Apple made it possible for iPhone developers to offer in-app purchase five weeks ago, an option Android devs currently don’t have. But now Shanghai-based mobile technology company Urbian found a work-around to enable in-app purchase, saying they’re the first developers that did. The app in question is Ringz, a puzzle game that’s available for free on the Android market (the iPhone version is in review by the way).

Ringz lets you buy and download more levels (so-called Level Packs) from within the app. If the extension is returned or deinstalled, the extra functionality disappears from the base application. Urbian says some users tried copying the Level Pack files to a different path on an SD card to return them later and then use the extension for free – but this won’t work with their app.

Please click on the following graphic Urbian prepared for MobileCrunch to see how the work-around works.

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Found on the Mobile Web is a weekly WAP Review feature listing newly added and updated sites on the YesWAP.com mobile portal and WapReview mobile site directory. With these latest additions the directory and portal now list 2024 mobile sites.

Technology/Internet

mattvague.com m.mattvague.com Design portfolio and blog of Web Designer/Developer and iPhone Developer Matt Vague. In his blog Matt covers Web and iPhone app development and design with tutorials and commentary. Mobile view by Mobify.me
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Social Networking

Blippr m.blippr.com Blipper (recently aquired by Mashable) is a Twitter inspired social network where user share ratings and reviews of apps, books, games, movies, and music in 160 characters or less. The mobile edition is a "middle web" site with page sizes up to 140 KB, best suited to the iPhone, Android, Web OS and Opera Mini. Source: Oh! Mobile Directory
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Weegoh m.weegoh.com A location based social network that emphasises sharing events and places with your real-live and online friends using messaging, photos and video. Source: Oh! Mobile Directory
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Mizoon www.mizoon.com/node Another new location based social network. Check in at our favorite cafe, club or hangout and find out who else is there and let your friends know where you are. Users can have multiple profiles or personas for work and play. Source: Oh Mobile Directory
Content: Usability:

Entertainment/Music-Nightlife

Jambands.fm m.jambands.fm/blog/ Jambands.fm is aimed at live music collectors, traders, and enthusiasts. It's a registration required music bittorrent tracker for live recordings of artists who allow their music to be traded. The lively Jambands blog featuring concert and recording reviews is available in this mobile view created with Mobify.me
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Entertainment/Humor

Jokes.mobi jokes.mobi "Joke of the Day" plus hundreds of other mobile formatted jokes organized by category. Source Mobility.mobi
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News/US Local by State/Virginia - Wyoming

Eau Claire Leader2Go m.leadertelegram.com Mobile edition of the Leader-Telegram daily newspaper which brings the latest news, sports and weather to the residents of Eau Claire and the Chippewa valley, Wisconsin. The text-only site also has business, entertainment, features and editorial sections, obituaries and movie show times. Source: Tappity
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Entertainment/Life Style/Beer, Wine & Spirits

BeerGuide www.beerguide.mobi Mobile version of Gallaghersbeerguide.com. It is a reference and flavor guide to the different styles of beers and lists recommended food and beer pairings. Also lists alcohol content and calories of popular beers. Source: Oh! Mobile Directory
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Social Networking/Twitter

Hahlo4 hahlo.com An attractive "Middle Web" Twitter front end. Has an average page size of 350 KB and a dependency on JavaScript. Halo4 looks and works great in the iPhone, Android, Web OS, and Maemo browsers and on Opera Mini or Opera Mobile on devices with a page width of 320 px or greater.
Content: Usability:

News/Environmental

WWF Mobile wwf.mobi Official mobile site of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. The latest environmental news, tips for living a "Green" lifestyle and free wallpaper, video and ring tone downloads.
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Thanksgiving is coming up, and it’s almost time to get your turkey ready for the festivities. And wouldn’t you know, there’s an app for that. TurkeyTimer is trying to make cooking your delicious holiday turkey easier then it currently is.

To use TurkeyTimer, just enter the weight of your turkey, whether it’s stuffed, your desired internal temperature, and whether you plan to baste the turkey. Just to clarify, basting is a cooking technique, and usually involves cooking meat with either its own juices or some type of preparation such as a sauce or marinade. (Thanks, Wikipedia)

Then, using algorithms based on cookbook instructions, TurkeyTimer will track the approximate brownness of your turkey, the approximate internal temperature of your turkey, and about how long it will be until you can take the turkey out of the oven. Once the crisp and delicious turkey is ready, TurkeyTimer alerts you that your turkey is ready, and when the feasting can begin.

So get ready for your holiday meals with TurkeyTimer, which of course is available on the App Store today for $2.99. [iTunes Link]

Pro Tip: Use TurkeyTimer to impress your in-laws during Thanksgiving dinner. I do not speak from personal experience.

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We just got an interesting email in to MobHappy Towers:

Russel & Carlo,

[company we thought was reputable, and which you've definitely heard of]’s partner and developer team is interested in purchasing email lists from MobHappy. Could you please provide me with the following information?

* Number of unique monthly visitors to your site
* Email list community size
* Newsletter list community size
* Audience breakdown, including number of developers
* How developers are segmented (iPhone, etc.); if they not segmented, can they be?
* Geographic breakdown
* Pricing information

I am currently unable to access my [company we thought was reputable, and which you've definitely heard of] email, so if you could please reply to all when you respond, I would appreciate it.

Thank you!

First, It’s Russell, with two Ls, but nice try. Second, this email brings to mind some of my rather ham-fisted attempts to pick up girls in college, because it, like me back then, elicited a certain response: “Do you find this approach to actually be successful?”

So just to make things clear: we don’t sell our email list. And we don’t “rent” it, either.

The sudden surge in interest in Android (largely due to all of the hype surrounding the Droid) has caused a lot of developers to reconsider the platform. Atleast one major development house, however, isn’t impressed.

Earlier today, Alexandre de Rochefort, Finance Director of Gameloft, told an investor conference that the company had “significantly cut [their] investment in Android platform, just like … many others”. Gameloft is one of the largest mobile games companies around, having pulled in roughly $132 million in the last three quarters alone. While there are plenty of fish in the developer sea, this can’t be one that Google is happy to see swim away.

The reason they’re cutting back, adds Rochefort, is that Google hasn’t done enough to “entice customers to actually buy products” on the platform. Regardless of how you feel about Google’s approach to the market, you can’t argue with the numbers: according to Rochefort, they’ve sold “400 times more games on iPhone than on Android”.

Consider this a gauge for Android’s success over the next year and a half or so; if Android can grow at a fast enough rate and sell enough handsets to keep the big dev teams on board (and, perhaps, even regain Gameloft’s interest), we’ll know things are going alright.

[Via Reuters]

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Mark your calendars! The next MobileMonday Austin event is scheduled for December 7, 2009, 5:30-8pm.

For this event we will have a number of Central Texas Technology Incubators come in and talk about what and how they help local mobile developers and start-ups. We will also have a local Angel investor present on “Funding Sources”. And we will have some local companies demo their mobile products.

It is going to be a very interesting and informative event!

• When: December 7, 2009, 5:30 - 8:00pm
• Where: TBD — working on this
• Cost: Zero, nada. Pizza and sodas will be served. To have accurate headcount, please register!
• Topic: Nielsen Mobile, Central Texas Technology Incubators, Funding Sources and Mobile Apps Demo Night
• Speakers: Austin Technology Incubator, Austin Entrepreneur Network, Idea Finishing School, plus more!

To get proper headcount please register at the event page.

If you are a mobile developer and/or start-up and you would like to talk/demo your product, please send me an email (to enrique.ortiz at gmail dot com).

***I will be sending more information such as venue/location information as soon as possible***

ceo (@eortiz, @momoaustin)

Turkey Day is just around the corner, which means that the annual American tradition season of losing one’s mind in exchange for slightly discounted goods will officially begin a week from today. Yes, I speak of the infamous day that is Black Friday. The very same day in which hundreds of thousands of Americans transform into penny-pinching-zombies who will do whatever it takes to score a cheap fix.

