I have been in the mobile industry for a short while now & even though I do my best to stay on top of innovation in this sector, its tough because this world turns itself on its head every few weeks or so. Innovation is rife and users’ demands for more services, better hardware, applications and better operating systems have grown exponentially in the last 3 to 4 years.

With iPhone 4 rumoured to launch in SA in September 2010, Nokia N900 and the Nokia X-range doing well in Europe & the massive uptake of Android, its no surprise that South African users have become so demanding.

But on the flipside of all of this hardcore innovation, sometimes it is critical that we sit back and remind ourselves that the best ideas are often the simple ones. Flexicell capitalises on this and offers a super solution to an everyday problem.

Many mobile users in South Africa use prepaid airtime. Many reasons exist why it is so popular and a few of the most common ones are:

• Monthly income and expenses don’t allow affordability of predefined contracts
• Signup criteria requires minimum salary, proof of address, clear credit record, etc and is often a barrier to entry for many South Africans.
• Users prefer the flexibility afforded to them of not being tied into a 24 month contract.

Whatever the reasons are, Flexicell has come up with a brilliant solution to bridge the gap between users who would like a monthly commitment of airtime to be credited to the phones by setting up a monthly debit order based on users affordability. They sell themselves with a mission to “convert prepaid product users to month-to month contract.”.

The service allow for users to opt out with one calendar months notice with no penalties, unlike post-paid offerings from the voice networks like Vodacom, MTN, Cell C & Virgin Mobile.

I’m impressed. Well done for finding the simple solution to the complicated problem, Flexicell.

If you use Flexicell, I would love to hear about your experience.

Nokia have just release V31 of its firmware for the Nokia E72 and it looks like it has a lot of enhancements.

Heres the list what to expect in V31 of Nokia E72 firmware update:

NEW CONTENT

• WAPI support for China
• Internet radio
• Smart Connect
• Bloomberg
• Advanced Communications Manager

UPDATED

• Freestyle email (2.05, BL3, csw.32.rd_email_10w04)
• My Nokia (4.1)
• Nokia Maps SR3
• Share on OVI (4.3)
• OviStore (1.5.436)
• Cherry (2.1)
• Browser 7.2

MAJOR CORRECTIONS

• Stability improvements
  • Memory leak corrections to improve general stability
  • Music player, radio, video recording, earphone, security sw and encryprion stability corrections
  • Localisation corrections(MAPS, Calendar, Contacts, Email and Browser area)
• Email improvements
  • MFE activation registration correction
  • Synchronisation correction to mailbox creation(like Yahoo and Gmail) for the first time
  • Email editing correction(dubling of words when deleting suggestions)
  • Correction to synchronization when syncing draft meeting request
  • Set default setting “Sync while roaming” to “No”
  • Sending message without password initials crash correction
  • Messaging menu memory leak correction
• Calendar
  • Meeting request creation stability corrections
  • Requiring meeting request corrections
  • Meeting request saving correction if meeting request is saved before sending
  • Meeting update send after editing request
• Contacts
  • Contacts stability improvements (arrow keys pressed rapidly before contacts are loaded, add searched contact to the group without name, mail box removal, open/close contacts during call, conference call with two same name participants, … )
  • Company name displayed in contacts
  • Group deleting correction when group is deleted from group edit view
  • Contact group editing view corrections
  • Contacts search corrections (Group cannot be searched after editing its conference service number, Image detail of marked contact is not displayed in search result, Group disappears when add contact to it in searched result view)
• Home screen
  • Missed call indicator removal correction after call has been accomplished form action menu
  • Message notifier corrected when several voice messages received
• MAPS
  • New maps version included
  • Free navigation
  • Improved GPS handling
  • Landmark corrections(land mark received vie MMS, Landmarks are not displayed when selecting places during planning route from landmarks application)
  • Voice guidance corrections (turning directions, safety camera)
  • Route planning/saving corrections
• Browser
  • Browser bitmap memory leak correction
  • Browser closing stability improvement before connection is open
  • Secure connection icon corrections (going to an other secure page, secure connection canceling)
  • When moving multiple Bookmarks, the last selected Bookmark is not moved
  • Bookmark icon correction
• Other
  • Spacebar stops working correction
  • Emergency call correction when lock code query is on and call made quickly after power on
  • Theme effects disabled by default

Last night, I posted an article about a looming Nokia Navigation Announcement which is expected later today at an exclusive event in Cape Town. I have done some snooping and have figured out what the announcement is and it’s really WOW!

