A recent study highlighted by Will Heaven in the Telegraph claims that your choice of smartphone is a strong indicator of your basic politics. Apparently iPhone users are more likely to be ‘lefties’ and BlackBerry users more likely to be ‘right-wing’.
What then, does it mean, if you carry a BlackBerry, a Nokia, an iPhone and a Motorola Droid? Confused? 
The ipadio team have very kindly placed my latest phlogs (phone-blogs) on their frontpage today:
Have you been listening in? I’ve had quite a few emails from surprised individuals flicking through Google Reader only to be shocked to hear my voice coming from the rss feed. That’s the beauty of ipadio. Over the past few days I’ve been traveling so it’s been quite difficult to get the time to sit in front of the laptop — thus I’ve been doing a few ‘phlogs’ instead.
You can check out the latest phlog (I was talking about iPhone app discovery system, Chomp) here.
Download the iPhone app and get phlogging yourself — it’s free!
So almost five billion dollars of investment is now available on an open source basis. Did you catch the official announcement today? You now download Symbian and get it working on your own hardware, if you’ve got the mind to. In fact, we actually shot some footage of this happening on Friday when Rafe and I visited the Symbian London HQ to do some filming prior to Mobile World Congress. Whilst rushing around the HQ, we came across two chaps sat next to a soldering iron, tons of wires and what looked like a mini motherboard, a speaker and a microphone daisy-chained together. When we enquired, we were told this was the ‘wild ducks project’.
“You what?” I asked. I have started simply turning and looking expectantly at Rafe in these kind of situations. Whilst I’m a geek, I’m not that geeky. Rafe knows the stuff back to front.
“It’s Symbian’s testbed,” Rafe explained, “For getting the operating system to work on other platforms.”
Not just reference platforms, you understand. Literally any other platform. The chaps demonstrated a Beagle Board hooked up to a speaker, microphone and a display actually running Symbian. I kid ye not. We got some footage of that and the video will be up shortly.
So… Symbian is open. What does that mean?
Well it theoretically means you can now install Symbian on your refridgerator. Or any other device you’d care to mention. But of course, the fact the operating system has been fully tried and tested and is actually running on millions of devices — reliably — is going to be a big plus for manufacturers considering what to use for their next mobile device deployments. Open, of course, means that you can change and influence the development of the platform. If you like, you can begin contributing code — or if you’re very serious, even become a package owner and play an integral role in the on-going development.
I’m going to be publishing a lot more on the subject over the next few weeks. It’s an area that’s fascinated me for a long time. I’m particularly interested as to what the Foundation and it’s partners are going to do to keep Symbian relevant. Only today I was demonstrating the Ovi Store on the Nokia N86 and STILL having to answer the ‘do you want to connect to the internet’ and ‘which access point?’ questions. Dumb questions. Really dumb. There’s also significant issues over the platform’s user interface. Is that a Nokia thing or a Symbian thing? Or do they both hold joint responsibility? I’ll be digging deeper soon — and, courtesy of the fact we’ve got more or less unrestricted access to Symbian (more info) over the coming weeks, instead of screaming here on Mobile Industry Review about what I think are the platform’s utter, utter failure points, I’ll be taking that frustration out on directly on key Symbian staffers.
In a positive and constructive way, you understand. If you’ve any particular questions that you’d like answered, be my guest — post them below or email and I’ll add them into the mix. I’m hoping to bring you a series of videos focusing on what I feel are Symbian’s problems — along with their answers on what they’re doing about them (or why my perspective is warped, irrelevant or wrong). We shall see!
In the meantime I’ve got videos galore for you.
First off, I’d like to draw your attention to this announcement video we shot of Lee Williams, the top man at Symbian, discussing the announcement. If you’re wondering what the hell is going on, definitely sit down and watch this. It’s just a few minutes long.
Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video
Second, here’s Program Manager Chris Davidson giving us a little bit more background about the open source journey:
Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video
Now — did you wonder what all those Symbian Countdown messages were about on Twitter and Facebook last week? Chris explains:
Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video
There’s a lot more coming shortly….
This year we’re doing something different for Mobile World Congress. Oh yes. I’ve teamed up with Rafe Blandford and the team at All About Symbian. We’re combining the resources of Mobile Industry Review (“MIR”), Mobile Developer TV (“MDTV”) and All About Symbian (“AAS”) to deliver what I hope will be some of the best content we’ve ever published.
This is all possible because of the brilliant support of the Symbian Foundation. Getting to the event, taking all the camera and production equipment, hotels, flights — the costs mount-up, especially when over 50,000 mobile industry people converge in one city.
