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You might think :

"Who has time to read this newsletter when there's so much to do before Mobile World Congress? "

And you might even utter:

 "Who has time to write a newsletter... don't you have a WIPJam to prepare? "

And a rack of tee shirts to line up! "

Yes I do and  many more things, too!! 

• Get the logistics sorted out with the WIP tips and SIM cards tips  and find new chairs as WIPJam is going XL with 100 additional seats available.
• Download the WIP Survival Guide to Mobile World Congress or even better get the mobile app version with the WIPJam app for Android,  Nokia and iPhone (visit your favourite store in the coming days and look for WIPJam)
• Sign up for some of the "cliffhanger" developer events:
  • What will Nokia announce at it's Nokia developer day on Monday ?
  • What's going to happen on the Meego front at Intel Appup Application Labs on Wednesday?
• Get my name in all the cool parties in town, using one of the zillion...

As I peer into my crystal ball I see a year of more growth coupled with higher expectations for mobile along with a few upsets along the way.

The Growth

If you didn’t rest over the holidays, don’t expect to relax anytime soon no matter where you fit in the industry.  We will continue to see more devices, more demand for apps, and more demand for developers. 

It was March when we declared 2010 The Year of the Mobile Developer.  Developers were in hot demand and were finally being embraced publically and vocally as a key piece of the mobile ecosystem.   

With that, we will continue to see huge growth in the number of mobile developers entering the scene.  I do think we will see a combination of really newbie/webby developers, given the rise in toolssuch as AppMobi.   As mobile has now become ‘mainstream’ we will also see more traditional software folks entering mobile.  Expect more development tools and enablers (analytics, advertising etc) on the scene too.  Choice...

I’ve spent a lot of time supporting; watching and monitoring operators roll out a variety of programs and services lately – new app stores, new networks, APIs, new and improved developer programs.  It got me thinking:  Is 99.999% (.99999) or ‘five-nines’ an outdated goal for operators?  I think it might be.

Five-nines is the standard for measuring the network availability, which is pretty close to always on, never down.  It equates to about 5 minutes and 15 seconds of downtime per year.  According to Tomi Ahonenand some banter we had on twitter this week:  “mobile phone network serving millions cannot go down for half a minute per year, unacceptable.. hence five nines needed”.

The fact is a network down or a dropped call is already a reality.  Rogers was down for an afternoon in Vancouver last week; and if you travel to London, New York, San Francisco you expect to have a few calls that won’t connect; and SMSs that go nowhere.   Interestingly, consumers have already accepted...

Welcome to the 238th installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists. It's a pleasure to welcome the Carnival back to the WIP blog, and to share some of the best in mobile blogging from the past couple of weeks with you. It's hard to believe that it's been nearly five years since Russell and I launched the CotM over at MobHappy. But that fifth anniversary is coming up in about a month, and the current keeper of the tents, Peggy Anne Salz, is looking for input on how to celebrate that milestone, so be sure to send her your thoughts.

Peggy also gets a big thanks for emailing me to remind me about hosting this week I am at the AppNation event in San Francisco, and my duties had slipped my mind since we've had our hands so full at WIP lately. There are tons of events going on in the mobile space in the next few weeks, including our WIPJam at the Verizon Developer Conference next week. The VDC is shaping up to be a great event, and it's free to attend, so we hope to see you there!

Now,...

We released the latest edition of the WIP App Store Report last week, and in it, we take a closer look at the role aggregators are playing in driving up the number of app stores in the marketplace. We counted 94 app stores when we released the report, but the number in the wiki has already grown by one!

Aggregators play a huge role in the marketplace by supporting app store providers with a number of different models and services. From offering affiliate-based white-label web sites to end-to-end developer support and delivery, there's an aggregation model to suit almost anybody who wants to distribute apps. This may seem daunting for developers, but aggregators are also able to offer a wide reach through a single point of contact. For instance, through its Brew Distribution System, Qualcomm allows developers to potentially reach more than 50 operators with a single submission. On a smaller scale, other aggregators offer white-label web stores that reach across content niches...

A few months ago, I went on an app store placement spree in preparation for the Android App Store Competition in Berlin (promise I won't mention it anymore!). The results were telling, in terms of the variance of the usability between stores, and some of the rather uninspired error messages they returned:

• "Please provide an interesting and accurate description" -- Isn't it my right to putt something dull if I do not want people to spend time reading the description and download the app instead?
• "Illegal characters in description! Use English and numbers only" -- Something any person with a sense of logic and group theory awareness will object to.
• "Upload a jpg legend..." -- Which is a nice error when, in reality, the site only accepts PNGs.

I'm just finishing a new placement spree today, and when I started, I was full of hopes that things had changed. Judge for yourself by these messages I got:

• "Password Must contain both letters and numerals" -- What if I want...

The latest edition of the WIP App Store Report is now available for download. It's a PDF version of our App Store Wiki, the most comprehensive listing of mobile app stores available. This month, the report takes a look at the various end-user payment methods supported by stores in the wiki, and some of the issues they present to mobile developers. While there is a lot of buzz surrounding operator billing and BOBO, credit cards still lead the way, despite the shortcomings in user experience they can create.

Be sure to download the August report for more info, and to check out the details of the 6 new stores that were added over the past month, bringing the total number to 85.

Mobile design stalwarts Little Springs Design have this week's installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists up at their site, so be sure to check it out for the week's best mobile blogging. This edition features topics such as mobile advertising, app stores, open source in mobile, the future of devices and more.

It's time for another installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists, this time hosted right here on the WIP blog. A big thanks to all the mobilists who sent in their posts this week, and a big welcome to everybody visiting our site for the first time. After you're done checking out the week's best blogging about mobile, be sure to take a look at our Events Wiki, a comprehensive listing of mobile events and conferences, as well as our App Store Wiki, the most complete listing of mobile app stores -- currently tracking 84 -- on the web.

But let's get on with the Carnival!

Windows Phone 7, the latest work from Microsoft, was a popular topic this week, with both Terence Eden and Tam Hanna taking it on. Terence has a solid list of pros and cons about the new OS, with quite a few problems but a lot he likes about it as well, while Tam features an interview with a Microsoft evangelist for the corporate line on what to expect from WP7. Another emerging technology that's been getting a...

Steve Litchfield has this week's installment of the Carnival of the Mobilists up at his Phones Show site, so be sure to check it out for the week's top mobile blog posts, including Caroline's recap of her NGMN presentation on developer risk. Check back in with us on Monday, when we'll be hosting the next edition!