Essay on Mobile phones and Mobile applications

Mobile phones have altered the lives of many people. It particularly concerns younger generations. Most school pupils have had at least one mobile phone during their lives. Mobile phones provide numerous applications, from usual conversations and text messages to Internet access and MMS, which depends on the capabilities of certain types of mobile phones. Recently, there have been developed a great number of mobile applications, which become more and more useful in modern world of high technologies. The following research provides a brief analysis of different categories of mobile applications available on such operating systems as Apple and Windows Mobile. It also analyses in detail the Android mobile applications, revealing the opportunities and advantages of one system over another. The research is based on various kinds of existing investigations on this matter.

Key words: mobile application, Android mobile platform, advanced mobile technologies.

A research company Gartner has made a list of the most perspective mobile applications of the nearest future, which also includes already existing and widely spread technologies. Gartner, however, clearly states that it is only the beginning of advanced mobile technologies (Perez, 2009). Nowadays, mobile applications are in great use and their popularity is growing further.

For instance, such mobile application as location-based services which is known as LBS is still not developed to full extent. Thus, people still find it difficult to use mobile phones in order to find out where their friends or relatives are. However, people nowadays have certain similar applications based on social networks, such as Facebook. Among other examples are money payments. This kind of service would be widely spread in those parts of the world where people do not have direct access to banks. However, even in Western countries people might just want to make more convenient payments using their mobile phones. Nevertheless, this kind of service is still not developed. Transfer of money through SMS messages remains a matter of nearest future for most countries of the world.

Another mobile application is mobile search. It is clearly not a new opportunity. It is well-known that instead of using the Web, it would be easier to look for some information through mobile search services. Such services as Taptu are now available along with other mobile devices. Mobile browsing also becomes popular among mobile applications, but it is still being developed. However, in regard to such mobile platforms, as Android, the above-stated mobile applications would be more effectively made by web developers in comparison with the Android mobile platform, for example.

Android Mobile Development is a company that provides services of mobile applications through a great number of mobile platforms such as iPhone, Windows Mobile and others (Dawson, 2011). It is grounded on Java language codes allowing web developers to write various codes in the Java language. Different mobile applications are aimed at controlling mobile devices by means of Java libraries enabled by Google. It is considered to be a well-known platform which helps to develop mobile applications through different kinds of software available in the Google Android SDK. The platform might be adapted not only to traditional smartphones, but also to 2D and 3D graphics libraries. Android mobile platform has been working on such projects as software for games, media players and other devices. Android mobile applications are intended for communication, business, multimedia, security, entertainment, travel, Internet and others (Karim et al., 2006).

It is going to provide such mobile applications as mobile health monitoring, mobile payments, NFC, mobile advertising. Among already existing mobile applications are mobile instant messaging and mobile music. Although most of these applications are still at a primary stage of implementation, they are likely to have a considerable impact on developing markets. According to Gartner’s observation, mobile payments, for example, are likely to be a highly fragmented market, although this technology needs some improvement. NFC or Near Field Communications are more widely spread in Europe and Asia, than in the USA. This function is likely to become popular in different countries of the world in the nearest future. As for mobile advertising, it is one of the applications that are needed in order to monetize the content of mobile phones (Naismith et al., 2004). This application has been rather popular starting from 2008, when it was spent over 500 million dollars on advertising by means of mobile phones. By the end of 2012 this function is likely to have been used by different companies equally to other advertising means such as TV, mass media and radio. Speaking about existing mobile devices, it is important to mention mobile music which is available mostly on iPhone products. But this application is likely to become used not only in iPhones, but also in other mobile devices.

It is important to add that such application as Augmented Reality remains a matter of future. This function is a good way to see the surrounding world in a new light. However, the Augmented Reality application still needs much improvement and technological growth, as people should apply it not because they can do it, but because they have to do it (Yen et al., 2006).