There is still a lot of uncertainty about the future of mobile communications. This is easy to explain. Mobile telephony is nothing new. We already had telephones before mobiles and the transition is a very obvious step and mostly a matter of economics (i.e. making it cheap enough to do). However, everything else we are [...]

[Read more →]

A colleague alerted me to this phone sale on Ebay, which has the most honest and funny attempts to describe the “end-user experience”. Among other things said:
“It’s the suckiest phone I have ever had. It sucks so much it should have been a vacuum cleaner.”
Buy my book (Amazon US/UK)
Join my email list
Subscribe to [...]

[Read more →]

Picked this up from Steve Flaherty (Keitai Culture)
Following the disaster in London . . .
East Anglian Ambulance Service have launched a national “In case of Emergency ( ICE )” campaign with the support of Falklands war hero Simon Weston.
The idea is that you store the word ” I C E ” in your mobile [...]

[Read more →]

One minute we are celebrating the Olympic-bid triumph, the next we are in shock. The attacks on London are cowardly and barbaric and my thoughts and prayers are with all those affected. I hope that the criminals responsible are brought to justice.
The use of mobiles during yesterday showed us how integrated and essential they have [...]

[Read more →]

London have won the bid to host the Olympics in 2012, beating Madrid Paris to the post. Well done the London bid team!
That’s 7 years from now, which is nearly five generations of silicon (in “Moore-Years”). That’s also about 4-5 handset replacements from now, on average for users in the UK. That’s well into the [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve tried before, in various circles, prompted by Tom Peter’s obsession with the topic, to ask the question “is there a women’s phone?” I don’t mean one with flowers on, though apparently that might work, so think Siemens with their SL75:
“Soft contours and a cheerful floral motif lend femininity to this clamshell-style mobile phone.”
(Then [...]

[Read more →]

Previously, I asked the question “is it possible to set up an instant company to make a new cool mobile phone?” I think the answer is yes, but didn’t elaborate.
Today in a discussion with a friend who’s MBA case-study is related to the challenges of a build-to-order plant for the new Mini-Cooper, a new question [...]

[Read more →]

It’s the 4th July and Americans celebrate their independence from the Brits. The Americans gave us the mobile phone, courtesy of Marty Cooper et al. The mobile is arguably an icon and tool of independence, or freedom - at least from wires in any case. You decide what else. It probably wouldn’t have succeeded if [...]

[Read more →]

Rob Griffiths at Macworld, in his assessment of podcasting, is also disturbed by those what-do-I-say-next “um”, or is it “uh”, sounds?
My friend and fellow Macworld author Kirk McElhearn has put together Kirk’s Seven Rules of Effective Podcasting, which is a great place to start. It’s probably not all-inclusive (I would have included “Don’t say [...]

[Read more →]

Russell Buckley and his new Mobhappy blog posts about recent conclusions as to why location based services (LBS) haven’t been successful. I posted my comments here…
Accuracy! That’s what we need. We don’t all congregate in Oxford Street (London) where there are more base stations than McDonalds and we can see the nearest cash machine anyway [...]

[Read more →]