This blog post is quite late but none the less still appropriate.  I’ve had the BlackBerry 9780 for a few months now and want to share my thoughts on it.  This isn’t going to be a traditional review like most others, I’m just going to tell you what I like and dislike about it.  But essentially I liked it and would recomend it to someone who wants a good BlackBerry but doesn’t want to spend the big bucks to get the new 9900.

First off for the positives:

• It’s a BlackBerry so it obviously has a good keyboard.  It’s not the best I’ve used, that would go to the Nokia E6 or E71, but it’s pretty darn good.
• I like that it has a flash I can use as a flashlight (torch for my British friends) with the proper app.  But that’s something that should come built in to the phone from day one, it shouldn’t need a 3rd party app to be done.
• The screen is really nice, well at the time it came out I really liked it, it’s a bit dated now but none the less it does the job without a doubt.
• UMA is a life saver in my home/office.  It’s on the T-Mobile network in the US that seems to work everywhere but in my house even though the coverage map says it should.  So UMA makes it useable allowing voice and data to go over my wifi versus the TMO data network.
• Reception is surprisingly good though in my home even without the UMA, I’m still able to make calls but they do break up sometimes, where as on my Android phones I can’t even make a call.
• The feel of the 9780 is a bit bulky but very solid in my hand.  You won’t forget it’s in your pocket like you might with a BB Curve but if you like to FEEL your phone this is the way to go.
• Most importantly for me is the email, it is race car fast and always shows up.  If email appears on my iPhone or computer before the BB I think for a second, Is the BB broken? Yes it’s just that fast.
• Data consumption is minimal on this beauty, just like every other BB I’ve ever used.  I only used 35mb of data even installing new apps and syncing my expansive address book.  On other phones I can easily burn through hundreds and hundreds of mega bytes of data but the BB has never gone above 35mb.  This is key when traveling and potentially roaming in foreign countries where you are charged on a per MB basis from your carrier.  I personally use a Tru sim when I go abroad.  It’s literally saved me almost $40 on 1 single week long trip.
• Lastly and almost most importantly is battery life.  I’m a sucker for a good battery, something that will go the whole day, into the night and maybe even into the next work day.  Having kids I feel it’s a necessity to always be reachable and the excuse “my battery died” doesn’t help when your wife is calling frantically.  It’s also important when you’re jumping from airport to airport all day with no time to stop and play the iPhone game I like to call “Where’s the closest outlet?”.

I only recently heard the news that Steve Robertson is taking over as the new Tru CEO.  I have a long history with TruPhone as they used to be known and want to take a few words to let people know who might be reading about them for the first time who and what they are.

TruPhone started somewhere around 2005 as a mobile VOIP company that morphed over the years into an international roaming sim company as well as an app service for making VOIP calls with a little IM mixed in there.

I’ve focused a lot on their international sim over the years because that’s what has interested me the most.  It’s basically a sim you can get a US, UK or Australian number with and use it in over 220 countries world wide.  In the last year they’ve launched a BlackBerry sim as well which I’ve now used in at least 5 countries that I can think of.

Their big kicker is that you get better rates then if you used your local sim roaming abroad and I’ve always found this to be true.  I’m a big advocate of saving money and making my life easier and their sims have done just that for many many people.

I hope Steve can continue on this path and expand take Tru to the next level.  I know it’s hard and Tru in many cases is doing what no one else has done before.  Good luck to Tru and to Steve and I look forward to seeing big things in the next few months.

I’ve been writing about Truphone since 2007 and I suspect using it even longer.  I was called the biggest Truphone fan by Ewan MacLeod back in 2007 or 2008.  I wish I could remember when they launched but boy oh boy was it amazing back then. Fast forward 5 years (I’m guessing) and you know what I’m using now?  A Truphone (now called Tru) sim and you know what, they are a legitimate MNO, mobile network operator.  They have their own towers and everything, small as it may be, it’s growing.  Well their sim card has evolved and changed and I think I’ve had every iteration of it.

Just days before I left for MWC ’11 back in mid February I was graced by a new sim card.  At the time, from my understanding it was 1 of only a dozen or so in existence.  Well the beauty of this sim card was not that it could make calls, use data or send/receive SMS but that it could do all of that IN A BLACKBERRY.  Yes that’s colossal news.  It’s the first time that I’ve known any international roaming sim to support BlackBerry use.  I could be wrong though. Anyways, I was in a BlackBerry phase and couldn’t imagine going to Spain without using my BB as usual and this sim made that possible without incurring ANY roaming charges.  This was amazing, I tested the sim before I left the US and it worked great but the real test was going to be on the ground in Barcelona and low and behold it worked just as it was supposed to.

