Nokia Push T-Shirt Winners Announced

First and foremost, thanks to the 23 of you that entered the Nokia Push T-Shirt Giveaway. Sadly everyone can't be a winner and as I have 5 T-Shirts to giveaway we could only have four winners. Why four, well one of the t-shirts is a "ladies small" and as there weren't any entries which looked evidently clear as females I'll be giving that away on Twitter. Seems like the tech scene is still dominated by males.

Moving on...

To get the winners of the competition I entered all the names onto a random generator website, which picked out the four winners. So without wasting too much time, the winners are:

Meraj



Chris Prakoso



Mark Boulton



Craig Richards

Congratulations to the winners! I'll be contacting you guys shortly!

Thanks to all those that entered. Keep an eye on the @NokiaPush Twitter account and the website on the great things that are happening around the Nokia Push project.

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Appview: WhatsApp

There are plenty of IM services out there and many apps which aim to give quick free Instant Messaging service to the masses. Whilst there are many successful and popular ones out there; Fring, Skype, Palringo and even Gtalk to name a few, all of these have one niggling factor which makes it hard to convince someone who's not quite into IM services to use it. Getting them to install and then add you to their contacts list. This is where WhatsApp clearly stands out from the crowd.

When WhatsApp is installed, it integrates into the phonebook of the user, checks all the contact numbers and matches them with anyone on that list which is using the service. This gets rid of the whole add me on [insert any service here] and "what's your username" and their annoyances.

When I first installed it, I was given a list of all my friends who were using this service and promptly started messaging them to let them know I was using it. Which ensued in a flurry of responses and ridicule, mainly because I'm usually the one trying to convince THEM to use a service. Here they were, already ahead of the game. What was the most interesting bit; they were all using different handsets, iPhones (mostly) but also Blackberries. And yes WhatsApp is available on iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Symbian. The app itself can be downloaded from the Android Marketplace or the Appstore of your own mobile platform.

Get WhatsApp Messenger and say goodbye to SMS!
WhatsApp Messenger is a smartphone messenger available for Android, Blackberry, iPhone, and Nokia phones. WhatsApp uses your 3G or WiFi (when available) to message with friends and family. Switch from SMS to WhatsApp to send and receive messages, pictures, audio notes, and video messages. First year FREE! ($1.99/year after)

• Once you and your friends download the application, you can use it to chat as much as you want. Send a million messages a day to your friends for free! WhatsApp uses your Internet connection: 3G/EDGE or Wi-Fi when available.
• Send Video, Images, and Voice notes to your friends and contacts.
• Enjoy group conversations with your contacts.
• Just like there is no added cost to send an international email, there is no cost to send WhatsApp messages internationally. Chat with your friends all over the world as long as they have WhatsApp Messenger installed and avoid those pesky international SMS costs.
• Why even bother having to remember yet another PIN or username? WhatsApp works with your phone number, just like SMS would, and integrates flawlessly with your existing phone address book.
• No more confusion about getting logged off from another computer or device. With push notifications WhatsApp is ALWAYS ON and ALWAYS CONNECTED.
• Your Address Book is used to automatically connect you with your contacts. Your contacts who already have WhatsApp Messenger will be automatically displayed under Favorites, similar to a buddy list. (You can of course always edit Favorites any way you like)
• Even if you miss your push notifications or turn off your phone, WhatsApp will save your messages offline until you retrieve them during the next application use.
• Share location, Exchange contacts, Custom wallpaper, Custom notification sounds, Landscape mode, Precise message time stamps, Email chat history, Broadcast messages and MMS to many contacts at once and much much more

 WhatsApp lets users send text, pictures, location, contacts audio and video instantly. It's all very simple. It also has the ability to make a normal call from within the app, in case you might want to speak to them directly. So far this is one of the easiest IM apps I have used. Install, setup and use was quick and simple. The UI is also pretty slick.

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Win! Nokia Push T-Shirts - Easy!

