Category: Nokia

So the news is out: #NokMsft

Nokia and Microsoft have announced a strategic partnership that will see Nokia hardware running Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 software. It’s about eco-systems and, with Google’s Android growing ever-larger, it’s also about a stronger – much more strategic – industry play.

The Nokia community, one that I’ve been a part of for many years (and now spend my days helping to manage), is obviously still in shock. The announcement has been out for 20mins and between ‘MURDER!’, ‘I told you so!‘ and ‘What have you done?!‘ – there are many out there still waiting for their questions to be answered:

– What about Meego?
– Where does this leave Symbian?
– What about the current roadmap?
– When can we expect the first Nokia/WP7 device to ship?

I imagine, over the course of today all of these questions, and more, will slowly be answered; the actual speech from Elop himself isn’t scheduled for another couple of hours and I’m fairly certain that what we’re seeing is just the start of major disruption both internally [for both Microsoft & Nokia employees] and externally for the market as a whole.

For now, I’ve got a couple of Social Media Week events to attend this morning so, I’m going to re-read my WP7 review from last year and spend my tube journey wondering if the bad points I highlighted could quite easily be ticked off by an awesome piece of Nokia hardware…

We are living in interesting times.

I want a Nokia N8

Wait, what?Moleskine entry: April 30th, 2010

But I guess you kind of saw that coming.

I work for 1000heads, who in turn work for Nokia, the question is obviously primed: am I being paid to say this? No. Certainly not. The recently announced messaging devices for instance, although they’ve arrived at an astonishing price point.. tey certainly didn’t float my boat terms of specs, looks or features. The N8 however does.. and I’l tell you why.

Whenever I get asked “What phone should I get?” my response – believe it or not – does not start with “Oh, the Nokia…” Instead my reply is usually something like “It depends”.  Then I ask questions.

More often than not based around content creation vs consumption, plus some device history and of course the necessary operator-based queries and, I would like to think, of those that have taken my advice in the past, a fair few have ended up happy with their final choice.

If the roles were reversed and I found myself answering my own questions, there is no doubt that I would recommend the N8.

Why? Let’s see.

___________________

“Question 1: What do you have right now?”

Right now James, I switch between the N900 + the Nexus One.

“Question 2: What do you use your phone for?”

Everything!

“Ahem, can you define ‘everything’?”

OK. Photos, videos, emails, web browsing, calendar, address book… Basically, if the feature exists on the handset, I use it. If it doesn’t exist, I download an app that does. But yes, I guess I said photos and videos first as I do indeed love creating.

“Question 3: What did you use to have? I mean, what is your handset history?”

Before the N900? The N86.

“How was that?”

Well, non-touchscreen, amazing camera, genuinely the last great phone of its kind.

“Question 4: iPhone?”

Never.

“Question 5: Android?”

Great for consumption. Great as a Twitter device, email etc.. Single sign on makes it a breeze to use but, the camera functionality lets it down MASSIVELY.

___________________

So far, so not very surprising. Turns out I want the Nokia N8 for a whole bunch of reasons – so why is it really?

Because I love creating content on my phone. Why my phone in particular? I don’t know. It could be the wealth of meta data available, it could be the sense of geeky wonder I get whenever I upload anything in its final form… sometimes it’s just the damn good quality of the thing.

The N8 is new, shiny and – barring some shoddy, ne’er do well, prototype-based scrutiny a few weeks back – is actually quite exciting. The output from the handset is nothing short of outstanding and, having dragged my N86 around the world with me last year, upgrading to the next model is the next logical step.

I’ve not had any actual hands on time with it yet. So all of this might change. There’s one thing that simply cannot argue; Nokia make some great imaging devices.

The N8, by the looks of things, will be their next, great imaging device. So I’m getting one.

Are you?

I want an N8

What day is it today?

Moleskine entry: Dec 15th, 2009

What day is it today? 15th? I think so. That’s right, ten days ’til Christmas, I remember.

