So GPS navigation has been around for a while, at the top of the range, of course Garmin and TomTom units, with their “widescreen” versions about 4.3inches diagonal. So how about having a 10 inch Sat-Nav? Daft idea? Well I have travelled across Europe by car on numerous occasions, and I would have been quite happy to have a full size digital map. In order for it to be actually useful, it would need to have an autonomously running GPS module, not needing 3G connection to pinpoint your location.

Here comes the Nokia Booklet 3G, with a built-in GPS, and accelerometer, and 3G. However, typical Nokia, some of these functions are completely useless as you take the device out of the box.

My mother visited for a week, she has been to the UK only a handful of times and there were lots of places she wanted to see. As you can imagine, there was lots of driving, one of the days we did over 400miles! The Nokia was with us all the time and never let me down. Never did it lose signal or battery power, so it was easy to identify our next destination as we were on the move. Even at motorway speeds the 3G internet was flawless! Now what if… What if I could use the Booklet instead of my Garmin SatNav? It would be even more amazing, wouldn’t it?!

I’ve researched into the issue and with quite some fiddling around I found out how to make it work. Here is a picture of a basic application that shows the feed from the Nokia GPS unit.

If you wanted real navigation that works offline, Garmin Mobile is the way to go! Here is a snapshot of the signal strength inside a building. Impressive, isn’t it?

And finally, the ultimate challenge! Putting the Nokia Booklet 3G to the test, by using its GPS module to plot the location and its 3G internet for streaming maps on Google Earth, where you can also ask for directions on the go.

In the last analysis, the capabilities of this little netbook are substantial! However, there could have been more software support from Nokia.

So the Pearl 3G hits the marketplace in the Summer of 2010. The Pearl range has been in need of a serious refresh for some time and I’m delighted to see that RIM stepped up and delivered. What’s interesting with the Pearl 3G is that it is supplied with two different types of keyboard (depending on your operator preference).

Here’s what the release says about the keyboard option:

The new BlackBerry Pearl 3G smartphone will be available in two models and several lustrous colors. The 9100 model features a 20-key condensed QWERTY keyboard and the 9105 model features a 14-key traditional phone keyboard. Both models include SureType® software that can complete words as the user types, making texting fast and accurate. The BlackBerry Pearl 3G smartphone is expected to launch with various carriers beginning in May.

I really do like the idea of the 14-key traditional keyboard. Given that roughly 75% of the planet uses a handset with this layout (a stat given by one of the RIM executives during the press conference) it makes a lot of sense to launch a device with this keyboard format. It also demonstrates that RIM is serious about expanding beyond the traditional BlackBerry markets.

Here are the key features:

- Elegant candybar design measuring 4.25″ x 1.96″ x 0.52″ (108mm x 50 mm x 13.3 mm) and weighing only 3.3 oz (93 grams)
- 624 Mhz processor with 256 MB Flash memory
- 360×400 sharp-resolution display (238 ppi)
- Optical trackpad that makes navigation fast and smooth, plus a comfortable keyboard that enables quick and accurate typing
- Media player for videos, pictures and music (music plays up to 30 hours), plus dedicated media keys integrated along top of the handset
- 3.2 MP camera with zoom, autofocus, flash and video recording-
- Built-in GPS for location-based applications such as BlackBerry® Maps, as well as photo geotagging
- Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n) – first BlackBerry smartphone to support ‘n’
- microSD/SDHD memory card slot that supports up to 32 GB cards
- Premium phone features, including voice activated dialing, speakerphone and Bluetooth® (2.1) with support for hands-free headsets, stereo headsets, car kits (including systems that support the emerging Bluetooth Message Access Profile standard) and other Bluetooth accessories
- Access to BlackBerry App World™, featuring a broad and growing catalog of mobile applications developed specifically for BlackBerry smartphones
- Support for BlackBerry® Media Sync for easily syncing photos as well as iTunes® and Windows Media® Player music with the smartphone–
- BlackBerry® OS 5
- Support for tri-band UMTS/HSDPA and quad-band EDGE/GPRS/GSM networks
- Removable, rechargeable 1150 mAhr battery that provides approximately 5.5 hours of talk time on 3G networks

