Now. I just read that headline and thought ‘Shit.shit.shit…. a new Applie iPhone model? And it’s FOUR-G? My gosh!

FOURTH Generation? They’re skipping 3G? Shit! Typical Steve Jobs! Wow!

And then I realised that the headline should really read:

Apple drops 4GB iPhone model

… gaahh. Ah well…

Mashable has this news about Microsoft and RIM, makers of Blackberry, finally getting into bed:

BlackBerry maker RIM (Research in Motion) and Microsoft are both gearing up to reach broader audiences with their respective products this year. RIM just hours ago officially introduced its newest smartphone, the BlackBerry Bold. And Microsoft is investing a good amount in its Live services, from mail to maps. But rather than live entirely separate lives parallel to one another in the Web’s most popular and most enduring communications medium, email, the two have chosen to partner up.

Geez.

What the heck has been causing the delay? I can’t tell you how annoying it is as a Blackberry user to have had to arse about NOT being able to use Microsoft services — principally MSN Messenger. Google’s had brilliant, brilliant Google Talk integration for Blackberries for absolutely ages — and that’s a primary reason why I use the service across my devices. But MSN Messenger? Well it’s been like the poor third cousin to me (in the context of Blackberry) because they haven’t had direct support.

So I’m pleased to hear about the partnership. Bring it on. Looking forward to the BOLD.

Fascinating bit of news in from Ricky, our BlykWatch correspondent (the next edition is coming soon) but I wanted to bring you this now.

Blyk, the ad-funded MVNO, is evaluating the possibility of offering members free data to go alongside their existing free minutes and texts offered to each member.

I think this is a critical requirement for Blyk to compete against a lot of the mainstream mobile networks, particularly when the young demographic (Blyk’s target) are getting more and more interested in data.

I had a look at the Surveymonkey survey they’re running and took a screenshot. Excellent to see them responding in this manner, isn’t it?

I’ll be interested to see what the results are. For example, question three there says ‘What would you use it [free data] to access?’ and goes on to list social networks, news websites and so on. At no point does it mention QIK (i.e. live video streaming) or ShoZu (sending your media to the web) or the like. I wonder.

I really would like Blyk to move to an entirely free model. Although I’m sure that is a big ask (in the context of covering costs), I think it would be a primary motivator for the target customer base and it would entirely negate a lot of offerings from mainstream operators. e.g. 43 inclusive minutes (I think, from memory, that’s what they offer subscribers, per month) is entirely arbitrary so it’ll be slightly annoying for them to offer 4.567 meg per month inclusive. This target demographic works much better on ‘unlimited’ (with strings).

Anyway, good to see them being responsive!

There is some great utility to be had by deploying SMS into the customer interaction stream. What’s your view on sending passwords by text? See the above screenshot.

Whilst it’s really convenient, surely it’s bad practice to send passwords in clear text sms messages?

Although, I suppose, if you’re 3 and you’re sending to a 3 device, at least there’s a degree of security there — since it’s their own network they’re using to transmit. It’s not entirely secure though.

It’d be fine for one-time passwords…

Uh oh. This is a classic picked up by Emily over at Textually. A US solider accidentally called home on his mobile during a firefight if Afghanistan. You know how it is. You forget to lock (INCOMMMINNNNG) the keypad, the enemy comes a-running at you and you forget about your international roaming costs pretty (MORE AMMO!!) quickly.

Anyway mum wasn’t in so the call (the audio complete with guns and focused soldiers barking commands) was recorded on her voicemail system. Youtube user, JRPetee uploaded the audio for your listening pleasure here:

The chap in question is fine. Good news.

Add Coffee Republic to your radar now when you’re out and about. Screw Starbucks. Coffee Republic, you see, are offering free WiFi in every one of their coffee shops (or ‘coffee bars’ as they call them). Some bars have site limitations that prevent them from offering WiFi, but, generally speaking, every Coffee Republic you walk past is offering free WiFi now.

Fantastic!

More information and a google map of the Coffee Republic locations here.

Recently I have become more and more of a Vodafone fan (so much so, I think last night I was in some bar somewhere trying to convince Arun Sarin to introduce new data plans that gave high data users such as me a guaranteed service level and data priority over other users. He was bemused but wrote down a few notes and promised to sort it out for me.)