It’s been a fair while since I emptied my thoughts into this moleskine of mine, but excuses I have none. Instead I have nearly three months of hard work to look back on. 1000heads is treating me well, very well.

It’s hard work, challenging even, but in the best of ways.

I can’t talk about any of of the stuff I’ve working on, obviously. However, let’s just say I am in exactly the right place at the exactly the right time; I’ve seen the future, and it’s very bright indeed.

It strikes me that it might be some months until this entry makes it out onto my blog. So apologies in advance if this seems out of time at all.

I wonder if, in time, I will be able to talk about what I’ve actually worked on, i.e.: projects of the past. I’m finally getting to grips with how fast this place moves; last Wednesday I helped out with creating an invitation for the Ovi Daily App Awards. Between us we nailed the copy, design, look and feel and just for good measure, a comedy QR code to boot.

Ovi Daily App Invite

They were signed off, printed and sent out within 24hrs and, by Friday, blog posts were already springing up. Amazing.

I understand that this might just be par for the course for some of you but, coming from a veritable behemoth of an organisation, this is not how it’s done ‘client side’.

I’m yawning as I write, I must be boring myself.

Writing from a plane (again), we’re headed for Helsinki. There’s a man two seats away who spoke at OpenLabs. Remember that?

Seems like such a long time ago now…

Just Qik-ly…

This evening I attended the Nokia N900 meetup event in London town and, with my very own brand new Nokia N900, I managed to get a Qik video stream of the demo they gave…

It’s a bit dark and there’s no fancy intro, but I have no time to clean it up so I’m just going to throw it up raw.

http://qik.com/swfs/qikPlayer4.swf

The TV screen is a live TV-out from the device itself and the UI really is that smooth.

I’ll probably write up a bigger review for The Really Mobile Project at some point but in the meantime, I guess this is my vlomo09 entry…

Cheers.

Making something Really Mobile

I mean, really mobile…

About six or seven weeks ago now, I said a sad goodbye and a fond farewell to Mobile Industry Review (MIR). My weekly column ‘Whatley Wednesday’ was at an end and the team’s online video counterpart, The MIR Show, was no more.

But this much I’ve covered already. It’s what happened next I want to talk about.

Post closure, Ewan kindly gave me an export of all my prior MIR work, which you can now find in the newly created Whatley Wednesday category on the right hand side of this page. Please feel free to browse at your leisure, there are some pieces in there that I am deeply proud of and I’m really happy that I’ve been able to preserve them.

Even still, I was left wondering where my mobile content was supposed to go. I’ve long maintained that I have three main streams of blogging output:

  • Anything SpinVox goes the SpinVox Blog, Big Talk
  • Mobile-focused musings went to Mobile Industry Review
  • Everything else, stays right here in My Happy Place

With one of those streams now closed, I wasn’t sure what to do. I could’ve started putting the content here, but I didn’t want to alienate any of my readers. I wasn’t sure you’d appreciate it to be honest. This blog isn’t about mobile news, views and opinion. It’s about – for me at least – starting interesting conversations.

The real question was; ‘what to do next?’ and, well ‘start something new’ was the immediate answer.

When it came to restarting Whatley Wednesday, I took up Rafe Blandford on his offer to write a piece for leading mobile site All About Symbian (AAS). Entitled ‘Should Gravity come down?’ the piece questioned the price of a particular Nokia Symbian app and on top of that, Nokia apps in general.

Hand on heart there were a few opportunities like the one above from Rafe, and originally I had planned to accept them all. Not out of greed or ego; I merely felt a certain sense of displacement or maybe homelessness. I figured that Whatley Wednesday could become  a travelling road show of sorts (for want of a better comparison), each week resurfacing on a different publication and taking on a different subject matter.

That was the plan anyway.

However, in the furore surrounding my debut on AAS (seriously, check out the comments – all 67 of them), I questioned the validity of this idea and, when it came to writing up some thoughts about the incoming Nokia N97, I went against my instincts and published them here.