Anyhoo, I’m not here to judge. If you are brave (/crazy) enough to fight through out-of-control bargain-hunting mobs to save yourself an extra 20% on a product (that you never wanted or needed), then god bless you. Furthermore, if said object happens to be a new mobile phone, wouldn’t it be nice to know a little about each of the major carriers’ early termination fees ahead of time (instead of waiting for your post-Black Friday “hangover” to subside, only for you to realize that you’ve signed your entire family’s fortune away on a new mobile family plan that you actually didn’t want or really need)? We think so.

Without further ado, here is the 2009 Major Carriers’ Early Termination Fees Table-O-Fun:

Please note – all of the information above is subject to change at any time. We just want to help everyone to make the most informed decision they can when selecting a new carrier (/device), thereby ultimately making for a happier (and possibly healthier) holiday and new year. Oh, and if you need any help picking out a new gadget for a loved one, don’t forget to give CrunchGear’s 2009 Holiday Gift Guide a once (or thrice) over. Cheers!

[via CNET]

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Techmeme, the popular tech news aggregator, launched a new mobile site yesterday.  The official announcement is here.

I like what Techmeme has done,  The site, while targeted specifically at the iPhone, Android and Palm WebOS phones, isn't turning anyone away.  You can visit techmeme.com/m with any browser you want.  I tried it using the Android browser,  a Nokia N95-3's Webkit based browser, Opera Mini 4.2 and the old Openwave 6.2 emulator. I found that the new design worked just as well in Opera Mini (image, top) and Nokia Webkit as it did on Android. I believe that the site will work well on any mobile browser with reasonably good CSS and JavaScript support.  A screen at least 320px wide or Opera Mini's fit-to-width "Mobile View" is also desirable to avoid horizontal scrolling.

Not surprisingly the site was unusable in the Openwave emulator, which I'm using as a stand in for a feature phone (aka dumphone browser) as I no longer have a working one. The site loaded but was unusable. The text was scrunched into a single column five characters wide and the tabs and links to  "Discussions" of each news item were not clickable. That's not really a problem as Mini-Techmeme, the three year old version of Techmeme for old school mobile browsers  has not been discontinued and is still available at techmeme.com/mini.

The new iPhone/Android/Web OS/Opera Mini/Symbian Webkit version of Techmeme has virtually everything that's on Techmeme's  desktop site including the "Discussion" feature which pulls in other stories that link to each item. The discussions are excluded from Mini-Techmeme.

It's not just Techmeme that got the new design either.  Sister sites Memeorandum on politics, WeSmirch for entertainment gossip and Ballbug for baseball also have new smartphone optimized versions at memeorandum.com/m, wesmirch.com/m and ballbug.com/m respectively.

I do have one minor beef with the new design though.  Why did Techmeme feel the need to  disable the browser "Back" button and replace it with an in-page "Back" link? That's non-standard, non-intuitive and just plain confusing for users.

Coincidentally, Google also launched a new version of Google News yesterday and it's also targeted at the iPhone, Android and Palm OS.  They basically did the same thing as Techmeme, redirecting the chosen browsers from news.google.com to the new site.  They also left a backdoor open at news.google.com/news/i which can be accessed from any browser.  Like  the new Techmeme, this richer mobile version also works in Opera Mini and Symbian Webkit but not OpenWave (it renders OK but some of the links depend on Javascript which the browser doesn't support).  The enhanced mobile version of Google news uses a fluid layout and renders well in Opera Mini even on screens as narrow as 128px wide, and the browser's back button works.  Compared with the legacy mobile News version at http://news.google.com/m/, the new one has more images, links to mobile formatted YouTube videos and it picks up the user's custom local news and keyword based sections from the desktop version of Google News.

I'm sure we will be seeing more and more of these "iPhone/Android/Web OS" optimized sites.  That's a good thing for users of more capable browsers but poses a problem for mobile bloggers and analysts.  What to call this gendre of  mid-sized (between desktop and traditional mobile web) sites?  I've heard them called "iPhone", "Smartphone" and "Touch" sites but none of those really fits as they work on more than the iPhone, including with some non-smartphone browsers like Opera Mini and they don't depend on a touchscreen either. The best term I've heard seems to be "Middle Web" which was coined by Kelly Goto back in 2007.  That's what I'll be using to describe this class of rich mobile sites, at least until something better comes along.  Suggestions anyone?

Everyone loves picture messaging – or at least, they love the idea of it. The iPhone carrying masses clamored for it, then celebrated once they got it by sending everyone pictures of their immediate surroundings and beloved pets before forgetting the feature exists. After the novelty wears off, it’s generally reserved for the occasions when there is genuinely something interesting to show. Need the wife’s advice on whether to buy the blue shirt or the green one? Picture message. Want to ask her out to coffee? You’ll probably stick with text.

FunMobility, a company thats been cashing in on cell phone media (like ringtones and wallpapers) since 1999, is looking to change that with FunMail, a service which they’re dubbing as “every-day picture messaging”.

Here’s how it works: first, the user blasts their text into the free FunMail application on the iPhone or Facebook, which then breaks down whatever the user typed for context. FunMail’s “Media Brain” then returns a handful of context-related graphics (pulled from Creative Commons sources and their own user-generated library), with your original text inscribed. For example, “Want to go get coffee?” returned the results below:

The user picks the graphic they want, and off it goes via MMS, Facebook, or Twitter. As it’s sent from mobile-to-mobile in the standard MMS format, the messages should appear just fine on any picture messaging-enabled handset, whether it has the FunMail app or not.

If FunMail were charging the user for this, it’s hard to imagine that it’d see much use — it doesnt, after all, add anything but a bit of fun to the conversation. Fortunately, they’re not charging a cent. The service is free to the users (save for any fees surrounding sending/receiving MMS), with FunMail planning to make their money via partnerships. Carriers ought to dig it (and thus potentially pay FunMail to port it to other handsets) because it could increase MMS revenue, while the context-sensitivity opens the way for promotions. If instead of “Want to get coffee?” you typed “Want to grab Starbucks?”, FunMail could offer up a Starbucks coupon as a message graphic to seal the deal.

It’ll be interesting to see how well this takes off. As it’s climbing onto the shoulders of an already well established communication method and they’ve watermarked each picture they send, there’s some aspect of virality here. It does seem a bit extraneous to tack a picture onto a message that would be perfectly acceptable as just text – but that’s something that happens many many thousands of times each day across the social networks.

You can find the FunMail iPhone App on the App Store here. [Note: iTunes Link]

Demo Video:

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There’s a thought provoking article at Datamation on Why Android Could Fail. One of the arguments is that there’s no one brand. The ‘Android’ brand won’t be recognisable to consumers and phones will be sold under phone OEM or operator branding.

I am not so sure about this. It could be argued that selling under multiple well-known brands might actually increase sales. In fact, as I mentioned in a recent post, the reason Microsoft has never had a ‘Microsoft phone’ is that they believe high volume (i.e. Mass market as opposed to niche multi-million products) depends on multiple (geographical and OEM) points of manufacture.

I think that we have to look to other similar technologies to see successful ‘internal’ or ‘used’ branding schemes and how they are promoted. ‘Intel Inside’ comes to mind as well as Windows itself. Outside IT, banks also piggyback on the branding of say Visa or Mastercard to sell their own products.

Related Articles:

• Operator Branding
• Who owns your phone?
• Crippled Branded Symbian Phones
• Operator Phone Branding

RIM has been busy outing updated BlackBerrys and the Pearl wasn’t forgotten. An updated version is apparently on its way and these early pics clearly show that the phone is shapping up nicely. Everything is there from the slender candy-bar form factor to the SureType keyboard. Everything but the pearly trackball though. That’s been replaced with a trackpad.

CrackBerry didn’t say when the phone will be released or state any technical specs. Apparently the site had these pics under an embargo and were allowed to release them today. That could very well mean that the phone is nearing announcement. It’s getting kind of late for a 2009 release so perhaps we’ll see it in the first quarter of 2010.

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You know when a given country, in this case the nation of Japan, is over-saturated with cell phones when you get to see something like this: A cell phone that’s supposed to be similar in shape to a chocolate bar, available in two versions: Melty Bitter (brown) and Melty Strawberry (pink). The Sharp SH-04B [JP] is part of NTT Docomo’s winter line-up of new handsets for the Japanese market (unveiled ten days ago).

What you get is a clamshell cell phone that comes with a chocolate bar-like coating on the outside and a number of  pre-installed, chocolate-themed wallpapers, photo frames and menus (see below). Technically, the handset isn’t too spectacular: 3-inch WVGA ASV screen, 8MP CCD camera, waterproof, 1-seg digital TV tuner, Bluetooth, etc.

Sharp says the cell phone, jointly developed with Tokyo-based accessory maker Q-pot [JP], will be released in Japan next month. It’s limited to a total of 13,000 units.

More details in this video (in English):
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(Get it? Specs, spec’d, spectacles? Anyone? Come on – maybe it’s not funny, but at least it shows I know.. uh.. words.)

I’m not too sure what to think of the Motorola Motus yet, but one thing is for sure: that form factor is crazy. The photo that leaked just a few hours ago already seemed to indicate that something weird was going on with the keyboard (with what seems like a tiny sliver of overlap, how the heck is it attached?), but these (alleged) specs just make things even more ridiculous.

The specs, uncovered by them crazy Wimberly brothers over at AndroidAndMe, are all just hearsay for the time being – so arm yourself with however many grains of salt you need to sleep soundly tonight. Here goes:

• * 528 MHz Qualcomm MSM7201A
• * 512 MB ROM
• * 256 MB RAM
• * 3.1 inch display 320 x 480 (HVGA)
• * 5 megapixel camera with LED flash
• * WiFi / Bluetooth 2.0 / GPS
• * OS Android 1.5 with Motoblur
• * GSM 850/900/1800/1900 W-CDMA 850/900/1700/1900/2100
• * Reverse flip keyboard
• * Rear directional touchpad

It’s all well and good for the first few items – 528 mhz CPU, 512 MB ROM, WiFi, Android 1.5 w/ Motoblur… nothing too crazy. But then you get to the last two items: “Reverse flip keyboard”? Uh, what?

Then it gets better: “Rear directional touchpad”. From the sound of things (with these “things” being totally unconfirmed), the Motus might be rocking some form of crazy touchpad on the back of the device. This is an idea thats been thrown around for a few years — type with the thumbs, navigate with your fingers on the back of the device — but, as far as I know, this would be the first time it’s made it into a major product.

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There seems to be an unspoken style guideline amongst spy shot shooters: find the worst lighting possible, ditch the flash, and down 3-4 cups of coffee before snapping away. Unfortunately, the spy behind this shot of the Android-powered Motorola Motus played by all the rules.

According to the ol’ Rumor Mill, the Motus will tout a 3.1″ 480×320 touchscreen, 802.11b/g WiFi, and a 5 megapixel AF when it launches in Q1 of 2010. Those specs (mainly the screen) put it somewhere below the Droid on the hardware totem pole, but man – look how huge that keyboard is. That thing’s either going to be incredibly amazing, or absolutely unusable.

[MotoFan.RU via Engadget Mobile]

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We’re not sure how wide spread it is (Update: seems to only be effecting California. ), but I’m seeing a whole lot of reports that Verizon’s 3G data network is down in various parts of the country. The majority of the reports seem to be coming out of the SF Bay Area and South Bay. While the handsets are reporting full 3G signal, no data seems to be piping in our out. Might the success of the Droid in the Silicon Valley have tipped things over, a la AT&T’s iPhone woes?

We’ve got a note into Verizon, so we’ll update once we get official word. In the mean while, go ahead and drop a comment and let us know whether or not the data is flowing where you are. Also mention what handset you’re using – an odd number of the reports seem to be coming from Droid users, but this may just be coincidence.

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Got a buck? Own an iThing? Like to game and save money? Sweet! Then you’ll be really happy to hear that Konami’s entire collection of iPhone / iPod touch games are all on sale for $.99 until Saturday, November 21.

Ordinarily, most of Konami’s iGames go for anywhere from $2 and up. But enough about dollars and cents. Here’s a list of all the priced-to-move games (w/ iTunes links):

• DanceDanceRevolution S (normally $5)
• DanceDanceRevolution S+ (same price)
• Field Prowlers Police Rush (new game)
• Frogger (normally $2)
• Krazy Kart Racing (normally $3)
• Metal Gear Solid Touch (normally $6)
• Power Pros Touch (normally $4)
• Silent Hill The Escape (normally $5)
• Silent Scope (normally $3)

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Virgin Mobile Canada has announced that it will begin to sell the iPhone 3G and 3GS in Virgin Mobile Retail Stores and online in Canada in the “coming months.” VMC joins fellow Canadian carriers Telus, Bell Canada, Fido, and Rogers in becoming an authorized iThing dealer.

When we get more firm information regarding a firm launch date and pricing, we’ll obviously be sure to share with our favorite readers/neighbors to the north. But for now, we can all get back to watching Strange Brew and drinking Labatt’s.

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There is a new blog aimed specifically at mobile web developers. It's Coders.mobi and offers tutorials, tips and tricks, code snippets and mobile site and toolkit reviews.

I think that there is a real need for a site like this. Mobile web development is a subset of web development in general but it isn't currently given much coverage by the big web development sites like Webdesigner's Depot and SitePoint.

Coders is new and doesn't have a huge amount of content yet but there's some good stuff like a recent post on using the Google Maps API to display maps on a mobile site. I'd classify the articles on Coders.mobi as beginner to intermediate level but definitely worth a look for anyone building mobile sites. I hope David Wiles, the developer behind Coders, continues to add useful mobile development content and features to the site.

The mobile version of Coders.mobi was created with WordPress Mobile Pack Source Mobility.mobi

Filed in: Wap Review Directory - Technology/Mobile/MobileTech

Ratings: Content Usability

Ready.mobi Score: 5 "Good"

Mobile Link: coders.mobi

Sprint has pushed out an over-the-air firmware update for its popular HTC Hero ‘droid handset. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with Android 2.0, but it does purportedly fix a pesky SMS bug which has been causing battery drain issues. Oh, and it also helps your favorite Hero play nice with daylight saving time. But apparently, that’s just about all the update does.

If for some reason you didn’t get the 1.56.651.2 update automagically: go to Settings > About > System Updates > Firmware Update. Please let us know if you uncover any other interesting updates/fixes in the comments, you know, for the kids.

[via IntoMobile]

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Faster data access with virtually no latency: LTE (Long Term Evolution) mobile broadband networks are coming, at least in the world’s most advanced mobile market, the nation of Japan. The country’s biggest cell phone carrier, NTT Docomo, said yesterday at GSMA Mobile Asia Congress in Hong Kong it will go fourth generation as early as December 2010.

The company plans to invest a total of $3.4 billion in LTE-based services over the next years. Docomo customers will be able to get LTE data cards in December 2010, followed by LTE-powered handsets in 2011. Bigger cities in Japan will be served first, and Docomo aims at covering 50% of the Points of Presence with 20,000 base stations by 2014. The company plans to first use the 2GHz band before expanding to 1.5GHz.

At the same event, Docomo announced they will terminate all 2G services in March 2011, with CEO Ryuji Yamada saying by that time, most of their customers will be using just 3G anyway. The carrier currently has a total of 55 million mobile subscribers in Japan.

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As the TechCrunch Network’s resident mobile guy, I was given the task of writing up a list of apps for each smartphone platform that you ought to buy as little e-stocking stuffers for your loved ones. It was to be my primary contribution to CrunchGear’s ultra-amazing Holiday Gift Guide; my festively themed magnum opus.

But there’s a problem with this idea: it can’t be done. It’s not because I’m lazy (which may be true), nor because I don’t have any apps to recommend (which most certainly is not). I can’t recommend apps for you to buy for others, because you can’t buy apps for others.

Be it the Apple App Store, Android Market, Palm App Catalog, or BlackBerry App World, it’s bah-humbugs all around. The App Store is the only one that even gets close, allowing you to buy gift cards. Whilst many a geek would likely prefer the gift cards, there’s a big chunk of the world that equates giving a gift card to handing someone a piece of paper that reads “I didn’t really put much thought into this. Merry Christmas!”

Apple seems to be the one who could address this with the least effort, by making use of their redeemable promo code system. Currently reserved for dishing out promo copies of applications and claiming gift cards purchased online, it doesn’t seem like it would be insurmountably difficult to adapt for these purposes. Let people build “gift packs” of apps for friends (which would be much less difficult if Apple hadn’t done away with the Shopping Cart in iTunes 9), pay for them up front, and then generate a promo code which can be sent to the gift recipient. The recipient won’t know what they’re getting until the promo code is redeemed, making it about as close to opening a meatspace present as you get in the virtual world. Apple has a gifting setup in place for just about everything on iTunes besides apps.

BlackBerry and Palm aren’t too far behind – though they don’t have a code redemption system set up, they do offer up their entire app catalog online for perusal by anyone without a compatible handset. Android lacks both a redemption system and an off-handset catalog (outside of the few hundred apps they feature on the Market site). The closest bet you’ve got for any of these three would be PayPal’ing your buddy a few bucks with a list of Apps – but at that point, why bother?

It scares me to think about how much potential revenue is being thrown away here by ignoring would-be gift givers. In a time when many are cutting back their shopping lists to their family and closest of friends, the friendly pricing of apps makes them a perfectly opportune way to say “Hey, I still think you’re great”. No wrapping or shipping required.

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Mobilestance.com has the honor of hosting a truly milestone Carnival of the Mobilists (COM) this week. The roundup of the very best in mobile blogging counts 200 (!) posts since it was founded in 2005 by expert mobile-watchers including Russell Buckley and Carlo Longino over at MobHappy (This is long before Russell took the helm at VP Global Alliances at AdMob and Carlo launched his career as an independent consultant/analyst and regular contributor to MobHappy.) This week features a trio of posts looking at the impact of the Google acquisition and a few surprises. So, check it out and join the conversation!

Really? Who could have guessed? I’m not an official big-shot analyst by any stretch, but I’m pretty sure that I could have made the same conclusion, as could anyone who knows anything about technology trends (like spoiled teenagers). But alas, an actual organization, Telecom Trends International (who?), has just released a report saying that smartphones will indeed overtake “regular” phones by 2015. Gotta love these glimpses into the future.

This report, which includes 27 figures and 19 tables (for the record), says that sales of smartphones surpass “regular” phones in 2015 and will constitute two-thirds of total mobile handset sales by 2016. The thing is, how do we even know what will separate (if there is still even a distinction) “smart” phones from “non-smart” phones some five years ahead of time? Sure, in today’s world of smart and dumb phones, we analysts can make predictions of this sort. But these type of prognostications tend to leave a bad taste in my technology-loving mouth.

The thing with mobile phones, and technology in general, is that they are forever changing/morphing/evolving. Predicting that smartphones will overtake “regular” phones in 2015 is no different than me saying, “tablets will surpass ‘traditional’ laptops in 2012″ – both are purely nonsense. While maybe while maybe factually accurate (in today’s world), these types of reports and findings seem to assume that the world can’t possibly change over the course of five years. A ridiculous notion, given the insane exponential curve of Internet/computer technology enhancements over the last 25 years.

With all this in mind, I am going to go out on a limb and prophesize* that by 2015 all handsets on the market will be considered “smart” phones by today’s standards. In other words, given the rapid development of next-gen networks and handsets, 99% of all mobile devices by 2015 will not fit in any of today’s “categories” as all mobile phones will have crossed the “smart” threshold by that time, thus making reports like this meaningless.

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For a while there, designers and developers could ignore screen and pixel size, at least for "high end" devices. Let's be honest here, "high end" meant iPhone-like: touch or multi-touch screens, high end Webkit browsers, and 320 x 480 pixels.

That time is now over. To our mind, it really wasn't here in the first place.

Why is the time now over?

1. Android has matured a bit, and manufacturers are putting it on everything. Consider this ARCHOS Internet Tablet (800 x 480 pixels, 4.8 inches), this Vega Picture Frame (1366 x 768 pixels, 15.6 inches), this 7 inch tablet, or the nook's 3.5 inch screen with what looks like a 5:2 aspect ratio
2. Even Palm's WebOS devices will not be consistent, with Pre's pixel dimensions matching the iPhone's, but Pixi's are at 320 x 400 pixels (80 pixels shorter).
3. Normal Android phones, such as the Motorola Droid at 480 x 854 pixels, no longer have a predictable size. Who knows what the next devices screens will be like?
4. The Motorola Droid's pixels, like the ARCHOS pixels, are much smaller than the iPhone's; bitmaps that work well on one may not on the other.

We wrote Photoshop layout is not your friend in March; this new array of high-end devices forces a choice: design for iPhone only, or start designing for multiple screen sizes.

If you're designing Android applications, you have some tools available to you. The Android Developers' Supporting Multiple Screens gives designers and developers a way to deliver the correct layouts and graphics to the correct devices.

For now, however, Android doesn't really support the full array of screens upon which Android is found. Here is what the document's Range of Screens Supported section says about device support:

The Droid is there, as a high-density, normal screen. The iPhone (were it an Android) and early Android phones are medium-density normal screens. The ARCHOS is a medium-density large screen. The nook and the Vega are ... not in the table at all.

Android's support of screen issues is incomplete, but many steps better than previous cross-device platforms like browsers and Java ME. Despite this, many developers have simply ignored the possibility of different screen types. My favorite example is the Fuzzy Clock widget, which is supposed to take up 25% of the screen with a single line of text. Apparently they used a single-sized bitmap font because on the Droid, the "glanceable" clock has the equivalent of about 8 point font. Not at all readable.

And frankly, I don't expect Apple to keep to the current screen dimensions. I don't have any inside information, but they will make a smaller screen or a bigger screen, or a higher-density screen, or probably all three. So even those of you focusing just on the iPhone may want to look at your process in the next few months.

The hardest type of applications to design for multiple screen types are games, as many create mazes, game boards, and levels for a specific aspect ratio. If your application uses scrolling or other pagination techniques, however, you can probably design it to comfortably manage a wide variety of screen sizes. (But all bets are off for supporting the Nook's screen, which will really want to scroll laterally, not vertically). How? Go read the resources linked above in this article. Or hire us.

Little Springs Design is a user experience design consultancy focused exclusively on mobile. For information on contracting our design, strategy, training, and testing services, please contact us today.
See our scheduled training on mobile design, including convenient webinars

Copyright ©2009 Little Springs Design, Inc.

Don’t worry. This won’t be another post on the merits/shortcomings of the Pixi and whether such a handset is worthwhile as its older, more capable brother, the Pre, plummets in price. Other sites have done that to death.

I just wanted to point out that, regardless of how anyone feels about the handset, even the Pixi wants to be a Pre. Check out this picture, taken right from a fresh-out-of-the-box Pixi.

If I had to guess, I’d say one of the coders switched the firmware to read “Pre” during testing to ensure that no one at Palm accidentally confirmed the Pixi’s existence before it was intended, and then forgot to change it back. Or, you know, it never read “Pixi” and they just forgot to change it in the first place.

[Via Peter Ha, who often mistakes himself for a blogger]

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We’ve got news, both good and bad. What do you want first? We’ll start with the bad news first. It’s easier that way, you know?

Bad news: We were supposed to have an N900 review — or at least a first look — up by now. Nokia assures us a review unit has been sent, but it’s M.I.A. As we see it, there are only a two options: it either got stolen by bears, or Nokia’s messing with us because we totally owned the N900 story way back in May.

Good news: We may not have one yet, but you can get one! It’s available immediately at either of Nokia’s flagship stores (located in New York and Chicago), or NokiaUSA.com (though the site seems to only offer pre-orders, at the moment). It’ll set you back a hefty $650 – and while we can’t say its worth it before we give it the customary run-through, it’s definitely worth stopping by a store to check it out.

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Good news for Windows Mobile (a.k.a. Windows Phone) users, Opera's newest browser, Opera Mobile 10 is now available for the Classic and Professional editions of Windows Mobile 6.5, Windows Mobile 6.1, Windows Mobile 6.0 and on Windows Mobile 5 Pocket PC.  I don't have a Windows phone so I can't try this myself but I have been using Opera Mobile 10 as the main browser on my Nokia N95-3 for the last two weeks and I recommend that you give it a try.  The  browser's speed, rendering quality and compatibility with almost any web page is amazing and equals and in some cases exceeds that of the iPhone browser.