This new sim in my opinion opens up a whole new angle for Truphone, they can now go after the business user who is tied to a BlackBerry.  I had a very nice set up for the week I was gone.  I had my Phone.com (a client) phone number forward to my US Truphone number so I could receive calls like normal.  I got all kinds of business calls while I was there without ever skipping a beat in service.  And to make calls I used a combination of my Truphone sim plus I was running the Phone.com Mobile Office app which allowed me to make calls using just a tiny bit of data via my Truphone sim.  It is a setting in the Mobile Office app that sets the app to call back your phone versus calling through.  It’s not complicated and saves a ton of money.  I had the best of both worlds using Phone.com and Truphone. One of the nicest parts about the Truphone sim is that you get 2 phone numbers, 1 US number and 1 British number.  I used my Phone.com number for business but was able to give my UK number out so friends in Europe and England could call and text me on it for cheaper then to a US number.  Europeans are much happier to call a UK number and Americans feel the same way about calling a US number.  And in my testing I could receive text messages on both Truphone numbers. There are many more benefits to the Truphone BlackBerry sim but I won’t go into all of them.  I will say thank you to Truphone and give their service and sim card 2 very big thumbs up (as usual for them).  It worked for me flawlessly and I can’t imagine traveling without it ever again.  If anyone travels abroad much I would even suggest transferring your regular cell number to Truphone and just use their sim all the time.  Check the rates in your country but it’s definitely something to think about.

My friend Andy Abramson just yesterday posted “Staying Connected- Beating The High Cost of Roaming http://ow.ly/18lHO6“.  I wanted to bring any attention I could to his article because it highlights one of my favorite companies, Truphone.  I’ve been an advocate of theirs for many years now have enjoyed their service for as long as it’s been around.  If you are into saving serious money when traveling abroad whether it’s in the US or outside the US I suggest reading Andy’s article and giving Truphone a try.

Just to be clear

I’ve been wanting to blog about some Truphone (one of my favorite services) news for days now and I’m finally getting to all the news.  Instead of writing 3 different posts I’m just going to condense it down to one short post.  Let’s get to it.

1. Truphone is in an MVNO relationship with Vodafone UK.  Meaning they buy minutes/data from Vodafone.  This gives them the ability to resell it to you when you use one of their nifty new sims.  This is great for people roaming in the UK, make sure to check it out otherwise you may get hit with one of those $700 roaming bills that we’ve all heard stories about.

2. Truphone Local Anywhere is also a great service for folks roaming around the world.  You will also use Truphones new sim and get reduced rates for your calls, sms, and data.  This is exciting to have another one of the big boys in the roaming sim game.

3. Truphone is releasing a new build for Android and this will make it the first VOIP app on the new Google Nexus One.
Update on the release for Android: It has some kind of glitch, but instead of sitting on their hands Truphone is working hard to get out an update ASAP. Personally I love when a company listen to their users and react quickly instead of pretending they don’t know about problems.

I’ve been reading Ewan MacLeod’s blogs for many years now.  I started back when MIR was SMSTextNews and was inspired by Ewan to write my own blog and endevour into the mobile industry.  I went from an observer to someone involved and participating, from hosting industry events all over the world to traveling to the biggest trade shows (MWC).

I read Ewan’s rant (now being refered to as The Cannes Doctrine) about where he’d like to see mobile services go.  I’d like to add to that and rant a little myself.  I’m sick and tired of where the mobile industry is right now.  I’m a long time Nokia fan.  Anybody that knows me knows that.  Problem is Nokia is not going anywhere fast in terms of what our phones can do for us.  They have made huge strives in what we can do with our phone but not what they will do for us.  Great, now I can take an 8mp camera phone pic, I can listen to music while I’m out and about, I can check my email and I can read Ewans rants on the go.

Well my rant is along similar lines as Ewans, I want more integration of mobiles into our regular lives.  I don’t want my phone to make calls and compose sms, but I want my phone to know when to ring and when not to.  I want it to know exactly what I’m doing and when I’m doing it.  I don’t want my phone to ever ring from 9pm to 8am in it’s regular tone unless my calendar says I’m out and about.  I want my phone to know I’m at home (utilizing GPS+wifi+calendar) and that it shouldn’t ring or ding but only beep because I’m at home and my wife and daughter may be sleeping.  I want my phone to activate it’s GPS service like Google Maps or Nokia Maps when I’m outside or moving more then 15 miles per hour.  I expect my phone to vibrate instead of ring if my  calendar says I’m in a meeting.  I want my phone to automatically log into whatever wifi I’m around and connect me to VOIP.

I want my phone to read my ToDo list and know that I need to pick up flowers for my wife for her birthday and remind me when I’m driving by the flower shop.  I’d like my phone to actually order the flowers in advance knowing I’ll be driving by the flower shop.

