Archive for Dan Lane
We’ve written about ZoomBak’s A-GPS based tracking service before and I’ve had a demo unit tracking my bag for the past few weeks.
The service consists of a tiny £99 black box that gets it’s own location using A-GPS and reports it back to ZoomBak’s servers using Vodafone’s UK network. From there you can track your [...]
Any long-term MIR reader will know about SpinVox, the market leader in voice to text services. When he isn’t starring in our weekly video show, our very own James Whatley serves as SpinVox’s “Social Media Strategist” which should explain why SpinVox has wholly embraced social media in the last year or so, culminating in today’s [...]
Continue ReadingI snapped this shot with an HTC T-Mobile G1 while a chap from T-Mobile demo’d another G1 on-camera for the Mobile Industry Review show. The lighting in this room wasn’t great but it certainly wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The G1 camera has autofocus (unlike the iPhone) but apart from that it [...]
Continue ReadingSony Ericsson held a global press conference yesterday to officially unveil their web-based episodical thriller (alright, they called them Webisodes) “Who is Johhny X?” and talk to us some more about the Xperia X1 smartphone.
The first two “webisodes” (there are nine all together, see what they did there? Nine home screen panels on the X1, [...]
Did you read my post from last Monday about Phones 4U’s shockingly bad store layout that showed their customer’s details to passers-by? Well, Phones 4U must have because by Thursday last week they had shuffled their point of sale tables around to give their customers a much safer experience. The sales monitors do still face [...]
Continue ReadingWhile Ewan is having a nightmare with T-Mobile’s billing system I got a call from O2’s earlier this evening.
This month I completely messed up a bank transfer to my bills account (thanks to the UK’s antique banking system transfers take ages) which meant there wasn’t enough money in there for the O2 payment (cue loads [...]
First up, I’m going to assume that our readership knows what a QRCode is. Don’t worry if you don’t, just pop over to wikipedia’s entry on QRCodes and have a quick read. It’s ok, we’ll wait for you to come back.
All up to speed on the QR craze?, excellent. Now then, I’m a sucker for [...]
You’d be shocked and appalled if I told you that every time I browsed the Phones 4U website they showed me the personal details of the customer currently placing an order wouldn’t you?
Well at least twice a day I walk past what would appear to be the flagship Phones 4U store on Tottenham Court Road [...]
This is my iPhone, it’s the iPhone I’ve been waiting for because it’s running on the Three network. Find out how to do this in Monday’s Mobile Industry Review podcast!
Continue ReadingThe BBC have been promoting a show called “Britain from Above” in which which they take telemetry from various trackable sources and generate fancy maps of our activities and, presumably, add a thick layer of social commentary.
In the promo video linked below they show a few examples of air, land and sea movements but it’s [...]
I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about my troubles with O2 by now, but it’s not over yet!
After my SIM was FINALLY activated last week it was time to wait for my T-Mobile number to be ported to O2. The T-Mobile SIM went dead at around 4pm on Friday and upon calling my number I [...]
For whatever reason, the folks at QuickOffice have decided that, for one day only, they are going to sell their well regarded S60 office suite for just one dollah!
So for around fifty of your Great British pennies you can create, edit and view Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents on your S60 device.
Sounds like a no-brainer [...]
In light of my recent issues obtaining service on a particular operator who happens to be the sole UK provider for a certain new iHandset, Mike Adams got in touch to tell me that I should go to Belgium.
You see, it seems that the beurocrats over there (and, with it being the European Union HQ, [...]
Please note: The following is Dan Lane’s opinion, the opinions of other SMS Text News contributors may vary.
I don’t think there are many people who have tried as hard as I have to become a customer of any company, but as you’ve read recently I’ve tried two different retailers, queued for eight hours and have [...]
Remember that iPhone 3G I queued for? Yup, that’s it up there. Notice something about it? That’s right, O2 still haven’t activated the SIM!
I’m not some incredibly unlucky iPhone purchaser, this is NORMAL! The O2 customer forums are awash with people who either queued over the weekend or who pre-ordered through Carphone Warehouse and recieved [...]
Literally minutes after my last post was published I recieved a call from Carphone Warehouse.
Remember I said that Imran, the store manager, said he would escalate the issue? Well this is the exact quote from the call… after TWO days of contemplating a fix to the problem, THIS is the best solution they can [...]
This post is part two of this little tale of ineptitude and disappointment from the front lines of the iPhone 3G release.
Once I got back to the SMS Text News office I rang Ewan who was still in Ireland after the Unlimited Drinks event in Dublin. I also spoke to my friend Jonathan who told [...]
“Thanks, but I don’t want a free one, I think I’d rather report on the purchasing experience as a consumer”. These words haunted me for most of yesterday and I don’t think I’ll find myself saying them again soon.
As you saw from my live videos (powered by the excellent Qik) I spent yesterday morning embedded [...]
The queues are growing on Oxford Street, continuing coverage over on my Qik page
Jason Bradbury from Channel 5’s Gadget show was on-hand to work the crowd and was officially the first person into the store (with an impressive roll under the half-close shutter) shortly followed by yours truly (with a much less elegant [...]
While we’ve heard multiple horror stories of O2 cocking up web pre-orders, I’ve not heard a peep from anyone ordering their iPhone 3G from Carphone Warehouse’s website. In fact, it claims that both the 8 and 16GB models are still in stock for new contracts (pop back on the 11th for upgrades, apparently).
While we’re on [...]
Within hours of accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 3G the O2 site is already reporting that the 16GB Black version is unavailable. But where was the white one?
As we saw in Steve Jobs’ keynote, buyers of the 16GB iPhone 3G were supposedly going to get to choose black or white finishes and in episode 12 [...]
Ewan on 