I should have hands-on with the device shortly.

iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS will be available to Tesco customers from just £20 a month, the lowest monthly contract price in the UK market. Tesco Mobile will also offer the first ever 12 month iPhone contract in the UK. Tesco Mobile will be the first mobile network to offer iPhone 3GS 16GB for free with unlimited calls, texts, and browsing, on a 24 month contract, for £60 a month.*

Here’s the schedule…

All the details you need: http://www.tescomobileiphone.com/

The release concludes with this statement:

With 42 million shopping visitors a week into Tesco stores, and great value price plans on offer, the network expects consumer demand to be extremely high.

I wonder just how many impulse purchases Tesco will be able to generate…

And if you fancy the idea of a 16GB one, add on an extra tenner.

For anyone really keen to get stuck into the iPhone — and provided you’re ok committing to a whopping 2 year deal, this might be right up your street.

The offer is available at your local Carphone Warehouse from the 3rd of April.

I imagine if the new iPhone comes out a few months later, you’ll be able to upgrade — either by extending your contract (3 years, maybe?!) or by paying an upgrade fee.

More at www.carphonewarehouse.com.

That Phinnish Phone Purveyor has just made a good thing better, by announcing the replacement to its 6300 – the 6700 Classic.

Apparently this phone is the ‘much anticipated successor’ to that best selling mobile of 2006, which is marketing talk for ‘much delayed’ or ‘we’re not sure why this took so long, but it’s here now and we have no excuses’.

This handset falls into their mid range, err range. Meaning most can afford it and most should do, too. This again means in non-marketing talk it has some of the feature sets of the higher ranges, seen in its 5 megapixel camera and aGPS, but lacks some of the others.

Although in saying that, it’s been touted by Nokia as having the elements of ‘style and sophistication’ seen in the 8800 Arte series. A phone in which some of the models carry a cost so magnificent that if you have to ask the price, you already can’t afford it.

Nokia’s 6700 Classic arrives with a 2.2-inch screen, with the tap commands of that expensive beast, network access to Quad Band GSM, 3G, and even HSPA and HSUPA, whilst lacking WIFI at the very same time.

From the little we’ve been told on its arrival, it’ll be available around June or July for £220 – sorry, we can’t be any more vaguer than that, but we do try.

The network ’3′ has just launched downloadable audio books for their customers, with a free preview service and a decent range of titles on hand.

They’ve teamed up with ex-SAS founder of the GoSpoken.com website Andy McNab, to deliver 100s of new spoken word or viewable text based books each and every month. These fall under 3′s new ‘Books on the Go’ service, with over 1000 books already in the back catalogue from the get go.

There’s already established and well known publishers onboard from the likes of HarperCollins and Penguin, with authors ranging from Stephen King to Jane Austen to name but a few all being available.

On offer are free samples of the books before you buy, where the goods can then be downloaded in parts ranging from £1 to £3, or as a whole from £5 to £10. All this will be accessible from the network’s customer portal on the handsets, Planet 3.

Downloading these audio books are fairly fast over their 3G network we’ve been told, or even quicker if you opt out for the text eBook version instead. Hurrah!

There’s no doubt the likes of podcasts have facilitated as a stepping stone the success of audio books, in the public’s eye. As with hardware such as the Sony eBook reader and iRex’s iLiad devices have spurned on the recent success of eBooks within mass adoption. We’ve even recently seen one of the iRex eBook readers, with an embedded Orange SIM card delivering content straight to the device.

With this new 3 service no longer will you be alone with dark, dark thoughts on the way to work first thing in the morning. Now you can have someone else’s piped straight into your head instead.

Babelgum mobile TV television comes to the phones of Vodafone in the UK, albeit on a 6 month trial and only to a handful of Nokia handsets.

