Mobile Applications in Developing Countries (Mobile Apps)

No doubt the current developments witnessed in the the upsurge of mobile handsets ownership among the common populace has heralded a generation of mobile and tech savvy nations. This has seen major developments in the size and capabilities of the handsets. The trend is slowly moving from basic utilities such as communication, playing music, watches, calculators and alarm clocks to more sophisticated devices capable of doing the following: Web client, digital video/camera, Documents viewer, MMS to name but a few. ( For full list see my blog: Capabilities of new phones)

As one Professor puts it lately that "Mobile phones are becoming very powerful and are likely to become a dominant device for CCC (communication, computing and content).". Significantly this is where we are headed to. Networks are not left out too. Here in Kenya we are witnessing the roll out of 3G network by Orange coming after the lead mobile network service provider Safaricom rolled out theirs few years ago. Other service providers are not far behind with their 2G networks. Actually Safaricom is currently doing a testing of super-fast next generation Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology (4G). Huawei Technologies is spearheading the process.

It is quite clear that our Network capabilities and Handset Performances are getting Super High and with these comes all manner of applications. Open Handset Alliance led by Google have partnered with Huawei to offer Android Operating System which is an open source operating system for Mobile Phones. We have proprietary OS like IOS for Iphones, Symbian for Nokia, and many more.

The benefits of open source software which have led to innovation in the traditional computing environment don't apply to mobile platforms because the hardware isn't accessible to software developers.
This situation is changing with the advent of the Google Android system  and the Open Moko which is billed as the “World's First Integrated Open Source Mobile Communications Platform”. However it is unclear whether the Google system will be compatible with older phones. One of the most important operating systems, Symbian, is also in the process of converting to open source.

However, that is the end of the story for developing countries. In Kenya for example, the cheapest of these smart handsets costs KES 7,999. With 39.9% people living on less than USD 2 (KES 180) Per Day (Based on 2009 UN Human Development Report.), It is clear that one needs to sacrifice more than 44 basic days inorder to be able afford one such phone. Load on to that the cost of acquring mobile applications which are normally priced in Dollars! Beyond any reasonble doubt it is clear that Developing countries are far behind in terms of full utility of these smart applications and phones. Ideos is a new media generation mobile phone , though its easy to make an application  for it unlike the older mobile phones . but thats not available yet in most of the developing countries and no much free software for it – yet – but there are many assumption it’ll lead the next mobile applications development . Many professional and needed software for mobile applications are so expensive. Regarding most of the professional mobile applications i don’t believe the growth in mobile usage will decrease the price as it’ll not motivate the people to create more free professional applications , even its more easier now ( Web developer can do it ) , the free incoming applications will not be that professional which will lead many of the users to look for more professional alternatives , so i assume it’ll be the time to get cracked application portals as a result for increase in the need and decrease in the professionalism of free mobile applications. So can the mobile phone growth at developing countries help the growth of the mobile application development? Or it will just increase the cracked and illegal application portals ?!

Most mobile users in developing countries use old mobile handsets (because they are affordable and easily maintainable) for communication purposes. These old handsets cannot allow for the installation and usage of several newer mobile applications because of their limited memory and processing power.

One broad class of mobile applications is those that facilitate collaboration, and I imagine that such applications will have a large impact on the developing world(read Kenya). For example, in the developing world mobile collaboration technologies might help knowledge sharing among farmers, sales coordination among small commodity vendors, collaborative learning among village youth, and family-based health care monitoring for the elderly. As most users are not IT experts and they vary in many respects, such as language(read Tribe) and technology literacy , one of the challenges is to design and develop consumable collaboration services that can be easily leveraged by the masses (e.g., illiterate users, and farmers alike). If we believe that voice communication and text messaging are the two most used mobile collaboration services today, one interesting question is what would be the next mass-consumable “killer” mobile collaboration service(s) and what factors (e.g., mobile technologies and national culture) would influence the development of such applications/services. Developing countries may need a reduction in the cost of smart phones before benefits of mobile application development starts trickling in. Google, Samsung, Nokia, Apple etc need to consider investing in significantly reducing the production costs of these smart phones to enable affordability by the majority of Developing countries whose residents depend on less than 2 USD per day.

The question remains: Will the rapid mobile application development be of use to Developing countries now?

Over to you......