There have been many Questions Of The Day along the lines of 'If money wasn't a problem...' or 'What features would your ideal device have?'. They're great questions; I love the answers people give. We can all dream; it's healthy. But reality for most of us (Shaun excepted, of course :-) is living in the world of compromise. We have to balance many factors: price, features, looks, usability, OS etc. And always with a view to an uncertain future: if I invest in software for this device/OS, where will it be in 6, 12 or 18 months time?

It's a fascinating call - and a deeply frustrating one at times. The relative priorities of the different buying factors are rarely set in stone; price might be a constraint now but maybe not so much next year - or it may be more so next year. Usability is relative - what seems to adequately meet our needs now, in comparison with other available devices, can seem archaic all-too-soon, blown out of the water by an Android perhaps.

Here's some flesh on the bones of this dilemma. I'm currently using a Nokia 6120, my first Symbian device. I really love the small form factor - but I'm frustrated by the screen size. It didn't cost much - but it's fiddly to use. The software it comes with, and which I've added, is mostly adequate - but there are programs I have invested in that just aren't available for symbian devices.

What would my ideal device be? I'd love to try the iPhone 3G - the only box it wouldn't currently tick is that some of my favourite software isn't ported to it (although I've no doubt it will be). But try it I can't - locked into a non-o2 contract for another 13 months and with insufficient funds to simply bite the bullet and tear-up the contract. So in the land of compromise, other solutions must prevail.

And I might just have found that solution. A price reduction on the MWg Atom Life (down to £150) makes it attainable. Its large screen makes it attractive. The option to use already-owned software makes it advantageous. Its relative bulk makes it awkward.

Depeche Mode once urged us to 'get the balance right'. That's part of the skill of living in a world of compromise. Maybe this device, at this time, for these reasons, will be a right balance - for my needs and situation. It certainly seems like it.

Or maybe I'd be better-off with a Nokia 6120/iPod Touch combo....? Richard M.

Now and again a software developer surprises me with a level of customer service that goes way beyond what should be normally expected, and I wanted to highlight one today who took good service to a whole new level.

Flying Bird Software makes an application called Flying Money Manager which is arguably the only fully fledged personal finance manager available for Symbian S60 3rd Edition phones. I eagerly installed it on my new Nokia E71 and was somewhat disappointed to find that certain parts did not work the way ‘I’ wanted them to. I have some specific wants in a finance manager that maybe others do not require, but I sent an email to Flying Bird support and after one day the following had been sorted out-

The ability to sort account entries in descending and ascending order

A couple of fixes had been put in place

They even took an example QIF file from me to work through why I could not import my existing data. It turned out that I had exported it incorrectly, but they still catered for it and arranged a solution.

At no point did I mention that I ran web sites and did not expect this level of service, but it was a truly positive experience which I won’t forget.

More details of Flying Money Manager are at http://www.flyingbirdsoft.com/.

Have you had similar experiences with a software developer? If so, let us all know via the comments link below.

Forecast Daily Review

Date of Review – 18th July 2008

Available from – www.pocketmind.com

Price - $17.95

Pros – iphone like swipe gestures to move around application with ease
           Extensive database of Countries and Cities
           Good eye candy
           One of the easiest weather apps to setup
           Works with all known screen sizes including 320 x 320
           In Application rain in animated

Cons – Subscription based (annual)

There are many weather applications, but Forecast Daily was one I had not even heard of before and to my surprise provided a wonderful user experience. I have also found the weather data accurate for my location in the UK, which is not always the case with other weather programs.

The beauty of this program is its ease of installation and use. It comes with a 3 day trial as well. It is meant to be used totally without a stylus and this is accomplished with ease. A today plugin is provided. See screenshot below.

If you have more than one one city setup, the today plugin adds the name. If you setup only one city, the name is automatically removed from the today screen. To move to the next city on the today screen all you have to do is either swipe your finger from left to right, or right to left to move to the next location. The movement is slick and the application provides a slick animation. However, tapping the middle of the today screen plugin opens the application up to reveal further information as per first screenshot under review title. Sliding your finger left or right moves between the night and day tabs. Moving top to bottom of screen switches between the different locations.

The other simple touch, is dependant on the time of day, the colour shades changes. Below is night, and has a black shading. Day has a bright blue.

Within the settings, you can select the type of internet connection, scheduled refresh, either daily between a set time, several times a day and select the interval or manual refresh. You can also set the measurement units from metric to Fahrenheit.  When adding a location, you can swipe up and down to scroll through the country and city listings, or use a keyboard to locate your city.

Forecast Daily is able to provide 7-day weather information on more than 58,000 cities and locations, including 2,400 airports all around the world, 400 parks, 230 ski resorts. It features temperature graphs, optimised for finger gestures, and extended 2-day weather forecast with 4 additional tabs for morning, day, evening, and night + reports: 1) real temperature and comfort feel temperature, 2) detailed descriptions for the weather icons, 3) wind direction, 4) wind speed, 5) sun ultraviolet (UV) level, 5) visibility, 6) humidity.

I tested this application on my Samsung i780 and HP Ipaq 214 and both devices loved this application. The only one minor issue I have is that the application is an annual subscription.

I would recommend this program wholeheartedly. It is staying on my phone!

Review by Gavin Fabiani-Laymond