Broadcasting your life with Nokia viNe

Nokia announced viNe sometime ago. Someone could call it as a modified SportsTracker that gives you the opportunity to share the route you have traveled, pictures and videos you have taken, or songs you have listened. ViNe records your journey using GPS when it is available. If it is not available, viNe will connect last and current position with the shortest possible line.

1. Starting point.

2. ViNe saves the music you've listened and pictures and videos you've taken.

3. After you've accomplished your route, you can add tags to your viNe.

I'm not sure what one should call it, in a way it is a modified SportsTracker but it is also a subset of SportsTracker because the application doesn't offer as much training information as SportsTracker. Maybe viNe is a SportsTracker for an everyday user who is not interested in all the possible training information? You cannot for example specify type of workout and see as much information about your journey/training but the upload is much more convenient and you can add tags. ViNe shares your information to everyone and you cannot restrict this in any way. In SportsTracker you were able to restrict your audience. I think this is something that some users will not like.

Few other differences between SportsTracker and viNe are that in viNe you are able to move in the map. It doesn't utilize the map information that Maps is using but it caches the map information so it works quite fine. When you are viNing, you cannot see any details of your route, e.g. distance and speed that you can see when you are using SportsTracker.

When you upload your viNe it will go to two different places, to viNe and to SportsTracker. ViNe will also replace your SportsTracker user ID with Nokia Account user ID. This means that you will get rid of one useless user ID. ViNe probably tells you about this, but I didn't notice this and had some difficulties accessing SportsTracker before I realized that my user ID had changed. I think that this was a really good idea from Nokia. I hope this trend continues because nobody likes too many user IDs.

4. Your viNes are published to viNe -service.

5. Same time your viNes are published to SportsTracker -service.

I don't know what is the main idea behing viNe, and I haven't seen any discussion about this, although I haven't been searching so much. One idea that came to my mind is that Nokia tries to use social networks for modeling the world's most interesting places. This would be different approach than Google's Drive. Do you have any other ideas?

I first thought that viNe would have been introduced through Nokia Beta Labs like SportsTracker, but apparently Nokia thinks it is a finalized product. I would like to disagree with this because at least I have had some difficulties with it, e.g. it crashes quite often with my N96. I just updated my N96 to version 12.043. I hope viNe works better with this new software version.

Here is a list of bugs and some features I would like to see in the future:

• It tags only the first songs name and artist. (See picture 3.)
• Sometimes it tags city (Helsinki) but not always. It could also tag parts of the city like Punavuori, Ullanlinna and Kamppi.
• It could show album art of the listened music.

6. Album art is not shown.

• ViNe's internet service's search should work better. At the moment it is difficult to find anything or anybody.
• Could there be a way of following your friends?
• Could there be a possibility to restrict your audience?
• Could there be a possiblity to buy music that someone else has been listening in their viNes'?
• ViNe should automatically upload pictures and videos to Share on Ovi.
• Embedded widget could show only desired viNes, e.g. your own or your friends. Usually there are desired audience you want to share information with or follow.

7. Embedded viNe widget shows all the viNes.

• Could viNe be combined with FriendView? You could see where your friend has been or is at the moment?
• Could viNe updates be offered in RSS format?
• Could you send your viNe to some of your friend, e.g. "look at my cool journey"? This could be also available in mobile format.
• Could you provide more information during viNing, e.g. distance?
• Could viNe show a dotted line in saved journey when GPS hasn't been available?
• Could viNe use either cellular or WiFi positioning when GPS is not available?
• Is Nokia doing any co-operation with different heart rate monitoring companies, e.g. Polar or Suunto? This kind of co-operation would provide all the necessary information that you need when working out.

All in all this application seems interesting and I think I'll continue using both viNe and SportsTracker. You have to remember that viNe and SportsTracker are almost identical; viNe is basically a SportsTracker with a facelift. If you want to follow my viNes, search for teppoj.

