Great Australian iPhone weather application
Ross Dawson’s brother has created a great Australian weather application for the iPhone called “Oz Weather”. Oz Weather is a customisable weather application for Australia.
The application is demonstrated on this video.
Great use of the interface of the iPhone and Oz Weather looks to have a rich feature set.
For more details you can see Graham Dawson’s overview on his site here.
Posted By Shane Williamson
Apple iPhone now the 4th top ranked mobile device.
According to AdMob’s latest report for September 2008, the Apple iPhone is now #4 in the top 10 handsets worldwide that are hitting their ads in mobile sites & mobile applications.
With 35% of iPhone impressions to Admob mobile sites coming form outside the USA & UK, this shows the massive impact Apple’s expansion to other countries has had with the new 3G iPhone.
Whilst this is but one company’s data on device statistics, Admobs numbers are large enough to give a sizeable impression on what is happening with mobiles that browse sites and use applications that display advertising. Admob’s stats track over 6000 mobile sites and applications.
Another interesting statistic from AdMob is the 2nd largest country with traffic to Admob sites is Indonesia and it is catching up on the US very quickly.
The Admob MobileMetrics Report is here.
Posted By Shane Williamson
Rumours of Microsoft looking to purchase RIM (Blackberry)
Rumours have been abounding on the Internet that Microsoft is looking to purchase Blackberry manufacturer RIM. Whilst the current financial crisis is a bane to many, it looks to be a blessing to others in that dropping share prices of companies are making them affordable targets for takeovers.
If these rumours are true and Microsoft is looking to purchase this company, is this a good move for the software titan? Microsoft has their own mobile operating system called Windows Mobile and they are already working with numerous mobile device manufacturers to propagate it further.
In my opinion the glaring issue with Microsoft’s mobile play is they are not addressing a key fundamental that new players in the industry like Apple are doing well and that is creating a positive user experience. Microsoft has a lot of share holders and to keep them happy they must sell a lot of licenses of their software. Microsoft is geared for mass market plays in selling software, but going for these mass markets can mean they do not address properly how people use mobiles and the operating system within them.
Microsoft must return to basics with their strategy in mobile and recognise that all business users are personal users as well. Users need the ability to personalise their device and that’s not just adding a ring-tone here and a wallpaper there, it’s about having the capability to tailor the device to their usability requirements.
Microsoft’s Windows platform is not famous or pervasive due to the fact that it was released by Microsoft. Windows success is due to the 3rd party developer ecosystem that surrounds the platform. Windows users have an amazing choice in both software and hardware when purchasing a desktop system. This freedom of choice has expanded the Windows platform to be the dominate desktop operating system on the planet to this day. So why isn’t Microsoft doing the same with mobiles?
Microsoft has had a difficult time battling in the mobile arena to date due to only focusing on the business user. Microsoft’s mobile operating play has been to try and replicate some of the features and user interfaces from their desktop environments without taking into consideration that mobile is not just a different environment, its a whole new world.
Mobiles are a personal addition to our lives, they give us freedom and empowerment that we have never experienced before with technology. The cordless access to anyone, or anything, at anytime and in any place, allows us humans to be completely free.
So, whilst Microsoft may or may not be looking at the mass marketability of the Blackberry legacy (and of course one or two patents that they own) in the end the power of mobiles are that people use them, not businesses.
Posted By Shane Williamson
Fixed to Mobile Convergence with the Apple iPhone & Avaya
Renai LeMay over at Zdnet Australia has this post that Avaya has finally announced their one-X Mobile platform integration with the Apple iPhone and it will be available in November this year.
Avaya’s one-X Mobile client enables the corporate iPhone user to do the following….
- Have calls to the deskphone simultaneously ring the iPhone or up to four other devices of the user’s choice, reducing the chance of missing important calls.
- Transfer calls seamlessly between the iPhone and your deskphone.
- Have calls made from a mobile device show the desk phone caller ID, for true one-number portability.
