When I attended the Mobile World Congress earlier in the year, I was bitterly disappointed to find very little innovation. Within hours of the iPhone 3G coming out, I see applications for things like Oracle Business Indicators and Salesforce.com popping up in the iPhone AppStore. Earlier in the year CODA2Go talked about the potential for the new iPhone:
Two areas spring immediately to mind. Firstly, for the first time mobile workers can have the same complete access to the financial transaction history of their customers as do their office based colleagues. That includes full visibility to credit history, outstanding payments, diary notes from the accounting team and the ability to view all previous sales invoices. Secondly, and of huge importance in the heavily regulated and audited world of accounting, the ability to request and capture senior management authorization of exceptional transactions can be efficiently processed even if that senior manager is on the road.
Yesterday, Pol Navarro, who heads innovation for Banco Sabadell pointed me to CommSec in Australia, which has created an iPhone specific securities trading platform. (The demo is innovative in its own right.) He also pointed me to Bank of America’s iPhone application, although early reviews are less than complementary.
Most of my colleagues regard the iPhone interface as the gold standard for mobile devices, that despite the fact the device itself is not as well specificed as S60 devices like the newer Nokia handsets or as business oriented as the Blackberry. In addition, the iPhone has attracted criticism for its ongoing running costs. Regardless, it seems that developers are falling over themselves to develop for the iPhone. That is a good thing because it will encourage the use of integrated, contextually meaningful information. It may also spur the other mobile browser providers to be more inventive in the way they present information. Overall, buzz around the iPhone and the Appstore should encourage more innovation in mobile.
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