AppStore vs. Download! - The good, the bad and the ugly

I'm not a great Apple fan, but I must say that I admire how they have been able to change people's way of using different mobile applications. There is a wide range of different mobile applications for S60 and other mobile devices, but still the usage is relatively low if you compare it with applications available for iPhone or iTouch. Kai Öistämö from Nokia mentioned in Symbian Smartphone Show that there are around 10.000 applications for S60. This is quite a big number of applications but the truth is that without a proper distribution channel and easy enough installation method nobody will use these applications.

Apple on the other hand have managed to introduce 10.000 applications through AppStore in a relatively short time. If I remember correctly AppStore was opened on around June 2008 which means 10.000 applications in less than 6 months. 148apps.com have created a tribute page which shows all the applications available in AppStore.

I listed some of the good, bad and ugly in Apple's and Nokia's way of offering applications and installing them. After these lists, there are multiple screenshots illustrating the user experience of finding and installing an application.

AppStore

The good (positive):

• Offers wide range of applications.


• Search works really well. This is important when you have lots of applications.


• Fast. iPhone doesn't ask too many questions when using AppStore.


• Really easy to use. Just browse to an application that you like, click install and installation process starts.


• Updates. AppStore informs the user about possible updates.


• Easy payment process. Uses iTunes payment methods.

The bad (negative):

• The only place for finding applications.


• Applications don't have a test period, at least I haven't noticed this.


• iTunes id is needed for installing even free applications.


• iTunes is the only payment method.

The ugly (improvements and thoughts):

• Suggestions. AppStore could suggest applications that other users have installed, just like e.g. Amazon.com. AppStore through iTunes does this.


• What happens to compatibility if Apple introduces more devices?

Download!

The good (positive):

• Not the only place for finding applications because you can find applications anywhere from the Internet.


• Most of the applications offer trial period possibilities.


• You can use any credit card for paying.

The bad (negative):

• Only limited number of applications.


• Search doesn't work well enough.


• Somebody can find it difficult to use because device asks quite many questions, e.g. used internet connection and where to install the application.


• Relatively slow when updating content in different folders.

The ugly (improvements and thoughts):

• Usability should be much better.


• Updating different folders should be more seamless, not asking question from the user all the time.


• Number of available applications should be much higher.

Screenshots of installing an application from the AppStore:

1. You can find AppStore from the main menu. AppStore also informs the user about possible updates (red 1 in AppStore's top-right corner).


2. AppStore advertises recent applications.


3. Applications are divided to Paid and Free sections.


4. There is also an application Top list.


5. Searching for Facebook application.


6. Search results.


7. More information about the application.


8. Free button toggles to Install button when you press it. After pressing Install, the installation starts.


9. You need to use iTunes' credentials to be able to install applications.


10. Installation process ongoing.


11. Installation finished. You can find installed application from the main menu.

Screenshots of installing an application from Download!:

1. You'll find Download! from the main menu.


2. Download! asks used connection really often, although phone should be able to choose desired connection.


3. Search possibilities after choosing Options - Search and about to search Facebook -application.


4. One search result but it is not shown on the first page.


5. You have to scroll down to see all the results.


6. The search result.


7. After choosing Details - Get, phone shows information about the application.


8. Choosing where to install the application.


9. After installation application can be found from Applications folder.


10. Most of the applications have trial possibilities like ForecaWeather.


11. You can also use multiple credit cards for paying.

First impressions on Ovi Suite - no thanks

I thought that I'll explore Nokia's relatively new Ovi Suite and start using it with my Nokia N96. After all Ovi Suite should be designed for NSeries phones. How wrong could I have been?

I'm not going to go through all the features Ovi Suite has because it has lots of those. Maybe best way of describing Ovi Suite is to say: "Ovi Suite tries to be your 'home entertainment center' that has everything, from music to maps and from videos to software updater and phone backups."

My first impression was that it is just a big mess and it is difficult to find or do anything. I don't know the reason for this because, for example, I think Nokia's phones, especially S60 phones are easy to use and I can find all the features easily. If I compare Ovi Suite to iTunes, iTunes was much easier to use in the beginning. I think the reason for this is a little similar to the fact some say that iPhone is much easier to use than S60 phones. After all with only few features it is easy to make usable product. This is a really big challenge for Nokia because they want to do all the possible things with their Ovi concept.

