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TopCharacteristics Of Mobile Devices
Mobile devices are negatively characterised by:
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Small screen sizes (limited real estate).
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Restrictive input mechanisms.
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Limited CPU.
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Limited storage (persistent and Random Access Memory (RAM)).
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Limited power capacity.
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Fluctuating network connectivity - unreliable radio, packet loss and service termination.
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Narrow bandwidth.
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Expensive (unpredictable) data traffic.
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Expensive and unpredictable data traffic cost.
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Vastly differing Operating Systems (OS) between devices.
Many of these characteristics improve as devices become more powerful and capable, while the cost of use is mainly a business concern.
Despite continuing advances in infrastructure, “...mobile communication will remain costly, unreliable, and different from communication over fixed networks” (Kovacs, Robrie, & Reich, 2006).
The primary differentiating capability of mobile devices is pervasiveness. It facilitates roaming communication (data and voice) and location sensitivity. Retaining this capability, necessitates the `negative' characteristics; for example, making a device's screen larger makes it easier to read but increases the space required to transport it and reduces mobility.
Intel Corporation1 is the largest semiconductor producer in the world and the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors used in many personal computers. Taking CPU speed as indicative of the progression of computing devices, Intel CPU's achieve clock speeds of near 4GHz with `Extreme', `Xeon' and poly-core varieties for wired devices. Intel introduced their 386 SL processor specifically to support portable devices in 19902. Currently they produce `Atom' processors for Mobile Internet Devices (MID) that reach speeds approaching 2GHz, the same speed common in desktop machines in 2001. Another major mobile device hardware developer, Qualcomm3 is producing similarly high performance CPU's for their `Snapdragon Platform'4.