Smartphones: the plethora of platforms

Smartphones are rather like desktop PCs were 25 years ago. There are lots of competing devices with different OSes - it's exciting or a nightmare depending on your point of view. Gartner's managed diversity strategy provides a useful framework to think about support.

If I'm an individual or an enterprise, how do I choose which platform to adopt? My preference is for the iPhone - it's what I've chosen for personal use, and I think it has business benefits too. Each of the platforms however have different strengths and weaknesses. Several people have recently asked me for advice, so hopefully this summary on the blog will be of use to more.

Blackberry: the standard for corporate messaging. We'd have to invest significantly to add Blackberry Enterprise Server to our infrastructure if we wanted to deploy Blackberries. The blackberry data contracts are also at expensive at £15/month, difficult to justify at a time when we are trying to cut costs. The infrastructure costs mean we'd either have to deploy Blackberries in a big way or not at all.

Symbian: Symbian is now owned by Nokia, who are almost the only firm left making Symbian phones. Symbian runs efficiently on low-end hardware. It's a general purpose smartphone OS but I think Symbian's developing niche will be at the cheaper end of the smartphone market, for people who want a phone with only occasional extras. The Nokia E63 could be a good, cheap phone for business users wanting phone+email. The keyboard makes it a decent Blackberry clone from the hardware point of view. Unfortunately for us the IMAP mail client is lacking - for example it will only store sent mail on the device, not on the server.

Windows Mobile: lots of devices in different form factors, from a huge range of manufacturers. Very open platform for third-party applications. I think of Windows Mobile as a 'general purpose computer' - it will do anything. This makes it a great choice if you really want a laptop replacement (but in that case how about a netbook instead?). Unfortunately the Windows Mobile interface is pretty horrible to use. The best Windows Mobile devices are from HTC, who have developed an easier touch interface on top of Windows Mobile. If you want a Windows Mobile get something like the HTC Touch Pro.

Apple iPhone: revolutionary when first released, the sleek hardware, large screen and touch interface make the iPhone a cut above other options. It is lightweight, slim, and easy to carry around in your pocket, so won't be left in the desk drawer. The user interface and other design factors are crucial to the appeal - you can't underestimate how important this is to the average, non-techy user. It makes the device something people will actually use and benefit from.

The on screen keyboard is a barrier for some:it takes time to get used to but can be quite fast when you've learnt. The email client is fantastic, and the web browser way better than any other smartphone. There are various enterprise tools you would expect (eg remote wipe) but not all would work in our environment. It can do calendaring with our Oracle Calendar, but through a third-party sync app which isn't ideal. This is an example of a more general failing: Apple have a limited SDK for third-party apps, perhaps as an oversight, or perhaps to retain their iron control on the platform. Unfortunately all this comes at a price: the iPhone corporate data contract (£15/month again) is more expensive than other options. A shame that the smartphone designed for the masses is affordable only to a few?

Google Android (so far just the G1 from T-Mobile): One to watch. In theory Android should give the iPhone a run for its money providing easy to use web-centric devices. So far manufacturers have been slow to release models - I don't expect a large range until 2010. Android platform not mature, missing too many features, especially those that enterprises want. Android is likely to remain consumer-centric for some time.

Palm Pre: interesting but still unproven and not here yet. When released it will still take time to reach maturity and feature parity with other platforms.

Digital nomads and multiple identites on the move

"Urban nomads have started appearing only in the past few years. Like their antecedents in the desert, they are defined not by what they carry but by what they leave behind, knowing that the environment will provide it. Thus, Bedouins do not carry their own water, because they know where the oases are. Modern nomads carry almost no paper because they access their documents on their laptop computers, mobile phones or online. Increasingly, they don't even bring laptops. Many engineers at Google, the leading internet company and a magnet for nomads, travel with only a BlackBerry, iPhone or other “smart phone”. If ever the need arises for a large keyboard and some earnest typing, they sit down in front of the nearest available computer anywhere in the world, open its web browser and access all their documents online."
From Nomads at last, The Economist April 10th 2008

Is the Nomad a good model for our academic and academic-related staff working on the move? I'm sure it describes some - but how many? Paul Saffo describes four categories of mobile worker, Nomads, Cyber-trekkers, Hermit Crabs & Astronauts - defined by how disciplined they are about what they leave behind. Personally I'm not a digital nomad - but I'm sold on the concept and working on getting there.

Having access to information on the move is very useful. But travelling light is more important. People won't put up with bulky, heavy, awkward gadgets. If your smartphone is larger than some critical size it will spend more time sitting in your desk drawer than in your pocket, and then it is of no use to anyone. Every student has a laptop, but most sit on the desk at home and only occasionally are brought in to the campus.

