As it says. Useful. Opera 10.5 Desktop, 10 Mobile, 5 Mini.

Apps are harmful because they're one-platform and lock data on the client device instead of in the cloud, where they can easily be reached by other users, or by the same user on another device. They are just a fad that will blow over.

An excellent comparison of touchscreen phone browsers.

Tomi Ahonen updates his smartphone war forecast: Apple is in trouble. Christmas sales weren't high enough. Plus other news.

As it says.

Thoughtful extended piece on the future of app stores. The only part I disagree with is the bit about the operators. The author thinks they're going to be losers, but they have a trump card up their sleeves: payments.

Payments through operator bills will always have better usability than any other form of payments, because the client doesn't have to do anything special. As long as the payment request is routed through the SIM card, identity and mode of payment are automatically validated without any need for passwords and stuff.

As it says, plus a comparison of developing applications for the three systems. Quite thorough, good read. And yes, the writer eventually picks one of the three as the winner.

Seems RIM (the maker of BlackBerry) is working on a set-up that resembles Opera Mini a bit (but not quite). Devices will have a proxy server embedded that requests pages from a special server that compresses the (entire?) HTML page before sending it. The proxy seems to serve as a cache in addition to decompressing the page.

(Click on the image to go to the patent.)

As far as I can see there's some difference with Opera's system, although the basic idea is of course the same. Still, it seems that the browser eventually gets real HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and images, and not one binary file such as Opera Mini receives.

But I'm not sure of the technical details. In any case, this will speed up BlackBerry browsing quite a bit. Add that to the upcoming WebKit-based BlackBerry browser, and we can conclude that RIM is doing a major overhaul of its browsing infrastructure. That was very necessary.

The NetFront browser for mobile phones has a new version. As far as I'm concerned this should be a really major (and I mean really major) improvement over 3.5, or NetFront is out of the mobile browser race.

Extremely interesting forecast for the 2010 movements in the smartphone market. Summary:

1. There is fundamentally nothing wrong with Nokia, although it won't grow in 2010.
2. Everybody underestimates BlackBerry.
3. Apple will do well if it holds on to its market share in a fast-expanding smartphone market.
4. Keep an eye on HTC and LG.
5. Samsung will go up, SonyEricsson down.
6. Motorola is dead; it just hasn't stopped moving yet.
7. Palm is irrelevant and may also be dead.
8. Google has broken its word not to be a phone vendor. It remains to be seen how much backlash they'll get.
9. Microsoft may go under, too, every new Windows Mobile version just takes too long.
10. Everybody is obsessed with app stores, but in the end they won't determine market share.

Must-read if you're in the mobile space.

I didn't quite realise what a game-changer Google's unlocking could be. First pick your phone, then pick a carrier plan you like. Might change the way carriers work.

Dennis Bournique looks ahead to the year, and concludes that the mobile and desktop web will converge, maybe even a bit faster than is safe. Also,

More Android, Symbian and Maemo, less iPhone

I'm not totally sure about Symbian, but on the whole I agree. The mobile space is more than just the iPhone, and 2010 is the year we're going to figure that out.

How Palm wasted the good vibes the Pre's initial announcement gave them. This blog wonders if they'll be bought by RIM (BlackBerry); it doesn't believe in the Microsoft option.

Good piece about the mobile connection problem. It seems one smartphone generates as much data traffic as 40 feature phones. So if the sales of smartphones keep exploding, operators will run into network problems sooner or later.

This problem has a lot of aspects, and the writer treats many of them. Solid reading.

The ballot screen on new Windows computer will give a randomized list of alternative browsers.