I’m excited to show you pre-announcement screen shots of the latest version of Ovi Maps with 3D view, 3D Buildings and Routing and Navigation for both Car and Walk mode.

Here are a few screen shots that I just took using the service for the first time, with my first impressions:

Ovi Maps Homepage defaults to Cape Town. This must be done by using my IP as I have not set up any other profiling information regarding my location.

Ovi Maps requires a browser plug in to be installed.

Ovi Maps Map View Options, include the standard that we have to come love on Ovi Maps on Mobile, Map View, Satellite and Terrain.

Check after the break for more screen shots, including the 3D Landmarks of Cape Town.

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Nokia has recently announced that all Nokia Maps, now known as Ovi Maps will include free navigation to all capable handsets. This shook the navigation world and blew the Garmin model out of the water, forever changing mobile mapping technology. This move was no surprise to some as it became more and more evident that unless other mapping platforms followed suit, Google Maps were set to landslide the industry with yet another disruptive technology offered as a free service.

Anyway, I now enjoy Ovi Maps 3.0 on my Nokia N97 with free navigation.

I have however been invited to a very intriguing Nokia Navigation event. It started, when I accepted an invitation to attend and was swiftly followed with a small gift box arriving in the mail.

With no explanation, the tag on the gift box read, ” Thank you for accepting Nokia’s invitation. Here is a small taste of what you will experience. Looking forward to seeing you in Cape Town.”

Inside the box, I found

1. A Luggage Tag,
2. EverySun AquaSport Lip Balm,
3. Smarties Mini Eggs,
4. Pyatt’s Mini Cheddars
5. Maynards Mini Ice Cream Mallow Gums
6. and a pack of South African Playing Cards

I have no idea what Nokia and Ovi have up their sleeves with this gift pack and what it means, but if this teaser photo that has just been released by the NokiaOvi team which are busy setting up the event in Cape Town is anything to go by, I’d say that tomorrow’s announcement and demo is going to be REALLY cool.

I have been using the Nokia N900 for a few days now as a test unit sent to me from Nokia. This has not been my first encounter with the device, as I did get my paws on one of them for a few minutes a few months ago at a Nokia event, but this has certainly been my most intimate experience with the N900 so far.

Here are my thoughts:

1. Coooool!
2. WOW!
3. Freaking A!

It has been that great for me so far, that I will go as far as saying that it is definitely the best mobile device available. In fact, I have even wowed iPhone users while showing the N900 off.

Heres a list of what I like:

• Large readable, bright screen with light sensor
• Touch screen is responsive (more than the Nokia N97) and intuitive
• Menu system is logical and practical
• Switching between applications has never been as easy and well thought out as it is on the N900
• The processor and ram handled 7 active applications without affecting responsiveness of the device. (Two games, a browser, an augmented reality app, mail, a YouTube media player and the contacts engine)
• Instant Messaging integration is unchallenged as the best on any device with full contacts integration and aggregation of both presence and status messages across multiple IM platforms.
• Contacts management is BRILLIANT! (I was able to import all my GMail and Skype contacts onto the device’s Phonebook and merge this new set of data with existing contact information. This is the kind of thing that g33k mobile wet dreams are made of!)
• The Phonebook aggregates users presence and displays Profile pics from 3rd party services.
• Multiple home screens. (A feature that is logically brilliant but illogically left out of the Nokia N97)
• It runs on Linux, so you have access to a Terminal, it’ll be cheap and its open source.
• The well built sturdiness of the device and the firm well sized QWERTY keyboard.
• The bookmarks display small thumbnail images of the site that can be stored as widgets on the home screen
• The browser is quick and runs javascript (even badly written javascript) really well.

