Paul Jacobson

Its my wife’s fault, really. Frustrated with the persistent unavailability of the Nokia X6 which she had her eye on for several months, she switched to a BlackBerry Storm 2 (her first choice was the Bold but the MTN store she visited didn’t have any in stock). BlackBerry devices hadn’t really interested me until she brought her Storm home with her and I took a look at it. In the time that she has had it, we’ve stopped sms’ing each other and switched to Google Talk instant messaging instead (free for her and a lot cheaper for me). I’m not too sure what the parameters are but free on-device data is pretty appealing in itself.

When it comes to my next mobile device, I’ve been pretty fixated on an Android device, largely because an Android phone will allow me to access all of my calendars and other information from my Google services on the device. That is a big productivity win for me because I’ve been reliant on a series of reminders and mobile Web-based access to my calendars to see a full picture of my day till now. I’ve used Mail for Exchange on my Nokia devices and while its kept my contacts in sync, calendar support is very limited. I used my wife’s iPod Touch to test that OS’s support for multiple calendars across Exchange and while I read that I should be able to add all my calendars and keep them in sync, when I set the device up, it just didn’t seem to work as I’d hoped.

That said, I decided to wait a couple more months before doing anything to see what the new HTC Bravo (aka the Desire and closest we’re going to get to the Nexus One in South Africa) will be do and perhaps even the next iPhone iteration. I am not a fan of the degree of control Apple exercises over its devices but the iPhone is an excellent device on the whole.

Still, BlackBerry devices and services started to appeal to me more and more. I received some great feedback about the Storm 2 and the Bold (9700) from some of our sharpest tech journalists. I like the touchscreen Storm but the Bold has received more accolades and seems to be a preferred device. I then discovered that, using Google Sync, I could synchronise all my Google calendars for one of my Google accounts (I have a Google Apps account for work and my personal Gmail account – both have a set of shared calendars so accessing either calendar gives me a view of all my calendars) together with my contacts. Mail is taken care of using a Google mail app/add-on for the BlackBerry that seems to add quite a lot of Google Mail functionality. That capability really got my attention and prompted me to reconsider what it is I want from a mobile device.

I realised that I use my phone primarily for various forms of messaging including email, IM, sms, Twitter, Facebook updates and, more recently, Foursquare. My Nokia N97 has the latest version of Ovi Maps which, in my opinion, is probably the best maps application around. I can do almost all of those things pretty well with a BlackBerry (with the exception of Ovi Maps which would be a real loss if I moved away from a Nokia device). BlackBerry’s App world seems to be fairly well stocked but it isn’t a match for the iTunes App Store or even the Android Marketplace but it may just have what I need. I should also point out that I use my phone largely for business purposes and the fact that most of my clients (and friends) have BlackBerries makes it a logical choice from a communication ease and cost perspective (it really seems that everyone has a BlackBerry these days).

One big issue for me was the unavailability of the Evernote app for the BlackBerry locally (I tried to download it to my wife’s Storm and was told that the app isn’t available here). This is a big issue for me because I am a fairly heavy Evernote user and want a device that supports an Evernote app. If the BlackBerries were blocked from accessing that app locally, that may just push me towards an iPhone or Android phone after all. Fortunately, Joe Diedericks over at MyDL came up with a solution which may just do the trick.

So all of this pretty much leaves me thinking that a BlackBerry may just be a device for me. Its UI isn’t as good looking at the iPhone’s or Android phones’ UI but in terms of raw functionality, it is pretty impressive. Add benefits like free messaging and a cost benefit begins to emerge. Nokia does have some pretty good messaging devices. The current Stuff magazine actually has a comparison between the E72 and the Bold and the E72 comes out on top, although it seemed to win by a fairly narrow margin. Unfortunately Nokia devices don’t have the free data benefit or the tight messaging integration that the BlackBerry platform seems to have. The N900 does have fantastic messaging integration and if it would allow me to sync my calendars properly, I’d give it serious consideration despite the absence of a free data option. Unfortunately I just couldn’t get it to sync my calendars properly and that is important to me given how I work.