The free service known for its original video clips has just begun a half a year run, with the application now downloadable from Vodafone live! Although initially, it’s just for the Nokia handsets the N96, N95 and 6210 with a hope to expand this further.

Running over the 3G network, with what we’ve been told as containing – lots of music, film, comedy, animation and a selection of internationally-oriented content – its set to add worth to Vodafone’s flagging multimedia portal.

Known content already comes from the likes of Coldplay, Robbie Williams, Kings of Leon, Kaiser

Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand with web exclusives too. They also hold BBC comedy from The Office, The Mighty Boosh with clips from nature documentaries by Sir David Attenborough.

The service also supports video sharing, voting for favourites, plus taking part in competitions and sharing content over Facebook.

See more on the Babelgum here.

Vodafone has been well known for lacking in video content and has only provided a music portal in the past. With the network holding handsets such as the BlackBerry Storm, that just cries out for a service like Babelgum on its luscious screen.

Let’s hope they bring this feature to a wider range of phones, before the trial is out with a view to keeping the service full time.

LG has brought 1930s cartoon gadgetry to life, with the invention of the LG 3G watch phone that will be shown off at CES next week.

It’s been touted as the world’s first 3G watch phone, not that we’ve seen many plain old watch phones around before.

Known solely as the LG-GD910, it has a 1.43-inch screen with a camera in the front to facilitate its video calling. Yes, that’s right, video calling too.

Besides having 3G on board, it’s also capable of HSDPA speeds to the tune of 7.2Mbps. If that wasn’t enough other features go along the lines of; voice dialling, built-in speech recognition, text to speech, Bluetooth, an MP3 player and a speaker.

All this whilst also being waterproof, what more could anyone want? On yes, it looks like it’s coming to Europe and Japan from LG’s Google translated webpage.

At the end of November we reported upon a Prada Bluetooth watch for use with the LG Prada phone. It was very limited in its features and ties to the actual mobile, which made us write “Only you can’t answer (calls) in true Dick Tracy fashion; when will technology catch up with a 1930s cartoon?”. How irony and technology catches up on itself.

Well, it looks like it’s here. The proof will be in the pudding though, we look forward to hearing all about it from CES or failing that Mobile World Congress in February.

See more from the LG Korean website, via Google’s translator here.

Until then, it looks good, it appears to be genuine and we just hope the future has finally arrived.

Next, flying cars.

France Telecom announced today they’ve just completed the upgrade to both their networks in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

This means both 3G and what they’re calling 3G+, but what we’re calling HSPA coverage has now reach a new high in the UK for Orange.

They now boast, in their words, they can ‘offer over 94% population 3G coverage and over 70% 3G+ across the UK’. Not a small feat in itself by any means, which makes their network even stronger in the process and in turn is set to attract more customers.

Whereas Vodafone’s website states they only have 80 percent of the UK covered on 3G as a comparison, with just 99.7 percent on 2G.

These new updates back more reliable voice and data services, with upgrades seen around cities and towns, as well as major roads, rail routes, business parks, conference centres, hotels and airports.

In fact, everywhere you really expect the majority of calls and business aspects of handsets and mobile broadband to be used.

Nokia mentioned these enhancements were to 760 sites across these regions, and have seen over a 20 percent improvement all around.

Unless others start to work on their networks, they could all lose out to Orange’s network dominance in terms of their coverage.

Addressing the economy’s issues and quicker than our own government is the network 3, who has just announced a sub-tenner tariff.

In days that feel like the end of days, it’s always good to see someone’s looking out for the common man, by offering them a great deal.

The deal that comes along in the form of a free 3G phone, 100minutes/texts on any network, 300minutes of calls to fellow 3 users, free voicemail access and also unlimited windows live messenger and Skype usage.

Available from December 23rd, this Mix & Match 100 tariff seems to be the bee’s knees. How does it match up to others around? It doesn’t even have a single competitor out there that we can see.

It’s available both in-store and online, great for avoiding everyone else that’s out shopping at this time of year. And no one likes a crowd, unless you’re a pick pocket.