It was at this point that I realised that I needed my own mobile channel, something that I had (at least in part) ownership of and somewhere that I wouldn’t have to apologise for my own opinion. It turned out that I wouldn’t have to wait for long, as in the background, work had already begun on what was at that time only referred to as: ‘Secret Project X’.

So it was, the day after MIR announced its closure, and under the cover of darkness, three men met somewhere along London’s South Bank.

In a coffee shop not far from Hungerford Bridge – EAT I think it was, to be precise – Ben Smith, Dan Lane and I sat down to work out what our next steps were.
What I initially had pencilled in as a rather macabre and somewhat gruesome post-mortem turned very quickly into the conception of a new idea.
The general consensus was that we could rant and rave about how annoyed we all were, or, spend what little time we had planning our next moves.
It was unanimous.

We were going to build something new, really soon.

In the days and weeks that followed that fateful night, emails were exchanged, further meetings were had and plans were made. Further to that, a rough go-live schedule was put in place.

Potential additional contributors from the old team; Samantha Kidd, Ricky Chotai and Jonathan Jensen were asked along too – all of whom were immensely forthcoming with their support and immediately signed on.

On a late night conference call with the rest of the team, the members of Secret Project X finally agreed on a name.
That name was…

The Really Mobile Project

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=3930516&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=0&show_portrait=0&color=00adef&fullscreen=1

Interestingly, with a new moniker came too a new sense of direction and purpose.

Dan Lane pulled together some of our old MIR footage and excelled himself by putting together a rather awesome trailer. This short video (embedded above), which we made live one week after launching The Really Mobile Project (TRMP) holding page, was shared with the sole purpose of letting people know that no, this wasn’t the end and yes, we would be back.

Even more meetings followed, yet more emails were exchanged and TRMP was coming. By the time we put the trailer out, we’d pretty much made a promise that we intended to keep. Thing is, it turned out to be a lot harder than we first thought.

Building a site?
Gaining access to high quality equipment?
Finding the time to get all members of the team together to film content?

All of these things proved to be less than easy.

Two days before filming was due to kick off, the whole project was put on hold. The equipment wasn’t good enough, the site wasn’t right and on top of that, we had no content.
From the off we had all agreed that whatever it was that we ended up producing, it would be high quality. Our work at MIR had set the bar high and we knew that at the very minimum, we had to match it.

As any decent advisor will tell you; if you over promise and under deliver, failure will greet you with open arms.

So we took a step back and regrouped. What would we REALLY need to do to make this as good as we wanted it?

The project plan was re-written, a wiki was created, and tangible steps were taken to ensure that creating a quality site with even better output would be a nigh-on guarantee.

After all of this, on April 28th at approximately 3.00am, seven weeks since that initial coffee, The Really Mobile Project launched onto the (un)suspecting world.

Now, at long last, we finally have our own place on the web to talk mobile.

One of the things we noticed during our time in the wilderness was just how strong, passionate and caring the mobile community is. Keeping that firmly in mind, we established that from day one ‘Really Mobile’ would be about the conversation.

It’s the community that makes a site, so we want our readers and viewers to feel a part of something. 2009 is the year of conversation after all, right?

I’ve talked long enough and if you’ve made it this far, you have my thanks.
All I have left to say is this; if you follow me because you’re mad about mobile then please, get yourself over to The Really Mobile Project today.

It’s new, we’re still making changes and fixing bugs, but it’s out there.

And it needs you.

Arriving this July, the N97 and…?

Browsing through my Google Reader this morning, I came across this article from the guys over at NokiaUsers.net reporting that Vodafone has just confirmed a July release date for the Nokia N97 here in the UK.

You can read more about the handset over on Vodafone’s dedicated N97 page, but needless to say, this announcement is very good news indeed.