I’d love to know what people think about the BlackBerry platform and the Bold in particular. Everything I have read is very positive. I have a tendency towards touch screens since I got my N97 but going with a BlackBerry may nudge me to update my aging iPod with an iPod Touch and the app ecosystem that comes with that (I really want to be able to use the OmniFocus app and take my tasks on the road with me without having to open my laptop to accomplish anything). That also opens the door to the iPad but I really need to see one of those in person, see the price tag and get some real world feedback.

In the meantime, please let me know what you think? I have a tendency to focus intently on what I am looking at and sometimes need a little help pulling back and looking at the bigger picture.

---

Image credit: OrigamiPod : Let’s start! by hawkexpress, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivatives 2.0 license.

Ok, so you know that Nokia has given away navigation for life for Ovi Maps, right? Nokia also released a new version of Ovi Maps which makes location sharing that much easier.

So what makes Ovi Maps interesting now? Well, the “Share location” icon is your key to more dynamic location-based social activity. Ovi Maps connects to your Facebook account (I’d like to see Nokia connect to a range of services and let users pick which ones to update but for now its all about Facebook) and you can publish status updates coupled with location information on the go (you can also add photos to your postings). I went out for breakfast this morning:

If you click on that link in that post, it takes you to an Ovi Maps application in Facebook:

What means for you is that you can start sharing not only what you are doing but where you are too. There are lots of ways this could be useful. Nokia calls this Lifecasting:

Simon Dingle wrote a bit about some of the other features in Ovi Maps that are really useful for travellers. I think there is a fair amount of potential for local tourism too so if you are curious about what is going on in your own city, take a look at the Events and Lonely Planet guides too!

I’ve mentioned that I’ve had difficulty getting Ovi Maps to lock onto my location in anything under a few minutes (or sometimes at all). It turns out that there is a bug or some technical issue with SIM cards issued by MTN (this doesn’t surprise me) which have 14 digits serial numbers (there is a technical term for the serial number). The bug/issue interferes with A-GPS which is meant to speed up location tracking. I tested out a patch which will find its way into a future firmware update which fixes this issue and Ovi Maps now locks onto my position in seconds. Makes a big difference.

Nokia has dropped a bombshell and will be offering free turn-by-turn navigation on its smartphones. This is according to a Reuters report which I found via Engadget. The report is apparently based on a release of some kind from Nokia which I haven’t been able to locate yet Update: This news seems to be part of a broader Ovi Maps announcement. There is some great coverage on GigaOm.

As the Reuters report pointed out, this is bound to have an impact on more traditional GPS device producers like Garmin and TomTom. I’ve been using Ovi Maps on my N97 for navigation and it is excellent, when it works properly. The maps are more appealing, visually, although it can be a little difficult to search for and find places. That being said, Ovi Maps just keeps getting better with each release and I have seen an update that is still being tested internally which will make Ovi Maps an even better navigation option.

Nokia has been promising some pretty interesting location-based stuff using Ovi Maps as the core application for those services. It could make a huge difference to how we use location in our day to day activities so I hope it can pull it off and execute well. Nokia is facing increasing competition from Google and Apple, both companies have arguably more compelling devices based on more dynamic and appealing user experiences. Upcoming Symbian updates could change perceptions about Nokia’s products, though.

I am curious to see what happens next. Ovi Maps look better than Google Maps but I find that I can locate places a lot easier on Google Maps on my N97. Google Maps doesn’t look as good and we don’t have turn by turn navigation here in South Africa just yet but I think that will change. When it does, South Africans will have yet another option. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google roll out turn-by-turn in time for the World Cup either.

I started thinking about sms and instant messaging the other day. Actually I was thinking about how MTN seems to keep fleecing me for more money and/or just can’t maintain a working and reliable billing system. I started thinking about the relative cost of an sms compared to, say, the same amount of text sent as an instant message and I turned up a few interesting figures.

