Mobile Software Development
Submission Deadline: CLOSED
Publication: July/August 2012
According to the International Telecommunication Union's 2010 report Measuring the Information Society, there were some 4.6 billion active mobile devices worldwide at the start of 2010. As of June 2010, China alone had 775 million mobile subscribers. At the end of 2009, almost 91 percent of the US population — 286 million people — were mobile subscribers.
In addition to this huge increase in volume, the mobile phone revolution has also grown dramatically in technological capabilities. An insider summarized the revolution this way: "The early days [of the mobile phone] witnessed a 2 kg device capable of making a phone call, leveraging a software-based communication stack. By contrast, today's high-end phones can function as navigation systems, mobile TV sets, or 3D surround-sound devices. These mobile devices boot faster than computers and can fall from 2 meters without breaking (most of the time), while their user interface accesses most functions in just a few clicks. Mobile phones and computers also differ on volumes: There are around 300 million personal computers sold each year, compared to 1.3 billion mobile phones" (Lionel Bouchard, "Multimedia Software for Mobile Phones," IEEE Software, May/June 2010, pp. 8–10).
The Special Issue
This special issue of IEEE Software will explore the software challenges involved in dealing with this revolution and the state-of-the-art practices and technologies that successfully address those challenges. The issue will summarize current results and expectations for the near future.
We especially seek articles that focus on the following three areas.
The Computing Power of Mobile Devices: Leveraging the Cloud
While mobile technology certainly delivers telephony, service-based software drives today's mobile revolution. The software applications or "apps" that can be loaded onto advanced mobile devices create powerful, integrated, and interactive computing platforms. The emergence of the cloud mitigates storage issues by making data remotely and instantly accessible from afar. In fact, if predictions about the density of nonvolatile memory pan out, it may be possible to realize the concept of a "pocket cloudlet," such as replicating select cloud services on even a smartphone (E. Koukoumidis et al., "Pocket Cloudlets," ACM SIGPLAN Notices, Mar. 2011, pp. 171–184). Innovative, interactive software turns mobile computers into consumer "must-haves." Mobile games and applications entertain, connect, locate, inform, document, shop, search, and compute. Significantly, these apps no longer necessarily tether the user to the World Wide Web or a fixed power supply. The virtual world has become far more instant and accessible. We invite you to share your lessons learned in developing mobile apps to tap the power of mobile devices and cloud services.
Business Models: Volume and Its Consequences
The combination of the volume of mobile phones and their increasing computing capabilities makes the mobile platform unique. Software running on mobiles has to be used in huge volumes to be successful. For this issue of Software, we seek articles that deal with the structure of the mobile software business and the way in which volume influences software development, such as the adoption of open source operating systems.
Assurance
In the past, most of the recent work in software assurance has viewed software in the most general and generic sense: functional code. In this issue, we are interested in mobile apps, a new genre of software. This form of software is highly mobile network-centric, and its functionality is dependent on a huge array of reliable, secure, and interoperable subsystems. Our interest is in looking at the cross product between the assurance issues of general-purpose software and the unique attributes of mobile app software. Some examples of appropriate assurance topics are
- the state of the practice in mobile software and mobile apps software development;
- unique challenges related to software weaknesses and vulnerabilities in mobile app code and languages;
- preferred ways of vetting or certifying mobile app code before inclusion in app stores; and
- making mobile software maintainable and reusable versus throwaway.
In terms of the type of articles we seek, we especially welcome case studies, lessons learned, new metrics, and success and failure stories in mobile app development. We are particularly interested in papers from industry, a driving force in the mobile field.
Questions?
For more information about the special issue, contact the guest editors:
- Jeffrey Voas, National Institute of Standards and Technology, jeffrey.m.voas@gmail.com
- Bret Michael, Naval Postgraduate School, bmichael@nps.edu
- Michiel van Genuchten, Open Digital Dentistry, genuchten@ieee.org
Submission Guidelines
Manuscripts must not exceed 4,700 words including figures and tables, which count for 200 words each. Submissions in excess of these limits may be rejected without refereeing. The articles we deem within the theme's scope will be peer reviewed and are subject to editing for magazine style, clarity, organization, and space. We reserve the right to edit the title of all submissions. Be sure to include the name of the theme or special issue you are submitting for.
Articles should have a practical orientation and be written in a style accessible to practitioners. Overly complex, purely research-oriented or theoretical treatments are not appropriate. Articles should be novel. IEEE Software does not republish material published previously in other venues, including other periodicals and formal conference/workshop proceedings, whether previous publication was in print or in electronic form.
For general author guidelines: www.computer.org/software/author.htm
For submission details: software@computer.org
To submit an article: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/sw-cs