November 01, 2007

Lifeblog post

Fri 26/10/2007 17:29 26102007120
Fri 26/10/2007 17:29 26102007120


As good as the free beer and nibbles were, I was keen to move on to the next party... The Nokia s60 party. And so after the queue for a half an hour coach we were finally able to get a cab to Nokia's more civilised choice of party venue, in Smith's of Smithfield, my old stomping ground, and time to ditch the beer and nibbles for large glasses of red and canapés. The mood here was very different, there was a quiet, understated enthusiasm that you normally only see in a well funded, well run startup that knows they are on to something... And they are. Most of us started our smartphone life with a p800, could not wait to get the next version and the s60 and s90 smartphones could never quite tear us away from our uiq touch screens. Part of this was actually down to the devices- a nokia 6600 or even n70 could never compete with a true smartphone. However, we waited so long for the bitter disappointment that was the p990, and many were so impressed by the flawed genius of the nokia n80, that the n95 could do nothing but take the smartphone crown, and in doing so, take s60 with it. This is all building up to the fact that the star of this year's show, the phone that staff had to prize out of people's hands at the end of the day when closing their stand (really!) was the n95's better looking sister, the n95 8gb. Nokia can now breathe a sigh of relief; not because they finally have the best smartphone and operating system, but because it is the first year of this event that finally nobody asked Nokia "when are you bringing out a touchscreen smartphone".

October 31, 2007

Lifeblog post

Tue 16/10/2007 19:07 Screenshot0053
Tue 16/10/2007 19:07 Screenshot0053

So I thought it only right to use the Symbian smartphone show's smartest smartphone to identify the 'secret' location in the hope that next year we can all go somewhere which is a still secret next year and we can actually get a taxi out of there rather than just a 30 min coach to tower hill...

Lifeblog post

Tue 16/10/2007 18:40 16102007117
Tue 16/10/2007 18:40 16102007117


So off to the 'secret' location we went; the smarter and veteran smartphone-show-goers recognised a remarkable similarity to last year's show; both in location and the length of the queue for the hotdog stand. The mix of minimalist warehouse and hotdogs had some of the more nordic of the show goers trying to order a stöölenbåt from ikea on their smartphones whilst queuing for another hotdog... Only to find they did not know the address of the 'secret' party location for ikea to deliver to, and ikea does not yet deliver to that part of London until 2034 anyway...

Lifeblog post

Tue 16/10/2007 17:52 16102007116
Tue 16/10/2007 17:52 16102007116


So onto more exciting things... The secret location of this year's Symbian party... We all queued for our transportation and a coloured wristband to get in... And another music festival flashback... I thought I was going to be the only man in chinos at a music festival again!

Lifeblog post

Tue 16/10/2007 17:47 16102007115
Tue 16/10/2007 17:47 16102007115


Dear diary, it's been a while... Blogging from a mobile is a time consuming process, so let's see if an entry can be done over a coffee! The most unexciting stand had to in to Accenture, well it just had to. They were not there as first suspected to debrief smartphone manufacturers on a holistic approach to making smartphones smarter, but actually as a serious player in the embedded market... They still get this prize for having too many charts on the wall...

October 19, 2007

Lifeblog post

Tue 16/10/2007 17:38 16102007111
Tue 16/10/2007 17:38 16102007111


London was a green pod and next to New York, btw; in case you were left wondering on the edge of your seat...

Lifeblog post

Tue 16/10/2007 17:38 16102007113
Tue 16/10/2007 17:38 16102007113


The next crop was a truely international mix of multicoloured pods arranged by cities of the world, a bit like a clockwork orange, smartphone version of those stale world clock arrangements. I assumed it meant something about a smartphone adapting to different territories and being your portal on the move? I hoped maybe that whoever does corporate phone sourcing was there to see this and the blackberry stand and would start giving senior people blackberry enabled smartphones rather than just blackberries, so the next time I email someone who is out of the office, they can actually attach the file they reference in the email , and can print or send the attachment to their laptop; things that are a breeze on even non smartphones, but when the person you are speaking to has a vanilla blackberry these simple one-man tasks have a habit of becoming everybody's time wasting chore.

Lifeblog post

Tue 16/10/2007 17:39 16102007114
Tue 16/10/2007 17:39 16102007114


Now, if we did not imagine maps had eyes, we could hardly foresee that browsers and smartphones grow on trees. According to the Opera stand they do. Now for me web browsing and email are very mobile 1.0, while I admire RIM for recognizing this, see post above, the browser and its associated smartphone growing on trees just smacked of mobile 1.0 dressed as mobile 2.0, and smartphones do not grow on trees, or I would have an N95 8Gb by now. I was then left imagining the next time Opera try to do a license deal for their browser; being confronted with a much lower offer because apparently browsers grow on trees, as I moved on to the next crop.

Lifeblog post

Tue 16/10/2007 16:58 16102007107
Tue 16/10/2007 16:58 16102007107


Teleatlas were there, as orange as always, only with an interesting twist; this scale model of its 'van with eyes' which implies the onset of 3D mapping beyond the present odd important building on Google Earth. I have seen the 3D capabilities of smartphones today in 3D maze and 3D game demos, and it is impressive. As is the ability of my N95 to GPS navigate me to my meetings; both stop short of showing of which of these dull buildings in an even duller business park my exciting next meeting will be in. Teleatlas are promising me that they could even point me at the front door: now that is impressive, and useful.

Lifeblog post

Tue 16/10/2007 16:59 16102007108
Tue 16/10/2007 16:59 16102007108


Following on the multimedia, multifaceted new found nature of the smartphone beyond the email and attachment mule it started life as, RIM had a whole blackberry stand full of blackberry compatible smartphones, none of which were actual blackberry devices! It was refreshing to see a company being so honest and clever with their product and not trying to flog the crackberry as anything more than the email mule that it still is, pearl or no pearl.