As some of you may or may not know, I am a card-carrying Vodafone member, I have been for some time and, upon hearing that the N97 was en route to my network of choice, I am very happy indeed.
Since it was first announced at Nokia World in December, the initial buzz has been largely positive.
In fact, I remember putting virtual pen to paper at the time and exclaiming how much the the prospect of this handset excited me; even going as so far to say:

“I firmly believe that the Nokia N97 is the replacement for my N95 8GB.”

However, as I mentioned, I wrote that at the tail end of last year and since then?
Well, some things have changed.

Since Nokia World, not only have has there been several opportunities for me to have hands on time with the N97, but also Mobile World Congress (MWC), has come and gone. This conference, previously known as ‘3GSM’ and held in Barcelona each February, is the largest telecommunications event in the world and this year saw the unveiling of the Nokia N86.

This 8 megapixel beauty took me completely by surprise at MWC, and although originally pitched as the successor to the much-overlooked Nokia N85 (the N86 test model above was in fact labelled ‘N85 8MP’ on its debut in Barcelona), to my mind the N86 is the true replacement for the N95 8GB.

Why?

I carry two phones. I have done for some time now and I have no doubt that this habit will carry on into the future. My current ‘handset strategy’ is made up of the aforementioned N95 8GB which acts as my personal device, and a Nokia E71 as my work/business phone. Whenever I’m testing new devices I always, always swap out my E71 and swap in whichever piece of gadgetry I happen to be reviewing (the latest of which being the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music).

However this was not the case with the Nokia N86. Two weeks after Mobile World Congress, just in time for MGoL VI in fact, I happened to find myself in possession of said 8MP wonder and I was that impressed I instantly made it my personal device of choice (if only for the few days that I was able to test it anyway).

This. Speaks. Volumes.

If you’ve read any of my mobile stuff in the past you’ll know how much I love my N95, it’s certainly been through the wars over the years and for any device to come anywhere near taking its mantle, it has to be something pretty special.

The N86 is that phone.

The N97, as wonderful as it is, to my mind could have well been labelled the ‘E97′. What with the full qwerty keyboard and ‘communicator series’-like design, the N97 bears more relation to the E90 than to any Nseries phone I’ve ever seen. When I read that Vodafone were going to be shipping the N97 this coming July, I immediately got on the phone and registered my interest. Fortunately it turns out that I am due an upgrade around the same time as the N97 is scheduled to release.

Fantastic.

But that’s not all…

While I was the phone with Voda, I also enquired after the N86…

“It’s not one I’ve heard of Mr Whatley” …came the reply.

“Oh, would you mind checking for me anyway? I work in mobile you see and I really like the look of the N86, it has an 8MP camera and well, it’s very similar to my N95 8GB…”

“Oh here it is Mr Whatley, I’ve found it on our systems.”

“You have?!”

“Yes. Nokia N86. Got it. Now… Ah.. Ok.”

“Yes, yes, what is it?”

“Well it is here, but it has a question mark next to it.”

“Oh. Is that bad?”

“Oh no Mr Whatley, it just means we’re still testing it. I can’t confirm that we are going to get the N86 in stock but I can tell you that we have it here internally and we’re testing the software to make sure it works correctly “

“Really?!”

“Yes Mr Whatley. While I can’t go on record and say that it’s definitely coming, we are still testing. I can tell you that nine times out of ten, when it’s testing, it normally means we’ll be getting it sooner or later.”

“That’s great news, thanks!”

“You’re very welcome Mr Whatley, thanks for calling Vodafone.”

So there you have it. The N97 is coming to Vodafone in July and, from the sounds of things, the N86 won’t be too far behind it.

MIR: Whatley on the Nokia N97

So, the Nokia N97 eh? What do you think of THAT?!

