Tag Archives: smartphones

Mobile Medical Practices

There are indeed many ways that one can consider ministry as an effort that can be augmented by the use of mobile technology. In that ream of thought, we usually consider things such as meditative content, evangelism, and on the fringes, educational pursuits. But, what if the mobile minister were also able to deliver healing as a part of that demonstration of Christ’s love? What then would mobile ministry look like if it were not simply speaking a word, but actually diagnosing the illness and putting forth accepted medical practices for rendering healing? What then would mobile ministry look like? I think a report shared to us from NBC News makes it about as plan as can be:

[from the transcript] reporter: dr. eric topol has long been one of the world’s foremost cardiologists. he has now become the foremost expert in the exploding field of wireless medicine. and this explosion, he says, is about to make our health care better and cheaper. watch what he does with his cell phone .

>> we’ll just pop this is phone into it like that.

>> reporter: he shows how simply his modified iphone produces a cardiogram for a patient.

>> so you just put your fingers on it. there you go. and in a second — you know, in the first or second it stabilizes.

>> reporter: the device was approved by the fda in december and is now sold to physicians for $199. topol tells his patient he just saved a $100 technician’s fee.

>> so are we close to using this to say i’m going to diagnose you and prescribe four or five apps instead of four or five medications?

>> well, these days i’m actually prescribing a lot more apps than i am medications. you can take the phone and make it a lab on a chip . you can do blood tests , saliva tests, urine tests , all kinds of things. sweat tests through your phone. this is a powerful device.

>> and we’ll just have you hold that on there like that.

>> reporter: topol ‘s patient, ron thompson , is dealing with several significant heart issues.

>> you saw that on a phone. didn’t you just — weren’t you just amazed the first time you saw that?

Watch (or read the transcript) of NBC News’s report iDoctor: Could a smartphone be the future of medicine?

It might sound a bit amazing, and a bit far-fetched. But, this is the present of what mobile devices can do. Is this the kind of mobile ministry that you put forward?

Lots of Smartphone Numbers

As much as one wants to try, much of the rhetoric around mobiles tdese days revolves around smartphones. While popular, smartphones are not the only computing interface that the world interacts with. So, its good to see where they sit as devices amongst some of the other computers we see these days.

In one set of numbers, our friend Tomi Ahonen looks at the largest computer makers when you include smartphones and tablets. Wild to me is that if you looked at these numbers a little less than half a decade ago, that you’d see just how many mobiles Nokia sold, which was crazy when I first saw it. Here’s a snippet of Tomi’s information:

Largest Computer Makers, incl. Smartphones & Tablets
Rank (was) Brand Units 2012 Market Share 2012
1 (1) Apple 272 M 22%
2 (2) Samsung 249 M 20%
3 (6) Lenovo 77 M 6%
4 (4) HP 59 M 5%
5 (-) Huawei 55 M 4%
6 (7) Dell 38 M 3%
7 (10) Sony 37 M 3%
8 (9) Acer 36 M 3%
9 (3) Nokia 35 M 3%
10 (-) ZTE 35 M 3%
  Others 331 M 27%
TOTAL 1,224 M

Read the rest of Ahonen’s Computing Summary at Communities Dominate Brands

Our other set of good friends over at MobiThinking have also put some numbers and an analysis together looking at how Samsung has been going about taking Nokia’s position as the major mobile player. Some really great pieces to take note of here, if for no other reason that you can map what Samsung is doing, to what Nokia and Motorola did before them and get a better idea of how mobile will evolve and where to look for the next shifts in mobile technologies:

…Analyzing the products available from the top five handset and smartphone manufacturers tells a very interesting story.
In the US alone, Samsung offers 153 different cell phones. Feature phone or smartphone? Cheap or expensive? Big or small? Flat-screen or physical QWERTY keyboard? 4G or 3G? NFC? Bluetooth? WiFi? Flip phone? Rugged phone? GPS? Whatever the customer wants, within reason, Samsung provides. It offers smartphones with a variety of operating systems (OS): Android, Windows, Bada (a home-grown OS) and there are plans to launch phones based on Tizen. The idea behind Tizen, supposedly, is to help Samsung reduce its reliance on Android…

Read the rest of Why Your Mobile Strategy Should Emulate Samsung’s at MobiThinking

Updated: Not long after this post published, we saw (via Twitter) that Vision Mobile has also published a suite of graphics which detail many of the statistics found in much of the mobile industry. What’s probably the best about this is that most of this data is shared on Flickr – where the licensing allows for inclusion into reports and other projects with correct attribution.