The way this particular tariff works, is that you can mix and match (hence the name) between 100 minutes and 100 texts, with 1 minute = 1text. Previously their best deal was Mix and Match 300 for £15, with the same mobile phone being thrown in, seen in the Sony Ericsson K660i.

A handset that comes along with a 2MP camera, obviously with 3G with HSDPA and in a choice of silver on black or lime on white – an exclusive colour for 3.

If there’s ever a time for £9 tariff, with a phone like this it’s now. Hurrah for 3!

Isn’t it about time others step up to the plate with their offerings too?

Not exactly a mobile story, but falling more into that camp that not – Orange gets shiny new ASUS EeePC with an embedded 3G SIM.

Joining many many other fine carriers, Orange has now announced another computer with internet access, provided by them.

The netbook comes along at the princely sum of £25 per month, with a 3GB data allowance on a 24 month contract. It’s also just in time for Christmas and excellent timing to list those unwantwd gifts on eBay.

They actually did launch their first EeePC, the 900, way way back in those heading days of August, now they’ve upped the ante with the 901 plus in built 3G surfing.

It’ll be available in black or pink, but sadly not Orange or even Tangerine – coincidentally the new name of Oranges spin off company for small businesses (we’re only joking).

If you weren’t already aware the EeePC 901 is powered by Intel’s tasty Atom processor, with 16GB of storage, five hours of battery life, an integrated webcam, on an 8.9-inch screen and weighs in at just 1.1kg.

Once upon a time children at Christmas use to look forward to an Orange in their stockings over the fireplace, how times have changed.

Another day, another USB dongle arrives only this time it’s from Vodafone and has an integrated 4GB in the form of a removable microSD card.

Running on from the theory of ‘why take two bottles into the shower’, they built in a slot for the accompanying memory card. Saving in the trauma of carrying around a broadband modem and a flash drive, or something like that.

The Stick Pro, as that’s the moniker it’s going by is capable of the wonderful speeds of 7.2Mbps, depending on signal strength of course. With the max upload reaching the lofty heights of 2Mbps.

Depending on the price plan, it could arrive in your lint free pocket gratis or upwards within monitory costs attached.

For a limited period only, so grab this bad boy whilst it’s hot – Vodafone will be rolling out this mobile broadband on a 3GB date plan for £10 per month for the first three months, on a 24 month contract.

Calculators at the ready, it’s a mighty saving of £15 over those three months. The 5GB version will hurt your pocket to the sum of £15 per month for the same period three months, with the saving of £30.

Coming on from that the Stick Pro is also shipping free on a 5GB plan with a 24 or 18 month contract in tow, but with the cost of £29 on a 12 month price plan.

If that wasn’t enough, now firmly grasp the arms of your chair or someone else’s arms nearby.

Vodafone has also introduced today an almost pay-as-you-go version too. The ‘Stick Lite’ runs across a 30 day period, where you can download the max of 1GB at the cost of £15 per month. Although here, the dongle will set you back £49 to buy.

There’s also 18 month and 24 month 3GB contracts with this version too, where the Stick comes for free!

All in all, it’s quite a novel approach and hurrah for them!

For more info, see their Sticky product pages here

]]> http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/11/vodafone_gets_sticky_with_a_new_3g_usb_modem_with_4gb_of_storage.html/feed 0 http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/10/3g_video_calling_demonstration_.html http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/10/3g_video_calling_demonstration_.html#comments Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:16:54 +0000 Ewan http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/?p=10574 Since we published the 3G video calling demonstration segment back in the Week 39 show, we’ve had a ton of positive feedback.

So much so that we’ve put the segment into it’s own mini-show. It shows Dan Lane (using 3) video-calling James Whatley (using Vodafone) calling each other.

We were rather surprised at the positive feedback. We originally put the segment in because James couldn’t be with us and we wanted to have him in the show that week. We forgot that many of the international readers of Mobile Industry Review have never had the opportunity to try out video calling for one reason or another — mostly because 3G is, alas, still a pipe dream (no pun) for many operators.

