Engaging ?

Nokia's n-gage gaming platform marketing video ...




The quality and types of games will be crucial for launch (isn't it always with gaming platforms?), but particularly in this case with Nokia's re-launch of the n-gage brand. The games I've played so far are enjoyable enough, but that's been on an 3D graphics accelerated device (N95), what will they be like on the reference benchmark N73 I wonder.

I'm interested to see the online try-before-you-buy option and the community aspects as well, they're important components determining whether the service takes off in my view (assuming Nokia can get the device penetration in the markets quickly enough).

Or, will gamers buy alternative mobile devices with known branding tie-ins and established experience in the gaming world (PSP/Wii/XBox), such as Sony Ericsson's rumoured PlayStation phone (with motion sensing).

Does anyone choose a mobile phone based on the gaming experience of the device? I guess Nokia hope that its n-gage portal/experience might be another deciding factor that clinches the sale for the broad demographic that play games.

Here's a link to some of the titles soon to be released on n-gage. If only they would release Advance Wars :)

N95 8gb - Finding 'fings' faster

Looks like Nokia listened to the feedback and addressed some of the annoying issues with the n-series N95 handset launched earlier this year.

The prototype 8gb model I'm playing with here is not the finished product but the main improvement I immediately noticed is the speed of the interface. It's much quicker, navigating around and opening applications. The boot up time seems to be improved too. The screen size and poor battery life were the other major issues that have been addressed.

I'm particularly pleased about the speed increase as I have complained before that the N95 interface and opening applications was slower than treacle (even the N73 is faster). The new N95 8g interface albeit without the whizzy transitions (likely coming in S60 edition 3 feature pack 2 for models next year) responds much quicker now at a button press. I hope Nokia take this learning into their future models when it comes to the trade off, of selecting the hardware, memory/cpu/screen size versus cost and the overall user experience, as some might question why Nokia have had to produced two N95 models to get the experience right.

Taking photos is improved markedly over the old N95, but it's still taking too long to start the camera app. I counted 5 seconds from pressing the camera icon and by the time you've focused on your subject - she's likley wandered off as in the case of my daugther. Perhaps some software tweaks may improve it further. That said, this is a problem with lots of other camera-phones too, especially compared to digital cameras.

So far I've not had "out of memory issues" on the newer model which plague my older N95 (effectively meaning I cannot multi-task) and a familar problem for most current N95 users. The screen is also bigger, brighter and an additional shortcut has made it into the active idle applications (so you have 7 instead of 6).

A much more comprehensive review is over at AllAboutSymbian

What I wanted to look at in more detail and the subject of this post was the search application moving to the idle screen.

You can now search directly from the home/idle screen (see first photo and you will see the magnifying glass icon) both for files and content on the device (mails, contacts etc..) as well as online search with Yahoo and Microsoft search engines...This saves quite a few key presses depending on how you accessed the application beforehand.

Also what has changed slightly is the way device and online search works. In the newer version of the app, the letters/keywords you type in the box dynamically change the results, constantly narrowing down the search results as shown in the pics below on typing 'm' and then 'a', then 'p' etc...


This is similar to how the excellent Qix search application works on S60 (although you can start searches directly from the idle screen with Qix and there are some clever features where most used search keywords are dynamically reordered based on usage ie. float to the top of the results).

This general method of searching is faster, simpler and and more intuitive for the user - it is a horziontal search layer across all apps and services and makes much more sense than stovepipe-type searches.

With more and more media being stored on the device such as images, videos and music and the ability to use the search as a "shortcutting" method (eg. for texting the same contact repeatedly) I suspect this application will get used a lot by N95 8gb users...

More mobile video search

About a month ago I posted on Seeqpod - a beta mobile streaming service with a vast online music catalogue cleverly aggregated through internet links rather than holding the content themselves. To find this content you just simply started searching for a track name /artist/ album or any tag associated with the music. This means you can pretty much find any song and listen to it (assuming mobile network or WLAN coverage) when you're mobile.

vTap by Veveo is a mobile video search engine that effectively lets you find and play and video on the go. Aggregating the millions of video clips on the web, the service makes them mobile-friendly for streaming playback with a nice predictive search interface on the front to help narrow down search results quickly and dynamically.

