CTIA show

LAS VEGAS--It seems there are going to be as many ways to run a mobile application store as there are stores themselves.

RIM's BlackBerry App World is a model of how mobile OS vendors are trying to balance consumer needs and carrier needs.

(Credit: Maggie Reardon/CNET)

One of the big topics this week at CTIA 2009 has been mobile applications, as Research in Motion unveiled BlackBerry App World and Microsoft talked about its forthcoming Windows Marketplace for Mobile. The dam has truly broken with mobile applications; for years, most consumers seemed indifferent to third-party applications, but now they are viewed as an essential part of any smartphone, just like they are on a PC or Mac.

Most of the credit for that trend has been prompted by the success of Apple's App Store, as both Apple's friends and enemies in the mobile world will readily admit. But few competitors are attempting to pull off Apple's my-way-or-the-highway approach, preferring to integrate the wireless carriers in a nod to the entrenched power those companies have in the mobile world.

Some might argue that's because they don't have devices with the consumer cachet of the iPhone. But it's clear after talking to several companies on the sidelines at CTIA that they think there's a way to make sure they offer quality software to their customers without cutting the carrier almost completely out of the equation, as Apple has done with AT&T.

Still, the burning question is whether the carriers and handset makers will permit software companies to do what they do best, or whether they will continue to try to put their stamp on mobile application development in order to avoid their possible fates as "dumb pipes" or widget makers.

"There's a big measure of trust there," said Morgan Gillis, executive director of the LiMo Foundation, which was created by a foundation of carriers and handset makers to develop software that provides a common underpinning for developers to write mobile applications. "We have to trust that the companies that build the devices and the operators that package this know what they are doing."

The idea of mobile application stores is not new, but the faster networks and more sophisticated devices available these days have created a way for users to download applications directly to their device, bypassing the PC altogether. There are various ways that mobile companies are approaching this new reality.

Apple's approach has been covered exhaustively. But Apple has a unique advantage compared with its competitors: its applications only have to support two devices that are essentially identical (the original iPhone and the iPhone 3G), and for the most part Apple works only with a single wireless carrier per country. Therefore, it can have a central application store and guarantee that those applications will work on any iPhone, and at the same time not have to worry as much about ensuring its carrier partners have unique ways to sell the same phone.

Billing strategies
But while RIM, for example, is launching BlackBerry App World with the money flowing outside of the carrier's control through an exclusive relationship with PayPal, co-CEO Jim Balsillie made it clear that he would find a way to make sure the carriers have a chance to participate in the billing for those applications. "Different carriers have different billing strategies, so it's quite frankly a bunch of work," he told The Wall Street Journal.

Microsoft is likewise steering a middle ground, with plans to let carriers offer their own "store within a store" inside Windows Marketplace for Mobile and giving users the option to choose how they want to be billed: directly via credit card or through their monthly wireless bill.

The idea that the carrier owns the billing relationship with the end user for almost all of the mobile experience is virtually sacrosanct for everyone but Apple and AT&T. But there is a concern among some in the mobile industry that carriers will extend that relationship to demand a role in creating software and services for end users marked with their own brand.

Verizon did nothing to assuage those fears by announcing plans to join the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) this week, essentially signaling that it plans to make sure Verizon-stamped software appears on future handsets regardless of what operating system is running underneath the layer presented to a phone's user.

To be fair, there are valid reasons why carriers are so concerned about the types of applications that run on their networks. Modern wireless networks are more fragile than one might think, as demonstrated by the problems AT&T encountered when iPhone-bearing geeks descended on Austin, Texas, for SXSW 2009 and brought local AT&T data service to a crawl.

Still, Aaron Woodman, a director in Microsoft's mobile communications business, thinks carriers fundamentally understand the shift that has taken place in the mobile industry over the last several years.

Form vs. functionality
For years, the business of selling mobile phones was about making sure you had phones that looked good and ensuring distribution ran like a clock, Woodman said. But over the last decade, business phone users started to demand features in addition to style, and that trend has exploded with the consumer demand sparked by the iPhone.

"People all of the sudden were walking in and asking for core level of functionality, and that started to change the conversation from about sourcing devices to functionality," Woodman said. "That functionality is going to be very difficult for operators to provide with significant help from others. Expertise and experience (in one area) doesn't yield expertise and experience in another area."

Organizations like Symbian, which controls the world's leading smartphone operating system, believe the balanced answer is to create an "app mall" rather than an "app store," according to David Wood, executive vice president for research at the Symbian Foundation.

