Cart before the horse

As you might know,  I’ve been developing a mobile learning platform to give Students access to learning resources from anywhere.

It’s baby steps; but a lot of the groundwork has been completed (discussions, project plans, proof of concepts etc), the main issue is money.

Or more appropriately the complete disinterest of any current smart-phone manufacturer to offer an educational discount.

Facts and Figures:

This list is by no means exhaustive, but it does represent the huge barrier to mobile development in education:

• Google Developer Phone: £244
• Apple iPhone:  PaynGo (O2 uk): £342 + £10 minimum top up a month
• HTC Touch: £489

If the College follwed ACU’s path we’d need an iPhone each:

x4 iPhones: £1368

1 Year of top ups (£40 x 12 months ): £480

Year one costs:  £2400 (and then £480 a year for n years)

Compare this to the development phone:

x4 ADP1: £976

Year one costs:  £976

Being Sim free, we can use our existing Sim cards when we need to test outside the College meaning that not only is it cheaper to buy, its total life cost is significantly cheaper as well.

The iPhone has the best interface and the slickest hardware but unless Cupertino does something shortly we’ll be talking to Google.