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Monthly Archives: January 2009
Mobile Banking May Be Telecom’s Killer App
Mobile Banking May Be Telecom’s Killer App is an interesting story at MediaPost and could well prove to be true.
“With increasing consumer familiarity and growing ease of use, mobile applications for financial services companies–particularly banks–could become the new “killer app” for telecommunications.
The number of people banking through a mobile device could hit half a billion worldwide by 2013, according to ABI Research. “Mobile financial services have the potential to be bigger than mobile TV and premium mobile content in terms of numbers of subscribers,” Mark Beccue, senior analyst of consumer mobility, tells Marketing Daily. “Everybody’s trying to do it, and they’re all scrambling.”
The drive for more and better mobile financial services applications is being fed by consumers who are becoming more accustomed to banking online. “The lowest-hanging fruit are the online customers,” Beccue says. “That’s one of the only barriers to mobile banking; if you don’t trust online, you won’t trust mobile.”
Quickoffice Premier 6.0 Released
Quickoffice Premier 6.0 has been released for Symbian smartphones. Here’s a brief rundown of the features-
Microsoft® Office 2007 View and Edit!
View and Edit your Word® and Excel® files just like you do on your desktop. Confidently Edit and exchange files between phone and desktop with perfect data integrity.
View Excel® 2007 Charts
See your charts recalculate when you make data changes.
Enhanced File Manager
Easily navigate digital files and folders. Most file types listed so you can now organize your music, photos, and office documents.
ZIP File Support
Browse and Open files within a ZIP folder.
View Password-protected Files
Open and view password-protected Word and Excel files. Common Microsoft encryption supported.
Word Count
No more worries about having too many or too few words in your Word document. Works just like word count on your desktop.
“Go To” Cell
Quickly navigate large worksheets by simply entering in the cell address you want to find.
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Samsung SGH-i780 gets Windows Mobile 6.1 Upgrade
The Samsung SGH-i780 can now be upgraded to Windows Mobile 6.1 by visiting this page. PPC Thoughts has a page up listing many upgrades for a variety of phone- worth a check for your device here.
PDA-247 January Sale: 20% off ALL Mobile Software!
PDA-247 is having a January Sale of mammoth proportions. Each day throughout January we will be offering a huge discount on a new title, or a selection of titles, and each discount will run for a set period of time.
From now until 31st January 2009 we have 20% off ALL software in our software stores!* All you have to do is visit one of the links below and use discount code ‘jansale′ at checkout to obtain your discount.
*offer does not apply to software already discounted.
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QOTD: Push Email?
Has push email taken over your life? Did you try it and then turned it off, or are you completely comfortable with the technology and find it genuinely useful?
If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it. Why Nokia could learn a lot from RIM
The words ‘BlackBerry Curve’ sum up a product which has evolved over time in incremental stages, and one which has gradually obtained the loyalty of millions of people around the world. BlackBerry devices tend to have a certain type of user anyway; a person who does not always want the flashiest new gadget in the world, a person who just wants to do some things very well and a person who wants a mobile phone that will help them get through the busiest of days without complaining.
As each Curve has been released, there has always been something very ‘Curve’ about each design and each model is easily recognisable. Palm did a similar thing with the Treo range, but it went badly wrong; the Treo 650 was fantastic in many way, but suffered from memory issues, the Treo 680 had a dreadful battery life and the Windows Mobile Treos never really competed with the likes of HTC and Samsung in that crowded market.
Each Curve has been stable, fairly well specified and able to do what it needs to. To be fair, most of the Treos were capable of a lot and did deserve the huge fan base they built up over a couple of years.
In contrast to the Curve and the Treo, Nokia seems to have an almost schizophrenic attitude to building customer loyalty. The scattergun approach at which new devices are designed and released can lead a loyal Symbian user to quickly become confused when deciding what to upgrade to next.
“Do I go for a touch-screen phone, a slide-out keyboarded phone, a front facing keyboarded phone, a phone with a numeric keyboard?” The list goes on and on, and despite some incremental product development i.e. Nokia E61 to Nokia E71, it feels as though Nokia has never really built a device that can attain loyalty because it never gives the customer long enough to become loyal to a particular style of phone.
The most successful smartphones have built on the success of a previous model which looked and acted in a similar fashion. There are countless examples of this-
BlackBerry Curves
Palm Treos
Apple iPhones
HTC TyTNs
…and so the list goes on. Some will argue that the N95 phones are hugely successful, and indeed that is true, but already we see new phones from Nokia (N96) that have only a passing resemblance to the previous model. Also, most N95 owners do not know they own a smartphone.
It does seem as though incremental changes bring success and this is one area that Nokia should look at more. Impatience rarely brings success in any business. Maybe I have got this wrong because Nokia’s approach to building a phone for every person on the planet has worked so far. I’m just not convinced it will work forever.
Personal Finance Guide for Palm OS
Personal Finance Guide for Palm OS has been released (eReader required)- looks like a timely title…
Get your financial life in order! The Rampart Personal Finance Guide contains everything you need to hang on to the money you earn and grow it for the future. With strategies for saving and investing, the guide explains how to measure your current financial health by looking at how much debt you carry, your savings rate, insurance instruments and investments. It describes how to approach your taxes, invest your retirement account, buy real estate, and avoid being the victim of identity theft. The guide is like having a personal financial advisor right in the palm of your hand.
Besides chapters on Getting Ready, Spending, Banking, Credit, Savings, Investing, Real Estate, Identity Theft, Insurance, Higher Education, Taxes, Scams, and Estate Planning, the Rampart Personal Finance Guide includes an extensive glossary that takes the mystery out of the thousands of financial terms.
To read the Personal Finance Guide on your Palm, you must first have eReader installed. If you don’t already have it, it is widely available for free on the Internet. Then, use your desktop software to install the guide to your handheld, and start eReader. It’s that easy!
