Carnival of the Mobilists #201

Welcome to the 201st edition of the Carnival of the Mobilists and the second edition hosted here on my blog.

Although it’s only been a few months since my inaugural hosting, there have been lots of news in Canada has it relates to mobile. For one thing, the iphone is now available on all three major carriers in Canada now (Rogers, Bell, Telus) after Bell & Telus announced the early activation of their new national high speed HSPA network. Canada is one of the first countries globally to have this coveted device readily available to pretty much everybody.

This will have huge ramifications going into the new year for mobile in Canada – especially as it relates to the mobile web vs mobile applications discussion.

Who would have thought even 3 months ago that Canada would suddenly be an influencer in global mobile trends?

Speaking of mobile trends, the hyperbole over the Apple tablet which will further blur the definition of mobile and traditional computing is reaching manic levels of attention in the media. Randy Giusto from NewDigitalCafé thinks Android based tablets could actually be the next big thing and outlines how the latest entry into the convergence space could change your disposable income patterns in the near future.

Volker Hirsch also joins the convergence discussion with an assessment of the Nokia 5330 Mobile TV Edition. As he rightly points out, no matter how advanced and technically impressive a device is, user experience will always trump tech.

Will RIM become the new Palm with the rollout of the Droid? Palm as we know took the biggest hit when the iphone first came to market and so Francisco Kattan predicts and outlines why he believes the new Droid will also fail to impact the iphone and will instead take a bite out of the blackberry.

Mark Jaffe over at Mobile Mandala writes about the ubiquity of SMS in today’s society and explores some useful SMS push alerts that are readily available while wondering why there aren’t more.

Another area of mobile that has been slow to meet our hopes and expectations is near field communications (NFC). With so much promise to revolutionize payments, loyalty and information sharing, we aren’t nearly where we thought we would be by now. C. Enrique Ortiz provides his perspective on where the NFC industry is at and what it needs to do to start reaching its potential.

That wraps up this week’s Carnival of the Mobilists. In case you missed the Carnival last week, drop by Mobilestance and catch last week’s post.  Be sure to drop by Mobile Strategy next Monday as they are hosting Carnival of the Mobilists #202.