Me? Hmm… Well, you all know what I thought of the last Nseries I laid my hands on and so when it comes to the newly announced Nokia N97, I approached with a certain amount of trepidation…

And my initial impressions? – I’m maybe just a little bit excited…
(but maybe not for the reasons that you’d think)

At first glance the N97 looks like the lovechild of the E90 and the Nokia 5800 but from the outset the QWERTY keypad looks like it’s not too dissimilar from that of the Eseries sister device, with the only change being the directional pad shifting from the right to the left side of the keys…

It’s worth pointing out this far into the piece that I am yet to actually get my hands on this device (the image above was taken a month after I originally wrote this piece), SpinVox commitments keeping me in Blighty for this year’s Nokia World, (more on what’s been keeping me so busy coming up soon). So my thoughts and words are totally and utterly my initial gut reactions/impressions from specs, reports and pictures that have been flying out of Barcelona since late last night…

Moving on…

The touch screen UI, S60 5th Edition for those that care, is perceived to be the same as that in the Nokia ‘Tube’ device that we saw launched earlier this year as part of the Xpress Music range with key DNA from both that and the E90 shining through so far so we’ve got one massive multi-combo mash-up of a device…

However, you could argue that there’s nothing new here.

You could argue that yet again Nokia have failed to innovate.

That Nokia have merely put two and two together and are hoping they hit four, not five – *cough* Like they did with the N96 *cough* – but again, and in complete polar opposite to the the N96, and as I mentioned at the outset – this device actually excites me.

Yes, the form factor is new and is certainly interesting; One of the G1 characteristics that I actually enjoyed the most was the ability to flick the screen up at any point you got bored/annoyed with the touch screen and do things properly as it were, so the addition of the full keyboard under the screen is a welcome feature here on the N97.

The camera is 5MP – standard fare for Nokia flagship devices although; interesting to note that they [Nokia] are not, as yet, leaping on the 8MP bandwagon that Sony, LG and Samsung seem so keen to pursue.

The music – With echoes of the Xpress range being in abundance, the Nokia N97 will of course support Comes With Music (fingers crossed anyway – yes Vodafone, I’m looking at YOU) when it arrives and, if the music quality is anything like the 5800, then Nokia will have that sewn up too. With a WHOPPING 48GB of storage space, (32GB onboard, 16GB expandable memory), I must admit that filling that bad boy up with content is going to be a struggle for even me…

Parking all of that to one side, is there still no real innovation? Is it ‘just’ evolution.
Not that this is a bad thing mind, the N95 8GB was a great ‘evolution handset’, the N97 it seems is another step forward from Nokia (not sideways, or even backwards – again, I refer to the N96).

One thing needs to be made clear right here and right now:

I firmly believe that the Nokia N97 is the replacement for my N95 8GB.

..and here’s why:

One of the great things I love about my N95 8GB is the way it keeps me constantly connected. Constantly. As Ewan Spence quite rightly pointed out,

“Staying in touch seems important to James in his choice of applications. Many of them are concerned with getting information off his device and onto the internet, either to small social groups, or to individuals. Within two or three button presses, Whatley is off communicating to pretty much anyone he chooses. The smartphone for him is all about getting the word out.”

The more data I can consume the better. Anyone who’s seen me at any conference anywhere in the world this year knows that I just don’t carry my laptop anywhere. My E71 and my N95 8GB give me all the connectivity, information and data sharing functionality that I need.

The N97, with its brand new ‘widget homescreen’, presents a real opportunity to get things right; One of my favourite features of Apple’s iPhone is the main menu and homescreen being one and the same.
The N97 looks like it could be going down that route… and then some; Pulling in information from RSS feeds, Share on OVI (although I’m hoping this can be swapped out for Flickr), Facbook, Email etc…

This is the active standby screen that dreams were made of.

Obviously, to keep things in perspective, as with any Nseries device – the proof is in the pudding. More often than not these devices arrive with shoddy firmware that is slow, buggy and prone to freezing/crashing. I’m still researching into the N97 and will no doubt have a follow up piece in the works very soon, but I’m crossing all my fingers and all my toes that at last Nokia may actually launch something with final (or at least half-decent) software.

