Our INGDirect mobile banking solution has moved to full production (see www.INGDirect.com/m). User feedback has been outstandingly positive. Not surprisingly, the feedback from this real-world production mobile web application also indicates many users would love to see more application-like capabilities including integration with phone features, such as location services and email/contact integration.
We heartily agree. Clearly not all customers have the same phone, so this comes down to moving to a more application-like format on selected smart phone platforms, primarily the BlackBerry and the iPhone. And this really underlines something we've been saying for a very long time: Build your mobile channel on web-based applications that can be accessed by all phones. Then, selectively wrap those applications in application containers that provide native application functionality wherever judged most appropriate.
You can build your mobile web applications from scratch with back-end web services for integration, or better still, use ShrinkRay to re-purpose your existing web applications (hint: this is better, faster and cheaper!), or a combination of the two. This provides a solution that works on the broadest number of mobile devices, ensuring no user or customer is left out. Then, as users and customers move to dominant smart-phone platforms, provide enhanced solutions by wrapping your mobile web application in an application wrapper. Nice. Easy.
Dave
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