Mobile hardware is progressing at a blistering pace. Displays continue to increase in size, color quality and resolution, while advancements such as glasses-free 3-D offer the promise of novel user experiences. Processors are adding cores and clock speed faster than ever before, and 4G radios have brought broadband data speeds to mobile devices. These unprecedented hardware innovations have set the stage for a brave new world of mobile computing in which nearly anything is possible on hand-held devices. However, they account for only part of the equation.

In order to deliver the type of user experiences enabled by these innovations software must keep pace – otherwise we will fall painfully short of capitalizing on the opportunities presented by these hardware achievements. This goes beyond the need for innovations in OSes and applications, to the underlying software that ties everything together. It’s the next great challenge faced by the mobile industry.

Software as the Connective Tissue of the Phone

When it comes to mobile software, the importance of operating systems and applications is well understood. The battle for smartphone OS market share evokes a feverish MLB pennant race, and the fact that we’re all hopelessly addicted to Angry Birds proves that mobile apps have thoroughly permeated the mainstream.

Less understood, however, is the importance of the underlying software layer; the connective tissue that ties hardware to software, such as optimizations between OS and chipset, performance advancements in web technology, and enhanced app performance. Without these efforts, gigahertz, cores and megabytes of RAM are nothing more than points on a spec sheet. In order to deliver the best possible mobile experiences, hardware and software cannot be viewed separately. They are attached at the hip, and integrating them to work in perfect unison is the key to driving mobile innovation forward.

Immediate benefits of intelligent integration include better graphical frame rates in games, faster web page downloads and smoother rendering and scrolling. These are just a sampling of the user experience improvements that will help mobile devices keep up with ever-increasing consumer expectations.

Innovating for the Future of the Mobile Web

All too often, the primary focus is on what the consumer wants today. It is our job to anticipate what the consumer will want tomorrow and innovate accordingly.

While today’s consumers are still largely enamored with the simple inclusion of mobile browsers, tomorrow’s expectations will include desktop-level browser performance, Web pages and apps running on par with native apps and smooth HD multimedia streaming like the desktop equivalent. This is possible via complex but informed optimizations to the HTTP networking layer, HTML5 browser core, and JavaScript engine. While powerful processors will strongly influence robust Web experiences, the mobile software layer is significantly impacting how we get the most out of mobile hardware and continue to innovate on behalf of the consumer experience.

While HTML5 will play an important role in the evolution of the mobile Web, it won’t come to fruition until mobile devices support the specification fully, from web and enterprise apps to entertainment and browsing. Forward-thinking developers making the transition to HTML5-based web apps stand to reap the benefits. The HTML5 family of standards runs faster, more efficiently and with greater capabilities when the hardware and software have been tightly integrated.

The biggest remaining hurdle is ensuring that the same array of device capabilities, such as camera access, is available to Web apps as their native counterparts. To this end, companies like Qualcomm are enabling a rich set of device APIs within the browser so that Web apps have that same detailed control and usage of the device’s hardware.

Collaboration Is Key

The mobile industry is built on partnerships within the diverse lines of business that make up the ecosystem and we must continue to work closely together to make these advancements a reality — from ensuring common device APIs are defined, implemented, and utilized to working hand in hand across the mobile ecosystem to deliver web experiences that go beyond what we ever experienced on a PC. All stand to benefit greatly by software’s ongoing impact on mobile, and efficient collaboration will expedite that process. Ultimately, intelligent and tight OS integration within the chip provides time to market advantages for OEMs who will see their devices running faster, smoother and more efficiently.

Enhancing mobile software is not a trickle down process. It starts with the seamless hardware integration and ends with developers bringing the experience to life. If we are serious about a future where mobile phones are responsible for tasks currently held by computers we need to embrace the role of software in overall mobile performance and continue strongly supporting the software developers that are driving innovation.

