What does it take to develop a good user-friendly application for a mobile or smart phone? A large company with tens of developers, a large office block, and a company quoted on the stock exchange?
According to Vodafone Malta, the next best application for these devices will come from a member of the budding local developer community.
It is so sure about it that it has launched the i-Mashup competition, inviting developers to let their imagination run wild to design and develop a mobile application for the Symbian, Blackberry or Windows Mobile platform.
These mobile applications are small software applications installed on mobile handsets or accessed online via mobile handset browsers that interact with online services or platforms.
The winners will receive cash prizes and the chance to win an additional star prize. First placed winner will get €2,500, second placed will get €1,000 and third placed will get €500. Entries will be assessed on usability, innovation and value to users.
The closing date is September 1.
"The absolute worst thing a company can do is assume that you can just continue to sell the same old product or service to the same old customers in the same old way - and at the same old price," a Vodafone spokesman told i-Tech.
"Instead, you need to get busy working out how your customers' priorities and needs have changed, and quickly realign your business model to address their new needs. What better way of doing this than giving our customers and future customers the opportunity to design and create a service that makes their experience of using mobile phones a more interesting and valuable one?"
Developing applications for mobile phones requires more thought because one has to work within the constraints of that environment, particularly limited screen size, different input methods, limited battery life and the constraints of radio-based communications.
"Mobile applications can offer a great user experience to customers without them having to use a browser or even know they are accessing the web. The intrinsic value of mobile applications is that they present personalised information in just a few clicks and in a way that is more efficient, as they only need to download the data that is relevant to the customer and this would only need to be refreshed at pre-set intervals rather than having to access and download complete web pages," the Vodafone spokesman added.
Since late 2007, manufacturers have been launching mobile devices with a mobile application built with web run-time capability, such as Apple with the iPhone, Blackberry with the Storm, and Nokia with the N95 8Gb. This feature is now starting to be more widely available on a range of handsets.
The i-Mashup competition is open to anyone over 18. There are no limitations on the number of applications one can submit into this competition. See www.vodafone.com.mt/imashup for information.