Developer Conferences in India

I will be traveling to India this week to speak at two developer conferences: Mobile Developer Conference on Dec 1, 2012 at Chennai and Java Developer Conference on Dec 8, 2012 at Bangalore. Can't wait to be in India and meet the developer and startup community there! 

NCDevCon 2012

Howdy!

I was at NCDevCon from Sept 29-30, 2012, Raleigh and got to taste the "southern hospitality". Great event and great gathering of like minded individuals.

NCDevCon has been around for about four years now and boy have they grown! This years' conference had parallel tracks for mobile, coldfusion, tools/techniques, and hands-on workshops.

I had the opportunity to present on mobile payments this year. Check out my slides and the video.

Have fun!
Pragati

Mobile & Commerce

When people say "mobile is just another channel for e-commerce", I tend to disagree. Mobile is not just another channel, it is a channel which opens up interesting opportunities and use cases that have never been imagined before. Sure, mobile commerce brings commerce activities to mobile devices. But what it also brings is the uncanny opportunity to use local, personal, and ubiquity aspects of a mobile device. In this post, let's talk about mobile devices.

Let's begin with the basics. What are some of the defining aspects of mobile? First, our mobile devices like cellphones, tablets, iPods etc, are quite personal. We have a whole bunch of personal information on cell phone. Second, our mobile devices are with us most of the time (if not all the time). So our mobile devices are aware of where we are at a given moment. They are also aware of which places we frequent. Third, with smartphones of today, we can do most of the activities that a few years ago required us to go back to our desks and fire up our computers.

So mobile is personal, ubiquitous, and powerful. In other words, with mobile we can do most of our things anywhere and anytime.

Mobile Ecosystem

Mobile Ecosystem

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Mobile Content Distribution Platforms (App Stores): Ecosystem

The App Store Ecosystem

There is a shift in the philosophy of mobile operating systems. They are now more open as compared to the closed and proprietary systems of yester years. Mobile platforms like iPhone, Symbian, and Android provide companies and developers with SDK to create their own applications. With this open mindset, there is an explosion of platforms that distribute this mobile content or applications. Apple likes to call its platform "AppStore" and Google calls it "Android Market".

Mobile content distribution platforms are hosted by carriers (Verizon's VzAppStore, Sprint's Software Store), vendors (Motorola, Samsung), OS providers (Palm's AppCatalog, Nokia's Ovistore, Google's Android Market, Apple's AppStore or Nokia's OviStore), or even third party companies (GetJar, AndSpot). On the devices front Sony has a PlayStation Store and there is a DSi Shop for Nintendo DSi. Some of these platforms cater to one single platform while other cater to a wide number of them. AppStore for Apple only caters to applications targeted to iOS. Similarly, Android Market only caters to Android based applications.

Amazon AppStore

Amazon is a new player in the App Store Ecosystem. It is targeted for Android apps only. Launched last week, it is enticing users with a free app every day. Users have to download Amazon's AppStore app and this app then helps download other apps available on Amazon's AppStore. I will not be surprised if in future devices Amazon's AppStore will come bundled with the ROM. All applications on Amazon's AppStore are vetted by Amazon so we can expect better quality.

Amazon AppStore vs. Google's Android Market

I played around with Amazon's appstore and below is a small comparison list.

• Content Uploading: Android Market is open to any developer with good standing. Amazon curates the apps it loads on it's appstore. The app is wrapped in Amazon's wrapper code and then uploaded.
• Quantity and Quality: The number of apps on Market is much more than AppStore and I think it will continue to be more since it is open. However the quality of apps might be better on AppStore as they are carefully reviewed by Amazon.
• Security: Amazon's AppStore loads apps via side loading. So users need to enable the checkbox which lets users install applications from unknown sources. Another bullet point is that the remote wipe feature is missing from Amazon's app store. This means if an app is identified as malicious, it
• Return Policy: Apps once downloaded by Amazon AppStore cannot be returned.
• UI: I find both equally comfortable. Amazon's AppStore is more sleek and stylist (if I can say that) but Google Market is more easy to navigate and more intuitive.

Understanding Android's Security Model

Understanding android security model

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Why did I create this blog?

I have created this blog as a place to share my ideas, insights, learnings, and experiments with Mobile Security, Mobile Operationg Systems and other Mobile ecosystem artifacts. I also intend to share my slides through this blog.