Rob Chandhok is president of Qualcomm Internet Services and helps drive software strategy for Qualcomm’s client and server platforms. He and other mobile industry thought leaders will be discussing these topics and more June 1-2 at Uplinq 2011 in San Diego.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (subscription req’d):

• Report: A Mobile Video Market Overview
• Green IT Q1: Cleantech Breaking Out — and Bracing for Hard Times
• How Mobile TV Could Finally Find an Audience

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Android in the U.S. pushed ahead of smartphone platform rivals iOS and Blackberry in January, according to Nielsen Wire, and is finding more popularity among younger consumers. That has helped HTC become the third largest smartphone manufacturer in the U.S. after Apple and Research In Motion, winning both the Android and Windows Phone 7 manufacturing race ahead of rivals Motorola and Samsung.

The latest figures for January from Nielsen show that Android’s current market share has moved up to 29 percent from 27 percent in December following a torrid year of growth in 2010, while iOS dropped a point from 28 percent to 27 percent, remaining largely stable over the last year. RIM remained constant from January at 27 percent but it is still trying to reverse a significant slide over the last year. Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile comes in with 10 percent, while Hewlett Packard’s webOS and Palm OS account for 4 percent and Symbian just 2 percent.

In the overall battle of manufacturers, however, Apple and RIM are tops with 27 percent each because they own their hardware and platforms. But among manufacturing vendors who build for other platforms, HTC has managed to best rivals on both Android and Windows Phone 7. It has a combined 19 percent of the market, with 12 percent on Android and 7 percent on Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile. Motorola has 11 percent: 10 percent coming from Android and 1 percent from WP7 and Windows Mobile. Samsung has about 7 percent of the U.S. smartphone market with 5 percent of the overall share from Android and 2 percent from Microsoft’s platforms.

Motorola has hitched its wagon to Android, which limits its sales potential for now. HTC has gotten ahead by embracing both Android and Microsoft’s OSes, something Samsung is also doing. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of effect Nokia will have in the U.S. market when it starts selling WP7 devices, possibly before the end of this year. It has just 2 percent of the smartphone manufacturing market from the sale of Symbian phones. So very few Americans are used to buying a Nokia smartphone, but that could change with Microsoft’s software and branding.

Android, meanwhile, appears to be doing well selling to younger consumers. Six percent of its sales are to 18-24 year olds, ahead of iOS and RIM at 4 percent. That Android is selling 50 percent better to this demographic suggests that younger users are responding to the breadth of device choices and price points. It bodes well for Android as the smartphone market expands. Capturing younger users is good for long term sales as younger users make the jump up from more messaging phones.

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d):

• Why RIM’s Future (Unfortunately) Hinges on BlackBerry OS 6
• Why Google Launched App Inventor
• Is Amazon the New Self-Publish Kingpin?

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What started out as a far-fetched dream — to create a unified app platform that can run on any device, operating system and carrier — is finally coming to life, though its long-term prospects are still far from certain. Smart Communications, a wireless carrier in the Philippines, today unveiled the Netphone, an Android-based smartphone that will be the first to support the Wholesale Applications Community platform pushed by major carriers such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Deutsche Telekom and NTT Docomo, and is also backed by hardware manufacturers.

While the reach of the phone is limited initially, it is first chance to see how the WAC project fares in real life. The WAC grabbed attention at its launch a year ago because of its promise to let developers write a program once and have it run on any carrier, device or operating system. The announcement was met with skepticism because of the technical challenges of building a platform that can span so many devices and OSes and can unite the disparate interests of competing carriers.

This first example likely won’t dispel many concerns. It’s when we see more phones from other carriers able to easily run the same programs that we’ll see if the promise of WAC comes to life. But for now, it’s a sign that the platform is still moving forward.

The Smart Netphone will be powered by Google Android 2.2 with the WAC software managed by Red Bend Software, independent of the manufacturer’s hardware. The WAC platform will allow users to access widgets pushed directly through Red Bend. Smart and Red Bend plan to show off the Netphone and WAC widgets at Mobile World Congress next week.

