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When devices collide
Consumers hanker after cool gadgets and the market is eager to supply them. When a product starts to look redundant, alarm bells ring and the manufacturers scramble to innovate and show us new ways to make their offerings indispensible again.
 Stacks of full-frontal touchscreen mobiles now come with a GPS receiver and an internal compass. With products like Google Maps Navigation bringing your mobile all the functionality of a sat nav, for free, will this be the end for stand-alone GPS sales? How will the sat nav empire strike back?
For years we’ve all been told the latest phone will do away with the need to carry other kit around. But circumstances prevented true convergence. Dedicated music players have stayed ahead through storage capacity, plus the market fact consumers won’t pay for downloading tracks to their phones. Low-end digital cameras have the resolution of high-end phones, then you can scale up the lens and zoom. Sat nav systems have traditionally led with larger screens, faster processors and built-in GPS receivers. With these three advantages nullified by many current mobiles, sat navs might now be the first piece of tech we can truly do without.
In-Stat (a market research company focusing on the mobile internet), report the GPS tech market to be in a mature state and forecast sharply decreasing sales of sat nav devices for 2010. Mobile phones have the advantage because anything sold solely for the dashboard of a vehicle must focus the driver’s attention on the road ahead. Traffic news and accident information would be acceptable, but imagine the distraction of facebook or YouTube. There’s a lesson here for mobile apps. In driving mode, other applications should be disabled. Is this an advantage for the single-tasking iPhone at last?
The GPS giants, Garmin and Tom Tom will move to innovate, or they might bring their branding power more directly into the mobile industry and launch (more) phones themselves.
But can it go left-handed?
Footage taken at a London trade show and I apologise for the background noise. The video gives a good first impression of the Linux-based sexy user interface that Emblaze have developed for their Else. The company dumb the thumb navigation ‘sPlaying’. Although Linux powers the phone, the overall operating platform may not be open source. It’s still developmental and will be interesting to watch it grow.
Thanks to Engadget for the video, I’ve linked to a YouTube version.
O2 backed MVNO
O2 launch giffgaff in a puff of viral advertising. The MVNO is using a crowd sourcing business model, where tasks traditionally done by employees are incentivised to subscribers. Customers answer each others service queries via the community forum. For example recruiting a new subscriber will net the original member £5.
Initial pricing compares will to other SIM only brands, free calls to other giffgaff members, UK mobile and landlines 8p a minute, texts 4p. Data use is free until May next year, with the company asking members what they think it should cost.
‘Giffgaff’ is apparently a word of Scottish origin meaning ‘Mutual accommodation; mutual giving’. I have a feeling this means someone Scottish from O2 made it up. I’m borrowing from Blackadder by wishing giffgaff my sincere contrafibularities.
Price war on the way?
No pricing details yet, but Tesco Mobile announce they will be stocking the iPhone, they hope in time for Christmas. The joint 50:50 MVNO with O2 has an option to register interest on its web site, and may beat Vodafone at being the next UK provider to have the iPhone available for customers.
There have been months of speculation about an iPhone price war, but no carrier has broken ranks yet. Will Britain’s largest supermarket keep the promise made to the Financial Times “to bring a piece of Tesco value to the iPhone”?
Another one bites the dust?
A second Sony Ericsson smartphone is causing the wrong kind of publicity in the UK, Reuters report this evening. Part of SE’s Christmas line-up, the Aino is causing users problems with its touchscreen interface.
These are by no means the only phones ever to be released with glitches and bugs, but serious issues affecting two premier phones at the same time as the ad campaigns hit TV and cinema screens? Come on. A spokesman for the company has stated "At the moment, we don’t see any damage or harm done”. Pull the other one, and get these things fixed.
Success in the smartphone market is a key element in Chief Executive Bert Nordberg’s plan for returning the firm to profit next year. Knock some heads together Bert.
Like to know more? Reuters report here
Messaging big beast
 The sequel to Nokia’s best selling E71, the E72 begins life with a secured following. Visually similar, pimped with a bit more chrome and a sleeker finish, you have to look inside to fully appreciate it’s beefier than it’s younger brother.
Running Symbian and powered by a 600 MHz processor, the first improvement is in speed. Menus are instant and applications load swiftly. The 2.4 inch QVGA screen is glass-fronted and displays 320 v 240 resolution. Default colour and styling imply work, not play.
