Tonethephone

The Samsung S8000/Jet handset in depth

Rating: Critical review of an iconic handset - Part I

Rather reviewing Samsung's S8000 from the Press release, I've actually been putting the handset through its paces. Some interesting discoveries have resulted – including the fact that the GPS facility appears to be disabled in the UK version.

Was Mobile 6.5 handset stolen to order?

Rating: MobileB2B's Nick Booth seems to think so

I made a cameo appearance in a news story written by Nick Booth for MobileB2B about Telstra CEO, Sol Trujillo, being mugged and losing a prototype HTC handset.

Truphone transforms Apple's iPhone

Rating: Brings Twitter, IM and even Skype calls to the party

What a transformation the very latest version of Truphone for the Apple iPhone makes. It now supports a whole range of IM clients plus Twitter and Skype. Fantastic.

TerraNet breaks the numeracy barrier

The perceived wisdom is that you can't sell a mobile phone to those with no numeracy sales. Yet Sweden's TerraNet has just devised a handset interface where numeracy isn't a requirement.

Nuance promises T9 Nav any day now

Rating: Predictive search available now as beta

An extremely impressive demonstration of how Nuance´s T9 Nav software (inherited from Tegic) was given to me by Nuance senior vp, Robert Weideman.
He demonstrated how the software could do discover local content on my Nokia N95 very quickly and efficiently.

Danger to be acquired by Microsoft

Rating: It´s all about social networking apparently

I was extremely puzzled when I learnt that Microsoft was going to acquire (for an undisclosed sum) the mobile software specialist firm, Danger.
Microsoft´s Robbie Bach muttered something about social networking at the press conference and the press release which arrived today spells it out more succinctly.

Old farts need better UIs not special designs

 At this time of year, it's common to hear that old chestnut – "Handsets are far too complicated these days. All I actually want is something to make and receive calls with." Hence the operators respond to this by commissioning handsets that boast unbelievable battery life figures and sport very few buttons.
So, do people go out and purchase such handsets in their thousands? It's my firm belief that they don't. I'd argue that such handsets don't sell well. It's a UI problem not so much a design problem.