As a result, the Mobile World Congress coverage you read on MIR, MDTV and AAS will be brought to you courtesy of the support of Symbian. I’d like to point out that this arrangement renders Symbian absolutely no editorial control whatsoever. In fact I’ve been pushing them quite remorselessly to give us unprecedented access to their people. To my delight, they have risen to the challenge — and you’ll see the fruits of that online shortly. For my own peace of mind, I’ve asked that Symbian fact check some of the more in-depth content I’m planning. Whilst Rafe knows the operating system inside out, I don’t want to keep bothering him with silly questions. I’ve also agreed to allow Symbian to re-publish some of the video content we produce on their own site.
So what kind of content can you expect to see before, during and after the event?
Well, both Rafe and I will be on the ground in Barcelona from Saturday to Saturday. That’s right, no messing around, no flying in Monday morning, watching a keynote and flying out that evening. Oh no. We’ll be right there to witness it all.
Expect the following: –
- Hands-on handset/phone/gadget videos galore
- Interviews with movers and shakers — we’ve got some fabulous senior Nokia executives lined up already
- Coverage of the various press events — in particular MobileFocus and ShowStoppers
- Rafe Blandford’s official Mobile World Congress walk-about
- Mobile developer profiles (do contact us if you’re going to be on the ground and would like to be on-camera)
- Live perspective and updates direct from the show floor
Here are some of the things I’m excited we’ll be able to bring you:
- Microsoft. I still believe they have the might to cause some serious waves in the industry. Come on Balmer, make us all proud. No egg-timers *please*.
- Sony Ericsson. The giant was on the ropes, I’m hoping it’s back for more.
- Samsung. Just how relevant is Bada? We shall see and we’ll take a look at their handsets too.
- Lee Williams. We’ve got Lee Williams — the CEO of Symbian — doing a walk-about tour. Rafe and I are hoping to take him to the Microsoft stand and see if he will spontaneously combust (or, more likely, tell us exactly what he thinks of the other mobile operating systems out there).
- Nokia. They’re not officially at the event. They’ve saved millions by booking the function rooms and suites across the road from the Congress. Smart. We’ll be on top of all their announcements — with bells on.
- WipJam. The delightful Caroline Lewko is hosting another excellent developer event — we will be there bringing you the best we can find.
- Bloggerama. Just what do the other bloggers make of MWC? We’ll be capturing their MWC heartache, the joy, the tears — all for your viewing pleasure. I’m going to try and see if we can find Mattahus from VentureBeat to swearsmile at the camera again.
- The rest: We’ll be taking a tour of the event to try and bring you the most interesting technology, hardware, software and services we can find.
If you’ve any suggestions for things you’d like Rafe and I to take a look at — or if you’re going and you’d like a bit of coverage, get in contact, we’ll absolutely do our best.
If you’re a PR and you’d like me to do an on-screen interview, I’ll do my utmost but I’m getting crunched on time already. At the moment we’re prioritising smaller mobile developers.
If you’d like to do a Mobile World Congress diary — that is, send me 200 words each day on what you saw, what you liked, what surprised you, then I’m game. Drop me a mail to discuss as soon as you can.
Make sure you’ve got our feeds locked and loaded:
- www.mobileindustryreview.com
- www.mobiledeveloper.tv
- www.allaboutsymbian.com (read Rafe’s announcement)
Once again, thank you to everyone at the Symbian Foundation for making MWC possible for us here at MIR, MDTV and AAS. Fantastic!
The new Ovi Maps, that now comes with free walk and drive directions for most of the planet, has been downloaded 1.4 million times in just a week. Here’s the press release.
A week. Wow!
“We’re averaging a download a second, 24 hours a day,” said Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President, Nokia. “When we announced free walk & drive navigation we knew it would be a game-changer. The number of people now using their Nokia for navigation, and as a result looking for more location-aware software, is growing faster than even we predicted.
This is terrific news for Nokia — but also for third-party developers considering getting stuck into the Apps-For-Maps opportunities on the Ovi Maps platform. Speaking of which, here’s Rafe discussing that very subject just after the launch event last week:
Download M4V Video | Subscribe to Podcast | Embed video
Here in the States quite a few people I’ve been meeting have commented (without prompting) that they’ll ‘be getting a Nokia for the car’ because of the free navigation. And that’s from a country that isn’t that aware of the Nokia brand.
I haven’t yet downloaded Ovi Maps for my N86 yet, I understand support will be made available for that shortly.
Meanwhile here’s the current list of compatible Nokia devices: Nokia 97, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, Nokia E52, Nokia E55, Nokia E72, Nokia 5230, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 6730 classic and Nokia X6.
For the latest device list and to download, the link you need is: http://www.nokia.com/maps.
Staying on the subject of Nokia, I was delighted to read this post by Mark Squires on the Nokia Conversations blog.
Mark is Director of Social Media Communications for the company. He and his colleague Ray are amongst the finest in the industry. They run a disciplined well-oiled machine that was, for quite a while, entirely misunderstood by Nokia’s High Command. I swear some of Nokia’s senior executives thought social media was all about hanging around on Facebook wasting time.
