Smart Communications, which is the Philippines’ leading mobile operator with 44.1 million subscribers, and Red Bend Software unveiled the Netphone, touting it as the world’s first smartphone featuring widgets from the Wholesale Application Community (WAC) that can be independently managed over the air.
The revolutionary part — at least when mobile operators are concerned — is the ability to add widgets without user’s permission. This way, mobile operators can increase ARPU while at the same time presenting users with new features they may haven’t tried or seen before.
The mentioned Netphone is an Android 2.2-powered touchscreen smartphone that comes with popular social networking clients alongside relevant customer account services and select apps that are said to be relevant to emerging market customers.
Using Red Bend’s standards-based vRapid Mobile Software Management solution, SMART is able to manage its suite of embedded software and applications, including WAC-compliant widgets; push new mobile services that use WAC widgets to Netphone subscribers over the air; and offer the same/similar software-managed user experience across different platforms including Android and Brew MP.
Personally, I don’t like the idea of “push widgets,” but I do think they could work and that’s not only because carriers want them to work. Majority of users are not aware of their phone’s capabilities and with services like this one – they may actually learn a thing or two along the way. Of course, there’s always the option to turn off some widget if you don’t like it…