Windows mobile and iPhone are currently supported with other phones coming soon. The service works via the mobile browser (http://vtap.com). To get an idea of how it works there's an emulator on the website.

Add it to the growing ways of getting streaming and downloaded video (besides Youtube, Google video etc..) onto your mobile device.

Screenshots below.

Couple of Moto links ...

"Speaking to investors at a conference yesterday, Motorola CFO Tom Meredith indicated that the company is altering its strategy to regain solid footing in the wireless market. He commented that Motorola has taken note of the iPhone's success in bringing two technologies, the touch screen and Wi-Fi, to market and is considering adding them to future Motorola devices. Another part of its new strategy will have Motorola developing a wide range of devices that will appeal to all people from mass market to enterprise instead of focusing on one stand-out device." Source linked to from here here.

Motorola are rumoured to be working on a super-specced touch (smart) phone. I liked the RIZR Z8 based on Symbian UIQ (although form factor of Motos keypads is not for me) but I hope the new one runs off Linux as reported in the link.

As mentioned previously - it's not 'if' but 'when' with the other Device OEM's now. Question is will they be able to compete with the benchmark, as touch screen devices rightly or wrongly are always going to now be compared to the iPhone. We've already seen a glimpse of Nokia's prototype in the recent GoPlay event (shame it wasn't the Aeon).


It's refreshing to see Motorola bring the developers conference to Europe as well and encourage 3rd party application developers on both Motos existing and new platforms (motomagx).

Cash Job

Well, well - a quick, responsive decision to the price drop announced yesterday ... an effort at appeasing the loyal Apple customer-base.

To all iPhone customers:

I have received hundreds of emails from iPhone customers who are upset about Apple dropping the price of iPhone by $200 two months after it went on sale. After reading every one of these emails, I have some observations and conclusions.

First, I am sure that we are making the correct decision to lower the price of the 8GB iPhone from $599 to $399, and that now is the right time to do it. iPhone is a breakthrough product, and we have the chance to 'go for it' this holiday season. iPhone is so far ahead of the competition, and now it will be affordable by even more customers. It benefits both Apple and every iPhone user to get as many new customers as possible in the iPhone 'tent'. We strongly believe the $399 price will help us do just that this holiday season.

Second, being in technology for 30+ years I can attest to the fact that the technology road is bumpy. There is always change and improvement, and there is always someone who bought a product before a particular cutoff date and misses the new price or the new operating system or the new whatever. This is life in the technology lane. If you always wait for the next price cut or to buy the new improved model, you'll never buy any technology product because there is always something better and less expensive on the horizon. The good news is that if you buy products from companies that support them well, like Apple tries to do, you will receive years of useful and satisfying service from them even as newer models are introduced.

Third, even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price. Our early customers trusted us, and we must live up to that trust with our actions in moments like these.

Therefore, we have decided to offer every iPhone customer who purchased an iPhone from either Apple or AT&T, and who is not receiving a rebate or any other consideration, a $100 store credit towards the purchase of any product at an Apple Retail Store or the Apple Online Store. Details are still being worked out and will be posted on Apple's website next week. Stay tuned.

We want to do the right thing for our valued iPhone customers. We apologize for disappointing some of you, and we are doing our best to live up to your high expectations of Apple.

Steve Jobs
Apple CEO

Nokia's announcements today -29th Aug

The most interesting point for me today, wasn't the batch of new phones (N95 8G, N81 etc... the separate new n-gage gaming and music portals, the Search application from the idle screen, the revised multimedia menu or even the "copying" of apple's iphone touch interface for S60 in 2008(see the photo example in the webcast here).


All of this was pre-leaked, known already via the inter-galactic superweb or I previously had posted on it.

For me, it was the announcement of Nokia's umbrella brand Ovi which will bring Nokia's own n-gage and music portals, social networking and internet services all together in one place with both internet, desktop and mobile access (on the mobile under a single application and across multiple OS platforms S60, series40 etc....)

