De-cluttering can be a tiresome chore, especially seeing all the now naff Christmas gadgets of old.

One throw back that reminded me about what we may have lost is Psion’s 5MX, or, in my case, Ericsson’s cloned version, the MC218.   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_5mx

This was pretty much Ericsson’s first leap into the smart device market, predating the Ericsson R380 by a year or two.  What a beast though.

It may not be the smallest PDA out there, but the keyboard is a joy to use almost allowing touch typing.  It could still cut it for on the hoof work with its rather good word processor and spreadsheet applications, infra red modem interface, large high resolution touch screen and 20 hour battery life.  Sony Ericsson even has support pages; after 10 years!

OK so it’s no iPhone basher, but there’s more than a hint of what could have been a great hardware manufacturer before Psion fractured into Symbian. 

Now where’s my Reuters Tandy 100?

The Apple iPhone is, without doubt in my mind, the best combined mobile phone and media player ever developed.  Unfortunately it compares unfavourable with older handsets like Sony Ericsson’s P990i, on even basic features. 

 

So here is a list of things I want from Apple for 2009, though I have no expectation that I will get any of them.

 

 

Core Features

 

Multi tasking of third part applications

Denying third party applications, like LastFM, Fstream and ebay, from running in the background seriously compromises the iPhone’s use as the main mobile and media player.  This is the same problem as with the old Palm OS, and look where that is.  In Apple’s distorted world, users only use the iPod player in the background.  Sorry Apple, some people like to multi task and want to listen to streaming media at the same time as writing emails. 

 

Swapping between applications

Even if there is no multi tasking, there should at least be an easy way of flipping between recent applications rather than exiting and reopening them.

 

Cut & Paste

Not everyone can remember long URL’s or want to retype text from a document to an email, so why hasn’t Apple made an effort to introduce this most basic of features.  Other developers have shown working concepts, and Symbian has had this for years.

 

A unified file system

When I download documents I want to share them between applications, perhaps to edit them or repurpose the content somehow.  Quickoffice is a case in point, an invaluable tool for editing text and spreadsheets that cannot exist under Apple’s strange ideas of corporate working.

 

Side-loading Ringtones

What’s the second thing people do after switching on their shiny new mobile, they want to change the ringtones.  Unless you buy Apple’s ringtones you have to fudge an MP3 track into Apple’s format, and even then only take a small chunk of it.

 

Voice Dial/Response

Why can’t drivers at least reject or answer a call by voice.  Not exactly a radical feature and one that predates the iPhone by at least 8 years.

 

Encryption

Companies and organisations need to encrypt information to definable standards on all mobile devices, something not possible with the iPhone.

 

Turn by Turn Navigation

It’s great to have GPS and a large screen with Google Maps, but the iPhone would be so much more useful with turn by turn navigation.

 

 

Hardware

 

5Mpx Autofocus Camera with video and flash

The Nokia N90 and Sony Ericsson P990, the first of the new wave of media phones, had an autofocus 2Mpx camera on launch with extensive photo controls and video capabilities.  Didn’t Apple look at the competitors when the iPhone was in the design phase?

 

Memory card slot

Whilst it’s nice to have lots of onboard memory, the competition now outclasses the iPhone.  In particular not, being able to swap music, videos, documents and images between the iPhone and other devices is severely limiting.

 

Screen angling

Having such a great video player and screen, it’s disappointing that there is no way of propping up the iPhone with an integral kick stand.

 

 

Messaging

 

Email search

Some mobile email clients allow the search of emails.  Especially useful for corporate Exchange users.

 

Reply/Forward marker

Not seeing if an email has been replied or forwarded is a nuisance.

 

Easily move between Inboxes

There’s no simple method to swap to another email account – you have to back out.

 

Rotate screen in email & SMS

It can be far easier to read and write messages in landscape than in portrait.  Even the 90’s Alcatel One Touch Com had that.

 

Email spell checker

More of a nice to have, but considering the foibles of writing using a virtual keyboard, it would be useful to have a spell checker, especially if auto correct is off.

 

Set out of office flag

Another corporate feature available on BlackBerry’s but not on the iPhone.  Very useful if you have gone away and need to redirect emails.

 

Time and day control of email fetch and push

Though the iPhone’s battery life is much improved, it would be useful to limit the push/pull activity between certain times of day and days of the week, as you can with Dataviz.

 

Access to Exchange Global Address List

Another corporate nice to have is the ability to search in the Global Address List on an Exchange server.

 

Follow up and importance flags

Being able to set follow up flags when browsing email on the road makes dealing with actions later much easier.

 

Change Email tones

Another basic feature missing.

 

 

MMS

Even the Ericsson T68 had MMS from the early days of GPRS, why not a true media device like the iPhone?

 

Forward SMS

Unforgivable omission especially if you share jokes.

 

No SMS reports

It’s comforting to have confirmation that an SMS has been received.  No comfort with the iPhone though.

 

 

Bluetooth – The missing profiles

 

Stereo Bluetooth

All high end hand sets have A2DP stereo headset profile except the iPhone.

 

Push Profile

Images and files can’t be printed or shared wirelessly as there is no Object Push profile.

 

Synchronisation Profile

Neither is there a Synchronisation profile for wireless connectivity to iTunes.

 

Keyboard Profile

No keyboard HID profile for typing reports using a proper keyboard.

 

Dialup Profile

No Bluetooth dialup profile for using iPhone as a modem.  Hardware tethering not possible either.

 

 

No doubt there are more omissions to this list, but the iPhone is still a superb gadget with or without these features.

 

Whilst the rest of the world has suffered from the credit crunch and banks are propped up by our taxes, the mobile industry has ploughed on regardless.

 

The market for mobile technology continues to expand dramatically.  3G & GSM usage has risen with over 3.3billion 3G/GSM subscribers by the end of third quarter of this year (Source GSA).  High speed mobile access continues to grow with now more than 65million subs and 960 plus devices to support the ever growing user numbers.  The market is expanding at a phenomenal pace.

 

But what, in my opinion, have been the most important events of 2008 and what can we expect for 2009.