I have to be honest and say that I haven't used Ovi Suite enough to make a final decision, but it didn't impress me in the beginning. I'm for example getting "runtime error" when I've chosen "Yes, show me what's new" and try to resize the window.

This is something that you shouldn't get in this kind of product.

I'm a big fan of PC Suite and use it daily at work for synchronising calendar and contacts and sending SMSs using my PC. It seems that Ovi Suite is missing all these features; at least I didn't find them.

If I understood correctly, Nokia remade everything from scratch when they created Ovi Suite, and might eventually stop supporting PC Suite. I would like to say that this will not happen any time soon.

I think I'll try to reserve some time on weekend and explore Ovi Suite more, maybe my thoughts will change...

Should you be scared of mobile viruses?

I attended to a quite big party recently and noticed that someone was trying to send me something via bluetooth. As you can guess, it was a mobile virus.

I did two things that you should never do. Firstly I had switched on bluetooth and secondly I answered yes to every possible question. I received a virus to my phone, but it refused to install. The reason for this was platform diverseness. Virus was from a S60 2nd edition phone and my phone (N96) was 3rd edition Feature Pack 2.

Now you might ask why did I do these things? The reason for this is work. I'm working with different kind of technologies and security is also part of it. The second reason is that I'm just interested in these things.

To answer the question in the title, I would say "No, not yet". There are a few mobile viruses, but at the moment there isn't any business case for virus writers / criminals. I have received a virus via bluetooth 5 times in 3 years or so. Here is a simple list how to avoid mobile viruses:

1. Switch off bluetooth. Bluetooth is a really common way to distribute viruses because usually operators filter viruses that are included in MMSes.


2. Don't install any programs if you haven't initiated the installation process. Viruses don't install themselves, usually the user needs to answer "yes" multiple times. It is also good to remember that cracked software can contain viruses, so don't use cracked software.


3. Don't give your phone to anyone you don't trust. At the moment there are some keyloggers for phones and software that records your phone calls, but if you don't allow anyone to install these, you are safe.


4. Install Anti-Virus software. If you want to be 100-percent sure, install Anti-Virus software. They work pretty well nowadays and don't slow down other processes in your phone.

Some thoughts from Symbian Smartphone Show 2008

I had the opportunity to participate to Symbian Smartphone Show 2008 for the first time. It was work-related so I spent quite much time on S60's stand but still had free time for exploring the rest of the area. Now someone can ask why a Nordea employee would spend time on S60's stand? I'll answer to this question after a while.

I'm not going to give you a full coverage of the conference, just some miscellaneous thoughts:

I know that you've heard this before but Symbian is going open source. It will be interesting to see how this will affect Symbian development, smartphone market share and number of services.

User experience was seen extremely important. This is really good news, users are not interested in technology (well, some are), they want useful services.

Different kinds of widgets were popular topic. There are a number of companies that offer a widget platform, e.g. Microsoft, Apple, Nokia and Opera. MS and Apple weren't in the conference but they are also supporting widgets. It is interesting to see if widgets will keep their original purpose? I would say that companies will misuse widgets by thinking that it is the main thing now and everything users want is widgets. This shouldn't be the case, widgets are "small services" that provide you important information, not everything. A good example would be a financial widget that provides basic stock information, and when you want to sell or buy stock you are following you would open your desktop or mobile browser.

Be proactive, not reactive. Mobile users don't have multiple browser windows open for checking if something has happened. This why it is important to tell the user if there has happened something important. If I had to advertise Nordea's proactive products, I would mention account alert.

Nokia's Kai Öistämö mentioned in his keynote that Nokia offers an innovative platform to developers and they are not disdaining anyone. He actually mentioned Apple a few times and how they are behaving toward developers. I believe this kind of approach is really interesting and most probably there are lots of discussions internally when some service is competing with Nokia's own service. On the other hand, this keeps everyone awake and improving their services.

During the conference it was also mentioned that "Qt is going Symbian". Qt will be supported in S60 starting from S60 3rd edition Feature Pack 1. Qt offers real cross-platform support. Read benefits of Qt.

Overall Symbian Smartphone Show was worth participating and I can really recommend it to anyone who is working with / interested in Symbian / smartphones.