All that thinking persuaded me to embark on a very dangerous activity: using calculators and figures to work out what messaging costs on MTN’s network. The table below represents that effort:

Here are the resources I used to come up with these figures:

• MTN’s data bundle pricing
• MTN’s sms bundle pricing
• Wolfram Alpha calculations for:
  • the size of a 160 character sms (plain text)
  • the size of 1kB
  • the size of 1MB

Now it is very possible that I got the calculations wrong (in which case, please feel free to correct me) but it seems to me that we are really paying a lot of money for sms messages compared to what it costs to send the same amount of text across a data network (even at MTN’s R2,00 per MB for data).

None of this is news though. Mxit’s success is due largely to the cost of messaging across a data network. At the same time, it is a good reason to start exploring instant messaging or similar solutions on your mobile device. Many people are already doing just that and are using instant messaging applications like Fring and, my preference, Nimbuzz which support multiple instant messaging services instead of good old fashioned sms messages. Heck, you can even use Fring or Nimbuzz to make VOIP calls, cutting your voice telephony costs on mobile networks too!

Of course those kids and their Mxit have been sticking it to the networks for a while now. Perhaps we should follow their lead?

Update: Saul Kropman just pointed out this article which reveals just how little sms messages actually cost networks.

Update 2: I read the NY Times article properly after my last update and realised just how much the networks take advantage of their customers with sms services. Andrew Glanville expressed the main point quite nicely in a comment on Facebook:

---

Image credit: Text Message by another.point.in.time licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 2.0 license.

This is a follow up to two posts I have published about my experiences with an N900 which you can find here:

• My experiences with a Nokia N900
• The N900 is …

I am accustomed to having installed apps on my N97 for a variety of services including Gravity for Twitter/Identi.ca/Facebook and the app ecosystem for the Maemo-based N900 is simply not as developed as Symbian devices. Well, there are a number of apps available for the N900 but there aren’t nearly as many consumer apps for the N900 as there are for Symbian smartphones. In fact, the Ovi Store isn’t available for the N900 yet and the apps you can download are accessible largely through the older Download application.

While some of the apps that ship with or are available on the device are pretty good, some of Nokia’s own apps are very disappointing. The Maps application seems like it is a generation or two behind the version available on the N97. It doesn’t allow you to synchronise with Ovi and it can be a little difficult to actually find a location (this is one area where Google Maps are far better – I just type in addresses as I know them and Google Maps finds the location or suggests close matches, Maps on the N900 just gives up). I also couldn’t figure out how to navigate to locations I was able to find short of getting a set of directions.

That said the Conversations app is proving to be a pretty versatile application indeed! Besides supporting and integrating a number of IM services almost seamlessly into the N900’s messaging system, you can add support for Twitter and presumably other similarly accessible services.

Although the keyboard takes some getting used to, it works pretty well. The one aspect that bugs me and really should be fixed is that long presses on keys which support additional characters don’t return the corresponding character. The N97 didn’t support this for a while, at least until the N97’s firmware was updated to version 2 recently.

I like that the N900 supports multiple calendars and while that will include sync’d calendars if you sync your calendars using something like Mail for Exchange, getting Mail for Exchange to work properly with Google services isn’t easy. I haven’t tried with other services but I found that the N900 just didn’t want to sync with my Google account so I only got 1 or 2 syncs with GCal and Google Contacts before the link pretty much stopped working.

This post was going to be a litany of the problems with the N900 but when I really think about those issues they are mostly software related and can be fixed. The device itself is a little bulky but that isn’t a big deal in real terms. Software can be upgraded and added (I think there may even be a Maemo version of Gravity in the works). The main thing is that the N900 has pretty powerful hardware and serves as a great tablet and phone alike.

What the N900 has done for me is emphasize the value of a Linux based operating system on a mobile device and good hardware to support it. I am rapidly losing interest in Symbian and barring something miraculous when new versions ship next year, I am heading in a decidedly Android direction. I’d be tempted to go for an N900 but it doesn’t handle my calendars and contacts very well and that is important to me.

