Although music, video and games take the lions share of non-sms mobile data revenue (and therefore dominate the news) “other niche applications are increasingly making the leap from the desktop to the jacket pocket—many aiming at the mobile workers who carry the phones and handheld gadgets that are most suited to handle advanced applications”. This is a good list of products designed for travelers and priced quite a bit higher than a ringtone - although most of them are subscription services.
The first example is OAG Flight-Finder, a 3MB program that costs $99 for a one year subscription. The North American version includes “schedules for nearly 300 airlines flying within the region and to major cities worldwide”. I can understand they don’t have a link to buy the tickets through your mobile as that would involve agreements with 300 airlines, but the fact that they don’t have a service to tell you what time your plane is expected in is a bit poor. A simple SMS letting you know your plane is an hour late would add a tremendous amount of value to the service. Other services abound for the traveller…
Related stories:
—Mobile Travel Tips with Optus Mobile and Lonely Planet
—UN announces global disaster alert system