Ovi - door to success?

I bet you've heard about Nokia's Ovi, but do you really know what is it about? If you know what it is about, do you know how Nokia will make money out of it?

The reason for these two questions is that one of my friends asked me recently: "That Nokia's Ovi, what is it? I would like to use it, but I don't know how and I don't know what I could do there." I explained to him shortly that Ovi is a place for accessing Nokia's different services. You can find maps, music, games, share pictures there and upload calendar, contacts and files. To be honest, this was a kind of lousy explanation. After this I started thinking a little more about Ovi.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Nokia's general idea is to offer a service where you find everything you need and you can access it with any device (pc, mac or phone). Maybe it could be described in a few words as "personalised multi-channel portal"? Personally I think that if something cannot be explained in a few sentences, it won't be a success among users.

This "personalised multi-channel portal" looks quite nice and if you synchronise your phone with Ovi, it can be an useful service.



I tried it once, just to check it out how it works with generic data and stopped using it. Reason for this is that I've have company confidential information in my phone and I really don't want to share it. I know Ovi should be safe, but still I don't want to take that risk. I believe this is a quite big question / threat for IT departments because syncrhonising is really easy.

I'm not saying that Ovi concept wouldn't become a success, but I must say there are still lots of work to be done. I've listed some of things that need to be improved before success.

1. Too many user IDs and passwords. At the moment there isn't any general user ID and password for Ovi services, because it builds up from different services. Users won't use a service which need own credentials for Ovi (synchronisation), music, sharing pictures and games.


2. Integration. Basically same as above, all services must be seamlessly integrated before it is usable. If I use a portal, I want to be able to use all services easily and smoothly.


3. Common user-interface. I believe that a portal should have common user-interface because otherwise the usage of different services will be much more difficult.


4. Logic. A service must be logical to use. I was really surprised when I went to Ovi.com, clicked Sign In and saw a page saying "contacts & calendar". My first thoughts were: "What did I do? I don't want to sign in to contacts & calendar, I want to sign in to Ovi".
5. Useful services. Ask yourself why would someone create credentials and start using this service daily and suggest it to his/her friends? When Ovi is "fully personalised multi-channel portal", I believe this is possible.

Don't get me wrong, there are also good features already existing, for example easy syncrhonisation and your content from your Share on Ovi comes automatically to your Ovi portal. Atleast I don't remember giving any Share on Ovi credentials to Ovi, probably sharing is done by checking e-mail addresses.

A more difficult question is: "How Nokia will make money out of this?" If I would need to guess, I would mention three different approaches:

1. Offer first free services, then start charging. This seems to be the case in the Maps for example. Most of the new handsets have a free license for a year, after this the user needs to purchase a license.


2. Offer first free services, then start charging small amounts. Almost like previous, but with smaller amounts of money, e.g. a few euros (even cents?) per month.


3. Bundle the price to handset. Nokia is trying this with Comes with Music and everyone is waiting for the results.

I suggest that you check Ovi out yourself and make your own decisions. So, go to Ovi with your desktop or mobile browser and explore it.

Having fun with 2D barcodes before NFC arrives

I had some sparetime and thought to check out what one could do with 2D barcodes. The main idea is that when you see a 2D barcode you point your smartphone's camera to it and hold it there for a while. After this, something happens. This something depends on the content of the 2D barcode. It can be either a link, a phone number, an e-mail address or a business card. If you try the code below, you'll notice that it contains my work information (first name, last name, phone number, e-mail address).


In addition to camera phone, you also need barcode reader software. Some Nokia phones have the reader pre-installed but there are also numerous 3rd party softwares. For more information about 2D barcodes, you can check Nokia's site. You'll find also a tool for creating your own 2D barcodes.

I didn't do anything special with these codes, I just added barcode to back of my business card using a sticker paper which I found from my workplace.



Although 2D barcodes aren't too easy to use, they have some clear benefits: they are free to create and you can put them basically anywhere. I've seen them recently even in newspapers in some municipal elections ad.