So here it is:

I’ve used it for an hour and decided it’s going back to the shop.  I may just throw it through the door and hurl abuse, but I hope to have calmed down enough to go in to collect a refund.

On paper it’s an appealing device – you insert your USB broadband dongle and it creates a WiFi access point…  Ideal for the MIR crew when we’re out and about.  Every operator will offer one – we saw T-Mobile’s effort recently.  So what’s wrong?

It doesn’t have a battery! It was advertised both in the marketing materials and on Three’s site as having a battery (UK Gadgeteer has the story)…. many sites wrote this up. It doesn’t.  It needs a power supply.  Three have changed their site without any comment and it’s confused customers. £70 for something that’s tied to a power supply? Bah!

It’s slow. Oh my god it’s slow. Speed tests are notoriously hard to do, but I never managed to get the router to operate faster than 25% of the speed achieved by using the dongle directly.  Pages crawl down.  T-Mobile’s unit didn’t feel this bad.

I love Three – the Skypephone, X-series and cheap broadband, but this really is a massive disappointment

If the lack of the promised battery doesn’t bother you, I’d still recommend waiting for reviews of a few other models to come in – I couldn’t live with it.

For those interested here’s some more pictures and interface screenshots:

Even though Apple cleverly avoided any mention of bug fixes or new features built into the firmware, it didn’t take long for a few souls to find out some of the hidden features in the latest build, reports MobileCrunch.

As per the report, the latest seed of the firmware comes with some noteworthy features:

1. It seems the petition finally paid off. Version 2.2 now comes with an option to toggle the phone’s Auto-Correct feature On or Off. I’m not how much this is going to benefit the others, but I’m surely not going to switch it off. Even though it is a nuisance when using some ‘Hindi‘ words, the feature makes me phrase my sentences in the purest form of US English, thus making it more easy to understand.

2. The version 2.2 is also apparently going to feature Google’s Street View. After being recently added to the mobile version of maps, it makes sense to include the same on the iPhone. I mean, even the Android has it.

3. Support for emoji icons (Picture Characters). As the blog points out, this a must have feature for some Japanese would-be iPhone owners.

It seems that Apple has finally started paying heed to user feedback for the iPhone. Recessed headphone jack, iPod Touch external speakers, Auto-Correct feature… it’s as if the pieces are finally coming together.

Or maybe not!

I had a note in from Jody Sanders of iPhoneUnlockUK. They’ve been pretty successful unlocking previous versions of the iPhone and they’re rather excited to be able to offer a full unlock for the 3G version. it does involve a ‘piggyback sim’ and a bit of desktop software.

You can find out more at http://www.iphoneunlockuk.com/ or visit their London or Birmingham clinics!

I haven’t tried it myself but if you’re thinking of getting a PAYG 3G iPhone (recently released), this might be a useful consideration.

Here’s the mail from Jody:

Dear Ewan Macleod

Just a brief email to say that the iPhone 3G has been released in the UK on Pay-As-You-Go, available from Carphone Warehouse, o2 and the Apple Stores for just GBP 349 (8gb) and GBP 399 (16GB)

Our solution to fully unlock the iPhone 3G is also now available for just GBP 39.99 per iPhone, price INCLUDES our piggyback sim despatched via next day delivery and our award-winning, 1 click software. Buy now at http://www.iphoneunlockuk.com/buynow.php

We can also do this in-store for just GBP 59.99 at our new London store (http://www.iphoneunlockuk.com/clinic.php).

If you have already purchased our 3G software, you can purchase our piggyback sim separately by logging into your account for GBP 20.00

Kind regards

Jody Sanders iPhoneUnlockUK

According to the specifications listed on the site, the phone carries a 2.8″ QVGA touchscreen that does a decent 320 x 240 pixel resolution. It comes with HSDPA, Quad band radio, A-GPS and GPS. There’s also a 3.2 Megapixel camera that is packed along the phone that apparently will be available in 4 colors, according to the pictures. At the core, the phone will be powered by the now common Windows Mobile version 6.1 and is supposed to have the same TouchFLO interface that its little brother carries.

