When the average consumer thinks of wireless technology
most have a difficult time imagining anything but voice services.
We are conditioned to think of cellular or wireless devices
as things you talk into and not look at or read.
Even the youngest users quickly understand how to use
today’s cellular phones—dial and talk. It’s not uncommon to
observe young children grabbing and chatting on a parents’ cell
phone, even if it’s not really turned on. The point is that they
get the concept of wireless voice. Unfortunately most cell
phone users (even non-toddlers) do not use the many voicerelated
features embedded in their phones, much less envision
how they might someday use them for nonvoice applications.
Wireless devices will start with basic features and gradually
evolve as technology and end user perceptions grow. This is
not unlike the evolution of the personal computer. Many of you
will remember when computers were very limited, and you
have witnessed the evolution from a text-only device with one
method of input, through the stage of simple graphics and
crude sounds (buzzers!), and finally to the full a multimedia
PCs of today.
Applications track the capabilities of devices and networks
as well. Early PCs were connected to nothing more than the
electrical outlet on the wall and were capable of sharing only
via the popular “sneaker network”—put the files on a floppy
(remember those 5.25-inch disks that truly were “floppy”?) and
walk them to the intended destination.
PC applications moved from simple text menu–driven programs
to applications that use color, pointing devices, multimedia
images, and concert quality sound—and these are just
the tax preparation programs! Modern day computer games are
capable of experiences that are closely approach virtual reality.
Wireless Internet devices will follow the same path, albeit
in a condensed timeframe. The first nonvoice wireless applications
will be those that use simple text—displays have become
larger with better resolution to accommodate even this simple
text. The next stage will be very simple graphics not unlike the
simple graphics first experienced on PCs—if you look too
closely, you’ll see the same jagged edges and low resolution. As
network data speeds, device processing power, memory, and
displays improve we will see wireless applications that can take
advantage of still images, sound files, and finally the 3G vision
of fully wireless multimedia.
This gradual evolution is important for the adoption of applications.
In part this will allow consumers to experiment and
learn how best to utilize this new method of Internet access. It’s
difficult for most consumers to assess the value of wireless applications
that they have not yet experienced. In turn, this makes it
hard to determine exactly what applications users will be willing
to pay for and even harder to understand how much they will pay.
Even applications that enable relatively obvious services such as
weather alerts or driving directions cannot be fully appreciated
out of the context of a real world usage situation.