Mobile Industry Review - Latest Comments

Re: Radio 1 Free MMS day: Great idea, 3 years too late

jamessimcock — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 10:01:45 -0000

Surprised to see this rant popping up higher than the BBC's own page about this initiative in Google search, and as a BBC employee who helped work on this, I thought I ought to respond to some of the points you raise.

"Just to be clear: You’ll be billed for sending MMS messages to anyone else. It’s only free to Radio 1 on that day. Which, frankly, is a fat lot of good for the wider consumer".

Radio 1 reaches millions of people every day, a majority of which you may describe as "Normobs". There are of course some smartphone users, who like myself, have been emailing photos and uploading to the web for years - some of those long before the arrival of the iPhone and Android devices (are they "Abnormobs"?), but a lot of those folks (as you recognise in your post) don't know if they have the right settings and often don't even how to send a photo over the air.

As a public service, the BBC has to do it's best to reach the widest possible audience - and helping show the less-technically savvy what is possible from their phones, beyond voice and SMS seemed like a pretty worthy thing to do. Throughout the day on Radio 1 we had presenters explaining how to send MMS and how to check their settings, and with any luck, there's now a lot more people in the UK starting to unlock a little more of the 'potential in their pockets'.

"but when I take a 5 megapixel image and transmit it to your bollocks shitty small-screened Nokia 3600, yeah… the experience isn’t going to be very good at all".

Most mobile phones will give you the option to reduce the image size when sending an MMS to ensure it will be receivable at the other end. Sending 5 megapixel images is a bit pointless if the intention is to view on a screen that's less than 1 megapixel, no? Sure, it might be worthwhile if you're uploading to a photo sharing website, but that's a whole other level from the basic digital literacy this initiative was trying to help. "Bollocks, shitty Nokia 3600"? if all you knew how to do was call people or drop them a text, then actually this might seem an ideal little handset. Battery lasts way longer than an iPhone, it's far simpler to setup and make calls and much less likely to shatter when accidentally dropped. It's also a lot cheaper - and price is the most important factor when choosing a phone for a lot of people.

"Most reasonably modern handsets automatically acquire and select the relevant MMS/data gateways. But I meet too many normobs who ‘haven’t got MMS setup’ or who tell me that ‘it’s never worked for me’."

Settings are still a problem for many. Take a previously contract handset and swap in a PAYG sim for instance and chances are your settings won't work anymore. Getsettings.org is a great idea therefore (although disappointed to see it's not really functional from a basic mobile browser).

What was really interesting about the day, was watching the 10s of thousands of photos arrive and reading the comments that came with them. If you send an SMS to a friend or family member, then they know you, and don't need to see your face to understand your sentiment. For me the greatest learning of the day was to see how much more powerful shortform communication can be when you can see the sender's face. It's obvious really, mankind has had millions of years of communicating face to face, as opposed to more like 12 years of relying on 160 chars of thumbed abbreviations to get your point across.

Maybe this was too late for those who've already purchased flat-rate data tariffs and are happily seeing their mobile devices as an extension of their online experience - but not every one sees the value in that yet, and I like to think we (and the MDA) might have helped just a little bit.

Re: Vodafone 360 – An Absolute Failure?

smstextnews — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:57:14 -0000

Not currently available; coming at some point though

Re: Vodafone 360 – An Absolute Failure?

Ricardo Portela — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:21:49 -0000

One point I saw no one referring to: what about twitter support?

Re: The Nexus One won’t tempt me away from the iPhone

oliver — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:48:14 -0000

Sorry, but from my very personal experience, the iphone has a rubbish reception and an even worse call quality. And t-mobile in Germany has a very fine network, no matter if 2G or 3G.

Obviously, others feel the same way: http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39029453,4930...

Maybe Steve Jobs believes the iphone is "good enough". It always depends on your demands.

And by the way, there is one phone that implements "copy and paste" at least as well as the iphone imho: the palm pre. From day one.

Re: Senior industry executive comments on our ‘Vodafone 360 Pissing War’

weirdshanghai — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:37:47 -0000

I have been speaking to a few china mobile execs last week and mentioned the vodamoan 360. after my brief description, the response was "how could the great vodafone, of whom many in the industry look up to for leadership, innovation, and at least some respect, have their technological heads so far up their asses that they think their shit dont stink" (ok its a paraphrase from chinese language. China Mobile execs similarly live in the disconnected ivory tower, but the difference is they delegate to people they trust to do the right things. (end result, some good things, some naff things, but lots of things)

Re: Notes on the Samsung H1 & Vodafone 360

opl1990 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:19:20 -0000

Mine synced with facebook fine I guess it has been out a while now so its maybe been fixed or something and I set it all up on a pc first on the 360 website ready for gettin my new samsung uploaded contacts from my ols samsung and facebook and hotmail worked a treat for me. Altough im trying to figure out how often it syncs cos there is a few changes iv made in the last minute and not chnaged on phone yet but il see when i turn it on or off or something.

Re: Vodafone 360 – An Absolute Failure?

smstextnews — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:46:46 -0000

Hah! Fascinating. So you're not that committed to your viewpoint then, Freddie?

Re: Vodafone 360 – An Absolute Failure?