For example, Symbian will do the dirty work of processing, certifying, and hosting the applications, but will give its various partners their own storefronts within that mall to sell Symbian-certified applications as they see fit. Microsoft's approach is somewhat similar. This way, carriers can feel they still have the opportunity to sell their software and services to end users without operating system vendors having to cede control of the user experience on a modern smartphone.

As has been often stated, the beauty of the modern mobile computing market is that established business models and philosophies from the PC market or older cellular phone market aren't necessarily relevant: several executives will (privately) admit they are essentially making this up as they go along.

There's little doubt that Apple's iPhone has shaken up this market the way Apple's Macintosh shook up the personal computing market 25 years ago. But unlike the past, several companies--not just two--are going to dictate the future of the truly personal computer.

And since different people want different things from their mobile phones, there's room for more than one approach to selling smartphones and mobile applications. There is not, however, room for seven approaches, which means operating system vendors, handset makers, and carriers will have to be extremely vigilant about evolving customer perferences in a world where consumer tastes can change virtually overnight.

(Credit: Slacker Radio)

True to its word at CTIA 2009, Slacker Radio has released an update to its excellent streaming-radio application for BlackBerry.

The latest version adds a few new features, the most exciting of which, reading song lyrics, can be enjoyed only by subscribers to the premium RadioPlus service. The lyrics show up when available on the right-most tab in the BlackBerry Slacker app. Even those using the free version of Slacker stand to benefit from Slacker's newly implemented Bluetooth support, which finally provides compatibility with stereo headsets and a whole host of Bluetooth peripherals. You can enable Bluetooth in the BlackBerry options menu.

You can download Slacker Radio's latest on Slacker.com or on the newly-launched BlackBerry App World. It works for the BlackBerry Bold, Curve series, Pearl series (including Flip), and the BlackBerry Storm.

LAS VEGAS--Full-length TV shows are coming to BlackBerry devices as QuickPlay Media has announced it will offer a new TV download service for the smartphones via the just new Research In Motion applications store.

BkackBerry Bold

(Credit: Research In Motion)

QuickPlay is one of the first companies to offer an application through RIM's BlackBerry App World virtual store. RIM announced the new applications store Wednesday morning. And co-CEO Mike Lazaridis is expected to show off the new storefront during his keynote speech Wednesday here at the CTIA Wireless 2009 trade show.

The QuickPlay video service called Primetime2Go will cost $7.99 a month. It will provide full episodes of popular TV shows from several TV networks including NBC, MTV Networks, CBS, and the CW. (CNET News is owned by CBS.)

As previously reported, the service will only download shows over a Wi-Fi connection. And currently the service will only be available on the BlackBerry Bold, which is sold by AT&T and the BlackBerry Curve 8900, which is sold by T-Mobile USA. The service will likely be available on future BlackBerry devices that also run the company's latest version of its operating system, Mark Hyland, vice president of marketing said.

The only other requirement for the service is that users must have an SD memory card for the phone. The Bold comes with a 2GB card and the 8900 has a 1 GB card, which Hyland said can provide about five hours of recording time.

For now the TV shows that are downloaded will not have advertisements in them. But Hyland said this may change as the service evolves.

There are already several mobile TV services available for phones. Apple's iTunes store delivers full-length TV shows. But users must pay on a per-show basis instead of a subscription. Qualcomm's MediaFlo offers live TV programming. And MobiTV, which is available through a variety of operators, delivers a mix of full-length TV shows, live programming, and made for mobile video. MobiTV has developed a special application for business users that tailors business news and information and is available on the BlackBerry Bold. It will soon be offered on other BlackBerry handsets such as the BlackBerry Storm.

Even though there is no shortage of options for watching TV on phones, the service has been slow to take off. But experts believe that mobile TV is on the rise and will grow over the next few years. Of course, the economic downturn could affect adoption. Hyland said his company is conscientious about consumers looking for value.

"Of course we understand there is concern over the economy," he said. "That's why we priced it at $7.99. So for the cost of two lattes in a month people can have access to great programming. And we think that's a good value."

No joke, this application greeted me when I first ran BlackBerry's App World.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt)

It's well past midnight here at CTIA 2009 and I have fought sleep to test out the new BlackBerry App World, the much ballyhooed 'rival' to the iPhone's App Store. As of 1:30 a.m. PDT, it has 11 social networking applications, 89 utilities, and 163 games. The BlackBerry App World is spinning on, but although I enjoy its layout, it's having a hard time living up to the hype.