 

Starting with what have been the best mobile products of 2008

 

These last 12 months has seen the Asian manufacturers embrace touch screen technologies as the way into the mass market.  LG, Samsung, HTC, have all brought out significantly improved and diverse handsets.  But it is Apple that has captured users’ hearts.

 

The original iPhone was so crippled by the lack of applications and 3G data that apart from the, admittedly many, early adopters the original iPhone launch in 2007 was a massive disappointment.  Apple learnt some hard lessons, especially in Europe.  Customers used to high end devices being heavily subsidised were never going to buy a technically backward mobile at a premium price.

 

That all changed with the iPhone 3G that not only gave the world the best mobile phone media player and screen, but also access to decent HSDPA mobile speeds on competitive tariffs and at little upfront cost.  This was uniquely combined with the breathtaking usability of an application store that made it the simplest and cheapest method of getting fun new apps.  Compare and contrast with the mobile networks and other handset manufacturers paltry efforts, and Apple has dominated the third party app market in 2008.

 

Nokia on the other hand seemed to just plod on in its rut of selling the widest range of inoffensive mobiles to as many people as it can.  Notably different was the introduction of the E71, one of the highest calibre handsets from Nokia this year.  With an all metal construction, every connectivity option going, and a reasonable media spec, it has singularly raised Nokia’s profile in the business and professional user market.  In many respects it has put the chunkier N series range of handsets into the shadows.

 

RIM, having seen the threat from Apple inclusion of ActiveSync as businesses migrate to free push email, came back strongly in the last half of the year with the Bold and Storm.  Unfortunately these were rushed to market so whilst the Bold looked good it performed badly with many reported problems especially on Orange.

 

Not without its own bugs, the Storm has nonetheless refreshed BlackBerry’s image as an innovative brand in most users’ minds.  With one of the largest touch screens, and an improved media player, the Storm keeps the pressure on Apple, HTC and especially Nokia.

 

When it comes to advances in media capture, Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson lead the way.  All have introduced 8mpx camera handsets, but it seems that Samsung has surprised the market by pushing Nokia’s N series to one side with the class leading Symbian based i8510 INNOV8 with 8mpx camera.  No doubt Nokia could create a better handset, but it hasn’t yet.

 

 

What devices or technology have disappointed me the most?

 

For me the biggest disappointment of the year was the failure of Apple to introduce multitasking for iPhone third party applications.  Even some feature phones allow some applications to run concurrently.  Other disappointments were the inability of side-loading applications without having to jailbreak the iPhone first, and impoverished Bluetooth support.

 

Nokia has had a bad time this year as well.  With a shrinking market share and little impact in the US, it is terrible to see such a great company temporarily taking a break from innovation and quality. 

 

The launch of their spear head device of 2008, the N96 in February, offered little to differentiate itself from the preceding N95 8GB.   Much delayed and only available from November, a full 9 months after it was initially shown, the N96 came to market with too many flaws.  It was just too similar in form factor to the cheaper N95 8GB, with its TV capabilities of no use in most countries.  It also shipped with software faults that considering it was an evolutionary device, was quite unforgiveable.

 

Similarly, the Sony Ericsson X1 was late to market and seems downright antiquated with very poor usability in comparison to other HTC manufactured devices.  On the upside voice quality is superb when you can actually make a call.  Perhaps all will come right once Windows Mobile 7 is released, though for HTC and Xperia users this won’t evidently happen until 2010.  Apple and RIM must be pleased.

 

High speed data continues to impress and disappoint in equal measures.  Whilst theoretically offering unlimited mobile broadband, many users are finding that their dictionary interpretation of unlimited differs from those of the operators.  Some unlimited deals top out at 500MB and then only if used in the UK.  Expect a large, very large, bill if surfing abroad, even if using a partner network.  Will the EU finally sort this problem out?  I doubt they will to any great extent, especially with operators facing falling revenues.

 

High speed data also faces more problems with less than national or even city coverage due to under investment.  This has certainly not been helped by the networks attempting to sell high speed mobile data as some sort of home broadband replacement which is saturating the network infrastructure and reducing transmission speeds to a crawl.

 

Unexpectedly shown the exit doors were Nokia’s Intellisync and, less unexpectedly, UIQ.  Both products had a loyal following, but UIQ was never going to survive with S60 Touch and then Symbian being absorbed into Nokia.  Of more concern was the frankly disgraceful abandoning of business customers by Nokia’s perfunctory closure of its Intellisync division, leaving many companies and organisations future mobile strategies in tatters.

 

 

What are the highlights of 2008?

 

Without doubt the launch of the iPhone 3G, with the 2.1 software, has completely changed the market.  As mentioned earlier, the original iPhone was a popular niche product, but the iPhone 3G is a revelation in design and third party application support through the AppStore (not withstanding my other criticisms!)

 

Google’s Android OS rattled the market with the launch of T-Mobile’s G1 handset yet suffered under the glare of the iPhone 3G.  Android shows great promise, though it will take a year or two to settle in as a main stream alternative to Symbian and Apple. 

 

At the lower end of the market there has been wave after wave of new handset introductions all seemingly aimed at giving users the best feature set at the cheapest price.  For me though the best low end handsets both come from 3, the Skype Phone 2 and the INQ1.

 

Fantastically well priced yet offering a feature set targeted at young & web savvy customers, these two handsets give users exactly what they need, easy to access Web 2 applications where ever they want to use them.  Facebook, LastFM, Skype, broadband modem, all at their finger tips.  Simply brilliant.

 

A mobile browser war seems to have developed in 2008.  With Microsoft’s Mobile Explorer seeming moribund, Opera is now shipping as the true face of the internet for Windows Mobile based handsets.  Though coming from opposing sides are Skyfire and Iris.  Though both are in Beta they seem to be worthy competitors to Nokia’s and Microsoft’s efforts.

 

It’s also been impressive watching Nokia concentration on developing a market dominating consumer portal.  Not only has Nokia overpowered the objections of most major networks with (poorly) competing services, they have also become the teenagers’ friend with the launch of “Comes With Music”, the all you can consume music portal. 

 

Though it’s not only media consumption.  Producing content, especially live video broadcasting through Qik, Livecast and others has turned many people into on the spot journalists especially in yet another troubled year.

