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How much standardisation do we need in the Mobile space?

By: , IntoMobile
Thursday, March 19th, 2009 at 1:51 PM

It would seem of late that we might be moving toward a process of standarisation of certain things in the Mobile space – if not standardisation, then at least the distillation of a plethora of variants to a main few. Case in point – most charger manufacturers are committing to get to a universal connector within the next five or so years.

So this got me thinking – what else would I like to see standardised?

Well how about these:

(1)    headphone connector – an obvious one, but 3.5mm please. If you want to implement fancy extra data controls (or DRM) over the top of this as a superset that’s fine, but nominally, I want to be able to plug 3.5mmm headphones in to any mobile, and hear sound!!

(2)    screens – well, classes of screens anyway. I think we can recognise there are some key form factors for devices, and these need different shape screens – but there aren’t that many when it comes to it. Fixing things like resolutions, and a number of standard screen sizes would make life simpler and cheaper all-round, and would mean that visual content (images, video) wouldn’t have to be re-purposed/stretched for several different devices

(3)    DRM – standardise to off please, if it’s serving no actual purpose :-)

But I bet there are some others, and this is where I’d like to hear from the readers – what say you??!

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About The Author

Ben Robinson

Ben is a 10+ year veteran of the Mobile industry – starting his career when SMS was a still a relatively new concept for most people (!), he has now consulted on everything from bleeding-edge Mobile content, to the next-gen accessories you might view it on. As a result he has a broad and deep knowledge in numerous areas of Mobile – from network operators to device vendors, to infrastructure and middleware vendors (not to mention content delivery) – and has worked for companies in all of these areas! He is based in the UK, a hotbed of activity for mobile, and recently became a father for the second time – as oppose to in his younger years when he was happy spend time tweaking all manner of mobile devices to 'nth' degree, he now looks for services and hardware that provide the most efficient, compact, and reliable improvements to his already manic life! It’s his opinion that Mobile solutions should be there to help to make your life better – if a particular solution (be it service or device) isn’t doing this, he believes you need to ask the very important question of why you continue to use it... His focus at IntoMobile is mainly on Mobile content, services, and infrastructure, particularly as regards the UK market – and with the occasional look at devices. Additionally, using his extensive experience in the industry, he will provide commentary on the industry at large, with regular (and hopefully thought-provoking) articles.

  • matthew bennett

    I’d say the device charging port going to MicroUSB is a good one.

    I’d like to see better standards on labeling a device “with Bluetooth”, like maybe a 1 – 5 rating. 1 = headset, 5 = A2DP, full OBEX etc.

    Widgets! Right now there are too many different standards for widgets, but most are fairly similar.

    And Just Wishing, GSM for all US carriers ON THE SAME FREQUENCIES!

    Unlocking? A standard procedure across either manufacturers OR carriers would be nice.

    Syncing is another good one! Like when I upgrade from a RAZR to an iPhone, just bluetooth everything over. Easy, but impossible.

    Writing out these answers has got me thinking… Let’s start calling devices “unstandard” to force manufacturers into compliance. Shame shame.

    -matthew-