Hello!

And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There's a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!

And without further ado:

So the Mobile World Congress is just around the corner, and I for one can’t wait. Yes sir, those of us with CDMA phones just love heading over to Europe, where GSM rules the day and dinner is not served until 9 p.m. (Seriously?!?! You can’t give me something to eat until 9 p.m.? No wonder you Europeans are all so dangerously skinny.)

Anywho, I’m very excited about traveling with the thousands of other wireless geeks next week to Barcelona, Spain, to traverse the long length of the Fira Montjuďc convention center. Specifically, I’m looking forward to Hall 8, where the cellphones are on display. (If last year is any indication, every single person at the Mobile World Congress show will pack into Hall 8, making it more crowded than a Metallica concert.)

As I print out my boarding pass and pack my socks, I’m thinking of a few things I’m hoping to see at the Mobile World Congress show this year, including:

--Dinner at 5:30 p.m. Yes, I like to eat dinner at 5:30 p.m. So what? Why would anyone in their right mind wait until 9 p.m. to eat dinner? I mean, seriously, that’s screwed up.

--More app stores. Yes sir, the name of the game this year is “app store,” and there are rumors of a Samsung App Store, a Symbian App Store and possibly a BlackBerry App Store. And that list doesn’t include app stores from all of those application vendors out there, including PocketGear, Handmark and others. I understand that Apple’s App Store has been successful, but I’m not sure that means others will be so too.

--IMS. Remember IMS? A few years ago, Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystems were heralded as revolutionary to the wireless network. Everyone was going to deploy IMS, and it was going to rule the world with an iron fist. I suspect this year at Mobile World Congress, no one will mention it. And that’s fine with me.

--Apple. I mean, seriously. Can’t Apple send someone over to Mobile World Congress to give a keynote or something? Can’t they drop a few grand to set up a small exhibit, or at least meet with members of the press? This whole “too cool for school” thing just makes me angry. Angry and hungry.

--No more layoffs. Wouldn’t it be great if the grand theme this year at Mobile World Congress was that companies would stop firing employees? That would be so cool. … Sigh.

--A final solution to mobile e-mail. Indeed, text messaging is ubiquitous in wireless, so why isn’t e-mail? After all, e-mail is perhaps the most basic function of communication on the Internet, so why isn’t it a robust, standard feature on all cellphones? Come on, folks, it’s 2009, let’s get mobile e-mail working — simply and efficiently — on all phones, so that we can move on.

--Ham and cheese sandwiches. My editor Tracy Ford has a hilarious story about attending Mobile World Congress (3GSM in those days) a few years ago, and being forced to choose between a cheese sandwich and a ham sandwich. So, I hope that some brave Spanish entrepreneur out there is able to combine these two items into one delicious meal. Preferably served at 5:30 p.m.

OK! Enough of that.

Thanks for checking out this Worst of the Week column. And now, some extras:

--Check out this nonsense: “iPhone and iPod Touch owners can now use their mobile devices to track the paranormal, thanks to A&E Network's first iPhone application, the Paranormal State EMF Reader. Converting these devices into ‘EMF readers’ that pick up fluctuations in electromagnetic fields (EMFs), the application makes every user a paranormal investigator, able to sweep their surrounding areas and search for paranormal entities.” Hilarious.

--Check out this awesomeness: “Innovative Liquor Locator Added to Proximo Web sites and iPhone Applications.” Hilarious.

--And finally, 58-year-old Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, usually just called “Woz,” is going to be on that TV show “Dancing With the Stars.” I realize there is very little connection between this news and the wireless industry (besides that hilariously dumb Wheels of Zeus thing), but still, it’s worth pointing out.

I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at mdano@crain.com. Or, if you prefer, leave a comment in the space below.

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