Why is this interesting ? Well it shows Nokia are aggressively moving into the content services space (again - remember Clubnokia) as they say the "Device is not enough". Experience of the service matters.
Traditionally this space has been occupied and owned by the Operators who have previously controlled the content services going onto the device (at least preinstalled). Think 3's X Series for example. Some might view this move as disintermediating the operators and nudging them further towards the bitppipe, although Nokia claim Ovi is complimentary to the Operators own content and services strategy.

We've already seen that this is potentially a sensitive issue with Operators who have invested in building and offering either (a) their own home-grown branded content services or (b) 3rd party content services as exclusives.
The Operators also often subsidise the actual handsets to attract and retain end customers ... relationships between handset manufacturers and Operators is finely balanced ...

It seems to me, not just from today's Ovi announcement from Nokia but from other sources too eg. internet branded services being preinstalled (Vox, Flickr, blogger, GMaps, MySpace, eBay) and integrated into mobiles, open unrestricted internet access with flat rate data and new entrants into the marketplace (Apple-iPhone with revenue sharing(?), Google-gPhone) that the aforementioned "traditional" operator/handset manufacturer relationship is likely to change markedly in the very near term.

Some Friday entertainment :)

Jaiku - new client released for S60

Jaiku's new client is out of beta - and it is vastly improved over the old version.

Here's some of the new features of the S60 client.

* The choice between longer battery life or more up-to-date presence (a much requested feature).
* Reading and writing comments from and to your contacts.
* Go back in time! Using the ’stream view’ for your contacts, you can see what they were doing and saying in the past, not just their most recent post.
* More than just Jaikus! You can also see when your contacts have posted to flickr.
* Improved presence view, to make the most of your screen real-estate.
* A whole raft of usability improvements, based on what our users have been telling us they need, including an even easier to use interface, and a progress meter, so you can see what’s happening.
* More optimal data transfer and connection maintenance, giving you more bang for your wireless data dollar.
* …and all the essential (but not that interesting) stuff like bug fixes, speed improvements, that sort of thing.
* Oh, and let’s not forget - a spiffy new manual for this client.

Features from the previous release are still there as well:

* The live contact list works just like your phone’s built-in phonebook, and enhances the list with the buddy icons and real-time presence of your Jaiku contacts
* Post new Jaikus and have them immediately appear on the Web and your contacts’; phones
* Share your availability based on your phone’s ring profile
* Share your location based on free naming of cell towers
* Option to share your phone calendar (choose to share full titles of events or just when you are free/busy)
* Option to share number of nearby people based on detection of Bluetooth phones
* Switch Jaiku online or offline at any time
* Easy wizard guides you through the setup
* Automatic roaming detection alerts you when you are roaming away from your home network

If you don't have an S60 phone, you can always use the widsets (J2ME) version or mobile browser access at http://m.jaiku.com (which also works on iPhones).

iPhone specific Facebook

Whilst the Apple fanboy, Mac developers and seriously creative hackers are finding out ways and workarounds to build and install native applications on the iPhone, the wider web services are developing iPhone versions of their website (320 x 480 pixels) to work through the iPhone Safari browser.

iPhone Facebook is the latest in a recent spurt of web services to add an official version of the site (del.icio.us, Bloglines, Digg, StumbleUpon , Ning etc... being others). What's impressive with the iPhone version of Facebook is that it behaves like a **native application** although it's accessed via Safari. Arguably it lays out the main features and functions better than the main website too!

Of course you need to be online on a network to access the site which is a disadvantage over a native iPhone app that can work both in offline and online mode and have deeper level integration across applications (eg a game for example). However accessing Social Networking sites that's the whole point in my view... you need to be online to see the latest events from and interact with your Social Network.

As a side note. Facebook has replaced my Google ig and Netvibes homepage (I used to switch between them) when I logged in to my desktop. Why ?