VisionMobile – Tablets nearly as important as smartphones as development targets

View the entire Flickr gallery from Vision Mobile

For more stats and resources towards mobile, bookmark our Case Studies and Research page; there’s always a lot of data, and at least on that page, you get some direction towards the pieces which should be near the top of your list.

Are You Born Mobile; CES’s Question

From our friends over at Mobile Industry Review comes probably the best reason to be at CES and any other tech conference this year – phrased in the form of a question and a perspective:

Chances are, you aren’t. But, you community has members who are. So what are you going to do to enable them to live a mobile-encouraged live that looks like the Gospel?

Flurry’s Smartphone vs Tablet Perspectives

We are always careful here to post about stats looking at usages of smartphones vs tablets. Part of this is because of the entry point for much that information that can sometimes be skewed by access (for example, if you are a web service, then your stats only include those subscribing to your web service, not those who don’t subscribe to yours, or to one at all). That said, there’s always something to be gained from these notes, and Flurry’s latest leaves us a few things to consider.

Flurry Smartpones vs Tablets AgeBreaks resized 600

Flurry Smartpones vs Tablets Dayparting resized 600

Flurry Smartpones vs Tablets CategoryUsage resized 600

That’s all for the pictures, visit Flurry’s post, The Truth About Cats and Dogs: Smartphone vs Tablet Usage Differences on their blog.

Reviewing Missions-Ready Mobile Devices

Nokia Asha 303As MMM has pointed out a few times in recent articles, not every mobile situation will merit the latest smartphone, or the most consistent of connectivity speeds, or even a connection at all. In many cases, specifically when the #mobmin (mobile ministry) focus turns missional, the attraction for mobile devices takes on a different component:

  • Is the device generous with battery life (multiple days)
  • How many SIM cards can it take
  • How easy is the device to repair
  • Is there a memory card slot
  • Is there Bluetooth
  • Is there a FM radio

As well as several other factors related to security, cost of device and service, and multimedia abilities. You can go to a website such as GSM Arena and in using their Phone Finder page, choose a manufacturer, and then according to the listing here, begin to filter models down to getting to something that works for you (for example, starting with Nokia and a price of no more than $200 USD, here’s the results of a search for available mobiles).

Mobile Advance took at look at a few low-end mobiles (these would be described as feature phones) some weeks back. The devices that were looked at (Nokia X2-02 and Samsung Hero E3213) consider the above points and more – for those persons doing missions work where mobile connectivity is a near-necessity:

My wife and I both needed phones upon getting here.  After  testing out a few in the stores, we decided to get two similar, yet different models- the Nokia X2-02 and theSamsung Hero E3213. Both cost the same- approximately 64 USD. I thought I’d send on our observations upon using both phones, especially since one of them is the update of the XpressMusic [mobile which was a past recommendation]…

Read the rest of  A Comparative Review of Two Mobile Ministry Ready Feature Phones at Mobile Advance

Mobiles like these can be purchased from websites such as Amazon, Expansys, Carphone Warehouse, and Wallmart. Depending on your region, you might also find some smaller local wireless retailers selling these or find listings for some of these mobiles on sites like eBay and Craigslist. Lastly, a good place to find a mission-ready mobile is a pawn shop. Regardless of the place you find these, make sure that you wipe the device completely, then do a full system restore using the accompanying PC/Mac software suite if available.

Once you have gotten the mobile cleaned up, and before you start adding your favorite or needed contacts and apps, take a look at the listing of security and privacy apps listed over at SaferMobile. For many of you in missions, it might not be your mobile that you need protected as much as it is the communications on it, or the lives of those whom you might also let access your device. Take a look at SaferMobile’s listings, then pursue wisdom in your missional mobile activities.

2012 Mobile Global Market Update from Chetan Sharma Consulting

Chetan Sharma, a long-time and well respected voice in mobile, has recently published a report which paints a global picture of what’s happening in mobile not just in relation to itself, but also in relation to other large-scale trends and appliances which seem normal to many of us. The big picture summary of this report paints an interesting picture not just for mobile and connected spaces, but how economic factors will play a part in mobile as an avenue for ministry:

The global mobile industry is the most vibrant and fastest growing industry. We expect the total revenue in the industry to touch approximately $1.5 Trillion in 2012 with mobile data representing 28% of the mix. Mobile data services revenue stood at 33%. Global Mobile Data revenues eclipsed $300 Billion for the first time in 2011. It is also the first year in which non-messaging data revenues will make up the majority of the overall global data revenues at 53%.
 