I have always been a fan — although for years, in fact, since the inception of SMS Text News, I have generally been a user of another network (T-Mobile or 3, for example). It took quite a lot of confidence to swap over to Vodafone a few months back.. I wasn’t that impressed at the paltry inclusive internet add-on (7.50 pounds per month for 120mb?) but I expected Vodafone to make some upgrades and lo, it was fortold that now I’ve got 500mb inclusive each month. Very useful for a data fiend like me.

So whilst I am a rather big fan of Vodafone, there is just one thing that really, really, REALLY winds me up.

Let’s be clear: This is a triple-A wind up issue for me.

Vodafone Passport.

Why? Well I can’t move in any British Airport for signs, animations, adverts, the whole shebang, advertising Vodafone passport.

It’s only 75p per connection, the advert tells me. Then it’s your bundled minutes. What a cool deal. Yeah…er…

Not in America. America doesn’t count. Forget that Vodafone OWNS a whopping great chunk of Verizon. No, it costs you at least… AT LEAST one hundred and twenty five sodding pence per MINUTE to call home to the UK.

Not only have I been taken in by the Vodafone Passport advertising, but… guess what, so has my brother.

I was on the phone to him a few minutes ago.

“Hi, I’m in Newark,” he tells me.

“Where?”

“NewarK?” he prompts.

“Is that on the south coast somewhere, Devon or something?” I say. A little bit phased.

“No, Newark, New York, you know… AMERICA.”

“Oh. Right!” I forgot. Martin, who blogs big time on servers and blades at his site, Bladewatch, is off to a blade conference in Arizona.

We had a chat about a few things. He’s been on holiday recently. Catch-up conversation, that sort of thing.

Then I thought I’d better ask, “Are you calling on your T-Mobile?”

“No, Vodafone,” he explains innocently. Oh dear. Here it comes.

“Ah, that’s quite expensive Martin, look, catch you soon, you should go,” I say, thinking of his phone bill.

“No, it’s okay!” he says, uh oh, wait for it…, “I’m on Vodafone Passport!”

I grimace to myself.

“No you’re not. It doesn’t apply to America.”

“Oh?” Now Martin is rather annoyed. We cut short our 125p/min conversation and he went about his business sat in the Continental lounge at Newark Airport whilst I put on my blogging hat.

The fact it’s 125p/min is just plain ridiculous. It’s 55p/min on T-Mobile with their little international add-on deal thing. 125p/min is 1990s prices. This issue needs drastic attention from them.

So, if you’re on Vodafone, every time you see a Vodafone Passport advert at the airport, remember America isn’t recognised on that deal.

As a valued customer of Skype, I’ve just got a newsletter in from them offering me unlimited calling to landlines in ONE country for 4.5 EUROs per month. Smart. Or a tenner (EURO) per month for unlimited calls to landlines in 34 countries.

Very smart. Speaking of smart… I’m still smarting from their ‘we’re busy having pizza and coffee‘ note when they had their outage a few months ago.

I think I’m recovering. I am seriously considering buying an unlimited offer.

Now this is a rather interesting statistic — Papa John’s, one of the most popular pizza delivery chains in America transacted over $400m online and by text message (press release).

Unfortunately the release doesn’t break down the text percentage of revenue. I’d estimate maybe 0.5% of that $1 billion was by text. What do you think? I’ve nothing to benchmark and it’s a statistic I’d love to have and I doubt Papa John’s will reveal. 0.5% of a billion is $50m. For a moment, assuming that this is anywhere near accurate, that would be a staggering figure.

I tried calling their PR number for clarity on the online/text split but, alas, it went to voicemail. They should have got Spinvox, eh?

Actually, texting is quite a new thing for Papa Johns:

And in November 2007, Papa John’s took the convenience of online ordering one step further when it became the first national pizza company to offer SMS/text ordering for customers throughout the U.S. Customers who have set up their favorite orders at papajohns.com can text their orders to 4PAPA in just a couple of easy clicks.