 

 

Who has shone in the mobile sector in 2008?

 

Apple of course, but also the BBC.  The iPlayer (with a lot of help from the iPhone 3G and the high speed networks) has turned mobile TV from an abject failure to a success story.  Now that the user can control what they want to view, on-line video snacking and podcasts from BBC’s iPlayer is replacing the low quality efforts that the networks tried to foist on their subscribers.

 

Remarkably Three has reaffirmed its leading position in services and network value in 2008, with a string of new handset launches, tariffs, dongles, services and most especially ‘getting’ what users want!  Easy access to all the web applications they use at home, but especially Skype, Facebook and my favourite, LastFM.   It also embraced Nokia’s Comes with Music rather than fighting it.

 

Another mention must go to all the applications developers that year after year have struggled to get any worthwhile support and outlet from operators and handset manufacturers.  Now with Apple’s AppStore the market has completely changed in their favour, Apple having the faith and confidence to prove that users will buy apps if they can get hold of them easily and at the right price.  If a newbie to mobile could do it, why couldn’t the operators?

 

 

What will be the top trends in 2009?

 

Google’s Android should make a bigger impact in 2009 as more handset manufacturers look for an open source smartphone operating system.  Nokia’s more mature Symbian OS may be regarded as too much of a threat coming from a competitor, as well as being regarded, rightly or wrongly, as yesterday’s technology. 

 

In that respect Chinese handsets may migrate from being cheap clones to a realistic alternative to the established manufacturers, especially with value for money being a critical motivator in a recession.  Bespoke handsets from Zzzphone and others could define a new market for those wanting something different and sparkly.

 

Handset technology will also continue to be ramped up.  Touch screens, GPS, 5 & 8Mpx cameras will become the new standard.  Perhaps the other networks will learn from Three and introduce their own high end integrated application handsets; though I doubt they will based on their previous efforts.  We should also see improvements in memory capacity, processor speeds and not before time, 3D graphic capabilities.

 

Mobile Web 2.0 applications and widgets will make a real impact next year.  Facebook, VoIP, IM, presence, location and many other applications will all be more plentiful and usable as developers absorb the feedback from the first run of iPhone apps.  This experience will feed across all platforms.

 

FOTA (Firmware Over The Air) is already being used by Nokia to update handsets without the hassle of a PC or user intervention.  This may spread to other handsets and manufacturers, which can only be welcomed considering the abysmal standard of launch software.

 

A consequence of the recession will be an increasing number of SIM only deals benefitting customers and networks alike.  It costs the networks oodles of money subsidising handsets and non payment of contracts.  So by offering low tariffs and no shiny handset the networks are quids in.   The flip side is that more of the networks will want a 24month commitment before giving away a free handset.  That will be a commitment too far for many new and existing customers.

 

A threat to this network nirvana comes from the MVNO’s such as Tesco, Lycamobile and Blyk.  Tesco are aggressively targeting their regular customers with cheap Tesco branded deals and supporting this expanded venture with new in-store departments focused on all things telecom.  With Tesco’s having better deals than their carrier network, T-Mobile, the existing operators should be worried. 

 

Lycamobile may be a newbie niche MVNO player but it offers exceptionally low international calling rates Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.  This could attract a heck of a big niche targeted through corner and community shops.

 

 

What technology should we watch in 2009?

 

Invariably there will be at least one new Apple iPhone hopefully with a useful camera this tie round, and substantial improvements to the software feature (MMS, Copy & Paste, multi tasking, security etc)

 

Nokia’s Ovi is going through rapid feature enhancement and increasingly the disparate elements will be knitted together creating a mobile & web service that will directly challenge Google.  The final integration of Symbian into Nokia’s corporate structures will allow Nokia to accelerate these advances.

 

Network technology such as HSPA+ and LTE will continue to evolve, though 2009 will be the year of WiMAX. It is debatable Whether WiMAX will make much of an impact in Western Europe but in many emerging markets WiMAX offers broadband where fixed broadband and telephony are impossible to deploy. 

 

Sometimes innovations come with a fair few problems.  One of these will be integrated projectors.  Mini projectors are already being used to project images and text of questionable taste on peoples’ walls.  This will rapidly become a more invasive problem with the integration of mini projectors into mobiles. 

 

NFC (Near Field Communication or Oyster cards to Londoners) may just make an introduction in some lower end handsets.  Although the security flaws found in NFC may stall wide scale acceptance, the convenience of touch and go may override some objections.

 

 

Any still unannounced products that we need to keep on our radar?

 

There will obviously be a new iPhone (4G?) and possibly an iPhone Nano, plus a plethora of Android based handsets.  HTC will of course also scatter more Microsoft Mobile devices into the market, though whilst the hardware will be top notch the same will not be said of Windows Mobile.  Without Windows Mobile 7 in 2009 Microsoft’s user interface will look increasingly tired, especially against Android. 

 

The more interesting devices will launch later in 2009 to support WiMAX and HSPA+ networks rolling out in some countries.  It will be interesting to see if the more established monoliths make the commercial decision to sweat their existing network for every dollar before plunging into 4G (LTE, Long Term Evolution) networks in 2010.

 

Nokia is guaranteed to have a radically improved product offering in 2009 after a dismal 2008.  With the leak of their smartphone roadmap and the announcements of the touch screen N97 and high speed 6260 Slide, Nokia should be able to halt the slide in its market share, though not in the volume of handsets shipped.

 

 

Any company that could make or break in 2009?

 

At the top of their game, Apple, Google, HTC and Samsung will be pushing forward in their various ways.  A resurgent Nokia will also strengthen their market position.

 

On the other side, Sony Ericsson seems to have lost confidence and, unlike Nokia, have no apparent strategy for pulling themselves up.   There is an ongoing rumour of a split between Sony and Ericsson, but both companies would be weakened with the potential demise of both as handset manufacturers.  The market doesn’t need another Benq-Siemens fiasco.

