Author Archive: Gareth

Yet another app about Mobile World Congress released

Mobile World Congress is the biggest most important event about cell phones. It takes place in European Union, in a warm country and at the seaside. Previously it was in Cannes, France and now it is in Barcelona, Spain. However one must point out that it is an event for professionals – mostly employees and managers from mobile operators and entry costs thousands of Euros and apart from cellphones itself also cellular network infrastructure is covered… so in fact it is a very professional event and if you don’t wear a suit you are confused for a homeless bum and asked out.

Previously we were reporting about the first iPhone app about Mobile World Congress and here comes the second one (we tried it! while it was constantly crashing over WiFi, it worked fine over cellular network strangely):

T-Mobile tariff shake-up

T-Mobile has pulled its Combi, Flext and U-Fix tariffs and introduced a new portfolio of flexible ‘pay monthly’ tariffs. The new tariffs are backed by upfront commission payments for third-party dealers that enable them to match the value T-Mobile affords customers via its direct channels.

T-Mobile national sales manager for independent partners John Fannon said: “The new tariffs are like a Chinese menu – it’s very easy to choose what you want… The greatest thing is the flexibility.
”The new 18 and 24-month deals are available from February 1.

Customers can select a free ‘booster’ from a range of bolt-ons as part of their contract, and choose further booster options from £5 per month.

Boosters include unlimited texts, unlimited UK fixed line calls, interent access to 1GB of data per month, plus various  international calling bundles. They can be chopped and changed each month.

Tariffs range from 100 minutes and 100 texts for £15 per month to 1,200 minutes and 500 texts for £35 a month. Customers will pay £5 more for 18-month tariffs than 24-month deals allowing equivalent monthly airtime.

Pre Plus and Pre go head to head

Direct from Precentral comes a video of the Palm Pre Plus and the original Palm Pre go head to head to illustrate the notable performance increase. Still no word on international options. Check out the video after the break.

Review: Samsung Omnia Pro

Samsung are no stranger to Windows Mobile and given that the Omnia was a bit of a hit Samsung have taken the name and produced a whole rake of mobiles that cover all form factors. We take a look at the Executive model, the Omnia Pro.

The fight for a 12 month contract

A consumer watchdog has called for more customer choice, after news that T-Mobile will stop offering 12 month contracts from February.

Government watchdog, Consumer Focus telecommunications expert, Nick Hutton said: ‘We need to see mobile-phone companies offering a range of contract-lengths, which suit consumers’ needs, rather than the existing trend towards longer contracts. Longer contracts may limit consumer choice and could potentially lead to higher prices for consumers.

He added: ‘Longer contracts suit some customers and allow providers to offer discounts on handsets. However customers who find they need to leave their contract may face high termination charges. If consumers are tied into such contracts and rarely switch it may also give less incentive for suppliers to offer the best price deal.’

There are now a limited number of 12 month contracts available, with one of the remaining being through offered through MVNO Tesco Mobile, for the iPhone.Others are available through Orange and Vodafone.

One industry source said: ‘Operators are concerned about churn and one of the ways to diminish opportunities for customers to move is if they are tied in. There is a definite trend towards longer contracts.’

Vodafone sells 100,000

Vodafone sold its 100,000th iPhone [yesterday], just eight days after it went on sale

Vodafone today sold its 100,000 Apple iPhone, just over a week after the operator launched it.
The iPhone went on sale at Vodafone last Thursday (January 14). Vodafone followed Tesco Mobile and Orange in selling the iPhone, breaking O2’s two-year exclusivity on it.
Vodafone UK CEO Guy Laurence said: "The demand from both consumer and business customers has been phenomenal. They want an outstanding phone on an outstanding network and we’re delivering that."

[Source mobilenews]

Nokia makes walk and drive navigation free on its smartphones

Espoo, Finland – Nokia has today announced plans to release a new version of Ovi Maps for its smartphones that includes high-end walk and drive navigation at no extra cost, available for download at www.nokia.com/maps. This move has the potential to nearly double the size of the current mobile navigation market. The new version of Ovi Maps includes high-end car and pedestrian navigation features, such as turn-by-turn voice guidance for 74 countries, in 46 languages, and traffic information for more than 10 countries, as well as detailed maps for more than 180 countries.

“Why have multiple devices that work that work in only one country or region? Put it all together, make it free, make it global and you almost double the potential size of the mobile navigation market ,” explained Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President, Nokia. “Nokia is the only company with a mobile navigation service for both drivers and pedestrians that works across the world. Unlike the legacy car navigation manufacturers, we don’t make you buy maps for different countries or regions even if you’re only visiting for a few days. We offer both navigation and maps free of charge, with all the high-end functionality and features that people now expect.”

“The large-scale availability of free-of-charge mobile phone navigation offerings using high-quality map data will be a game changer for the navigation industry,” said Thilo Koslowski, Vice President Automotive and Vehicle ICT at Gartner. “Such offerings will accelerate mass market adoption for navigation solutions and shift innovation focus to location-based services that go beyond traditional routing benefits.”

Cry Translator for iPhone released

The Cry Translator is an easy to use iPhone app that quickly identifies the five distinct cries made by infants: hungry, sleepy, annoyed, stressed or bored. These five cries are universal to all babies regardless of culture or language.

The Cry Translator technology has been tested in Spain and North America with impressive results. Based on the degree of accuracy evidenced in the studies, Biloop Technologies developed an iPhone application for consumer use. For more information on the clinical trials, please visit www.biloop.com or read a recent article in Spain’s Paediatric Medical Journal.

Key Benefits

Identifies a cry within ten seconds.

Eases the anxiety associated with calming a crying infant.

Builds confidence in understanding and comforting your infant.

Helps reduce overall infant crying.

Get it here   

Now if only they could develop an app that can understand women they could really be onto a winner 😉

Grand Theft Auto (GTA) for iPhone released

Undoubtedly the biggest release in app store this week is an iPhone version, original porting, of Grand Theft Auto game, the “Chinatown Wars” edition. Why biggest? Well, the console version of this game is huge hit, and also in app store this app has reached, merely in 2 days (!), top sales positions in several countries + Apple is promoting this new release heavily everywhere in iTunes.

Arrival of big game studios to iPhone probably means that soon no longer indy game developers will have any chances to compete…

Dailymotion launches iPhone app

Dailymotion is the only online video upload service that is located in European Union (in France to be precise) so we are happy to report that they have released an iPhone app recently: