o2 — usually connected with the iPhone when you’re talking about the UK, is now set to become the official Palm Pre exclusive operator, reports New Media Age.

But not until Christmas.

Even though the Pre is due to hit the United States in 14 days, the British Pre fans are going to have to wait another 6 months. Sorry.

What an arse?
The solution? Fly to San Francisco and pick one up… if you’ve got a spare few thousand dollars.

Whilst it may no longer be the latest gadget the 2^nd Generation iPod Touch is still probably (in my view) the best standalone music player out there. I say this in part because it does so much more than just play music and of course gives you access to the App Store where you can find a wealth of free and inexpensive apps to download to your Touch.

When Truphone announced recently that they now support the 2^nd Generation iPod Touch, it got me thinking about the significance of using WiFi in the Touch to turn the device into a phone. It struck me as a hugely innovative way to take advantage of the App Store and extend Truphone’s reach into the consumer space.

To start using Truphone on the Touch all you need to buy is a microphone adaptor, as the software is a free download from the App Store. You don’t even need to buy an expensive Apple accessory to get a microphone, as Truphone has produced their own Truphone branded microphone adaptor which will shortly be available in the shops. What is neat about the Truphone microphone adaptor is that you continue to use your existing iPod headphones (or any other headphones you choose) by plugging them into the microphone adaptor and the microphone adaptor into the Touch. Calls to other Truphone users are free which is surely an incentive to get your friends with Truphone compatible devices to also sign up. Plus you can of course make cheap calls to the usual worldwide destinations by adding credit to your account.

If you’ve got an iPod Touch, the chances are you also have a mobile, so what’s the point of using Truphone on your iPod Touch? Truphone on the Touch is not a replacement for your existing mobile. For a start, you can’t yet receive calls. However, it’s a great way to make cheap international calls which your mobile operator would charge you a fortune for. Plus, it will shortly support instant messaging across Live Messenger, Yahoo and Google Talk. Skype connectivity is also on the way. Suddenly Truphone on the Touch starts to become a complementary communications tool to your existing mobile phone.

Something else that struck me about this development is that the microphone adaptor is the first piece of Truphone ‘hardware’ to appear instore and this will put the Truphone brand in front of people who might otherwise never have seen it, creating a another route to market for Truphone.

Happy New Year!

—

Jonathan’s also at Sevendotzero.

News has reached us from the phone accessory case maker XSKN’s website and via TrustedReviews the iPhone Nano could be a reality after all. As the well known company has started making and selling cases for that exact handset.

Since the beginning of time, well, the last few months really, rumour of a new Apple phone has come to light. In keeping with the existing iPod range, the Nano model being their smallest has been attached to this speculative concept.

Although to be entirely honest the Shuffle is the smallest, but who in their right mind would buy and use a screen-less key-less mobile. Hence, the Nano being the next obvious choice in the iPhone’s lineage naming.

XSKN a popular maker of cases for mobiles now has a range of cases especially designed to fit the iPhone Nano. A plethora of ‘masks’ can be seen on their site, all adding to the possibility of the new phone being just around the corner.

What adds even more weight to the expected news of the Nanos arrival is that you can already buy the cases, even before the phone has been official announced or even confirmed by Apple.

With Mac World being only a few weeks away, the likelihood of the handset being unveiled seems a distinct possibility after all. And with 17 different styles of the casing’s finishes to choose from, you’ll be hard pushed not to believe the phone will be here soon.

Either way they could just be hedging their bets here, or they know something that we don’t know we should know but have known about the knowing all along.

I trust Santa was good to you and that the package you have been eyeing under the Christmas tree for the last 10 days or so — the one that looked suspiciously like a well wrapped mobile phone box — really is a pre-release exclusive Nokia N97.

(Photos please…)

• I wish for truly ubiquitous wireless coverage so whatever mobile device I switch on, wherever I switch it on, it will just work. Having no signal will seem as strange as having just one phone in the house fixed to the hall wall.

