I’m going to CTIA next week in San Diego, California.  I have a plan to record a bunch of interviews focusing on anything related to mobile money as well as new apps for the consumer.  I’d like to meet anybody with a new consumer app or any service related to mobile money.  From NFC to new payment apps I’m interested in what you’re doing and if you’re a developer with a new exciting app I want to help spread the word about it.  So contact me at Jeb@TheMobilePerspective.com if you’re interested.

PS I like hardware as well.

Tecca is an interesting app that helps it’s user get all the info needed for purchasing tech stuff.  I’ll let Benjamin Feinman explain it a little better.

Benjamin my apologies for taking so long to get this video up.

I’ve known about these guys for a while now and love what they are doing.  In a nut shell they’re giving you the ability to find what you’re looking for at stores including directions to get to that product.  I’ll let Nathan Pettyjohn’s describe Aisle411 in a little more detail.

BTW Nathan, my apologies for taking so long to get this up.

I am one lucky guy, I know that, I get to attend the premier events around the world when it comes to mobile technology and I get to play with the latest and greatest devices.  Sometimes devices I’m not at liberty to talk about for months.  So when I was at CTIA last week in San Diego I made sure to take a look at the N900.  My short introduction to it really hooked me.  I’m a big fan of HootSuite, a web based Twitter app and I was happily shocked when Chanse Arrington got it running on his N900 without any hitch or tweaking of settings during the GoMo News Blender.  I mean I was really impressed.  Then the next day Joe Gallo had 24 apps running simultaneously on his N900.  That’s not a typo, he really had 24 going.

On top of that I got to check out what seemed like a universal and all in one in box for all incoming messages.  I have written about this in the past and hope what I saw was accurate.

Lastly I was more impressed with the contacts application then anything else.  Presence seems to be built in according to what I’ve been told.  Basically you input all your friends contact info including instant messaging ID’s like for Skype and Google Chat.  Then when you look at that contact it will show if they are on line.  Now this is a huge step in the right direction.  For years I’ve been reading about presence and that it’s coming but this is the first time I’ve truly seen it implemented deep into a phones software.  I’m hoping it will be expanded beyond just contacts but I’m happy about this as a place to start.

My only concern at the moment is the interoperability of 3rd party applications like emoze (a client) and Truphone with Maemo.  Theoretically QT is supposed to solve this but the question is, will developers really migrate their apps over?

As a whole the N900 seems to be a stellar device that if all goes well may be Nokia’s very first mainstream tablet.  I would like to see T-Mobile pick up the N900 and add it to their line up and I’d also like to see Nokia heavily promote developers to do their thing and make awesome apps for the N900.  We’ll just have to wait and see.  Great start Nokia!!!

You can count 24 apps running in the pics if you look closely.

UPDATE: So I just watched Ewan from MobileDeveloper.tv do an unboxing and once over and I’m sold.  I am absolutely ready to get my hands on an N900 Ray, Molly are you listening?  I can’t tell you how much I want one of these now to play with.  It was a prerelease unit Ewan has and it was still smoking fast.  It looked like it was burning up the OS and the web.

So I used the E75 for a while then went back to my trusty E71 and back and forth and back and forth for weeks now.  I love the format of my E71 but like the menu and speed of the E75.  Plus the E75 has US 3G and my E71 doesn’t.

I keep telling myself be patient the E72 is coming.  SO WHERE IS IT NOKIA?  We haven’t heard a peep in what feels like months about the E72.  I’m actually getting tempted to buy an iPhone to tide me over until the E72 arrives.

I was told that it should be out around CTIA in San Diego next week.  Well next week is almost here.

Import thing is I’ve been told that emoze and Truphone will both work on the E72.  I would imagine that Nimbuzz and JoikuSpot will also because they work on the E75.  So I’m set in terms of my must have apps.

Now I was told that there would not be a North American version but I was then reminded that probably meant that it wouldn’t be picked up by a provider like AT&T or T-Mobile but that Nokia would still launch it.  My only question is how long will we have to wait for the NAM version?  Nokia has a nasty habit (except for 2 handsets recently) of launching NAM versions weeks or even months after the European variant is made available.  So let’s hope they launch at the same time.

