Wanna build a mobile app? Read this.

Do you have what it takes to build a mobile app? Yes or no, you should read what these guys have to say.

Link: InterCasting Corp: Inferior Bathroom Technology and UI In The Mobile Space.

Rabble has been in development for a year. Sounds like a long time for a blogging and social networking app, doesn’t it? How about cramming that app into a 200k payload, working around caching limitations which are all different across hundreds of supported handsets, overcoming network latency issues unheard of on the web and doing it all in a presentation environment that requires creative solutions to the problems that are among the easiest to solve on the web? Now do it with 1.5 inches or less of screen real estate in a way that is logical and useful for the consumer. The coding was done in a few months. It’s everything else that goes into bringing a product to market that takes time. This is the kind of time I wish the automatic bathroom flushing people would have spent.

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Here are my five criteria for useful mobile applications. (All of our planned mobile applications must have at least four, but maybe you don’t think they are all that important for what you are doing. Time will tell.)
Successful mobile applications:
1) Are not just mobile relevant, but mobility relevant
2) Are personal or offer some form of personalization
3) Leverage the network effect of mobile connected devices
4) Originate in the mobile space
5) Utilize and extend the upstream capabilities of the mobile device (this could be as simple as texting and passive location or as involved as massively multi-user networked games.)

A few comments about the list:
1) Yes. 'Mobility relevant' in my mind is 'relevant to the user's mobile lifestyle'.
2) Yes. The mobile is personal*, great mobile services are personal.
3) Hmm. This I think is a challenge in some forms, but now is a must to succeed - it's all about communication in the end. The best services currently are about communication: voice and SMS. And I think there's a lot that can still be built upon those two pillars of communication. Rabble is an example of a service that turns the phone's camera into a mobile communication tool. I'd be curious to know how much Rabble uses other channels of communication available to the phone.
4) Hmm. I am partial to a mix of mobile and PC originated activities. I think some services have failed because they pushed the mobile-origination without complementing it in other ways. So, 'mobile-originated', yes, but in moderation. ;-)
5) Hmm. not too sure what you mean here, but I get a feeling that it ties into the network effect in item 3. If so, yes, the phone has some pretty nifty ways of supporting the flow of information in a service.

Great stuff.

*personal services - some folks here say 'intimate' services, which clashes when they mention 'sticky' services. i'll stick with personal.