All along my phone should know that I don’t want to accept IM’s while I’m driving because that wouldn’t be responsible of me to read and respond while I’m behind the wheel.  I want my phone to know to check for firmware updates on a regular basis and same thing for the apps I run on my phone.

One of the biggest things I want my phone to handle for me is mobile payments.  I went grocery shopping a few months back and was Tweeting on my way out the door.  I ended up forgetting my wallet at home but not my mobile (of course).  So I was shocked when I went to check out and pay.  I had to run home and get my wallet with my credit cards in it versus just swipe my phone by the credit card reader to pay.

I want so much from my phone and I expect all of this to be here now, I’m not patient like Ewan.  I expect these apps to integrate with each other and deepely into my phone.  I’m commited to Nokia, that’s not to say I’m not tempted by an iPhone.  But I see Nokia doing so many things right that I can’t live without.  I need my emoze email, Truphone VOIP, and a few other apps that either aren’t made for the iPhone or aren’t as robust on the iPhone because of the lame ducked SDK.

One of the biggest things I want is the Nokia E71/E72 form factor on whatever platform I use.

Every aspect of what Ewan and I are ranting about is here, it’s not years away, it’s just delayed due to the integration of the hardware and interaction with the other apps.  I would like to make a suggestion to the industry.  I’d like to see standards layed out accross each platform for software and hardware develpoers to work with to give the ability of proper marriges within apps and phones.  So that my work IM app will work with the office wifi and ringer profiles to know where I am and to integrate with my calendar so it never rings while I’m in a meeting.  I propose to the industry to come together during Mobile World Congress and work with each other to make what we already have that is overly fragmented into a transparent clean user interface.

Nokia, things haven’t changed as much as you’d like us all to think in the last few years, let’s make some changes before the end of 2010.  Pick the biggest and best apps and use them as an example.  Use the homescreen Switch app to control what we see but have it tied into the GPS and accelerometer.  It should know when we’re at home, the office, the park and every other place we go and control what we see on our homescreen reading different IP addresses around it, using GPS and cell phone tower triangulation.  I don’t want my work email, IM, and VOIP on my homescreen when I’m at home on the weekends.  That’s just one example.

So telecom industry, it’s time to take some steps and do what may be uncomfortable.  Make changes and make them quickly.

This Thanksgiving (a US holiday) Truphone is offering free calls to US mobile and land line numbers for 12 hours.

Truphone is sharing the holiday spirit by giving anyone with Truphone the ability to call anywhere in the United States during the day.

What does this mean for you, you ask?  It means that you should download Truphone onto your mobile phone if you don’t already have it and to wild and call everyone on next Thursday, November 26.  Take advantage of Truphone’s kindness and go crazy.

Here’s a link to the page on the Truphone site explaining the promotion.  It also has a drop down to help you calculate what time the promo is running in your area and the ability save the times to your calendar.

Enjoy on Truphone’s dime!

What does it mean if Skype buys Gizmo Project? This is a huge deal for the VOIP industry.  It is a big deal for something that keeps going thorough my mind “The next Billion” (meaning the next billion people to get mobile phones and get on the mobile web).  The first thing that came to mind when I heard about this potential acquisition is interoperability with Truphone.

If Skype buys Gizmo Pr0ject this means they would start using the SIP standard as far as I understand.  Using SIP means that Skype would suddenly be interoperable with services like Google Chat (including video and voice chat), Truphone, and many of the other VOIP services.

In Truphone’s case this is a big deal because they would suddenly have an added available user base of many many million potential users.  Truphone is the only widely known mobile VOIP (only, leaving out IM clients) client and they are very popular in some circles but unfortunately totally unknown in most.  The interoperability with Skype would give them in my opinion the potential for instant fame.  They would be the most known interoperable mobile VOIP client and suddenly be thrust into the spotlight.
As far as the “Next Billion” goes, I tend to see for example people in India using VOIP over Skype more often for a variety of reasons, including the ability to put mobile VOIP on Nokia phones more easily then Skype. The fact that Skype is the most used internet telephone in world suddenly being able to communicate with  mVOIP would give people in India the chance to communicate, with hundreds of millions of additional people the world over.  They would be able to do more business, talk to family and just interact with more people the world over.
Essentially besides Michael Robertson the creator of Gizmo Project and the GP board/investors, I think Truphone has the potential to come out gaining the most out of this acquisition.  It might work nicely for Nokia too being the easiest devices to put your SIP details into and start making calls.

I guess we’ll all just have to wait and see how all this play out, We may not know if Skype is going to buy Gizmo Project potentially until mid December because Skype is still trying to fight the lawsuits and come up with their own work around.  I don’t really foresee Skype wanting to part with the rumored $50 million for GP but they just may be backed into a corner.  If it does go thorough though it would be a huge win for Michael, so good luck to you and GP.

Logo credit to blog.tmcnet.com

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………