Personalisation dashboards sites like Netvibes, iGoogle and Pageflakes whilst useful, are based around content and alerts. Without the email widgets (ie. communication alerts) these dashboard sites would be of lesser value in my opinion. Social Network sites however ** are ** based around communication and sharing from the off (also including the important feature of gossip). Content widgets and blog/news/content alerts can then be added afterwards eg. Flickr, eBay, etc..

It's just more fun to view what your Social Network(SN) are doing than looking at a weather update isn't it ? - as it's more likley to be the start of a conversation. (If you really want a weather update, add a weather widget to your favourite SN - there's bound to be a hundred or so).

Also because email or should I say Facebook email is already integrated by default - I tend to value those emails over other emails held in other platforms because they are from my immediate Social Network. No spam! (Although it would be nice to have an aggregated Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail access in Fb - unlikely though I know - see the point below).

Netvibes at least recognised this quickly and now have a Facebook module, but what happens when the next hot Social Networking site comes along or the major web email providers decline access via Netvibes' platform (eg. Yahoo, hotmail or Google) I wonder..?

So why not use Netvibes with web mail aggregation (whilst it continues) as well as a facebook module ? Well, I like the Fb environment more, it's setup way better for sharing comments, video and photos, turn-based games etc.. than other platforms... this is in part due to the application development environment Fb have built.

Facebook also took some criticism in being a closed / walled garden ie. you couldn't get your highly personalised data out of the Fb platform. People spend time building up their Social Networks, profiles and adding content into the community - this was/is a big concern but is being addressed ...

Facebook have added RSS output for some of the events. For example I've added my Fb friends statuses and friends posts as RSS feed alerts to jaiku. Others Fb feeds are sure to be made available so the above concern is starting to lessen.

Update ... I see Netvibes as of today have also recently launched an iPhone version of their site at http://m.nv1.netvibes.com ... they're keepin' up.

(MOSH)OSO, Flickr and Mippin links

I'm late to post this I know...

Nokia goes MoSoSo (Mobile Social Software) with MOSH a mobile social networking / user-generated content community call.

Use (ALLACCESS) to login. It will be interesting to see if it is
(a) successful and if so ...
(b) merges with Nokia's acquisition of Twango and
(c) how it competes with other online social networking sites (bebo, myspace, facebook, xing etc..) and user-generated content sites run by a couple of the European Operators such as SeeMeTV / Look at Me.

For NSeries fans with the native photo-uploading client (called Share Online) which is used from the Gallery; a new version is available (v2.0) which allows photo tagging and descriptions and has an easier/improved provisioning process with Yahoo/flickr but you will have to start over.

Flickr by the way is rumoured to be offering video uploading (finally!) and sharing soon (presumably to compete with youTube, mySpace etc..), so we'll have to see if the Share online client will also allow video upload. This would then be a native alternative to Shozu for getting multimedia in different formats off your nSeries to different destinations.

Last but not least, Refresh Mobile who developed the super-slick Mobizines application (mobile magazine reader with personalisation and sharing features) that works on loads of handsets are working on a new service called Mippin. The beta is open now. Sign up at the link.

Music and Search

Question : What's the world's largest searchable index of free internet playable music that's adding thousands of new tracks a day?
Answer: Possibly SeeqPod (beta).
What is SeeqPod Music? From the website ...

At SeeqPod Music, you can search for music, music videos & podcasts by artists you like, as well as discover other artists and songs you were not familiar with. You can generate countless playlists of songs and videos, save them for future enjoyment and share them with friends by e-mailing or embedding a player and playlist in a web page.

Where does the music come from?

The amount of music on the Internet is much larger than music found in catalogs or physical inventories. It's also a well known fact now that the Internet has a growing inventory filled with mashups, mixes and music of all kinds. At SeeqPod we crawl the entire multilingual deep web in the vertical space of music for the purpose of new kinds of playable search, discovery, recommendation and social experiences. In addition, as people make music and video they submit it to SeeqPod Music. This is done using the "Submit Music" link. You can even submit a location of songs we have not yet found and they will soon show up in the PodCrawler and search results.

hmmm... interesting - sort of like Napster-clone via a browser / mobile browser then ? - but with a sophisticated search/web crawler behind it and the ability for the community to add to the content catalogue...
- I came across this link when browsing for music on the iPhone as seeqpod have a specific iPhone Safari interface.