The cards are still stacked against the WAC platform. There’s a lot of device fragmentation issues to deal with and plenty of competition from more app markets. And as web apps become more robust, it’s unclear if there’s a need for a system of delivering universal widgets when the browser can be that mechanism. And as Android devices move down market, it will only raise more questions about the need for WAC. I’m sure we’ll hear more in the coming weeks and months but this still seems like a tough sell.

Related research on GigaOM Pro (sub. req’d):

• Why RIM’s Future (Unfortunately) Hinges on BlackBerry OS 6
• Why Google Launched App Inventor
• Is Amazon the New Self-Publish Kingpin?

GigaOMTech

By Andrew Liszewski

eSATA based flash drives, at least pocket-sized ones, are few and far-between these days. So it’s not like you have to choose between eSATA and USB all the time. But Active Media Products has already made that decision moot with their eSATA USB SSD Drive, which conveniently includes both a mini USB 2.0 port and an eSATA connection.

When connected to your PC via eSATA you can expect to see read speeds of up to 100MB/sec and write speeds of up to 55MB/sec, though you’ll also need to have the drive connected to a USB port at the same time for power, which is a little inconvenient. (It means you’ll always have to carry the included USB cable with you.) The drive is currently available from Amazon in a 16GB and 32GB model for $69.95 and $109.95 respectively, and can supposedly be used driver-free with all of the major OSes on the market today.

[ Active Media Products eSATA & USB Flash Drive ] VIA [ SlashGear ]

All this talk about preserving digital legacies got me thinking: What about the bits we don’t want to leave behind? Y’know, the risqué material? Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.

This seems like a complicated subject. It’s not. There’s some data that’s private, both in terms of content as well as the very fact of its existence, and your viewing of it. Let’s say you look at porn. (You do.) This fact—not just the art porn itself—belongs to you. There’s no need for it to be a discoverable part of your digital life, or, god forbid, your digital legacy. Here’s how to make sure your private collections are in order, and our of sight.

Level One: Obfuscation

Who hasn’t created a folder called “Business” only to fill it with an entirely differently kind of business? It’s a hallowed tradition, enjoyed by nearly everyone who’s used a computer in the last 20 years. And as ridiculous and inept as it sounds, it probably worked—then.

There was a time when hiding a folder deep within an operating system’s file structure actually hid it. Family members and spouses never had a reason to explore C:/Windows/System32, much less the “Nrop” folder you cunningly stashed there. And unless anyone went out of their way to search for incriminating content, it just wouldn’t come up.

Today, things are different. Both major OSes have deeply integrated and everpresent search features—Spotlight in OS X and Start menu search in Windows 7—which bring the depths of your file system bubbling to the surface with alarming ease and frequency. They prioritize file types over file locations, so your buried videos are just about as discoverable as if they were stored your “My Videos” folder. As far as hiding your shit, and keeping your bereaved family from discovering your bizarre-but-harmless-but-still-pretty-bizarre video collection, this offers only the slightest protection.

The section age-old variation on pornfuscation is the trusty file rename. Here’s how it goes: Save your files, change their names to something innocuous, and switch their file extensions to something inscrutable. LadiesEatingFriedPigsFeetInLingerie.avi becomes lefpfil.dat. And it helps to sew together a little cipher, too. Something like:

.avi=.dat
.mpeg=.dll
.mp4=.lib
.jpg=.docx

While this will probably accomplish your goals with almost no initial effort, it’s pretty unwieldy in the long term, and far from failsafe.

Level 2: Encryption

The word “encryption” evokes spy films, shady government agencies and more than anything, nerds. But here’s the thing: It’s actually super easy. It’s also nearly 100% effective, unless someone very serious is looking very seriously for something seriously incriminating on your computer, in which case I probably don’t want to help you out anyway. So!