With these two benefits, you would have the possibility to tackle the traditional chicken and egg problem. You can just add 2D barcodes anywhere and this way get more users, probably relatively slow, but still. With numerous 2D barcodes on the wild, I believe there would be more and more 2D barcode readers pre-installed in phones.

When users have learnt to "point-and-click" using 2D barcodes, transformation to NFC will be much easier. NFC is much more user-friendly than 2D barcode because you don't need to have an additional reader software installed and turned on. NFC is also much faster, "swiping" is usually enough for activating the session.

NFC has all the same use cases than 2D barcode plus a few more. You can pair devices, initiate proximity payments and exchange information between devices with it. Unfortunately NFC is not yet available widely but there are some different kinds of pilots around the world. Nokia is bringing their first NFC-capable phone, Nokia 6212 Classic, to the markets soon. (Yes, there is also Nokia 6131 NFC, but it hasn't hit the mass markets.)

So before NFC comes, you can play with 2D barcodes in the meantime. How would you utilise these 2D barcodes? What is the most weirdest place you've seen these?

No more backups when updating - FOTA saves you

You've been able to update your S60 phone by yourself for a while, but the problem has been that you've first needed to backup your phone, then use Software Update and then restore your phone. This procedure has taken quite long, usually tens of minutes, if not hours.

Luckily there is a salvation near your. Just check if your phone has FOTA (Firmware Over The Air) feature. Some SonyEricssons have been having this possibility for some time, and now it has also come to Nokia phones. In Nokia phones, you can check this by entering *#0000# and choosing Options - Check for updates.



After choosing desired internet connection, (use WiFi if you need to be careful with your phone bill) download starts.







Phone suggests that you back it up before updating. I had to do this, mostly because I participated to a christening today (congrats to Juha, Njeri and Andre!) and there were some photos I didn't want to lose. After you have finished backing your phone up, you'll find update option from Device Manager.











Update process itself took something like 5-7 minutes. During this time the phone was unusable and there was a status bar showing the update status.

After the update the phone started normally and you had to enter your PIN code and lock code if you are using one.



I must say I was really positively suprised about the whole process. Everything went really smoothly and the phone had all the content that it had before the update. This way is much, much more convenient than using Software Update. I recommend you to try this out!!

MobileMonday - Crowdsourcing and ambient awareness

MobileMonday had an interesting topic: Social and Mobile. Here are some points / thoughts from Monday's event.

A company can use its customers for innovating but it doesn't need to stop there. It can use its customers in any process when creating a service / product. Two companies that were mentioned few times were Lego and Cisco. These companies have used social innovation successfully.

Most of the companies are not using social innovations because of their cultural background, not because they would be missing the tools. Companies, in spite of being big or small, should try things out more openly.

Crowdsourcing is coming / already here. The main idea is that individuals all over the world are connected and are doing small things to help someone. Few examples could be social journalism or publishing photos that others can use. The interesting part was that money is not the only motivation, but there are lots of other reasons, e.g. you get to be innovative and because it is fun.

It was also mentioned that mobile will be a really important channel in crowdsourcing, but not the only one. Mobile can be used for example initiating something and then finalizing the task in other channel / media.

Yahoo is providing a number of applications / services that help to produce ambient awareness. One example of this kind of service is OneConnect. The main idea is to aggregate needed information (e.g. phonebook and different social networks) and provide it to the user. This way user can publish content once, use multiple times. This would mean that phonebook would turn out to be proactive. You wouldn't need to call someone to ask where he was or what he was doing.

Marc Davis from Yahoo was also telling about Blueprint that should give a service provider opportunity to support multiple devices/platforms when they are developing services. He didn't go into details but mentioned that same content could be used in J2ME, S60, and different browsers.

Yahoo thinks that they can make money when users have more shared and more accurate data. This data is then being utilized for advertising. With a lots of data, advertising can be much more accurate and people are willing to pay for it.

When I was walking home from MobileMonday these things were in my mind:

1. Social innovations would be worth trying out because that way you can get more brains working on the same issue. When the crowd grows, usually also the diversity grows and this brings good ideas and results.


2. OneConnect seems interesting because I know that I'm not the only one who has real difficulties using multiple social networks. It would be really nice to connect my phonebook with all the relevant social information from the Web.


3. Blueprint also sounds interesting, but will this really work? This is not the first time when I hear someone telling about "multi-channel". Usually it ends up being just a "channel".

Home Media - empty promises or useful software?

"Home Media connects you wirelessly to your home network's media files. All you need is a compatible Nokia Nseries multimedia computer, a wireless network solution and a compatible PC or a supported UPnP/DLNA media renderer or server, such as a television, home stereo system or a gaming console." (http://europe.nokia.com/A41123203)

I've read about Home Media sometime ago and to be honest my two first thoughts were a) it probably won't work, at least not easily b) luckily I don't have compatible phone.

Time went by and I got more and more curious, especially after getting a Nokia N96. So what did I do? I tried it out, of course.

Part I / Installation:

1. Downloaded and installed SimpleCenter to MS Vista.


2. Clicked OK couple of times until SC wanted me to register. I really wonder why this software required registering? Well, I registered which was simple task as long as you find proper username that is not taken.


3. After installation HMS wanted to add the media from my computer. I just clicked OK-OK-...OK. Then I realized that HMS is about to add all our pictures, roughly 3000. Then everything stopped. No response, nothing at all. I had to kill the adding process and still my 2 cores are going at 100%. What about restarting the computer?


4. After restarting the computer and double-clicking Home Media Server, it opened normally and finished adding files.
   

I believe now it is time to connect N96 to Home Media Server. Let's try it.


5. Found Home Media from Menu - Tools - Connectivity - Home Media and opened it.


6. Wizard started and after 9 OKs and some other clicks (device name, accesspoint, shared content, etc.) it finished.


7. Does everything work now? No, it seems that I need to add device to Home Media Server by choosing Devices - Add device - Refresh and choose your phone. (N96's icon was N80 but maybe I can live with it. :)
   

Now I can see N96's content from Home Media Server but I cannot see Vista's files from N96. Maybe Vista's firewall is blocking the requests... No it didn't, it was just taking a while. Now I can see Home Media Server's content from N96.



Part II / Using HMS:

So, what you can do with this HMS? Let's check it out.

OK, most probably everyone knows that you can transfer pictures, videos, podcasts etc. easily from your phone to your computer or vice versa. Actually this is really easy, basically just click and the magic happens. One of the problems is that when I've been using PC Suite for transferring music, PC Suite had made another copy of each song and now HMS shows all these files. Probably this could be handled in Settings or then stop converting mp3's to AAC+, there are enough space in N96.

There are some other "flaws" like that you can see your music what you are about to transfer only by song title but luckily you can see more information using your phone. With a quick look, it seems that it is easier to transfer data from a computer to your phone by using your phone, but I'll find out about this after I've been using HMS for a while.





So you can easily transfer content between your two devices and you can also use your phone as a remote control for playing music, videos, etc. on your computer.

You can also define that pictures are automatically transferred from your phone to your computer when you come home. Now you won't lose your pictures so easily.

This means bye bye PC Suite and bye bye slow bluetooth connections when transferring files/music. Well, probably these aren't final good byes because standard HMS cannot convert files, e.g. movies to phone compatible form. There are also a premium version which has more features.

HMS really stands up to the exceptations and is worth trying out. It doesn't solve every problem but makes life again little easier, especially when transferring large files or multiple files where bluetooth/cable is slow. It won't replace PC Suite for good, because with PC Suite you can handle your PIM data.

Most probably you'll see another post about HMS after I've been using it for a while.

Quick thoughts about mobile marketing

You might have seen this talked quite widely:

“Timberland pays $7m to settle SMS spam lawsuit
Outdoor gear firm Timberland has agreed to pay $7m to settle a text message spam class-action lawsuit in the US.”
(via The Register)

Of course it is really important not to use SMSs for spamming because people are usually quite cautious when it comes to SMS marketing. You don’t want to spoil good opportunities by spamming.

The reason why this article came to my mind is that I received marketing SMS from a Finnish IT training house. I believe I have given my number to them because I’ve taken a course or two in their premises. The thing that “hurt” me was that they were advertising mobile stuff and there was also a link. The link took to normal web page which size was over 1.2 MB.