This is probably the first give away I'm doing for AdonisMobile - it's a long time coming! As I'm a noob in this, lets keep it simple and straight to the point, to win a free NokiaPush t-shirt is easy, there is no skill involved, just lady luck.

I've already posted a few things about Nokia Push and how it's pushing the boundaries of Nokia hardware to make some really awesome hacks. The PushN900 campaign was awesome and this year will see even more great ideas being hacked using the Nokia N8. Whether you're a fan or not, it's worth checking out the videos, they're pretty amazing.

How To Enter

Just leave a clear comment saying you want to win a T-Shirt - that's all!

Just make sure to use the name/url option when commenting or any of the other services listed in the drop-down comments section. You can also leave a comment with your Twitter handle. Any means so I can contact you when you win.

Anonymous comments obviously won't be in with a chance to win.

That really is that simple. The competition will close on Monday 27th September when I wake up (most probably 12pm). Spread the word, there are a few t-shirts to be won!

UPDATE:

The competition is now closed. Winners will be announced very shortly. Thanks and good luck to those that entered!

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Nokia N8 - Light Impressions

I've now had quite sometime playing around with the Nokia N8, enough time in my opinion to put out a post on how I think the handset will rank up to today's expectations. Obviously the 12 Megapixel camera is going to the focus point of it, what else is there really that stands out other than that? Well design perhaps, it's a bit like Marmite I guess, but not as severe as the "love it or hate it" scenario with Marmite.

Physical Design

My initial impressions when I saw the press pics and leaked ones too, was it looked very rugged and industrialised, which I guess it is. The bare screws adding to that look on the casing. The colour choices are good I guess, my personal preference would say go for the black, and having handled one myself I can say it looks and feels good. The Orange one seems to be doing the rounds with developers - allegedly it's a limited edition colour. Colours and preferences aside, what I noticed most was the size of the N8 itself. The pictures didn't do it justice, it is a lot smaller than it looks in the pictures. A lot more comfortable to hold it in comparison to my HTC Desire. But there are some design flaws.

Camera Lens + Speaker

The back of the phone has the camera lens, with the 12 Megapixel sensor, it's clearly a great piece of tech, seems it's the only way to have it built and have that bulge at the back. Doesn't really look good, makes the phone sit at an awkward angle and will snag when taking in and out of pockets etc. The speakers are also behind this bulge, the speakers themselves are great, but when faced down, the sound is obstructed to being output. A look at the X6 and 5800xm easily shows where they should have been. But design constraints I assume have played their part in this.

Apart from these two obvious flaws in my eyes, the overall design is actually pretty impressive. A retro 70's look, reminds me a bit of the Lamborghini Miura's body. The screen is pretty good, and the overall feel of the handset actually pleasing to hold on to.

Camera Button

In one word. Amazing! I miss this dedicated camera button on my current handset. It just doesn't feel natural to take pictures without one. Previous Nokia handsets did a great job switching the mentality to taking pictures with a camera button, and that feeling has been engraved permanently into my mind and body. I was surprised with the 2-step focus and shoot with the N8. There is now a clear 2 step action, unlike before where it was a feather touch sensitivity function, there is a downward physical press to focus and then more pressure to shoot. Totally feels awesome.

The N8 carries many of the usual bits of peripheral ports found on the X6 and XM handsets, SIM card port, SD port, MicroUSB port, which has been moved to the left side for some reason - perhaps to cater for the HDMI output? Whatever the reason, most of it is still very similar to previous X and XM handsets, so those fans and users will be comfortable with that.

Software

Symbian ^3 (Symbian to be referred to from now on apparently) is what S60 5th Edition should have been. Had anyone at Nokia bothered to listen to some of us shouting at them, we would have told them a few simple things;

• no double click
• design for touch input
• refresh the whole UI

Whilst it feels very much like the 1st has been achieved, the latter 2 points still aren't perfect whilst the 3rd hasn't been considered, and I don't envisage it ever will.