Naturally, after using the device for a few days, I have found a few things that I don’t like:

• The phone is bulky. I was a Nokia E71 user and I think that Nokia has proven that it can built powerful yet petit devices and that’s not what the Nokia N900 is. Powerful sure, but it needs a diet and a gym contract!
• The phone is permenantly in landscape mode unless it is in call mode. This is nifty for some applications as it maximises the screen real estate, but natural tendency is to use the phone in portrait mode. It’s a bit of a paradigm shift to use it landscape mode permanently!
• The device blocks the ability to dial any numbers that include * or #. (I tried purchasing an SMS bundle and could not as the ability to dial *111# is not allowed.) I am sure that while the devices are being tested by the networks, they will pick this up and have it fixed before it hits the SA market in any case.
• Mail for Exchange doesn’t work for me yet. This is a problem that I had with my N97 for a while, but after a firmware patch, nagging the Mail Product manager and a few hard resets of the phone, I got it to work)
• Only two profiles exist, General and Silent. I know that many people only use these two profiles, but as a Nokia fan for many years, I have come to use more profiles and make use of Meeting, Silent and General almost daily.
• MSN messenger was left out as a default IM service and it currently ships with GoogleTalk, Skype and Jabber services.
• The unlock slider position works while holding the device in landscape mode, but as a natural portrait mode phone carrier, it is easy to expect the unlock slider to be on the left of the device (the top) as this is where it is on the N97, however there you will find the power button and easily switch the phone off when thinking that you are activating the screen lock.

With that said, I have to admit that being in the fortunate position of working in the mobile industry, I have used iPhones, BlackBerrys, HTC’s, etc. And while I have always advocated that the N97 was an awesome device, I still secretly wished it had the slick interface of the iPhone with the added practicality of the N97. The Nokia N900 fits that profile and goes beyond my every expectation of a mobile handset. It truly is an awesome phone and I am going to have serious trouble getting used to my now plebish Nokia N97.

I will continue using the phone for a few more weeks, but will then have to give it back unwillingly to Nokia!

UPDATE:

I have managed to get Mail for Exchange to work. A little perseverance did the trick. It is now syncing my mail, calender, tasks and contacts without any problem via wifi. )

Being such a huge Nokia N97 fan, I am often asked how to hard reset a Nokia N97 and thought that it would be best to post this on my blog.

Performing a hard reset on your Nokia N97 will essentially wipe all the data on the phone memory  and return all the settings back to default, which is the equivalent of performing a format on your Nokia N97 phone memory. Please also note that the mass memory is left untouched during this process and retain your data (as per my experiments)

It is highly recommended that you backup your data from your Nokia N97 using the backup utility within the Ovi Desktop client before performing a hard reset.

Performing this is at your own risk!

After backing up your phone, switch it off.

Then hold Caps/Shift, Delete and Space Bar. While holding these 3 buttons, press the power key and hold, until you hear the Nokia welcome tone. This process takes a few seconds and you have to hold all four buttons down during this process.

Image original: MyNokiaBlog

Remember that you always have the option of a soft reset, which will in essence reset the phones settings back to default without changing any data. To do this, simply go to Settings > Phone > Phone Management > Factory Settings.

So after a few weeks of anticipation of the latest firmware for the Nokia N97, it is now available as v21.0.045 which includes better call handling, improved scrolling, video and photo stability enhancements and better browsing.

Heres a screenshot of OVI with details on the Nokia N97 firmware v21:

Once that is done, I highly recommend that you update Ovi Maps to 3.0.3 which includes lifetime free access to voice navigation and lifecasting. Details on how to install Ovi Maps can be found on my previous blog post.

Nokia has recently announced that it will give away Ovi Maps with turn by turn voice navigation free to all of its devices enabled with GPS units. Sadly, it could launch the Ovi Maps 3.0.3 for the Nokia N97 when it launched it for the rest of the mobile giant’s lineup due to memory space issues on the C:/.

A Nokia representative then announced on the forum that the Ovi Maps Free versions will be available to Nokia N97 and N97 Mini users after the release of the latest firmware for v21. After much anticipation for the latest firmware which was expected today, Nokia has made available Ovi Maps for the N97 and subsequently delayed the release if the new firmware. #uncool, but honestly, it doesn’t matter because now all 79 countries maps are available to me free of charge on my Nokia N97.

Follow these instructions to install Ovi Maps 3.0.3 for the Nokia N97:

Select Applications from the Main Menu

Select SW Update

Ovi Maps – with free navigation will be in the menu list

Select Options > Download

Upon completion of installation, I recommend that you restart the phone.