• I wish for simplicity, certainty and predictability from mobile tariffs and bills. Those bills where you bust your text bundle or forgot you were roaming when you decided to download the Friends rerun will seem as anachronistic as booking a call to the USA via the operator and then taking out a second mortgage to pay for it.

• I wish for a redefinition of the term ‘customer service’ to mean an organisation that (a) understands the term ‘customer’ and (b) understands the term ‘service’. According to Wikipedia, “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.” Some mistake, surely?

• Finally, I wish for peace and goodwill to all men; yes, even the mobile operators!

Now – time to wake up – it’ll never happen … Or will it?

Thank you all for reading my Thursday slot on Mobile Industry Review. I’ve enjoyed writing it and hope you’ve found it informative and at times entertaining. I’d like to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and a prosperous 2009 – a long shot that one, I know, but we can dream …

Depending on Santa’s generosity – i.e. will he be putting something mobile in my stocking; I may or may not be back next week. If not I’ll be back in the New Year. Now shut down your PC and go join your friends and family!

—

Jonathan’s also at Sevendotzero.

Well, having just emailed them their prize choices, I’m pleased to announce they were (in order):

1. Jonas Jaanimagi
2. Aaron Vergara
3. AJ Connolly
4. Ed Hodges
5. Matthew Noble
6. Darren King
7. Rafe Blandford
8. Mark Redhead
9. Rob Stonehouse

Thanks to all our donors and prize-suppliers!

So when I got my connection back some time late last week, I was mildly hoping to see something massively interesting to inspire me to write about; some major piece of news – I mean it’s nearly Christmas after all – or just something that might catch my eye.

Now even on my trawl across the internet in search of mobile news, and the latest goings-on in this brilliant segment of society and business I was expecting something.

Did I?
No.

Am I happy?
No.

You see, even I, a relatively technological “young” person/student, who has a keen interest in the world around me, and with Christmas looming just around the corner, just something eh?

Well, apparently not.

Now maybe some good news, and/or surprises are waiting around the corner for the New Year; or maybe something spectacular will happen in the after-Christmas sales. Needless to say though, I was expecting some major news about something; a big price cut, or some other form of attempt to gain more consumer interest in this very dismal financial situation.

I know I’ve said numerous times now about the lack of real spark at the moment, and the generally poor attempts at gaining custom; and although nothing major, I’m quite amazed at how little I’ve read about anything enticing me – as a probable and likely customer – to go and spend money.

Maybe I’m wrong in my presumptions that the mobile market is avoiding the “Credit Crunch” and that when I walked down my high street the other day, Phones4U, CPW, O2, Three, and the numerous other shops which hoard the high street were meant to be relatively empty on a busy Thursday leading up to Christmas?

Hmm…

Well, I’ll try not to be so pessimistic, and I will believe that someone somewhere is planning something out to ensure that the mobile industry remains in-tact.

Part One:

Part Two – The Results!:

Ben will shortly post a full list of all winners. Standby.

Once again, thank you everyone for your donations. They will really help our two charities — the UN Foundation and Childline.

MIR-y Christmas Everybody!

We didn’t just beat our £1500 target, we shot past it.  In total Mobile Industry Review readers have donated £2059.96 to NSPCC Childline and the UN Foundation in a mix of £, € and $ – this is equivalent to keeping a Childline workers taking calls from children desperate for help for over 100 hours. Yesterday saw an absolute flood of donations.

We’ll be drawing names for the prize winners later today and e-mailing winners directly – watch out for next week’s show to see some of the action.

Thanks to all the donors and to the excellent firms who supported us by donating prizes including:

• Vodafone’s Live Guy campaign
• Skype
• Jabra
• Supertooth
• Spinvox
• Connection Software

So far we’ve had a fantastic £1400 donated – we need £100 more donated today to make our target!

