Good news! Boost for mobile apps and widgets as manufacturers sign on to JIL

I’ve long been a fan of the Joint Innovation Lab and what it stands for (see below), so I was delighted to see the news today. Four major mobile handset makers have signed on to the organisation, providing a solid base to what was previously a group comprised only of operators. Perhaps most importantly, one of those manufacturers is RIM - meaning that the JIL has also gotten the support of a mobile operating system with a decent and popular app store.

What is the JIL?

In April 2008, three mobile operators got together to pool resources for mobile internet services. China Mobile, SOFTBANK and Vodafone created the organisation for one purpose only - to overcome fragmentation in the mobile operating system market. They wanted to enable web-hosted widgets and apps to run seamlessly regardless of what handset, operating system or mobile operator they were on. One year later, in April 2009, Verizon Wireless joined the JIL (not long after, Verizon announced its own mobile app store). The major work of the JIL has been to create a set of software development kits (SDKs) for mobile application/widget developers, so that they could create a single application that would run on devices and networks all over the world - instead of having to create a new version of the app for every single device/OS out there.

And now the JIL has welcomed four of the biggest mobile manufacturers in the world on board: LG, RIM, Samsung and Sharp. All four device makers have agreed to support the JIL by adopting their application specs for their upcoming devices. There have been spotty launches of devices that support the JIL before, but this is the first major, global adoption of the standard.

What we think?

While this a big step forward for standardised mobile development, it’s by no means an end to troubles. There are other major organisations making their own stamp on standardisation (the OMTP, for example) - and every time someone announces a new standard it doesn’t make developers lives all that much easier.

But things are getting better. Large-scale adoption of a set of specifications like this does help. User experience across a wider set of handsets will become more cohesive, hopefully leading towards better public uptake of basic and useful mobile internet services. As Jonathan MacDonald said, don’t worry about defragmentation. As with the on-line web, it will take care of itself. What we are seeing here is part of a long, on-going process towards mobile standardisation.

However - it also has to be borne in mind that this is mostly just a deal between operators and manufacturers. So far, all the major interest in mobile applications and widgets has been through the actual operating systems. It would be nice to see Apple or Android getting involved here (although the current swings being taken by Verizon at Apple might not help there). The fact that RIM, and therefore the Blackberry, has gotten involved is very significant. The Blackberry app store may not be as popular as iTunes, but it has been growing quickly and steadily. This is exactly the kind of support that JIL needs to really get going… but it needs more.