Gone are the annoying double clicks, fixed are the connectivity issues, there have been tweaks made both behind the scenes and in front to make it a more touch friendly and orientated OS.

Symbian as expected by everyone, will be aimed at the masses, the developing markets to keep them familiar with the OS whilst upgrading and introducing them to more capable hardware. This is the main problem. Symbian now cannot and will not be in Nokia's flagship high end devices. The basic fact is; Symbian looks very much like what it looked like when S60 5th edition was released. Going from my Desire and trying to use it again, brought back painful memories. For now Symbian is fighting to tell everyone it's changed and improved, but no one is willing to listen, why? Because it still looks and feels like what it was 3 years ago. It's almost like Microsoft shouting about how Vista had improved since release, but the damage was done, and not until Win7 was presented did anyone believe that they might have actually fixed it.

I really hope Meego can come and solve this issue, I have minimal confidence Symbian can dig itself out of this scenario. Selling to the emerging markets and making tons of profit isn't going to convince the high end market any different.

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The Astonishing Tribe - Make Astonishing Eye Candy UI

If there is one thing everyone loves, it's eye candy. Something that looks beautiful gets our interest, this is a tried and tested marketing ploy for years. That's not limited to TV and billboard ads though, eye candy on mobile phones is also becoming a factor. With HTC, Motorola and Sony Ericsson all developing their own UI overlays for their Android handsets and many 3rd party Launcher applications in the market place to make using Android more interesting and a pleasure to use. Why can't this initiative be used on other software? Why haven't and aren't we seeing more of this?

This is where TAT (The Astonishing Tribe) come in, they make some gorgeous UI overlays, if you have good memory, you would remember Recognizr - an app that recognises a persons face using the phones camera and retrieves information about them from the internet, which makes following, subscribing and adding them as a contact much much more of a simple task.

Two of their more recent examples show how the users experience can be enhanced by just tweaking the UI to not only look really good, but also useful. Whilst these demonstrate the UI more than anything else, there are elements where UX does come into play and it's evident consideration has been taken for that. These examples not only showcase what can be done with UI on 2D, but by also adding another dimension and making the transition to 3D - that's what makes The Astonishing Tribe, truly astonishing!

How long before we see this transition from 2D to 3D and how long before UX is put ahead of everything else. In my opinion UX plays the biggest role in any tech. It's pretty simple; making something easy to use, catered to the natural human way of thinking and interaction makes the overall experience more enjoyable. Having eye candy in addition, just makes it that much more amazing. User experience should always go above anything else.

You can find out more of the awesome work TAT do by visiting their website.

via [mobile user interface blog]

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Three UK Meet - Still Getting It

Thursday evening at the Meza on Wardour Street was the venue. Upon arriving I got crossed off the list, entered the venue and caught a few familiar faces. Drinks were on offer, laptops on the side with the Three websites displayed. I hadn't got me bearings quite yet when @stephenwing tapped me on the shoulder and said hello. With company, I headed straight to the bar. All good meetups start at the bar. I got myself a beer and asked for a place to hang my jacket, after we were shown where to put them, we started chatting.

Someone somewhere and somehow (I don't quite remember) made us aware there was a competition to win an iPad. The answer was to be sent via SMS to a phone number with Name. The question was "which handset did Three launch in the UK" - myself and Stephen started throwing suggestions at each other. Then suddenly it clicked, I remember owning one when I was back in school, the first 3G handsets which offered so much, but sadly didn't quite deliver - the NEC e606 in question here. We were joined by @cbetta in trying to find the answers, mobile browser were launched and a scurrying of hits where sent to Google, Wikipedia et all. Then something else clicked! There were laptops out, why not use them? We headed to them, commandeered them and started searching. After a few minutes (15-20 mins) actually, we came to the conclusion; yes the NEC e606 was very likely, possibly the right answer. There's nothing better than instilling confidence in yourself than just sending the answer half heartedly, but nonetheless we did!

