Non Smartphone Apps and the Long Tail
It’s always enlightening talking to people from the non-mobile development world and listen to their thoughts on mobile applications. Yesterday, I spoke with a friend of mine who is a pilot for British Airways. He has a new (Java ME capable) phone and has seen other pilots using iPhone applications to fetch specialised airport weather information.
He wanted to know if he could do the same on his phone and where he might go for such an application. I couldn’t say, but sent him off to search on GetJar. I think this demonstrates some things…
- Not everyone necessarily wants an iPhone or ‘Smartphone’
- The need (or capability) to download applications is filtering down to non Smartphone devices.
- There’s no ‘household name’ from where Java ME applications can be downloaded. GetJar has some PR work to do.