Having ordered with Papa John’s in the UK sometime back in 2007, I remember being very impressed at getting text updates from them when they’d received my order and when it was on it’s way. Try’em out if you have time: Papajohns.com or Papajohns.co.uk.

I am absolutely seething after finding out that the Nokia Software Updater has stopped working with Vista.

They turned off support for this yesterday.

Yesterday.

What?

So what do I do now?

Sit and stare at my now, by default, piece of shit handset?

Where is the button to order a Windows XP computer on Nokia’s site?

I mean, if they can’t get their shit working, why bother? What is this software architecture team busy doing with itself? Fingers stuck up buttocks? Pissing into the wind smiling whilst singing their very best Leona Lewis tracks at full volume?

WHY did they turn off Windows Vista support?

I’m not using Vista because I love it. It came preinstalled on my computer. YEARS ago, Vista came out. SODDING YEARS.

What, Mr Brain Surgeon, am I supposed to do about upgrading my phone now? Whilst you sod about taking fingers out arses?

Sit and stare at the wall?

“It’ll be ok,” I’m sure one of the suits in Finland explains during the software strategy meeting, “We’ll just turn off Vista support in the new upgrade. So when they log in and update their Nokia Update Software, then heh, we’ll just turn off support.”

I wonder, was there a brain cell in the meeting who pipped up, “Er, right but those who DON’T have Windows XP or anything OLDER than that?”

“Screw’em.”

That was the effective decision.

It’s not as if Vista came out yesterday. Or 20 minutes ago. There are EIGHTY EIGHT MILLION COPIES of Vista on the planet (So reckons ZDnet in October last year).

What?

I really have to climb down off the desks at SMS Text News Towers and stop feeling like I want to pull out my hair.

What PLONKER authorised this?

You just.. wake up morning and revoke support for the PRIMARY operating system of MILLIONS?

Oh, and it doesn’t work on Apples either.

This is BASIC. ULTRA BASIC stuff.

No wonder the sodding N81 is such an absolute nightmare (the upcoming podcast will explain all). Nokia have absolutely lost the plot.

Lost it.

You have to be a pretty rubbish software chief to allow this sort of ridiculous behaviour.

WHY isn’t there an explanation?

Why wasn’t there a personal note from the head of Nokia’s software on the SODDING SOFTWARE MESSAGE? TELLING ME WHY? AT LEAST EXPLAINING?

Set my expectations?

Anything?

Hello………?

I’ll get my coat…

As a reminder, here’s the screen I got:

This what it should say:

There is nothing worse than standing next to someone who’s phone is running faster than yours.

It just isn’t cricket and it’s nigh on unbearable for me.

With fellow SMS Text News contributors, James Whatley and Ben Smith this evening, I was the pauper in the corner.

With a top of the range E90 handset.

I was trying to download a game on my phone — a few meg — and unfortunately, it was crawling along at some annoying 10k/second style ‘3G’ speed. Useless.

So I just tried to see if I could upgrade the phone (and maybe flash the Vodafone firmware to support 3.5G?)…

Here’s what I got from the Nokia Software Updater:

Well that’s a piece of shit, isn’t it.

A month ago it worked perfectly fine. THIS (He says, pointing at the computer) is the SAME computer I used to upgrade my Nokia and find out that the backup didn’t backup properly.

Who is in charge of this NONSENSE?

They need a slap.

It’s simply not good enough.

One minute it works. Next minute it’s hobbled. What the hell am I meant to do now? Now that some pencil pusher in Finland has decided to disable the sodding updater? What the ……..

Absolutely TIP TOP STUPID.

124 billion dollar company and they keep.On.FALLING over their sodding shoelaces.

Well screw that.

Sony Ercisson, anybody?

I’m continuing to look at Nokia’s Ovi services this week. Having taken a first look at photo sharing and gaming, it’s the music store this week which continues the trend of being a ‘mixed bag’.

—-

So, it’s the end of my first week with an N81 8GB testing the suite of Ovi services. I wrote here about the first impression of Ovi Share (picture and video sharing) and N-Gage (the gaming platform) and in the last few days I’ve been looking at Nokia Music Store.