 

Motorola appear even more vulnerable.  Their smartphone strategy is in tatters with the loss of UIQ, and Android based handsets not expected until mid 2009.  They also have a less than stellar range of feature phones that are uncompetitive against those from Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson.  Motorola seems to be in a terminal decline having laid off many core staff and lacking support from the European networks. 

 

For similar reasons, Palm appears to be reaching the end of the road.  Their Treo Pro looks too much like HTC’s network branded handsets.  With Android effectively taking the place of the Palm OS, it unfortunately seems that 2009 may be another unhappy year for Palm’s employees.

 

 

 

With Nokia being so quiet and the recession sadly starting to bite, at least Apple and Google have cheered us up this year.  Though 2009 will be very difficult, we can look forward to many more interesting new handsets and services arising from all the behind the scenes work in 2008. 

The Beeb, being partial to all things Apple, was always going to launch an iPhone compatible iPlayer web site in preference to the tens of millions of other handsets crying out for a touch of BBC greatness.

So it was a big disappointment that their next release was aimed solely at the high end Nokia N96 rather than more popular Nokia and Samsung S60 handsets.

Thankfully that has neither stopped the industry nor the avid tinkerers out there from sorting out the BBC’s shortcomings.

Skyfire, the previously US/Canada only browser, is now available in the UK.  Great beta that it is, it also has another trick; playing iPlayer videos.  True, it is at only 3 or 4 frames a second and lip sync isn’t quite right, but at least all you E71, N95 and other WiFi enabled Symbian handset owners can get the best of Jeremy Clarkson or day time telly in your local hotspot (don’t try it over 3G as your tariff could be blown apart).

For Sony Ericsson’s X1 users, plus a few others, there is an even better solution.   The blog artesea.co.uk shows how an adept user can fool the iPlayer into showing full motion video in the Opera browser.  Works nicely over WiFi.

So that just leaves the question; when will the BBC start charging a separate licence fee for all smartphone users around the world?

According to the BBC’s Rory Celan-Jones, many of us are now relying on expert bloggers before buying our gadgets.  In particular Stephen Fry is singled out as having one of the sassiest incites into technology.

So with the BlackBerry Storm’s £10m campaign behind it and shortages reported in both Vodafone and Phones4U stores, this must be the most successful launch since the iPhone3G, isn’t it?

Possibly not, so it appears.  Not withstanding the much reported lack of WiFi and BES support, the BlackBerry Storm has come in for strong criticism from Stephen Fry and another guru, David Pogue of the New York Times.

“Shockingly bad”, “terrible lag”, “disappointment”, “BlackBerry Dud” are just some of the standout comments.  So the upshot could be that after the initial rush of first adopters and style wanabees, the next wave of buyers, having read these trusted commentators, will stay well away from the toxic Storm.

Though with Lewis Hamilton extolling the virtue of the Storm on YouTube  I wouldn’t want to bet either way.

After a particularly quite year, Nokia has suddenly pulled something out of the bag; a feature phone with new features!

Surpassing all of their high end smartphones, the Nokia 6260 doubles the screen resolution of their recent N96, has potentially faster internet with 10.2Mbps HSPA+, WebKit & Flash Lite browser and the usual WiFi, A-GPS and 5Mpx Carl Zeiss  camera.  The only flaw appears to be the single band 3G access.

This pretty much sets the standard in features for a feature phone (SE’s C905 only having a quarter VGA screen), but leaves Nokia’s Symbian range all the poorer.  Perhaps there are more rabbits in Nokia’s furry winter hat.

With the Advertising Standards Authority gently wrapping T-Mobile’s knuckles over their guaranteed “You won’t find more minutes for £30.” advert, it seems that 300,000 of them had no minutes at all. (The Register)

Courtesy of a failure in T-Mobiles network, users had a 6 hour respite from friends, relatives and colleagues gabbling about their weekend non-spending spree.  So with the backups out of their dusty closet and lots of crossed engineering fingers everyone should now be back having their One2One’s.

Perhaps the G1 reboot problem (now fixed) is still haunting the network?

With reduced profit and income forecasts, the mobile world is taking strident moves to reduce costs (mainly sacking people).

Blyk, the ad funded youth mobile network, are one of the latest.  Whilst Blyk have only 200,000 subscribers, they must be hoping they can emulate Virgin Mobile’s three fold rise in contracts subscribers.

Blyk’s target market does unfortunately appear to be unhappy with their service, some having lost patience with previous SMS and MMS messaging issues and problems with customer service.  Founding directors Jon Fisher & Jonathan MacDonald have also jumped ship.

Considering the 25% response rate, and the target student market, advertisers should be very happy.  Yet how will Blyk improve customer satisfaction if it “streamlines” too much of the company?

Reported by trade mag, Mobile Today, the much anticipated and lusted after (by BlackBerry aficionados) BlackBerry Storm was no where to be seen in some Vodafone stores last weekend. 

 

Considering the Sunday Mail had a favourable comparison between the Storm and iPhone 3G, there would have been many of the 70,000 people left acutely disappointed with the lack of stock.

 

Considering the debacle over at Orange with the BB Bold (network issues), Vodafone had an opportunity to show how a handset launch should be handled, especially as Vodafone used Lewis Hamilton as part of its campaign.

 

Perhaps McLaren should have delivered the phones instead.

It can’t be a good look to have a press photo of a new business handset with business bad news all over it!  With the launch of the E63 and its prescient web image, there can’t be much cheer for Nokia’s pals at Nokia Siemens, the infrastructure wing.

 

Synergy and adjustments are comforting words for investors but not for the 9,000 employees having their lives and families adjusted.  Inevitably whenever two large competing companies merge there will be synergy adjustments, but this comes on top of the failure of Benq Siemens and the restructuring of Nokia’s mobile divisions.

 

Credit crisis, recession, unemployment surges, trade shrinking, how right was Nokia’s image makers.

 

The HTC Max 4G first of the WiMAX 4G (10Mbps) handsets is hitting the market.

 

Whilst it lacks any 3G connectivity, the next generation of fast internet devices will be soon for sale in Russia on Yota. 

 

Looking rather like the HTC HD, it has Windows Mobile 6.1, large 3.8” 480 by 800 screen, WiFi, GPS and GSM for normal out of coverage calls.