What’s the point? If you are advertising mobile stuff using SMSs, you should also make sure you are directing the reader to mobile compatible page. Remember also not to copy existing techniques. What works in Internet, it might not work in mobile environment.

The whats and whatnots of iPhone 3G

Ok, so let’s get to business after introductions.

I chose to list Apple iPhone 3G’s pros and cons. Of course the major hype is now gone, but this might still be quite interesting. I made this list first in Finnish and “published” it in my Facebook page on July 2008 because few of my friends were interested in hearing my thoughts about iPhone. So here it is, with some modifications and with more detailed explanations. Enjoy!

In one sentence “I wouldn’t call this a smartphone, but rather a constrained entertainment device.”

General:
+ Touch screen with multi-touch.
+ Small eye-candy effects, e.g. in Maps's settings you can see through the map.
+ Display size
+ General appearance
+ Keylock mechanism. Just press a button and keys are locked and screen is turned off.
+ Usage of WLAN/WiFi made really simple. Once you've added WiFi details, iPhone will automatically choose the right connection, e.g. just added WiFi.
+ USB charging
+ Battery is quite ok. I wouldn't complain any almost smartphone's / smartphone's battery life because you are doing dozens of things at the same time (browsing, listening to music, navigating, writing SMS,... You got my point, right?)
+ Speakers. Ok quality to use as a boom box. Well not maybe boom box, but you are able to listen music in park with your friends.
- Display doesn’t rotate (go to landspace mode) in every application.
- Silence mode button. It goes on/off even if keylock is on.
- Only 2 profiles (normal and silence).
- There isn’t volume control in hands-free or way to answer an incoming call.
- iTunes dependencies. This makes it difficult to use in corporates because I could guess that iTunes is something you don’t want to / can't install.
- Difficult to change used internet connection, e.g. when you are browsing and want to change to some other connection.
- There are capital letters in virtual keypad although outcome is small letters.
- You have to active Caps lock from the settings to get it working normally.
- Special characters, even dot (.) and comma (,) are behind some keys.
- Predictive text doesn’t work properly. I used to accept suggested words although I wasn’t planning this. Prediction of compound words doesn’t work. Finnish language is full of compound words.
- You cannot use iPhone as a modem.
- Multitasking is slow or even impossible if you are using 3rd party applications. You cannot use multitask with 3rd party softwares because they are closed when you change from application to another.
- Crashing, even quite seriously and you couldn’t take battery off (unlike in most of the phones) but you just had to wait and hope. You can also try to press the menu button (basically the only button) long to restart iPhone.
- Expandability, you have to rely on current features.
- Doesn’t show any calendar etc information in Idle screen.

Text:
+ Discussion form.
- You cannot rotate the display. Writing of SMSs would be much easier with rotated screen. You can try this when you are browsing in landscape mode and write some address.
- You cannot send group messages.
- No MMSs.
- You don’t receive calendar invitations that are sent from S60 phone.
- You cannot forward a SMS.

Calendar:
- You cannot send calendar invitations.
- You cannot receive calendar invitations.
- You cannot enter a meeting that lasts less than a minute, e.g. from 9.00-9.00. I used to use this in S60 phone when I wanted to make a simple reminder that is not synchronized.

Photos:
+ Picture scrolling, zooming and showing. Slide your finder from left to right and the pictures will roll nicely.
- You cannot mark multiple pictures and remove them at once. You have to remove them one by one.

Camera:
+/- Camera and flash could be a little better.

YouTube:
+ Easy to use
+ Identifies used network speed and chooses the video quality according to this. In a way this is con because you cannot control this by yourself.
+ Youtube can be started from browser. If you happen to run into cool YouTube video, you don't need to find it from YouTube software.
+ Search. Works well and makes finding of videos easy.
- Some of the Youtube videos don’t work.
- Separate software.
- Supports only YouTube videos.

