Mobile LBS market finally showing up
After years of the mobile LBS market being bubbling under the surface, this Spring/Summer 2007 looks like it might finally open up.
This morning Research in Motion announced a new API for their Blackberries that includes support for API for J2METM”>JSR 179, the Location API for J2ME. Blackberries have had GPS chips for awhile, RIM even had a competition last year to create an LBS. However, I think this is the first time the API has been publicly debuted. They also released a mapping API via Blackberry Maps (not sure what they are yet)
In addition to the LocationAPI, RIM’s APIs also added a lot of other functionality for XML parsing, multimedia, camera, and file system. Definitely building a nice mobile-computing system.
That now adds to the upcoming FIC/OpenMoko Neo1973 which has a GPS chip and agpsd for location based applications, the Apple iPhone, uLocate’s WHERE Widgets for Sprint phones, the Nokia N800 and N95, both with location support via WiFi/GPS.
There have been a lot of mobile location based games, and services. But now that the API’s are becoming open and very easy to use (with the potential exception of Apple’s iPhone), small/independent developers can really produce innovative and interest applications for the devices. These mobile platforms serve as great devices for both publishing (geoblogging, geophotos, geotagging) and consuming (georss, kml) information from the geostack.
My name is
March 29th, 2007 at 7:07 pm (#)
The phones and phone makers will be ready, but will the carriers be onboard. Verizon locks those apis down, Cingluar makes it very difficult to get to for the average developer trying something new, and Sprint/Nextel open them up on some phones but not others. If it were to all open up, I think there’d be a flood of developers creating very interesting apps.
September 12th, 2010 at 12:59 pm (#)
mobile computing always have a growing trend in the succeding years:-,
October 24th, 2010 at 2:19 pm (#)
we would likely see an increase in the demand for mobile computing in the years to come”*’
December 20th, 2010 at 2:12 pm (#)
we need some smaller and energy efficient microprocessors to support mobile computing ‘:;