Be warned however that this is a Beta and an early one at that.  There are missing features, most notably there is no plug-in support so no Flash and there's no Opera Link bookmark synchronization either.  On my Symbian phone, Opera Mobile 10 crashes or hangs occasionally, usually when loading a new page.  A couple of times the entire phone has locked up while running Opera Mobile 10 and I've has to power cycle to recover.  Opera Mobile needs plenty of RAM, at least 40 MB on Symbian,  if your phone has less you will see Out of Memory errors loading large pages and using multiple tabs.

Overall though I rate Opera Mobile 10 stable enough for regular use.  I'm usually able to browse for hours at a time with no problems, pages look great and the browser handles just about every page I throw at it, with the exception of those requiring Flash.

For more on Opera Mobile 10 for Windows Phone visit opera.com/mobile/ for a full feature list, video walk-through, tutorials and download links.  More details and a list of known issues can be found in a post on the Opera Mobile Blog.  There is also a new developer's perspective article on Opera Mobile 10 at dev.opera.com which details some of the neat things web developers can do with the enhanced CSS3 support in Opera Mobile 10.

To download Opera Mobile 10 using your phone's browser visit m.opera.com/mobile/

In other Opera Mobile news, last week a new version of the Symbian version of Opera Mobile 10 was released. It comes in two flavors.

• A standard release (Build 280)
• A new multi-language release (Build 281) with  font support for additional languages. This allows menus to be displayed in Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew in addition to languages using the Latin character set like English.  Thai and  Hindi menus are not supported yet, however web pages in these languages should display properly.

Both versions include a fix that reduces the frequency of out of memory errors. The browser also gains  the ability to pass streaming video and audio links in the phone's media player and there is a fix for the issue of some phones being unable to display English characters.

The new Symbian releases, which are for S60 3rd and 5th edition phones, can be downloaded from opera.com/mobile/download/ or the mobile browser friendly download page at m.opera.com/mobile/

Related Post: The Truth About Opera Mobile 10 Memory Usage

Yesterday we wrote about the soon to launch Google Phone, a Google branded Android phone that we believe will hit the market in early 2010.

Lots of people are saying there’s no way Google will enter the phone market directly and compete with all these handset manufacturers who have bet on Android. Daring Fireball, PC World and InfoMobile are among the doubters. And a lot of people are pointing to a Tom Krazit/CNET article last month that quoted Google’s Andy Rubin: “We’re not making hardware…We’re enabling other people to build hardware,” and “Rubin, vice president of engineering for Android at Google, scoffed at the notion that the company would “compete with its customers” by releasing its own phone.”

Normally I’d just point to the fact that many companies deny the existence of products until the day they announce them. Apple scoffed at the notion that they’d ever build a phone until they announced the iPhone, for example. The last thing Google wants is a lot of confusion among handset manufacturers just when those manufacturers are putting the finishing touches on their own Android phones.

But there may be another way Google will argue that they aren’t “competing with customers” by launching their own device – technically, it may not be a phone.

The Google Phone may be a data only, VoIP driven device. And Google may be lining up at least AT&T to provide those data services for the Google Phone, says one person we spoke with today.

Users could still make calls just like a normal phone, of course. The calls would just be over the data service instead. In fact, this is the exact vision Google proposed back in 2007 when they were bidding on the FCC auctions for the 700MHz spectrum.

Google can even issue phone numbers to users via Google Voice. In fact, I’ve already ported my mobile number to Google Voice, and Google has plans to roll out that feature more broadly.

Are AT&T and the other carriers interested? Our source says AT&T is already bidding for the business, and may be willing to sell data to Google, with certain conditions, for $20/month. The carriers won’t love this, at all. But they’d be dumb to let their competitors take the business instead.

Our sources at AT&T have confirmed that they’ll sell data-only plans to customers who bring in BlackBerry and Windows devices, and strip out the voice plan. They won’t do this with all devices – you can’t get a data only plan on the iPhone, for example. But AT&T is open to data-only customer relationships.

Will the Google Phone be data/VoIP only? Right now we only have one thin source for this. But we’re continuing to dig.

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Ben Smith over at The Really Mobile Project reports that he was told by some Nokia marketing folks from the Maemo team that Nokia will drop the Symbian OS from its N-Series devices by 2012. Apparently all N-Series devices from that point will use the Maemo Linux OS (like the new N900 does), with Symbian relegated to the X-series (video-focused devices) and the E-series (enterprise handsets).

It seems likely that Symbian will live on in Nokia’s mid-range devices where its strengths as an OS running under constrained resources will be useful — and this is where the standard Nokia scale line gets trotted out: “Well, Nokia has 40% market share, and that sort of scale makes it really attractive to developers just on sheer size, etc etc etc. They’ll flock to it”.

Only that hasn’t exactly worked out, has it? Refer to Mike Rowehl’s excellent rant on the subject:

There’s an interesting discussion floating around that a fanatical devotion to iPhone is blinding mobile developers to larger potential markets. And I’m amazed. Really, just freaking flabbergasted, that the conversation could even be taking place. How can anyone seriously say “well, you’re ignoring all those potential millions of handsets out there running Symbian” and keep a straight face? … Stop lying to yourselves, and definitely stop lying to us. Is the Nokia store supposed to challenge Apple? Or Microsoft supposed to? Or RIM? You know what folks, you had your chances. If you want to impress me, if you want me to start developing for your platforms again, get your houses in order. Once things change, once you get your stores developed, released, and proven as a good commercial channels to end users – then we can talk again. Until then we’re all just going to keep laughing at you and developing for iPhone.

Sure, there’s a big potential market there, but the means by which developers are supposed to access it have been a mess, for any number of reasons, such as a poor development environment and poor sales and distribution channels (which is probably being generous to the Ovi store). And that doesn’t even get to the relatively horrific download and install experience Symbian offers compared to other platforms.

So I’m left wondering why any developers who aren’t already working on Symbian products would bother now. In two years, the OS won’t appear on Nokia’s “high-end” devices — ie its most expensive and fully featured devices, which you’d imagine would attract the sort of users who, you know, would be most into buying apps — which doesn’t seem like much of a vote of confidence in the platform. The scale argument has been proven untrue when the path to market and development environment remains so unattractive; it’s also undermined when Nokia itself fragments its devices among multiple platforms. And, in any case, it’s not clear exactly what market Symbian will have in a couple of years’ time, because of Nokia’s choices, but also because of Symbian’s declining market share in the face of increased competition.

A couple of things (at a minimum) need to happen for Nokia to sort this out:
- It needs to elucidate a clear platform strategy so developers (and the rest of the market) aren’t taking cues from comments by marketing staff at user meetups or leaks written up in FT Deutschland.
- Fix the Ovi Store.

BONDI 1.1 is now in Candidate Release and it is open to public for feedback.

Note that this phase will close on the 2nd of December so you’ll need to get your comments in before then.

See OMTP and BONDI at the betavine website.

What is BONDI?

In short BONDI is a set of specifications, reference implementation and compliance criteria for the creation of mobile web apps based on Widgets.

This means that BONDI widgets rely on the web-runtimes or browser as its execution environment. BONDI defines a set of APIs that provides BONDI widgets with access to the handset functionality such as access to camera, contacts and location information.

The BONDI official website contains all the information you need to learn more.

From the BONDI website:

During 2007 and 2008, it became increasingly apparent that the future direction and success of the mobile web could be harmed without a concerted effort to drive a standardized approach to how web applications access the key local capabilities on the mobile device.

If web applications had to use different APIs (for the same capability) on different devices and platforms, then development of web applications which work on any mobile device would not happen. On top of this, the risk of malicious web applications having free access to local mobile capabilities is unacceptable. Therefore, a need to create some form of security layer to protect the user from harm was essential.

It is with this background that OMTP launched its BONDI project with the aim of acting as a catalyst to drive the standardization of a small set of key interfaces from web services to mobile devices and also to put in place a well understood and user controlled security policy with which to protect the user.

BONDI consists of several activities, each of which interacts and as a whole builds towards the aim defined above.

Interface Requirements — A high level definition of the BONDI interfaces which include a dynamic API which is remotely updateable once the device is in the field

Security and Architecture requirements — Requirements for BONDI architectural constraints and for the security policy which protects the user from harm

API specifications — A set of Doxygen generated HTML pages that define the syntax and semantics of the BONDI APIs

Security Policy DTD — An interoperable XML description of the security policy which defines the access that a particular web application and widget will have to the BONDI APIs.

Reference Implementation (RI) — The RI is a real concrete example (using Windows Mobile as the platform) of how the interfaces and security specifications should be implemented. The RI SDK contains API documentation and example code.

Compliance Criteria — A set of criteria which may be used to judge compliance of implementation against the defined standard and RI.

The BONDI Reference Implementation has been created as an Open Source project. This enables both OMTP Members and Participants as well as non members to collaborate on the creation of a rapidly iterating and testable implementation in a public arena. The use of real code in a RI ensures that other implementations for different devices and platforms can be tested and declared compliant against well defined criteria.

ceo

A little while back, we wrote about the Korea Communications Commission’s decision to make an exception for the iPhone, essentially clearing the way for Apple to submit the phone for radio approval (a la FCC procedures in the States). Now, two months later, the KCC has officially approved Apple’s iPhone for sale in South Korea.

No doubt, this is a shining example of the impact of the KCC’s decision late last year to allow foreign handset manufacturers to sell mobile phones in South Korea after April 1, 2009 without Wireless Internet Platform for Interoperability (WIPI) technology built-in.

Anyhoo, the KCC’s ruling says that the iPhone can now be launched at any time. Thus, it makes sense that two of the biggest mobile carriers in South Korea, KT Corp. and SK Telecom Co., have already been talking to Apple about selling its flagship mobile phone. Not surprisingly, neither of the carriers, nor Apple, has made any mention of if or when it might begin to sell the biggest mobile thing since wireless sliced bread. Either way, Samsung and LG must be really excited about the news.

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Web authoring tools ease publication process. Simplicity comes with some loss of control over the generated content. There is hardly anything an authoring tool user may do to improve her content when the W3C mobileOK Checker reports that pop-up windows should not be used. So what?! I do not have any of these pop-up links in my content!

The underlying theme can be updated, but this approach works up to a point when e.g. the post would best be split into multiple pages when delivered on mobile devices. Authoring tools that do not provide content adaptation mechanisms need to be extended to be able to serve mobile-friendly content to mobile devices.

I have been working on an open-source suite of tools written in PHP lately, named mobileOK Pythia, designed to help generate mobileOK content and more generically speaking to help adapt content to fit the properties of the requesting device. Here is a short overview of the outcome of this work. More information (including crucial information about the choice of Pythia as a name ;)) can be found in the documentation of mobileOK Pythia.

This work is part of the MobiWeb 2.0 project supported by the European Union's 7th Research Framework Programme (FP7).

Plug-ins for WordPress and Joomla!

From a user's point of view, the visual and hopefully useful outcome of this work is the creation of the mobileOK Pythia plug-ins for WordPress and Joomla! that make it possible to generate mobileOK content with these tools.

The plug-ins feature:

• Device identification: based on WURFL, an open-source DDR published as an XML file, and accessed through a standard DDR Simple API interface.
• Content adaptation to fit the properties of the requesting device in terms of e.g. screen size, script support, page size limit.
• Theme switching: possibility to switch to a more mobile-friendly theme when the requesting device is identified as mobile.
• POWDER: a machine-readable mobileOK claim for the Web site can be automatically created and served using a POWDER document. The POWDER document is made discoverable through the addition of a Link HTTP header field as decribed in the POWDER Primer.
• W3C mobileOK Checker link: a link to the W3C mobileOK Checker is added next to the authoring input form to be able to assert the mobile-friendliness of the created content while it is being written.
• mobileOK theme: a mobileOK template may be installed with the plug-in.

The development of a third plug-in for Moodle has started but it is still work in progress.

There exist other plug-ins that provide similar functionality (see for instance WordPress Mobile Plugin, WordPress Mobile Pack, Mobilebot 1.0 or WAFL: Mobile Content Adaptation). mobileOK Pythia separates tool-specific functionalities from tool-agnostic libraries to ease porting to other tools. In particular, the plug-ins wrap the same extensible libraries:

• AskPythia to identify and retrieve the properties of the requesting device.
• TransPythia to adapt content based on the properties of the requesting device.

AskPythia

AskPythia is an open-source conforming implementation of the Device Description Repository Simple API in PHP. It is not a DDR but a wrapper to existing DDRs.

AskPythia ships with an implementation on top of the WURFL database that maps WURFL capabilities to properties defined in the Device Description Repository Core Vocabulary standard. Support for other DDRs is welcome!

Check AskPythia's documentation for more information.

TransPythia

TransPythia is a transcoding library that adapts content (HTML, CSS, images) based on the capabilities of the requesting device. The library ships with a set of transcoding actions that are particularly adapted to mobile devices and that may be extended as needed.

Main transformations are:

• Images conversion and adaptation: adapts images to match the requesting device's list of supported image formats and to fit the screen size. Removes images that cannot be converted or that are still too big for mobile consumption after conversion.
• Pagination: a generic pagination algorithm that may be used to paginate HTML pages or HTML fragments when the requesting device is identified as a mobile device.
• Tables linearization: to remove nested tables and linearize tables when the requesting device does not support them.

Check TransPythia's documentation for more information.

Feedback

If you would like to comment, contribute, report bugs or simply tell us what you think, you are very welcome! Feel free to send an email to the public-mobile-dev@w3.org mailing-list (with public archives).

With headlines like ‘Nokia to cull Symbian in 2012′ and ‘Nokia says it will replace Symbian with its Maemo Linux by 2012′ The Register could have us believe it’s the start of the end of Symbian.

Reading deeper, it’s only the N-Series that is going to be replaced with Maemo. However, despite the sensational headlines, I believe there’s some truth in what The Register says is ‘Nokia’s inept record of developing UIs’.

Yes, Symbian was and still is a very capable OS. Yes, the failure has been the UI. Some might say the problems started in 2002 when Symbian decided that it didn’t want to be responsible for UIs and devolved responsibility to UIQ and Nokia. Symbian gave away control of the part of the OS that was to matter most to consumers.

UIQ became ahead of its time with its touch UI while Nokia soon became behind the times with it’s keypad-centric UI. I believe UIQ died because there’s no money in being a UI vendor. Nokia’s S60 UI stagnated.

What I don’t understand is why Nokia didn’t see the signs. The iPhone was announced in January 2007. That’s nearly three years ago and Nokia still doesn’t have a better product. What has Nokia been doing? It had the underlying OS (Symbian), lots of money and it had many talented engineers. What happened?

I am starting to believe that with the iPhone and now Android, Nokia has already lost this particular UI battle. Symbian (and S60) needs a new UI now, not in a year or two’s time. Symbian and S60 will continue to live on and will probably take one or more new UIs but I suspect it will all be too late and will continue see slowly declining market share.

Maybe Nokia and others now need to think beyond phones to next generation devices and UIs. Devices such as tablets that are connected and portable yet also replacements for our fat PCs and Macs. Devices we can take home and plug into a larger screen to do desktop-type activities. Maybe even devices with new input mechanisms. Nokia could do this with Symbian, Maemo, Windows or even Android. Maybe the underlying OS really is increasingly irrelevant.

Related Articles:

• Noka Qt
• Symbian UI
• On the UIQ Bankruptcy

Android is still in its infancy in Japan where most domestic makers still stick with their proprietary operating systems, with basically no one outside the geek community knowing what it is. But things are changing slowly. Last week, SoftBank (the country’s third biggest cell phone carrier) announced an Android-powered phone for next year when the company announced their new models for the next months.

