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Monthly Archives: January 2010
Unlimited GPS on a touch screen smartphone for under £100
No matter how you look at this deal, it is remarkable. You can now buy a Nokia 5230 for under £100 on the Vodafone UK network which full unlimited GPS navigation included. As a backup phone or a fully fledged main unit this is a superb buy and well worth the money. More at AAS.
“Feel the real essence of the new Nokia 5230 Smartphone which is contrived for those who runs a flourishing life and uses their handsets as their initial piece for photos, music and videos, as well as communication via web. You’ll never miss your music tracks with this amazing phone. Enjoy the Nokia Music Store, cool games, videos and other applications from Ovi Store, straight from the Nokia phone.
The Nokia 5230 Pay as you go mobile phone is accompanied by a A-GPS navigation and a trendy version of Ovi Maps that is amazing in 3D landmarks for over 200 cities and terrain map views. Own a Nokia 5230 on Vodafone Network for the top-quality Pay As You Go price ever offer that gives more value to your money.”
Nokia nobbles Nav4All?
The free Nav4All navigation service is no more. The timing is interesting when we consider that Nokia just made its maps application free and the following statement has a touch of annoyance within it.
It is with the deepest regret that we hereby notify you that the global navigation of Nav4All and the Tracking & Tracing will go offline in 3 days. The reason for the same is that the data licence agreement with Navteq (a 100% Nokia subsidiary) was not extended, in a totally unexpected manner. It is not possible to implement data from another supplier in our Nav4All systems within the short term.
The Nav4All navigation system was developed for Navteq data. Nav4All has therefore been constrained to stop.
We greatly regret the fact that we have to suspend the operation of our service. With your help, we have developed Nav4All into a global product with 27.5 million users in 56 languages, in 5 years. This has made Nav4All the largest navigation supplier. This large number of users also has to do with the fact that Nav4All works on hundreds of different mobile telephones of many makes such as Blackberry, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Motorola, Android, HTC, Nokia, LG, Iphone, Ipod etc.
After 5 years of testing and market development, we witnessed rapid – in fact, exponential – growth during the last two years. That growth was reported in the licence reports to Navteq. In mid-December 2009, the global coverage was extended to include the Philippines, Morocco and Kenya.
Please contact the Nav4All support desk in case you have any questions: www.nav4all.com/support. If there is any further information from Nav4All concerning the subject of this letter, the same will be published on our website: www.nav4all.com. For reasons of privacy, Nav4All does not have the email addresses of all its customers, and we therefore request you to forward this email to the maximum extent possible, in order to ensure that everyone is informed.
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Win $25 of smartphone software this weekend!
Andy Murray takes on Roger Federer on Sunday in the Australian Open final and this gives you a chance to win $25 of software from one of our software stores.
All you have to do is guess the total number of games that will be played and the nearest to the final number will take home the money. Simply add your number as a reply to this topic and we will see who comes out on top on Sunday. Come on Andy!!!
If the same number is chosen twice, only the first entry will be counted. All entries must be added before the match starts. The winner will be announced on Monday.
No iPad iBooks for the UK
Reg Hardware has spotted the smallprint on the US iPad page which includes the term “iBooks available in the US only”. Also, there is no mention of iBooks on the UK page which is a bit of a worry. I know I bang on about geographic restrictions a lot, but this is getting beyond a joke. It is reaching the point that anyone outside the US will be close to excluded from the eBook market and that is a real shame. Almost all of the books are in English- it’s our language for God’s sake. Give us some eBooks to read in it!
iPad to be renamed?
Oh my, according to the Register Fujitsu are claiming to own the name “iPad” which they used for a much less inspiring device a few years back. Does this mean that Apple will have to rename the device and iTampon will finally stop trending on twitter? Somehow I expect Apple will find a way to keep the name.
In addition to ignoring support for Adobe Flash, multitasking, and a few other niceties in its new iPad, Apple seems to have ignored one other important detail: it doesn’t own the name “iPad.” Fujitsu says it does.
“It’s our understanding that the name is ours,” Fujitsu’s PR director Masahiro Yamane told The New York Times on Thursday.
Like the Apple iPad, the Fujitsu iPad (PDF) – which has been around since 2002 – is a mobile device with a touchscreen display. Fujisu’s model, however, is part of that company’s point-of-sale retail offerings.
