I want to start off by thanking WOM World once again for sending me the amazing Nokia N97.  It is without a doubt in my mind one of the most technically advanced and good looking mobile phones on the market to date.  It blows many handsets out of the water, chews them up and spits them out, in some ways.  In other ways it’s inferior to much older phones produced by Nokia also.

To start with it’s beautiful when opened up.  I’m a fan of phones with a QWERTY keyboard and this bad boy sports a pretty reasonable keyboard when it’s opened up.  The buttons don’t give much feedback at all but sometimes that nice.  The phone feels good in your hand and in my pocket, it looks big in some aspects like thickness but it really isn’t all that thick compared to other similar devices.   Physically the N97 is just splendid, it incorporates so many aspects and does it well.

Now when it comes to the software it fails miserably in my opinion.  It’s not a phone for the meek.  I consider myself a well versed and competent Nokia phone user and in so many cases I stumbled around with the N97.   I have been able to hand almost any other Nokia S40 or S60 phone to my Dad and he can easily figure it out, I would not even attempt to give this phone to my Dad.  He would be lost and frustrated.  For example the auto rotation doesn’t always work when the phone is slid shut and going back and forth from vertical to horizontal and back.  The response is also quite slow to a point that I’m hitting things again because I think I missed it the first time and then I’m getting into the wrong app when it finally catches up.

I have had the N97 browser crash more times then I can count.  I think it may have something to do with the lack of built in Ram.   How can Nokia let that happen to a flagship phone?  I expected these problems to go away as soon as the first firmware update rolled out.  I even waited to write up my review till I had that infamous first firmware update but the update came and went and I continued to have the same issues.

There are a ton of great aspects to the N97 including it’s camera, 3.5mm audio jack, video out, slider lock and many many more points.  I have tried giving it chance after chance but it just kept failing me.  Battery life and lack of ease of use are two big points without tearing it apart.  I can’t in good faith suggest that you go out and buy this phone at this point.  I hope that we will see additional updates and I hope I get to give the N97 another try.  It has some awsome aspects to it but to many major draw backs.

A writer over at Bright Hub named kkndka (I’m trying to get his real name) wrote a great 3 part piece about how to set up emoze on Symbian S60 handsets.  Part 1, below is an explanation on how to get the emoze app on your phone.  Part 2 which I’ll publish soon is about setting up Outlook Web Access (OWA) email in emoze.  I’m quite excited to find out what part 3 will be.  Anyway read on if you need help getting started with emoze.  

Ever wanted to have push email functionality on your phone just like Blackberry users? You can experience push email on your Symbian phone with Emoze. Read on to get started.

Introduction

Emoze is an application that bring the power of push email to any Symbian phone. Push email is a service that allows you to receive your emails in real time. As long as you are connected to a data service, messages are automatically ‘pushed’ to your Symbian phone. There is no need to connect or disconnect from a service in order to download and view your messages. Blackberry users don’t have to be the only ones with push email functionality any more.

Push email functionality provided by Emoze is secure; all data is encrypted and directly pushed to your device when it is ready to accept. Your mails are not stored on a third party server.

In this guide you will learn how to install Emoze and enjoy secure push email functionality on your Symbian phone.

We will be using the free edition of Emoze which has the following features -

• Receive and send email
• Download attachment of up to 100kb in size
• Synchronize your PIM

The free version is more than adequate for day to day usage but if you need to send larger attachments or sync with Microsoft Exchange server at your workplace, you can consider upgrading to the pro version.

Installation

You can get Emoze on your phone using 3 methods -

• Download it to your PC -

Go to Emoze.com and click on Get Emoze. You will need to enter your phone manufacturer and model. You will get a SIS file which you must transfer to your phone using the Nokia PC Suite or Bluetooth. Install this SIS file from your file manager.

• Direct Download from the Internet -

Using a mobile browser such as the Series 60 browser or Opera Mini navigate to http://m.emoze.com and select Download emoze Mobile client , accept any security or warning messages and install the application

• Get it via SMS -

Navigate to emoze.com and enter your country and telephone number. Fill in the authentication code and you should receive the download link via SMS.

Conclusion

Continue reading this article series to find out how you configure Emoze to work with your email service. Emoze works with standard POP3/IMAP email, Gmail and your workplace email using OWA/PC Connector. You can have multiple accounts with each service.

Stay tuned for the next iteration in a few days, if you have any questions feel free to email me or ping me on Twitter.
Email: Jeb@emoze.com
Twitter: @JebBrilliant or @emozepushemail

By the way kkndka if you read this please contact me.  Thanks.

Mobile phone and brand app stores have reinvigorated the internet and it looks like a small version of what it was before the bubble burst.  I was just reading Ewan Macleod come back story (great guy by the way) and I’m thinking about his Mobile Industry Developers TV and I’m thinking, it’s back to the little guy again.  People are building widgets in coffee shops and I recently watched an interview the BBC did with a developer building his app on a MacBook Pro in his kitchen.  That’s it, we are back in business and apps are what’s going to save the mobile industry until it can catch up to where I feel it should be.  I just realized it.  Apps are it.  People like Jan Ole Suhr @JanOle who created Gravity the single best Twitter app for S60 has the number 1 spot on the Ovi store right now.  Jan Ole developed the app all by himself.

Janole is a great example of how apps are going to revolutionize the net, yet again.  We are going to have a big swing back to guys grouped together in a coffee shop whispering and typing like mad on their computers.  It will be like 1997 all over again but instead of being all about apps for your computer that sits on a table it will be for your mobile phone that is almost able to everything an average desktop can.  We are seeing a revolution started when Apple opened the iPhone app store.  There are many many people that I never figured to be mobile phone app developers cranking out their inspirations.  Out of work developers/programmers are finding inspiration and evening and weekend developers are doing it to.  We are going to see a controlled “Wild West”.  Controlled by the app stores but hopefully open to all kinds of apps.

I’m hoping it gets really wild and that the app stores support their developers who make the stores stores.  Give them a good revenue model and give them the freedom they need.

On your marks get set GO!  It’s a gold rush mixed with the wild west and we are all going to witness it, don’t miss it.  Good luck developers and make us some useful apps.

So I’m sick and tired of contact management applications.  I have not come across anything that does the job well enough.  I am frustrated with a specific aspect of contact apps at the moment.  I have a very common situation which is that I have many friends that are couples or married so I put both their names in one contact form.  Problem is they both have mobile numbers and there’s no way to differentiate who’s mobile number is who’s.  I know this sounds petty but how am I supposed to remember this with over 800 contacts?  Who ever created the contact list standards many years ago didn’t think this all the way thorough.

Am I doing something wrong?  What do you do? Do you only put 1 person per contact card?  What about their home number?  It can only be in there once, otherwise it won’t show the proper caller ID.

I’m really perplexed on how to handle this.  One couple in particular, close friends of our family, I have both their mobile #rs and can never remember whose is whose.  I actually specifically don’t put some peoples spouses mobile numbers in my address book because I might get their #rs confused.  Sad thing is, this was so much easier when I was using dumb phones (S40) back in the day, with only 1 number per name.  So you might have Jeb Cell, Jeb Work, Jeb Home, etc.

Is their a solution to this, I can’t think of one that I like?  I need whatever it is to be fully compatible with my MacBook Address Book app, Entourage, Outlook, Google Contacts (which still isn’t up to snuff), Nokia S60 phones (in my case), and all the other places I sync/back up my device.  This means that standards that are many years old must change.  Is this going to happen?  I sure hope so, but don’t hold your breath.

I’ve been using a smart phone for a while now and I don’t think they are all that smart anymore.They are not keeping up with where I think they should be.  I need my phone to get smarter.  Maybe in my case that means I want my phone manufacturer to get smarter or maybe it’s my service provider that needs to get smarter.  Now that I think of it, it could be a 3rd party company that could solve this issue.

I have been switching  between handsets a great deal in the last month.  I recently had to format one of my phones and needed everything on it.  When I say “everything” I’m referring to data not settings.  To be specific I really wanted to be able to easily have my contacts, calendar, bookmarks, and landmarks loaded onto my phone.  Now don’t tell me that there’s a switch application on Nokia smart phones (S60), I know it’s there.  I don’t want to have to use it.  I want there to be an app that does it for me so if I only have one phone with me and I have to format my handset I can easily get my essential info.  There are already great services like Switch that Nokia builds into their handsets that does this but I want something that is stand alone I can use if I only have one phone, not doing a swap or upgrade.  Now there’s Ovi a Nokia program which I find to be ok for some but not for me (I feel it’s only consumer grade) and it only handles calendar and contacts.  There’s Emoze (a client) that serves up your email on your handset and additionally syncs your calendar and contact, which is very similar to Blackberry and Mail for Exchange.  Problem is none of these fine apps will load my bookmarks and landmarks.  In recent years mobile web surfing has become quite popular and a necessity in some peoples lives (mine included).  Landmarks are saved geographical locations that the built in GPS and mapping applications on my phones use to give me directions.  I along with many people are reliant on these 2 forgotten aspects of mobile use.

