US Mobile Industry» T-Mobile

Prepare for the June Tsunami!

matthew bennett — Tue, 19 May 2009 18:38:00 +0000

The entire planet is about to enter the next cycle of Human Communication. The June Tsunami’s effects will be felt by every human on the planet. This revolution will be bigger than the Personal Computer, and it will be pocketable. And it’s all starting in two weeks.

Advanced mobile users have always had a tough time finding the perfect device. Historically many devices have needed to make great sacrifices to remain pocketable in size. Gadget lovers have long been forced to choose between a mixture of 3G, WiFi, GPS, Bluetooth, A2DP, Removable Storage, a great camera, 3.5mm headphone jack, QWERTY keyboard and/or large touch screens.

In their search for the Perfect Mobile Device, many advances users were forced to import unlocked devices not sold by their carrier of choice. This meant the devices were expensive without carrier subsidies. The worse downside was that often the 3G frequencies of imported devices weren’t the same as the carrier, so Expensive Imported Devices were trapped in modem-like network speeds with EDGE.

The Nokia N95 was one of the first devices that didn’t make compromises. Sporting most of the above listed features, save the touch screen and qwerty, The N95 was the singlular choice among most bloggers and media creators prior to the iPhone. Remember that Nokia has sold over 10 Million N95′s in less than one year.

The iPhone has kick-started the revolution of well-equipped devices with full carrier support. While many Nokia users would scoff at the iPhone (and many also switched!), many iPhone users were upgrading from a crap-phone like the RAZR. To these users, the iPhone experience out-of-the-box is mind-blowing.

Two Thousand Nine is the year that all US carriers will (Finally) offer wide choices of very powerful pocketable computers, many US exclusives. The Palm Pre, iPhone 3.0, Sidekick LX, Nokia N97, Nokia E71x, Samsung i8910 are all new devices delivering on this promise starting in June. at&t recently launched six qwerty “messaging phones”, and Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile all have Tsunami-compatible devices in their near-future lineup.

The next infobit to consider is the mainstreaming of Social Media. Oprah’s on Twitter, your Boss is on Facebook, and your little brother is a star on YouTube. In the very near future a device *will not sell* if it does not support Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter out of the box. Many of these devices will support widgets, which will deliver updates without requiring launching a dedicated app. Some of these devices will pull the phone directory from these online services, as well as profile pictures. Sporting full QWERTY keyboards, typing a quick status update, instant message or email is no longer an annoyance, it’s downright easy.

Most of these new devices not only record decent quality video, you can upload the videos to YouTube with just a few clicks. The user becomes the media creator overnight. After an initial period of shyness, the wave of video publishers will be big. Having a camcorder in your pocket will also bring social justice. The people are watching the watching men. The camera is the new gun.

Yes, the June Tusnami is the effective end of CrapPhones as we know it. It is the beginning of much higher expectations from most users. From taking great pictures and video, to instant communication, the next round of devices are evolutionary, and will start a Media Revolution.

Communication barriers are shattering all at once. In your pocket. Right Now!

Truphone Local Anywhere launches with international SIMs Truphone, an awesome VoIP company which has long supported S60...

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Sidekick LX includes Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube

matthew bennett — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 18:18:53 +0000

I’ve been completly ignoring the T-Mobile Sidekick forever. It’s a qwerty dumbphone, with a few nice features on T-Mob, which is not as good as at&t in San Francisco, so my personal interest has been very low.

What does it take to get me interested? The next Sidekick, the LX will include Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter right out of the box. I’m really excited that T-Mobile is embracing webservices, services outside of their own company.

One of the things that annoys me the most about branded phones is how badly the carriers ruin the firmware. They often remove the built-in software form the manufacturer, and install branded services so they can charge you a monthly rate. The branded firmwares also often make it difficult for 3rd party apps to access the internet or stay running in the background. This causes apps like IM or Social apps to be a giant FAIL because they just can’t stay connected.

I think inclusion of Social Networks, specifically the four big-boys included on the Sidekick LX, will be a HUGE tipping point for device consummers. The carriers are viewing SMS and MMS as the big drivers for the next five years, in terms of network usage. I think we’re going to see consummers, starting with younger folks, DEMANDING these four services on devices. As the networks all migrate towards 3G and beyond, and smartphone features are pushed down into “dumber” devices, it’s the ease of use and the services that will determine the winners.

Oh yeah! Besides these Social Networks, the LX looks like a nice device! It’s got 3G, 3.2MP autofocus camera, video recording with uploading to Social Services, A2DP, 3.2″ screen at 854 x 480, MicroSDHC storage, IM support for the popular networks, and Exchange support in the near future.

Teens are so lucky now-a-days! Here’s a link to the press release.

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How to recover Android from disaster

matthew bennett — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:34:20 +0000

Have you ever needed to manage your Android device, but something you’ve installed is not allowing you? Surely there’s a way around bad software installs, but it might not be easy or intuitive.

Matthew Stevens over on Gadget Virtuoso comes to the rescue, with this helpful article on what to do when your Android installation is heading South, but you don’t want to fully wipe the device and start over.

From the article:

With Android there are two functions you need to know that will get you through most problems.
First, the three finger salute (other wise know as the reboot). Windows users know it as CTRL+ALT+DEL. For Android this is TALK+MENU+END . It may take a few tries to hit all three keysexactly at the same time, but when initiated the device will give a quick buzz and display the T-Mobile G1. Assuming everything will be fixed by the reboot, there is nothing more to do.

The second option is…

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Android Calling Card does what it suggests

matthew bennett — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:43:31 +0000

Do you have a calling card, but you don’t like to use it because it’s too lengthy to type in all those annoying numbers? Now there’s an Android app that will automagically use a calling card when you’re dailing international numbers. Android Calling Card 1.6 is available now in the Android Market.

via BoingBoing

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Torrent Droid, torrents on Android.

matthew bennett — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:37:09 +0000

Further bridging the gap between the Real-World and Internet-Land, this Android app will help you download information of questionable legallity easily. Named Torrent Droid, this app can scan a barcode on “some media”, like a book, cd or a DVD, and identifies the content. Then it searchs The Priate Bay, and automatically locates a torrent file, so you can download the content for free. Torrent Droid can also add the torrent file to your uTorrent list, so it will download automagically.

This reminds me of the Pirates of Amazon plugin for Firefox, which replaced the Buy Now buttons with a link to a torrent file from The Pirate Bay. Ahh, to be young and broke again. Don’t pirate stuff, ok?

Torrent Freak,via Hack-a Day

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T-Mobile G-1 Quick preview

matthew bennett — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:18:59 +0000

Here’s a Lil’ Something Somthing on a device I played with for a while.

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Hello world!

matthew bennett — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 03:07:08 +0000

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

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