Australian Mobile Development Landscape

In just two short decades the mobile phone has become one of the most ubiquitous communications devices in Australia. With mobile penetration sitting above 90 percent, it easily surpasses personal computer ownership, estimated at just 67 percent of Australian households.

Yet despite the computing power of modern handsets, and their unique status as the device a person most often carries with them, mobile phones lag distantly behind the PC for activities such as surfing the Internet or downloading applications. Slow networks, expensive data charges, and a plethora of technical problems have prevented the mobile phone taking off as a computing platform.

All that may be on the verge of changing however, with a small group of Australian developers working to open up the mobile phone as the next big field for computer application development.

Already in Australia there are as many as 50 developers dedicated to creating mobile-related technology, and dozens more for whom mobile development is an important secondary activity. Many of these are devoted to creating back-end systems, such as SMS gateways, competition management systems and payment systems. Still more are dedicated to creation and distribution of mobile content such as ring-tones and wallpaper, and mobile-browseable Web sites.

But it is mobile application development that will best utilise the mobile phone as a true computing platform.

Early activity has focused on building games. Industry figures suggest that eight percent of consumers download application to their handsets, the vast majority of them today being games, and many of Australia's games developers have found creating small downloadable games to be a profitable activity when working in conjunction with publishers. Hence there are now hundreds of mobile games available for download, the majority created using the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) programming environment.

The regional director for mobile games publishing at Electronic Arts (EA), Mike McCabe, says his company has witnessed dramatic growth in user interest in mobile games. EA has released 15 mobile titles, many of them extensions to its existing PC and console franchises.

Games have been the entry point to mobile development for many smaller Australian developers. Sydney-based developed TigerSpike got its start in mobile application development through games when it created the handset-based FantaMan game for Coca-Cola, based on the popular PacMan game concept.

"We've got a number of in-house applications that we have developed that run specifically on mobile handsets," says Oliver Palmer, TigerSpike's operations manager. "We did a karaoke application for [the talent contest] Street Idol for the Motorola V3 handset that Telstra was promoting, which held the music tracks that they had licensed. The application played the backing track with the words on the screen and a bouncing ball scrolling along so that you could sing along."

Increasingly it is useful applications that are capturing the attention of developers. While some of the functionality of a downloadable application can be achieved using a wireless application protocol (WAP) site, this involves greater use of network bandwidth, as pages are sent from the network to the handset. This is generally a slow process, even on existing 3G networks, and can become expensive for the user in terms of data charges. Once a mobile application is downloaded however, it need only draw down discreet information from the network when it is actually required.

The strategic marketing manager for mobility solutions at the telecommunications technology maker Ericsson Australia, Kusten Leins, says one popular example of a mobile application is mobile TV client software, where the downloaded software replaces the browser with a friendlier interface.

"Those kinds of wrapper applications, where you simplify what the end user can do, are the areas where you see applications heading," Leins says.

Another popular area has been guides for festivals and events, such as the miniNAV application created by Adelaide-based developer Kukan Studio, which was successfully used for the 2006 Adelaide Fringe Festival.

Kukan is now building Podmo, a mobile telecommunications network for mobile phones deployed free-of-charge over public Bluetooth networks. Kukan has built a Java application that is downloaded to the handset and provides services such as Web browsing, instant messaging, searching, mapping, content downloads and Voice Over IP, but served through Bluetooth servers in cafes, railway stations and other public places, rather than over the cellular network.

The web developer Hyro also dipped its toes into the downloadable mobile applications realm in 2006, developing a Pong-style game to promote the Seven Network's coverage of the Australian Open Tennis. The company is now working on a second top-secret media project.

Hyro's technical manager for wireless and broadband, Patrik Molander, says that as the handsets themselves become more powerful, there is a push to create more useful applications.

"Previously it has been mostly games, but now we are seeing other types of applications that are creating more value for the user."

Not surprisingly, mobile network operators have also been pushing the development of mobile applications. Hutchison Australia's business solution specialist, James Toepher, says his company has been operating a developer program for mobile applications since the earliest days of its 3G network, although that effort has been scaled back as handset manufacturers have improved the resources that they make available.

Today, manufacturers provide one of the richest sources of information for application developers. Motorola created the Motodev site (developer.motorola.com) for its Motorola Developer Network, which includes FAQs, handset documentation, and access to software developer kits and other development tools. Likewise Sony Ericsson has a dedicated developer site (developer.sonyericsson.com) and Nokia has Nokia Forum (forum.nokia.com).

Toepher says that when Hutchison sees a good fit between an application and its customers, it will take that application to market itself. One example is 3 MarketStream (www.3marketstream.com.au) which provides real-time access to financial markets data from 30 financial exchanges from around the world. He says the application is used both within bank trading rooms and by small operators to get up-to-the-minute information.

Users of 3 MarketStream download a Java application to their handset, which when activated creates a live connection to constantly update information. Toepher says this is typical of the sort of applications that 3 is interested in promoting, in line with its focus on small and medium businesses. The carrier has also worked with developers around the MYOB accounting software suite, to pull down information in this case to Windows Mobile-equipped phones.

Hutchison also directs customers to Handango, an online repository of thousands of games and applications for a wide range of devices. Customers can use the Handango site to easily browse and purchase mobile applications, with support options.