 

Like many telecom companies in countries with no or poor telecom infrastructure, Yota has taken the opportunity to leap frog 3G for 4G.  The accepted belief is that LTE will prevail over WiMAX, but for now some lucky Russian customers can laugh at Europe’s low speed 3G networks.

It can’t be a good look to have a press photo that has unemployment rate up, recession and credit crunch on a business mobile!

 

But with the evident success of the E71, Nokia obviously had it mind to release a down market version for general management bods.  Not for them the classy metal structured top tier phone, plastic will do.

 

Whilst the E63 retains the E71’s high colour screen, it does loose the 3.2 Mpx autofocus camera in favour of a 2Mpx, and HSDPA, though this may not be too much of a problem if all a small business needs is a usable email centric handset.  WiFi plus VoIP support are also retained.

 

Set at a very affordable 199 Euros, the E63 should be available free of charge on most contract tariffs and could eventually be a good pre-pay offer.

O2’s iconic XDA brand has always been targeted at the professional end of the market demanding a long contract commitment before you were deigned worthy of high tech mobility.

That’s all changing with the recent release of the iPhone 3G on prepay and today, 10^th of November, the O2 XDA Zest. 

 

Typically prepay users were always given low spec handsets, but the XDA Zest is anything but. 

 

With HSDPA, WiFi, 2.8” VGA screen, GPS, Windows Mobile 6.1, 3MPx autofocus camera and FM radio, the XDA Zest has everything an iPhone competitor could need.  Plus at only £250 (less a penny) from the 17^th of November, the XDA Zest is £100 pound cheaper than the cheapest Pay and Go iPhone 3G. 

 

The XDA Zest must be a strong contender for the small business customer upgrading from their traditional Nokia and Sony Ericsson mobiles in the next few months.

Canalys has just released their latest smartphone sales research for Q3 2008.

 

Whilst the whole sector is shipping more products, Nokia sales are slipping, softening by 3.4% to 15,485,690 units.  Apple, however, has had a phenomenal rise of over 500% to nearly 7 million units.  BlackBerry and HTC sales have also risen ahead of the market to 6m and 2.3m respectively.

 

Consequently sales of Symbian handsets are declining rapidly (down to 18.5m from 21.2m), though still leading the market overall.  This may turn round later in 2009 as manufacturers take the opportunity to use Symbian’s open source code in preference to LiMo or Android, though that could be doubtful.

 

Perversely it is Samsung that is now showboating Symbian with their i8510 INNOV8, whilst Nokia suffers from the delay to market and terrible feedback from their underwhelming 2008 star handset, the N96.  This has to be worrying for Nokia moving into 2009.

There are an incredible number of iPhone devotees in London.  Go into any café, pub or train and there will be a good number using their iPhone’s as they fill up their ‘down’ time.  Though with the credit crunch, there is a lot more time to be downed.

 

According to a UBS analyst, Maynard Um, Apple are drastically cutting back the number of iPhones from 9 million in the third quarter to an expected 4 million in Q4. 

 

Obviously this could be a normal response to slack post Christmas buying trends, or a lead into a new iPhone.  Yet with the credit crunch looking particularly painful in 2009, Apple may just be reading the phenomenal change in spending patterns just right. 

 

Cheap SIM deal anyone?

Nokia’s ability to design, manufacture and market low cost handsets is really second to none.  With its announcement of another seven affordable handsets Nokia can seemingly ‘publish’ the millions of new handsets as if they were just magazines rather than a highly complicated piece of technology.

 

Targeted at emerging markets, Nokia simultaneously announced an experimental service, Nokia Life Tools, in India to provide agricultural and educational information to remote communities.  Similar services in Africa have allowed farmers to find the best price for their produce elevating their families’ standard of living.

 

On the same day as the upbeat announcements comes the suggestion of further redundancies at Nokia as they try to refine their product development focus, potentially affecting 450 employees and closing its Turku site in Finland.  

 

With the demise of Nokia’s business divisions this must be a stressful time for Nokia employees. 

Sony Ericsson & Motorola started 2008 with a selection of existing and leaked UIQ handsets which appeared to presage a revitalised UIQ interface.  Today both giants of the industry have pulled from UIQ and appear to have embraced Microsoft Mobile for their Touch strategy, not withstanding SE’s vague announcements concerning Symbian’s Series 60 V5 UI.

 

Downsizing their Symbian Smartphone booth from Samsung size last year to a start-up size this year, shows the dramatic drop from favour that UIQ has received from the market.  Yet is this a good idea?

 

SE’s Paris (P5) handset seemed to have addressed the hardware issues from the P990i/P1i and Motorola’s Z10 would be a better alternative to the Microsoft’s Mobile Standard.  Yet both companies have given up the UIQ challenge and gone for the less usable, though feature rich, Microsoft solutions.

 

The natural replacement for SE’s P range is consequently the just released Xperia X1.  This has serious usability limitations which will never be addressed until Mobile 7 is released late 2009 or early 2010.  Perhaps a Mobile 6.5 may help, but it seems that the consumer touch game is, for the next year, between Nokia, Apple and Google.

It was only a few years ago that i-Mate were riding high in the mobile market selling the most desirable PocketPC devices.  From the SP3 through to the K-JAM they made the market for Microsoft mobile products.  So it was no surprise when they were eventually listed on AIM.

 

Yet now in 2008 they are appear to be a shadow of the great marketing machine they once were.  Having lost HTC as their OEM manufacturer, their recent products have been late, expensive and lacking usability innovation such as HTC’s TouchFLO.

 

So no surprise then when The Register reported that CEO & founder Jim Morrison, is taking i-Mate back into private ownership.  He may have a chance of success if he could only resurrect the style of cancelled products such as the 9150 and 7150.  Here’s hoping.

i-Mate Ultimate 9502

After a long drought of truly business handsets from Nokia, the dam appears to be have been breached.  The E71 has almost every feature that a business smartphone could have, and the E66 is a simpler but pleasant business slide format.  There are also another two handsets leaked, the E63 a cheaper clone of the E71 (saves the Chinese from doing it I suppose) and a horizontal slider.  With the E90 still a strong and well supported business device, on the face of it there is no doubt that Nokia want to play in the white collar business world.

