This week the GSMA announced a new set of Mobile Application Privacy Guidelines to help developers design privacy into their apps. Vodafone helped create these and we have committed to implementing them for all new own-branded apps in the next 6 months. A number of other major mobile operators have committed to implementing them – see the press release with supporting statements from the companies.

We know our customers care about their privacy. Take a quick look at this infographic. And we hear from many developers who are looking for help in navigating this difficult area. These guidelines are an important ...

Looking for the next wave in personal mobile communications? Then look no further, Rich Communication Suite - Enhanced (RCS-e) is a set of new communication services to improve traditional communication. joyn™ is the commercial name for RCS-e, which is an industry standard that will eventually be adopted by mobile operators across the world including Vodafone, where we are currently running trials.

For consumers joyn™ will deliver an experience beyond voice and SMS by providing them with instant messaging or chat, live video sharing and file transfer across any device, on any network, with anyone in their mobile address book.

For developers ...

The GSMA today announced the first in a series of activities designed to help users and operators manage the growing traffic and signalling demands generated by smartphones and mobile applications. The GSMA has created a developer’s guide which will help application developers ensure their applications are more user- and network-friendly. Along with this guide, the GSMA is launching the “Smarter Apps Challenge” competition to drive the development of efficient mobile applications.

The guidelines consist of a set of recommendations for application developers that will enable improvements across a number of areas including application connectivity, power consumption, network reliability and ...

UPDATE: 19th February - The Vodafone Private handset Cloud Service is back up and online now.

We are planning scheduled maintenance to the Vodafone Private handset Cloud Service (http://developer.vodafone.com/develop-apps/test/) and as a result the platform will be taken offline from 10:00 (GMT) Saturday 18^th February 2012. Expected time offline will be approximately 24 hours, we will post an update as soon as the platform is back online. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you for looking to test your apps with Vodafone, and for your continued support!