Mac OS X: Creating a password-protected archive is your best option here. It’s dead simple, consolidates your files, and puts your stuff one extra layer of abstraction further away from search indices and the like. To make a passworded .DMG file (an image/archive file that you can open with a simple click) from an existing folder, just do this:

• Open Disk Utility (Spotlight search Disk Utility)
• File>New>Disk Image from Folder
• Select the folder, click Image
• Select encryption (128-bit AES will do)

• Choose a unique password

And that’s it! Now you have a whateveryouwant.dmg file that can’t be viewed, opened or edited by anyone but yourself. Your very own little lockable porn capsule! (Ugh.)

Windows

To create a password-protected archive in Windows Vista or 7, you’ll want to download a 3rd-party archive utility, like WinZip or WinRAR. And by like WinZip or WinRAR, I mean just download PeaZip. It’s free, and better than the software you’re used to. Then:

• Open PeaZip
• File>Create Archive
• Select the files you want in the archive
• Click the Lock icon under the Output selector
• Select “Encrypt Also File Names”
• Select archive type “PEA” (the fact that you’re using this program’s proprietary format, as opposed to something like ZIP, means that it’ll be even less identifiable as, well, what it is.)

And there you go.

Level 3: Liquidation

Seriously, people, stop storing incriminating material on your computer. You’re already getting this stuff from the internet, so just leave it on the internet. Stream videos online, and look at pictures without downloading them. It’s easy.

Firefox, Chrome, Safari and even Internet Explorer have private browsing modes, which don’t accumulate history, cookies, or local caches of any kind. Use them. Your digital self will thank you.

If you have more tips and tools to share, please drop some links in the comments-your feedback is hugely important to our Saturday How To guides. And if you have any topics you’d like to see covered here, please let me know. Happy secret-keeping, folks!

If you’re anxious about switching from a PC to a Mac, consider this: There are a multitude of ways you can virtualize Windows within OS X, and they all work uniquely well. Here’s how to choose the right one.

There are three major virtualization products for Mac, and at their core, they’re all quite similar. Each creates a virtual machine, which is to say, crudely, a software implementation of a separate computer. When you install Windows in a virtual machine, Windows thinks it’s installed on a PC with a somewhat generic set of hardware. In fact, the hardware it thinks it’s installed on is a software construct, and any time Windows utilizes what it thinks is a hardware component, its requests are actually being passed through to your Mac’s real hardware.

Anyway! What’s going on under the hood is conceptually similar among the most popular virtualization apps, but the ways they install, run and integrate Windows inside of OS X vary wildly. So, assuming you’re ready to take the virtualization dive, which app should you use? VMWare Fusion 3? Parallels 5? Sun VirtualBox? They’re all different, but in a strange way, they’ve ended up falling out of direct competition—each one is right for certain kinds of users. So which one’s right for you?

If You…

• Want to run Windows 7 within OS X, and basically nothing else?
• Want to run Windows apps as if they’re part of OS X, visually and behaviorally?
• Think a virtual machine should integrate into OS X almost completely, rather than live inside its own window?
• Want to play 3D games in your virtual machine?

Then You Should Use…

Parallels 5! This is a paid solution, and while it’s a full virtualization suite—you can run Linux and other OSes from within OS X as well—it’s the one most purely dedicated to making running Windows 7 as seamless as possible. Installation is almost completely hands off, and once you’ve got it up and running, it can actually be themed to look more like OS X. This has the dual effect of making the OS look more natural when it’s running in windowed mode (where the OS is isolated to its own window, like an app), and making the so-called “Crystal” mode, which lets you run Windows apps as their own windows in OS X, and which integrates Windows menus into Apple’s operating system, such that it’s barely even clear that you’re not running native apps.