 

The trouble is that Nokia has ended their relationship with BlackBerry, and Intellisync, their wholly owned mobile business platform, is no more.  Nokia describe the demise of Intellisync as a refocusing exercise, approved at the highest level, where limited resources (presumably people) have to be deployed appropriately.  So Ovi should be seeing a boost in employee number shortly.

 

This is good news for Nokia’s consumer support but I wonder if this is not an extremely short sighted decision for the overall strategy of the company.

 

Nokia and the networks built their fledgling mega corps on the profits from corporate and government organisations.  Out of which came classic devices and especially the 6310(i) which is still sought after many years since it was discontinued.  Well it does have superb battery life, call quality, ease of use and a car kit that was fitted to many executive cars.

 

Through the business handset boon was born the consumer craze, with Nokia’s ultimate offering the N95 (8GB) & N96.  Not forgetting the lower end, Nokia invests a great deal of money and energy in producing handsets for every population sector imaginable.  Though handsets may overlap in features, Nokia’s research has usually discovered a consumer niche to make the variants worthwhile.

 

With Nokia’s Ovi, social networking, sharing, music, video & photography and every other consumer based service will be provided to smother the opposition and sweep consumers ever more into the Nokia fold.

 

Except businesses.

 

Companies and organisations have learnt through bitter mistakes that they can’t treat their mobile strategy like a kiddie in a sweet shop.  Mobility is now part of the IT strategy not an after thought.  So when considering the type of handsets to deploy amongst 10 or 10,000 staff, a great deal of thought goes into what is required from the handset.  Reliability, battery life, connectivity, applications, mobile email, support and so on.

 

Contracts are negotiated with operators on a 24 month basis now, so getting the mobility strategy wrong can be a painfully expensive write down.  So organisations are planning.

 

So which handsets are the obvious contenders in any business handset strategy.  It must include BlackBerry, Microsoft (HTC) and Nokia Symbian; Android and the iPhone being too new and/or proprietary.

 

From the standpoint that there is no sense in mixing up the handset range, especially when developing new applications and access models are in mind, that leaves a passionate internal debate about the big three.

 

From an IT perspective the last thing support staff want are support calls.  But as they will have them, IT support will want an easy platform to fix remotely.  The idea of an exec’ being without his email in the wilds of the world and being told to drop their handset in next time they are back in the office doesn’t really cut it.

 

So BlackBerry has the BES server for controlling handsets and is a well liked platform.  Microsoft has a sort of device management service with their snappily named System Center Mobile Device Manager, though for sure not the best in the market.  So what does Nokia offer?  A month ago Intellisync, now nothing. 

 

Nokia haven’t even sold on Intellisync, nor will they.  So 100’s of thousands of users and many companies have little or no support for the 100’s of millions of dollars investment in their choice of Symbian handsets.  Talk about alienating your core customer base!

 

Of course you can look around and see that VNC have launched a direct control product, but that is hopeless if you are deploying applications, firmware and policies.

 

Mobile network operators could offer the service, though it is expensive, and would you really trust your IT in a mobile operator’s hand?  An outsource too far.  Plus it would be nearly impossible to migrate to another operator eliminating any high ground negotiating position.

 

This leads to the inevitable conclusion that the only players in the business space are now BlackBerry and Microsoft.  What a choice!

 

So rather than taking the brave decision to create a business version of Ovi, Nokia has just abandoned their customers to the fates.  Now with the credit crunch hitting the consumer market Nokia can no longer rely on businesses to ease the inevitable squeeze on profits.

 

If Nokia is to the mobile world that Mercedes is the automotive industry, what would Mercedes customers do if Mercedes suddenly decided that they would no longer maintain their vans and lorries; they would still make them but don’t expect any support.  Would customers not find another manufacturer that could support them?  But also when it comes to buying the next car, wouldn’t Mercedes be regarded as an unreliable partner, so giving the business to BMW.  If this analogy holds, BlackBerry will be doing a lot more business over the next few years.

 

 

So where is the strategy Nokia?

Nokia had its Smartphone Show preview party on Monday at which their first S60 touch screen handset was eagerly handled by the soggy attendees.  Note for the future Nokia, if people are slightly early and it’s raining hard, either let them in or have a supply of umbrellas to handout whilst they wait.

 

The Nokia 5800 is not an iPhone killer, yet for just over £200 contract free it is a bargain touch smartphone.  The screen is bright and sharp, there are well thought out controls to bring down menus and see your multi tasking applications (Apple take note), and the software worked smoothly, immediately changing orientation with little delay.

 

Physically it is both chunkier and narrower than an iPhone 3G. Also being a middle range handset its construction is plastic but with a reasonable feel.

 

The feature list is extensive with 3.5G, GPS, WiFi(g), Carl Zeiss 3.2Mpx auto focus camera, dual flash, stereo speakers and standard headphone plug.

 

On the down side it does not have a totally flush screen being slightly raised at the edge of the screen.  The screen sensitivity is also not up to iPhone standard, but better than some WinMo devices.

 

At the price there is little to fault the 5800, and in many respects would be at the top of my list for a smartphone at £300 or less.

Since my first Bluetooth headset, the Ericsson HBH-10, the novelty of wearing a lump of plastic on an ear has completely disappeared, look at any taxi rank. 

 

Style however has always been a problematic issue, again look at any taxi rank and see the evidence!  Things are changing though.  Serious efforts have recently been made in design which is where Bluetrek’s new Metal earpiece comes from.

 

The retail packaging tries to make the point, being in a brushed aluminium effect box giving the effect of a quality product within.

The base of the box contains all the accessories including a belt clip, rubber holder/USB charger, USB extension plug, and several ear hooks and in ear speaker covers.  All have been well designed and match the overall effect of the headset.

The headset itself is extraordinarily slim, looking like a small stick of chewing gum in size (4mm thick), and extremely light at 5.5gms.  Its very size may be an issue as it could be easily mislaid.  Being manufactured from black coated aluminium (also available in its natural brushed aluminium) does give it a crisp feel that most plastic headsets lack.  On style points, a good 8 out of 10.  As a comparison compare the Metal & Bluetrek’s Bizz against some earlier headsets.

