We’ll share what we think are the most interesting, or provoking, or challenging, or [insert your favorite adjective here] trends and topics in mobile – our goal is to start a conversation about our core interest: the mobile web.

Here’s our list for February:

400+ gigabyte download gets one lucky Russian a nice vacation

(and the rest of us get some ammo in our battle for mobile bandwidth) For most wireless customers in the US and Europe, “unlimited” data plans mean being able to download about 2 gigabytes of data per month. Russian wireless telecom MegaFon encouraged its customers to see how much they could download in November, December, and January, with the winner downloading 419 gigabytes in one week. This shows that not only are Russian mobile users hungry for content and data; it also shows that MegaFon can handle monster bandwidth demand. This should be an example to wireless providers in the US and elsewhere who put a cap on usage.

What’s in your [mobile] wallet?

It’s surprising to us that the US has lagged behind some Third World countries in mobile payment development. Some of that lag could be due to the highly-regulated banking systems of the US and Europe, but that gap will continue to close this year. As NFC (Near Field Communication) technology is included in more and more mobile devices – think Mobil Speed-Pass in your phone – you’ll see more and more opportunities in 2012 to simply wave your phone at a checkout terminal, get an electronic confirmation, and head home with your purchases. If you can do it in Kenya, why not in Kalamazoo?

One word: HTML5

OK, so it’s not really a word, it’s four letters and a number. However, that alphanumeric string is the future of the web. As Brett McLaughlin put it on O’Reilly Radar, “what’s important is not that HTML5 works on phones. What’s important is that HTML5 ‘just works.’” HTML5 removes much of the heavy lifting required by previous iterations of HTML when it comes to delivering content on multiple device platforms.  Like Brett said, it “just works”.

That’s our short list for February. If you’d like to have a conversation with us about the mobile web, throw us a comment or shoot us an email – and if you’d like to explore the possibilities of putting your ideas on a mobile platform, we’d be happy to have that conversation, too. Give us a call!

Let the games begin.

iPhone/iPad

iBooks /  iBooks Author (for Mac) | Free

As the key feature in Apple’s recent education event, iBooks 2 with textbooks as well as iBooks Author aim to be a game changer in the publishing world. Apple’s latest update of the iBooks app features a slew of new features especially for iPad users, including embedded video and interactivity, slick new animation effects, and automated flashcard creation. Not only can you read textbooks, but now you can easily create your own with the new iBooks author app for Mac. This is a obvious clue that Apple is trying to do for textbooks what they have already done for digital music, offering publishers an easy way to get their interactive content into ebook form and on sale, and I must say they have done quite an impressive job. In short, iBooks 2 is amazing, and I wish I was back in school. You can download it yourself from the App Store now.

Android

Where’s My Water? | $0.99

Where’s My Water? is a challenging physics-based puzzler complete with top-notch graphics, Multi-Touch controls, and a sensational soundtrack. As top dog in the Android Market’s ‘Top-Paid’ category, this Disney app gives you all you could want for .99 cents. To be successful in you efforts to help Swampy take his bath, you need to be clever and keep an eye out for al sorts of algae, toxic oozes, triggers, and traps. While some of it’s 140 levels are quite challenging, this game is definitely one for all ages, except for maybe those with slower reflexes. Download it today in the Android market

Come back and visit us every week for our new Apps of the Week!

iPhone/iPad

Tiny Tower | Free

As the 2011 Apple ‘Game of the Year’ this app hardly needs an introduction, and was therefore a shoe-in for our inaugural choice of iPhone App of the Week. For those who aren’t familiar, Tiny Tower lets players create a residential and commercial tower and control the lives of its inhabitants, known in the game as “bitizens.” With its elegant use of pixilated graphics style, easy to use interface, and seamless Game Center integration, this app is truly addictive. Whether an iPhone / iPad / or iPod touch this free app is a must download from iTunes.

Android

Dropbox | Free

If you do not yet have a Dropbox account…get one! Dropbox is a quick and easy way to keep all your files from one computer organized on all of your devices. Here’s a quick intro video for those who are’t familiar. If you need a little more convincing that this newly revamped app for android will definitely do the trick. With its new bulk uploading, file renaming and sharing tools it’s even easier to keep you files organized on any android device. The fact that its free makes this app a must download for all Android users.

Come back and visit us every week for our new Apps of the Week!

While brainstorming the different technologies that can be used to accomplish this, various options jumped out and made it to the whiteboard. Adobe Air, Cocoa application, etc. So, we went for the least complicated and clever option; a WEB APPLICATION.

HTML5, CSS, Safari, JavaScript and Plainview were the selected tools and technologies.

First, we started with the main html page using the HTML5 doctype in order to use the <video> tag. The site was styled with CSS and used JavaScript with the jQuery library to maximize the layout and video for use as a KIOSK. The video selection feature with the ability to scroll through a set of videos and to select and play each video was also coded with JavaScript and jQuery.

The video player was controlled by a separate JavaScript video object file. When initialized, the script would set the click event functions for the video selections, set various css and JavaScript variables for use throughout the video script, create an event listener for when the video ended, select and set the video source, show the title, and finally play the video.

