MOBILE TECHNOLOGY
• Ease of access to technology
• Longer battery life
• Smaller sizes
• Permanent connectivity
• User experience
• Touch screen
• Fast operating system
• Most apps are simple
• Always on, always connected
• We are social beings
• Different
ways to communicate
Mobile devices
Laptops, notebooks and netbooks are examples of portable computers,
not mobile devices.
• Smartphones
• Cellphone with a mobile operating system
• Can run apps
• Have touch screens
• Multiple sensors, like GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer,
etc.
• Tablets
• Touch screens, longer battery life, built-in cellular
modem, mobile operating system
• Phablet– a smartphone with a screen bigger than 5”.
The word is a combination of ‘phone’ and ‘tablet’.
Getting the most from your mobile OS
• Android
• used on most non-Apple devices
• developed by Google
• iOS
• made by Apple
• used on Apple devices (iPhone and iPad)
Understand ‘always-on’ functionality
• The operating system is designed to help keep the device
on and working at all times.
• The operating system is always on in the background,
performing tasks like monitoring for new messages, phone
calls, notifications from applications, etc.
Improving battery life
• Display is the biggest power drain
o Lower the brightness level.
o Set the device to switch the display off if unused.
• Multitasking
o … is running multiple apps at once.
o Close unneccessary apps!
• GPS
o Switch it off when you don’t use it.
• Bluetooth-connectivity and WiFi
o Only switch these on when sending or receiving data.
• Media
o Built-in speakers use lots of power. Consider headphones
as an alternative.
Mobile browsers
• Screen size
• Content might be too small; Double-tap to zoom in
• Flash content
• Usually needs a lot of processing power
• Gradually being replaced with HTML 5
• Standard vs ‘mobile’ pages
• Some web pages resize the page to fit the screen
• Some web pagse have mobile versions, e.g. m.xxxx.mobi
• JavaScript, pop-up dialogs and cookies
• Some of these might not work
Apps instead of browsers
• Transferring less data leads to faster reaction time
• Better interface
• Give users more control
• Gives automatic upgrades and notifications
Mobile or wireless e-communication
Mobile E-mail apps are designed with some of the following in mind:
• Notifications – notify you of new messages
• ‘Push’ technology – downloads e-mails automatically
• Simplified interface – fewer options
• Alternative input – e.g. voice recognition
• Use of less storage – limit on the number of messages
• Attachments – not automatically downloaded
Blogs are online journals
• Video blogs – use video, text and images
• ‘Citizen-journalism’
– Facts not always checked
Microblogging
• Short text messages via smartphone
• Tweets are received immediately
Mobile or wireless e-communication
SMS
• Short messages to a specific phone number
• More expensive than instant messaging
Instant messaging
• WhatsApp and Mxit
• Can operate across various platforms
• Can send media (text, video, images, etc.)
VoIP and video conferencing - Voice over Internet Protocol
• Making phone calls over a data connection
• Several people can communicate at once
• Skype
Media creation
• Podcasting – downloadable audio file
• Videocasting – includes video clips or photos
Wireless technologies
GPS
• Global Positioning System
• Needs a set of sattelites and a receiving
device
• Software includes
Maps
POI – Points of interest
Location
Directions
Tracking
Geo-tagging & Geo-location
Bluetooth
• Wireless technology that allows devices
(mice, keyboards, cellphones) to
communicate over short distances.
Difference between bandwidth and range
• Bandwidth – Total amount of data that can be transferred from one
point to another in a given period of time.
• Range – How far a radio signal can travel.
Protocols
• Sets of rules for encoding and decoding data for
transmission across a network or the Internet
Protocol Purpose
SMTP Simple Mail Transfer Protocol – sending e-mail
POP3 Post Office Protocol 3 – downloading e-mail
FTP File Transfer Protocol – transfer of files between
remote computers over the Internet
HTTP Hyper Text Transfer Protocol – defines how web
pages are transferred over the Internet
HTTPS HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure – used for
secure, encrypted communication over the
Internet
VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol – allows phone calls
to be made over LANs, WANs and the Internet
