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* Note:  This is a first in our series of 2011 Predictions.  Check back every day next week for others, and on January 1 for a collection of all of them, and to vote for your favorite.

One of my favourite people in the mobile developer ecosystem is Ed Schmidt from AT&T.  Ed is a Director in their Developer Program which is a nice title and all, but doesn’t really speak to the volume of his knowledge of mobile development nor his passion for developers.  I thought it would be fun to interview him and get his predictions for 2011. 

Deeper Apps vs Lighter Apps

As other technologies are evolving around mobile development, Ed sees a trend toward deeper and more capable applications coming in 2011.  Ed’s definition of Deeper Apps is similar to what we at WIP have been calling Mobile Apps 2.0 – a confluence of stronger technology, better tools, and better product/life cycle development.

Ed noted that some of this will come because of ‘the cloud; and the networking based...

If you couldn't attend our un-panel at WIPJam @ OSIM... and want to hear more about Mobileapps2.0. No worry! We had someone taking notes!!

Thanks a lot to Dave Nokku for his great drawings!

One week to go before wipjam in London, so here's our penultimate take on the Mobileapps2.0 theme. After a deep focus on the technical issues this week's interview (with a slight delay) will be looking at the marketing issues for developers or how the "race for the deck, winner takes all " is changing to a seemingly random brownian movement of marketing activities...

Noam Yasour (@nyasour) from Inmobi tells us more about how Froggy jump from Invictus made it to a commercial success.

TR: Tell us about an application that caught your eye lately?

NY: Froggy Jump from Invictus Games. It's a free game and has been downloaded over 3M times and had numerous updates, adding more content and features to the game. The game is based on a type of a freemium model - combination of mobile advertising and in-app purchases and proved to be very successful for Invictus Games. We have a full view of the case study downloadable here.

TR : What do you think they do right?

NY :   Most...

In the 4th installment of  our mobileapp2.0 saga, we have invited John Cooper from Viafo to talk to us about their applications developed for WInMo, Bada and soon Nokia WRT. Without spoiling the interview I can say  that it focuses on one of the key aspects of mobileapps2.0, the increasing reliance on standard back-end web technology to offer rich, ever changing, flexible services & content with little changes to the client side code. Enough of me, here he goes

TR : What is your latest app you wanted to talk to us about?

JC: We actually have 3 – two designed to showcase the power of our solution, and one showing off a client solution…

• ViaNewz – is an RSS reader showing full integration with Twitter, Bookmarking and other services.
• ViaSearchz – is a local search app with personalization and location based social networking.
• ViaTripz uses the TripIt API to provide a travel service with integrated Twitter and other social networking.

And now for the 3rd installment in the mobileapps 2.0 saga our exploration of the gradual opening of the mobile development space....

Subject which is rather typical this week as Verizon's announcement of their Android appstore is bringing much comments on the goodness of openness in mobile see Openworld's "Android is OPEN but  open means different things" or their "Myth of Android openness"  on a backdrop of stories about Apple relaxing the appstore rules. 

Which is why we asked Chetan Damani at Acrossair to tell us more about his experience on iPad wit this app:

TR : What is your latest app you wanted to talk to us about?

At our WIPjam in Barcelona Mark Curtis from Flirtomatic spoke about his "new feature introduction" routine... not quoting him in his exact terms it sounded a bit like this:

"Launch the feature on the site; wait 1 day, look at the response rates; IF very positive THEN keep; IF very negative THEN remove; if marginal THEN expand trial period;" 

Not the type of words you would typically associate with mobile apps.. yet mobile app development practices are changing, frequent updates distributed by the appstore, hybrid apps, cross-platform apps, absence of certification... 

And what a great subject for the opening  un-panel of our WIPJam @ OSIM!

To get ready for the event we'll publish interviews of developers talking about their development process for the next few weeks.

Enough of me, here's Sam Pickard from Datilo!

T : What is your latest app you wanted to talk to us about?

S :  The app, like the company is called Datilo.  It’s a contraction of date, time and...

Another Contest!

Don't miss your chance to pitch your cutting-edge mobile app, service, or content to AT&T for a chance to win a share of $70,000 in cash prizes, the opportunity to go-to-market with AT&T, and the coveted title of 2009 Fast-Pitch Platinum Award winner.

devCentral, the AT&T Developer Program, will be hosting the Fast-Pitch Platinum Awards for consumer and enterprise developers at CTIA Wireless at the Las Vegas Convention Center, April 1-3, 2009. These awards are designed to recognize the innovation, creativity, and skill of the mobile development community.

Submissions for the contest are due by 11:59:59 PM Pacific Time, March 10, 2009. Learn more about the awards and enter soon!

To ensure consideration, it is highly encouraged that you enter the contest now even if you are not ready to submit your full application yet. You can then return to the Fast-Pitch registration site to submit your application before the entry deadline of 11:59:59 PM Pacific Time, March 10,...