On the other hand it could be a perfect device for you and you may have found a way to get all those cloud services nicely sync’d. I am going to miss the N900 and I am already getting a bit frustrated with what is a comparably slow and clunky N97 now that I have shifted back to it.

Google Chrome OS attracted a huge amount of attention and continues to do so. As you may know it is a Linux-based operating system developed largely by Google and which will be released in about a year.

It is touted as the next Next Big Thing and, like many Google products, it will apparently solve world hunger, water shortages, bring about world peace and make it so much easier to do stuff. As things stand now, the OS is designed to run on fairly specific hardware (SSD and not traditional hard drives, for example) and its apps are really Web apps so it seems that you either need to be online or using Web apps that support some sort of offline functionality. Presumably Google will have updated its apps to support HTML 5 offline capability by the time the OS ships or the OS will have Gears support.

A ChromeOS powered device will be light, fast and will be geared for the Web-based stuff many of us do all day without needing a larger device. You could (and probably would) use ChromeOS on a netbook or something smaller and lighter than your usual laptop. All this is great and mobile workers are celebrating but I just wonder why this is so much better than an OS like Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

ChromeOS is basically the Chrome browser as an OS. Google has boasted that there are so many apps available for ChromeOS already because ChromeOS runs Web apps. Well, so does pretty much any modern browser and given that Chrome (the browser) is available on Linux, why not run Ubuntu on your netbook instead? You have all the benefits of the Web apps through Chrome or Firefox and you have the added ability to use installed apps that don’t require you to be online to use them effectively. You could choose between Google Docs or OpenOffice/Abiword/etc. When it comes to IM, you have a number of options available on Ubuntu whereas you are limited to Google Talk or a Web-based alternative on ChromeOS (did I mention apps aren’t really intended to be installed on ChromeOS devices, as I understand it?).

It is possible that Google will optimise its apps for ChromeOS with the result that ChromeOS users will have certain additional functionality or an improved experience but short of that sort of benefit (ok, and a 7 second load time for ChromeOS … does a few extra seconds or a minute or so make that much difference if you are running an Ubuntu netbook?), I think users are better off using a netbook running Ubuntu or even Windows 7 for a little extra.

There are more benefits to using Ubuntu (I’m going to focus on Ubuntu but Windows 7 probably has similar benefits) on your netbook instead of ChromeOS. For one thing I am not sure that a ChromeOS will be able to support much media on the device running it. I haven’t seen a media application which you can use to play some music you transfer or download to the device. I could be wrong. What I do know is that there are a number of media applications in Ubuntu. I also recently heard that Ubuntu users are going to be able to buy music from Rhythmbox on their Ubuntu machines a little like iTunes or something similar.

Ubuntu users have more flexibility with their hardware requirements and a pretty broad selection of applications, both installed and Web-based. There are probably a number of other benefits I just haven’t thought of yet …

Am I just missing something significant here?

Update: Take a look at this post on JK on the Run titled “What ChromeOS Looks Like as a Primary Operating System” to get an idea what the OS will look like when it releases next year. The video is worth watching!

I’ve had a Nokia N900 for a couple weeks now. Initially the idea was to try it out and share my thoughts and experiences but with the understanding that the N900 would not be available in South Africa for sale. That changed shortly afterwards and I received word from Nokia’s Tania Steenkamp that the N900 is going to be on sale in South Africa in the second quarter of 2010, thanks to efforts by Nokia SA’s general manager, Mathia Nalappan, to have stock allocated to SA.

I adopted an Andy Ihnatko approach to the N900 and switched to it from my N97 completely for the first few weeks. I put my N97 back in its box and did everything on the N900. I posted my initial experiences to a FriendFeed channel which I embedded in my first post and, as you can see, using the N900 was a mixed experience. Rather than using devices like the iPhone or Android devices as a comparison, I used my N97 which is/was Nokia’s flagship device. If you are familiar with the current Symbian UI, this video is a great introduction to the much improved Maemo 5 UI:

As you can see from the video, the N900’s interface is pretty different to Symbian devices. In fact, it is a real improvement and one of the reasons I am really going to miss the N900 when Nokia prizes my fingers open and takes it back.

