The tech media gave quite a bit of coverage to a recent IDC report that went so far as to state that there will be no killer app for mobile.  The IDC analyst responsible for the report correctly states that a hodgepodge of technologies and innovations - such as "ring tones, gaming, video, and music" - will contribute to improved data traffic and, consequently, increased mobile data revenues for carriers. 

I, for one, will go on record as saying this is patently incorrect.  Why?  Name me a single platform, class of application, or market niche over the past 30 years that has not had its own "killer app".  (By the way, by killer app, I mean an app that resulted in a sudden increase in users, revenues, and visibility for the target market.)  I'll throw out a few examples not so much as to say this is a definitive, or even correct, list but to show instead that the killer app is both inevitable and completely unpredictable.

• Digital Audio - Napster

• Internet - Mosaic

• Instant Messaging - Morse Code.  Okay, just kidding…how about ICQ?

• Search - Google

• Client/Server computing - Oracle DBMS

• Platform-independent computing - Java

• Rapid Application Development - Visual Basic

• Mass Broadband Communications - Cable Modem

• Ubiquitous Personal Computing - IBM PC

• Operating Systems - Microsoft Windows 3.1

• Office Productivity Software - Microsoft Word 2.0

• Spreadsheet - Visicalc

• Wireless Data - Never will be one.  Nope, not ever.  Riiiiight.

Now that those in the prediction business have grown weary of forecasting the Next Big Wireless Thing/Killer App, the inevitable collective backlash will suggest that there is no killer app however I'll place my bets on 30 years of technology evolution and sit back wait and wait for the wireless world's to arrive.  By the way, I do think it is fair to say that the convergence of networks, technologies, and common platforms is not quite there yet, thus preventing the inertia required of any killer app to truly, well, kill.  Are we seeing the required framework falling into place with some combination of J2ME, GPRS, and related technologies?  Not sure but, if asked, I would word things like this: 

A killer app is the result of an evolutionary process whereby the market (meaning developers, companies, and customers) go through many failed iterations before the Big Bang ignites.  The wireless environment has enough layers of complexity and so many variables affecting success that the incubation period is bound to be longer than previous "booms", such as Internet, Client/Server, and desktop computing.