It’s hard not to compare the Nokia Music Store with iTunes Music Store - they provide the same service. There’s a substantial catalogue of music (all the current artists I looked for where present and correct - I suspect less mainstream ones may be a bit more hit-n-miss, but we’re talking about a ‘mass-appeal’ service here) with the option to download via PC or direct to mobile. Unlike iTunes, both the PC and mobile variants of the Nokia Music Store are web-based (the mobile client wraps it with an icon, but the interface is all browser), but the functionality is broadly the same. Two key difference I noted were that Nokia Music Store only allows previews via the PC interface and it adds an unlimited streaming of the catalogue (also PC client only) for a monthly fee. In the UK prices are closely matched (79p per track for iTunes v 80p per track for NMS) and both employ DRM - Apple’s Fairplay system and Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM respectively. Apple also provides non-DRM content via iTunes Plus, which Nokia don’t, but the Windows Media DRM system is supported by a range of vendors (although notably not Apple) potentially giving more choice over other devices to play you music on.

So how does it work?

OK, but not great. This image tells you all you need to know about the PC version:

The service is clearly badged beta, but I’d expect better from such a large firm. OK, so I’m on a Mac in this instance which, quite apart from marking me out as a genius style guru hipster, isn’t really such a minority platform any more. But even when I am on a PC, I wouldn’t choose IE as my browser - or expect a modern website to demand it - so I’m locked out. I did grudgingly fire up IE6 and poke around. It’s functional and quick with al the features you’d want for music, but it lacks a bit of style in the presentation and there’s no podcasts or video content (yet). The usual Ovi annoyances exist here - a yet another logon ID and password to remember and no tie-in with any of the other services, but you’ve come to expect that from Nokia now… haven’t you?

However, Nokia have been actively pushing the service giving out PIN codes and marketing so I’d expect things on the usability front to improve. This was a promotion at Waterloo Station in London recently:

The mobile client, however, I think leaves a great deal more to be desired. Accessed from a menu icon it gives the impression of being a dedicated application, but in fact just loads the standard browser. This in itself isn’t a serious problem, but means the entire experience relies on good wireless coverage. On poor connections I found myself unable to navigate the interface on several occasions as graphics failed to load. The site itself may also have some reliability problems as it seemed to break more frequently than other sites, but further testing is needed there. The other drawback with using the browser without making it clear to the user that they’re browsing the web is that the soft buttons do ‘browser’ actions which don’t always make sense through the flow of the application… The ‘back button is a prime example - when the final download screen broke it took me ‘back’ to a page that told me I had already downloaded the song - not the actual page I had come from.

The other annoyance is the number of clicks it takes to purchase a song… It really does feel tortuously slow and if a page fails to load or is broken having to repeat steps of the process exacerbates that glacial sense of progress. Take a look at this sequence where I’m downloading one of the free ‘Green Room’ promotional song

Arghh…. click… click… click…

Once downloading, the window can be hidden (finding it again is buried in a fairly unintuitive location though) and tracks automagically appear in the music player. Failed downloads are alerted via a pop-up message, but it self-cancels so if you miss it or have put the phone out of sight whilst it downloads you’re no wiser. Crucially though there is a ‘re-download’ option for such situations.

On that basis I was more than ready to give Nokia Music Store a C- and move on - it’s good enough as a default offering, but it won’t be hard for any other provider who can produce a more usable interface and pleasent experience to better it - Vodafone’s Musicstation service stands out as a prime example, but there’s no reason it would be restricted to network operators. Access to the music catalogue is the main barrier to entry hear…. BUT…

I think Nokia may have a shot at the beginnings of a successful effort here. Their soon-to-be-launched ‘comes with music‘ initiative has been widely derided in the press and cost a few executives their jobs, but I think it’s the sweetener that could get people hooked… Effectively from mid-2008 when you purchase certain Nokia handsets they will come with one year’s allowance of free music from the Nokia Music Store - not streaming access, but unlimited access to the catalogue of downloads to keep even after the year is up. Of course, this could be financially crippling for Nokia as they have to pay the record labels for every track downloaded, but if they can stay the course I think a good-sized music library they have downloaded will keep people on the Nokia platform and might just be enough to get them hooked.

Watch this space.