In recent times though, the might that is Nokia has definitely bought the Social Media T-Shirt and recognised that the influence from Mark’s team is, in some quarters, significantly more important than banging out a press release.
I’m absolutely delighted to see Mark’s response to Steve Jobs last week. If you recall, Jobs explained to a fawning audience that since Apple makes quite a lot of Notebooks that are ‘mobil’ (“mobile”), and since Apple makes quite a bit of revenue, well then… that makes Apple the largest ‘mobil’ company on the planet.
Mark was having none of it:
The difference between the two companies [Nokia and Apple] is even larger if you use the more common measure: the number of devices sold. By that comparison, Nokia has been the largest mobile devices company in the world for a dozen consecutive years.
I think it’s about time we saw more of this type of action from Nokia. Sitting hiding behind the parapets isn’t good enough. The company is hugely powerful, hugely capable but generally afraid at getting stuck into the online debate. That’s where it matters though, particularly in the context of influencing the geeks, the opinion-formers and (crucially) the developers considering adopting the Nokia/Symbian/Maemo platform.
You only have to look at the trackbacks on Mark’s post to see the effect his post has had across the marketplace with hundreds of publications picking it up.
Kudos to Mark for getting the post up and out. More please!
I’m demonstrating some mobile applications this week. Some of the applications that I’m showing off rely on a decent internet connection. They’re not asking for terabytes of capacity, just a good sustained 10k/sec throughput now and again.
Unfortunately I’m in America: The land of rubbish GSM mobile data speeds. AT&T’s network runs like a tired old hamster is powering the backend and T-Mobile is — in New York City at least — nothing short of *slow*.
To put it in real terms that many British readers will understand, using AT&T and T-Mobile data is like using 1/10th of an overloaded o2 data connection. And that’s saying something.
Push email just about works.
For everything else, like Google Maps, I found myself feeling like a total numpty standing on 5th Avenue in the centre of the Almighty United States of America.
You’d think they’d know how to build decent data networks here, wouldn’t you?
Turns out they do.
Enter Verizon (and Sprint).
I came up with a cunning plan whilst in England. A plan so cunning that — if you’ve got a moment, and with due deference to BlackAdder — it’s got a PhD from Cambridge. I brought my Novatel Wireless MiFi unit with me and I bought a SIM from T-Mobile yesterday. I then fired up my iPhone’s WiFi connection and tried out some apps: Rubbish. Whilst the Novatel unit performed perfectly, the dismal T-Mobile data connection was holding it back. Think ‘Edge’ network. As in ‘edge of almost being GPRS’.
Connections do work. You just need to wait tens of seconds for anything useful to happen.
So I took a trip to the Verizon and Sprint stores. CDMA networks. I know, I know. I felt dirty even walking into the stores. Despite CDMA being an apparently superior technology, I — like millions of Europeans — thoroughly appreciate being able to lord it over ‘dumb’ Americans trying to use their CDMA phones in a GSM-only continent.
Who’d buy a CDMA phone? You can’t roam!
But it turns out, you can get super, super fast reliable data.
I walked into the Verizon store next to the Empire State Building and headed straight for their Novatel MiFi 2200 unit. In tests I’d done with my iPhone’s AT&T roaming connection and through my own MiFi unit running a T-Mobile USA sim, the average network response I’d got when using one of the mobile apps was thus:
T-Mobile: 15 seconds
AT&T: 12-20 seconds
I asked permission from one of the sales people and connected my iPhone to the Novatel unit in the shop. I fired up the app. 1.5-2 seconds.
Shocking.
“I’ll take one,” I said, handing over my credit card.
Of course I wanted it pay as you go. Turns out Verizon’s keen to do business. Two years ago I’d have been laughed out the shop.
The Verizon MiFi unit set me back $269 including the $50 mail-in rebate. $15/day gets you 75mb/day usage. I opted for $30 for 250mb across a week. Or you can get 500mb for $50.
Back at the hotel I setup the unit in 180 seconds and boom my iPhones and my Android devices are connecting at blazing fast speeds.
I don’t even know what kind of network speed we’re talking. It just works, and brilliantly.
To all the frustrated American iPhone AT&T customers out there, I hope there will soon be a CDMA iPhone to ease your pain.
That said you can experience the super-fast Verizon network via the Motorola Droid Android device right now. If I was living in America for any length of time, I think I’d do that. Or run my iPhone through the Verizon MiFi.
I kid ye not, it’s fast than my hotel broadband connection.
More information on the Verizon data plans here.
Sprint also have a MiFi unit (similar price) and I’m sure they provide a very good data service in New York. I’ve only tried them in San Francisco and I wasn’t disappointed.
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