Stop everything you’re doing and fly over to this page at Gizmodo. They have a seriously smart video of the (apparently new) Microsoft Courier tablet.
They report that it’s a real device and it’s in the ‘late stage’ prototype.
If it’s anywhere near accurate — and if it works *like* they show in the video, then it’s going to really change the marketplace.
Bring it on!
The new MIR 3.0 Shop is now live.
If you’re brave enough, take a look inside. Here are some samples awaiting your delectation…
That’s a shit phone
Because, let’s face it, you’re hardly likely to ever be outgunned in the handset department, right? You always have the top of the range. Now you just need a T-Shirt to remind everyone of that.
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S60 users do it in the background
Your friends aren’t likely to get this one — at all — in fact, you can sit back with a satisfied smile whenever you encounter an iPhone user. There ain’t an app for this. Oh no.
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(RAZR > ROKR) < iPhone
@kgutteridge suggested this formula which, again, will be lost on anything but a properly seasoned mobile geek. Who will smile broadly and nod in agreement after reading. With a barely perceptible nod, you will ensure you are correctly identified as a card carrying (or T-Shirt wearing) mobile genius.
Which leads me to this one…
Mobile Genius
This design is guaranteed to subtly and quietly assert your mobile genius status to all and sundry. Does what it says on the tin.
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It’s not about the megapixels, dude
As any true mobile geek will tell you — whilst, generally speaking, a 12 megapixel piece of joy from Sony Ericsson will probably take better pictures than a 0.3 megapixel $11 LG monstrosity — it’s not actually all about the megaxpixels. Wear this to sort the men from the RAZR sporting boys.
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My other phone’s a Nohkeeyah
Yes you have an iPhone. Or an Android device. You might occasionally carry a Sony Ericsson (for the camera — see above T-Shirt) but if you’re a serious mobile user, your Nokia won’t be too far away from you, right? Whether you’re an E71 man or an N82 (‘it’s all about the Xenon’) chap, I’ve yet to meet a certified trumobilegeek who doesn’t have a top of the line Nokia in his pocket. This T-Shirt reminds the Great Unwashed of this. But it will also cause 100% of them to take multiple glances at your manly chest whilst they try and work out what the hell a Nohkeeyah is.
Unless they’re American and they should get it pretty quickly.
All the T-Shirts retail via Zazzle for a whoppingly good value 13.95 pounds plus 2.98 pounds shipping. Or the equivalent in US, Australian or Canadian dollars.
You can also buy a mousepad and a page of 20 circular MIR stickers to put on every device you own. They conveniently also fit nicely over the Apple logo on your top of the range MacBook Pro.
Coming soon: The infamous Mobile Industry Review embroidered jackets.
This is a money making exercise. MIR gets the default 10% commission from every purchase. It doesn’t appear to be possible to change this in the Zazzle options. Ergo I undertake to distribute the eight quid in gross revenues over the next 12 months toward the next Mobile Industry Review Unlimited Drinks event.
If you fancy buying something, unlock your impulsive side and click-click-click. Zazzle uses PayPal so all you need to do is knock in your address details and boom.
The links you need:
- UK Shop
- USA Shop
- Canadan Shop
- Australian Shop
Over the weekend, Nokia Ovi Store was soft-launched in Australia this weekend to allow the team, sweat pour off the proverbial forehead, to check everything was ready for launch.
And it is.
We’re live. And the mobile industry is changed for good.
Finally you can deploy an application, easily, for Nokia customers. It used to be an absolutely torturous process — now, the discovery is much, much improved.
Similarly, if you’d like, for example, some Star Trek wallpapers on your Nokia, you can now click-click and be done. No more arsing around. Fantastic.
Here’s a screenshot from the desktop:
The store is wholly sluggish this morning because the whole world and his dog is checking in, downloading and playing around.
You can already see just how massively successful the store is going to be. I’m looking at a ‘futuristic‘ Star Trek Ringtone — that’s priced free. On the right hand side I’ve got these options:
And it’s free? I’ll have that.
