Mobile apps: what else do you want to do with your phone?
I had an interesting meeting this morning with a newly formed mobile application development group that is tasked with coming up with something that is useful to UW students and runs on a mobile device for the next phase (Spring 2007) of the project. The usual suspects were bounced around: Quest (student information system), Jobmine (Co-op employer/employee management system), Library systems, calenders, etc. Besides targeted data sources we also bounced around the idea of should it be web based and designed for the unpredictable mobile browser or a java app or a Flash mobile app? Each with their own quirky limitations.
What it boils down to though is what do students actually want to do with their phones? Surely you don’t want to apply to courses and fill out long emails but I bet you want to get notifications, reminders, etc. Maybe access quick information on things, send short notes, text other students, look up phone numbers…
This is an open question to all students (and anyone else really), if bandwidth cost was not an issue what would you like to do on your phone besides call people?