Thankyou to all today’s donors for your generosity – with your help we’re nearly there. See this post for details of the prizes and special – today only – bonus we’re offering.  If you haven’t donated you have until the end of the day (your time) to donate to be included in the prize draw.

Can you be the person who gets us to our target of £1500 raised in six weeks for two excellent charities?

So far we’ve had a fantastic £1300 donated – today we need £200 donated to make our target!

So if you or your firm hasn’t donated yet, please do here. Remember for every £5 / $10 donated we’ll put a ticket in the draw to win the fantastic prizes below (plus Connection Software’s SMS/MMS Accounts with 250 messages added yesterday) – the more you donate, the more opportunities you have to win.

Watch the site and your inboxes for details of winners – we’ll be posting a video as soon after the draw as possible.

****

SPECIAL BONUS: We’ll pick two donations made today* and – in addition to entering the normal draw – we’ll send you our MyVu personal media player glasses or  Nokia N800 courtesy of some very nice people (you know who you are).

(Open to all, including previous donors)

****

*That is any receipt dated the 10th Dec – any timezone, we’re not fussy.

—-

Latest update on our Christmas Presents campaign in aid of NSPCC Childline and the UN Foundation…

So far a fantastic £1200 has been donated – we have 2 more days to make our £1500 target!

So if you or your firm hasn’t donated yet, please do here. Remember for every £5 / $10 donated we’ll put a ticket in the draw to win the fantastic prizes below – the more you donate, the more opportunities you have to win.

The two charities we are supporting are UK-based Childline and the international United Nations Foundation — both focusing on the health and welfare of children.

As of this morning we’re up to £1,100 in donations. James Whatley was particularly effective recently at Mobile Geeks of London, when he stood on a stool and demanded everyone in the room donate a fiver. Nice one James.

It’s not all about charity though. Oh no. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, we’ve got a raft of prizes that you could win — it’s a charity draw you see. Every £5 or $10 that you donate gets you one ‘chance’ to win.

The prize rack is looking pretty nifty at the moment:

# A Dell Mini Inspiron with 3G broadband from Vodafone
# An Apricot Picobook Pro Netbook
# Sony Ericsson C902 Titanium – O2 ‘Quantum Solace’ Special Edition
# 3 Skypephone S2
# 2 x Nokia 6650 – T-Mobile exclusive
# Sony Ericsson W595 – Three exclusive
# Jabra BT8030 bluetooth headset / speaker combo
# Jabra BT2050 mini bluetooth headset
# SuperTooth Voice In-Car bluetooth speaker
# 5 x Free Spinvox accounts

If you’ve got a product or service that you’d like to donate, drop Ben Smith a note and we’ll put it up. But please be quick! The draw is this Wednesday.

Finally, if you’ve had a pretty good year of it — despite the credit crunch joy that’s been surrounding the financial markets in recent months — think about the children. To put our £1,100 in context — just over half of this, roughly £600 — is enough to deliver 60 one-to-one counseling sessions for children distressed by abuse who are asking for help for the first time.

It’s really easy to donate. Click on the relevant link at the page below. Donate a bit of cash. Forward the email receipt to Ben and that gets you entered.

Make a donation here.

So far a fantastic £1100 has been donated – we have 3 more days to make our £1500 target!

So if you or your firm hasn’t  donated yet, please do here.  Remember for every £5 / $10 donated we’ll put a ticket in the draw to win the fantastic prizes below – the more you donate, the more opportunities you have to win.

…and if you needed any more incentive than the ton of prizes we already have and that warm feeling of doing something nice, the fantastic people from Skype have also given us a 3 Skypephone S2 to add to the prize pot.  Awesome

Many thanks to last week’s donors, including David Salgado, Darren King, Aaron Homer Vergara, Chris Walters, ‘Lulucachoo’ and Sam Elkin for their generous donations.  Also to the Vodafone ‘Live Guy’ team who added another fantastic prize to the pot: a Dell Mini Inspiron netbook with Vodafone 3G broadband.

