Recently, Apple released a seemingly innocuous software update: a new privacy feature that would explicitly ask iPhone users whether an app should be allowed to track them across the other apps and sites that they use.

How do Verizon or Virgin reliably get 100 million bytes of data to your house every second, all day every day?

Most mobile applications incorporating location-based services (LBS) are about finding information, which is like the first phase of the web discussed above. I think we’ll be seeing a second phase soon, where location and community converge, which will be really really interesting. For a while there on the web it didn’t matter where you were from, and in a way this will make location important again.

Mobile users have a constant low-level awareness of their device; the possibility that communication may arrive at any instant inhabits their awareness. It’s like you’re expecting a visitor sometime or have a pot slowly boiling in the other room, your attention is split.