 

Charging is simply via a USB port which saves having yet another power adapter.  Two minor quibbles are that to get the Metal so slim it needs to be firmly clicked into the rubber USB adapter to plug it into a USB slot, which is another thing to loose.  Charging takes about 45 minutes in my experience, and is indicated by a small red LED on the Metal’s back, going out when fully charged.  This gets to the second quibble, it really has to be clicked into the holder otherwise the Metal’s contacts don’t connect to the adapter.

 

For general carrying around, the belt clip does a good job though feeling a little flimsy in plastic.  A good or bad decision is the Metal must be in the rubber adapter to properly seat in the belt clip.

Getting the right combination of ear loop and speaker cover shapes is a hit and miss affair, though once the correct combination is found the Metal feels comfortable to wear. 

 

In use it is a pretty standard Bluetooth headset.  Holding the central button on the back edge for a few seconds switches the power on, for seven seconds or more (from off) switches it to pairing mode, or if already on will switch it off.  Volume controls is from two tiny (too small but it is slim) buttons either side of the on/off button.  One important point is that before pairing the Metal, ensure it is fully charged otherwise pairing will be erratic.

 

Putting on the Metal with the loop in place (it can be used without) requires a little dexterity though I am certain this would become easier with familiarity.

 

Conversational quality is fine both ways, as is the Metal’s general ease of use.  I had no problems with either the iPhone 3G or a Nokia E71.  Nokia voice commands worked as expected and mostly dialled the correct numbers.

 

The Metal is an ideal stylish partner to an iPhone 3G or other high end handset, though being quite this small, and with the rubber plug, may mean that you’ll have to buy a few spares over a year.

 

Price is around £30 (mobilefun.co.uk) .

 

Apple bangs on about third party applications ruining the iPhone experience if left running in the background.  Absolute piffle as BJ might say.

Two super apps one recently updated, the other new to the App Store illustrate why multi tasking is needed, not just for Apple’s own applications.

The first is Fring.  If you are heavy Skype user, and many small businesses are, Fring is a godsend if your fixed line is your Skypein number.  In essence your calls follow you wherever you are, never missing the important job that pays your next month’s rent.  International colleagues also appreciate the zero cost of contact instead of the fortune the networks would like to charge.  Fring on the iPhone is the solution.  Or would be, if it weren’t for the little fact that it has to run in the foreground.

Want to read an email, and talk on Fring, forget it.  Want to find the web site as you discuss business with a colleague in the US, not a chance.  The Fring user interface is great, sheer iPhone simplicity except Apple refuse to allow the app to run in the background.

  

Like to listen to music from LastFM ‘cause it suits your mood as you work?  LastFM has just been updated and is now nicer and simpler than ever. 

Yet again it has to run in the foreground!  Why!  My Nokia’s E71 lets me have LastFM blasting in my ears, Fring listening for Skype calls, and I can be writing uber emails using RoadSync.  This is not even S60 V5.  With Nokia’s 5800, and follow up handsets in the very near future, Apple are going to have the best & worst handset on the market.

Hard news for businesses using Nokia’s Intellisync and security products!

Announced yesterday, 29^th of October, Nokia have pretty much bailed out of the enterprise space, deciding to concentrate its efforts on Ovi.  See release.

The signs were there, sort of, with the ditching of BlackBerry Connect from the E series and the recent support for Microsoft ActiveSync.  Yet with a cavalier disrespect for their existing customers, why should any large business decide to buy Nokia.  The E series range of handsets is, sorry was, part of an integrated portfolio of products directly competing with the likes of BlackBerry and Microsoft.  So can businesses now trust that Nokia will keep innovating their E series handsets?  Quite frankly they can’t. 

With Intellisync dropped from the portfolio, Symbian device management is now left to companies such as mine.  Yet in fact what may happen is that business buyers will look again at Microsoft/HTC and BlackBerry as the handset supplier of choice (Apple as lovely as it is has limited support for security conscious businesses and associated applications).  Just as well we support those as well.

So though this is a great opportunity for most MDM companies, this perverse short sighted decision could badly damage Nokia’s reputation in business, and mobile distribution alike.  Ouch.

Whilst clearly hitting a sensitive spot with my previous article concerning Greenhill & Co investment of $22.9m in Iridium, it should also be noted that GHL Acquisition Corp (GHQ), an affiliate of Greenhill & Co, is the company acquiring Iridium.

Having raised $400m from an IPO earlier this year, GHL are providing $100m of cash to Iridium and $360m in the shares of GHL Acquisition Corp.  Greenhill’s $22.9m does give them two seats on the board, certainly an influential position to be in.

According to Iridium, having learnt from past mistakes, and with a strong operational record for the last few years, new requirements for machine to machine communications will ensure they maintain growth.

There is some logic in this as there is little desire on the part of the wireless operators to extend their infrastructure into remote areas where three is little chance to get a return on capital investment.  Yet it is precisely these remote areas that suffer from extreme weather and geological activity, and need to be monitored.

Iridium should also have a brighter future with the burgeoning growth in off shore wind farms, wave power and other alternative energy schemes,  that require remote diagnostics independent of any fixed connection.

Iridium have a tough challenge ahead of them to deploy a new constellation of satellites, I hope they succeed.

For a measly $22.9 million, Greenhill, a private investment firm, has bought Iridium.

Probably the only commercial mobile carrier that can reach every part of the planet, Iridium’s LEO satellite cluster has increased its user base from 55,000 subscribers in 2000 to around 300,000 now.    Considering the $5billion it cost Motorola and $25million when it was taken over after its bankruptcy, Iridium has been both a costly exercise in hubris, and a chance to create a global communication network, in the same way that GPS technology has unified positioning.

The agreement will allegedly enable Iridium to “develop its next generation satellite constellation, Iridium Next.”  The cost of development is one thing, deployment, as Motorola painfully found out, is a multi billion gamble prone to commercial challenges which can not be forecast.

It may be just me, but the launch by T-Mobile of the G1, the first consumer Android handset, was surprisingly downbeat.