As for billing, well your operator will take care of your purchase processing in Australia, Britain, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Singapore and Spain. So it’s just one click to buy. Magic from a mobile developer standpoint. I’m going to give it a try in a few minutes.
And for revenue sharing? Well 30% revenue share is fast becoming standard across the app store world and Nokia is keeping to that — there are a few questions over exactly how the splits will work but I’m sure we’ll see some further clarification on this soon.
Here’s what store.ovi.com looks like on my Nokia N82 browser:
I’ll download the app and take you on a tour shortly.
For now… the Ovi Store is live… let’s see what everyone thinks about it!
The address you need: http://store.ovi.com
I popped by the Flirtomatic London offices today to meet with founder Mark Curtis and the team. I’ve long been a follower (and fan) of Flirtomatic (check out the MIR archive coverage) and particularly fascinated with how they’ve managed to build such a massive base of users via the mobile web.
Flirtomatic is, as you might have guessed, all about flirting — not necessarily dating in the traditional sense. Mark and his team are uber-smart. They’ve got the sign-up time down to approximately 45 seconds via mobile. So if you click on an advert or if you visit via an operator portal link, you’ll be able to become a member extremely quickly. This fastidious and razor-sharp focus on the sign-up process has helped them garner a massive, massive user-base.
Mark was telling me that when they started, they used to convert just over a third of sign-ups into active users (and by active, they mean ’sends a flirt message’, not just logging in). They’ve now got that ratio up to 70% – a simply phenomenal figure.
I spent a few hours with Mark discussing his take on mobile development. The resulting interview is fantastic food for thought. Firtomatic have built a solid foundation of decent, healthy and increasing revenue through mobile web. Why? Well, he explains in some detail on camera and makes some super observations.
If you’re after some highlights, try these snippets for size:
* They users bought 14,000 virtual engagement rings in 72 hours to celebrate the leap year back in 2008.
* Don’t write off credit cards as a method of payment. 10% of Flirtomatic’s revenue is derived from credit cards — details of which are input via the mobile browser!
* Vodafone UK’s ‘free data’ day on May 1st for PAYG users boosted sign-ups 13 times.
* iPhone users are by far the longest to validate (i.e. confirm) their accounts — in some cases it takes four days for a user to login to their email to validate their account.
* The N95 remains one of their most popular handsets by traffic.
* On average within 2 hours of signing up, males get roughly 4 flirtomatic messages from other users. Females get about 20!
* They money is in visibility (i.e. users paying to improve their rankings/ratings). That point is probably one of the most incisive takeaways.
* It’s not necessarily about apps. I think a lot of developers will be very interested to understand why Mark and his team simply haven’t bothered with mobile applications as yet.
We also did a walk-about of Flirtomatic’s Towers, indeed they’re now a proper tower since new additions have led them to expand on to a second floor. Mark did a quick introduction to the staff before we sat down and got talking.
Mark’s video(s) should be up shortly. If you’d like a reminder, we’ve got a nifty function that will update you by email every time we post. Subscribe here.
(That screencap above of Mark is from the video import.)
Goodness me it’s getting interesting in the mobile industry.
For years I’ve been screaming with utter annoyance at the absolute rubbish Sony Ericsson has been vomiting into the marketplace. Their devices are amongst the nicest engineered on the planet. They’re well built, stylish, reliable and the cameras are simply amazing.
But the dumb operating system (or, more accurately, the stupidly limited UI) is — literally — from the 1990s.
I positively loved their K800i handset — a class leading device in it’s time — and I’ve continued to admire the workmanship of their more recent models — but actually using a Sony Ericsson is akin to jumping in an Ashes to Ashes style timewarp back to 1990.
It’s pretty accurate to refer to a Sony Ericsson user as a Mobile Caveman. Just like a human caveman, a Mobile Caveman (”MobCav, anyone?”) is able to manage life’s various transactions (fire, food, sex) but when it comes to anything more enlightened or connected, no dice.
