Until recently, about all you could do with a wireless phone was make a call.
Even as the capabilities of handsets grew, you were stuck with whatever
functions your wireless carrier put into the phone. You couldn’t add
applications, and customization was mostly limited to a choice of ring tones.
That’s changing fast. In addition to color displays, faster processors, and
more memory, the latest handsets let you download software programs and
information services to your phone. The market currently consists mainly of ring
tones, screen savers, and games. Other services, however, are becoming more
widely available, including mapping and directions, traffic information, e-mail
access, sports news, and restaurant and movie guides. A company called Digital
Orchid (www.digitalorchid.com/nascartogo)
offers a novel service with real-time information about NASCAR, including a
constantly updated leaderboard during races. Such programs and services are sold
outright or as a subscription and can be charged either to the phone bill or a
credit card. Corporations also are showing interest in creating custom phone
applications for their mobile workers, such as one that lets field workers for a
mining company remotely monitor seepage from settling points.
Writing programs for phones is much more complicated than for PCs or for Palm
or Pocket PC handhelds. Designing software customized for the dozens of handset
types isn’t practical. And carriers, worried about tech-support problems and
applications that could cause trouble on their networks, are fussy about what
they will allow.
Sun Microsystems and Qualcomm have developed rival systems that address both
problems. Sun’s Java 2 Micro Edition provides a common programming environment
for many different handsets while preventing downloaded applications from doing
anything bad to the built-in phone software or the network. Leading US carriers
delivering J2ME programs include Sprint PCS, Nextel, AT&T Wireless, and
Cingular. Qualcomm’s BREW, named in self-conscious imitation of Java, offers
similar capabilities, but with a twist.
Qualcomm runs BREW as a turnkey service for carriers, including Verizon
Wireless and Alltel. Customers buy downloads or subscriptions from BREW, and
Qualcomm passes the billing information to the carriers–with Qualcomm keeping
a bit of the payment for its trouble.
I found Verizon’s BREW-based Get It Now service the slickest offering. I
tried it with the Motorola T720 and LG 4400 handsets. You go to the Get It Now
menu, choose your apps or subscriptions, and check out. Games typically can be
purchased outright for $4.99. Information services are sold by subscription.
Vindigo’s local directions, dining-and-entertainment information service costs
$2.99 a month, while Dow Jones’s WSJ.COM news service costs $3.99 monthly. The
cost, plus the airtime used downloading data, automatically appear on your
monthly bill–that’s ease of use and payment.
Nextel’s J2ME service, which I tried on a Motorola i95cl handset, is
clunkier. Although most applications are downloaded over the air to your phone,
you have to select them on Nextel’s Web site, and your purchases are billed
separately to a credit card. Nextel offers a number of free programs, but you
must check carefully to see which programs work with which handsets.
Small displays and the difficulty of data entry will always limit how much
phones can do. Even given the limits, the humble handset can become a game
platform and information appliance once you can get the right software into it.
By Stephen H Wildstrom
in BusinessWeek. Copyright 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc