Doing that mobile thing

For the last two months I have been using 3's unlimited X-Series Silver Internet package. This has allowed me to use multiple mobile applications and services. However until the last week I haven't had to solely rely on it for my daily dose of Internet goodness. Last week I was away at Cefn Lea, which is near Newtown in Mid Wales. Sadly I had no broadband Internet access so in order to pick up mail and keep up to date with all my blog's. Now I was expecting that doing this on my tiny Sony Ericsson K800i would be a bit of a drag. However I was pleasantly surprised, using the gMail Java application and Google Maps was great. These applications if you haven't tried them are very easy to use and really do add to the mobile Internet experience, using your keypad for quick access to your inbox and to compose well saves Lot's of time and emails render amazingly well on such a small screen and you still get to see Google convert and render basic attachments for your mobile pleasure. Google haven't let us mobile users down with Google Calendar mobile edition and Google Reader mobile edition either. These online applications really do work. In my opinion Google Calendar mobile is still a touch in its infant stage as when you try to add an event its always entered as the current hour's event, which doesn't help, but it does have great potential. Sadly though, even Google can not save the entire day for mobile users. Google tries to convert as many sites as possible for mobile viewing if you use their search engine, but sometimes this still doesn't work. Some sites just aren't mobile friendly, sadly i must admit that trying to use Yahoo mail was one of these, it just wasn't happy and had some odd rendering. Flickr, CricInfo, BBC just to name a few however are awesome and work really well. Flickr Mobile even allows you to upload images directly from your mobile phone, tag them and do all types of awesome things. So after a week of mobile Internet instead of broadband I have to say it's getting there. Being able to access email and basic websites on the move is now becoming far more than a fad or just for "business" people. Especially with the introduction of monthly flat rate mobile access pricing. I would expect with the introduction of flat rate access that mobile web usage should go up. This should also mean mobile web applications which are accessible should become the norm. However for this to happen developers need to ensure they either make mobile editions of there sites which will encure more development or test their sites in a mobile environment. Now I'm not sure how wide spread this will become, but I would hope at least that as the Internet becomes more accessible on a mobile device that more effort will be put into the mobile development area. If Google have a say in it, I'm sure it won't be long before most of their applications will be found as mobile apps. Here's hoping for Google Doc's on your mobile ;)