And yesterday, Sharp announced at an event in Tokyo it will roll out a yet to be specified number of Android-based handsets as early as the first half of next year. Sharp commands the biggest market share of all eight cell phone makers in Japan so this is very good news for the Google OS in what is the most advanced mobile society in the world.

The company didn’t reveal which of the three big carriers in Japan will be supplied with the Android handsets, but said they will offer models with features unique to the Japanese market. One of these features might be a tuner for 1seg, a digital TV standard used in Japan and some parts of South America. Other possibilities include Japan-specific e-wallet or electronic train ticket functions.

Via Keitai Watch [JP]

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We may blather on a daily basis over which smart phone reigns supreme – but, outside of the tech world, smart phones are still the minority. Believe it or not, as many as 80% of the handsets floating around out there are basic feature phones.

Take Verizon, for example; sure, they’ve got the Droid now, but the very, very vast majority of their catalog (and presumably, their sales history) is made up of handsets none would ever call “smart”. Looking to show their feature phone-toting userbase some love, Verizon has tagged up with iSkoot to launch a free application they’re calling Social Beat. Based on iSkoot’s Kalaida platform, Social Beat brings basic access to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Email and right around 50 popular RSS feeds to handsets that would likely never have it.

This is the second major carrier launch; earlier this year, iSkoot launched a similar product called “Social Net” for AT&T.

While it’s not guaranteed to work with all of VZW’s feature phone line up, it should work just fine with the LG enV, enV2, enV3, Chocolate, Chocolate 3, and 15+ other Verizon handsets. If you’re a Verizon customer lookin’ to add a bit of smartphone flare to your otherwise lackluster piece, look for Social Beat in the “Get It Now” section of your handset.

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Hey SF Bay Area iPhonestas…good news! Your beloved carrier, the one and only AT&T, has big plans for major 3G network upgrades across the SF Bay Area come 2010.

Apparently, the lovely folks over at AT&T have pumped some $65 million “from 2008 through the 3rd quarter of 2009 to complete a substantial upgrade of its local 3G wireless network in the greater San Francisco Bay Area with the launch of additional wireless spectrum in the 850 MHz band.” Based on the endless complaints I hear from my iPhone carrying friends ’round these parts, this has got to be music to their ears.

Independent of just pleasing iPhone owners, this is obviously also good news for all AT&T customers throughout the Bay Area. As more and more customers make the switch to data-happy smartphones, carriers must improve the robustness of their 3G networks to meet the growing data demands. Luckily, it sounds like this improvement should help, big time.

As a result of this upgrade, local customers are expected to experience better 3G wireless connectivity, performance and enhanced in-building wireless coverage. The enhancement also increases network capacity, and is intended to support the ever-growing demand for 3G mobile broadband service. In the greater Bay Area, AT&T upgraded close to 850 cell sites as part of this enhancement, the majority coming in the 3rd quarter of 2009.

More specifically, AT&T is launching additional wireless spectrum in the 850 MHz band. According to press release, the 850 MHz spectrum “generally results in better in-building coverage.”

AT&T 3G customers should see improved quality and coverage throughout dozens of greater Bay Area communities, including San Francisco, Brisbane, Daly City, Colma, South San Francisco, Pacifica, Sausalito, Tiburon, Mill Valley, Corte Madera, San Rafael, San Anselmo, Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, Alameda, Piedmont, Hayward, San Leandro, San Mateo, Burlingame, Millbrae, Hillsborough, Palo Alto, San Carlos, Belmont, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Richmond, Albany, El Sobrante, El Cerritos, Pinole, Crockett, Hercules and more.

AT&T has also increased capacity to “hundreds of cell sites across the bay area” in order to better meet the growing massive data demands of its Silicon Valley customers and plans to flip the switch on its higher speed HSPA 7.2 3G network sometime in 2010. But like lipservice from any of the major carriers, we’ll all need to see “it” to believe “it” before we give AT&T credit for its supposed improvements.

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It almost is the end of 2009. And where does near-field proximity communication-based applications stand? From mobile marketing, to customer loyalty, payments and authentication, to information exchange, transportation and health-care. Well, it still stands very far from its full potential.

Regardless of its potential and benefits to consumers (which is about convenience) and the real business models that exist, NFC have had major adoption (growing) pains. Pilots have said again and again that consumers do like the convenience, but it is the enablement problem what has basically prevented its adoption. It took Bluetooth more than 10 years and it will take NFC the same.

If we wanted to deliver the convenience benefits of proximity-interactions today, what is the answer? Will it be RFID or NFC the one that stands up at the end? Will it be embedded chip-sets, USB or microSD, or plain RFID stickers?

While not the perfect vision the NFC Forum members had, sticker (RFID) are the short-term solution for this today. Some call it an interim solution, but we will see.

From Blaze Mobile (to whom I provided my services to back when they were called MobileCandyDish), to Giesecke & Devrient, Alcatel-Lucent (my current employer), Oberthur Technologies, MasterCard, First Data, and Tetherball, they all are dealing with the realities of NFC and while waiting for it have decided to follow the “RFID sticker” route. Blaze Mobile was one of the first one years ago.

Stickers. But RFID stickers are very limiting as they are limited to “one function”. How many stickers can you fit, or want to fit, on the back of your phone? Yet stickers bring NFC close to reality. Expect branded and colorful RFID stickers of all kinds.

When I saw ViVOTech (a leader on NFC and contactless in general) recently announce their ViVOtag product; in other words, even ViVOtech has submitted to the realities of NFC, I said to myself, “NFC is dead, long live NFC” - this time is the sticker way. Yuck. See ViVOtech Launches ViVOtag.

There are other vendors going the route of USB or microSD NFC devices such as Tyfone, Giesecke & Devrient and DeviceFidelity. Another example is Sony — see Sony’s next generation Memory Stick which might potentially be integrated with NFC.

In the meantime Gemalto Boosts Rollout of SIM-Based Mobile Contactless Services and touchatag, an Alcatel-Lucent venture and Clear2Pay partner on technology for contactless payments.

And as I wrote before, Will the iPhone trigger the Mobile RFID/NFC revolution?

So there is lots of interest, noise and activity related to mobile NFC/RFID. It is a matter of time, I’m convinced. But the ideal solution is NOT stickers, yet stickers are the fastest and cheaper way to get there, and because of that, the best way to validate the applications and models. And once that happens, I hope that for the sake of the consumers themselves that we move on to a solution that allows for MULTIPLE applications such as smart-cards or handset-based (which includes USB or microSD-based) approaches.

Now, last but probably the top deployment reason why proximity interactions based on NFC/RFID are extremely important: to work around that pesky patent on barcode interactions (i.e. nn-ee-oo-mm-ee-dd-ii-aa); with the NFC/RFID path there is clear and well documented (including in the NFC standards) prior-art.

It is time for operators and device manufacturers to push for NFC. Yes, enabling NFC require investment but pilots already provided good results. Go sticker in the interim to validate, and remember that it is about the applications and usability. No need to wait on Apple, again, to define the path. (The exception to all this is Nokia who has been forward looking since day one, with the handsets, APIs, documentation and toolkit to make this happen.)

ceo

Here in the states, T-Mobile has been no stranger to screw-ups, but we’d always just figured that their UK counterparts were stand-up guys. After all, they’re British – as we all know, every one from that side of the pond is charming, affable, and rocks a bloody good accent. Unfortunately, it looks like not everyone employed there is as scrupulous as their customers would hope – a story by the BBC has confirmed that T-Mobile UK employees sold private subscriber data to a third-party broker.

T-Mobile UK and the British authorities have been taking steps to handle the incident, with the Information Commissioner’s Office going as far as trying to stick offenders with a prison sentence instead of the ordinary £5,000 fine that comes with a violation of Britain’s Data Protection Act. The article itself keeps mum about exactly what kind of data was sold, and to which “phone firms” eventually ponied up for it. To date, the actual damage done doesn’t seem to be too bad – at worst, customers have complained about receiving unsolicited phone calls right before their contract expired, but it raises very serious questions about the trustworthiness of a company that handles sensitive information on a daily basis. Between stateside service outages and and now this, we have to wonder whether or not T-Mobile will be able to shake off their newfound status as the magenta-headed stepchild of the wireless industry.

