Chalk it up as another banner quarter for Devicescape.  On the heels of growing to over 4 million hotspots globally, Devicescape just released its Q3 2011 Wi-Fi report.  What’s interesting about this quarter’s report is that I’m seeing some wavering in service provider loyalty.  Being a long-time Verizon Wireless subscriber myself, I assumed that most people were like me and would be resistant to carrier switching.  Unless of course it’s a hardware matter such as getting an iPhone but that has become irrelevant since Verizon now carries that smartphone.

Data capping has become more and more of a subscriber concern over the last year with major carriers announcing intentions to get rid of unlimited data plans.  Although the reality is that most people don’t come close to the proposed plan caps, the idea of taking away consumer value from their plans is perceived as a hit to the consumer experience.  In the Devicescape report, 88% of respondents said that unlimited data plan offers would sway purchasing decisions.  If the mobile operators want to avoid carrier switching, they better come up with some solutions and educate their subscribers.  Data usage is only going to increase over time as rich content such as movies will get more data intensive.

One obvious and cost effective solution to this potential problem is data offloading.  If the network operators can offload data to existing Wi-Fi networks whereby subscribers come nowhere near their data caps, the matter of capping and unlimited plans will eventually become a non-issue.  And as a result, subscriber retention will increase.

There are more interesting statistics like this in the current report.  Below are other findings we uncovered:

• Almost 82 percent of respondents say that Wi-Fi is very important when it comes to using a smartphone or tablet, while only 4.9 percent say it is not important.

• Wi-Fi takes the lead over cellular networks, with 88 percent of respondents agreeing that rich media such as video runs much faster on Wi-Fi.

• A staggering 82.9 percent of respondents expect their service provider to provide them with a Wi-Fi network.

• Twenty-six percent of respondents are not aware that many service providers are data-capping smartphone plans.

• Wi-Fi hotspots are clearly in demand, with 78.7 percent of respondents relying on Wi-Fi hotspots for device connectivity needs while roaming.

To view the full report, download a copy using the link below.

http://www.devicescape.com/assets/docs/DevicescapeQ32011WiFiReport.pdf

We’re happy to announce that we’ve added support for Blackberry devices.  Easy WiFi is now available on App World.  Hurrah!

This version of Easy WiFi is focused more tightly on the cellular offload problem.  It allows users to automatically connect to the Easy WiFi Network or any other WiFi providers they might use, but it drops the map and certain other niceties.  It’s just amazing how rapidly the mobile world is evolving and how the platform lineup has shifted so dramatically over the last few years.

When we started it was all about Windows Mobile, Windows PC, and Symbian.

Then Symbian started to mean “Nokia”.

Then iPhone appeared and we saw the ascension of the smartphone but WinMo apparently was in the bathroom while everyone was getting ready to go out to the party.  It quickly became iOS, Blackberry and Windows PC and we have to invite Symbian along.

Windows PC goes to the gym and tries to lose some pounds with Atom.

Suddenly Android hits and the lineup is iOS, Blackberry, Android.  Symbian fell off a cliff, and although the PC is still huge the playing field has changed and the Netbook doesn’t allow you entry into the new mobile club.

Today, it’s all about Android and iOS.  Blackberry still is huge as is the PC, but they’re just not at the head of the pack.  WinMo and Symbian are essentially dead.  Windows Phone looks interesting but a niche for now and no momentum.

What’s next?  I don’t know, but I know we’re sick of porting!

We recently decided to deemphasize iOS and withdraw our Easy WiFi apps from the App Store.  Sadly, the iOS platform has become less and less capable of supporting our product and we felt that the functionality had become so marginalized that it frustrated users.  It was doing more harm than good to keep them available.

This is somewhat ironic given that iOS was the first mobile platform we supported.  For a while, Easy WiFi was a top app in the App Store, making it to number 4 in popularity.  We felt like rock stars for a while!  This was during the days when AT&T needed you to jump through hoops to get connected at Starbucks and users quickly discovered we were a one-click solution to that problem.  Soon after, iOS 3.x rolled out and not only made the platform hostile to Easy WiFi (and similar apps from our peers) but AT&T locations gained built-in authentication (via WISPr, for those of you who care).

This wasn’t an easy decision for us.  Apple is very relevant and we certainly feel we have huge value to add.  Their current solution for hotspots – other than the single carrier network – is truly horrible and so, well, un-Apple!  Perhaps they hired some people who designed Windows Vista’s UAC?  My guess is that most iOS users are just so sick of clearing the “auto login” popup that they simply switch WiFi off and stick to cellular, adding further to the carrier data congestion woes.

So, our apologies to those of you out there with iOS, especially the loyal enthusiasts that have helped us with Easy WiFi over the past few years.  We hope to see you again, perhaps on iOS or maybe Android…which is powerful enough to support us fully

iRiver announced today that they are using Easy WiFi to provide global hotspot connectivity for their eBook readers!  The announcement showed the iRiver Story as a first recipient.

Of course eReaders are just one category of emerging WiFi devices, but a good one for Easy WiFi.  The devices typically don’t include web browsers and need to be simple for all types of people to use.  Manually logging into public networks is so incredibly painful it’s doubtful users would really subject themselves to it.