Your Sony handset will browse the ‘mobile web’. Cool. It will — with quite a bit of persuasion — synchronise your address book. You can play music on it. You can even play game(s) on it.
But put a top of the range Sony handset next to other class leaders (iPhone, G1/G2, Palm Pre, Nokia N-Series) and it’s immediately clear it’s not in the same league.
Don’t get me started on developing for a Sony Ericsson.
Besides from a degree in Nuclear Physics (with hons and some fannying about with the Dean’s List), you’ll need a massive budget and the patience of a demigod to develop for the current range of Sony Ericssons.
The Xperia device is … well, let’s put it this way, have you seen anyone with an Xperia recently? Hobbled by a ridiculous, ridiculous Microsoft bollocks operating system, the Xperia was never, ever going anywhere.
“Why won’t they go Android?” I used to scream, “Can you imagine how brilliant a Sony Ericsson would be with Android?”
Well… it’s happening.
Finally.
It had to happen. It was inevitable. Just like Apple bringing out an iPhone (they had to make the move or surrender the mobile music market to the likes of Nokia).
Slashphone reports that at a recent showcase in Taiwan, Peter Ang, the Sony Ericsson VP of Marketing, confirmed Android is now a key operating system for the company. Along with Symbian and Windows. Gah.
Sony’s Android handset(s) are due to arrive with Android 2.0 — and there’s speculation (from Chris Davies over at Android Community.com) that the devices will sport a proprietary UI along the lines of the Xperia UI.
The upshot?
Upgrade Android in your estimations. With the consumer giants such as Sony Ericsson (and Samsung) jumping in, it won’t be long before high-end (and shortly after, mid-tier and low-end) normal mobile users (”normobs”) will be shopping for their Apps via the Android Marketplace.
Exciting news.
I didn’t bother signing up for Wakoopa when I heard about it a while ago. I thought it was a cool concept — track the desktop applications you’re using (along with ‘web applications’) and then publish the data to let you track what your friends are using.
Now and again I’ve found myself on some obscure blog post from 2005 only to discover a genius application for uploading screenshots or something like that.
Indeed I think that’s how I came across ImageWell (uploads screenshots via FTP) and Mailplane (run Gmail / Apps as a proper application) and more.
I didn’t sign-up initially because, well… so much of my desktop usage is browser based. Looking at the applications I have open at the moment, it doesn’t really make for shocking or surprising reading:
* Safari
* Firefox
* Microsoft Word
* Skype
* Mailplane
* Spotify
* ImageWell
* MarsEdit
* Terminal
* Adium
* TweetDeck
Hardly earth shattering, eh? But then… you never know. So I signed up this afternoon and I’ve added two chaps already, Geetarchurchy and Ricky Chotai. Aside from the basic ‘what’s he using that for’ thoughts, it’s really quite interesting. I can see how this will/would really help with discovery of new applications.
Which brings me to the subject of this post. I’d really like to see something like this for mobile handsets. I’m sure the Wakoopa creators are considering something like this. Of course it wouldn’t work very well on an iPhone in real time (no background apps on an iPhone… yet) but it would work reasonably well on Android and Symbian.
Nokia’s already doing this with the upcoming Ovi Store (just WHEN is it actually, actually launching?). Peer-to-peer recommendations. I should, theoretically, be able to see what my Ovi friends are buying/using/consuming via the Ovi Store. I’m looking forward to seeing how people react to that feature, I think it’ll be a winner.
I certainly find the iPhone application discovery process a little bit haphazard at the moment — indeed, it’s positively lonely when you’re sat looking at the App Store on your iPhone. I tend to hear more about applications when I’m not actively browsing, when I’m out-and-about or when I’m working. That’s fine, but it’s not necessarily when I’m most receptive to looking at new things.
I can imagine opening up the App Store on my Nokia with the intent of finding out what my friends have checked out recently.