As we stood around talking about the other possibilities a few more familiar faces started showing up; @bensmithuk @jonchoo @mahadewa - as we all congregated together, @sarabolwell showed up, enthusiastic and full of energy as ever. She filled us in with what was happening in the Three UK team, the changes being implemented, what was happening with the Three Blog and grafting up ideas from us on how they could do more to engage with their audiences; customers, fans and interested parties - mostly led by @bensmithuk with ideas.

After a while discussions flowed onto handsets, which usually means grabbing David Kerrigan (@crinuboy) and interrogating him, in this instance he was willing to speak about a few things anyway. He pulled out the Blackberry Torch for a quick glimpse into see what he was using, a usual indicator to see if Three UK would be stocking it. Questions about the N8 C7, and E7 were directed at him, he gave the impressions they would be taken on board (with the C7 being confirmed).

I was introduced to Johanna (@JohannaWhitaker) who is behind the @ThreeUKLatest twitter account, she is a new member of the team and will be working with the community to make sure they are listening to what's being said, taking feedback and making sure Three are listening to their customers, fans around the country. Johanna was great chatting with, as she was new to the team I gave her some info about myself and how I've been working with the Three guys. All in all it was a pleasure meeting her first time.

During the event I was approached by @joebycro who initially welcomed me in, but did return later with a marker and some speech bubbles. He asked us to write down anything we would like to see coming from the Three Blog and ways to help them communicate better with us. As can be seen above there were some very good suggestions (questions that get answered), and some very outrages ones (Free Trips to Spain!). This clearly demonstrates that Three get this whole social malarkey business.

There isn't quite any other operator out there that actually gets into the faces off their customers, bloggers and people that have questions regarding their products like Three do. The key thing is more than anything else, they're willing to give facetime (no Apple affiliation here) and cover a broader spectrum than most others, who only seem to target specifics.

At the end of the night, everyone that attended got a chance to take home a Three MiFi unit to trial - and many did. To keep up with their experiences, you should follow @ThreeUKLatest on Twitter.

And the winner of the iPad competition - @mseckington - miss geeky. She'll be all over that. It's fair to say she's pleased about it!

Overall it was an enjoyable night organised by Brando who have taken over the Three account. I look forward to seeing what sort of interesting things they will be doing.

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Nokia Push And Burton - Pushing The Boundaries

Those of you who have your eyes and ears aimed the right direction will be familiar with the PushN900 stuff that happened previously. I covered one of the showcases which involved pole dancing robots, Kryten from Red Dwarf and the winners of the PushN900 hack competition (not in that particular order, nor with any nsfw activities either). Two of the winners, were my favourite - the Solderin Skaters and Kaping With the N900 videos below show what has been achieved by those hacks. Very impressive stuff.

Both really awesome hacks showing what's capable and pushing the tech to it's full potential. This nicely brings us into the partnership between Nokia Push and Burton - the latter being the world's biggest snowboarding manufacturer. When I first saw this, immediately I saw some awesome possibilities. Using the great imaging capabilities of the Nokia N8 and it's surprisingly compact size, an idea had emerged in my head. I'll be submitting it to the PushN8 project.

PushBurton, will in the tradition of the Push project offer the community to submit hacks and ideas which can hopefully be turned into some really amazing hacks. At current they are looking for a rockstar developer who they'd like to join the team. If you are a developer and consider yourself to be a rockstar, you should head on over to this page and scream and shout about it.

If on the other hand you are not a developer but consider yourself to be a rockstar (even if you don't) and have an idea on using the N8 to create a really awesome hack, you should head over to this page and submit your idea.

Finally, there will be some goodies for YOU the readers to win. Keep your eyes peeled on the blog / feed for announcements very very soon.

UPDATE: Added video below with a brief on how Burton aim to push the boundaries, combining state of the art boards and mobile technology to create an awesome project where data is collected from the board and rider obtaining more information, which can be used in a varies amount of ways. The potential for this is staggering!