The video source and titles were set in another JavaScript object, which was used to switch the videos easily when selected from the video selection feature, or when the event listener occurred after whichever video was playing ended, and move to the next video in the list.

Another feature was a popup dialog for a simple keypad that was used by the admins to close out the KIOSK web application, so they could use the computer normally. Normal patrons using the KIOSK would not know how to load the keypad and the code to close out the application. This made sure that the KIOSK was used as intended in public, and only with the web application.

Overall this was a fun and useful project where we can take what we learned and apply it to other web application projects.

So, does it make sense to build an Android Application or a mobile enabled application?

According to the latest numbers by Nielsen, Android is the single fastest-growing mobile platform. And Apple’s iOS shows  a decline. So, that time may be now. Find out more about the trends happening in the world of mobile development, and join the conversation – do you plan on developing an Android Application?

Mmmmusic to My Ears
Whoa. That’s food?
Yes. Sort of. In 2008 the Texas State Fair voted this treat the most creative (and possibly caloric!) food served at the fair. Ann Pinson reported it as the creation of Desperados Mexican Restaurant’s Mike and Jake Levy. The concoction It is a deep fried apple iPie served on two delicious scoops of vanilla icecream. So deep fried is it that it may outlast the new iPad for generations to come.

Petit Fours Apps Italian App Cake – So Cute!
We’re in the business of building apps, and think these little cakes at Blogodolci are a sweet idea. If you had your pick of the plate, which one would you choose?

Please Eat Any Key
This amazing keyboard is a techno-smore waiting to happen. Marshmallow and chocolate keys tucked inside a graham cracker bezel.

Oh, BlackBerry!
This one is confirmation that you can build just about anything out of sugar and dreams. Toxel.com brings you twenty-five marvelous cakes ranging from this gorgeous BlackBerry, to a supercool Nikon camera are sure to have you drooling.

Defend Your Turf! Tower Raiders 2 Beta is On The Warpath
At Android Police, Artem Russakovski is extolling the virtues of the epic Tower Raiders 2 Beta is a sequel for Android that gives you five levels and multiple weapons to destroy the onslaught of enemy forces attacking your stronghold. Check out his blog for great graphics and uber-excitement.

Foodies Unite
Food-related apps are about as numerous as all the closet foodies out there. Whether they cater to chefs, beer snobs and or cheese fanatics, smartphones are getting more savy about our diets. Brown-Eyed Baker published a list of cool food apps for iPhone with some great options available for cooks. Natalie Whittle at FT.com also offers several great options for Euro foodie apps. A whole app dedicated to finding the best Belgian beers? Splendid!

We’re proud to add our most recent app, iYUMMi, as a great food app with the potential to sprout additional tasty spinoffs this year. Users can log in via social media to critique photos of their favorite “yucks” and “yumms.” It’s sure to get friends talking over dinner again! Check it out here.

A Heart for Pong:
We heard about this from Anthony Domanico of Android and Me. Pong for Hope is an awesome philanthropic endeavor that brings the power of Android to a whole new level. The youth of the First Church of the Nazarene in Warrensburg, MO will play the original arcade Pong for donations to the American Heart Association. They have SURPASSED their goal, earning over $6,000! That’s a lot of Pong for a great cause! They are assisted in their cause by Streamly TV and Ray Walters (Android Guys). Check out their website for more information in their epic win.

One of the main benefits that Stashboard provides is that it can be deployed on Google App Engine — for free. This means it will not be directly tied to your infrastructure; which means if your entire system goes down, your users can remain joyfully informed.

Our only gripe with Stashboard is that it’s designed to be updated manually. We wanted to use it internally so we could quickly check on the servers powering Tulip or delivering content to Suite Tips or iYummi. Fortunately, it only takes minor amounts of hacking around in Python to make this possible. We present to you: hacks.

First, we have the workhorse of this particular hack. This is the script that will query our servers. You will need to modify the ‘servers’ array starting on line 14; just add your servers URL and service name (this is the ID you give to your server when you create it in the Stashboard admin.) Place this file in the project’s root directory.

After that, you just need to create a file called cron.yaml and put it in the project’s root directory as well.

And copy/paste the following code into your app.yaml file to create a pointer to ‘/check’.

Now you should have a functioning server monitor running on Google’s servers that will check your server statuses periodically. In the next episode, we’ll show you how to add notifications. Stay tuned.

Tap the Bunny

Traditional storytelling just became more interactive. Night and Day Studios’ Peekabo Barn allows touch phone users to tap on barn doors to hear animals in English and Spanish. Suitable for preeschool aged children and up. $1.99

Chinese Chicken

Ana Lomba, a multicultural education advocate, chooses storytelling as a vehicle to help kids pick up language. Her free ipad app, a Chinese/English version of The Little Red Hen, is beloved of children and adults. free

Shake It Up, Baby
Shake The Animals is an immersive iPhone app is sold by Rosa Barranco de Helfrich. It pairs sweet vector graphics with the appropriate name for a given animal. An audio playback accompanies text so kids can work on making the abstract connection between sound and print. Choose from English, Spanish and German. $.99