Mobile Computing A Primer for Selecting a Mobile Device A White Paper by: Chad Peiper, Ph.D. Trinity IT, Senior Application Architect 9 June 2011 A Primer for Selecting a Mobile Device Copyright © 2011 Trinity IT, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners. Document Title: Mobile Computing: A Primer for Selecting a Mobile Device Published by Trinity IT, LLC, June 9, 2011 Any comments relating to the material contained in this document may be submitted to: Thomas Buck PO Box 524 Richboro, PA 18954 or by email to: [email protected] http://www.trinityit.biz A White Paper Published by Trinity IT 2 A Primer for Selecting a Mobile Device Table of Content Executive Summary 4 Introduction 5 What is a Mobile Device? 5 Smartphones 6 iPhone 4 .............................................................................................................. 7 BlackBerry.......................................................................................................... 7 Netbooks 7 Tablets 8 Differentiating the Tablet PC and Tablet Device 9 Active and passive digitizer .............................................................................. 10 Slate, convertible, and hybrid ........................................................................... 12 Rich Ink and Digital Ink ................................................................................... 13 Development Environment 14 Software Developer Kit .................................................................................... 14 Language Support ............................................................................................. 15 Platform Support .............................................................................................. 15 Maturity ............................................................................................................ 15 Recommendations 16 Tablet PCs in Education ................................................................................... 16 Tablet PCs in Health Care and Financial .......................................................... 16 Tablet Devices Usage ....................................................................................... 17 Tablet PC Myths 17 Ink-to-text conversion ...................................................................................... 17 Tablets are not as powerful as a “real” computer ............................................. 18 Difficult to use .................................................................................................. 18 About the Author 20 About Trinity IT, LLC 20 References 21 Appendix 23 Table 1: Tablet Devices in the Market ............................................................. 23 http://www.trinityit.biz A White Paper Published by Trinity IT 3 A Primer for Selecting a Mobile Device Aligning Technology with Business Objectives Executive Summary This white paper is targeted for the decision makers of technology organizations who are considering mobile applications. With the onslaught of mobile devices hitting the market, how does one choose the mobile device that best suits their needs? Whether you are new to Tablet development or a seasoned programmer, the topics introduced in this paper describe the many considerations involved in the selection, design and development of Tablet-based applications. Following a brief introduction and motivation for writing this paper, we begin by defining the differences between a mobile device and a tablet. We then continue to identify the differences between a Tablet PC and a Tablet. Subsequent sections include a discussion of hardware features (device portability, battery consumption, screen real estate, input modality, and viewability) and software considerations (SDK availability, underlying operating system, and application design considerations). http://www.trinityit.biz A White Paper Published by Trinity IT 4 A Primer for Selecting a Mobile Device “WWDC 2010: iPad A Introduction Huge Success, One iPad The early success of the Apple iPad (figure 1) has led many companies to Sold Every 3 Seconds” invest in the design and release of similar mobile--or as they are being called--“Tablet” devices [1]. As early as November 2010, Apple had commanded 95% of the Tablet market [2]. As of January 2011, the iPad market share had reportedly dropped to 75% [3]. As Tablets become more and more pervasive, there is a growing need to develop applications for these devices. Prior to the launch of the iPad in March 2010, the market for iPad applications was predicted to reach about $8 billion within five years [4]. As of January 2011, the Apple App Store1 reached 11 billion downloads2 [5]. Before choosing which device to purchase or develop applications for, there are a number of important issues to consider. This white paper serves as a Figure 1: The Apple iPad primer on these devices with a focus on Tablet devices. Tablet What is a Mobile Device? There is no widely accepted definition for what defines a mobile device. According to Wikipedia, a mobile device “…(also known as a handheld device, handheld computer or simply handheld) is a pocket-sized computing device, typically having a display screen with touch input and/or a miniature keyboard [6].” This description does not distinguish mobile phones from hand-held computers or “tablet” devices. A “hand-held” computer exists in a “…variety of form factors, including smartphones on the low end, handheld PDAs, Ultra-Mobile PCs (UMPC) and Tablet PCs. [Traditional desktop replacement] Laptops do not come under handheld computers as they are not small enough to hold in one's hand [6].” For the Figure 2: The Asus Ultrabook purposes of this paper we define a “mobile device” to be any device that can will be the sleekest laptop in be held in one‟s hand. Note that this distinction excludes a new class of after Apple's MacBook Air 15" laptops in the works called “Ultrabooks”, which loosely defined, are ultra- model. thin laptop-tablet hybrid devices which feature a touch screen (figure 2) [31]. There are smaller-sized laptops that may be considered mobile devices. Subnotebooks, also known as ultraportables (before the advent of the Ultrabook) or mini notebooks, are a class of laptop computers smaller and lighter than a typical laptop. Such devices that can be held in one‟s hand and easily operated are called Netbooks3 (figure 3). In the next few subsections, we define and characterize three different Figure 3: An HP 2133 Mini- classes of mobile devices: Smartphones, Netbooks, and Tablets (figure 4). Note PC netbook. 1 There are a number of lawsuits pending over Apple‟s trade marking the term “App Store” on the grounds that it is too generic to be exclusively used for an Apple marketplace. 2 This includes downloads for both the iPhone and the iPad. 3 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_subnotebooks for an excellent comparison of Netbooks. http://www.trinityit.biz A White Paper Published by Trinity IT 5 A Primer for Selecting a Mobile Device Figure 4. Three groups of mobile devices: smartphones, netbooks, and tablets Please note we omitted PDAs and UMPCs from this list as they were replaced by the smartphone and netbook respectively. It is worth noting, however, the UMPC devices were not just smaller-sized laptops, but also some of the devices integrated a touch screen and pen-input technology. One such device designed to be used in a rugged environment and outdoors (i.e. in the direct sunlight), is the Panasonic Toughbook-U1-Ultra device, MIL-STD-810G and IP65 certified, and running Windows 7 (figure 5). Figure 5. Panasonic U1 Ultra Toughbook viewable in direct sunlight and able to withstand Smartphones up to a 6' drop Wikipedia defines the smartphone as a “...mobile phone that offers more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone [7].” One distinction between the feature phone and smartphone is the native operating system of the particular device. Feature phones integrate proprietary operating systems that support third-party software on limited platforms such as Java ME. An example of a feature phone is the Motorola i886 phone designed for use on the Nextel network that runs the iDEN proprietary operating system. In general, feature phones are less powerful and less integrated with features of the phone such as the phone‟s main user interface [8]. Smartphones, on the other hand, integrate more powerful operating systems such as Apple‟s iOS or Google‟s Android (figure 6). Such operating systems usually provide a mature software development kit (SDK) to facilitate the building of native-based applications that leverage the abilities of these high-end phones. Figure 6. Smartphone development platforms To help differentiate between smartphones a comparison of the following specifications is required: processor speed, amount of ram, size and resolution of the display, whether or not the device integrates a touchscreen, battery life, support of removable storage, and the inclusion of a camera, Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi [9]. A high-end smartphone typically includes a 1GHz processor with 512MB of ram and a high-resolution touch-screen display. The rest of the features vary, although almost all smartphones in today‟s market include a camera, Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi. The iPhone and the Blackberry