Friday, August 17, 2012

Mobile Computing - evolution and current status


When people talk about mobile devices, what immediately comes up to memory is the mobile phone. The mobile phone appeared after a sequence of about 100 years of inventions, which aim was to be able to communicate from a long distance.
The first successfull telephone transmission was accomplished by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. He and Thomas Edisson competed in the race that lead to the invention of the first telephone.
Immediately in 1877 the first commercial telephone line entered into operation.


The mobile phone only appeared nearly 100 years after the first phone, adding mobility to the initial goal of speaking at a long distance.
The first (analog) mobile phone appeared in 1960. It was too big to be transported personally, so it had to be installed in vehicles.
In 1973 appeared the first handheld mobile phone (analog).

Only in 1977 appeared the first digital cellular networks.


Currently, mobile devices, including most mobile phones have processing power, having added the goal of mobile computing to the previous goals of distance communication and mobility.

Today, in a confluence of different lines and different research goals, we have IP phones (VoIP), cellular packet switching networks (3G, 4G), mobile devices of various sizes, manufacturers, and with different operating systems, incorporating sensors, GPS , electronic compass, accelerometer, etc.. 


The number of mobile subscriptions rose from just over 1 billion in 2002 to almost 5 billion in 2008. We currently have 6.8 billion people worldwide, and more than 5 billion mobile subscriptions, of which 50% are prepaid. 


Only in the second quarter of 2010, the number of smartphones (mobile phones with computing capacity) sold worldwide was 61.7 million.A study by IDC (International Data Corp.) predicts that by 2015 the number of Internet access via mobile networks will exceed the number of accesses through cable or local networks in the U.S.. The scenery in Western Europe and Japan should be similar.

Globaly, online advertising is expected to double between 2010 and 2015. The share of online advertising within all media will increase from 12% to 18% over the same period. 


The following figure shows the distribution of mobile devices in the world.


                                                  MOBILE DEVICES IN THE WORLD


The most popular operating systems for mobile devices with computing capacity (smartphones, PDAs or tablets) are:
  • Android
  • iOS
  • Windows Phone 7 / Windows 8
  • Blackberry OS
  • Symbian / Meego / Tizen

The programming languages ​​most used in these operating systems (OS) are:
  • Android (Java)
  • iOS (objective-C)
  • Windows Phone... /XAML/Silverlight, C#, VB.Net)
  • Blackberry OS (Java, C/C++, HTML5, ...)
  • Symbian (C/C++)
  • and, in any OS, Java ME

When developing software for mobile devices, it is necessary to "think small" in the sense that we do not have the screen space of a desktop system, nor its processing power or information storage. In mobile devices there are less features, less processing speed and less memory than on desktop computers or laptops. Communication is also typically more expensive because it tends to be done through mobile networks.

The mobile web currently reaches 3.4 billion people (about half the world population).

The "mobile" market is more than the sale of apps. Only in 2010, the market for mobile advertising earned 11.5 billion dollars (about 8.7 billion euros).

The features of the mobile devices, such as GPS, associated with the processing capability, allow new types of applications.
For example, location-based services (LBS, Location Based Services).
This type of service (LBS) can be "pulled" by the client - the client is actively seeking and using the service - or can be "pushed" by the vendor - the vendor is offering information...

As with personal computers, servers, or other larger machines, also for mobile devices we consider different levels of software:
  • applications level
  • middleware or communications software level
  • low-level software (operating system kernel, device drivers, etc.)



The following table shows a set of characteristics of mobile applications by application type:
       (Brian Fling, Mobile Design and Development. O'Reilly Media, Inc., August 2009.)

(for ex.: native apps for the device have all device support, are typically complex, have excellent usability, can be developed in different programming languages​​, depending on the operating system, and, if well done, they offer offline support (ie, can be used even when there is no connection to the Internet))

Programming for mobile devices have some drawbacks:
  • smaller screen
  • lower memory capacity
  • lower processing speed
  • lower "disk" capacity

But it also has some advantages:
  • allows one to take advantage of a touch screen
  • take advantage of GPS
  • take advantage of accelerometer
  • allows access anywhere
  • ...
  • light sensor
  • proximity sensor
  • dígital compass

Simple examples of programming for mobile devices:
   - First Windows Phone App


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