It works very well on the iPhone thanks to the customised Safari interface. As
soon as you've selected a song in the browser from the list, it starts streaming (I only tried over WiFi but it was quick) so you get to hear the track pretty quickly.

I also tried it on the N95 using the OSS browser - I just pointed it at the same iPhone interface over HSDPA (expecting it to work - which it does) but most tracks are mp3's over http - so they're a download rather than streamed via rtsp - still it's a way of picking up some music as they can be saved...(I couldn't save on the iPhone).



Whilst the service might not quite have all the longtail music completely catalogued yet (I tried some quite obscure tracks which were present but there are glaring omissions too) - it looks like they are working on it with a combination of user generated content and patented search crawling.

Another question : will this service survive given the weight of the music industry ?

If they do survice, roll on HSUPA for streaming speed and ubiquity when mobile - another way of storing your entire digital music collection in the cloud and accessing a vast library of (free) music...

Flickr to Twitter coming - Twickr

Twitter as a social alert and notification platform is continuing to evolve with more mashup's being created. The latest one from Dave Winer is in beta testing mode...if you're quick and approved you might be able to get in on it..


It will allow your Twitter followers to see a flickr photo you've just uploaded.

Since flickr supports photo upload from your mobile via email and mobile web interfaces, posting to flickr is pretty straightforward.

The new bit is now you have an automated way of alerting others of the photo you just took on your cameraphone. Another option and possibly less hassle than emailing or MMS'ing it to a group of people and is bound to be used for LiveBLogging events.

Combined with the location integration applications for Twitter and Flickr - your twitter followers can see where you are (twittervision/twittermaps), what you say (tweets) and now also see the photo of what you just took (twickr). An alternative to realtime mobile video broadcasting to the web.

Whilst on the subject of Microblogging and alerting, keep your eye out for Jaiku's new (much improved in my opinion) mobile client - it's coming out of beta very soon. Since you can import Twitters into Jaiku also, the above service will also work in Jaiku.

Google Phone update

Thanks to my iTablet for this latest snippet of news on the Google phone. Google are busy building different prototypes allegedly they are working on their own mobile browser. Full post in title link.

People who have seen Google’s prototype devices say they aren’t as revolutionary as the iPhone. One was likened to a slim Nokia Corp. phone with a keyboard that slides out. Another phone format presented by Google looked more like a Treo or a BlackBerry. It’s not clear which manufacturers might build Google wireless devices, though people familiar with the project say LG Electronics Co. of South Korea is one company that has held talks with Google. Google has already lined up a series of hardware component and software partners and signaled to carriers that it’s open to various degrees of cooperation on their part, the people say.

Kyte Tv / Kyte Mobile

Been meaning to try out Kyte for a few weeks and finally got round to it. I thought it might be similar to ComVu's pocketcaster which is a mobile client allowing live video streaming to a webpage/channel/widget etc..without the hassle of uploading.

Kyte describes itself as : "Easily create your own interactive TV channel featuring pictures, videos, music, polls, livechat and much more with kyte.tv."

It seems almost like a "MyTube" crossed with a real-time-chat room with other interactive elements thrown in. After setting up an account you can download the mobile client (screenshots below).











You create your own channel and then can broadcast shows by streaming pictures, audio or video to the channel (from the web interface or from you mobile if your handset supports the mobile client.)

Uploading your show from mobile is also supported via email, although broadcasting direct from the handset seems to be less hassle.

You can watch your own or other people's shows (on their channel) from your mobile (Featured / Most watched / Just produced) as the pics below show or on the web.

You can also see how many others are watching your show. Other features include tagging of shows, saving favourite and allowing other friends to broadcast shows on your channel (with pre-checking options by the channel owner).

The integrated real time chat element I found ** very ** interesting as you can set it up for some auto-moderation (profanity) and it allows you to discuss the show you've produced in real-time chat room style with your "watchers".