Parallels’ strength lies in how thorough it is in trying to make Windows integration seamless. Windows 7′s system-wide transparency effects, powered by Aero, work fine out of the box with Parallels; you can enable OS X’s multitouch touchpad gestures for MacBooks in the OS with a simple options menu; pulling an installation over from a Boot Camp partition is just a matter of walking through a wizard; sharing files and clipboard items between OSes was trivially easy.

DirectX support is legitimately good enough to actually run a mid-range game without terrible performance degradation. (Games like BioShock or Crysis will run, but unless you’ve got a top-end iMac, you’ll probably suffer from serious slowdowns. If you’re serious about gaming on a Mac, just install Windows natively using Boot Camp.) It’s kind of like magic!

Parallels’ Windows powers are unsurpassed, but come at a cost. First, in dollars: It’s $80. Then, in features beyond Windows integration: There aren’t a whole lot of appliances—preconfigured packages that let you install other operating systems, like variations of Linux—as compared to VMWare, and there are stability issues; I’ve had to close down the entire virtual machine a number of times over the course of testing, and I couldn’t identify a particular trigger. One second I’d be seamlessly toggling between Internet Explorer and Safari, and the next I’d be trudging through a prolonged virtual machine restart routine.

So yeah, it’s worth it, if you’ve got a handful of Windows apps you can’t live without, or if you want to play fairly recent games without booting into a separate partition. [Parallels]

If You…

• Want to experiment with more than Windows
• Need bulletproof performance with Windows
• Want to run Windows and Linux apps as if they’re part of OS X, albeit without too many interface flourishes?

Then You Should Use…

VMWare Fusion 3! VMWare’s virtualization software is a reliable option no matter what you want to do. The way it integrates Windows into OS X is fairly transparent, but not quite as aesthetically consistent as Parallels. Gaming performance isn’t as strong as in Parallels, though 2D rendering—like Windows 7′s Aero—runs a bit smoother in Fusion than in any other solution. As with Parallels, Fusion automates the Windows installation process to a degree, and makes importing a Boot Camp installation fairly simple.

VMWare is a workhorse, and for most tasks—be it cross-platform website testing, running Windows versions of Microsoft office, or syncing with a Windows-only device like the Zune HD—it won’t let you down.

Tinkerers will find a massive library of preconfigured appliances, so you can try out virtually any operating system you’ve ever heard of (as long as it’s freely available) with little more than a file download and double click. Fusion 3 costs $80. [VMWare]

If You…

• Need Windows emulation
• Don’t want to pay anything for your virtualization software
• Don’t need to do any serious gaming
• Don’t mind rougher integration of Windows into OS X

Then You Should Use…

Sun VirtualBox! While the prior two options are paid, and not exactly cheap, VirtualBox is free. Totally. This means that, if you’ve got a spare Windows license, you can install Windows to run within OS X without spending an extra dime, and without suffering too much of an inconvenience as compared to VMWare or Parallels. (Full Windows 7 installation guide here)

VirtualBox doesn’t have the same level of DirectX support as either Parallels or Fusion, so while gaming is theoretically possible, it’s probably not worth your time. There is a “Seamless” mode for minimizing the Windows desktop and running Windows apps as if they’re native OS X apps, but it’s neither as seamless nor visually integrated as Parallels’ or Fusion’s.

But really, these are minor complaints. If all you want to do is run the odd Windows apps, try virtualization or configure or access some Windows-specific peripherals, VirtualBox will get the job done. It doesn’t have the polish of its paid competitors, but let’s be real here: We’re virtualizing an operating system. All solutions are by definition going to be less than perfect. VirtualBox will accomplish 85% of what Parallels or VMWare can do, in terms of running Windows apps or booting into alternative operating systems, at 0% of the cost. And for that, it deserves your attention. [VirtualBox]

If you have more tips and tools to share, please drop some links in the comments-your feedback is hugely important to our Saturday How To guides. And if you have any topics you’d like to see covered here, please let me know. Happy virtualizing, folks.