- Manage only one business number and voice mailbox.
- Access a full suite of business telephony features.
- Use an easy graphical user interface.
- Turn on/off business profile as needed.
- Use VIP Lists to allow only key callers to get through, ensuring minimal interruptions during off hours or during critical meetings.
Posted By Shane Williamson
Warning! entering in mobile competitions with Sybase 365 or Mbill
I cannot believe the underhanded tricks that companies such as Sybase 365 and Mbill will go to make a fast buck.
I received my mobile bill last month to find over AUS$20 worth of “received” Premium SMS charges on it. I have 3 Australia (www.three.com.au)mobile account and it has Premium Numbers disabled. The Premium SMS charges were billed as “Sybase365”. I had no recollection as to what these charges were so I contacted 3.
I was initially told by 3 that they could do nothing about the charges. They then gave me a 1300 number for Sybase 365 which was only an automated IVR system and could get through to any support people.
I eventually discovered the company’s head office number 02-9258-9600 and after another IVR finally got through to a person. The Sybase 365 individual took no responsibility for the issues as he claimed that “the charges are not ours but from a partner of theirs called Mbill”. I was told by the Sybase 365 individual that they had already had complaints about them and that they probably wouldn’t call me back, so the person said he’d call them on my behalf. I heard nothing back.
After 1 week of not receiving any return calls from Sybase 365 or Mbill to my requests, I escalated the issue to Hutchison 3G Australia (“3”) who were very responsive to the issue.
I then received a call on my mobile earlier this week from an Mbill support person. This individual was very difficult to understand, but he claimed that I had entered a competition on a web site for an iPhone. I recalled the incident and remembered getting the SMSs, but I had replied STOP to all of them.
In order to prove his point the Mbill support rep sent me via email some Excel spreadsheet logs to prove it was my device and that I had subscribed. Unbelievably their logs show clearly that they sent me a discontinued notice to a STOP response from me (see line 4) and they still sent chargeable emails to my device.
It gets better. Notice how they send 3 Premium SMSs to my devices in a very short interval (lines 8,9,10), which is AUS$15 in 1 minute! So, even before I can reply STOP to the first one I’m already charged for the luxury of receiving their spam.
It gets even better. Notice how they use 2 different premium SMS numbers, so even if you respond with STOP on one, they still SMS on the other number.
Even with this evidence the Mbill support person argued through email that it was still my fault and not Mbills.
Here is an example of some of the difficult to understand emails I received from this support individual….
I don’t even think Google Translator would be able to interpret this……
Eventually with the evidence of Mbill’s log files, 3 Australia agreed to refund me the full amount.
So, I strongly urge everyone not to enter into any mobile or web based competitions by Mbill (mbill.net) as they will Premium SMS you to an early death.
The Australian mobile industry needs to deploy rules and regulations to prevent irresponsible companies such as Sybase 365 and Mbill from getting away with these scams.
Posted By Shane Williamson
Is RIM’s first ever Blackberry developer conference too little, too late?
Looks like Apple has forced the hand of RIM to rethink its mobile platform strategy. RIM has announced the details of its first ever Blackberry Developer Conference to be held in Santa Clara, California in the USA in October this year. Whist it is great to see the mobile device manufacturer take their developer program to the next level, one has to wonder if they are trying to fight a battle that they could already be losing.
Blackberry devices have been in the market for over 10 years so it is surprising that this is its first ever developer conference. Whilst many argue that they have single handedly taken mobile email technologies backwards due to the simplistic service they deliver, the 12 million plus users worldwide with Blackberry devices are a strong driver for many mobile developers to build for their devices.
With new contenders like the Apple iPhone rocking the mobile developer landscape, it’s getting very crowded and difficult for mobile developers to focus on only one or two mobile development platforms. Hopefully at this conference RIM will be changing their development model for their devices and start to show mobile developers a reason to hang around and not get swept away by the new entrants into the game.