From the pic below (I've blurred out watcher "Meechy's" face) you can see I was having a chat with two watchers (Meechy and Anon) having posted one of my avatar pictures to my channel as a "show".

What's impressive from a mobile perspective is that Audio snippets and Video messages (left by Meechy who was on a PC with a webcam) are also downloaded into the Kyte mobile client - a very nice touch! (note that it all happens in-line, ie. I can hear the message or view the video clip within the kyte mobile client - it doesn't start RealPlayer for example on the N95 making a very streamlined multimedia chat experience).

It seems that most of the features can be used directly from the mobile client although customising the look and feel and access control have to be done through the website.

It almost seems obligatory at the moment for any web startup to have a facebook widget and Kyte is no different, but you can also embed your channel into your MySpace, Wordpress or Blogger blogs as a widget too ...

iPhone impressions

Hype and hysteria are settling down to practical realities.

There has been so much said on the device in the media since its launch it's difficult to filter the signal from the noise (whatever your viewpoint, you'll certainly be able to find someone that corroborates it).


And so it is in my case. My views of the iPhone concur with some of the points mentioned in the below articles :

Steve Litchfield AllAboutSymbian Review
Christian Lindholm blog

Two important factors of the iPphone for me, were whether I could use it single handedly and the touch-screen user interface. Starting with the second point, first.

The user interface is glorious and carries through to the native applications. Be it the cover flow of the album art,the landscape to portrait intuitive flipping in browsing and photo modes, the inertia scrolling in lists, the double-tap / pinch and zoom combos.

The animations and transitions when accessing and navigating around the applications and within them are not superfluous. They add to the playful/fun/delightful user experience. The reason this works is because of the speed of the interface.

It is very, very fast -it's the fastest interface I've seen on a high-end phone. I'm not talking about connected apps via WiFi (although they too are fast at updating) - I mean just accessing the native applications...

If you tap on something you get instant visual feedback. No waiting , no 1-2 second delay whilst the application talks to the OS thinks about it or loads into memory. I've discussed this in prior posts in relation to the big 5 handset manufacturers. Speed in the user experience is vital and Apple's choice of hardware running a version OSX admirably achieves this.

A user interface that is slow, whether because of the underlying hardware/OS or application software on top of it (there are always tradeoffs ) - degrades the whole overall user experience and this has been avoided by the Apple engineers on Generation1: iPhone.

It's not perfect though. There are some inconsistencies that bring me on to my second point of being able to use the phone in one hand only.

Previously I mentioned the "invisible hand" in the prelaunch Apple ads, where the iPhone is being held and the pecking finger is used for the phone. You can use the phone in one hand for some of the applications eg. weather, stocks, ipod and photos. For those apps that use the keyboard though it's quite a lot harder, though not impossible.

It's too early to say, yet, but my first attempts at trying to ** type ** with a single right handed thumb with the device in one hand using the keyboard were very, very slow, frustrating and not really feasible (as opposed to on S60/T9 for example).

I'll certainly keep practicing and maybe will improve, but I would expect Apple to release in future, a right thumb / left thumb version of the keyboard for single-handed use across their applications - this may help improve speed of typing.

There are also some inconsistencies between the applications. For example, to unlock the phone from sleep mode single handedly with a thumb you drag the slider from left to right. This is simple enough and feels comfortable. However in the photos application to flip through your photos you have to drag your thumb in the opposite direction (right to left = pushing). This was not as comfortable to me as "dragging" It's a small point but it would have been nice to be able to configure this in the settings for the application. Again small improvements that I'd bet Apple will address in future releases.

I won't do a review of the other native iPhone Apps (Google maps, youTube etc..) - as there are loads of detailed proper reviews on the web already ... Anyway I cannot access the full phone/calling functions at the moment. I am interested in the phonebook/contacts and how quick it is to dial favourites though, so may post an update at a later time.

Overall, I'm impressed with Apple's effort and wasn't expecting to be.
This is a bold first attempt by Apple (if you discount their iTunes/Motorola ROKR effort). Generation 1 of the iPhone has flaws and I don't think it's a smartphone without the extensibility, but Apple have set a new benchmark in user experience and interface design for phones/mobile devices.

