Results tagged “Mobile phones” from The Hardware is Not Enough

Virgin Mobile user? Own a Palm Pilot with Bluetooth? Want to access the Internet on your Palm OS device? Annoyed by this?

Don't worry. There is a way to get everything working.

For all the hype over VoIP and how it's going to revolutionise telecoms, actually evidence of this has been short on the ground. It's all very well saying VoIP gives you the option of a single number that gives you access to free Internet calls, no matter whether you're at your PC, by your landline or using a mobile. But unless there's a way to actually do this, it's all so much theory.

The announcement by 3 yesterday that it's going to bundle Skype with its mobile Internet service is probably the first indication that the VoIP stirrings are now something more than hype. The pricing of the service is going to be the main factor in its success. 3's network tariffs aren't exactly the cheapest and adding on additional Internet access charges is going to be a turn-off for infrequent users. But for those that intend to use Skype as their main calling system - and who intend to use it a lot – it could certainly be a big costsaver and convenience.

Much as regulation is a dirty word in most free markets, I actually welcome the news that the EU is to try to pass a law forcing mobile phone operators to drop their roaming charges to sensible levels. It really is just stupidly expensive to call from abroad using a mobile phone - far more than it could ever cost the operators. God bless the EU.

Netgear has a mobile phone planned that will use Skype and WiFi networks to make phone calls. Looks promising. As always, the $64,000 question is: will it sync with a Mac?

Maybe I'm getting old but this doesn't sound very cool to me:

On Tuesday 24 January, Immersion, Orange and Samsung will jointly launch the FIRST VibeTonz-enabled phone available in Europe. Destined to be the next iPod-cool consumer gadget, the VibeTonz phone is THE next big thing in mobile.

Why is VibeTonz so hot?

VibeTonz is a unique technology that embeds a huge range of 'vibro-tactile' sensations into the mobile handset. This enables:

- Mobile gamers to accurately feel the recoil of gunshots, the jolt of punches and the acceleration of cars
- Mobile messaging to be personalised with vibration-based heartbeats, growls and hugs
- Ringtones that give users the physical sensation of drum breaks and basslines
- A touch sensation that alerts the user as soon as a call is dropped due to reception problems

Actually, it sounds pretty rubbish to me. I'm sure it'll make its way into phones in future, but will people really buy a phone on the strength that it “vibrates a bit better”? What do you think?

Technorati Tags: mobile phones, vibetonz

The Register reports that Apple has pulled iRingTones, a proposed feature of iLife 06, after being pressured by network providers.

This is mixed news. On the one hand, it sounds like it would have been a cool feature. Plus anything to stick it to those avaricious, customer-unfriendly network providers is good in my book.

But on the other hand, it would have allowed people to create their own ringtones more easily. It's bad enough people downloading their own ringtones from providers already. At least they've been put together by people with an ounce of musical ability, if not taste. But people mixing their own tones? Oh dear God, no.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Macs, ringtones

True, they won't be getting the full 1Gbps speeds promised for 4G, but by combining WiFi, 3G and GPRS, they will at least get the pervasive networking side of things covered.

Technorati Tags: Orange, WiFi, mobile phones

It doesn't look like it's going to materialise soon, but an update to Entourage that will work with OS X 10.4's SyncServices is on the way.

Why's that important? Because SyncServices enables a program to synchronise its data with OS X's Address Book, .Mac, mobile phones and other devices. Enable SyncServices in Entourage and Entourage data will pop up on your phone every time you sync it, without any extra effort.

Want some evidence? How about this from the Sync Services Mailing List (yes, I subscribe):

From: Jud Spencer
I'm new to the sync services game. I essentially started with 10.4.3. I have
found that in a case where you are pushing a subset of entities related to a
parent, that you need to provide the ID's of all the sub-entities in the
parent, not just the ones that are being pushed. What we are doing in our
app is keeping track of the entities when we have a schema incompatibility,
and then pushing them on any update. For example, our app only supports two
addresses. When we pull a record with more than two, we keep track of the
ids of the ones that we accepted but didn't write to our database.

A PIM that only supports two addresses? Entourage, no?

Not convinced? Okay, the secret knowledge you need is that Jud Spencer is a Microsoft employee and one of the developers of Claris EMailer. He later joined Microsoft where he co-developed the Mac version of Outlook Express, which became the basis of Entourage.

Worryingly, Spencer says that he's only just started on the Sync Services update with 10.4.3. Microsoft had previously claimed that it had been unable to include SyncServices support in its most recent update to Entourage because of bugs in SyncServices that Apple would need to fix. There are plenty of bugs in SyncServices, but if Spencer's only just started work, how would Microsoft know about them? We could always assume that Spencer's late in coming to the SyncServices team but if 10.4.3 fixes the bugs, surely it's just a matter of testing the update against 10.4.3, rather than new development?

Anyway, by the looks of it, it's going to be at least the New Year before the update becomes available. But there's hope. Real hope.

Technorati Tags: Entourage, Macs, Microsoft, PDAs, SyncServices

Updates and related entries
January 12, 2006: The apparent slowness of Microsoft to address bugs, add new features and develop apps in its Mac apps is probably due to the scaling back of the MacBU.

The Nokia 6630 is slowly starting to annoy me.

I did not have a good time with it in Las Vegas for one thing.

• It has a glacial network acquisition time in the US, taking nearly a minute to locate a local network.
• It couldn't send text messages, although everyone on Orange had the same problem so I'm willing to cut it some slack in that regard.

There are other problems:

• It feels stubby in my giant's hands and it's difficult to hear things with its tiny loudspeaker.
• Sometimes it'll disconnect from the network and claim the SIM couldn't be registered
• Bluetooth connections can be difficult to establish

Basically, I'm now eyeing that nice new Motorola RAZR V3i and thinking “Hmmm...”

Technorati Tags: Nokia 6630, Orange

Updates and related entries
June 14, 2006: It wasn't £35 - it was £20 to get my phone unlocked. Thanks to the helpful people who pointed out that there are plenty of free ways to unlock the phone that are available on the Internet. Unfortunately, I...

After a couple of months with a Nokia 6630, I feel ready to report back my findings.

On the whole, it's a nice, compact phone with a good range of functions. It's a little temperamental, prone to the occasional crash mid-call and I've had it disconnect from my Bluetooth headset mid-conversation a couple of times, but it's pretty good otherwise.

On the usability side, the constant reminder I haven't read all my emails is annoying (like I'd download and read all of them on my phone!) and it's a little too easy to turn off by accident. Certain functions are a little hard to find as well, and I'm disgusted to find out its dictionary includes 'l8r' and other text message garbage.

It does, however, work very well with iSync, which is a great boon, and its security features fill me with joy after the great Spanish gypsy robbery.

So on the whole, pretty good.

Updates and related entries
June 14, 2006: It wasn't £35 - it was £20 to get my phone unlocked. Thanks to the helpful people who pointed out that there are plenty of free ways to unlock the phone that are available on the Internet. Unfortunately, I...