By the end of 2011, the global subscriptions exceeded 6 Billion. The first 1 billion took over 20 years and this last one took only 15 months. The primary growth drivers are India and China which are cumulatively adding 75M new subs every quarter. China became the first country to eclipse the 1 billion mark in March 2012. India is likely to arrive at the milestone by early 2013.
 
Smartphones are driving tremendous growth around the globe. Amongst the major markets, US leads with 69% sales. The global figure stands at approximately 32%. Some operators expect 90-95% of their device sales to be smartphones in 2012. In terms of the actual smartphone penetration, we expect the US market to eclipse the 50% mark in 2012.
 
China leads in the number of subs but US dominates in both total and data revenue. A number of emerging nations are now in top 10 – Brazil, India, Russia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico while once dominant – Korea, UK, Italy, Germany have dropped off or slipped in rankings.

A few of the facts highlighted in this report include

Total Global Subscriptions to exceed 7 Billion in early 2013
– China exceeds 1 Billion, India 950 Million. Subscriber growth is in Asia, Revenue growth is in Asia+North America
China and India represent 27% of subscriptions but only 12% of the global service revenues
– US represents only 6% of the subscriptions but 21% of the global service revenues, 26% of the data revenues, and 27% of the global CAPEX
Mobile Devices are now exceeding traditional computers in unit sales + revenue
– 70% of the device sales in the US are now smartphones. Device Replacement cycle is shrinking
Samsung and Apple now account for 50% of the smartphone unit share and 90% of the profit share
– Difficult environment for other OEMs esp. when ZTE and Huawei are coming strong from the bottom. It will be difficult for pure play device OEMs to survive long-term
Tablets (iPads) has created a new computing paradigm that is having a significant impact on commerce, content consumption, and developer investments
– Apple will continue to dominate the segment and iOS will be the leading OS for the segment. Amazon, ZTE, Huawei, to chip away at the sub-$200 tier.

To read this report in detail, visit Chetan Sharma Consulting’s website, where there is a PDF downloadable version of this report complete with graphics and other source data useful for analyzing this data.

Once you have gone through it, does anything stick out for you? Does any of the data presented alter your plans or current activities in mobile? 

View our complete listing of Resources and Statistics

Don’t Forget the Non-Smartphone Folks

GetJar Screenshot for upcoming @mobileminmag article - Share on OviThinking about it some, yesterday’s post might have come across as if we were putting ebooks, literacy, and that neat community experiment only inside the frame of smartphones. Sure seems like it doesn’t it? Well, no. Everyone can do that, and your mobile efforts should take into account the capabilities of as many mobile devices as possible when you do those kinds of things.

And I know the refrain, many folks talking things up in mobile ministry have a working experience of what’s in their pockets – and that is often a smartphone. A random survey of just a few folks from the Mobile Ministry Forum pointed to just that. And it doesn’t mean that we are limited to knowing what’s in our pockets. Not everyone has had my experience of being a mobile device reviewer, or owning more than two mobile devices for most of their mobile life. So, There’s some forgiveness that has to be had when we do craft mobile solutions and it sounds like it only meets the needs of the most affluent amongst us.

You don’t see non-smartphones around you (I’ve heard that too)? So, whom are you around? Did you know that globally that about 30% of the mobile phones sold in the last year were smartphones – and that’s out of a total of 1.2 billion mobiles sold (Tomi Ahonen stats, Cellular News stats, Taipei Times). Or, if you are in the USA, you might say “yea, but it doesn’t look like that when I see on TV, in the cafe, etc. that so many have them.” You are right in some respect, of the mobiles sold in the USA, (I think we are just about at) 50% are smartphones (across the national carriers), and rarely are these sold with those persons that use pre-paid accounts (Nielsen). So, if you aren’t seeing them, there’s a question of context, half of the people you interact with will probably not have a smartphone. If you aren’t seeing that, you’ve got to check your associations.