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SMS at Hand for Pocket PC
SMS at Hand for Pocket PC is yet another SMS solution for Windows Mobile, but potentially a very good one.
SMS at Hand is the Windows Mobile text messaging application that consists of two main screens. The first one includes a list of Contacts arranged in a smart way: from the most intensively used to the least. At the very top you always see the entities with new messages. When entering any Contact, you see the whole history of its communication with you, including short text messages and calls which are chronologically presented. The conversation screen provides all details of each item and shows the whole SMS text body without the necessity of unrolling it. Use it as a convenient and immediate way of inputting an SMS When you input a new message through SMS at Hand, you are not limited to one-line edit box like in most similar messengers. Your application adjusts the input box to fit the text while typing.
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Stock Manager for BlackBerry
There are surprisingly few good stock managers for BlackBerry devices, but the originally titles Stock Manager represents good value at under $5 (even less with our current 20% discount).
Stock Manager is an application that allows you to check your stocks status and see the latest news.
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Super Monkey Ball ‘Lite’ hits the iPhone
A lite version of Super Monkey Ball has hit iTunes and this is a good move when you consider that in the first 20 days it was bought 300,000 times (i.e. $3 million of revenue- phew!)
Guide a cute little monkey encased in a transparent ball to victory by tilting and rolling him through a variety of slopes and turns. You must navigate a large variety of obstacle courses to reach goal lines within set time limits. Collect as many bananas as you can along the way and you’ll be able to increase your remaining lives.
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Interview With Juha Kokkonen Over Nokia N79 Active
Techcraver has undertaken an interview with Juha Kokkonen about the Nokia N79 Active. “Well, the phone itself is no different – it’s the same recently released NSeries phone with 3G network speeds, Wi-Fi, 5-megapixel camera that can take great video, GPS and Symbian operating system.
However, the N79 Active comes with a few accessories that make in an active person’s dream setup. First, it features an arm band for wearing while you’re doing your sport, whether it be cycling, running, rowing, mountain biking, sailing or whatever. Most importantly, it features a Polar chest band that communicates with your N79 and a new 2.0 version of the Sports Tracker application.
Using the N79’s GPS chip, the Sports Tracker application has long been able to graph your speeds, altitude, average speeds and other workout data. But now with the heart rate information, you know metrics on how your body performed under these outside conditions.”
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BlackBerry Gaming: it’s getting better all the time
The BlackBerry third party software catalogue is not as complete as it could be and there is a raft of professional titles available to help you with organisation, finance management and simply getting things done. Gaming has never been seen as a strong area for BlackBerry’s, but times are changing and there are now some good gaming titles available that will keep you occupied for an hour or so.
Nintaii is my personal favourite and is a title which has me playing every day for a few minutes. The premise is simple, but thesolutions to each level are not. Concentration, patience and skill are required to succeed. Sadly I have none of those virtues so still struggle to master it…
Marble Trap feels similar to Nintaii in that it requires lots of judgement to succeed. It is a leisurely game that you need to study before you start each level, but the rewards are worth it. Definately one for those of you who like to ‘think’ about your game playing.
Sid Meier’s Civilization IV: War of Two Cities is a complex game compared to many on the BlackBerry platform, but is a carefully worked down version of a classic. It shouldn’t work at all, but it does and will keep you glued to the small screen for a long, long time.
BEIKS Netwalk was a legend on Palm devices, and now you can enjoy it on a BlackBerry as well. It can be incredibly frustrating, but deserves all of the success it has had to date. This one will stay with you for a LONG time!
If any of the above games catch your eye, don’t forget that we are offering a 20% discount on all titles until the end of the month. Simply use discount code ‘jansale’ at checkout to claim your money off!
iPhone 2.2.1 Firmware Update released
v2.2.1 of the iPhone Firmware has been released with a couple of minimal changes- Improved general stability of Safari- Fixed issue where some images saved from Mail do not display correctly in the Camera Roll. Head on over to iTunes to update (unless you are Jailbroken of course).
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Product Flash: Printers, Bluetooth Headsets and Bluetooth GPS Receivers now under £30
We have some impressive special offers in the 247 hardware store at the moment. Check out the following and grab a bargain-
A6 Pocket Printer
The A6 Pocket Printer is a compact and lightweight mobile printer perfect for the on-the-go business professional.
Now only £29.99
http://www.expansys.com/tag.aspx?tag=sipix&partner=pda247
TomTom Bluetooth GPS Receiver
The TomTom Bluetooth GPS Receiver is excellent value, and can be used with Bluetooth-enabled smartphones and PDAs
http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=141161&partner=pda247
Now only £29.99
Motorola Bluetooth Headset H800
The Motorola Bluetooth Headset H800 works with any brand of Bluetooth 1.1, 1.2 or 2.0 enabled compatible phone or device that supports “headset” and “hands-free” profiles.
http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=178107&partner=pda247
Now only £19.99
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ColorWare does a job on the Curve 8900
Have you got a shiny new BlackBerry Curve 8900? Do you think the ultra stylish design is just too nice? If so, head on over to ColorWare who can change the colour of it to something so awful that nobody will ever want to steal it!
Your smartphone already handles your calls, email, multimedia, internet access, GPS and schedule and now it also comes in your own personalized colors. With ColorWare’s array of colors, you can choose your favorite color or create any of thousands of color combinations.
ColorWare offers two types of colors: metallics and solids. Both metallics and solids have the same high-gloss, scratch resistant finish, and either type will make your phone look stunning. If you like a little variation and sparkle, choose from the metallic colors, which contain tiny flakes within the color. If you prefer pure colors with no effects, pick a solid color. Or go for the contrast of combining effects with one or two of each type.
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