My starting point on mobile IT is that devices must be genuinely mobile. Even better would be for the devices to disappear into the environment. Use the keyboards and screens of whatever room you are in, and access your data in the portal or in the cloud.

Lets say you find the perfect device. The next problem is that you don't want to lug around two phones, or two laptops, and two sets of chargers (one of each for work and the other for personal use). To escape that fate you instead have to wrestle with managing your work and personal identities on the same equipment. This is tricky:

• Email identities are the easiest to separate. You can have two email addresses, and read them either in different places or in one virtual inbox (but you'd better remember to choose the right From address).
• Calendar is trickier - to stop yourself getting double-booked you need a view of both personal and work appointments in one place. Putting your personal appointments into your corporate calendar isn't a good solution (how do you get your data out when you change jobs?).
• Even more difficult is your phone number. You don't want to keep two phones in your pocket, unless you have very baggy trousers! So do you use your work phone for personal purposes? Apart from the cost, there are seemingly insurmountable obstacles with financial and tax regulations. Use your personal phone for work purposes? You won't want to pocket the bill, unless you've got a large bundle of minutes each month. Even worse, it means your employer has your phone number when you're on holiday. If somehow you do combine both into one device, you won't give up either your work or personal number - all those people to notify!

We don't have good, cheap, multi-network solutions for redirecting phone calls. Grand Central looks like the best multi-platform service. Sadly Google appear to have put the service on ice since taking it over (and there is certainly no sign of it outside of the US). One colleague points me towards Advanced Call Manager "It's brilliant" - but only for devices with Symbian OS. Doubtless there are others - all suggestions very welcome...

Further reading:

Dr Carsten Sørensen, LSE
Paul Saffo on Cyber-Nomads: a functional taxonomy of mobile users
Sociology of the mobile phone

What is the future of technology in student residences?

Bristol's ResNet service started over ten years ago, in 1998. Now we have 100Mbit/sec connections, live multicast TV, and wireless in some areas. One of the primary uses of the Internet is to arrange your social life. Would we have forseen that 10 years ago?

The University is currently reviewing the residences strategy to develop residences which will serve students for the next 30 years. This is an eon in technology terms, but my role in the process is to develop ideas for residential technologies. The following is taken from my report as a member of the residences Facilities Working Group:

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Our aim is to provide facilities which are:

• Attractive – attract students to study here and live in our accommodation
• Convenient – be quick and easy to use,
• Good value for money – what the students want, at favourable cost to alternatives
• Reliable – high availability
• Pervasive – present everywhere, and compatible with any device

The residence is a student’s home and place of work. Students work, rest and play in their residence and we must provide facilities to enhance all of these.
The phrase Digital Native is used to describe the generation of young people who have grown up with the Internet. It is present throughout their experiences:

• Social life - arranged via Facebook.
• Entertainment - downloaded music and movies.
• Work - Google is the first reference tool for any research.
• Communication - Texting and instant messaging.

Internet access is supremely important, as it is the pipe through which everything else is delivered. It is essential that we provide high speed, reliable, convenient Internet access in both study bedrooms and public areas. Students responding to the International Students Barometer (ISB), a survey of over 60,000 UK & international students, rated Internet access as the single most important factor of all elements in the living and learning categories. Internet access rates above even such seemingly essential factors as ‘safety’ and ‘good teachers’! Bristol scores very well in the ISB in the IT and Internet Access categories, contributing to our overall above-average score.

What else do we need to provide? We currently offer IPTV. Three years ago 70% of students surveyed wanted such a service. Now it is in place maybe 20% actually use it. Why? It is now a ‘nice to have’ rather than a ‘must have’. The BBC & ITV websites offer live TV directly. Live TV is being superseded by TV on demand. Alternatives have overtaken the service we provided. Similar arguments may be made for Voice over IP (VOIP) services such as Skype having replaced usage of traditional phone handsets in rooms.

There are still some reasons to offer entertainment & communications services ourselves. In particular the university can act as a trusted guide and provide an easy, convenient option. Students and parents may appreciate this guidance and knowing that a service is there. We must remember though the real risk though that whatever we provide will be overtaken. Our student laptop purchase scheme was intended as just such a convenient trusted guide, but gets little use.

What does this leave us? What do we need to provide apart from a pipe to the Internet?

• We embed technology in the building spaces.
• We provide location specific services
• We provide facilities that students can’t provide for themselves (too large, too expensive)
• We encourage a productive mix of student-owned and University-owned technologies

We shouldn’t provide mobile phones or laptops to students. These are small, portable, quickly obsolete devices which students prefer to choose for themselves. We should embed power sockets throughout all rooms for charging devices. We must provide wireless everywhere for Internet access on students own equipment.