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Apps On My Desire

One of the main reasons I got the HTC Desire was the lack of official apps and support found in Nokia's Ovi Store, let alone the huge difference in quality and choices available on the Android platform. There are still limitations in comparison; storage of apps to SD card for example. Only a handful of apps can be installed on the SD card on Android, whilst it's the total opposite on Nokia handsets, almost every app can be installed on the SD card, but then again with the little bit of space found in comparison to Android devices it's no wonder.

The list of apps below are currently running on my Desire, but won't be final until I can root the device and start properly investigating what the Marketplace can offer. Current limitations prevent me from installing every app under the Sun - for now. Apps themselves seem to have issues, but that's probably another blog post coming.

List of apps currently installed, in no particular order, oh al-right in Alphabetical:

3Banana

I mainly use this for making little notes, but it can do a lot more. From taking notes, pictures, addresses, geotags, scan barcodes etc and sync them to Snaptic.com which then can be accessed from other devices.

Advanced Task Killer

Does what it says on the tin really. Android lacks a way of shutting down apps, there are many apps which should really come with Quit / Exit features. For those that don't this is an easy way to kill them.

AndroZip

This is a file manager and zip utility in one. It does basic file management functions - another function which Android lacks. But can also handle zip files, handy for when downloading attachments from e-mails etc. It can also do task management functions like killing apps.

Angry Birds

Not really a fan of mobile gaming myself, but it's on there mainly because friends like playing it. Those which still don't have an iPhone or don't know how to get Angry Birds on their Android handsets.

App 2 SD

This little app informs which apps can be moved to SD card and allows the user to do just that instantly. Android needs to look at this issue, all apps should be allowed to be installed to SD card without rooting the device.

Camera 360

A nice little app which enhances photos by adding effects such as Lomo, HDR, Enhanced Colour and a few others, a little gimmicky as the free version limits the sizes of the images, but am presuming the paid version does full resolution and doesn't have ads.

demoPlayer

This is a beta Divxplayer which can play divx files. It also plays mkv, avi and other containers, but will struggle for higher resolutions, data rates. For watching DVDrip sized videos in avi  /divx / mkv this does the job pretty decently. I've already watched 2 films using this. Not sure this is available in the market. You might have to look elsewhere (internet) to get a hold of it.

DigiClock Widget

This is a nice retro looking digital clock widget. It's smaller than the Sense clock, so takes up smaller screen real estate, but does lack the built in weather information the HTC Sense clock integrates. I prefer this to the HTC one, I don't care about the weather that much.

Dolphin Browser

This is an alternative web browser and very powerful and similar to Firefox. It's got lots of extensions for various different functions and has a nice tab layout UI, I'm a big fan of tabs.

Dolphin Browser Extensions:

• Bookmarks to SD - Extension which lets the user to backup bookmarks to SD card.
• Desktop Toggles - Toggles websites from Desktop view to Mobile View.
• Adblocker - All browsers need adblockers, especially when mobile and using 3G data.
• Screen Cut - Lets user take a snapshot of the browser screen.

Dropbox - A nifty little cloud service which lets me have access to my files wherever I am. Anything stored in my dropbox can be accessed by my phone anywhere.

Google Earth - Mobile version of the amazing Google Earth app found on Desktop.

Fast Installer - Searches for .apk files and lets install apps from SD card, handy for apps that are not available in the Marketplace and beta software.

File Manager - A file manager, task manager, which allows to backup all apps to SD card too.

Foursquare - Official app to login to places.

Last.fm - A music discovery, scrobbling service. Doesn't really do streaming as well it used to. But it's free so no complaints.

London Tube Status - Displays live status updates of London's Tube service. There is also a desktop widget.

Google Maps - The first app I install on every handset I get. Gives access to maps, latitude, Buzz and on Android also has free Navigation. Essential.

Orange Wednesday - When I want to catch a movie. Doesn't require an Orange subscription, charges a few pence to send SMS to obtain code.

Scoreboard - Gives my live info and scores form my favourite Football Leagues around Europe.

