Impact of the "bump" to 50MB 3G downloads

With the announcement of iPad 3 and its many new features - especially the new amazing display - many people missed the other important announcement made today. Apple has announced that they have increased the size of downloads that can be send over a 3G network to 50Mb from 20MB. Great story on AppleInsider

This will have an important impact on how developers create applications for iOS.  Many developers have deliberately held back the graphics and functions of their apps due to the need to make sure that the app could be downloaded from iTunes over 3G.

With a 50Mb limit developers can now create amazing graphically rich apps for all iOS displays, including Retina for iPad 3.

We predict that this means that there will be lots of new exciting apps coming. Looking forward to seeing them!

What could the 2 secret features be in iOS 5.1?

With Apple set to release the iPad 3 within 24 hours, and with lots of speculation as to the hardware changes already been discussed on the blogsphere, people are now turning their attention to speculating at the software.

In a post on his official blog, the hacker known as "Chronic," who is a member of the iOS jailbreaking community, citing a "very solid source" revealed that there are 2 secret features coming with iOS 5.1 - anticipated to be released with the iPad 2 - or possibly iPad HD.

We would love to see your guesses as to what those secret features might be.

We have heard about the new category that has been posted to the AppStore - Catalogues -, and the Japanese version of Siri,  but could there be something really new coming that we don't have any idea about.

Feel free to post your ideas here - and we will all see together tomorrow.

MWC update

Whats it all been about?

On the carrier infrastructure side - LTE and associated technologies including beam forming antennas, new generation power supplies, and discussions about TDD spectrum dominated.

TDD is (and its not just about whats happening in China - great white paper HERE from Alca-Lu) becoming something that the carriers and regulators can't ignore.

For us at BTC its been all about Enterprise Mobility and the positioning of technologies like MDM and MAM.

We have seen a lot of what were consumer developers (building apps for the masses) move to enterprise focus due to the increasing difficulty of getting noticed in a consumer app world with hundreds of thousands of offerings.

This is all good news for enterprise and government users who are continuing to feel more comfortable about deployments.



How about the Protests?

We were right in the middle of the protests at MWC - photo - but frankly it was well managed by the Spanish authorities with (we estimated) more police than protesters on the streets.

Fun Stuff

Lots of fun stuff was on display - notably at the Android stand (extremely well put together) you could get a free Ice Cream Sandwich  - photo - and see the latest in Android developments. Whilst the exposure to the Android platform was great, even at the "factory stand" the issue being raised by all the developers was the continued fragmentation of the platform.  A great example is the new "note" type devices being developed by Samsung and LG - both of which use the Google Stylus API then rebuild the entire OS to make it integrated across all app - which can be an issue as the Google experts at the show were unable to think of a way to disable that feature (which could be an issue for enterprise and government users concerned about document leakage).

Booths

There were some massive stands, with the big guys like Intel, NEC, Samsung, LG, and others spending millions on impressive displays - photo -.  And then some interesting smaller displays were shown where the product had to speak for itself.

Overall

It was a great show and certainly this team learned a lot - and hopefully contributed to the discussion here as well.  To get a better idea of the show - and to see who made the grade - make sure you check out the Global Mobile Awards 2012