For the time being at least, the queue for the N97 starts here.

Get behind me folks – we may be here a while.

Whatley out.

Whatley on Wednesday

Last week I received a Nokia N96 on loan from the those lovely folk at Nokia WOM World.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago:

…whenever I do have something mobile-related to say, I use my platform over on Mobile Industry Review (MIR), formerly – and now incorporating – SMS Text News, to get the message out…

So if Mobile is your thing, or if you’re just curious about Nokia’s new flagship handset, why not jump over and read my thoughts…

Your comments are as always, very welcome.

Lots of love,

Me.

🙂

For the Love of Music

I am… a Mobile Geek.

Oooh… Shiny!

This may not be brand new information to many of you, but to others – it might.

Reason being, I don’t tend to write that much about my mobile geekery here in My Happy Place, which is kind of silly really given how happy my mobile life makes me sometimes. But the motivation for this is that whenever I do have something mobile-related to say, I use my platform over on Mobile Industry Review (MIR), formerly – and now incorporating – SMS Text News, to get the message out.

So this post comes forthwith for two reasons. First up I have to tell you about something that I’ve been using for quite some time on my N95 8GB but which recently had quite an awesome little update. The second is more of a question for you dear readers… Which I’ll come to later.

As I mentioned – I’d normally use MIR to put this up but given the social/sharing elements and the happiness that this one app bestows upon me, I thought I’d share it here..

I want to tell you about a thing called Mobbler.

Mobbler is a 3rd party application that you download and install onto your S60 Nokia device, (so that’s pretty much any N or E series device plus a few others thrown in for good measure) which, once activated, acts like Last.fm for your mobile.

If you’re a Last.fm user, (and if you’re not, why not? Go and sign up now). this is cool for many reasons:

First up you can stream music from any of Last’s ‘radio’ stations – chosen by the usual themes of artist, tag, user, etc… You can stream music that you’ve previously ‘loved’ and you can also stream music from any of the playlists that you may’ve pre-defined on the web interface…

All of this delivered over-the-air (OTA) via your network/carrier – Tres Cool.
Oo yeah, all of this streaming means you might want some kind of data bundle…
Don’t forget that.

But, that’s not all, the real reason I HEART Mobbler so much, is that it allows me to share.

As you can see from the image above, right now I’m listening to Justice – One Minute to Midnight. This track is, along with about a thousand others, stored on my handset’s 8GB memory and is playing through the phone’s onboard MP3 player.. and Mobbler, in it’s wondrous fantasticness, is broadcasting this choice of track straight to my Last.fm user profile.

Which means you can go there and see what I’m listening to RIGHT NOW.
Instant sharing of what music I’m into, what’s making me strut and what is making me grin.

Awesome.
Thing is…

More and more recently my appreciation for all things musical has grown tenfold. From seeking out great new tunes to going to fantastic gigs or to just simply taking the time to really enjoy the emotional connection that certain compositions can have on the soul… Any and all of the above can make for a truly awe-inspiring experience.

Admittedly, having a trusted guide that can aid you through the mire of mediocrity that can sometimes exist on today’s CD shelves, (I’m sorry what? Who actually buys CDs anymore?!), can be a BIG help – but if you look hard enough, there are some true gems out there folks.. and being able to share these with you, whether I’m sat busy at my desk or on the move with my mobile, makes me a very happy Whatley indeed.

Oh and ‘reason for posting number two’…?
That question I mentioned?
I’ve thought about it now… and it doesn’t matter.

Thanks for reading folks.

🙂

Nokia Open Lab: Join the Community

So here it is – at last – the first part of the presentation I gave in Finland for the first ever Nokia Open Lab.

http://share.ovi.com/flash/player.aspx?media=nokiaopenlab08.10014&channelname=nokiaopenlab08.nokiaopenlab08

There are three other parts available to view that I might post, depending on the feedback on this one…

So, what are you waiting for?

Feed back already!

🙂