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Yay, rumors! Today’s fun rumor comes courtesy of one Mr. Shaw Wu, a Kaufman Bros. analyst, who believes (thanks to his sources in the supply chain) that a BlackBerry 9900 has not only hit the prototype phase, but also features an entirely new form factor for RIM – a touchscreen slider.

The mystical BlackBerry is said to be some sort of Storm-meets-classic-Blackberry-meets-slider concoction. As IntoMobile points out, the above patent image clearly gives some hint at what a legitimate BlackBerry slider could look like.

The purported next-gen ‘Berry is expected to be revealed sometime in 2010. But until we see an actual prototype (come on Mr. Blurry cam, help a brother out!), this is all just pure speculation for the time being.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Gerry Moth's nokiAAddict.com is an indispensable site for Nokia and Symbian users whether they are actual addicts or just trying to get their phones to do what they want them to.

Gerry reviews the latest hardware and software but the best part of the site for me is its directory of S60 3rd and 5th apps. When you need an an app, avoid the frustrations of the Ovi Store and doggy download sites and head directly to nokiAAddict's Downloads page where you will find direct links to all the essential apps and utilities that you need to make the most of your phone. It's all there, the Opera Mini, Skyfire and Bolt browsers, Screenshot, Gravity, Y-Files and hard to find apps like Nokia's Sports Tracker and Internet Radio and the 3 Skype client.

Don't miss the blog either especially Gerry's classic rants on operator dirty tricks "The Unlimited Con" and incompetent phone repair centers, "Never Take Your Phone To Carphone Warehouse For Repair".

nokiAAddict is a WordPress.com hosted blog and benefits from WordPress.com's  default mobile plugin support.

Filed in: Wap Review Directory - Technology/Mobile/Smartphones/Symbian

Ratings: Content Usability

Ready.mobi Score: 4 "Good"

Mobile Link: nokiaaddict.com

If you are a mobile developer you might like to take a look at Orange’s new Developer Community Platform. It allows you to share your thoughts and ideas about mobile applications. You don’t have to be a member of Orange Partner to take part because it’s open to anyone.

There is currently discussion on innovative mobile apps, marketing, platforms, tomorrow’s applications and events. Alternatively, you can start a discussion of your own.

Related Articles:

• Orange Paper on 3G
• New Orange Download Tool
• Orange Mobile Data Forum

Here’s a weird one for you: A few hours ago, Motorola DROID users began reporting that the cameras on their handsets were suddenly.. better. The camera’s ability to auto-focus, which I’d railed in our review of the product, seemed to drastically improve overnight. And it did!

Most assumed that Verizon and Motorola had managed to sneak out some sort of stealth over-the-air update, patching the camera’s settings on the fly. A number of sites reported as much. Some even took offense to this idea, declaring that such things shouldn’t be allowed without their explicit permission. According to the folks that should know best, there was no over-the-air update at all; the camera fixed itself, and in 24.5 days, it’ll break all over again.

Almost immediately after the fix, users began to dig. One clever fellow went out on a limb, and set his Droid’s clock back two days – and sure enough, the camera lost its newly gained auto-focusing abilities.

According to Google Engineer Dan Morrill, there is an unfortunate bug in the Droid’s autofocus routine. It improperly rounds a timestamp used in the calculations, which somehow throws the entire focusing process off. Today it works, and tomorrow it will work…but 24.5 days from now, the bug will be back. Hopefully Motorola and Verizon will have pushed a (non-stealthy) fix by then.

This isn’t the first time a clock has been the root of a glitch; in December of 2008, 30GB Zunes around the world suddenly stopped working. It was later revealed that the Zune failed to account for 2008 being a leap year. Once January 1st, 2009 rolled out, all of the Zunes were back in working order.

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Data problems? What data problems? Oh right, those data problems. Well, its been about a month so, like with any sort of break up or troubled relationship, you’ve had your chance to grieve and be angry…now it’s time to move on, folks.

At least that seems to be T-Mobile’s position. Thus, Big T has resumed selling both its older Sidekick and the newer Sidekick LX, each for slightly less than the pre-data loss prices nonetheless.

After the terrible debacle that was the T-Mobile/MS/Danger data loss extravaganza in which T-Mobile gave affected users $100 gift cards, it wasn’t clear if the ol’ Sidekicks would every see the light of day again. Low and behold, T-Mobile had brought them back from their self-imposed deadpool, only this time, they are cheaper than before. The older Sidekick (2008) is now just $49.99 (w/ contract) and the newer LX is down to $149.99 (w/ contract).

So now’s the time to grab your new ‘kick…that is, if you are willing to be that lightning won’t strike twice.

Crunch Network: CrunchBoard because it’s time for you to find a new Job2.0

China Unicom’s chairman believes that the iPhone will be the most popular phone in China, beating out Nokia and RIM for the crown of Bounteous Emperor of the Eastern Phone World.

Interestingly, the iPhone will cost over $1,000 in China and there expectations that gray market sales won’t effect Unicom’s bottom line. There are currently 1 million iPhones sold yearly in China on the gray market.

Considering the dreck Chinese manufacturers are pushing out in the first place, it’s probably not too hard to corner the market in good phones.

via Bloomberg

Crunch Network: TechCrunch obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies

If I was going to build a dream team to run a mobile event here in the UK, it'd have to include the folks behind Swedish Beers, Over the Air, Mobile Monday, Mobile 2.0 and the Future of Mobile - all favourite events that I've ranted on about before now, and had the pleasure of participating in.

Luckily I don't have to bother building this team, because they've gone and gotten together anyway... and it looks like they're doing something a little bit different. Heroes of the Mobile Screen is running in London this December, and they've picked four very sensible topics for it: where's the money? What does all this social and location stuff mean? What do the kids make of this? And what to customers, and particularly women, want?

All really great stuff, and even better for having brought together a crowd of speakers that isn't just the usual faces...

　イベントのお知らせです。多分、今日はあと3本くらい、イベントのお知らせをしなきゃいけないんですが、お付き合いください。まずはApple Store, Ginzaでのイベントです。

　2009年11月10日、ちょうど1週間前にリリースしたiPhone向け睡眠記録＆Twitter対応アラームクロックアプリ「smart sleep」の発表会を銀座のアップルストアで開催します。2009年11月26日木曜日 19:00から。入場無料です。

　リリース以後、発売した日本とアメリカで非常にたくさんのダウンロードを頂きありがとうございます。週末、一時、無料ランキングの2位まで上り詰め、健康へルスケアのカテゴリーでは1位にランクしています。本日、細かなバグ修正を含めた1.0.1をAppStoreにポストしたので、うまくいけば、イベントまでにアップデートできるかもしれません。

　イベントの前半は、smart sleepをリリースしたパラマウントベッド株式会社の大石研治さん（執行役員コンシューマ事業部長）に、新ブランドとアプリの関係について、そしてアプリのプロデュースをした松村太郎からアプリに関して、またロードマップについて紹介します。

　後半は「睡眠難の時代」を乗り切るためのトークセッション、「眠りへの不満、疑問を解消！睡眠で日常をパワーアップ！」を行います。快眠セラピストの三橋美穂さん（有限会社Sleepiece代表）が日頃の睡眠に関する疑問質問などに答えます。

　このアプリは医療・介護向けベッドのトップメーカー、パラマウントベッドのコンシューマー向け新ブランド「smart sleep」のデジタルガジェットアプリ。寝具製品とiPhoneを組み合わせて、より質の高い睡眠を生活習慣からサポートする、常に持ち歩いているスマートフォンならではの機能性を持たせたアプリです。

　キャスタリアの社内クリエイティブユニット「TMN」（Team of Mobile Native、@taromatsumura プロデュース、@waki3 ディレクション、@yahman デザイン）が開発しました。

　当日は開発秘話、先行してスタートしていた睡眠に関するウェブメディア「smart sleep library」、ソーシャルメディアやブランディングとアプリの関係、ビジネスモデルの話も含めて、コンセプトにまつわる話についても触れたいと思います。お誘い合わせの上、ぜひお越しください。

　夜は、札幌のスープカレー屋でしょうか、、、。