—-

I’ll be wrapping up with an overview and look at Nokia Maps next week, so drop any questions you have into the comments and I’ll do my best to cover them.

If you can’t get enough of Prince William blowing rasperries at 9 year olds, a special on Peter and Autumn (The Queen’s eldest grandchild and his Canadian love) or Mariah’s new husband and you’re on the go, then Hello Magazine’s mobile updates are for you.

Yes! You can now get a daily MMS (or SMS) update from Hello Magazine to feed your lust of (mostly irrelevant?) conversation regarding celebrity love lives and soft furnishings.

I’d have actually liked to have seen this sort of thing go live years ago but still, it’s good that they’re doing it. Incentivated are putting on their pearls and getting to know the critical Kings Road venues intimately — i.e. they’re providing the back-end for Hello Magazine’s mobile services.

This is good news. The more mainstream media adopt the medium of MMS, well, the better. It’s always been the poor second cousin to SMS and I suspect that the Hello Magazine readership will snap up the offerings.

Now.

Guess how much the MMS alerts service costs?

25p an alert? 5 quid for the month?

No.

Keep guessing.

Higher.

Yeah, it’s a quid a message. Yes! ONE POUND per MMS! Butter me in caramel and call me Shirely!

I KID ye not:

You will not be billed more than 23 pounds in a given month because they’ve made a shitload out of you by that point.

Text messages are 25p a go and you won’t be billed more than £10 in a given month.

Steep, isn’t it?

But then I wonder if the Hello readers have that sort of thirst for gossip? Or you could just buy a 3-month subscription to the real magazine for £21.

Good news and a pat on the back for Viigo, the chaps behind the rather wicked Blackberry RSS reading application. They’ve just got $1.5m in funding (so, $8m between friends, yes?) from RBC Venture Partners.

I’ve been using their news reader on my Blackberry for quite a while and I’m very much looking forward to ‘Project Tango’ which is heading into public beta in 38 days (June, basically).

In case you need a quick Viigo primer, here we go:

Viigo Inc. develops and markets one of the world’s most popular mobile content and services applications for smartphones. With over 5,000 channels and information services, Viigo customers around the world enjoy up-to-the-minute access to news, weather, sports, market performance, entertainment, and blogs in one intuitive, simple, freely downloadable application.

Right on. Bring on Tango!

It’s national Work-From-Home-Day next Thursday. So reckons this press release I’ve just got. Ergo, next Thurdsay, take the day off and do some email from the back garden with your USB modem and laptop.

If anyone asks, tell’em I said it was fine and it’s part of an international mobile working study you’re doing for SMS Text News…

The Pope will be on his way to Australia later this year for World Youth Day, and he’s already got plans to text followers when he lands. According to Aussie mobile operator Telstra, the Pope is planning to send daily “inspirational text messages” to his followers.

His Holiness is evidently a bit of a fan of high tech, and will also be using a World Youth Day social networking site, digital prayer walls, and Regional Catechesis webcast over Telstra’s 3G network. Telstra also said it will be setting up special precincts - “on the ground interactive centre’s including wireless internet, green screen studios, commemorative WYD08 photo messaging and music downloads”. Nice to see the Pope is a bit fan of data services…

After Intel and Google’s WiMax antics earlier this week it looks like Sweden is next in the chipamker’s sights. The Scandinavian country awarded four “mobile broadband licences” this week - and Intel is confirmed as one of the lucky winners.

According to AP, it paid around $26 million for its WiMax licence which will go for 15 years. Intel apparently plans to rent the licence to another network operator, according to AP.

While it’s good news for the WiMax lobby to see Intel putting its stake in the ground and ringfencing some spectrum for future WiMax networks, I can’t help but feel Intel should be shouting about its network operator partner as soon as it’s got the licence in its hand, rather than securing the licence and then hunting down someone to run the network at some point in the future.

It seems that mobile networking users are sticking to their old favourite platforms from the fixed Internet world: MySpace and Facebook are the most popular social networking sites across both mobile and fixed usage.

Nielsen reckons around 1.6 percent of UK mobile users now access social networking sites on their phones, compared to 1.7 percent of those in the US - almost double the rate in most European countries.

