Ever since Taptu first started out we’ve tried to innovate our interface – making it as easy as possible to find mobile goodness. We introduced image thumbnails,  mobile sized summaries of  destination sites, popular searches and hot topics on the home page for those moments when you’re bored etc…But to average Joe, we looked like any other search engine. Then along came the iPhone BOOM! and we were able to innovate again with a new way to browse the touch friendly web by flicking and swiping just like the way we browse photos and images on our iPhone. We also turned Taptu “black” as it seemed to fit better,  felt richer and possibly a tiny bit cooler

Thanks to the new screen capabilities of not just the iPhone but all the new Touch devices we all see down our local mobile store we’re now saying goodbye to white backgrounds for good- we’re now able go black without any reduction in usability – and so would like to introduce our new look. Taptu black, the new white.

Now with this new look you still get all the great features of Taptu: fast access to the Touch Friendly web (that’s great sites that work on your touch phone), keep up with the word on the street with Realtime buzz search (thnx to OneRiot) and of course awesome image search for that perfect wallpaper.

Our new look is available to those lucky owners of Nokia 5800, N97, Blackberry Storm 1, iPhone & iPod touch and we’ve added Palm Pre and the HTC Magic in this release. If you’ve got one of these then simply visit www.taptu.com, and let us know what you think.

Now if we were an international carrier or global device manufacturer we’d probably announce this by creating black ’snow’ storm on 5th Avenue or switching to a black ball in a major football game or some other stunt like that, but we’re not one of those. So we just thought we’d let our friends and fans know. We hope you like it as much we do. Please let us know what you think, leave us a message in the comments or @taptu on the twittersphere. Thanks.

Companies of all shapes and sizes are looking to get their apps quickly built and listed in the App Store. Enterprises, who before didn’t even give mobile a second thought, are looking to build mobile strategies built around Apps for the iPod touch and iPhone. For example, it’s been reported Pizza Hut has made over USD $1 Million on their app (I wonder if they provide little wipes with each delivery so you don’t smear your beloved touch screen with your sticky tomato fingers)

However, as any iPhone developer would tell you, working the the Apple and the App Store can be a challenge. Recently, Joe Hewitt of Facebook has publicized his displeasure with Apple’s practices. While respecting Apple’s ability to run their App Store according to it’s rules, Hewitt has stopped developing the application out of frustration.

There is a silver lining for application developers. A year ago, the iPhone was by far the leading platform developers looked at, but the game has changed in recent months. And competition is good for everyone.

With the surge of the Android mobile OS, developers have a new platform that is lucrative and attractive. Android OS is based on languages and APIs that developers are already comfortable with and the operating system is fully open source. Also, the Android Market is much more democratic and allows developers to publish their applications in a much more fluid way.

The Palm Pre is another ‘alternative’ which runs WebOS – a platform based on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript – three technologies mobile web app developers are very familiar with.

While the Apple’s App Store has 100,000 apps, the app market places on the other platforms has yet to boast these types of numbers. The Android Market has around 10,000 applications and Palm Pre users have a few hundred to choose from. However, volume isn’t everything – many of the App Store apps available are repetitive and quality can vary.

Finally, Symbian is a platform that should not be overlooked, however many developers I talk to are frustrated with developing for this platform. While the number of handsets is staggering, developing for each individual handset (because Nokia tweaks S60 in so many different ways) can be a developer’s nightmare.

The one new facet with S60/Symbian development is the new Widget architecture that is popular on the Nokia N97 and N900 handsets. These new devices support homescreen widgets that bring web applications to your mobile handsets in a new way. Existing ones include Facebook, Accuweather, Amazon.com and so on. They’re relatively easy to build compared to full applications.

In conclusion, the Apple iPhone and the App Store is a highly effective way to build and distribute your mobile applications. However, there are other options available to developers that are now starting to become viable alternatives. If you’re a developer or company looking to build out your mobile strategy, give all these platforms a look, different strokes for different folks …

However, the Pixi is available for about $100.