We won’t provide games consoles, but should provide large flat panel displays and projectors. These are fixed location-specific facilities. In lounges students will connect a games console to a large flat panel for social gaming. In group study rooms students will use a PC and projector provided for presentations and collaborative group work.

We should carefully consider how much technology to embed in student bedrooms. Such technology is expensive and quickly becomes obsolete. Currently the dominant feature in a student room is often a large pinboard covered in posters and photos. In time will the pinboard be replaced by a digital paper display or low energy flat panel? Currently these are prohibitively
expensive, but in five years time?

There will still be an important role for University-provided PCs and printers in public areas. Students own laptops are unreliable. Students appreciate well-maintained hardware that just works. We need to think about different forms of public computer provision, not just the traditional PC lab. Again we should encourage the mix of personally-owned and University-owned technology. Can you send photos straight to the printer from your cameraphone? Can you connect to the scanner from your laptop? Can you connect your iPod to a public PC to download a podcast of yesterdays lecture?

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How to write

Writing is tough. Writing clear, easy to understand prose is difficult. I'm very concious of my writing skills (or lack of them?) and think hard about how and what I write. Maybe I think to hard and that becomes a barrier to writing at all, if the lack of recent updates to this blog is any indication...

I have a checklist pinned above my desk taken from the University of Bristol Writing for the web workshop (checklist on page 11) much of which applies to writing for any medium.

I also have an old copy of a self-taught course from the Plain English campaign. This was a chance discovery I found when clearing out an old filing cabinet. Miraculously I can still find it when I need it - it has survived my often arcane filing system.

This post was prompted by my colleague Martin Poulter's post Good Practice in Writing which contains some excellent guidance on writing clearly. I'll add a few of my own tips:

Write to a strict word count or space limit. Write something as a paper leaflet - the space limit will force you to be concise. Then rewrite the sprawling website to the same standard.I try to keep email newsletters to 250 words (many would say that is itself too long).

Look for ambiguity. I know what I meant, but could someone interpret it differently? If that email is going to 5000 people then someone will. Read what you write with a fresh eye. How would someone with a different cultural background or English as a second language read it?

The guidance from many RFCs to be liberal in what you accept and strict in what you generate works well for natural language too. Think about that principle when reading what others have written - force yourself to read the better meaning from something ambiguous, and you'll avoid many unnecessary flamewars.

A vision of students today

I love this video from Michael Wesch and his students at Kansas State. If you haven't already seen it, definitely worth watching. Thanks to Les Watson for first pointing it out to me.

Nick's top Google tips

I'll admit - I'm just like everyone else. Despite the wealth of electronic scholarly resources available to me, Google is my top research tool.

I do have various tips and techniques I use to get what I want out of Google. These aren't revolutionary but in case they are useful, here are a few:

Restrict search to .ac.uk or .edu websites

I often use site:.ac.uk or site:.edu - why do I do this? I'll generally get a good result. I work at a university and I'm interested in what others are doing. That's just relevant to me, but more broadly universities are full of very intelligent cutting-edge researchers who openly share their ideas. Finally there isn't much web junk (eg comment spam and affiliate websites) in the academic domain.

Restrict search to ppt filetypes

ppt are powerpoint files. Use filetype:ppt to only view presentations. Why do I find that helpful? Again, you don't get much spam in presentations. Even better - presentations are short. I'm lazy, I'm in a hurry - I just want the key ideas. That's what you get in a presentation.

Try combining both of these: for example put "user centered design filetype:ppt site:.edu" into Google and you get the presentation I recommended in my last blog post. That wasn't how I originally found it though - I used my third technique:

Search by name or email address.

Follow the person rather than the idea. In literature searches people are used to searching by author name, but they don't do it so often on the web. If you find one person with a good idea and follow the links you could find a whole community.

(Incidentally - if you've never searched on your own name or email in Google, do so now before your future employer or date does. But that's another story...)

Convenience trumps quality

Another conference I was at last week was the JISC/CNI Meeting 2008 in Belfast "Transforming the User Experience". Again more on this soon - I've had too many interesting events recently to digest and write them up.

One strong strand that came out at JISC/CNI was that university libraries spend a huge amount on electronic library resources, and have online catalogues and search systems for all of those resources - but people don't use them. What do people use? Google. Maybe Google Scholar.

This is a real shame, as there are lots of high quality resources out there locked behind the subscription wall which Google doesn't see - but it seems universal. One speaker said "even the academics who complain of students using Google admit when pressed that they rely on it themselves!"

Why? It's just human nature. As another speaker said "convenience trumps quality. Every time. So we have to make quality convenient"

How do you make things convenient? Simple and Quick are good places to start. Simplify, simplify, simplify. Don't expose too many options, bells & whistles by default.