And Fujitsu isn’t the only iPad maker out there. Magtek also manufactures its own iPad encrypted credit-card swiper, Seimens uses the name iPad in conjunction with its engines and motors, and a Canadian company even offers a breast-enhancing iPad bra – and trust us, we scoured the web for an image of that product, but to no avail…
Take the survey
We ask lots of questions of you every day on PDA-247 and here are some more. A friend of mine is completing a degree in Business this year and his dissertation is entitled “Does innovation provide competitive advantage to manufacturers of smartphones, with particular focus on HTC.”
If you could take a few minutes to complete the survey we would appreciate it because it will seriously cut down on the amount of work he needs to do to complete it, and also provide a more rounded view. Come on- we all had to study once and it’s not his fault that we didn’t have the internet to help us when we were young:)
The survey is here.
QOTD: What would happen?
What would happen if you lost your smartphone or had it stolen? Would your data be protected by passwords and your most sensitive information locked in a secure app? Does your smartphone even have a homescreen password?
The iPad: part two
On Wednesday I called the iPad nothing more than a big iPod Touch, a similar reaction was shared by thousands of people across the internet. Today I have a completely different review of the iPad, one that is infinitely more positive than just two days ago.
What changed my mind? Well, time for one thing- a long look at the official Apple video demo of the product revealed a lot (once I had ignored the cringing descriptions from the Apple employees), you guys commented and added great insight into what the world thinks of the iPad and then considered the following-
- The keyboard dock offers the ability to compose email, write articles and the like and will hopefully be as comfortable to use as a laptop. The fact that it is removable is an advantage and potentially this offers a cut price laptop solution for people, like me, who do not need all powerful hardware.
- iPhone 4.0 (rumoured) should bring multi-tasking.
- Access to over 100,000 apps and games at very low prices which will cover most needs. Some will say that they cannot compete with a ‘proper’ computer, but development strategies will change once the iPad is officially available. If successful developers will find a way to cram in computer style apps into the OS- they follow the user base.
- Newspapers and magazines are likely to be delivered to this device more than any other- the iPad form factor of course lends itself very well to this idea.
I am not saying that it is a dream device or that I will be first in line to buy it, but there is huge potential here. Potential that is not obvious on the first day. To finish off here are two opposing, but well thought out, comments that were posted on 247 earlier this week-
Jason- “I won’t be carrying a fourth device (I got a phone, a media player and my laptop). Why would I pay $629 (it is stupid to get this device without the cellular radio because wifi is not that prevalent…trust me, I have a iPodTouch and there are many times when I am out and about that I wish I could connect to the internet)…anyway, why would I pay $629 for something that is NOT a computer?
-You can only run what Apple and developers make for THIS device.
-You cannot run any ole Apple program
-You cannot run ANY windows programs or even a virtual machine to run some other OS or an app made for another OS.
-You have to use their special 30-pin connector keyboard (unless you jailbreak this device and use the BTstack driver which allows you to use several BT keyboards with the iPhone/iPodTouch…but you have to put up with the big ugly on-screen keyboard)
I would rather buy a tablet laptop with a wireless card, put iTunes on it, buy my e-books like I do now (and put them on any device I want), buy a nice book reader program (oh, if I don’t feel like reading on my PalmOS device like I’ve been doing for the last 8 years with no problem or my iPodTouch).
It’s a nice device but I can’t see myself hauling this thing around, not even at work. Maybe nice for college students as a cheaper alternative to a macbook.
But I think the technologies and the agreements made with the cellular companies and the book distributors, as well as the new iBook store will proliferate to other devices and make Apple money and may give us new cellular service options in the future. No iPad for me.
I just want OS 4.0…hope it has goodies, and maybe add iBooks to my computer and iPodTouch.”
TheKiltedOne- “In my mind, this is the new generation of the PDA. Think about it, you have calendar, contacts and notes, the core applications of any PDA. PDAs tried adding things like MP3 players, web browsing and e-mail, mostly with terrible results. Document handling, also with poor results, etc. Smart phones are marginally acceptable when it comes to carrying this information with you. They’re OK for reference, but they do a poor job of replacing the applications on your PC or a paper day planner. The iPad has roughly the same footprint as a paper day planner. The calendar application even appears to display a layout that mimics a paper planner. Add in eBooks, a fantastic web browser (less flash of course) eMail (no indication yet as to whether it will support Exchange, but why in the world would they remove functionality that’s already present in the iPhone version of mail), mobile versions of the iWork apps, and all the apps that are available now and will be available by the time this thing ships and it seems to me that you’ve got what I’d consider to be the ultimate PDA. I’m an IT professional, if you throw a VNC client out there, this becomes orders of magnitude more useful.