Seesmic - My favourite Twitter client. Includes tabs, url shortening, image posting and a whole host of features. The UI is very simple and easy to understand from the off. Maybe why I've stuck to it.

Speed Test - App to check how fast my WiFi / 3G connection is. Comes in handy to see if it's an app, web page which might not be responding.

Talking Tom -  A little bit of fun. Repeats what said to it, can also be fed milk, stroked and beaten up. The kids love it.

Tube - A tube map of the London Underground, with trip planning.

TV-Guide - A TV guide, what else?

Tweetdeck - Another Twitter client, but does offer a few more services. I currently have Foursquare and Twitter setup on it. The UI is very very smooth. A lot alike the desktop client I use. Not as friendly to use as Seesmic, it's still in beta I think.

UK Driving Test Lite - An App to mock test yourself on the UK Driving Theory test, not sure why I've got this on here to be honest.

UK TV Droid - Another TV Guide, but has a different UI.

And that is currently the list of apps I have installed on my HTC Desire. I've consciously limited myself to not installing too many. Not until I've rooted my device and can install them to SD card. All of these can be found in the marketplace. I might get around to putting links to them later if I get enough time.

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HTC Desire - Testing The Waters

If there is one thing I will miss not having a Nokia for my main handset is the dedicated camera button. Especially with the two step autofocus feedback. Taking pictures without it just feels really unnatural. Lets be honest HTC is not renowned for their imaging capabilities, they can take OK pictures, but the experience doesn't really compare with how a Nokia does. Saying that, I did take a few snaps to test out how they would come out.

One thing I do prefer is the widescreen mode on the Desire, taking pictures in a 5:3 ratio does look better in my eyes. The colours it captured also aren't really as saturated as I would have hoped, the camera flash is way too powerful and the experience after taking a picture, not so great. But that isn't why I chose to get a Desire in the first place.

Images were adjusted and tweaked in Photoshop CS4, they can be found at my DeviantArt account, along with my previous ones taken with various Nokia handsets.

Click through for the full sizes

Honestly, these really don't do justice to how poor the images were, this is just another example of how good Photoshop is. Thoughts on that can be found here. Content may be king, but Nokia across the board is still king of the camera phone.

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When Factory Reset Isn't Factory Reset

I've recently decided to sell my Nokia N95 and 5800 mainly due to the arrival of the HTC Desire. Whilst having a backup X6 available too, there is no value holding onto these two handsets any more.

I decided to put them up on Envirofone's website, I didn't want the hassle of trying to sell them to a someone else, the hassle of selling to people isn't worth it. I wanted to make sure that all my data was wiped off both devices before sending them off. I navigated to the "Factory Settings" option buried in the menus to reset the handsets to factory settings, i.e. how one would expect to find the handset if it was just out of the factory. This is true for my HTC Desire (I've reset it many times already) it's a simple process. 30 seconds and all my personal data are gone, the phone and settings are restored to factory. My experience with the Palm Pre was also similar. But with Nokia it seems to be a different story.

The Factory Reset on the Nokia handsets doesn't seem to mean quite that, very misleading, but harmless? Perhaps not. Consider this. Mobile phones these days tend to carry a lot of private data, it's a central base for the user to have a lot of personal data stored on them; contacts, e-mails, passwords, bookmarks, forms and usernames, meeting entries too. There is a lot of information. I'm glad the new Nokia's have UDP (user data prevention) this is great when doing firmware updates, but reinstalling the firmware again using PC Suite should trigger a wipe all scenario, or at least give the option to.

Now if any average user trying the same thing probably would not have realised that their information was still on the phone, because after doing the factory reset the setup guide is initiated, so it seems like all was erased. But unfortunately that isn't the case. I had a few people on Twitter telling me to enter some codes to reset the mobile to proper factory settings. That's fine, for me. But what about your average Joe who just had has identity stolen because he thought all was fine and dandy? An exaggeration? Perhaps, realisation most definitely. Nokia needs to start addressing this issue.

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