From a hardware perspective the N900 feels solid (I’m not going to rehash the specifications so take a look at thedetailed specifications on the N900’s site). Its viewable screen area is roughly the same as the iPhone/iPod Touch and wide than the N97’s screen. The N900’s screen resolution is fantastic. Everything looks sharper and richer on the N900’s screen (according to the Nokia blog, the N900 has a 267 pixels per inch pixel density, compared to 165 PPI on the iPhone 3Gs and 210 PPI on the N97).

The device feels more substantial than the N97 and, as small as it is, you can definitely feel it in your pocket. It feels compact and substantial. I think about the E71 when I think about the N900’s build quality.

Like the N97, the N900 has a fold out keyboard but unlike the N97, the N900’s keyboard is flat, relative to the screen, and a little more compact. I had the usual finger confusion when I started using the N900’s keyboard and kept typing the wrong characters because my fingers were used to a different layout. I eventually got used to the keyboard and while I don’t think I type as fast on that keyboard as I do on my N97, it works pretty well. You can also enable an onscreen keyboard if you prefer not to slide the physical keyboard out all the time (or at all) but I found the onscreen keyboard a little confusing (it isn’t very intuitive).

The camera is important to me because I tend to use my mobile phone’s camera a lot. It is, after all, the camera that is always with me. The N900’s camera is almost the same as the N97 (5 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss lens/es) and easily a replacement for your little point and shoot.

One aspect of the device that really impressed me is the GPS capability. The N900’s GPS locks pretty quickly and while I don’t know if this is due to the N900’s ARM Cortex-A8 600 MHz processor doing the necessary work behind the scenes that much faster but it is a welcome improvement over my experience with the N97. The GPS ties in with the camera and geotags photos really nicely. The only time I had a problem with the geotagging was when I had no network signal at all! When you take a photo, it will be tagged with your location on a local, regional and national level. You have the option of limiting the geotags or removing them altogether.

On the subject of photos and sharing, the N900 has much improved sharing options over the Symbian Share Online app. There are configuration options for services like Evernote, PixelPipe, Flickr, Ovi and other services for the N900. The Evernote option particularly appeals to me and it doesn’t seem to be available on the N97 (strong possibility I just haven’t figured it out or found the configuration file). The N900’s share functionality works really well to boot and its very easy to use.

One of the N900’s best features, from my perspective, is the Conversations app. This is the N900’s messaging hub and it combines sms and instant messaging updates into a single conversation for each contact. It is brilliant and it annoys me that the Conversations app isn’t available for my N97.

You can connect to a number of popular IM services including Skype, Ovi, Google Talk, Jabber and SIP in Conversations and both sms’s and IM messages from your contacts will merge into a single contact-based conversation. You can also set your availability status in the N900 like most IM apps and, when you are online, you can also see which of your contacts are also online or available. IM integration extends to the address book where you have the option of contacting your friends via sms, email, IM and good old voice telephony (oh, if you use Skype, you can also call them via Skype from your N900 – haven’t tried this though).

Another favourite is the N900’s Mozilla based web browser. It is a full browser, not a pared down mobile browser and that, oddly, takes a little getting used to coming from my N97. Instead of loading mobile versions of some sites, the browser loads the full web page. This makes it possible to access your favourite sites on this little device and have a pretty good experience at the same time. You can also install a Firefox beta version but I found myself going back to the Maemo browser for most of my Web browsing. Take a look at this video, below, for an introduction to the browser:

Real geeks are going to love some of the geekier apps like the terminal app that comes with the device. There are a couple other geeky apps you can install which I don’t really understand or appreciate nearly as much as a geek who believes that Alpine is the best email application on the market today.

Overall this device is a great device although it isn’t without its shortfalls. I will write about some of those shortfalls in a follow up post in the next day or so.