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Is Vodafone 360 turning a corner? 7,000 apps and counting

This afternoon I bumped virtually into David Marutiak, User Community Ambassador for Vodafone 360. Now, you know I’ve been pretty direct with my comments about Vodafone 360 in the past (and, well, if you click on the Mobile Industry Review frontpage you can see examples of that).

And whilst I still have significant issues with the neolithic senior management who managed the platform launch extremely poorly, I wanted to highlight a few things that demonstrate the talented folks (who’re actually running the Vodafone 360 show) are doing a good job of pulling things together.

First up, I have received my first press release from a mobile developer relating to Vodafone 360. Whilst I know Rummble has been doing some rather good work on the platform, I had a note from mobile developers SCCOPE to tell me about their new 360 app launching. More on that shortly (in another post). The fact that developers are giving Vodafone the time of day is fantastic news.

Second, the news from Vodafone that over 7,000 apps have now been made available to download across 8 European countries on the 360 platform. That’s shocking. Shockingly good news. At launch, the quality of the available apps wasn’t that staggering. But this is changing. I’ll be taking another look shortly. (You can find the press release for the 7,000 app news here.)

Third, Vodafone’s App Planet sponsorship at Mobile World Congress certainly demonstrates their commitment to working with developers. There are, I know, a lot of developers who’ll be looking curiously at the platform as a result.

Good news!

4 COMMENTS

  1. I dunno, Ewan. The Vodafone 360 service also works on the Nokia 6210MR, N85MR, N96MR and 6730, according to the Vodafone website – and they’re S60 devices. I don’t think you’ll find 7000 apps for the ‘Vodafone 360 OS’ anywhere. I don’t have a VF360 phone but the UK Vodafone website offers me a choice of 61 “apps and extras”… and most of those don’t look like what you or I would call apps.

  2. The only 'corner' 360 needed to 'turn' was the seemingly, allegedly, personal and, effectively, personalised, vendetta against Vodafone launched by this site. 360 had some wobbles, but users I know, are, on the whole, happy, and getting happier, as they get to realise the full potential of this innovative development.

  3. Well Ewan, vendetta was strong. But it seems to many of us as if you have a particular axe to grind with old lady Vodafone: now I know that it's not your fault that you're not a trained, balanced or disinterested journalist (and that's not what people visit this site for) and I know also that your information is often shoddy not through any particular fault of your own, but because it is based on similarly self-important low-level embittered insider gossip. Still, given all these home truths, if you track back across all of your Vodafone coverage, you might agree with me (one day, when you've got a bit of distance) that it seems that some personal edge is leading your assessment of the company. Indeed, you sound like (though I imagine you probably never were) a disgruntled former employee – and with all the cutbacks in the sector, there are plenty of them! I sort of feel sorry for you really. But I am sure Barcelona will be fun for you.

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