And I know that those who work with/for content creators and media companies that smartphones are a much easier target. The browsers are better, there’s an app for that (grrr), and folks are willing to often flaunt that new device with a nifty case or sound. That’s no excuse though to just target them. We covered Phone Publish last month which is able to get content suitable for the smaller screened, lower-speced, non-smartphone folks, without keeping the content away from them (designing the user experience is harder, I’ll admit that much too). 

You want to push apps to everyone, check out GetJar. Get Jar is how many of us who have been doing mobile longer than the last half-decade are familiar with the concept of “app store.” You go to the site on your device, and it recognizes the device you are using and just shows the content that’s compatible with it. Simple right? If you follow the specs for the majority of devices which can download Java/Java-similar applications, then you’ve got a means to get in on those devices. There are other app stores (Nokia Store, Bada Store, etc.), but just wanted to hit on that one since it really does endeavor to hit the most devices.

Some stats are showing that – at least in some regions – that people are using mobile over PCs to get online. So, that really cool developer who wants to do something based on that pretty 22in monitor, tell them to take a few steps back. Concepts like responsive design, mobile website transcoding, etc. need to be looked at just as much as you observe that client requirement of “make it look good on my screen first.”

And if those folks aren’t able to get online, is your mobile strategy doing SMS (over 90% of mobiles are capable of doing text, nearly as many do multimedia (MMS) messages)? What about memory card swapping? Look back at that idea about a book fair, notice how we have a central librarian laptop that is able to serve those devices which might not have the ability to get content via WiFi, Bluetooth, or swapping memory cards. Your church might have gone mobile, but folks can’t go with you if they can’t get what you’ve moved forward with (Pew Internet, via Textually).

So, don’t forget folks who aren’t using what’s in your pocket. Its easy to do (trust me, personal experience like crazy here). You do your witness of the effects of the Gospel when you love on all of your brothers, not just those with the buttons and trinkets that look like you (1 Cor 1-3).

Splashtop Remote, Bible Library Servers, and Mobile Accessibility


Last month, we had a post from LaRosa Johnson talking about his new Asus Transformer Android tablet computer and how he planned to use it work and Biblical studies. Of the latter, he was doing something pretty neat in that he would use the tablet to remotely log into his laptop to be able to use the desktop Bible software packages that he has there. We’ve found another example of this over at Biblical Studies and Technological Tools where instead of a tablet, we’ve got an Android smartphone, and the software being used is SplashTop Remote Desktop. Here’s a snippet of that experience:

In the past I have used Logmein for remote access to the various family computers I maintain. Even the basic free account lets me take over a computer and run programs on it. It works great and is secure. I will continue to use it for such maintenance tasks. Note that this can work the other way around, and what a program like this allows me to do is run programs that are on my home system from any other computer. As long as I have my home system on and Logmein enabled, I can remotely connect to my home system and use my installed programs like BibleWorks or Logos. I’ve also used it to grab files I’ve forgotten on my home computer when I’m at school. (I now use SugarSync to keep my systems all in sync via the cloud. It’s a wonderful thing.) It’s a little slow to use Logmein this way, but it works. What this also means is that I can use the web browser on my smartphone and see BibleWorks on my phone. I say “see,” because without the use of a mouse on my phone, I really can’t do too much. Logmein does have an Android app ($29), but I just don’t use it that much, especially on my phone, to buy it.

Read the rest of BibleWorks and Logos on Android (sort of…) at Biblical Studies and Technological Tools.

Now, this sounds like something that would be only useful in areas where wireless bandwidth is accessible and there’s some technological savy on the part of the person putting this together. But, I can’t help thinking that at some level, it would make a lot of sense to see something like Bibleworks, Logos, etc. offered in a “server package” where you purchase “seats” and those authenticate mobile devices are able to use it. This would be no different than what we see with CRM, task management, Intranet, and office productivity suites (Salesforce, Basecamp, SharePoint, and Google Apps to name a few).

