Nokia recently released their new mobile, the N95 , which seems to me to be the first in a new wave of mobile devices that will change how we view and use internet. While the phone and the camera is old news (however at 5 megapixels thats not to be sniffed at) it was the addition of GPS and WiFi that got me really thinking, particularly what is going to happen once your computer is mobile, can always access the internet, it always know exactly where it is and is placed in the hands of the masses and no longer the domain of the geeks.
My personal feeling is that mobile internet is the next big thing. I recently traveled around Australia with a WiFi enable PDA and I was surprised by the amount of wireless nodes nearly every where I went. In some places I was able to get free internet access and access content from there.
However one of the biggest stumbling blocks that has yet to be wholly addressed is that screens on mobile devices are going to be small, even with new offerings like the iPhone due at the end of the month toting that the whole front of the phone is the screen. Personally I have found navigating the web as it currently stand clunky. However it internet won’t remain as it is currently, it will change to more effectively fit into this new format.
After I arrived back from my trip with new found wisdom on mobile internet I was surprised to find much blood in the water, both good and bad. First it turns out the the patent trolls are here already and there is a crowd called geomas that is suing verizon claiming to own location based search. They contend that the own the concept of returning search result based on the location of the search. Secondly yahoo have announced a location aware flickr app for mobile devices called Zurfer. It enables to to upload images to flickr taken with a internet enabled, GPS fitted phone and allows people to browse other images taken in the same area. I personally think that this will be huge.
People every now and again talk about a time before PC’s, before e-mail, before google, before youtube, well this is the beginning of mobile internet see you on the other side.