The Pixi is a big step for Palm.  It is the second handset running the WebOS and with the lackluster sales figures of the Pre, Palm needs a successful handset to help their bottom line.

A recent review summarized the Pixi up by saying:

• The hardware was decent but not great.  The device feels good in the hands but performance suffered.
• The user interface lags between commands, due to a slower process or and less RAM.
• Decent battery life – around 6.5 hours.  This is good for any ’smart’ phone.
• The keyboard is easier to use than the Pre’s.

So, the question to you and other potential smart phone customers – would you be willing to give the Palm platform a try?  Is the Pixi, with it’s inexpensive price tag, impressive enough for you to plunk down $100?

With an iPhone model already priced (in the United States) at $100 competition is fierce at this pricing point.  It will be fun to see how these new budget-conscience models far in the phone market.

Bigger, better and a more confident RIM (according to some other delegates), Jim Balsillie, commander of the troops took to the stage. Flush with new announcements, we sat through 3+ hours of BlackBerry product enhancements splintered occasionally by cheers from the crowd. The theme was “Deep rich application integration” and there were some mighty demos.

A new BlackBerry Services platform including integrated advertising from multiple mobile advertising networks (Admob, Jumptap, Quattro Wireless…) all through one API; a payment API, new Geo location APIs and even a “just nuke them now” API! (as if).

Push APIs “moved” the crowd, as did many of the tools. A new GUI builder design studio, a new BlackBerry Themes Studio and application creation with Adobe Tools such as Dreamweaver. In fact Adobe’s commander of the troops, Shantanu Narayen,  was there in support to ensure we understood the strike was from coalition forces.

Jim B took lots of opportunities to say “We hear you”. I took this to mean there was clearly some strong and presumably negative feedback from the developer community at last years DevCon and now RIM have responded with some much needed capabilities. I must say for Taptu, as a new developer to BlackBerry, it all seems very complete now. Indeed for any new developer looking at BlackBerry, there hasn’t been a better time to jump on board.

I came to BBDC 2009  (all the military run on acronyms) to get a sense of the BlackBerry developer community momentum. I also came to meet some key people from RIM and get a steer on what Taptu should include in a BlackBerry app for the touch screen Storm device. What I learned is that the BlackBerry momentum is rock solid and the developers are as passionate about BlackBerry as the Crackberry users themselves. I also met some great people from RIM. They were very approachable but then if you are going to nuke the outside world you may as well be friendly with your fellow colleagues in the shelter.

Of the new products, RIM’s new latest BlackBerry Bold is a gem. A new slimline Bold, with all the capability of South Korea with a waistline of an Air Korea flight hostess. And talking of waistlines, when it came to the DevCon entertainment, RIM gets this too. Scantily clad exotic dancers, plenty of smoke, live music and games for the geeks will secure this event as a not-to-be-missed event on the mobile development calendar.

So did RIM the push the red button and will we move to DevCon 3? The answer is a resounding yes, though I’m told DevCon 3 needs the authority of the President – lucky he’s a CrackBerry user too

This is where OneRiot comes into the picture. OneRiot’s search service gives you a feel for what the real-time web has to say about the most current information, links, and conversation about events as they happen across the web on Twitter, Digg, and other social sharing sites.

However, what happens when you’re on-the-go and you want to search the real-time web on your mobile device?  This is where Taptu, the touch friendly search engine for your mobile comes into play.

Today marks a point in time where two innovators in search Taptu on the mobile platform and OneRiot on the real-time web, have come together to bring you a completely new search experience on your mobile device.

By utilizing OneRiot’s realtime search API, Taptu has built a revolutionary real-time search engine that is tightly integrated into a mobile friendly touch interface.

Taptu and OneRiot set out to take real-time search to the next level by helping you discover content on your mobile device.