First, I am emphatically not a fan of RIM's decision to tether all its BlackBerry users to PayPal as its payment processor. I see the logic behind it--PayPal is unified, while carriers are not, and many business users and prosumers who own BlackBerrys will already have PayPal accounts. I just don't like it. The real problem is, I just don't like PayPal, and I resent having had to sign up again just a few months after extricating my bank account and credit card number from PayPal. The PayPal chapter of my life will be yanked back open, at least if I want to use BlackBerry's App World. And I most definitely do.

Second annoyance: On a trackball device, you have to scroll through the entire end-user license agreement before the application will install. Thankfully, you'll only have to do this once. I had to do it twice, however, to load the storefront onto a Bold and a Curve, so it was twice the bummer.

Right now, the App World is operating on the BlackBerry Bold as I am post-midnight--sluggishly. It's definitely not as snappy as iPhone's App Store in the 3G performance department, and it's frustrating to stare at the green "loading" bar for long, fat seconds before a product page loads. Worst of all, the applications appear to only download to the device memory, completely ignoring my 8GB microSD card. I suspect this will lead to a lot of "incomplete memory" messages for a lot of folks.

That said, the first three applications downloaded fairly quickly and work like a charm. Even the PayPal portion of the process was painless, and I know the upshot is being able to reload all my free and purchased applications if I switch devices.

My advice to RIM is this: get the App World to spin a little faster and open up external memory for storing memory-demanding applications like games, and you'll have a profitable product that's also a win with your users. And do it fast.

Introducing BlackBerry App World--photos

Article updated 4/1/09 at 1:30 pm PT to correct the name of LyricFind.

All these lyrics can be yours as part of a subscription fee.

(Credit: Slacker Radio)

If you've ever seen this Internet-infamous video, nobody need ever remind you of the importance of song lyrics.

Soon, subscribers to Slacker Radio's RadioPlus service will be able to avoid embarrassing lyrical flubs with the help of a new lyrics tab on the iPhone, BlackBerry, and Web. Slacker Radio has partnered with LyricFind to provide the text behind the songs, which RadioPlus subscribers began seeing Tuesday, March 31, 2009, on Slacker.com. The lyrics tabs is expected to appear on the BlackBerry on April 1, and on the iPhone sometime next week.

Licensed lyrics are beginning to set a trend in mobile applications. In addition to Slacker Radio's lyrics play, TuneWiki has released its offering for Android and is working on versions of the music video and lyrics application for the other mobile platforms. The bottom line is: are you willing to pay for a tool that keeps you from making a fool of yourself in front of people you're trying to impress?

Hot on the heels of releasing Skype for iPhone, the VoIP communications company has come to the table with news of a free, "lite" version of Skype for BlackBerry. Already downloadable for Android, Java, Symbian, and Windows Mobile, BlackBerry has remained Skype's missing link.

Just don't expect to share photos of your cat quite yet. While Skype's core capabilities will debut in Skype Lite for BlackBerry, not everything Skype can do will be available right out of the gate. You'll be able to call other Skype users for free, and can initiate calls to landlines and mobile phones using Skype Out credit. You'll also be able to receive inbound calls to your online Skype number. Instant messenger and SMS features will also stay intact, but features like voicemail and file transferring, which are also available on other platforms, will be delayed on BlackBerry for the time being. Also, unlike the iPhone version just released, you won't need Wi-Fi to connect to Skype. Skype Lite will work over your BlackBerry's data plan, so long as you have a calling plan.

Skype's announcement is just part of the company's three-pronged mobile strategy, Skype's chief operating officer, Scott Durchslag, said in a press conference on Tuesday at CTIA. Skype's first goal is to create a native application for all major smartphone operating systems. After BlackBerry, Palm's unreleased Web OS platform would be the last major hurdle. After conquering native applications, Skype will work to get its VoIP client preloaded on mobile phones and other Internet devices. To this end, Skype has already cut a deal with Nokia to be featured on the Nokia N97 when it ships. Lastly, Skype will court carriers to integrate Skype-to-Skype calling for phones that don't have Wi-Fi.

Skype plans to release a beta version of Skype for BlackBerry in May, starting with BlackBerry Bold any Curve phones, and gradually adding support for more BlackBerry smartphones. Skype Lite for BlackBerry will be available in ten countries to start with, including the U.S. and U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil, and parts of northern and eastern Europe.

Related stories:
Skype for iPhone: It's official
Skype gets SMS, file transfer for Windows Mobile

We've barely unpacked our bags from GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, and we're on the road again to Las Vegas for CTIA Wireless, the U.S. trade show and conference held every spring where the biggest and most influential players in the U.S. mobile market gather.