I’m hoping that once all the kinks are worked out, the Ovi Store will reinvigorate the desire to install new apps… We shall see.
People I know from London keep asking me, “Are you in San Francisco?” and, people from San Francisco keep asking if I’m in London.
The where-are-you question is very, very relevant in the context of business so I’ve been trying to solve that with the use of a Where Am I function on my personal site, Ewan.net.
I was previously using BlogLoc for this function… but it was getting a little bit annoying having to manually update every time I remembered.
So instead I’ve decided to try out Google’s Latitude facility. Latitude allows you to see the locations of your friends on a Google Map (either on your phone or online) and it works pretty well.
Recently the Google Latitude team announced that they’ve added a public ‘badge’ facility that you can place anywhere on the web to show off your current location. This definitely isn’t for everyone, especially if you’re a little bit suspicious or concerned about your privacy. But I like the concept myself and I thought it was worth a try. Google have been particularly direct with their warnings — which I heeded — so I haven’t displayed by actual street level GPS location. Instead I’ve displayed my general ‘city level’ location.
Here’s what it looks like on the blog:
Nifty.
If you’d like to do the same, get your Google Latitude Public Location Badge here.
You read that right.
Fluck me sideways.
From June 1, pay as you go and pay monthly consumer customers can talk, text and send picture messages from over 35 countries across Europe this summer for the same price as at home.
From May 15, calls from the UK to friends and family overseas from as little as 5 pence per minute.
Businesses also benefit from cost savings on roaming.
What a challenge to the industry. I’m really pleased to see this rather sweeping, surprising and exciting move from Vodafone:
So much so, I’m going to post the whole release:
Vodafone UK is abolishing roaming charges this summer and bringing in great value prices for international calls, making it easier for customers to phone home while abroad and make calls abroad from the UK. There are cost savings for business customers too.
From 1 June to the end of August, Vodafone Pay as you Go and Pay Monthly customers will be able to call, text and send picture messages to friends and family back home from over 35 countries knowing that it will cost exactly the same as if they were in the UK. For example, a customer on a plan with 600 minutes and unlimited texts who opts in to Vodafone Passport would use these minutes and texts when they are on holiday with no extra charges.
Existing Vodafone Passport customers automatically benefit from the three month promotion. From May 15, customers who don’t currently use Vodafone Passport can sign up for free by texting the word ‘Passport’ to 97888 if they pay monthly or to 2345 if they use Pay as you go , or they can visit vodafone.co.uk/roaming.
In addition, from May 15, Vodafone Pay as you go customers on the Simply tariff, will find that calls they make from the UK to friends and family overseas will be even better value. International calls will cost from as little as 5p per minute to both landlines and mobiles. Customers can opt in to the new Vodafone International call plan by calling 36888 or texting the word ‘international’ to 2345 from their handset, visiting vodafone.co.uk/international or speaking to an adviser in one of Vodafone’s 400 stores.
“These are two great value offers for our customers this summer. With our Vodafone Passport promotion you can sit on the beach with your phone switched on knowing you can take and make a call just as you would if you were in your back garden,” says Ian Shepherd consumer director for Vodafone UK. “Vodafone International is good news for the millions of UK pay as you go customers as they can now make calls to family and friends around the world from just 5p.”
Reducing the cost of roaming for businesses
Vodafone UK business customers on Anytime or Your Plan price plans will also benefit from the same three month Vodafone Passport promotion from June 1. Customers on these plans and already on Vodafone Passport will automatically qualify for the promotion. Non Vodafone Passport customers can opt in by calling their account manager or visiting www.vodafone.co.uk/businessroaming for further information.
And the countries included?
Countries included in the Vodafone Passport summer promotion: Albania, Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Canary Islands, Channel Islands, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Faroes, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Isle of Man, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Madeira, Malta, Monaco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Vatican City, New Zealand, Australia.
More thoughts and analysis later!
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