If one take cell phones as the prominent ubiquitous computing platform, an important problem is the one of the platform diversity. Greenhalgh and colleagues tackles this issue in their Ubicomp 2007 paper called "Addressing mobile phone diversity in Ubicomp experience development". Phones vary enormously in their capabilities and designers face a trade-off between capability and availability: " between what can be done and the fraction of potential participants’ phones that can do this" Comparing four cell phones platform (SMS, WAP/Web, and J2ME, Python and native applications), the authors interestingly propose "four development strategies for addressing mobile phone diversity: prioritise support for server development (including web integration), migrate functionality between server(s) and handset(s), support flexible communication options, and use a loosely coupled (data-driven and component-based) software approach".

Why do I blog this? documenting reasons of failures for certain projects in the field of consumer electronics.

Greenhalgh, C., Benford, S., Drozd, A., Flintham, M., Hampshire, A., Opperman, L., Smith, K. and Von Tycowicz, C., 2007. Addressing mobile phone diversity in Ubicomp experience development. In: UbiComp 2007. 9th International Conference on Ubiquitous Computing, Innsbruck, Austria, 16-19 September 2007. pp. 447-464