback.

That, however, is changing. Developers now have three ways to develop cross-platform. And while these technologies are still in their early days, they will evolve rapidly.

HTML 5 and the Mobile Web

One option is to forgo installed applications altogether and develop mobile Web applications. HTML 5, with its access to local databases, makes this possible. There are two major obstacles to this strategy right now: first, ubiquity of HTML 5-enabled browsers and, second, a willingness among customers to accept it as a standard.

While the first will be solved with time and pressure from other OS platforms, the second is a bigger problem. The customer's willingness to accept Web-based applications is a psychological change that takes years to evolve. Device owners have been trained that cell phone connections are inherently unstable. In many places the connection disappears, and until that is resolved this mental adjustment cannot begin to take hold.

Flash

Adobe recently announced its push into the mobile space, with Flash-enabled browsers for most platforms and a Flash-to-iPhone-app compiler for Apple's smartphones and handhelds. This would allow developers to write all of their apps in Flash and then deploy on multiple mobile browsers and the iPhone via a compiled application.

This still suffers from many of the same disadvantages of HTML 5, because it requires a psychological change in customers to accept running apps in the browser. In addition, Apple's hard-nosed stance against Flash in the browser will impede this movement because it will require two completely separate creation processes.

Finally, for Flash to take hold, operating system manufacturers will have to start treating Web-enabled applications the same as non-Web-enabled ones. For example, launching Web apps from the home page must become standard.

JavaScript Native Apps

A new class of applications has arisen. These are native applications that are compiled for a specific platform but that use Web technologies for the user interface. This has the most potential. The most prominent one currently is PhoneGap. Other solutions include Appcelerator and Rhomobile, which uses the Ruby on Rails Web development language.

These technologies, all open sourced, enable developers to write back-end processes in the native code and all of the user interfaces in HTML, CSS and JavaScript. This application is then compiled into a native application. It can be uploaded to app stores, distributed via downloading and installed directly to the device.

The fundamental problem with mobile development isn't the back end, though. The backbone of all of these platforms is C or Java, which is generally portable if written with that intention. The problem is user interface development, which requires deep knowledge and understanding of each mobile device. Making the UI cross-platform solves the vast majority of problems associated with this kind of development. If you had to point to where the approach falls short, it would be that cross-platform applications don't feel "native," a shortcoming that would be solved by good design and better CSS work!

Conclusion

As the smartphone market evolves, we are unlikely to see a clear winner as we did in the PC business; and because of that, developers will be forced to write for multiple platforms. But for the first time in a decade, developers have options for multiple-device development. The cost and learning curve associated with writing native apps for every platform can finally be mitigated.

While all of these technologies are early to market, the writing is clearly on the wall. After more than a decade of discussion, the combination of Flash, HTML 5 and JavaScript will make "write once, use everywhere" a reality.

Guest author: Elia Freedman is the CEO of Infinity Softworks, the leading provider of software calculators, with over 15 million distributed. In its 13-year history, Infinity Softworks has developed applications for iPhone, BlackBerry, Windows, Palm OS and Windows Mobile. Elia writes about tech, mobile and running a business on his blog, eliainsider.com.

It would be nice if Apple gave us a better breakdown of the kinds of apps it actually delivers (free vs. paid, games vs. utilities, etc.). This kind of transparency is obviously not in Apple's DNA, so we depend on data from third-party services like AdMob for this information. According to AdMob, iPod touch and iPhone users are more likely to buy apps than users of any other mobile platform and are also more likely to interact with mobile ads.

For developers, no matter the grumblings about the App Store approval process, the App Store is simply the largest and most lucrative marketplace for their work right now.

What's most interesting about Waze is how it uses the power of the crowd to build its map database. Just by driving along with the application open, users are contributing data to Waze. Although this does make the service somewhat dependent on building critical mass in order to be successful, the company is confident they can do so. That's because Waze originally launched in Israel and in less than a year's time, they already have 91% of the country mapped. Here in the U.S., that process will obviously take longer, but Waze believes they'll have at least one metropolitan area completed in the next three months - the San Francisco Bay area, of course.

Since the application is designed to provide traffic alerts, one of its features allows users to contribute additional information like whether that's a speed trap ahead or just a fender bender slowing things down. Users can upload photos, too, so other Waze drivers can actually see what's causing the problem. This feature is a little disconcerting, though, since it does require the driver to interact with the phone while behind the wheel. However, Waze encourages the use of these features only when stopped, or even better, by having a passenger enter this info instead. (At least they disabled typing while the car is in motion. Whew!)

Also new to Waze is turn-by-turn directions, now available for free within the application. That feature alone should encourage more users to give it a shot, especially those who haven't purchased their own standalone GPS-based navigation device yet.

Early adopters can download the free mobile application from the company's homepage here. Just remember: this service only arrived in the U.S. this May so at this point, it may be more about helping build the map data than it is about using what's already there.

Google, of course, already offered this feature for Android users and Blackberry devices. For iPhone users - and especially for business users - this is a big deal, however, as it finally allows Google to offer a feature that Yahoo Mail users were able to enjoy from the day the iPhone launched. It's also worth noting that other services like Nuevasync have offered iPhone users a way to route around this problem for a while already.

It's important to note that the iPhone only offers support for a single Exchange account, so you can't use this new feature to push mail from both a personal and a business account at the same time, for example.