Starbucks recently announced the launch of two new mobile applications in a 16 store trial programme in the US. The first application is a bar code system that will enable customers to pay for coffee using their mobile phones. The second is a store locater.
yay.
Forgive my underwhelming excitement. But these are the sorts of mobile applications that have been mooted for 10 years. In fact, it’s ironic that it is Starbucks making this announcement. Because for years being able to find your nearest Starbucks was the example most often given for location based services.
I remember sitting in on a panel discussion at the GSM World Congress in Cannes (yes, Skippy, before Barcelona it was in Cannes for years) where one of the panelists ridiculed the already “dead-horse” Starbucks storefinder example by saying, “I don’t need to know where the nearest Starbucks is. There’s one on every corner.”
As for being able to pay for coffee with your mobile, I got into a animated discussion with a guy on the floor of Comdex in 2000 about mobile payments. I don’t remember what his company was selling (let alone its or his name) but I do remember him being very adamant that he would never want to make payments with his phone. I felt differently. I still do.
However, what has changed for me now is the level of excitement I can muster for discussions about mobile applications like the ones announced by Starbucks. Like smoothed sandstone my enthusiasm has been blunted by the ravages of time and weather.
I’m generally a big believer in mobile technology; in the benefits that can be realised by the intersection of computing power, portability and ubiquity. The problem is that the promise of those benefits has always outdistanced the realisation of them. We always seem to be 3 years from widespread availability and adoption of mobileX (whatever “X” is).
As we know, the iPhone has been driving the market for the past couple of years, perhaps cutting into the perpetual 3 year lag. I’m a big fan of the iPhone but the reality is that most people will never have one. We need iPhone-type functionality to spread widely. Beyond iPhones themselves. Beyond Android phones. Beyond Symbian phones. In fact, beyond high-end smartphones entirely. Does that mean waiting for handset build costs to come down or for developers to get clever about extending functionality to more basic phones?
It’s taken the success of the iPhone to help mobile network operators realise the potential of the mobile Internet and mobile applications; to realise that if they simply release their greedy grip on the ecosystem and abandon their proprietary outlook that there exists a real appetite for Internet browsing on mobile phones and for mobile applications.
Hopefully, the operators (indeed all industry players) are finally realising that open standards and affordable, reliable network access are what will drive growth (and profits) in the mobile internet and application space. The old closed development system and walled garden model that western operators have employed has retarded the potential of mobile for too long.
Maybe the train is ready to really roll now.
Image from Wili Hybrid