Stocks:
+ Simple
- Doesn’t have Scandinavian stocks, e.g. OMX (Helsinki)

Maps:
+ Fast. Downloads map information really fast.
+ WLAN/WiFi locating.
+ Search works relatively well.
+ Touch screen and zoom works well.
- Showing multiple search results and moving to another result is inadequate.
- GPS updates sometimes little slowly. Although I don’t have some much experience on this.
- Can you get a car kit from Apple? I mean where do I install this in my car.
- Display turns off relatively fast. This makes it difficult to use as a navigator.
- Doesn’t show the direction where you are going.
- Doesn’t recalculate routes.
- You cannot save any routes.
- You cannot download maps. This makes roaming really expensive.

Weather:
+ Simple and stylish
+ There are also Finnish cities
- Icon in main menu could updateable, just like in Calendars icon where dates changes.

Clock:
+ Stopwatch.
+ Timer.
+ Number of alarms. You can add multiple alarms.
+ World clock.

Calculator:
+ Simple.
+ Has also functional calculator.
- You have to use functional calculator in horizontal mode.

Notes:
+ Stylish fonts.
+ Outlook in general.
- You cannot synchronize this with Outlook using a cable. I've noticed that this is really good way to remember things.

Settings:
+ You can define multiple languages that you will be using. You can easily change the desired language when typing.
- You cannot choose your own ring tone except using iTunes.

iTunes:
+ Easy to use.
+ Billing made easy.
- Works only in 3G/WiFi.

App Store:
+ Easy to use
- Not too many useful software. (This was the case in the beginning, now there might be too many software?)
- Difficult to find useful software.
- Restricted 3rd party features.
+/- Are there possibility for trials?

Contacts:
+ Scrolling names made easy and fancy. When you slide your finger down, the list rolls nicely. Nice to show to your friends. Guaranteed WOW effect.
+ You see first name first although names are organized according to last name.
- You cannot create groups.
- You cannot send contact information in SMS.
- Takes sometimes long (3-4 seconds) to open.

Phone:
+ Favorites. You can add number of favorites and you can see them easily. Better than usual speed dial.
- You cannot organize received and made calls but all calls are in the same list.
- You cannot remove single call information

Mail:
+ Easy to start using.
+ Shows also HTML mails.
- Didn’t support SSL in Welho’s service.

Safari:
+ Seems fast.
+ Really accurate touch screen. You can hit even small links without zooming.
+ Zoom. Again nice feature and cool to show to your friends when you are sliding two fingers away from each other, browser zooms in.
+ Navigation is simple
+ Able to play mp3s, e.g. Radiorock’s podcasts rule.
+ Quicktime plays videos, e.g. trailers.
+ Establishing connection. Knows how to choose pre-defined WiFi or then use 3G/GPRS.
+ Big enough display to make mobile browsing a joy.
+ Opening new windows and handling them.
- No Flash support.
- Crashes quite often, although starts really fast after this.
- You cannot change used internet connection.

iPod:
+ Simple.
+ Shows album covers.
- Memory seems to run out if you are browsing and listening to music.

The Duo gets things rolling!

Greetings everybody!

Welcome to our shared technology and mobility blog. Both of us had had the idea of creating some kind of technology related blog for a while. It wasn't until now when we finally got the idea of actually sharing a blog in order to help each other out. We had a short discussion about what we should cover here. First we were thinking to narrow the area quite a bit but then decided to cover things that we see important or interesting ourselves. Most probably they all are somehow related to mobile technologies but there might be some suprises also...

So who are we and what do we do?

Hude:

I've been working as a software engineer at Digia for the last 5 years now. I'm mainly doing application development for mobile devices and always on the lookout for new methods and technologies that will make the development process easier.

I have used several programming languages and tools on various platforms and think I have a good overview on technologies related to mobile development. Most recently I have been interested in cross-platform development and graphics related programming.

Teppo:

I started in Nordea straight after my first year in Lappeenranta University of Technology on summer 2000. I've been working there since and I'm mostly concentrating on mobile development and different web technologies.

I try to keep in mind both technology and business perspective, because without these both components, it is usually difficult to make a successful product / service. I'm going to write my own ideas / thoughts and not my employer’s. Of course I’m not promising that I wouldn’t tell some Nordea related issues every once in a while. If I do this I’ll try to be as objective as possible.

Regards,
Hude & Teppo