2011 July | Mobile Industry Review

Archive | July, 2011

Use your (old?) iPhone as a baby monitor with Evoz

By Ewan on July 12, 2011 in Applications

I picked this one up via Martin Perez over at IntoMobile: The Evoz app will let you turn your iOS device into a listening device for your baby monitor. It’s software-only for now but the company will be releasing its own hardware baby monitor later this year that can keep you connected with your device [...]

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Touchnote is rocking my world once again

By Ewan on July 12, 2011 in Applications

I felt like a bit of a broken record for the last little while when it came to Touchnote. The original iPhone app (version 1) was simply brilliant when it hit the App Store, but then I began to tire of the payments process. Touchnote wasn’t to blame per se, the stupid rules around the [...]

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“Cheques will not be axed” — Arse

By Ewan on July 12, 2011 in Opinion

Have a read of this: The Payments Council, which represents banks and payments groups, has announced oon that plans to scrap cheques have been dropped. Charities, small business and campaigners had been outraged at plans end cheque clearing from 31 October 2018. MPs said the council’s decision was “a victory for Middle England”. via Cheques [...]

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Operator Innovation: Why can’t my mobile operator talk to my bank when my card declines abroad?

By Ewan on July 12, 2011 in Operators

I was going to call this series, “Why operators are shit,” but I have decided to try and adopt a more positive tone with the site. It’s just too easy and far too accurate to call our mobile operators ‘shit’. Too easy. Too accurate. I’m not bothering with names at the moment though. I wanted [...]

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Cheaper iPhones and the ‘nano question’ – a brain dump

By Ewan on July 12, 2011 in Devices

I’ve written often about the ‘iPhone Nano’ scenario. It’s been on the cards for years and it’s one of the most private fears of many a mobile manufacturer and mobile operator. Back in 2009, I remember discussing the horror with which the industry react to the phrase ‘iPhone Nano’. This was back when Apple had [...]

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RIM EMEA adds a million new users 3 weeks

By Ewan on July 11, 2011 in Devices, News

Last week RIM’s official BlackBerry account tweeted this news: Pow! @BlackBerry continues momentum across EMEA with 1 Million+ new subscribers added in less than 3 weeks. This is good reminder that the company is still adding subscribers in sizeable amounts, especially in EMEA. Here’s a note from Patrick Spence, top man in Europe at RIM. [...]

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Congratulations to the 2011 Meffys Winners

By Ewan on July 11, 2011 in News

I didn’t manage to make it through the whole awards dinner at the Meffys on Thursday as I had to get back home — my little boy wasn’t too well. I saw the first two awards and then left — not before I witnessed some riotous commentary from TV personality, comedienne and author, Ruby Wax. [...]

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Apple iPhone UK market share halves to 18.3%

By Ewan on July 11, 2011 in News

An interesting set of stats arrived today in the form of Kantar Worldpanel ComTech’s smartphone OS market share news. Kantar appear to be one of the only research companies out there producing meaningful information for the mobile industry. They release marketshare data every four weeks — which is precisely what you need if you’re watching [...]

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iPhone use case #973: Bedside Lamp

By Ewan on July 11, 2011 in News

I’m always on the lookout for trends arising in the mobile marketplace and this one — the bedside lamp trend — is something I’ve witnessed directly multiple times. Don’t ask. Let me just say that before beginning the next sentence, ok? We don’t have bedside lamps. We have beautiful and no doubt expensive perfectly matched [...]

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Premium rate spammers now hitting Android

By Ewan on July 7, 2011 in News

One of the problems with enabling consumers to download and install apps from anywhere on platforms such as Android is that unscrupulous folk can have a lot of fun with it. And make a pile of cash. I do like the flexibility myself however I can’t help but shake my head at the poor end-consumer [...]

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Now and again it has to be done

By Ewan on July 7, 2011 in News

I get a lot of these types of email below. I’m truly surprised just how spammy folk in marketing can be at times. I think — on average — I get one of these emails from this company each month. I’m amazed as the presumption and the underlying pedestrian viewpoint of the author. If you [...]

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Uplinq: Jay Wright of Qualcomm demonstrates Augmented Reality Technology

By Momchil on July 7, 2011 in Applications, Devices

In this video Jay Wright, Senior Director of Business Development at Qualcomm R&D Division; demonstrates a game utilising AR technology. Vision-based AR lets the application recognise an image and follow it as the device is moved around. More from Jay:

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