According to many pundits on these here interwebs, Web Apps like Google Docs, Writely and Backpack will soon be the dominant platform - rendering your choice of operating system irrelevant. All you will need to do some work is an internet connection.
And there’s the rub. What happens when your ISP decides to do some maintenance or you find yourself somewhere with no wifi or 3G signal?
Google Gears is an attempt to build a platform for running web apps while offline by using a simple, local webserver running on your device. It’s still in beta (what isn’t?), but several web apps now support it.
What has been lacking to date is cross-platform support for mobile devices. Windows Mobile 5 & 6 are supported, but the mobile Internet Explorer is lacking in a few key areas such as adequate CSS support.
Opera has just announced that the next version of both its desktop and mobile browser will offer full Gears support. The free (java) Opera Mini isn’t up to hosting a Gears app yet, but the non-free Opera Mobile 9.5 will be able to run Gears on both WinMo and Symbian phones
via IntoMobile
There’s been plenty of talk recently about the rules concerning mobile use on airplanes being relaxed. Spying an opportunity for some cheeky brand promotion, Yahoo has commissioned a topical survey to find out what us Brits make of the news. And it seems 87% of us would like voice calls to stay banned on flights. It’s understandable, given the prospects of some annoying businessman quacking away next to you for an entire long-haul flight. However, Yahoo claims that UK consumers “strongly” support the idea of accessing mobile data features while flying, with 49% saying email would be the most useful feature, and 14% saying they’d like to check the weather. It has to be said though that some stats are lacking from the announcement of the survey results. For example, how many people said they WOULDN’T want mobile internet usage allowed on planes? It could be as high as 51%, in theory…
Cider’s romantic properties are underestimated by everyone except students, who know exactly how a few pints of the murky stuff can enliven their chances of pulling. However, Strongbow is hoping to get the message out to more people with a new mobile advertising promotion on the Flirtomatic social network. How will it work? Well, banner ads on the Flirtomatic mobile site will allow users to give a ‘virtual pint’ of Strongbow to people they’re flirting with on the service. And that virtual pint can be clicked on to take people to a separate WAP site and register for a real-world voucher to get a free pint, and details of nearby pubs where they can claim it. It’s the first example of a brand using the virtual gift feature on a UK mobile social network, apparently. Naturally, only over-18s are allowed to claim the freebie - something that fits well with Flirtomatic’s own age-verification processes. What about all us happily-married cider lovers, though? Well, we can point our mobile browsers at 
Qype is a website that’s been going for a while now, allowing people to rate and review places in their locality - everything from pubs and restaurants through to schools, shops and dog kennels. It’s pretty cool, and has already built up a database of 200,000 reviews from its users. Anyway, the company has just launched an iPhone-friendly version of its site, giving access to more than 6,000 cities worth of data, and 500 different kinds of business. You can search it by street name and postcode too, making it useful when out and about (which, to be honest, is the only time you’d be using the iPhone version rather than the main website anyway). iQype (as it’s known) works with Google Maps too, ensuring you can get to the places you’ve looked up. Reviews are offered in English, German and French, and the site is live now. At the moment, you can only browse it - you can’t interact by adding your own reviews - but maybe that’ll come in the future. Simply point your iPhone browser at 
17% of Brits would be willing to buy products and services through their mobile phone, according to a 
Good news, people of Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester and Reading. The six cities are due to get Vodafone’s high-speed mobile broadband network by this Autumn, as the operator continues to roll out HSDPA across the UK. They join London and the major British airports, which were the first to get it last year. Vodafone is also making a step up in the way it sells mobile broadband contracts to customers, offering more easily understandable information at the point of purchase - for example, explaining how many emails and web pages your tariff allows you to download, and how long it’ll take you to download files, films and music over the network. Films? They’re encouraging people to download films over a mobile broadband connection? There better be generous data limits on those tariffs!
If you’re a heavy user of the Google Reader RSS site on your computer, you’ll probably know there’s an iPhone version already available. However, Google has just revamped it to make it easier to use, bringing the look and feel into line with its existing (and excellent) Gmail iPhone site.The star feature to highlight stories for later reading has been made more prominent (i.e. easier to jab with your thumb), and the new site also supports the new ‘Notes’ feature for Google Reader. It’s also much, much faster to use according to 
I’ll be honest: if you’re reading this blog, chances are you’re not entirely clueless about the mobile internet. Yet maybe your friends and family could do with a bit of help. If so, point them in the direction of 
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