In the latest episode of the 361 degrees podcast, I receive a virtual yellow card for using the word ‘sodding‘ during the episode (referring to MMS). Ben was not impressed at my language and I could feel Rafe giving me a stare from 3,000 miles away. I couldn’t help it. 😉
Anyway, let’s get on with the overview. First, here’s a cunningly photoshopped set of photos of the podcast protagonists — (left to right) Ben, myself and then Rafe.
This week we’re recording remotely again as Ewan calls in from Austin, Texas. In the last episode of series 1 (don’t worry series 2 is already on the way) we have a bit of a whinge discussing ‘bothersome things‘Â (as Rafe terms them).
Ben‘s list covered pages by the time we finished listing them pre-recording so here’s a few choice ones… We discuss:
- WiFi hotspots
- MMS
- Batteries
- Mobile apps failing without coverage
- Context sensitive ringing
Gumpy old men we might be, but these are the niggles which drive us mad daily. What are yours?
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One of my biggest niggles in mobile is contact syncing. Â I have many contacts that have multiple cell phone numbers and if I use Google Contacts as my CRM and put someone in with 2 mobile numbers and then look on my iPhone only 1 mobile number shows up. Â The iPhone can’t handle syncing 2 mobile numbers for 1 person. Â
I for example have at least 3 mobile numbers. Â 1 specifically for the US, 1 for when I’m in Spain and 1 for when I visit Israel. Â Now if we’re friends here in the US and both go to Barcelona for MWC wouldn’t it be a pisser if you only had my US mobile # in your iPhone and not my Spanish number? Â
Keep in mind I can only verify that this is a problem on an iPhone.  Android devices sync contacts nearly flawlessly with GContacts and my BB sucks at syncing anything except incoming email.Â
Agree, JebBrilliant – I also find it a big niggle that Exchange/Outlook only allow one number for a mobile field.  You’re allowed 2 for business, 2 for home, and a fax for each – but only 1 for mobile.  And why on earth still support fields for radio/telex/car/pager?  Isn’t it time the the vcs format or ics format or at least the end to end implementations like Exchange/Outlook/Windows Phone clean up this dinosaur?
A related big niggle is the phone that treats every messaging box as separate and only offers key features (i.e., signatures) to some of them. Windows Mobile allowed you to use signatures with SMS and MMS messages, just like Inbox, but Windows Phone took that away (for some unknown reason). BTW, not that it’s easy to do MMS on WP7.2 anyway – it’s impossible to find.
Android battery life, further on down in the podcast as a complaint from Rafe, is a key issue for many of my phones too.  What you guys failed to point out is that you Accept the apps that clearly specify that they’re going to keep your phone from sleeping.  Battery life improvements have been largely driven by sleep time increasing – allowing apps to synch in the background and keep the phone from sleeping is nice for the programmer, but lousy for the user.  Now the niggle is that they apps don’t offer the ability to download them without that option active.  That option should be mandatory to get app store approval.
Very good points!