Placed mid-range for media with a 5 MP LED flash camera, video editing, music player and a 3.5mm jack. 250MB user space, a 4GB microSD card can be Expanded 16GB. 3G access via HSDPA is great, max speed 10.2 Mbps future-proofing the phone, as the fastest advertised UK carrier speed is 7.2 Mbps.
The strength of the E-Series remains the full featured 39 key, sculpted, QWERTY keypad. It gives tactile, responsive, comfortable and most importantly accurate input. I’m was tempted by touchscreen, but Nokia prove to me here that keypads remain the one true path.
Battery life is excellent. I’ve gathered lots of user data and the average is around 5 days from a full tank. A hefty punch to other smartphones, a knockout if you’re away from charger access for long.
If messaging, battery life and the E-series brand are your priorities, this is an excellent choice. It might not score highly with new users hungry for personalisation and download options.
Mid-range 3G sliders
  Two candy bar sliders announced by Nokia this week. Available from Q1 next year, both support fast 3G access and have been optimised for social applications. The 6700 slide will cost about £150 and the 7230 around £95.
Nokia headline both phones with info about camera capabilities. 5 MP Carl Zeiss optics on the 6700 slide and 3.2 MP on the less expensive 7230. Anyone out there still amazed by phones having cameras?
These two offerings are reasonably priced but will need to compete against a host of feature-packed touchscreens that will likely be discounted after Christmas. I quite like the slider design but Nokia need to share more exciting facts with us if they want to shift many of these.
Like to know more? press release here
Power to the people
 After months of bargaining, legislation has been approved by a broad majority of the European parliament aimed at boosting the rights of mobile phone and internet users. The new laws give citizens greater protection against access restrictions.
Due to be implemented over the next 18 months, the reforms will enhance consumer rights, safeguard Internet freedom, protect data, boost competition and modernise radio spectrum use, according to parliamentary statements.
Under the new laws, service providers and authorities will have to demonstrate clear evidence of wrong-doing and illegal downloading to the judiciary before acting to terminate users connection for copyright infringement. A previous draft French anti-piracy law had suggested that Internet connections could be cut without judicial scrutiny, causing understandable uproar.
The moves are being seen as a victory for the smaller parties over the interests of the larger block votes. Christian Engstrom, MEP with the delightfully named Swedish Pirate Party said the new legislation "is far from perfect but it does represent a step in the right direction". He continued, "It sends a clear message to Nicolas Sarkozy, Peter Mandelson and others that draconian copyright enforcement measures will not be allowed to override Internet users’ fundamental rights in the EU".
Today I’m standing with the Pirates against the French.
All I don’t want for Christmas
 Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4U stores have suspend all sales of the Sony Ericsson Satio, in response to critically high customer returns and complains. Both chains will offer alternative phones to unhappy customers, living up to their responsibilities under the Sale of Goods Act. Goods must be fit for purpose and it is the seller, not the manufacturer who has to sort it out.
Sony Ericsson’s senior marketing manager Richard Dorman has confirmed the bug and announced SE hope to have a fix available by Christmas. Verity Burns, a technology journalist with gadget magazine Stuff was quoted by the BBC as thinking the problem lies with how the Sony Ericsson user interface interacts with the Symbian operating system on the phone. "The phone seems to be turning itself off when people access certain applications but not everyone will be affected. Vodafone and Orange run their own interfaces and don’t seem to have the issue."
Like to know more? BBC report here
And why do we need to know?
 A femtocell is a mini cellular base station designed for use in a home or small business environment. It’s plugged into local power and a broadband connection, piggy-backing a local wireless signal over the internet to your carrier. Suddenly 3 or 4 mobile phones can function in an area where there was previously no signal.
‘Femto’ means one quadrillionth in the metric measurement system, hence the amazing and customer friendly terminology, aimed at breaking down barriers and making technology accessible to the public. Not.
The networks love the idea – They could produce hundreds of femtocells for the cost of planning and building a traditional base station – big savings in capital expenditure. And someone else pays for the power and local internet, saving operational costs. Finally they benefit from an increased public perception of coverage.
Vodafone UK already sell a femtocell as their Access Gateway, at £5 a month or £160 outright. Expect to see the other carriers follow suit, targeting family groups and small businesses. If our industry lives up to its green credentials, we should also also see convergent devices that combine secure fixed line, wireless broadband, femtocell and VoIP services, without the need to switch on a desktop PC.
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Stacks of full-frontal touchscreen mobiles now come with a GPS receiver and an internal compass. With products like Google Maps Navigation bringing your mobile all the functionality of a sat nav, for free, will this be the end for stand-alone GPS sales? How will the sat nav empire strike back?