Oh, and has anyone noticed that Google added file storage to Google Apps not long before this device, which appears to have no on-device manageable file system, was announced? You don’t even need the iWork apps if you have access to WiFi or opt for the 3G model.
Priced barely higher than the Amazon Kindle, same size as a day planner, PDA functionality, video, iTunes, web browsing, e-mail, games, 3rd party apps by the thousands… Sure, it won’t fit in your pocket, but making it fit in your pocket actually reduces the usability of many of the things I’d want to use it for.
I’ve heard arguments that “it can’t multitask! Even a $299 netbook can multitask!”. Really? Ever try multitasking on a netbook? How many things can you do at one time on something that small? And a netbook will bog down so badly with it’s underpowered CPU when multitasking that it will be nearly unusable. I’m quite certain you’ll be able to play audio through iTunes on this thing while you check your calendar or browse the web, just like on an iPhone or iPod Touch. That’s enough multitasking for me.
Believe me, I’m going to be first in line for the $499 model when they go on sale. That’s plenty of storage for me. Hell, I paid almost as much for a Palm TX back in the day and, if memory serves, that had all of 128MB of storage.”
50% off top BlackBerry games!
We have a limited time deal available on 12 of the very best BlackBerry games and are offering 50% off until the end of tomorrow. The games on offer are listed below and the links you need are for our Desktop and Mobile stores. Enjoy!
Aces Traffic Pack
Addictive Tower Defense
Air Traffic Control
Bubble Defense
Druglord Wars
Fierce Towers
Labyrinth
Memory Checker
Solitaire Buddy Gold
SwooshSudoku
Wrath
Aces Texas Hold’em
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Get your cogs working with Cogs for iPhone
Chillingo has released Cogs for the iPhone and it one of the best value puzzlers on the app store at this time. It is seriously good and will keep you going for hours and hours and…
Cogs is a puzzle game where players build machines from sliding tiles. Players can choose from 50 levels and 3 gameplay modes. New puzzles are unlocked by building contraptions quickly and efficiently. A polished 3D look coupled with challenging gameplay and loads of level packs let you stay flummoxed for hours!
Inventor Mode: Starting with simple puzzles, players are introduced to the widgets that are used to build machines — gears, pipes, balloons, chimes, hammers, wheels, props, and more.
Time Challenge Mode: If you finish a puzzle in Inventor Mode, it will be unlocked here. This time, it will take fewer moves to reach a solution, but you only have 30 seconds to find it.
Move Challenge Mode: Take your time and plan ahead. Every click counts when you only get ten moves to find a solution.
A total of 51 levels are available with 11 available in the initial purchase and each next 10 pack available via in app purchase for $0.99.
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Nokia Q4 2009 net sales EUR 12.0 billion
Nokia has released its 4th quarter financial results and they are OK (I think). I like the fact that the highlights start with net sales being down 5%. Curious choice of words.
- Nokia net sales of EUR 12.0 billion, down 5% year on year and up 22% sequentially (down 4% and up 20% at constant currency).
- Devices & Services net sales of EUR 8.2 billion, up 0.5% year on year and up 18% sequentially (up 2% and 16% at constant currency).
- Services net sales of EUR 169 million, up 15% sequentially; billings of EUR 226 million, up 31% sequentially.
- Estimated industry mobile device volumes of 329 million units, up 8% year on year and up 14% sequentially.
- Nokia mobile device volumes of 126.9 million units, up 12% year on year and up 17% sequentially.
- Nokia estimated mobile device market share of 39% in Q4 2009, up from an estimated 37% in Q4 2008 and 38% in Q3 2009. The full year 2009 estimated market share was 38%, down from 39% in 2008.
- Nokia grew its converged device market share to an estimated 40%, from an estimated 35% in Q3 2009.
- Nokia improved the ASP of its mobile devices to EUR 63, from EUR 62 in Q3 2009.
- Devices & Services increased its gross margin to 34.3%, from 30.9% in Q3 2009.
- NAVTEQ non-IFRS net sales of EUR 225 million, up 9% year on year and up 36% sequentially, and non-IFRS operating margin of 24.0%, down from 25.9% in Q3 2009.
- Nokia Siemens Networks net sales of EUR 3.6 billion, down 16% year on year and up 31% sequentially (down 17% and up 29% at constant currency).
- Nokia operating cash flow of EUR 1.5 billion, more than double the operating cash flow for Q3 2009.