I’m not sure what HTC is trying to do here. It seems that the company is either following a completely different strategy to soft-launch their phones into the public, or simply, I suspect the site’s webmaster is going to be fired soon.

In any case, the official word will be out sooner than we think.

• Decrease in call set-up failures and dropped calls
• Significantly better battery life for most users
• Dramatically reduced time to backup to iTunes
• Improved email reliability, notably fetching email from POP and Exchange accounts
• Faster installation of 3rd party applications
• Fixed bugs causing hangs and crashes for users with lots of third party applications
• Improved performance in text messaging
• Faster loading and searching of contacts
• Improved accuracy of the 3G signal strength display
• Repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages
• Option to wipe data after ten failed passcode attempts
• Genius playlist creation

Three different operators in the country, China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom (Yeah, keep up with the names please) are planning to use three different 3G standards for their respective subscriber base. Although China Mobile has planned to implement the Chinese developed 3G standard TD-SCDMA, Chila Telecom has picked CDMA2000 while China Unicom has shown its love towards WCDMA standard. 

In an effort to maintain its numero uno position in the Chinese market, Nokia is planning to launch handsets supporting all of these standards. David Tang, VP of Greater China Sales, while speaking to the South China Morning Post, said:

Nokia supports the development of TD-SCDMA. We will have the handsets in the market when the service becomes active,

It is interesting to note that China Mobile, which has a market share of nearly 70%, has plans to use the TD-SCDMA 3G standard. However, Nokia currently does not have any TD-SCDMA handsets in the market.

The device, which has brought about a semi-revolution of sorts in almost every country that it has launched in, has managed to hold almost 6% market share in the UK. In the initial two weeks that it went on sale, the device managed to sell over 50,000 boxes of itself per week. That’s a substantial figure, considering the fact that there’s only a single operator selling the phone in the UK.

After the early craziness faded away, the Gadget of the Year still manages to be sold at an outstanding sales figure of 27,000 per week. It is believed that sustained advertising campaigns across TV, print publications and and billboards have done all the magic on the consumers.

Now that prepay is on the cards, both O2 and Apple are hoping that Dearest Santa helps them have higher sales through the run-up to Christmas.

Some highlights I plucked from his piece this morning:

• “Over at Intel, someone else (possibly at the same long lunch) piped up and said “Great idea guys, here’s several Billion dollars, hop to it”. And lo, the WiMax hype machine was born.”
• “But there’s a rather pesky technical fly in the WiMax salesman’s snakeoil.”
• “Moving on to the myth that WiMax provides better ‘coverage’ than 3G systems.”
• “And at currently allocated frequencies, you’ll be building 3-4 times the number of sites.”

We’re aiming to publish on Tuesday.

There’s gonna be fireworks.

Apparently the claim that the iPhone can access “all the parts of the internet” is giving a misleading impression to consumers, according to ASA. This has led to ASA banning the advert, so it will no longer be shown within the UK.

I’m not going to start slating Apple, but it doesn’t look too good now does it? They’re getting sued, since the 2.0 release and the 3G release there have been numerous complaints, and now they can’t even get the advertising correct.

It appears that Apple’s lack of functionality with Flash and Java seems to be the main issue behind this; because although the pages may be reached it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll be displayed properly. Apple denied that this was a case of false advertising, and that they never claimed that all parts of a website would work with the Safari browser.

In a way it’s a shame Apple have had this, although I may not be a fan of the iPhone or the company as a whole; it’s disappointing to say the least to see a company that did so well with their original release of their product to this.

Apple, I’m rooting for you here… Sort this out!

Here we go:

- – - – -

Just a rant about some things which annoy me about the iPhone!

Reader Adam Dempsey is having a bit of an arse with his move from his Nokia N95 to the iPhone 3G. Nothing traumatic. He’s just come across a lot of things that are (mildly?) annoying him. I found myself nodding sagely as I read. I asked Adam for permission to republish here — thank you Adam.

