Mobile Web changes app development game

The next generation of mobile application development is coming into focus, thanks to the emergence of more capable browsing technologies and software development kits from new players such as Apple and Google.

Using approaches based mainly around Windows Mobile, Symbian and Java , the new entrants also rely less on the carrier deck for distribution.

Drawing the lion's share of attention was the launch of the Apple iPhone SDK, which lets developers build native iPhone apps and distribute them at favorable terms (keeping 70% of revenues) via an App Store store built right into the iPhone. “The App Store is going to be the exclusive way to distribute iPhone applications, directly to every user,” said Apple CEO Steve Jobs in announcing the new SDK.

As a central application repository, the App Store could function much like a closed carrier portal, not only limiting what applications are available to the user but favoring the applications of Apple's partners.

New, more open mobile browsers — on the way from Apple, Mozilla, Opera, Skyfire and others — also will affect the mobile user experience and operator business models. Will content-viewing shift from the on-deck portal to the open Web browser? Will phone users viewing full Web pages — already filled with ads — be happy if an operator slides in even more ads on the browser “chrome,” as a pre-load or during idle time?

With the new browsers, “it will no longer be two Webs — the desktop Web and the mobile Web — but just a single experience,” said Chris Hazelton, senior analyst of mobile device technology and trends for IDC Research.

Web vendors are targeting the mobile Web with more than just browsers. Microsoft recently announced that the Silverlight platform will be included on several Nokia phones. That plaform makes it possible to run rich, desktop-like applications anywhere, anytime, whether connected to the network or not. Also intriguing is Google's Gears technology — which it recently brought to Windows Mobile for the first time. Gears enables Google's Web-based apps to run in a disconnected state, providing operating system-like capabilities within a mobile browser.

In its Telco 2.0 blog, consultancy STL Partners summed up the sea change: “This is a significant change in the balance of power between the Web 2.0 players and telcos.”