It’s no surprise that Facebook and MySpace are still the big names in social networking over mobile, especially given operators’ willingness to do deals with them to trim the data fees associated with such sites. But with the big two still dominating mobile social networking, is there any room for the more niche, mobile-only social networking platforms?

Interesting post by someone on the Lastminute.com Labs blog (i.e. a nameless person, the blog post doesn’t have a name on it) about location based services… or lack of, on the mobile web.

Obviously location is rather important when you’re a travel site creating mobile based services. You want to, for example, know if the customer is roaming or if they’re at home.

What to do? Get ShopQwik…

Link: Where’s this phone? « travel innovation

If anyone has any further light to shed on this topic, feel free to chime in - we’d love to hear if there are better solutions!

Have a read…

I wasn’t much of a fan of the Channel4 documentary last week, ‘the great mobile phone rip-off’. Neither were many of the readers here at SMS Text News — much of the coverage was either irrelevant (would have been useful 2-3 years ago) or not really a problem any more. However the one thing I do have a bit of an issue with is termination fees — the charge one mobile provider makes to another to connect a call to one of its subscribers. In some cases they’re abnormally high — 3UK, for example, is at the wrong end of the charging stick, because it has markedly lower subscriber numbers, it — obviously — ends up paying out more to the other mobile companies. Is it fair? Well. Depends on your view. Are termination fees too high? On balance, I think so. But then… 2.5bn a year in combined revenues for the mobile operators (so reports the Dispatches documentary), that’s a big hole to cover in next year’s accounts if fees are lowered, disbanded or changed.

Here’s a Youtube of the termination fees section from the broadcast last week featuring Steve Weller from Uswitch.

A very useful service, this. They don’t have The Couch on Dean Street yet but I’m sure that will be coming soon.

Stick it in your bookmarks at http://londonist.com/2007/05/free_wifi_in_lo.php.

Blyk have moved out of their city offices and into prime Soho territory, taking up residence in Great Marlborough Street to be right slap bang in the middle of UK ad-land. Smart, sensible. Makes sense. They can all start wearing black tshirts and Nikes instead of pinstripes.

What’s more, they’re having a summer party next month. And I shall be there with bells on.

They’re fast becoming one of the marketing and mobile industry’s uber success stories, Blyk. Whilst subscriber numbers don’t quite match the giants as yet, the only figure that matters when it comes to marketing is ROI and that’s where Blyk are leading the pack. If they can compound their success and move towards the half million or million mark in the next few years, the future looks rosy. Their challenge will be keeping their subscribers locked and content.

That notwithstanding, I’ll be doing some live QIKing from the party and reporting the gossip.

CNET UK has, if the news story from Netimperative is to be taken at face value, just realised that there’s a mobile internet audience out there.

Further, they’ve also recognised that their audience of TECHIES might just be interested in checking out their services via their mobile handsets.

What’s interesting to me is that CNET didn’t build their own mobile sites. Nah. They know nuffink. Or so it seems. They got the MoMac experts in to sort it out and use their GoMedia platform to build and manage the mobile services. Fair enough.

It isn’t that difficult, surely, to dynamically repurpose your content for a mobile device?

Everything you could possibly want is at the strangely ugly looking (domain name wise) cnetuk.mobi.

Bluetooth-tagging is a key mobile application for the future — a quote directly from Anthony Nystrom, CTO of Next2Friends.

I’m not entirely sure I agree.

Ok, bluetooth the technology, yes — that’s smart. There’s a lot of possibilities. But when my sodding Blackberry bluetooth doesn’t speak to my Apple iPhone bluetooth that is on a totally different planet from my LG Secret bluetooth… there ain’t much going to be a-happening soon. Big fan of the concept of bluetooth tagging though.

Anthony believes otherwise as Next2Friends just snapped up BluetoothMeet (does what it says on the tin).

So reports Netimperative.

I’ll do a bit on Next2Friends shortly.

So, after a ton of demand — thank you everyone who has emailed and berated us, here is the first, draft version of the SMS Text News podcast featuring me and contributor James Whatley and some rather comical ’sweeper’ jingles. Listen out for them in the middle too.

Here’s the streaming audio link, courtesy of Nokia’s Ovi: