The delicious Kevin Michaluk of CrackBerry has posted some nicer photos and more details about the all new BlackBerry Bold Slider handset. All the smart money is — as Kevin points out — on the slider being part of the Bold category of devices.

For those burning to find out more, Kevin has helpfully compiled a ’slider-rumour’ frequently asked questions post.

I’m content to let nature take it’s course and for the Slider to be launched as and when RIM decide. I could be tempted. I absolutely adore the BlackBerry keyboard (although I was shocked, last night, to find I can type really fast with both thumbs on an iPhone 3GS). The Slider configuration would give a heck of a lot more screen real estate on the BlackBerry — and I’m a fan of that. Although I’ve never taken to the Storm(s), I always loved the amount of data you could pack into their giant screens.

Kevin reckons the Slider might hit in the summer. Bring it on!

For so long we’ve been used to reading The Times — for example — and getting the news, with *authority* — from them. News written by serious people wearing serious scowls disdaining of the great unwashed and, every day, deigning to let us take a peak into their world.

One of my good friends was until recently at a senior position in a national newspaper here. She spoke of ‘civilians’ and D-list notices and, frankly, having all the gossip and — if you were lucky, she might even tell you what the rest of the know-all on-the-pulse newsroom team were talking about.

The actor Stephen Fry was stuck in a lift for X minutes last night.

The Times had the story. In fact 41 other news outlets served by Google News picked it up:

What I found really fascinating was this critical Tweet on the frylift conversation:

It reads:

dmacfarlane: Deary me. It took 10 hours for DigitalSpy to update us all on @stephenfry’s #frylift escapades. They’re slacking.

DigitalSpy is described as the UK’s leading website for all things media and entertainment. I visit them now and again and enjoy the site.

However dmacfarlane raises an interesting point. 10 hours? The Stephen Fry episode took place at, what, just before 11pm yesterday? And DigitalSpy published a story on the matter at 09:42am the next morning.

Is that simply not good enough? Clearly, the author has got into work, had a look about, knocked up the post and got it live on the site just before 10am.

Is that perfectly fine? I suppose so.

But then again, if it happened 10+ hours ago, isn’t that unacceptable? The Daily Mail got in there with a post at 1:54pm today. That’s a bit late.

I wonder, I wonder.

What is clear is that Twitter is becoming the source of an increasing amount of news/entertainment stories. And, as a result, there’s next to no room for the Old Media Ego (or, indeed, the New Media Ego). The source is right there for you to read on Twitter. If you’re interested enough to read a story about Stephen Fry (and you’re a bit geeky), chances are you’ve already subscribed to Fry via Twitter and you already experienced this.

Which reduces the value of the story to a little bit of delight to see Twitter getting a mention.

Of course that’s also helping educate the masses about the possibilities of Twitter.

But how long before you switch off The Daily Mail and Digital Spy and simply get the news and opinion raw, unfiltered and direct from the celeb themselves?

2 years ago, would the Daily Mail, or The Times, have printed a story about Stephen Fry stuck in a lift?

After our posts about the HTC Tungsten the other day, we’ve heard from various knowing sources that it will most certainly be the next generation T-Mobile G2.

Just from the pictures the Tungsten looks a lot more SOLID than the pop-out-and-wobble-about G1.

Interesting.

I am, actually, quite enjoying my G1 at the moment. As long as I switch off the device and only switch it on when I want to use it. Otherwise the battery wears down pretty swiftly.

(Photo via PPC Geeks).

The iPhone 3G! This was bound to appear somewhere, and so I thought it’s best to get it out of the way sooner, rather than later. Personally, I’m not a fan; and from what I’ve read, seen and heard accounts of, it hasn’t been all too great for Apple too. However, as much as I insist that it’s a pile of rubbish (feel free to beg to differ); it sold once again in its thousands.

Apple has conquered another market, and whether it’s because they found monopolising the MP3 market too easy, they’ve certainly made a statement. And even though the 3G came out way back in June/July the device still makes a regular appearance here on MIR. I do not doubt for a second that Apple have something lurking up their well-tailored sleeves, and if the rumours of an iPhone Nano are anything to go by… Then 2009 will be dominated with more Apples than your doctor can prescribe!

Secondly, Blyk! Hmm, well, me and Ricky between have more than enough to say on Blyk. For me, I was so hopeful that Blyk could be that turning point, especially here in the UK – where we ever so often fall behind in the world of technology and thought – and I was so disheartened with what eventually happened with them, it still annoys me now.

It can’t all be bad, and as much as I say I don’t like them and that their bound to fail… They haven’t yet. In fact, Blyk is over one year old now, and it still seems to be maintaining momentum. I think in 2009 we’ll either start to see how incredibly flawed Blyk’s aims and business model is; or dare I say it, it still surviving and the European expansion working out for the better for the company.

For me also, as I’ve begun to really take note and interest in the world of the Mobile Phone, I’ve seen certainly more usability on the rise, and a better use of SMS and mobile communications from businesses and services.

The “Knife Crime” Crime Stoppers text in service has to be, for me one of the single best things I have come across. It’s been implemented correctly in schools (well, at least in my school), without making itself appear too formal, and scary to use. And it’s using basic innovation, which as I know I have repeated many-a-time over the past few months; is severely lacking.

Slowly though, I’m beginning to see more and more use of mobile communications, for example my local hospital texting me when I have an upcoming appointment so I can’t forget; or my School using a system to ensure parents know if you’re not in school – when say you’re meant to be.

Hopefully over the next twelve months more of this good thinking and logic will be applied to other aspects of our general lives; and maybe with that, we might even get some more innovation out of that… And surely, that can only be a good thing?

Finally, my favourite mobile application… Well this has to go to MusicStation, which is available to Vodafone users. When I was first introduced to it by Ewan, I’ll admit I was majorly sceptical; I’m a music lover in every sense of the word. I don’t like the idea of being sold half-hearted 96kps versions of a song, or only having a minute and pointless library of music to download from; and this is all I expected to get.

I was wrong, and I loved the service. I haven’t yet seen it used by anyone I know on Vodafone, in fact, I’m not even sure if any of my friends are even aware of what they can get on their mobiles for a small fee per month; but if they did, then I do not doubt that it would be highly used by all of them.

Nokia I suppose are heading out in a similar direction, although I can’t comment on how the “Comes with Music” service works; I don’t doubt for a second that music services like the ones Vodafone and Nokia are offering are going to stop or end here.

—

I look forward to the next year, and I look forward to the new technologies developing, and being released, and being pleasantly surprised as I have been this year. I also see that as much optimism that I have, one cannot forget the looming “recession” and what impact will that have? I dare not speculate, but for more than one reason I’m pretty sure next year will be interesting and something to look forward to!

Anyway, I wish you all a Happy New Year!

Samantha.
samantha@mobileindustryreview.com

- – - – -

Ewan,

We don’t really do press releases but I wanted to ping you about what have been beavering away on here in Buddycloud Towers. We’re terrible at blowing our own trumpet but I figured that if we are going to talk about ourselves, then we’d rather tell you first.

This morning Ross received a newly signed build back from Symbian that rolls up all our development build goodness. Things like pushing status message to Twitter and Facebook and place syncing. eg: “Ross Savage met with Helge Timenes at Buddycloud Towers.” The chat and find-people-nearby stuff is also now looking good.

Helge has also been hard at work on our location engine, tweaking it to get even better, more accurate place bookmarks using just Cell Towers for location. And now, when a user is not at one of their place bookmarks, we share your general location with your friends (eg Ewan is on-the-road in Shorditch or Ewan is near to MIR Towers).

Helge has also been fixing some strange problems with using cellid for positioning (we discovered that all Starbucks use the same ethernet address!) The Wifi lets you be hyper-accurate but for the most part Cell Towers is “good enough”.

And I’m currently working with a university team in Munich and one in Vienna that are using our backend and handset code to develop a
carpooling and mobile dating service respectively. I’m also working with some of the standard boards to find a nice way to share location and find people nearby. Eventually we want Buddycloud, Brightkite, Fireeagle, Nokia Friendfinder etc all working together.

Some progress: A protocol we put together is now in the experimental phase
(http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0255.html)

A couple of weeks back we asked them to help us translate the Buddycloud application to more than just English. Within 5 days we were supporting 11 languages. (Thanks gang.)

I also updated our product description page if MIR readers would like to know more about us:
http://www.buddycloud.com/cms/node/56

(trumpt blowing over) If you would like something a bit more press-releasey ping me back and I could jot something down for you.

- – - – -

STEP AWAY FROM THE PRESS RELEASE, Simon. I much prefer an email update from the chaps who’re doing it. I’m pretty sure the rest of the readers here on Mobile Industry Review prefer that too.

I’m off to go and put Buddycloud on my handset…

Here’s the link you need to download.

A blog post has appeared on the BBC informing of a new iPlayer mobile website in beta trials, plus support for new phones.

Posted by Richard Titus, the new Future Media Controller, Audio & Music and Mobile goes on to highlight some interesting new developments.

We’re probably all well aware the iPhone was the first to be bestowed with access to the iPlayer, then the Nokia 96 back in October and now N85 too.

What some might not be aware is that the new iPlayer portal is now available for the Samsung Omnia and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1. The Sony Ericsson C905 is also being geared up for access to the site by the end of next week, with compatibility for more devices in the next few weeks.

Just aim your phone, the ones listed above, at www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer and their system should figure out what device is trying to access the site.

Those who already use it will be familiar with the layout and will spot a few new tabs. As they’ve extended the portal with some new features and navigation methods.

They’ve also broadened their support for the first Windows Mobile devices with the likes of the Samsung Omnia and Sony Ericsson Xperia X1, first hitting the mark with good WIFI and 3G.

More can be seen on the blog post here.

Let’s hope other channels follow suit with their on-demand offerings too.

The rumour mill has gone into over drive with the sighting of a new Nokia phone, a full touch screen mobile – not even a week after their symposium in Barcelona started.

Slashgear amongst others, starting with them, have all picked up on this story and run with it like the Olympic torch.

We passed this along to be confirmed by our newly gained and most excellent contacts now inside Nokia. Who in turn passed it along to HQ in Finland, where the answer came back that no one was clued in on the model.

With the official word being that it just looks like a ‘marketing concept shot’, which we concur with. As we’re unsure of a handset coming out that boasts a “Direct UI simplifies interaction with standard strokes and gestures”.

Some other news came to light just as we were writing this up, in the form of an update on the main news site.

They’ve also had the image confirmed by Nokia, where it just appears to be a shot showing off the latest UI and its features.

A feature set that does look very familiar to the one we saw supported on the N97, which we extensively used last week.

Perhaps it’s more than just a concept mock up after all and could be a definite glimpse into the future.

Does anyone have a Flux Capacitor so we can find out? McFly? McFly?

See here for more on the story.

Nokia’s new QWERTY keyboard based mobile was announced today, completing their arsenal of N series handsets. This could easily be compared to other manufactures mobile keyboard arms, with the likes of the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 and HTC’s Touch Pro first popping into mind.

The N97 now fits nicely into the latest series line-up with a distinct feel of the N96, plus having a very close similarity to the 5800 in feel and shape.

This time around, the new handset comes with what Nokia are calling the ‘tilting touch display’. Where the screen retreats to an angle and a three-row keyboard is then exposed.

Its hinge is a mechanical one, which in our mind screams main point of failure. Although they’re confident the forged steel they’ve used was the toughest one around and will suffice. Also they’ve aired to us it has been over engineered to very much deliberately compensate, for this new venture of theirs.

One of the issues we had when we began to use the keyboard is that it looks and feels like it’s geared only for left handed people. We’re sure many others will feel the same way too. The d-pad is located for the left thumb to use only, which does feel odd. We asked why this was the case; the answer came back rather obviously and just shows who it’s aimed at.

After a great deal of research they discovered the left hand thumb was used more often in navigation when it came to consoles. Ahhh, the penny drops as to who they’re aiming this at now.

When you remember you do actually use that thumb in that way, the muscle memory sort of kicks in and you’re well away.

The other issue we had is that it does take some effort to open the keyboard up. It doesn’t move as easy as the arc slider on the X1 or as smoothly as the Touch Pro. After a while of use it becomes rather irksome, but this could be a good point – as it doesn’t accidentally open. This is a bother to most users, with the phrase ‘ass dialling’ becoming more and more common of late.

There’s also a new personalised touch screen, with its own widget set that’s fully customisable. These are live and can be updated in real time, with the likes of email being shown and social networking status too.

These are very much akin to the latest Samsung handset widgets, but are presented in a much more clearer way. Others could learn from this, take heed those of you out there and you know who you are.

Nokia are calling this handset a mobile computer, not a smart phone per se. Others have equated this phrase to laptops, netbooks or even a tablet pc.

They’ve gone down another route here. This is despite other handsets mentioned above being much closer to smartphones, although Nokia have been bold enough to call there’s something else.

The Nokia N97 comes along with 3.5-inch 16:9 touch display, that also works well in both landscape or portfolio even with the keyboard exposed. The internet is a clear factor in its initial design planning, which is obviously clear when you see websites on screen, as the display is really shown off here.

Although, as pointed out by a colleague last night it has a much inferior screen to the X1 or Touch Pro. As it only measures up to being 640 x 360 pixels, with the X1 having a smaller screen but better resolution at 800 x 480 pixels.

In terms of storage , the handset comes along with the 32GB onboard with the expandability potential of another 16GB. That’s right, you’ve read this correctly – 48GB in total, with the remainder being from a microSD card. Although in the morning keynote the speaker alluded to the phone could be 64GB at launch, meaning the 32GB card could be around sooner than expected.

With a 5MP camera and support for Nokia Music Store, with continuous playback time of 1.5 days it’s certainly a veritable phone. Couple that with quad-band GSM , 3G and WIFI it does show a lot of potential.

As a series 60 device we were suitably impressed with what we saw, with some minor reservation over its usability. If Nokia listened and took on board feedback from its critics, there could be a good chance they could steal market share from others.

There’s always worry that spec’s will change as the launch date hasn’t been set in stone and the preliminary time is so far far way.

We’ve been told that what we have seen and used might not have the same foibles as the finished retail model.

The former wood-pulp millers have just made public their latest handset, the 6260 Slide. Which is an addition to their other 6260 from 2004.

Although not really drawn as update as such on the previous series, it does still share the same model number. Only now the word Slide is has been added, almost as a suffix at the end.

The original model in case you were at all interested was of a clam shell design, and if you weren’t, it’s too late now.

They’ve tagged this one for marketing purposes as being ’made for high speed sharing’, whatever that means.

We assume, and we’re sure there’s something about making the ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me’ in there, it’s geared towards sharing photographs and videos via social networking sites out there.

Running from the Series 40 OS it’s capable of HSDPA and even has WIFI onboard, with images to be captured for its 5MP Carl Zeiss camera lens with flash.

There’s also GPS and Nokia Maps pre-installed, amongst other wonders accompanying the phone such as the navi-key functions for guiding your way around the OS.

It’s due to hit the shops early next year, with a price tag of 299 Euros. We’ve asked about possible networks carrying it, but none have been made public yet. Boo!

Late today we’re at the launch of the new LG PRADA phone, set to be the next exclusive designer mobile from the joint partnership of those two industry players.

It’s their second handset from the venture, with the first arriving on the scene like a sex machine in mid 2007.

The new model almost mimics the first, and why mess with perfection which is why American Football should go back to its roots of Rugby.

Only this time around it has a slide out keyboard, with the thinness of a size zero model making it look almost like it freshly purged that morning ready for the catwalk.

It’s an often forgotten fact that the original Prada phone made a wee bit of history by being the first full touchscreen phone hitting the market, beating Apple and HTC by months. With more than 1 million sales beneath its designer belt, the successor is bound to be highly awaited with its expensive look.

This time around it’s capable of 3G with video calling, where the previous was only a Tri-band EDGE at its best. There’s also a 5 mega pixel camera lens by Schneider-Kreuznach onboard, the best the last phone could muster was just a poor 2MP at the time.

We’ve been informed the new Prada mobile will hit the stores at a starting price of 600 Euros, although we’ll confirm that later today.

Once again, if there’s anything you wish to ask LG or Prada but were too afraid to ask please fire them away in the comments below. We’ll endeavour to have them answered.

The INQ1 or ‘The Facebook Phone’ is launched today. Our man RobK is on the scene. We’ll have more from you shortly — plus I’m hoping to be able to meet with one of their top executives tomorrow for a sit-down interview on camera.

We’ll bring you more on the handset shortly — but I’d like to highlight the shockingly good tariffs:

You’ve got a choice of two.

Tariff A: £15 per month

That includes: -

- Unlimited email, data, Skype etc.,
- Unlimited 3-3 on-net calls
- Unlimited cross network UK texts
- 75 cross network UK minutes

Tariff B: £20 per month

The extra fiver gets you an upgrade to 200 cross network UK minutes.

The handset itself? £79.99 PAYG.

We’ll have more on this shortly…

This time the leak wasn’t Nokia’s, it was Microsoft’s turn with the new mobile OS and also an emulator for IE 6 shows up.

The website Smartphonefrance has managed to obtain the first images of the upcoming OS, first uttered from the lips of Steve Ballmer at an Australian press conference on the tail end of last week.

From first impressions, it looks a lot different to version 6.1 that we’re using today. Other sites have drawn a comparison to the Zune in its appearance. Perhaps Microsoft are again standardising on a single OS view for all operating systems and upcoming releases, it would make sense after all.

We’re now wondering how they’re going to launch the mobile OS. For Windows Mobile 6.1 they announced it to the press on Aprils Fools day at the Comedy Store. I think we’re still waiting to get the joke; what’s the punch line Microsoft?

The other MS story almost falls on the coat tails of the Opera Mini 4.2 beta release, with news of an emulator now being available on Internet Explorer Mobile 6.

It was unveiled to an unsuspecting public at Microsoft’s EMEA TechEd developers conference in Spain.

Improvements have apparently been made around feature sets such as, text wrap, adobe flash integration, touch screen support, zoom levels and others too.

We couldn’t really get a complete feel for how it’s changed, as we didn’t have access to a previous emulator, which made it difficult to fairly gauge on the improvements.

Although it does look like an improvement as to what we’ve seen on current shipping handsets, with a much dated version of IE.

For more on the IE emulator see here, and for more on Smartphonefrance leaked images see here for a roughly translated English version

- – - – -

Hi Ewan

How’s things? We still ought to have that drink!

Just wanted to send you a quick email this morning to keep you in the loop. I was told it would be better to drop you a note about our new appointments, rather than send you a press release.

We’ve just added four more people to our London team. We’ve taken on a new Graphic Designer (George Mayou), an interaction designer (Jaeseung Chang), a Project Manager (Elizabeth Hansen) and a new front-end Developer (Leonardo Lanese).

It’s been a very good year for us so far and we’ve made a lot of progress but we’ve still got lots more to do. We’ve got some good ideas about how we can deliver the best possible service to our users and we’ve got some major developments planned as a result. We’re by no means perfect and we know we can give our users a better service. These new hires are driven by our desire to develop what we have at the moment, a lot further.

Keep up the great work.

Mark

- – - – -

Thanks for taking the time to write in Mark — it is a lot better getting emails rather than bare-bones press releases. The feedback from everyone reading is a lot more positive. Congratulations to your new hires! Perhaps we can get you on to the MIR Show sometime soon Mark.

If you’d like to do business with Mark at Flirtomatic, drop me a note and I’ll connect you.

I also need to add Mark into the all new Mobile Industry Review Who’s Who in Mobile. Mental note.

Each week we’ll be showcasing a different site or application for you to check out, either because its innovative in some way, has been very successful or it’s the sort of thing you might want to download or bookmark on your mobile.

To kick off, our mobile 2.0 service this week is Peperonity.

What is it?

Peperonity is a mobile site builder and community that lets the user create a mobile web site with text, images, files and interactive elements like a guestbook, voting and messaging.  The site is a bit like a hybrid of livejournal and myspace on mobile that makes it really easy to create a website through your phone as a personal page or in an area of interest.  There are also some central community services including a super-busy forum, live chat rooms, a media gallery and so on.  Whilst Peperonity is most definitely “mobile 2.0″ it was actually founded way back in 2001 and survived the mobile internet nuclear winter of 2001-7 without taking any VC funding.

Why is it interesting?

To be fair, most Mobile Industry Review readers are probably not the target users for Peperonity, which  mainly attracts a younger audience, particularly in the hyper-growth mobile markets like South Africa and India.  However, the site is worth getting to know if you’re in the mobile biz, based on the huge traction that it has achieved.

Pepperonity has the kind of mobile traffic that a lot of big media companies can only dream of, and is claiming over 400m page views a month, over 5 million personal pages have been created on the site and there are now over a million registered users.  (Source: Wap Review).  As a result it is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest driver of inventory on the admob mobile ad network and is rumoured to have a minimum guarantee deal on ad space for over a million US dollars a year.

Despite all this Peperonity has a fairly low profile, even within the mobile industry, and deserves to be more widely known, given that it’s a real benchmark for anyone looking to build a successful mobile internet site.

That’s all for now – see you next week for another mobile 2.0 service

You can find Peperonity on on mjelly, which is a directory of mobile things at mjelly.com on your PC and m.mjelly.com on mobile

If you’re looking to hire, or looking to be hired, whack an emailover to me (Krystal) and we’ll get it posted!

The KC910 is heading this way very quickly. We’ll be there tomorrow night at the LG blogger launch. In fact we’re doing a lot of the filming for next week’s MIR show there.

If you remember at the last LG launch, I was a bit repetitive with the UK Marketing Director about their total lack of developer support.

I wonder, frankly, if the iPhone, T-Mobile USA Application Store and even Nokia bleeting on about their ‘100m application downloads’, is reversing this position.

The KC910 is the successor to the Viewty. It’s got a 240×400 3″ display, fully touchscreen. ISO1600 8MP camera, image stabiliser, geotagging from it’s integrated GPS. VGA at 30fps video or 120fps at QVGA standards. HSDPA. Wifi. TV-Out. SD card capacity of 8GB max.

Interesting.

The LGs have never really been a go-er for me personally, or for anyone on the Mobile Industry Review team. They simply don’t cut it in terms of add-on facilities.

I *need* to be able to get stuff off my handset quickly. And I mean now. I don’t mean arsing about with Bluetooth. I want my media sent to the web in the background. I want to utilise the collective genius of millions of developers by installing their best works on to my handset.

I have no doubt the LG KC910 will be a piece of brilliance though. More soon.

No such luck.

We’ve got three feeds for you, you see. The main audio podcast, the video feed and then the 3gp feed featuring a mobile-encoded version.

There were plenty of systems that would do one feed. But not three. Or if they’d do multiple feeds, they wouldn’t actually work when I installed them.

The requirement for multiple streams has forced us to move from our existing provider. That and the fact we’re being charged through the nose for bandwidth … and, actually, it’s not that fast.

So we’re now fully hosting everything on Mosso. I really like the fact that we’re serving you Mobile Industry Review from a multidimensional array cloud computing repository. Or something like that.

So here we go, if you’re a regular podcast listener/viewer, please do update using the new feeds below:

• Main audio podcast — this is where we publish the audio version of our podcast together with special report conversations with executives from the industry:
  http://feeds.feedburner.com/MIRmain
• Main video podcast — the mammoth video feed — typically weighing in at over 100mb a week:
  http://feeds.feedburner.com/MIRvideo
• 3gp podcast — the video version of our feed, specially formatted for mobile handsets:
  http://feeds.feedburner.com/MIR3gp