Freddie Smithers — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:40:44 -0000

Well if you're as well informed as you claim, you should be able to do so yourself.

Re: Senior industry executive comments on our ‘Vodafone 360 Pissing War’

smstextnews — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:15:14 -0000

Indeed!

Re: UK iPhone users: What network will you migrate to?

Jamie — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:35:46 -0000

ERRRRRM vodafone and o2 have the same coverage they share their cells so not sure moving from o2 to vodafone is going to make much of a difference

Re: Senior industry executive comments on our ‘Vodafone 360 Pissing War’

twitter-18919970 — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:27:27 -0000

I think if we're looking at nice things, you could ad least say that VF are *thinking* about how to bring smartphone-style features to a featurephone platform. After all, Samsung obviously thought that was a big enough market that it was worth developing and launching bada for. No, right now VF have not got the offering right, but maybe we should agree to give them a second round of judgement in three months time when they've had a chance to righten the cock-up...

Re: The Nexus One won’t tempt me away from the iPhone

smstextnews — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:58:17 -0000

Aye!

Re: The Nexus One won’t tempt me away from the iPhone

smstextnews — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:58:03 -0000

Gahh don't mention styli!

Re: Vodafone 360 – An Absolute Failure?

smstextnews — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:57:30 -0000

Go on then, correct the errors Mr Smithers! Let's hear them!

Re: Vodafone 360 – An Absolute Failure?

Freddie Smithers — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:54:54 -0000

It is hard to see how such unbalanced unhinged ranting - full of factual error and misjudgement - is taken seriously by anyone at all. What a shame.

Re: NokiaWorldWatch: The new Nokia, the N97 – the full skinny, the complete low down, the full enchilada - everything you needed to know but were too afraid to ask.

Emily — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:22:13 -0000

i've got one and i belive its awesome when you've just had it, but as time goes on you start gettind bored with it.. but at the end of the day its a quite cool mobile and it satisfies most of our expectations.

Re: The Nexus One won’t tempt me away from the iPhone

twitter-7606742 — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 18:41:16 -0000

Fair enough - I am an Apple fan, but not a totally blind loyal fanboy. I do actually currently own a HTC Hero, I just find that I prefer my iPhone and keep coming back to it because of the 'polish'.

There are several features Android has I wish we could see on the iPhone - drop down notifications in particular. I just think tha Ewan is right though - beta is fine for the web, just not for mass Market consumer products like mobile phones.

Re: The Nexus One won’t tempt me away from the iPhone

twitter-7606742 — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:12:46 -0000

That's a good point Nitin, UIQ was way ahead of it's time; I have very fond memories of my SonyEricsson p900 and p910i. I don't miss the tiny stylus though!

Re: The Cannes Doctrine

constantine — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:58:13 -0000

i'd stand up and clap and shout with you, but i know the reality of the situation is operators are still stuck with the "owning the customer" mindset. they don't understand that they're a service in the same way that the corner store is a service, providing snacks and pints to both locals and strangers alike.

you've got the banks who want to own every transaction you make, you've got the operator who would like nothing more than for you to use operator billing on the 3 websites that support it that you've never heard of, you've got the handset makers who is trying to shove their services on to you because they have to differentiate themselves from handset maker x, y, z.

we're not in a service economy. we're in real estate. get people to sign up for a mortgage and then let them figure out how to do all the annoying bits themselves.

it's painful, and i don't really see it changing for at least another 2 generations (4 years), and even then the situation is going to be dire.

oh and one more thing: fucking facebook is trying to own your photos, your locations, your transactions, your witty, sexy and sorry messages to your wife, and ever other part of your life.

owning the customer, when that stops being mission #1, you'll see change.

Re: The Nexus One won’t tempt me away from the iPhone

UriPhoneBlows — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:43:10 -0000

Why we dont care. Because basically anything that threatens apple in anyway apple lovers will try to find reasons to down whatever that product may be. Android is taking over get over. Your Mac Blows!!!!

Re: The Nexus One won’t tempt me away from the iPhone

Booger — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:34:45 -0000

No one gives a damn about you and your old POS iphone Jonathan...

Re: The Nexus One won’t tempt me away from the iPhone

An Droid — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:29:26 -0000

Don't know man but you are sounding like a fanboy ;-)
BTW Google's products all worked just fine even if they still said Beta on them.

Re: The Nexus One won’t tempt me away from the iPhone

Nitin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:43:48 -0000

"The iPhone might have limitations — and the App approval process does appear to make some rather perverse decisions — but Apple’s rigid control of the platform undoubtedly makes it slicker. We had to wait far too long for ‘copy and paste’ to appear, but when it did it was perfect. Does any other device honestly have this feature implemented as well as the iPhone?"

Yes - UIQ on Symbian does copy and paste fantastically well, and have done since 2003. Shame it had to die a death though. I really think that as a touch UI it was well ahead of its time.

Re: SpinVox dead, Nuance rumoured to be taking control

AJ — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:22:13 -0000

$150m?? That's a lot of money. I have my doubts.

Re: Vodafone’s magic quadrant belies the dire business reality

drmitsos — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:59:03 -0000

I think it's very hard - or even impossible - to integrate when there are different technologies for OSS/BSS, different vendors (that are typically not compatible) and several protocols, APIs etc used in each network.