While there will be some cell phones announced at this year's show, most of the excitement will center on software applications and the virtual storefronts that are popping up to distribute these new applications. Since the success of Apple's App Store, which provides easy access to third-party applications for iPhones, other companies have jumped on the bandwagon announcing their own application stores.

Everyone from Google to Microsoft to Nokia to Research In Motion has announced plans for a new application store. And at this year's CTIA, some of these new app stores will come to life. RIM is expected to announce that its BlackBerry AppWorld is open for business, and Microsoft will start showing off its Marketplace for the first time.

But application markets aren't the only thing that will be talked about. Carriers like Verizon and Clearwire will also be touting faster broadband wireless networks that will help make these applications a reality. And of course handset makers will be showing off new products, some of which have already been announced, such as the Palm Pre.

But this year's spring CTIA Wireless show will likely be smaller than in years past. The economic downturn has taken its toll on the mobile market. Even Nokia, the world's largest and strongest maker of cell phones, has slashed expectations for 2009. And the company has already begun laying off employees and closing facilities to cut costs.

(Credit: Boy Genius Report)

AT&T and T-Mobile customers have gotten their fix of BlackBerry goodness with the BlackBerry Bold and BlackBerry Curve 8900, respectively, but Verizon Wireless and Sprint subscribers are wondering when they'll get that same kind of QWERTY love. Well, we can't say when it'll happen but it looks like the love will come in the form of the RIM BlackBerry 9630 aka BlackBerry Niagara.

The Boy Genius Report managed to snag an early (not final) version of the dual-mode (CDMA/GSM) BlackBerry 9630 and posted some initial thoughts about the smartphone. In the report, BGR states that it's "probably the best phone we've ever used" in terms of call quality. He also likens the BlackBerry hardware to the BlackBerry Curve 8900 and BlackBerry Bold, with a high-resolution display (480x360 pixels) and a QWERTY keyboard that's "just right." The big disappointment? No Wi-Fi.

At the end, BGR said that he's "pretty confident" that the 9630 will head to Verizon first. We can't say for sure if this is true; we haven't heard anything official from RIM or Verizon. However, if this is the case, we're pretty confident in saying that Sprint will get its own version. The big question in both cases is when. The 2009 CTIA spring show is just a few days away though (April 1-3), so hopefully we'll get more information there.

Back in June, Toronto-based Viigo released a private beta of its muscled-up RSS-reader for BlackBerry phones that looked poised to take a bite out of Yahoo Go 3.0. Viigo 3.0 beta took Viigo's core RSS newsreader and made it one meta-channel of many. Alongside a proliferation of customizable news feeds there would be weather, entertainment, sports, finance, travel information, and so on. Yet the design of Viigo 3.0 beta was a mere blueprint, a placeholder of what's to come with very limited working features.

(Credit: Viigo)

At CTIA Wireless in San Francisco (full CNET coverage) on Friday, Viigo updated and opened its beta to the public, adding back-end and front-end changes that nudge the gap between Viigo 3.0 beta and its more successful Yahoo competitor. In addition to shrinking the memory footprint, Viigo has added the ability to add or remove services from the home screen. This is good news for folks outside of Canada who had previously been forced to live with the channel on Canadian sports. Viigo hints that with the next release, users might be able to not just add or subtract, but reorder information channels how they wish.

Fleshed-out information channels are also on the ascendancy, most notably the travel, finance, elections, and sports categories. Viigo's flight-tracking engine is now firmly in place, letting you keep tabs on flight status and create itineraries for Viigo to track. This travel function is not currently available from Yahoo Go, and could give Viigo an edge with some users.

Sports coverage has also grown to include a single sports channel that lets fans gather together stats feeds for each sport; in finance news, economic types can track industry leaders by market sector and monitor exchange rates. With a finger on North America's political pulse, Viigo has also bulked up coverage for the upcoming U.S. and Canadian elections.

There's still work to do before Viigo can catch Yahoo Go's breadth of services, but its differentiation in data types and sources, the organizational interface, and the ability to intuitively customize the channels and screen can only do Viigo good. At this point, Viigo needs to give its following greater control over filtering and manipulating data from the channels and more operating systems--iPhone and Symbian come to mind.

The blow-by-blow beta updates are encouraging reminders of Viigo's presence, but are beginning to wear thin. Let's hope that the next release of Viigo 3.0 is a complete one, and robust enough to withstand a thorough evaluation.

Until then, Blackberry users can try out Viigo's latest beta app by pointing the mobile browser to http://beta.getviigo.com. Windows Mobile users can also download Viigo, though that version isn't as advanced.