A few reasons I’m so excited about this handset is that it will have the same physical format as the E71.  It will have the upgraded firmware including Feature Pack 2 and have the juiced up processor/RAM.  Lastly because of the 5mp camera and 3.5mm headphone jack.

I’m tapping my fingers on my desk as I wait………

I was recently reading a Nielsen report and it has some very interesting facts that really make me ask my self when will the mobile telcos figure out what young people want and offer them plans that reflect their needs.

Did you know that the average US consumer now uses their mobile phone fore texting more often then making a phone call?  I’m not surprised but I figured it was still the other way around.

Teens aged 13-17 send average 1,742 texts/month and only average 231 calls/month

Young people aged 18-24 average 790 texts/month to only 265 calls/month

The opposite is true for folks aged 45-54 who only average 128 texts/month but make 193 calls/month

Notice how the 13-17 year olds send more then double the amount of texts but only make a few less calls then the 18-24 year olds.

After having a nice chat with an AT&T “high-up” last week I’m learning that AT&T sees these trends and is doing something about them.  They have 3 handsets priced to move into young peoples hands and guess what all 3 handsets have QWERTY keyboards on them.  This says something very important to me, AT&T is listening and making actual moves to embrace these numbers.  I’d personally like to see a very competitive new set of pricing for people that text more then talk but that may still be a ways off.  I’m just happy for AT&Ts current moves.

I’m most excited to get to report that AT&T my provider of choice will start selling the extremely popular Nokia E71 in the next few weeks.  I still won’t bet the farm on it but it seems to be true.  I’ve also heard rumors that it will run you $99 with a new 2 year contract.

UPDATE: I got to play with the Nokia E71x as it’s being referred to during CTIA.  It is a beautiful piece of gadgetry and I have high hopes it will be a stepping stone and an in road for Nokia and S60 to have a stronger presence in the US.

So I just got back Friday afternoon from CTIA in Las Vegas. As a whole in terms of announcements, hardware and software it was quite a boring show. I did get to play with the Nokia E71x, N97 and E75 (I got to take one of these home, I have a review coming), those were the only 2 pieces of phone hardware I liked and found interesting.  I did get an earphone/microphone to test, it will turn an iTouch into a VOIP phone using Truphone (one of my favorite apps of all time).

The other interesting application I saw and have been using of late is Emoze (a client of mine).  It’s a 3rd party app you download on your phone to give you a greatly enhanced email experience. I like it because it connects to my Gmail, it also has the ability to connect you to Yahoo, Hotmail, and Facebook.  It also syncs with Outlook and has a good OWA (Outlook Web Access) interface.

I can’t forget that I saw Nimbuzz and really like what they’re doing with all the different communications methods they’re enabling people with now.

All in all it was a pretty boring show as shows go.

Vringo is hot!  I have been using it on my Nokia E71 since this interview about 2 weeks ago with Andrew Perlman, the GM of  Vringo US.  Basically, it is a video ring tone for your mobile phone and so much more.  You and your friends can share video ring tones  and you can set it to get a new ring tone for you daily.  I think this will be huge with tweens and teens.  Just so you know you can create your own video ring tones.  Go download Vringo via your phone at www.vringo.com or go to the same website from your computer and send and SMS to your phone and it will provide link for download.

Anyways, I was able to sit down with Andrew at the TopMobile20 party (my company put on the party and is producing the contest) at CTIA during a lull and was able to make this video.  Andrew told me that Vringo has employees on 3 contenents and it seems like they are definitely on their way up.  I learned about Vringo back at Mobile World Conress earlier this year and can say that I’ve seen the changes in the product and I think that they could be a new craze very soon.

Check out the video below and let me know what you think.  Thanks to Andrew and the Vringo staff that came to the party.

I find myself on at least a few conference calls every week and I was always disappointed that the E71, such a business centric device didn’t have a mute button.  Well come to find out it does.  All I needed to do was ask the right people to learn it does.  The right people are Kevin and Eric at the Nokia booth at CTIA.  They gave me a demonstration showing me and now you that you can use the button found between volume up and down on the right side of the phone as a mute button during a call.  Everyone besides me may have known this but I’m now like this phone even more now then I did before.  Watch the video below for a quick demo.

Thanks Kevin and Eric for your help and it was good hanging out with you guys in SF.