Now that I finally have a Nokia N96, as I wrote about on Joy of Gadgets, I can actually comment on some of the new features of S60 3rd Edition FP2. I have a phone that is currently not released that is running it, so I've had some exposure to [...]
Did I mention that I have a lot of crap in my inbox? Lycamobile Pay-as-you-go SIM Cards: If you want to make lots of international calls from your mobile phone, Lycamobile is one such solution to the problem. Of course, it means taking out your SIM card, or more likely [...]
Image via Wikipedia I got my last mobile phone bill from work. Ok, we really don't get bills like you might get for your personal line, but we can certainly find out what it costs. I about hit the floor when I saw the amount of my last bill. See, [...]
Image via CrunchBase PC World has an interesting article about how Apple's iPhone is the current basis for comparison. Even my employer, Nokia, who has a billion people using Nokia devices, is doing it: Bill Plummer, vice president of go-to-market strategies for Nokia in North America, took questions from reporters [...]
Om Malik says: "some of [Nokia's] new handsets, such as the new N78, are not VoIP compatible anymore." Charlie Schick of Nokia Conversations says the report of the death of VoIP has been groosly exaggerated. While I haven't seen the N78 or the N96 up close and personal for more [...]
Image via Wikipedia My vacation to Alabama was an eye-opening experience on many fronts. Perhaps one of the most amazing things was seeing just how many Wal-Marts there are here. Instead of people whining about how Wal-Mart wrecks things for small businesses, people shop there in droves. People buy everything [...]
If you're a current AT&T Customer: For those of you not AT&T Customers: If you don't want to watch these cheesy videos from AT&T, then here are the particulars: 1. New AT&T customers will get the 3G iPhone for $199 (8GB) or $299 (16GB), complete with 2 year ball and [...]
Image via Wikipedia I don't think it's any huge secret or anything that I've got a lot of phones lying around. I have at least three just within a couple of feet of my keyboard! I recently got an email from the folks at Comunicano about their “No Phone Unused" [...]
Carolyn Schuk is not happy that the mainstream press is amazed that women like smartphones. Her contention is that women buy and use smartphones too! She's right. Here's the secret, though: outside of the small percentage of people that either work for a mobile phone manufacturer, operator, retailer, or otherwise [...]
One of my co-workers at Nokia forwarded me the page on Voadfone Italy, where they will be selling the iPhone unlocked, or at least unsubsidized. To convert that into U.S. dollars (using today's exchange rates anyway): the 8gb iPhone is $772, the 16gb iPhone is $880! It does make me [...]
As much as it pains me to say this as an employee of the competition, iPhone 2.0 is going to be a big win for a lot of people. For two reasons: Price: At $199 for an 8 gig phone, the pill of buying a new iPhone is going to [...]
I managed to play with AT&T's Cellular Video offering today. On their site, they offer clips to a wide variety of things. On the front page, there's typically a link to the latest headlines from CNN. If you dig deeper, you'll find complete episodes of all your favorite shows, including [...]
I did an interesting experiment the other day-I tried dialing 0 for a number of phones. What does dialing 0 do? In the United States and Canada, dialing zero was how you reached the operator. You needed the operator to even make local calls at first, but as the equipment [...]
We've come to the end of another week of posts. It looks like I'm going to continue to crank out these posts, mostly because the automated methods to do this aren't as attractive and, quite simply, don't work that well. The post list this week: Let's Go Down To The [...]
Image via Wikipedia Andy Abramson sent me one of the Nokia N95 8GB phones to assist in wiping it clean. Apparently, Flixwagon was used on the thing and it hosed the phone. I did take the opportunity to play with the phone for a day or so and got a [...]
For those of us in the U.S. and Canada, and those that track our timezones, it's time for that ever popular activity: springing forward. Daylight Saving Time begins at 2am in your local timezone. What a waste. Bah. Note that I have also taken to cross-posting some articles verbatim across [...]
Amazing, the comments I posted to this post on the CTIA blog got posted! One of them even got responded to. Someone must be asleep at the switch. Carriers don't block text messages between users, they say. They probably mean individual customers texting each other. Fine with me. However, by [...]
A recent comment on my wireless service in Indonesia post along with a conversation I had with someone in our local Office Depot reminded me to re-examine the whole prepaid versus contract situation. I tried to come up with simple guidelines I could articulate to someone. What I came up [...]
The rumor being reported by Engadget is that AT&T will finally get the Nokia N95-3 sometime in the second quarter of 2008. That's funny because I've personally owned a Nokia N95-1 for at least a year, though it's not the U.S. 3G variant which hasn't been out quite as long. [...]
I just read a thought-provoking piece about how Nokia's S60 platform is not exactly the paragon of a great operating system. The authors think that S60 is "confusing, obscure, constantly changing and always hugely underpowered and unresponsive." My opinion-not tainted by working at Nokia-is that the newer S60 3rd Edition [...]
I went back to the Gig Harbor Costco on Friday to grab a bite to eat and see if they sold any other phones without a contract. There is one phone they sell without a contract, but it's a prepaid low-end Samsung on T-Mobile. Hey, even that's news to me. [...]
Did you know that when you buy a prepaid phone from a store that it is likely subsidized? I saw a presentation earlier this week that broke down the costs of one of those $20 phones you buy from Walmart or even the $10 refurbished phones that you can buy [...]
From the no duh department, the folks at AT&T Mobility were "secret shopped" by the folks at the Consumers Union. They asked what the early termination fee (ETF) was for a wireless contract with their company. Guess what: they got different answers, depending on whom they talked to. And you [...]
A while ago, Luca Filigheddu asked me about prepaid mobile phone options in the U.S.. I wrote up a short email explaining it to him, and I thought a more comprehensive work piece on the subject as in order. I'm only covering the two major GSM carriers in the U.S.: [...]
When I was looking for some information on Carterfone rules, I ran across this PDF from the CTIA about how the Carterfone rules should not apply to the wireless industry. I tend to disagree. Let me pick apart their talking points: Requiring wireless networks to support any, generic device would [...]