If you haven’t already, you can donate directly to the 2 good causes we’re supporting – NSPCC Childline and UN Foundation – via the MIR Christmas Presents page here… We’ve a huge pile of netbooks, phones and gadgets you can win if you donate with more prizes due to be added this week.

Checkout some of the mobile-technology enabled projects the UN Foundation runs world-wide below:

The awsome people from Vodafone’s ‘Find Live Guy‘ campaign have added another prize to the excellent pot for Mobile Industry Review’s ‘Christmas Presents’ campaign in aid of NSPCC Childline and the UN Foundation.  It’s the Dell Inspiron Mini Netbook plus three months free Vodafone broadband.  Ewan’s had one on a Vodafone contract for some time and loves it.  So click here to donate to these two great causes and get a chance to win this or any of the other great prizes!

—-

If you haven’t already you should definitely also check out Vodafone’s ‘Find Live Guy‘ site – it’s a fantastic interactive game.  Live Guy is in London tomorrow and by following the site, his twitters, You Tube videos and Picassa photos you can work out the places he visits during the day and ‘track him down’ (in person or online) you can win a Vodafone Dell Mini Inspiron Netbook like the one we have for our draw (Two chances to win?  We’re spoiling you!).  He’s been all round the country giving out his net-booky goodness this month and tomorrow (28th) is his last day so don’t miss out! The previous clues have been pretty cryptic!

]]> http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/11/new_prize_vodafone_dell_mini_inspiron_netbook.html/feed 2 http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/11/christmas_presents_at_mobile_geeks.html http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2008/11/christmas_presents_at_mobile_geeks.html#comments Wed, 26 Nov 2008 15:33:41 +0000 Ben Smith http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/?p=11742

If you’re in London (All Bar One, New Oxford St) for Mobile Geeks of London tonight be warned that I will be there collecting donations for our MIR Christmas Presents campaign supporting Childline and the UN Foundation.  As a special treat I also have a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of champagne which we’ll be giving away in a mini-draw during the evening.

If you can’t make it tonight, take a look here to join in online.

Mobile Geeks of London information from Lord James of Whatleydude here.

My Mum gets Carphone Warehouse letters in the post; and the other day I arrived home from School, seeking out any interesting post for myself, when I came across a little Christmas brochure. I expected to see the usual mix of non-interesting and far-fetched mobiles, which have very limited appeal to someone who is as indecisive as I.

Then I came across the LG Cookie.

I’m not an LG fan by any means, yes their phones are nice, and I have to say although I appreciate the minor attempts at creativity with their naming processes; previous experiences of LG’s have taught me that they’re not my cup of tea. Should I mention I’m not a fan of their interfaces, or just generally how they work and feel?

However, the Cookie did catch my eye! It looks nice, it’ll be a new experience, it’s a touch-screen (another learning curve), and also the ability to use an on screen QWERTY keyboard, and importantly its price.

I don’t know what to do.

Now this could just be a sporadic urge to go and spend money, and get something just because I’ve seen it, and I like the price; but then I think… LG. An interface I know I won’t like, and will struggle to get grips with, and I fear I’ll see all the flaws in my purchase just after I’ve broken that “unbreakable seal” on the box.

It’s hopeless! I do this with every wonderful find I come across, and I deliberate an item and a possible purchase so much that it either becomes outdated and therefore useless, or I decide I don’t like it although secretly still wanting it, or I’ll find something else to admire and want.

I know for one, I can’t be the only person who does this; and I know for one that it’s probably a good safety precaution my mind has implemented to stop such impulse buying – a trait I really try to avoid at all costs.

Now I wonder, why is it I find mobiles such as the Cookie, and previously before it the LG KS360 before that, and there was also a Sony mobile before that too; why is it I loose interest, and forget about it, and then find some other mobile-crush?

Could it just be that no matter how lovely one major aspect or feature of a phone is say, it’s price, a new built in gadget or a sleek, slender design; it really isn’t enough to make a mobile good, or at-least good enough to buy.