I have been known to leave my office not having a print out or written address of where I have to go.  I just get in my email or on the web and pull up the address of where I’m going.  I then put it in my phone and just use built in or downloaded map applications to give me directions.

If you swap phones, or lose one and replace it, how am I supposed to get my bookmarks and landmarks on my new phone?  I’m stuck using the very useful and handy switch application but I shouldn’t have to.  I believe the mobile manufacturer, mobile service provider, or maybe some third party app will have to step in.  In my case between my service provider AT&T or Nokia I prefer Nokia.  They already have a service to sync your calendar and contacts called Ovi Sync so how much harder can it be to use the standards they already use in their handsets and create a way to push the bookmarks and landmarks down to my handset.

Ovi Sync seems like the perfect opportunity/outlet to do something like this.  It already has the ability to log into my handset and  can pull and push info up and down to my phone.  I hope we see something like this soon, Ovi has been upgraded and maybe Nokia just has to flip a switch.  We’ll just have to wait and see but until then I just don’t think my Smart Phone is smart enough.

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.

I don’t have all the details just yet, but I got an IM the other night telling me that Truphone (mobile VOIP) is now set up to receive calls on the iPhone.  Previously users could only place calls, which is nice but a little restrictive.  Now having Truphone on your iPhone is like having 2 phones built into one.  Truphone will give you the ability to make and receive calls at a much reduced rate when roaming outside your home area.  I use Truphone on my Nokias every time I travel out of the country.  It has been the cheapest and easiest way for people to reach me and gives me the opportunity to reach out.

Check out the Truphone website to get all the details, I’m still a little vague on how it works on the iPhone but I do know that these guys have a really useful app that is now available on at least 3 platforms, iPhone, S60, and Blackberry.

I am traveling to Israel in a few weeks mostly for vacation and a little business on the side.  I have a local Orange BigTalk sim card that gives me an Israeli mobile number.  I will likely be using the Nokia N78 that runs S60 Feature Pack 2.  One thing I like about Nokia S60 devices is that they can hold my entire contacts database including notes about many of my contacts.  This is something I rely on heavily and really have a hard time living without.  In years past when I travel abroad I have had to clear my address book because I transfer the local numbers I have on my local sim cards to the device I’m using during that trip. I don’t like to have the 800+ numbers in my address book plus the 20 or 30 numbers on the local sim.

Anyways, to the point of this post, I popped my Orange BigTalk sim into the N78 a few nights ago and went into the contact settings.  I was happy to find that ability to change my view of the contacts from whats on the phone memory, to the sim card memory or to both.  This is fantastic news for me, I won’t have to remove any contacts from my address book, just change the settings.  I can’t tell you how uncomfortable I am without my entire address book at my fingertips.

I have now confirmed that this feature is specific to S60 Feature Pack 2 devices.  It appears obviously on the N78 and thanks to PhoneBoy I now know it also appears on the N96.  These were the first to FP2 devices to appear so I’m venturing to guess this feature will continue to be present in future FP2 handsets.

Now I just need to figure out if my Orange BigTalk sim can handle doing data on the N78 (it couldn’t do it on the N95 last year).  If anyone knows about this or someone can put me in touch with an English speaker from Orange I would be grateful for the help.

Great news for the S60 enthusiasts out there, like myself.  Nokia has gotten the 6650 in AT&T stores starting tomorrow.  It has been a while since we in the the US have had access to a Nokia Symbian smart phone from a mobile service provider.  The 6650 is not tricked out and laden with extras but on paper it seems like a pretty good phone.  You can read about it more here on the Symbian-Guru blog.  I’m hoping to play with it as soon as it gets into the store.

I had never heard of DeFi until today and now I’m using their service and REALLY liking it.  DeFi is geared to international callers and heavy talkers.  They offer unlimited mobile VOIP or mVOIP calls to anywhere in the world (on Nokia S60 phones) as long as you’re on wifi for $40/month.  I call that impressive.  This is great for travelers who don’t want to pay ridiculous roaming fees just for making calls.  If these guys can get the word out to everyone I think they will do some serious disrupting.

Thanks to Tim for taking his time to tell me all about the service.