MIT Mobile Pla,orm Roadmap

(1)

(2)

Challenges

•

Need criteria to priori:ze requests

–

Many project requests

–

Not enough people or money to pursue everything

•

Limited to what service owners make available

–

Mobile Stellar improvements wai:ng for Stellar NG

•

One MIT employee on team full-‐:me

(3)

Mobile Pla,orm Services

•

MIT Mobile Web

–

m.mit.edu

–

Hosts mobile “modules” for MIT services

–

Accessible to all mobile browsers

•

Na:ve apps

–

iPhone and Android apps

–

Na:ve-‐only features

–

Content comes from m.mit.edu

•

Device Capability Detec:on Service (DCD)

–

Mobile-‐service-‐prod.mit.edu

–

Classiﬁes mobile browsers by capability

–

Simpliﬁes mobile development for all of MIT

•

Mobile consultants for MIT

(4)

A Brief History of MIT Mobile

2008 2009 2010 2011 Mobile Web 1.0 Mobile SMS (May, 2008) Mobile Web 2.0 (September, 2009) Mobile SMS Discontinued (August, 2010) Open Source Release (May, 2009) Device Capability Detection Service (May, 2009) iPhone Native 1.0 (February, 2010) Android Native 1.0 (November, 2010) Work began (January, 2008) iPhone Native 2.0 (June, 2010) iPhone Native 3.0, Android Native 2.0 (January, 2011)

(5)

Future-‐proof device support

•

Mobile browsers are grouped into 3 “buckets”

–

Featurephone, Smartphone, and “Touch” (WebKit)

•

m.mit.edu displays best look for each bucket

•

Grouped via Device Capability Detec:on Service

–

mobile-‐service-‐prod.mit.edu

–

Groups browsers according to capability

–

Free web service for all MIT applica:ons

(6)

Modules on m.mit.edu

Module Service Owner Technology % of 2010 (780K hits)

ShuZleTrack Facili:es NextBus XML 29%

Campus Map Facili:es ArcGIS 22%

Stellar IS&T XML 9%

Events Calendar IS&T SOAP 5%

People Directory IS&T LDAP 4%

News Oﬃce News Oﬃce XML 3%

Libraries Libraries Drupal 1%

Emergency Info Facili:es RSS < 1%

3DOWN IS&T RSS < 1%

TechCASH Card Services Custom < 1%

MIT150 Ins:tute Aﬀairs Drupal New in 2011 Campus Tour Ins:tute Aﬀairs Custom New in 2011

(7)

Choosing modules for m.mit.edu

At ﬁrst, there was only m.mit.edu, and the

Mobile team had to seek out modules to add.

Our criteria were simple:

1.

What is most useful to students?

2.

Does it make sense in a mobile context?

3.

Is its data available to us?

4.

If it requires authen:ca:on, it should use

Touchstone (no cer:ﬁcate support on most

phones).

(8)

Choosing new projects

Now, many groups are asking for help becoming

“mobile”.

1.

What do they mean by “mobile”?

a.

Add mobile interface to their server using DCD?

b.

Add module to m.mit.edu?

c.

Add module to na:ve apps?

2.

When will we have the :me?

(9)

Easing development burden

•

All code shared under MIT License

•

iMobileU

–

Group of 22+ schools around the world using MIT

Mobile

•

Poten:al for student projects leveraging

m.mit.edu

(10)

Ques:ons

•

How do we priori:ze projects?

•

How do we fund unfunded projects?

•

How much eﬀort should be put into iMobileU?

•

Do we consider tablets to be mobile devices?

–

Make a tablet look for m.mit.edu?

(11)

Tenta:ve Roadmap

Name Sponsor Start & End Dates

MIT150 – Phase 2 Ins:tute Aﬀairs January – April 2011 Campus Tour – Phase 2 Ins:tute Aﬀairs January – April 2011

MBTA bus tracking IS&T Nov 2010 – February 2011

Online Registra:on IS&T Sept 2011

Online Scheduling IS&T ?

Libraries search and renewal Libraries ?

Work Orders* Facili:es ?

Transporta:on Transporta:on@MIT ?

News Office improvements News Office ? Specialized Campus Tours Ins:tute Affairs ?

(12)

(13)

m.mit.edu Web Demographics

30% 12% 6% 10% 6% 9% 13% 14% _iPhone iPod Touch iPad Android BlackBerry Non-‐BB Smartphones Featurephones Desktop Browsers

Page views during December 2010 Does not include na:ve app traﬃc

(14)

Mobile Web Traﬃc

269400

653000

781000

2008 2009 2010

Page views by year

(15)

Na:ve App Sta:s:cs

App PlaOorm IniQal Release AcQve Users Store RaQng

iPhone

Feb 2010

20,100

4/5 Stars

Android

Nov 2011

1,200

5/5 Stars

Na:ve app traﬃc is not a meaningful sta:s:c due to how

predic:ve caching and periodic checks (e.g. ShuZleTrack

polls every 15 seconds).

(16)

What other schools are doing

• 

Most have no mobile web or are only just star:ng

• 

Many with mobile web have no na:ve apps

–

Stanford phasing out iPhone app in favor of web-‐only approach

–

Many using MIT’s mobile framework (iMobileU)

• 

Some use Blackboard Mobile Learn

–

Requires Blackboard LMS

–

No mobile web

–

Na:ve apps for iPhone and BlackBerry, Android coming soon

–

Used by Stanford, Duke, Princeton, UW

–

Strange pricing arrangement apps due to partnership between

Blackboard and Sprint

•  Costs more to use over 3G and 4G, unless phone is on Sprint’s

(17)

Users of MIT’s code

–  Bucknell University

–  Case Western Reserve

–  Colorado College

–  Harvard University

–  Indiana University

–  North Carolina State University

–  Rice University

–  Saint Louis University

–  Southeast Missouri State University

–  Suﬀolk University

–  University of Central Florida

–  University of Delaware

–  University of Iowa

–  UMass Boston

–  Notre Dame

–  University of North Carolina

–  University of PiZsburgh

–  University of Texas Aus:n

–  University of Waikato (NZ)

–  Wayne State University

–  West Virginia University

–  William and Mary

•

iMobileU

–

Group formed around use of open source MIT mobile

framework