Device manufacturers like RIM need to start thinking outside the box in how 3rd party companies develop for their devices. They need to start looking at creating hybrid development platforms that integrate both the device operating system and the network together to create a seamless service for customers. This gives telcos a huge opportunity here to develop a Telco-As-A-Service model to leverage their massive investments in carrier technologies so that mobile developers can take advantage of them to enhance their products and services.
Blackberry developer conference (20-22 October 2008) – http://www.blackberrydeveloperconference.com/
Posted By Shane Williamson
Nokia releases Version 30.0.015 firmware update for the N95!
Nice to see the Nokia N95 is still being remembered by its N-Series creators by receiving a new firmware update!
Included in this update…..
- Nokia Maps 2.0 built-in
- Full N-Gage client
- Nokia Search 4.0 with Google plug-in
- Share online 3.0
- Enablers for Comes With Music
- Download! application updated (v 3.1.50)
- Upgrade to Music Player
- Update for Flash Lite 3
- New baseline for VoIP (with error corrections)
- Autorotate
- Added 5th theme
I’ve been running the new firmware for 2 days now without any problems and it does seem to be a bit faster, but that could be due to the fact that I haven’t reinstalled everything yet.
Great to finally see the display auto-rotate feature finally going native in the operating system too.
For more details click on "Update Phone Software" – Don’t for get to backup first! 🙂
Posted By Shane Williamson
The powerful influence of the humble cameraphone
The cameraphone today is more prolific than both standard and digital cameras added together. The cameraphone is changing the way people produce and interact with media on a global scale. Even with lower megapixel versions of these devices people are happy to use their cameraphone in place of a higher resolution stand alone camera to snap up pictures and videos of friends and family.
Adding complexity to this growing phenomenon is the way people are now sharing their personal experiences in picture and film to anyone via the plethora of web 2.0 platforms that make it easy to publish them. Even the concept of "life streaming" whereby people can Twitter, Blog, Podcast or Vodcast their daily perambulations into other people’s lives is more prevalent now, all due to the pervasive cameraphone.
Telecom TV have this interesting video on how much the humble cameraphone is changing the way we use and produce digital media on a daily basis.
Posted By Shane Williamson
it’s raining mobile application stores!
Just when you thought you’d missed out on getting your very own censored mobile application store because you were one of those that choose not to purchase a new shiny (ok so the new ones aren’t that shiny) iPhone, both Microsoft and Google are flocking to your proprietary mobile operating system to give you lovely gooey mobile apps.
Microsoft accidentally announced their new Windows mobile application store called “Skymarket” by advertising for someone to sell it recently. Google is also building their own mobile app store for their upcoming mobile operating system Android called “Android market”
Both of these are “finger in the dyke” plays to try and prevent the flooding departure of mobile developers that are leaping head long to the Apple iPhone like a school of krill being enveloped within a whale’s circling bubble net from the depths.
Hopefully the business models for the new application stores are more favourable for mobile developers than the Apple iPhone apps store in providing fairer revenue returns.
Posted By Shane Williamson
Google Chrome – Browser wars version 2?
News is spreading around the web that later today Google will be releasing a new Internet browser called “Chrome” to battle it out against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox.
Google’s Blog announced yesterday that they had “hit send a little bit early” in distributing a comic book depicting information about Google Chrome and why they are releasing a new open source browser.
The comic book is now publicly available here and talks about how the web has evolved dramatically since the first web browsers appeared and that they think it is time to create a new Internet browser from scratch. Whilst the comic goes into a lot of technical detail as to why build a new Internet browser, it does reveal some of the powerful testing capabilities they have at their disposal such as utilising “chrome bots” to test millions of Internet web pages to gather information that would otherwise require a large beta group with a long period of time to complete.
Google is releasing the Windows version later today but promises that a Linux and Mac version to follow soon after.
This is just the beginning — Google Chrome is far from done. We’re releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We’re hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.
Watch this space….. http://www.google.com/chrome
Posted By Shane Williamson
Universal Convergence 