Think about the last time you were at a conference, concert, or otherwise in need of information as it happened on the web. You likely searched Twitter and other social websites for messages regarding the topic you were interested in, only to find yourself frustrated with the results.

Now, with the partnership between Taptu and OneRiot, you can track the content – photos, links, articles, blogs, videos -  and other information shared as they happen on the real-time web, right on your mobile device.

To check out the new offering, go to Taptu.com on your mobile device and select the Buzz category.  There, you can see hot topics and hot content being shared on the web, right now.  Additionally, OneRiot results are available in the cluster of regular Taptu search results.

The new service works on devices such as the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, BlackBerry Storm, Android G1 and the Nokia  5800.  More Touch devices will be added soon very soon so watch this space.  Also, OneRiot’s realtime results will appear in Taptu’s Touch Search App on the iPhone and iPod touch imminently.

With Verizon’s new pre-paid mobile data option, customers must first by a $130 EVDO USB modem in order to first access Verizon’s reliable and speedy EVDO data network.  Then, Verizon charges you according to the following schemes:

• Daily: rates are $15 for 75MB (20 cents a MB)
• Weekly: rates are $30 for 250MB (12 cents a MB)
• Monthly: $50 for 500 MB (10 cents a MB)

So, for the ability to get online wherever you happen to get a cell phone signal, you look at paying quite a bit.

For comparison, I pulled up some data from 3, a UK-based 3G mobile provider.  On 3 UK’s site, I see that for a mere £29.99 (roughly USD $50) , you can get 1GB of data for use in your mobile computer.  This includes the dongle and bandwidth – unlike Verizon where these items must be purchased separately and at much higher costs.

The point here is that the US mobile market is vastly more expensive than the UK equivalent, especially with regards to mobile data.  It should also be noted that the US only has 4 major nationwide carriers and, in my opinion, collusion is driving up prices to be way too high.

Perhaps with more market forces driving prices lower, these extraordinarily consumer unfriendly practices will soon be a thing of the past.  I hope so, as a US-based mobile customer.

What phone is leading the way?  The obvious answer is the Apple iPhone, claiming the top touch-screen device spot for users aged 13+.  The iPhone accounted for almost 33% of all touch-screen purchases in the time frame.  The second place device was the LG Dare, claiming a mere 8.7% of the touch-screen phone market.

ComScore’s Mark Donovan doesn’t expect this fast moving smartphone adoption trend to continue, although it might look a bit different going forward.  According to Donovan, additional touchscreen devices will be sold with more and more running the Android operating system.  With all the Android devices including the HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ (known as DEXT internationally) and the Droid, this Android prediction is not hard to fathom.

It is astounding to note that, as of August 2009, there are 23.8 million touch-phone users in the United States, up from just 9.2 million touch users in August 2008.  This is a huge market opportunity that is just now being realized.

A year ago, it used to be that the iPhone was main touch phone to pay attention to, with many wannabees vying for the rest of the market.  However, with Android now maturing and seeing vast hardware support from multiple manufacturers, along with some great new touch devices from Nokia including the N97, XpressMusic 5800 and N900 tablet, it is apparent that touch devices are here to stay with continued growth being a sure thing.

(Photo Credit: Daniel^1977)

A story circulated

Why all the disdain towards surfing the web on their mobile devices? In the study, users cited reasons such as slow web page loading times, text and images appearing too small due to poor web site formatting, and mobile websites crashing on a routine basis.

So, is all lost for those trying to build and enhance the mobile web?  The answer, from Taptu’s perspective, is an emphatic No!

First off, if you look at the how the Gomez study was conducted, there are some fallacies that should be pointed out.  For example, as our CEO Steve Ives points out, the story that got so much attention earlier this week states:

Unlike some other mobile studies, the Gomez report did not differentiate between regular cell phone and smartphone users.

This means that the firm conducting the study treats an iPhone user (who gets desktop results from Safari search) as equivalent to a RAZR user (who gets an unspecified mix of mobile results plus transcoded desktop results plus actual desktop results)   So it’s impossible to tell whether the problem is “slow mobile Web sites” or “fast desktop sites loading slowly over a wireless link”.