A fantastic user experience can go a long way to help make the mass market start adopting services beyond voice and text from their mobile (amongst other factors such as flat data of course). The email configuration for example is simplicity itself, name of email account/description, username and password!

Surely too, the iPhone user experience will impact postively the other handset manufacturers ? For example sticking a touch-interface on top of S60 or Windows Mobile (eg.HTC Touch) will not be enough in my opinion. This type of interface needs to flow throughout the whole phone, the applications running on it and integrate across services running on the device. Furthermore the firmware and hardware need to be optimised for this.

From phones with touch interfaces like the LG Prada and successor (KU990) to recent smartphones like the N95, Sony Ericsson P1i, Moto Z8 and internet tablets like the N800/N900 I think the iPhone and touch screen smartphones will follow an interesting converegence path over the next 12 months.

Microsoft Windows Live Messenger client for S60

Well, it's been a while from Microsoft, but this little app includes mail, instant messaging, Search, MSN and access to Live Spaces.

A nifty mailbox is added to your Messaging client for picking up all those Hotmails but the main use will be MSN messenger ... surely ?

Download link here

That completes the set of the big web email providers Yahoo,Google and now Microsoft all have mobile clients of some sort for different OS's as well as mobile browser/web access to their services ...

Mobile clients have been available for various the different mobile OS's for a while (in the case of Microsoft Windows Mobile OS) but even the mighty MS realise that they have to port "access" to the services across different mobile OS's if they want uptake.

Links for last week

Everone's favourite uploading client - Shozu has been updated to version 3.2 and now supports multiple destination addresses from a single upload saving you time and money, new destinations such as Facebook and increased upload size to 10 Mb (much more useful now for YouTube uploads). There is also support (official) for the Nokia N95. Yay.


I've talked about PIM applications before and why the handset manufacturers just don't seem to develop basic functionality that everyone would find useful is disappointing. Mobile is about Communication primarily and 80% of your communication is to 20% of your contacts/network (big generalisation but broadly true).












If you communicate via text and send a lot of 'em (my usage seems to be increasing over the years) then TextQuick application by MindFlip for S60 edition3 is great. It's a beta release at the moment but seems pretty stable.

It reduces number of clicks vs. the "New Message" S60 Active idle application markedly. ie. I can text my most used contact in two clicks with TextQuick vs. 5 clicks using new message or any other shortcut. (S60 could have solved this another way by allowing the SpeedDial application to also allow SpeedText to a favourite contact) - but TextQuick is more dynamic constantly changing the sort order based on who you've previously sent texts to.

It takes a lot for me to change one of my softkeys to a most-used application but text-quick is definately a candidate. Thanks to Symbian in Motion for discovering this cool little application.

Russell Beattie blogging again

Blatant reblogging - links

Couple of interesting links today - sorry no original thought though...

Atmaspheric Endevaours (Jonathan Greene) compares N95 , N800 and iPhone form factors and delves into some of the iPhone features, just in case you're not fed up with hearing about it already.

Engadget gets the rumour-scoop on the potential next version of nokia's internet tablet.
The N800 tablet now supports Skype via an OS upgrade.

N95 8Gb version more pics.

New versions of Apps

Update ... Friday 6th July, Jaiku also announced their mobile web version / access.



I've been testing the new beta version of Jaiku and the public version of the new Mobile GoogleMaps.

The Jaiku client is much improved in several areas - there are loads of changes and the list no doubt will be on jaikus website when they launch. The main one for me is the interface is much simpler and clearer to understand/use ...and seeing threaded jaikus and comments is just great (like threaded SMS).

This week, I was up at Oxford Forum listening to some presentations on Mobile Social Networking. On the way thought I'd test out the newer version of Google Maps for Mobile which integrates GPS on the N95.

It worked well and navigated me step by step by step to my location (it uses a little blue marker - see top image). I took the screenshot below as I was there, and Shozu automatically geotagged it and uploaded it, so that it sits nicely on my flickr map (saving me the effort to drag it to the correct position at a later date)... geotagging simplicity !