What I’m beginning to see is that mobiles tend to be about one major factor, be it its connectivity, a particular design focus, a built in application, the camera, the media, the price, or its “technological achievements”.  I don’t want just one particularly above average feature as reason to invest in a mobile; I want a device that has equally good features which aren’t just surfing above the acceptable quality in phone.

So my next mobile-crush won’t be on a weak whim, a spur-of-the moment encounter, it’ll be something which offers more than one better than alright feature, and something I won’t fall out of love with.

Feel free to e-mail me anything at Samantha@mobileindustryreview.com

So far the ‘Christmas Presents’ campaign to raise money for Childline and the UN Foundation has been supported by generous individuals and freelancers.  Today Esendex – the clever people that do all kinds of things with SMS – stepped up and made a very generous corporate donation to support these two great causes.  We’ve reserved them some tickets in our charity draw to share in the office.

Thanks to everyone at Esendex and good luck in the draw!

If your firm would like to make a donation please do so here and be sure to let me know.  Alternatively just e-mail me at ben.smith@mobileindustryreview.com and I’ll sort it all out for you!

I’ve just come back to my desk to find £100 has been donated so-far today… That’s enough funding for an NSPCC ChildLine worker to answer calls for 5 hours, so children in desperate need can get the help and confidential advice they want from a friendly counselor.

Wow!

…and all of those people have been entered into the draw to win a fantastic great pile of free stuff too.  So it’s win-win (as we say in consultants’ school).

If you haven’t, please do donate now.  Quite a few people are just e-mailing me at ben.smith@mobileindustryreview.com to sort out their donation for them and to help with payments in Euros and company donations.  How easy is that?

After a short break earlier in the week the prize draw is back and now provides direct dual US and UK currency donations to the 2 good causes. Donate £5 / $10 (or more!) to get chances to win a great selection of prizes.

Please make a donation, help these excellent causes and enjoy some of our best ‘free stuff’ ever!

Firstly, I call for originality.

I personally think originality should be the first aspect of any design; and one would imagine that being original with design would be high if not on top of the list of things to do when making a new product… But I don’t see it a lot.

Most mobile phones are pretty much the same thing with a slight difference, and upgraded something-or-another; and it doesn’t hold interest. I don’t need a mobile that is only slightly different from the one I own now, so please, don’t try and sell it to me!

I’m not one full of ideas (and I will never claim to be), however, there are thousands of younger people in the UK, and millions around the world who I’m sure have at least a single idea on how to improve mobile phones, and come up with an original idea.

It is due to that, that I find no excuse for what many manufacturers are doing now; and when I look in the Carphone Warehouse, Phones4U or any other mobile-phone shop, and I see the same design specifications and in some cases even just the same physical design, I’m annoyed!

Secondly, a good deal!

Now this is where you get the “student” side to me; the side where I source out the cheapest possible deal. Going back to my first point, do something original at the same time (if you can), like Nokia and their “Comes With Music” – I said it when it came out, and I’ll say it now – BRILLIANT! That’s the kind of thing I love to see.

When I walk around the shops, complaining of the cold, wishing I had a Hot Chocolate, or even that Christmas would end, I want to be tempted to fall back in love with Christmas again. Give me something I can get excited about; a price that is so outrageously competitive that I will part with my cash there and then.

The Mobile networks? Well, couldn’t you give me a Christmas present too? How about a nice reward of getting say half of whatever I top up in the month of December free? (So I top up £10, and I actually get £15?)

And finally…

And this goes to pay-as-you-go more than anything else; bring me some good news about tariffs!

I’ve noticed more than ever my addiction to Facebook, and I’ll admit I spend far too much of my time thinking about Facebook and being on it. It’s edging on the slightly crazy spectrum, but I’ll survive.

