Mobile Marketing Blog by Punchkick Interactive

It would seem that WiMAX’s impact on mobile technology in the United States might be closer than we all originally thought.

NextWave Wireless Inc. (Nasdaq: WAVE), a global leader of all things WiMAX, announced that it has retained Deutsche Bank and UBS Investment Bank to explore the sale of its extensive spectrum holdings in the United States. NextWave’s U.S. spectrum footprint covers over 251 million people in the United States and includes major markets such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Denver, Houston, and Detroit.

What drove the surge? Possibly Allen Salmasi, chief executive officer and president of NextWave Wireless, when he remarked:

Since the completion of the recent 700 MHz auction, we have received multiple offers for our U.S. spectrum assets. [N]ow is the perfect time for us to sell these valuable assets while network operators are trying to finalize their band plans and spectrum holdings for their continuing 3G and planned 4G rollouts. Monetizing the value of our substantial spectrum assets would allow us to further strengthen our balance sheet, retire debt, and continue the commercial introduction of a wide range of innovative wireless broadband and multimedia solutions such as our high-performance WiMAX and RFIC chipsets, advanced multi-mode, multi-band TD-CDMA, WiMAX and LTE enabled base station platforms, breakthrough MXtvTM and TDtvTM mobile television systems.

Sorry for the lack of posts. I have been working on a large mobile project that will bring a steady flow of blogging over the next few weeks. In the meantime, lets chat about my next phone.

Found via Biskero: Amazon is selling the Nokia N75 after rebate for $-5.01. I have been looking for a good 240×320 Flash Lite 1.1 pre-installed phone—and this might be it. The N75 has received favorable reviews from Engadget including this one. I’ll post my own report after I play with it for a few days.

Via Doug and Gadgetell:

In an effort to keep up with the touchscreen buzz generated by Apple’s iPhone, Samsung as created the F700. The F700 is part of Samsung’s new Ultrasmart line of phones and sports 7.2 Mbps HSDPA, a 5 megapixel shooter, your typical media functionality, Bluetooth, 2.78 inch touchscreen display, and a slick looking interface designed by Adobe.

and

Via Electronista:

Samsung on Thursday unveiled what it says is one of the world’s most advanced smartphones. Closely resembling the minimalist design of the iPhone, the Ultra Smart F700 is conspicuously targeted at “the recent trend” in touchscreens, according to the Korean company. A 2.8-inch, 440×240 screen is used to control calling, Internet, and music functions. It further includes VibeTonz, a vibration system introduced in the recent W559 that simulates tactile feedback to touchscreen presses. A further resemblance to its American counterpart is a singular navigation button. In contrast to Apple’s device, however, the F700 also contains a slide-out physical keyboard for messaging and heavy-duty browsing.

Better photos can be found here.

Via Gizmodo, Nokia may unveil the N77, a consumer-aimed, moderately priced cellphone with TV capabilities.

Big bad Reuters let it slip that Nokia will unveil at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona next week the N77, a consumer-aimed, moderately priced cellphone with TV capabilities. The N77, which should resemble other N7x phones like the N70 here, will be able to receive TV broadcast by way of DVB-H, a nascent mobile TV technology that is currently undergoing tests in several markets around the world. So what?

Nokia wants to jump start the mobile TV market, which up until now has really only taken off in Korea, if that. And no, we’re not talking about downloading hot videoz picked out by your cellphone carrier, but actual programming. One problem seems to be that people just aren’t that excited to watch video on their mobile devices if the screen isn’t large enough. We should find out more once the Barça conference hits, hopefully with pretty pics of the phone, too.
– Nicholas Deleon

The only question left—will it have Flash Lite? My guess is yes.

According to Pogue’s Posts (Tech editor for the NY Times), The iPhone does not and will not run Flash. It makes sense from a marketing perspective—keep out free games, apps, and videos—but this makes me sad.

Here is an excerpt from Pogue’s article (p.s. He actually played with one):
Can it be used with anything but Cingular? –No.
Can it run Mac OS X programs? –No.
Can I add new programs to it? –No. Apple wants to control the look and feel and behavior of every aspect of the phone.
Does it run programs from Palm, Symbian, Windows? –No.
Does it have games? –No.
Does it have GPS? –No.
Does the Web browser support Flash or Java? –No.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

UPDATE:

Markoff: “What about all those plugins that live within Safari now, like Flash or like Java or like JavaScript?”

Jobs: “Well, JavaScript’s built into the Phone. Sure.”

Markoff: “And what are you thinking about Flash and Java?”

Jobs: “Java’s not worth building in. Nobody uses Java anymore. It’s this big heavyweight ball and chain.”

Markoff: “Flash?”

Jobs: “Well, you might see that.”

Markoff: “What about YouTube–”

Jobs: “Yeah, YouTube—of course. But you don’t need to have Flash to show YouTube. All you need to do is deal with YouTube. And plus, we could get ‘em to up their video resolution at the same time, by using h.264 instead of the old codec.”
——-

So the DEFINITIVE answer now is: NO Java, MAYBE Flash.

FAQ List Part 2

If anyone is interested in designing or developing WAP sites for mobile phones, I have found some very useful information and put together this list of 11 essential tools for mobile Web development. You can also learn more about Punchkick Interactive’s mobile WAP and Web Site development capabilities.

Tools and Resources:

1. Mobi Ready score
Get your free page analysis and Mobi Ready score. This report tests the mobile-readiness of your site using industry best practices & standards

2. XHTML mobile phone emulator
Type in your .com / .net / .org / .biz, etc. site address and you can check how your site looks to a typical mobile phone user. Available handsets are the Nokia n70 and a Sony K750.

3. Submit Your Mobile Site to yahoo.com
This form lets you submit a mobile site to yahoo.com so that the mobile site will be included in search results when someone searches via their mobile handset at http://wap.yahoo.com.

4. The Mobile Domainatron
The Mobile Domainatron demonstrates a domain name’s mobile usability including: Calculating total keystrokes required to input the domain name on a typical i-mode mobile.

5. Mimic
Mimic (formerly i-Mimic) emulates either an N400i (European) or N505i (Japanese) i-mode mobile. Simply enter a URL and select the mobile you want to emulate.

6. YOSPACE.com phone emulators
You can either use the free online emulator for the 40+ handsets or you can use the standalone developer version on your PC. From here you can download the standalone version with a restriction of 5 minutes of use. Alternatively, you can buy a single user license is £299 + UK VAT.

7. WURFL - the Wireless Universal Resource File
The WURFL is an XML configuration file which contains information about capabilities and features of several wireless devices. The main scope of the file is to collect as much information as possible about all the existing wireless devices that access WAP pages so that developers will be able to build better applications and better services for the users.

8. Article :: The Mobile Web Top 10
Pukupi’s top 10 hints for building interoperable mobile web sites really spells out much of what has been questioned regarding mobile Web site development.

9. Article :: Making Small Devices Look Great
Opera has put together this wonderful resource that gives code examples, tips, and emulator advice for developing mobile XHTML pages.

10. Article :: Global Authoring Practices for the Mobile Web
This document gives general guidelines for web developers and content authors who are searching for directions to help create sites for the mobile web.

11. Blog :: http://www.handheldusability.com/
Handheld Usability is the first book to cover the emerging field of handheld product design. The book covers everything from product design cycles to optimum menu length and audicon (audio-icon) characteristics. Read the first chapter and preview other sections here.