Perhaps this was down to the number of blog posts who predicted the form factor, look and abilities of this launch device.  Spoilt the surprise birthday I guess.  Or could it be that this, like the Apple iPhone, is still very much work in progress, and may have been launched purely to be seen to have met an internal deadline.

Well hardware spec wise there is little to shout about, being similar in many ways to the latest HTC devices, especially the Touch Pro and Xperia X1.  The software spec is another matter. 

The touch UI seems on the surface to be more flexible than Apple’s, yet deficient in all the hardware drivers that many professionals, and music lovers, want.

Bluetooth profiles -only headset, no A2DP, no Bluetooth Keyboard support, no sync support.  Push corporate email – someone else can develop that.  Document editor, seems you can only read.  Synchronise with your desktop – what’s that?  This is obviously a very rushed product.

Sure, great play was made of Android’s disputed openness, third party developers and an application eco system.  Yet despite of all the apps that could have presented, there was only a how green is your life, and something else less memorable.

Then when the founders of Google mentioned how one of them wrote an app to measure the time between throwing and catching their handset, it all seems to come together.  This is a handset for programmers and techies, not for real people whose lives involve doing fun stuff like eating, raising kids, and generally enjoying themselves.

There are of course some cool ideas, especially access to Google’s street view.  Also it is at least multi tasking (one over Apple there!).

For the rest of us, it’s just another SIM locked, expensive gadget that will work fantastically well if your into Google applications, email and search, but not at all well if you actually just want a work a day handset that doesn’t need a degree in tinkering.

Thanks, but I’ll stick with the iPhone.

Tinker away after the 22^nd of October state side ($179 + $25/$35 per month), UK in November and the rest of Europe in 2009.

Whilst Symbian is the most popular smartphone operating system by sheer number of devices, it is arguably the one least used by business.  That’s not to say many SME and large companies don’t have the N and E series handsets, just that few use them for anything other than voice with a bit of music and photography thrown in.

But the mobile email environment is changing rapidly.  Data is being bundled by the networks, Microsoft’s Exchange ActiveSync push email removes third party server support, and the user has a plethora of choice of handsets from Apple’s iPhone, through HTC’s Touch favourite of the month, and now all those Nokia’s N95’s can securely receive company email. 

In the credit crunch, a saving of a tenner a month per user is significant, especially for hundreds or thousands of devices.  Though will Nokia’s elimination of BlackBerry Connect help it?  Perhaps not.  Existing BlackBerry users may not want to change (if they have a choice) especially with more attractive BlackBerry devices, the Bold & Storm, hitting the market. 

Nokia’s desire to compete in the area of business applications is hindered by not only a lack of development of its own software;  application developers concentrate on software platforms they know will be used in companies, and their from BlackBerry and Microsoft.

With many organisations looking at VoIP as a part replacement for fixed and some mobile calls, it would appear natural for Apple to have supported SIP out of the box.  That they didn’t opened up a market for innovative developers to do the job.

One such,  Sipgate, has developed a SIP client for jailbroken iPhones, well the first iPhone anyway.  Of course using VoIP over WiFi leads to call substitution reducing the revenues of the mobile operator.  This potential has narked T-Mobile who has been able to persuade a German court to ban the use Sipgate on the iPhone in Germany. 

Along side AT&T abhorrence of tethering applications, Apple’s push into the business market is being hindered by their partner carriers.

With companies impacted by the credit crunch, unrestricted handsets such as Nokia’s E71, Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1 and HTC’s Touch Pro, make better business sense than the iPhone.

Source:  Cellular News

Apple’s embarrassed release of 2.1, Steve Job’s 30 seconds of spiel about bug fixes not withstanding, seems to have cured many of the big irritations of the original device.  Even GPS seems to be working ok now.

Contact searching is much smoother, the network signal seems accurate(ish), backing up is definitely faster (seconds instead of 10 minutes plus), and applications are installed faster.  This is all great news.

Unfortunately this has rendered the iPhone only up to the level it should have been originally.  It’s not as if Apple simultaneously develop 10’s of handsets models (unlike Samsung & Nokia), so should have isolated most of the bugs before launch. 

Yet even now, the iPhone seriously lacks many features that other smartphone users take for granted.  Not least cut and paste!

With the kids having just bought their going back to school pens and laptops, it’s now time for the Christmas tinsel to hit the high street. 

This week seems to have been made for the Christmas cheer.  First the ever yo-yoing saga of Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X1 has now gone back up to a launch on the 30^th of September. 

Second off the BlackBerry Storm (Thunder to most people) has been appraised courtesy of YouTube and TheBoyGenius.  

Thirdly there was the announcement, at last, of the iPhone 2.1 software. 

Fourthly it seems that the Nokia Touch will launch in early October.

Fifth, Modaco leaked some images of the iPhone challenger from HTC, the Touch HD.

Without doubt the market captured by the iPhone has some serious new hardware to extract Santa’s money.  Yet with a recession already upon us will he keep his wallet closed and the industry stockings filled with apples rather than Christmas dough?

Nokia is rumoured to be launching the 5800 Tube in October with their new touch UI based on Symbian Series 60.  From the little seen via YouTube and Mobile World Congress earlier this year, Nokia’s new UI is unlikely to grab the same attention that the iPhone 3G did.  This is inspite of the obvious flaws and restrictions imposed by Apple on third party applications, hardware flaws and interoperability issues.

According to Saturday’s FT, Android which may be launched before Christmas has yet to engender any great emotion in the market.  Whilst it is an allegedly open system there are still parts of the OS that are closely guarded from independent developers.  This has led to a wait and see attitude amongst many of them.

Demonstration units built by HTC have an air of a cheap Microsoft Mobile handset from a couple of years ago.  An issue not helped by Google’s low key low energy marketing effort.  This is now becoming an issue for Google as Nokia will now give away the well proven Symbian platform; one that Samsung, Motorola, LG and others have already invested a great deal of time and money on.

With Nokia in the doldrums, LiMo hiding, and Android seemingly going low key, big bad Microsoft may be the unlikely challenger to an increasingly iPhone centric world.