The Future's Cloudy, the Future's Ovi ?

Maybe, but Nokia have a lot more work to do yet.

It's been a while since the last update but Nokia have launched the next upgrade to their Ovi service offering (bringing the web, desktop and mobile harmonisation one step closer).

The new additions are synching (contacts, calendar, notes, tasks) via SyncML, a personalised dashboard with flickr and Ovi share 'widgets' and a desktop PC suite client (Ovi Suite). Multiple devices can be synched to a single Ovi account but mobile web browser access is still pretty limited with these new features (no login/dashboard view).

This complements the existing Remote File Access/Share (from your mobile/online PC) and Ovi Share (photos and media uploading/sharing)services.

Games, Music and Maps (no eMail?) are still to be integrated but Nokia have been listening it seems, for a single unified account login to all Nokia Ovi features with FileShare and new Synch service at least sharing the same login details.


The fixed-browser widget approach is a good move, allowing personalisation of the dashboard assuming we see other Nokia/external widgets being made availabe soon (I would find an SMS-text backup widget very handy ...)

However I think the whole Ovi strategy still way too fragmented for normobs - the multiple logins, multiple access points to the services (synchML, mobile web, web, active idle screen integration of Ovi Share) and the separate Share Online application, N-Gage arena on the device just cause confusion.

I'll assume at some point Nokia will have a centralised approach for device, desktop, mobile web and web and might take a leaf out of Apple's book regards simplicity (although MobileMe has its own fair share of problems too).

In the meantime Zyb, Dashwire, MobSynch, Funambol, SoonR, Orb and the myriad of other services that synch media+contacts+calendars from mobile-to-cloud and/or mobile-to-PC, will need to try and stay ahead of the giant as it continues centralising and improving these services further in its quest to become an internet company.

As usual, AAS have a much more detailed review.

Mobile bloglines update

I tend to use Mobile bloglines rather than Google's mobile feed reader for staying on top of RSS feeds and this week Bloglines released a new beta version for mobile.

Point your mobile browser to http://m.beta.bloglines.com and you'll be redirected to v3 (the newer version).

New features include: favicon support (turn-offable), ability to follow sublinks within a post but keep the post as unread (useful for continuing reading long posts) and startpage support (if you set the bloglines MyStartpage with favourite feeds - this is now available in v3).

If you prefer the original mobile version there's a link at the bottom to revert back to 'classic mobile bloglines'.

Updates everywhere

I've been using HelloTxt recently to update statuses across multiple (micro) blogging and chat channels. Lifestream updating from a centralised place, I'm finding is rather convenient.

It's a service similar to Ping.fm - and both have been around a while. Both also have mobile (web) access and support updates via email.

One thing I like about HelloTxt is the ability to in-line post a video-clip as well as images (like jaiku) and crucially it has an SMS Gateway for posting updates via SMS.

These services are slightly different from FriendFeed which imports your status updates and is more of an aggregator of other services rather than ping.fm/hellotxt which is a multi-end-destination-status-update tool.

Both services could do with voice enablement from the mobile though (like TwitterFone or TwitterGram) or to link up with the spinvoxes or jott's of the world. The posting options are summarised below :

Ping.fm - Web Interface, Special Email Address, IM Bot, Mobile Interface (including dedicated iPhone), iGoogle and Facebook Apps

HelloTxt - Web Interface, Special Email Address, Mobile Interface (no iPhone version), Posting via SMS, Facebook App

More detailed comparisonshere and here.

If you've got multiple microblogging/chat channels and you want to update them all simultaneously with the same updates you might want to try one of these services out.