Living in the 4th Screen

In a new report by recent Google acquisition, AdMob, the iPhone is dominating the mobile phone space. The iPhone accounts for more than half of the total overall smartphone usage throughout the world. Basically this means that iPhone users use their phones a lot more than anyone else. This has to be good news for Apple.

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According to a post on Fast Company that quotes a Nielsen survey, one in five students has a cell phone by the time they are 8-years-old. Fifty percent of 10-year-olds and seventy-five percent of 12-year-olds have their own cell phone. The average age when children get their own cell phone is now down to 9.7 years. The average age to borrow a cell phone is now at 8-years-old.

What are these kids doing on their cell phones besides sending text messages? The Nielsen survey says:

...your kids are looking for the latest movies and music releases, playing games, and using social networks. The cell phone, in other words, is way more of a communications and entertainment hub for younger people than older people. Which makes sense--kids spend more time socializing, even when all they have is a rotary dial phone with a curly cord.

These survey results only underscore my basic premise that the onsluaght of cell phones is inevitable. We need to continue to educate students on how to use their cell phones in a socially responsable way.

via CellPhonesInLearning

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Are we at the threshold of a data apocalypse? According to this post on The Mobile Opportunity blog we are at the precipice of a mobile data explosion. See the graph below.

According to the post there has been a shift in the thinking of mobile data usage:

... in the last year or so, the attitude has shifted dramatically from "no one is using mobile data" to "oh my God, there's so much demand for mobile data that it'll destroy the network." A lot of this attitude shift was caused by the iPhone, which has indeed overloaded some mobile networks. But there's also a general uptick in data usage from various sources, and the rate of growth seems to be accelerating.

The article goes on to quote some analysis from Cisco regarding data usage by smartphones:

Cisco estimates that a single smartphone produces as much data traffic as 40 traditional feature phones. So converting 10 million people from feature phones to smartphones is like adding 390 million new feature phone users, in terms of impact on the data network. The more popular smartphones get, the busier the network becomes.

I know my wife and I consume copious amounts of mobile data on our iPhones. Just 18 months ago our mobile data usage was zero. It has risen significantly since we purchased our iPhones. I have read recently about dire predictions regarding mobile usage and how demand will out pace supply. I have also read that mobile network providers can not keep up with demand. I think there is to much money to be made with mobile data and that the carriers will figure out a way to improve transmission or to throttle the heaviest users.

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The Journal just released it's list of the top 5 K-12 Technology Trends for 2010 . Number 4 on the list states that Personal Devices will Infiltrate the Classroom. According to the authors, one reason student's personal devices will be welcomed into the school building will be the lack of funds for technology purchases. Below is an excerpt from the article:

The fact that most smart phones come with wireless capabilities and larger screens makes them particularly relevant in the K-12 space, where "after the stimulus money runs out, we're going to be in trouble in terms of federal money for technology," said Abshire. "The next logical step is for the devices to come into school."

Purdy concurred and said the fact that some students are getting their own wireless devices by second or third grade will accelerate the trend. "We used to think this was a 'teen' phenomenon," said Purdy. "But its now culturally acceptable for someone as young as seven or eight years old to have a cell phone. It won't be long before every student will have access to one or more wireless, portable devices in the classroom."

I agree with the authors on this point and many of my previous posts on this blog have stated this. Students are coming to school everyday with a powerful computing device that most schools ban. As technology funds dry up and smartphone prices drop the pressure will increase to allow student's to bring their personal digital devices into school.

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According to the Times Online in the UK, Google will be launching their own smartphone. The article states Google will offer free calls throughout the US and cheap international calls. The Google branded handset will run the new Android OS codenamed Flan, have a processor twice as fast as the iPhone 3GS, and a large touchscreen. Google wants their phone to be carrier agnostic.

The article in the Times Online goes on to say:

The real breakthrough, however, will come with the marriage of the Googlephone to Google Voice, the Californian company’s high-tech phone service. Google Voice gives US users a free phone number and allows unlimited free calls to any phone in the country — landline or mobile.

“We’ve never had this situation, where a single vendor controls the entire stack, from the operating system right up to Google’s cloud services,” says Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Northeast Securities. “It changes the competitive and bargaining dynamics like never before.”

I have been saying since I started this blog that the mobile phone wars would heat up. That will in turn increase competition, drive down prices, and cause widespread adoption. I did not expect this to happen so fast and that Google would throw down the gauntlet in this way. This should be fun to watch. If Google can really pull off free calls from any where that could be another paradigm shift like the first iPhone was.

The implications for education are limitless. I still believe in due time school networks will be irrelevant. Students will just access the cloud via a cellular network and bypass the schools network all together.

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CNET News reported that Apple has closed the gap with Research In Motion (RIM) in the percentage of market share amongst smartphone owners.

RIM holds a 40% share to Apple's 30%. Those numbers represent a 1% decline for RIM and a 5% increase for Apple.

Overall smartphone ownership is up significantly. Below is a quote from the CNET article:

When including all manufacturers, the smartphone market is clearly gaining momentum. ChangeWave reports that 39 percent of those polled in September now own a smartphone, an increase of 2 percentage points since June, but more importantly, double the ownership of consumers polled two years ago.

I believe this trend will continue and that you will see this kind of growth amongst our high school population. If I am correct what kind of implications does this have for our schools?

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