I did it. Few weeks back I bought the iPhone 3G… I had to find out what this is all about and I have to admit that this is quite a nice device (and it comes from a Nokia fan :-).

I am still using my Nokia N95 as my main phone for three main reasons:

• I have not yet found the time to synch my agenda/contacts with Outlook (for some reason my iPhone is not recognised by iTunes on my laptop)
• Lack of connectivity while traveling. I use my laptop in the train to work and I like to be connected at the same time (through Bluetooth with my N95 as a 3G modem). I am not quite sure but my understanding is that I will not be able to do that with the iPhone.
• Battery life sucks… we have heard lot of complaints about Nokia’s battery, but the iPhone one is worse than any other one

There are more and more iPhone/mobile dedicated website which makes the browsing experience on a mobile device really pleasant. Being able to browse normal website is nice (especially with the zoom in-out feature) but not perfect.

To complete the iPhone experience I should try to use it as my main phone and actually use all the phone features… will come back once this is done :-)

Related: What I’ve Missed About the S60 Experience

(note to self)

Mobhappy: Location-Based vs. Context-Aware

Location is just a part of the context of each individual user

In some cases, such as mapping, there isn’t a great need for context-awareness instead of location, but in many LBS instances, being sensitive to context is much more important than simply location

Musings of a mobile marketer: Location Based Services - are they all missing the point?

I can’t help thinking that many of the LBS initiatives are missing the point

Twitter has no location API, yet it’s actually very effective for letting me connect with people who are local to me (and to organise meeting up via tweet-outs such as ‘I’m in Soho this afternoon, anyone want to hook up for coffee) as well as helping me have relationships with friends and colleagues further away. There are no maps involved. No location look-ups.

fr.techcrunch: SpotMe va enfin nous permettre de mettre nos badges de conférence à la poubelle

I can’t believe someone has not yet developed a similar service that uses the existing device. I already have a mobile phone in my pocket, why should I carry another device ?

SpotMe

Dopplr recently launched a new version called “Copenhagen” and amongst the new features there is this possibility to insert new trip to Dopplr directly via Twitter (and also by SMS or email). All you need to do is reply to Dopplr with the trip information (eg. “A trip to Helsinki on May 19 to May 23″). Mixin is also using Twitter to feed your social agenda. Problem is that every service requires to fit a given format (for Twitter: “mention a placename and two dates, including the month both times”) that 1) you have to remember, 2) is most likely not compatible with other service. Next step would be to feed those services with natural language…

Also it is interesting to see that Twitter is becoming the “de facto” status aggregator as it is used to feed other services (it is a bit surprising as well given the lack of reliability of this tool that keeps on crashing).

Using the feed of a blog to generate a mobile friendly version of it is something we have tried when at Kaywa, and I still do believe one can make something nice of it. For various reasons we failed imho but wish all the best to Blog4Mobile :-)… good point to start with they plan to share revenue (and they provide access statistics):

After the beta phase, Blog4Mobile.com will start the central marketing of all mobile blogs. Each user gets up to 70% of the advertising incomes, generated via his mobile blog. Blog4Mobile.com is not only for free, you can even cash in by blogging!

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Remember the mobile guide for Paleo festival ? I found out that the same app exists for few other festivals in Switzerland. Neat. I found this out through my beloved carrier portal. Talking about it… a Google search field has appeared on top of the the main page… looks like they are “opening” their mobile web to the external world.

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From the montly AdMob Mobile Metric Report (PDF here):

Traffic from the 473 publishers grew 104% from July 2007 to June 2008. This indicates that the mobile web more than doubled in 12 months ending in June 2008.

I am going through my mobile bookmarks. First step: my “swiss” folder, or to put it another way: making good use of the mobile web without using useless and expensive services from Swisscom Mobile and its “Vodafone” Portal.

I found it only very recently about the mobile website of the swiss radio. Really neat! It has some iPhone look and feel, it is clean and does a good job at informing on a concise manner… what else asking ?
It even provides some show to be downloaded as MP3 (depends on the connection and make sure you have a good data plan if you are on your carrier network).

URL: mobile.rsr.ch or via the QR Code below
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There was also yesterday night a Techcrunch meetup in Zürich.
I would have probably gone there otherwise but what those pictures maybe do not say is that I have no regrets or whatsoever… :-))

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New York Times: On a Small Screen, Just the Salient Stuff

[...] Visiting Web sites that have been redesigned for the iPhone is often a quicker and more pleasing experience than it is on those increasingly cinema-style desktop displays [...]

[...] By stripping down the Web site interface to the most basic functions, site designers can focus the user’s attention and offer relevant information without distractions. [...]

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