Overview

In parallel with the amazing evolution of mobile wireless technologies, a full spectrum of next-generation mobile applications and services have begun to surface in countries where the penetration of cell phones and networked personal digital assistants (PDAs) is high. New mobile applications are being driven by mobile service providers seeking new value-added applications and services to take advantage of 3G systems and other wireless data infrastructures. Traditional mobile applications, such as voice, and simple data services, such as Internet surfing, are not enough today; consumers are looking forward to better leveraging the mobility supplied by low-power, wireless-capable mobile devices to enjoy rich-content entertainment, ubiquitous information access, and agile business operations.

This chapter introduces several mobile applications that will expand greatly over the next several years. To simplify the discussion and provide an overview of the mobile applications landscape, the chapter categorizes these applications as location-based services and location-aware mobile computing, mobile messaging, mobile multimedia, mobile commerce, and telematics, each category encompassing a wide range of mobile applications. For each category of mobile applications, the discussion focuses on the technological and economic challenges encountered in building systems for specialized applications. We also want to link the needs of consumers and enterprise users for mobile computing to enabling wireless technologies in an effort to shed some light on potential mobile applications that so far do not exist.