A difference in the application here though would need to be that Bible software suites doing this would want to explore being usable in different streams. For example, something like having the BibleWorks install and UI sitting on a Seagate GoFlex Satellite, with anyone accessing that hard drive/access point being able to “see/read” BibleWorks on their device, but it is being served from that single point. There’d also be something like Logos’ Biblia that could be explored where a license for an organization could make available to authenticated seats some measure of the Logos library. Or, finally we could see the BibleWorks/Olive Tree/Logos/etc. move to a model of use where instead of purchasing and downloading a product, that people and organizations purchase access to a virtual desktop of sorts which would allow them (a) access to the library and (b) multiple devices which can access it per use account. Now that I’m thinking about it, it would be really neat if I could recreate the mobile web server and then host the bible project I’m working on from it… uhmmm

In whatever case, its pretty neat to see these kinds of access choices taken when it comes to Bible software. We shouldn’t limit mobile just to “what’s designed for the small screen” when its clearly possible for that small screen to access a bit more. What is worth being explored though is how we can better enable mobile to be a key to a content library, whether or not those with the devices have the financial means to access the content or not.

Lessons Learned from the OLPC Project

OLPC v1Over at the NY Times, I took in a reading about the OLPC Project and some stumbles and successes that it has had. One of the more interesting things about that project, at least in light of the small summary that the NYT offers, is that for all of the success that it didn’t have in terms of shipments, it has had number of smaller (many times unintended) victories. Let’s look at a few lessons and glean some understanding (Proverbs 4:6-8):

…To make a very long, very complicated story short, since the initial frenzy subsided, OLPC has concentrated on the logistics of shipping a total of 2.3 million laptops to some 45 countries. It has also worked on ways to improve the performance and maintenance of those machines, and on developing a new tablet computer, the XO-3, which it hopes to introduce late next year…

Logistics planning and execution is important: One of the issues that we ran into when walking through the planning stages for the Kiosk Evangelism Project is that while we were directed for the goals of the program, understanding the issues on the ground to distribute content, training, and administrative support were a lot harder to notch. Ideally, such issues are best solved not on the run but with mind of persons and organizations who are skilled in those functions.

…OLPC’s machines have also proved effective when used on a smaller scale. “We’ve deployed them in a couple of schools with great results,” said Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, a global volunteer network, which specializes on development and disaster relief projects, although he added that other schools preferred to use traditional PCs…

Small scale, predispositions to other behaviors/methods: Its not an accident that investing technological (tools) changes into a culture can be challenge. Don’t be afraid to take steps back from a larger implementation so that you can see some more detailed usages from smaller groups. In going to that smaller-deployment/implementation route, you will notice that behavioral/cultural preferences might arise for or against your efforts. With small scale, you can address this. If the scale is large, you might get that kind of push-back and then refactor your entire plan, when only a small section needs to be addressed.

…Similarly, the praise for the design of OLPC’s cute little laptop has helped the computer industry to develop a lucrative new global market for tablets and other small computers…

Unintended market effects: It wasn’t the intention of the OLPC project to create a new cottage industry (low-cost, accessible netbooks came expressly from the successes that the OLPC Project was making in non-Windows/Intel streams). But, it not just had the effect of opening up new usages, but spreading that usage’s best points (better device design, power efficiency gains, lower prices, etc.) to the larger notebook/PC market – effectively raising the bar for what it is we purchase. Your project might cause similar. Resist the urge to try and control those effects. If anything, be more streadfast towards your goals so that the baramometer of success for those other market effects has its own bar to reach.

…That said, OLPC has encountered difficulties, and its designers have had to modify the original laptops since they went into daily use in schools. The shiny plastic on the case was replaced by a tougher rubberized material. The keyboard was strengthened with a steel plate, and its lights removed to reduce energy consumption. OLPC had to add little feet to the machines used in countries like Nigeria, where school desks tended to be slanted. It has also trained local technicians to repair the laptops, rather than running a centralized maintenance program…

Planning is good; itertative changes is better: One of the more frustrating moments in any project is when you’ve had some kind of change in the roadmap. Maybe that’s a move to another tool, another type of final project, or even the additon of pieces which you didn’t origianlly see. For instance, in that same Kiosk Evangelism Project referenced above, before settling on a Wi-Fi Router/HD combo device, we’d looked at traditional ATM-like kiosks, web distribution, several types of content management approaches, and even using a mobile as a server to distribute the content. Each of those pieces were iterations to the current implementation of the project, and had to be gone through, even if they weren’t all within the original plan for that project.

Some years ago, we opined that the OLPC Project could be a beneficial tech-mission engagement. We’ve since talked about that kind of opportunity amongst others. If that were an opportunity taken on, there would have been these challeges and lessons learned. There would have been some notable successes. And probably a few failures. But, it would have produced the kind of understanding that – when fed back to the rest of the Body – would have created some needed wisdom points.