Mobile Marketing Essay -- Technology, Mobile Applications

2.1 Handheld Mobile Devices and Mobile Applications 2.1.1 Defining Handheld Mobile Devices The medium for mobile applications is a mobile device. While the functions of mobile devices vary, the key criteria such a device must fulfil is portability. To that extent, mobile devices have been described as ‘interactive wireless media’ (Haghirian and Madlberger 2005, 2). Mobile devices offer a range of capabilities, but essentially they allow access to data and information with the opportunity of being used in a variety of environments (ISACA 2010, 2). The term ‘handheld mobile device’ indicates that the device is limited to something that can be ‘held in the hand(s)’. Even so, the term ‘handheld mobile device’ may represent a different meaning to different people and therefore can be anything from a PDA to a digital camera. For the purpose of this paper, the term handheld mobile device (henceforth abbreviated as mobile device) will be associated only with those mobile computing devices that have the capability of downloading third-party mobile applications (as defined in 2.1.3). Namely, these are smartphones, PDAs and tablet PCs. 2.1.1.1 Mobile phones There are many known terms for mobile phones including cell phone, basic phone, feature phone, traditional mobile phone, smartphone, and system phone. Nonetheless, it can be argued that mobile phones currently on the market are typically categorised as either ‘feature phones’ or a ‘smartphones’. The definitions of these two types are widely discussed and disputed by analysts, manufacturers, journalists, and end users. The lack of a standard definition can be attributed to the advancement of mobile phone technology. As the technology continues to evolve, definitions are subject to ch... ...s have existed since the development of mobile devices. â€Å"Downloadable† applications (such as DMO apps), however, have only spread and reached mainstream usage with the emergence of smartphones and PDAs (Holzer and Ondrus 2011, 22). Beyond the fundamental definition, there are a range of classifications that a mobile application may fall under. In their 2008 white paper on mobile applications, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) suggests that, from a technical viewpoint, mobile applications can be distinguished according to the runtime environment in which they function. The MMA lists three types of runtime environments, namely native platforms and operating systems, mobile web and browser runtimes, and other managed platforms and virtual machines. By and large, however, the industry makes a distinction between native applications and web-based applications.