My love for Nokia’s is very evident on my blog and I often find myself in the middle of iPhone vs BlackBerry vs Nokia arguments, and many times I win those arguments. I’m also fairly concerned for the environment and ever since IslandChic got involved in Carbon Emissions Trading and the Kyoto policy, I have taken an interest as well and did quite a bit of reading up on the matter.

I’m no saint though, I drive to work in a 2.0litre engined car, I could do a million things to reduce my carbon footprint, but I do

• unplug devices that are not in use
• once fully charged, remove teh cellphone charger,
• shower instead of bath
• have the car cleaned using a bucket and not a hosepipe
• switch unnecessary lights off, etc

My point is, that even though I am concious about the impact of global warming and I do constantly remind myself of my contribution to the problem, I do not do nearly enough to help.

The guys at Nokia have been helping though. For many years now, Nokia has been actively pursueing green technologies and methods of reducing the problem. Nokia handsets are now free of PVC, lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, Polybrominated Biphenyls (PBB) and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDE).

2/3rds of the energy used by a mobile phone is that which is consumed while the mobile phone is fully charged, but remains plugged into a charger. Nokia has realised this and have introduces “No Load” chargers, which ultimately switches the charger off once the phone is fully charged. I have also noticed that on my N97, when the phone is fully charged, or when I remove the charger or USB cable from the device, a reminder message is displayed encouraging users to unplug the charger.

All very subtle changes to the user, but the massive impact it could have when considering that there are almost 2 billion Nokia’s in circulation is quite impressive.

Check out the phone below that uses sugary liquid to power the device. In the images, the device is powered with Coke and a single topup of Coke is said to last 3 to 4 times longer than a single charge of a normal battery. I have included the original article text below the pics as well.

How cool is this?

A green phone for Nokia

This is the client project for designing an eco friendly phone for Nokia. Through my research, I found that phone battery as a power source, it is expensive, consuming valuable resources on manufacturing, presenting a disposal problem and harmful to the environment.  The concept is using bio battery to replace the traditional battery to create a pollution free environment. Bio battery is an ecologically friendly energy generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst. By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out. Bio battery has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium batteries and it could be fully biodegradable. Meanwhile, it brings a whole new perception to batteries and afternoon tea.

Check out Nokia’s Enviroment portal for more info on Nokia’s projects.

It looks like Microsoft is going to be bringing Xbox Live to the Windows Mobile platform in the near future. One of the better and more reliable sources for what is coming for Microsoft’s mobile platform is Microsoft’s own job postings. They are looking for a program manager and software test engineer for the project.

MobileTechWorld has the details of the two job postings. The first is for a “Principal Program Manager.” The key sentence in that posting is:

“We need a Principle Program Manager who can help drive the platform and bring Xbox LIVE enabled games to Windows Mobile. This person will focus specifically on what makes gaming experiences “LIVE Enabled” through aspects such as avatar integration, social interactions, and multi-screen experiences.”

For the software test engineer, they describe it as “The focus area of this team is our full end-to-end gaming experience, and it’s our teams challenge to ensure the highest level of quality and fun in all aspects of that experience.”

Microsoft has already integrated gamertags from Xbox Live with Zune IDs and now it looks like they are bringing Windows Mobile into the fold. That may also be a stepping stone to getting Zune bits on Windows Mobile, something that has been long rumored.

My guess is this is something for WinMo 8 or perhaps a “Second Edition” of WinMo 7. WinMo 7 is due to ship this year and the OS should be fully baked by the end of Q1, or perhaps a month or two after that, but not any later. It should be in consumer’s hands by Q4 2010. That means any projects being hired for now will be in the next version at the earliest.

I’ll be interested to see how they plan to integrate the two. Having avatar integration and social interactions is nice, but isn’t really a killer feature. The multi-screen integration could be interesting. Could you be playing Halo and using your phone as a tracking system or some other instrument panel? We’ll have to wait and see. If you are really curious, apply for the jobs. Who knows? You could get paid to sit all day long and play with an Xbox 360 and a super-secret build of Windows Mobile with Xbox Live integration.