Mobile Applications round-up

I've been looking at a lot of different mobile applications as part of my work at Mimas and as part of the mobile consultancy I've been involved as part of Stockport and Traffords Molenet project. It is a really exciting time for looking at how mobile devices might be used in learning. Until recently most UK projects centred around the the use of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs, sometimes called EDAs in education, where the 'E' is unsurprisingly standing for Educational). However the mobile device world is changing and increasingly we see convergence and the emergence of devices such as 'smartphones' such as the HTC range or the business orientated Blackberry range. These devices combine the functions of PDAs with the mobile connectivity of a mobile phones. They will usually include cameras (still and video), voice recorders and some form of multi-media players with of course Internet access to the Web and Email etc.. Although smartphones are generally the domain of business users (mainly because of price and marketing), these features are increasingly available on consumer phones (the phones, which are most likely to be in student and lecturers pockets).

At the higher end of the price range are devices such as the Nokia 95i and Apple Iphone, with generous local storage, Wireless Access (good for saving on mobile bills) and big screens but even at the lower end of the cost range we are seeing mobile devices with at least 1 GigaByte of storage as standard and with 3.5G connectivity and associated costs falling the power of the device we all carry in our pockets is increasing and the applications available are increasing.

Over the next few weeks I'll be looking at some of them, such as: Mobile Flickr (photo sharing), Google Mobile, Yahoo Go, Widsets and Shozu. No doubt I' ll be adding more to the list and it will be very interesting to hear from others invovled in similar research.