- Total cash and other liquid assets of EUR 8.9 billion at the end of Q4 2009.
- Nokia taxes were unfavorably impacted by Nokia Siemens Networks taxes as no tax benefits are recognized for certain Nokia Siemens Networks deferred tax items. If Nokia’s estimated long-term tax rate of 26% had been applied, non-IFRS Nokia EPS would have been approximately 1 Euro cent higher.
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Astraware Casino released for Android phones
Astraware has released Casino for the Android platform. Good show. Staffordshire, UK – January 28th 2010 – Astraware(R) – the UK-based games studio is pleased to announce the immediate release of Astraware Casino for AndroidTM phones. The award-winning 11-game pack includes the most popular games played in casinos around the world including Texas Hold ‘Em Poker (Limit and No Limit versions), Roulette, Slots, Blackjack and Craps.
In addition to 11 games, Astraware Casino gives players $1000 in a virtual wallet to begin playing with, has a fun trophy system – the ‘Souvenir Suitcase’, and a virtual bank where players can get an overdraft if they?re down on their luck or stash their cash when they win big!
Astraware Casino supports a wide range of Android devices with the following resolutions: QVGA (240×320), HVGA (320×480), WVGA (480×800), and FWVGA (480×854). Android OS now joins other platforms in Astraware’s game engine and core technology library with multiple resolution support (BlackBerry(R), Windows(R) phone). This bespoke technical system allows Astraware to port and optimize their games for new devices and platforms very quickly and ensures that the company’s games can be kept up to date with ease.
“We’re thrilled to be releasing Astraware Casino for Android devices today,” said David Oakley, Astraware’s Chief Technology Officer. “We’ve designed the game to make the most of each Android phone’s capabilities, from the HTC Tattoo up to the Motorola Droid or Google Nexus One.”
Astraware Casino is available for Android phones on device from Android Market and on the web from Astraware.com and Handmark.com. The game is also available for iPhoneTM and iPod(R) touch, BlackBerry(R) smartphones, Windows(R) phone, S60(R), and Palm OS(R).
For more information visit the Astraware website – http://www.astraware.com, and follow the studio on Twitter at http://twitter.com/astraware and Facebook at http://facebook.com/astraware.
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QOTD: The uncoolest smartphone?
Last week we asked what you thought the coolest smartphone brand was and we were greeted by a host of replies, most of which became childish (mainly from me) and so today we will turn the tables. What is the uncoolest smartphone ever? I would go for the i-mate Ultimate series. Yuck!
Going Google
I recently wrote about my experiences moving from BIS on a Bold 9700 to pure GPRS / 3G and how I managed to use AstraSync to keep my push emails coming in via MS Exchange, but a post on 247 caused me to try something different. The Google Mail app is available on a variety of platforms now and so I tested it on my Bold to see what it is like, in short it is basic, but highly use-able and has many advantages over some rival offerings. For a start it offers audible, LED and onscreen icon notifications of new emails and this is a must have to many BlackBerry users such as myself. It is free and the main Google app opens up access to other services from the big ‘G’ in a clean and easy to navigate environment.
With the standard BlackBerry BIS offering what I would call a limited service and a basic mail interface you will not lose a great deal by switching to an alternative in my view. The Google Mail app offers everything I need for quick emailing during the day, but there are some strange omissions which need to be fixed at some stage- no attachment support is one and it feels far too much like the standard BlackBerry mail interface for my liking. However, I’m not complaining too much because it does the job. Ironically I have to set up a separate forward from my MS Exchange to use the Google Mail app and that is making me consider moving away from MS Exchange altogether.
What I did next was something that the rest of the world did a long time ago- I had a look around to see what Google has to offer and the results surprised me. Google Docs, Reader and many of the other offerings are remarkably clean and simple to use and I can see myself using them more and more as time progresses. The trick will be for Google to integrate all of these offerings seamlessly with a smartphone which is capable of using them effectively. Android is obviously getting there and the potential is huge, but when a truly great smartphone comes out with a full keyboard the combination could be hard to resist. I can see myself moving to Android at some stage in the future when the right phone is released, and despite my loathing for using one company for everything, the idea appeals a great deal.
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Project 72: an iPhone game built in 72 hours
Project 72 is an iPhone game which was developed in just 72 hours. The result is slightly more interesting than the story, but still worth the minimal asking price- “4 boys setting out on a mission to create a successful iPhone game in 72 hours from start to finish and document the progress on this site for anyone interested to see.”
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