Easy WiFi gives iRiver’s users the capability to choose the WiFi providers they want, and be logged in automatically.  And, since Easy WiFi supports thousands of providers all over the world, iRiver get a single solution for a global market.

Eye-Fi announced today that their new X2 cards are being upgraded with Easy WiFi!  If you don’t know Eye-Fi, they make super cool SD storage cards for digital cameras which contains a WiFi chip that can automatically upload your photos to the web.

What this means for users is that they can now upload their pictures all over the world, at the many hundreds of Easy WiFi Network locations!  Imagine being able to share your photos quickly, have “endless storage” because your card is never full, and have a web backup in case you lose your camera.  The Eye-Fi card does all that!

We’re very excited to be working with Eye-Fi.  Aside from a great product, it’s an amazing example of what Easy WiFi can do.  An SD card is a challenging environment to say the least – despite the lack of UI and limited resources, Easy WiFi still allows the X2 card to access a world of WiFi automatically.

Congrats to our partners at Eye-Fi for this groundbreaking new product!  Learn more at eye.fi.

First the good news: Easy WiFi is back in the Apple App Store.  Yay!  Now the bad news: Easy WiFi is out of Nokia Ovi  Huh?!

Yes, it’s been quite interesting recently with these App Stores.  In the case of Apple, we’ve been out of the store for a while, reworking the app and resubmitting to conform to their every changing policies.  Still, we’re very happy to be back and looking forward to getting some real development done that adds value in a future release.

For Ovi, distribution was halted because of a policy change for products containing encryption.  Quite draconian.  We’re not alone in being impacted, and it’s probably going to take a month or two to sort out.  Meanwhile, Nokia users can download the app directly from us at www.easywifi.com/download.

Although we’ve been quiet for a while, there lot’s of new development activity at Devicescape.  There will be a bunch of new releases coming soon, and you’ll see them first on Android.  See if you can guess why!

You might notice that the main Easy WiFi application is not currently available in Apple’s app store.  We actually removed availability of the app a few days back because the behavior wasn’t quite right on some devices and networks and we wanted to ready a new version.  Ironically, we got hit in the much reported “WiFi scanner” purge that Apple did yesterday, so Apple removed our already unavailable app!

Now, the Network version of Easy WiFi isn’t a WiFi scanner, although it does try to do smart stuff with WiFi on the iPhone OS, and this may have triggered Apple’s action.  Nonetheless, we’re working on a new version which should calm their concerns and it should be in process within the next few hours.  All being well, we’ll have a new app approved and available soon.  Watch this space.

As part of our continuing goal to improve Easy WiFi we’re running a survey.   If you’re a user of the Easy WiFi app on your device, or the web portal at easywifi.com, this is a good chance to tell us what you think!

The survey is brief and should take 5 minutes or less to complete.  We’ll post the results here in early March, but you can be assured we’ll take your input to heart.

Click here to access the survey!

Many thanks in advance,

Dave

The Easy Wi-Fi multi network application (white icon) is temporarily unavailable in the Apple App Store.    It will be restored on or around October 20th.

So, why is it unavailable?  Well, we’re working on a big new release, version 4.  Due to the odd behavior of the App Store we can’t have the old version available while we also have a newer version with restricted availability.  We’re not quite ready for prime time on the new app so we want to get it out to our partners and friends who will check it out and give us great suggestions.  This forces us to halt broad availability and control access via Apple’s “promo codes.”

Sorry for the delay.  Meantime you could use another version of Easy Wi-Fi (they’re all extensible to any hotspot provider).

What does version 4 contain?  Well, it’s a secret!  But we’re quite excited as it adds a revolutionary capability that many of you have asked for.  Here’s a graphic from the app to tickle your imagination.  Can you guess?

Want to be among the select reviewers of the new app?  Send us an email request.  We have 10 promo codes available and we’ll allocate them based on the inventiveness of your guess on what’s in version 4 and the sincerity of your plea

We’re happy to announce that Easy Wi-Fi works fine in the latest 3.1 firmware for the iPhone and iPod touch.  Yay!  Thanks to our friends at Apple for helping accommodate us.

Having got that out the way, there are a couple of things you might need to know.  First of all, Apple’s special support only applies to the original Easy Wi-Fi multi-network application (the one with the white icon).  If you’re using any of the other Easy Wi-Fi apps, like the AT&T or T-Mobile version, you’ll need to install the original version too.  It’s free in the AppStore.  You don’t need to use it: just the act of installing it has the effect of telling the iPhone OS not to do “smart” stuff with your Wi-Fi connection in hotspots.

Finally, if you’re one of the many iPod touch users who never upgraded from 2.x firmware, ignore all of this.  You’re fine.  The issue only occurs with iPhone OS 3.0, and if you upgrade you’ll be jumping past that version from now on.

We’re relieved to be back working better on the iPhone and iPod, although it’s clear that Apple hotspot support is still a work in progress.  They did a great job by automating the operator’s Wi-Fi so that sign-in on AT&T (in the US) is seamless.   But their support for other hotspots is really poor and we’re glad that we can help a little with an automated solution.