As you may already know, your normal ‘desktop’ web sites (those intended for viewing on your regular computer) are very large sites that have a lot of data.  Downloading all these images, advanced scripts, and text over a wireless link is a slow and frustrating experience.

A more exhaustive survey would have queried more device users and separate categories of devices – probably resulting in more positive user experienced based on the device.

Web authors and website managers should take note – this study shows a high degree of frustration from mobile users.  With more and more mobile customers adopting smartphones, mobile web usage is going to continue to skyrocket.  For the sake of your customers and users, enhance your site(s) for the mobile web.

For those seeking the web’s best mobile-friendly content, look to Taptu. We are constantly indexing and seeking out the greatest content that is specifically formulated for you to use on your mobile device.  We believe the mobile web is an exciting place and we’re striving to show you the best content the mobile web has to offer.

(Photo credit: Flickr User adactio)

Cloud computing services often provide common business applications online that are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

Cloud-based services are ideal with devices such as Netbooks and mobile handsets because the mobile devices have little computational horsepower, meager storage, and are typically connected to the ‘Net via data connections, either Wi-Fi or 3G data networks.

The promise of cloud computing for users lies in the assumption that our data is safely held in professionally-managed data centers somewhere in the world.  But as recent events show, this isn’t always the case.  Last week, Microsoft/Danger lost millions of Sidekick users’ data in a botched storage area network upgrade.

Microsoft is supposedly working around the clock to bring back the data.  But, as it stands, millions of Sidekick users are without their contacts, photos, emails, notes, and other valuable data they depend on when utilizing their mobile devices.  Because the Sidekick uses RAM to store all this data, any user who power cycles or lets the battery run out on their device will lose all their data until Microsoft/Danger can recover it – if at all.

What is the lesson here? If you have a device you care about that contains data you find valuable, you must seek and constantly update your backups.  If you rely upon hosted services to house your data in the cloud, I suggest seeking ways to backup your phone’s data locally as well.

For example, iPhone users are in luck because of the way iTunes is structured.  In addition to the availability of Apple’s MobileMe service, the iPhone/iPod Touch is automatically backed up each time you sync your phone with iTunes.  Likewise, Nokia N Series and E Series users have access to some Ovi services that back up your photos/contacts and other data, but if you want a local copy of these types of data – Nokia users must use PC Suite on a regular basis.

There are services for many platforms that allow you to backup and maintain your data and I suggest you evaluate our options.  Blackberry users have online and offline backup options and using Google’s mobile web services, you can backup your contacts to their services as well.

Don’t take the Sidekick data loss and assume this type of catastrophe couldn’t happen to you.  With mobile devices becoming a part of our daily lives, there are likely contacts, photos and videos you care about.  Take a minute to back up and ensure your data is safe! 

(Photo credit: Flickr User kevindooley)

So, in effect, by using a MicroCell, you are helping AT&T patch weak spots in their network by lending them bandwidth from your Internet connection.  The added irony in all this: if you’re an AT&T customer who opts to use a MicroCell, you pay either pay$150 for the device or get one for $100 (with a $450 rebate) and then pay an additional $20/month to your bill.

This equation simply does not make sense and  continues the backwards thinking that exists in US based mobile carriers.  To be fair, I must point out that AT&T isn’t alone in charging for their femtocell enhancement, Sprint charges $20/month for their device and Verizon Wireless has a similar box for $250.

In my opinion, as a cellular subscriber, if you can adequately demonstrate that your mobile network provider’s network is weak in your home or business, that mobile network operator should grant you a femtocell free of charge.  Not only would this promote loyalty and reduce churn of mobile customers, but would help out your surrounding neighbors as well, as femtocells work for quite a ways surrounding the repeater.

What are your thoughts – would you pay to host a mobile carrier’s signal on your Internet service that *you* pay for?