Here we go:

- – - – -

Just a rant about some things which annoy me about the iPhone!

1. Not being able to forward messages – I often use to receive jokes which I’d send of to a few mates, can’t do this anymore! I imagine this is something which will get added eventually, it’s not exactly rocket science!

2. Bluetooth only supporting Hands-Free Profile (HFP) and Headset Profile (HSP), not Basic Imaging Profile (BIP), File Transfer Profile (FTP), and Object Push Profile (OPP), meaning you can only use the Bluetooth to connect to headsets, not send or receive files from friends or even sync via Bluetooth to my computer. I’m not sure if it’s a hardware issue, or I expect it’s just limited by software so possibly in the future this could change!

3. No MMS. I didn’t think that I actually used multimedia messages that often, but in the last few weeks that I’ve had my iPhone I know of at least 3 or 4 times where people have asked if I’ve received a picture they’ve sent me which I didn’t even know about!

4. Not being able to edit the auto-complete dictionary. It’s quite useful that it corrects some of my mistypes, but I often shorten some of my words so I can type quicker, for example ‘bk’ always gets changed to ‘jk’ which annoys me!

5. Considering it’s basically an iPod with phone features added, the built-in speakers don’t go very loud at all! My Nokia N95 was much much better in that view.

6. I have many multiple phone numbers saved under one contact name for Facebook, but even though they are all from the same contact, messages from all the different numbers show up as different conversations in the SMS app, how hard would it be to at least have an option to group them by contact and not just by number.

7. A 2 megapixel camera and not even a flash? Seriously? Even my Nokia N80 which I had 2 years ago had a 3 megapixel camera with a decent flash!

8. No removable battery. Not a massive§ issue, but for previous phones I always used to keep a spare battery which I would charge and take with me if I knew I’d be without access to a charger. Also a friend recently dropped his iPhone in a sink of water, normally you’d remove the battery and leave it to dry out, but obviously he couldn’t do that and his phone was ruined.

9. No call recording, this isn’t really something I’d necessarily expect to be built in, but I’m surprised there’s nothing in the AppStore to be able to do this, unless using the SDK it isn’t possible, I’m not sure.

10. Not being able to sync between multiple computers, I have different selections of Music at both home and work and it would be nice if I could sync both lots of them to my iPhone, but instead I had to burn a dvd of the music, take it home and then sync it all from the one computer.

11. Not sure if this is a SDK issue or down to the App developer, but I noticed with a few games I was playing that if I receive a SMS it shows on top, blocking the screen and making me lose the game. Surely the game could pause or something similar?

12. When updating applications from the AppStore, why do all the new icons have to go to the end? I put them in the order I wanted so why do you change that? How hard would it be to update them and leave them where I want?

13. No clipboard? Surely this is something which will get added in a future firmware update. I often used to copy a number from my contacts and paste it into a new message to send to people, annoying I can’t do anything similar now.

14. Custom Ringtones. How hard would it be just to let me choose a MP3 or AAC file to use as a ringtone? It’s my phone and I want to choose what I want to alert me to a phone call or message! I know there are workarounds to create .M4R files, but we shouldn’t need to.

- – - – -

Here, here, Adam!

- – - – -

Here, here, Adam!

Jim Suva of Citigroup wrote in a research note quoted by Barrons that:

We had a few occasional 3G signal dropping troubles at some locations especially on high-rises building streets & on our 34th floor (EDGE picked up immediately but slower internet speeds)

Suva also reckons that the Bold’s been delayed while RIM fixes the problems. 3G connection issues don’t bode well this late in the game, but top marks to RIM for sorting them out before the device hits the market, not after.

The user – a woman from Alabama – is apparently not impressed with Apple’s claim the device is ‘twice as fast at half the price’ and reports dropped calls and slow data connection.

The woman is seeking class action status for her complaint – if that goes through, the complaint could potentially cost Apple millions in the event the judge finds in favour of the complainant.