Steve Mollenkopf (President and COO) gave a good overview of the status of the mobile market and particularly how things were going for Qualcomm. In summary – very well. More chips, more devices and more innovative technologies that Qualcomm are integrating into their chip designs. Some useful demos, particularly of the next-generation SnapDragon processor and of the Augmented Reality Vuforia SDK, showed that Qualcomm are not just good with VHDL.

The highlight, however, was a segment by Nokia’s Jo Harlow (Exec. VP). A lot of questions persist about how Nokia will compete and whether it is worth app developers spending effort on redesign and reworking their apps to suit Windows Phone 8. Jo’s presentation showed that there is still plenty of fight left in Nokia, with clever technology pieces such as wireless charging, exchangeable covers and clever hardware/software tricks in video stabilisation. Of course, Nokia gets key billing because it has included the latest Snapdragon processor in the 920 device – which received a good plug from Jo.

Nokia still have an uphill battle, but with the key gadget purchasing season round the corner they are well placed to compete. Notable by their absence, though, are Apple. By fiat, no Apple devices are shown in any slideware, by anyone, in anything, despite the fact that most attendees have at least one, possibly two Apple devices in their possession. When Apple unleash their latest tomorrow, we’ll see whether Nokia – or anyone else – are doing enough to convince consumers to choose them instead.

MWC, the mobile industry’s annual get-together, starts on Monday, February 27th. About 60,000 people will descend on Barcelona from all parts of the globe hoping to hawk their wares, find suppliers, establish new relationships or renew old ones. It’s like a week of corporate speed dating.

For small developers, especially those who self-fund and lack the deep pockets necessary to set up a stand, MWC represents a yearly dilemma.

• Attending MWC can be expensive (see my earlier post on avoiding extortion).
• It’s a huge stage for a small developer so it’s easy to blend into the background.
• Even if you do get there, most people on stands are there to sell, not to be sold to.

So what’s the point in turning up?

When Airsource started 5 years ago, it was virtually impossible to make money selling software directly to consumers. The only hope you had was to establish a relationship with an operator or a handset manufacturer. There were so many people trying to do this that only the well-funded – with significant sales teams – could hope to endure the year-long sales cycle.

Today, app stores allow developers to find customers and sell to them without needing to engage with either operators or device manufacturers. What makes or breaks a device for a consumer is less about the whizzbang hardware features and more about how users can extend the experience of ownership by buying apps. The balance of power is shifting away from the few organisations who can license radio spectrum or build mass-market mobile phones and towards the developers who write the apps.

The last time I attended MWC was 2009. Apple’s appstore was growing fast. The iPad did not exist. Small software companies were viewed with mild amusement and general skepticism.

Today I can tell my barber that my company writes apps and he understands me. Everybody seems to have ideas for apps. An explosion of creativity is taking place. Possibilities seem endless.

So I want to see how this new reality is changing things. Over the next week I’ll be posting regularly as I investigate the effects on both the mobile behemoths and the little guys, Airsource included.

My freebie ticket this year is thanks to mobile device management company MFormation (via a giveaway at Mobile Monday London).

What’s new in 2.0:

• No more tap to scan! Optiscan now launches straight into scan mode for ease of use.
• Icon and UI redesign. We thought it could do with a sprucing up, so we tweaked the look to be more up-to-date and utilitarian. What do you think?
• Enhanced scanning engine. With every release of Optiscan we tweak the scanning software more and more to cope with the plethora of designer codes and locations. After testing, we scan more QR Codes than any other app!
• Scan from clipboard.“I can’t scan from my mobile browser!”, we heard you cry. Well now you can!
• QR Codes for Events. We wanted to include this last time, but we just weren’t happy enough with the way they where dealt with. Now we are!

We hope you enjoy using this version of Optiscan. Show us what you’ve done with it and we’ll pass it on!

You’ve always been able to create a plethora of QR Code content types with Optiscan, but now we’ve made it even easier for you with a new menu of options. These include:

• SMS Create a QR Code containing a message and the phone number to SMS it to – great for marketing!
• Location To our knowledge Optiscan is the only QR Code generator app that lets you pinpoint a map location without having to type the address in!
• Email Similar to the SMS option, setup an email message, subject line and recipients all in one QR Code
• Telephone Keep it simple – your phone number in a QR Code
• Wi-Fi Need to share your wi-fi details easily? Put them in a QR Code and pass it round!

All these options have been added at the request of our users in addition to our standard Contact (with vCard or MeCard options), URL and Text note options. We hope you enjoy using Optiscan even more now to scan and create all those QR Codes!

Coming to an iPhone near you soon: Optiscan 2.0: The Scanner Strikes Back!

So what is it that I’ve been doing? My first few weeks were a steep learning curve, as I battled to comprehend the delegate design pattern while also trying to work out why there’s a small toy bear which lives in the office. (Though I am now completely au fait with the former, the latter continues to bemuse me)! A couple of code reviews later I had free reign to amend or add code, and moved onto adding social media compatibility to several of our apps. If you’re planning to do this yourself, I would recommend ShareKit as a good starting point.

By mid-August I was working full time on Optiscan. There’s a host of new features which will arrive on the AppStore soon, including much more support for creating QR codes. As a member of the engineering team I played a big role in delivering this functionality, both from a coding perspective and by participating in numerous (friendly if raucous) office arguments! The last couple of weeks have seen development give way to testing, so I’ve been scrambling to fix any bugs before I leave. For any of you who are newbie iPhone developers I’d have 3 words of advice – watch out for memory warnings, be careful when using UITableViews, and always keep an eye on your reference counting!

It hasn’t all been coding though. I’ve spent many a lunchtime dreaming up app ideas on the office kitchen whiteboard, with concepts ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. The company lunches and barbecues were a particular highlight, as was a (slightly surreal) morning of set theory in order to write a Python script. These and other amusements unique to a small company like Airsource made this summer particularly enjoyable, even on the odd occasions where I did stare at the same bug for hours before seeing the simple solution!

Time to say farewell to everyone here, and thanks for a great summer. Keep an eye out for future releases of Optiscan and Cellar (there’s some quite cool stuff to come, by the sounds of things in the office). Adios!

(Oh and I must ask someone about that bear before I go…)