The point is though; I can’t feed my addiction well enough. I want to browse on my mobile for a reasonable price, and at the same time I don’t want to be on a contract.
I know some networks (Orange are all of who I can think of right now), offer little bundle systems for browsing, which is a step in the right direction; but I want this on all networks; so that no matter who I am with, I can browse away on my mobile endlessly updating my status, and poking people. Or even check my e-mail; for a good price!

I know it’s too early to be discussing Christmas, but with any luck someone might take notice before the Christmas Eve rush, and this Christmas could be full of lots of mobile delights!

Samantha@mobileindustryreview.com

We love free stuff (whenever we can).

We love giving you our free stuff more.

Viewers of the show will know we’ve handed out promotional and review devices to commenters for some time now, giving out some quite desirable kit recently.  We’re not going to stop doing that in the new year, but until then I’d like to introduce…

Mobile Industry Review Christmas Presents

We’ve stashed away some of our best stuff and will be giving it away in a draw on the 10th December with the intention that it reaches you in time for Christmas – a gift for you one less thing to buy.

So what’s different?  This time around we won’t be picking winners from the site’s comments.  Instead we’re running a prize draw.  Entry to the draw is in exchange for a donation to Mobile Industry Review’s two chosen charities – the UK-based Childline and the UN Foundation (winners of a Mobile Industry Review award) which operates internationally.

Full details and an online donation form can be found on our MIR Christmas Presents page so please head over there now.  Please support us in helping these excellent causes who rely on telecoms and mobile technology to help people in desperate need.

Netbooks were very much in evidence – being supplied free with the various subscription 3G data packages.  In addition to the existing range including some Eee models from Asus, an Acer Aspire One and an Advent 4211 a new model from Fujitsu was on show.  Spec wise there was little separate it from the pack but styling and finish were impressive… Everyone agreed there would be a ‘bloodbath’ in this sector in the next few months with Dell, Lenovo and Toshiba all also due to announce products.

The Samsung stand was one of the best with the Omnia – a Windows Mobile 6.1 iPhone-a-like (that’s mine on the right of it for comparison) – launching today and the very impressive i8510 – one of Samsung’s first Symbian handsets – also on show.  The i8510 give Nokia’s best a run for their money – expect to hear more on this… my wallet is itching!  I’ve already got Ewan excited see here.

Next up was Nokia announcing an exclusive (until Christmas) white 5310 handset via CPW for the launch of their ‘Comes with Music‘ offering which is first to launch in the UK.  This gives a code for unlimited downloads from the Nokia music store which is very cool.  Even better is the fact you can keep the tracks after your year-long free subscription expires, but some of the answers about transfers to upgraded handsets and renewing subscriptions were worryingly vague – Nokia best have some good answers before those years start expiring!  Also on show were a number of the newer handsets including the N96 which, in my opinion, is looking lamer and lamer everyday as a flagship model (sorry Nokia).

Next up were our new best friends at SonyEricsson (the same chap in fact) who had his X1 out again and couldn’t answer any of the hard questions about when it would actually be released.  He did say some nice things about the show though so there is some hope for them

The new Jawbone headset we reviewed a few months back is now available in gun-metal grey and gold…. Meh.

Motorola had their Z10 out which impresses with its unusual form factor and video playback if nothing else, but also had their ‘budget smartphone’, the A810 on display – at around £90 on PAYG this is a Linux-based mini-tablet intended for people who want smartphone features at a lower cost… The interface and screen size are all much poorer than the best smartphones available, but at this cost I think they may have a good compromise.  Also impressive was the ZN5 – a 5 megapixel cameraphone with Kodak branding and xenon flash (something that helps Nokia’s N82 shoot such great pictures).  This has a WiFi photoframe accessory that is set to automatically show pictures the phone uploads to Kodak’s online photo site (via a Shozu-like feature) and multiple frames can be added.

LG were also present but apart from a nice table setting didn’t have much new to announce.  Disappointingly the PR there didn’t know about the LG blog so I gave up and moved on.  Nice table though…