Mobile Phones Blog

O2 customers in London can now use their handset as an Oyster card to pay for their journeys thanks to the trial of a new application called O2 Wallet, the fruit of a collaboration between the network provider, Nokia and Transport for London.

Commuters swipe their phones over the yellow reader at the gates as they would an Oyster card, and the cost of the journey is deducted from the credit balance of the built-in card. Commuters have been able to remotely top up the balance of their Oyster cards from their phones for a while now, so this represents a logical step forward.

This follows on from an earlier story this week, with Nokia trialling a new platform with Barclaycard, allowing customers to make transactions in the same way, by swiping their handsets across a reader.

Cath Keers from O2 UK said: “Research shows that people are more likely to return home if they leave their phone behind than their wallet or keys. So why not have your wallet on your phone?”

The O2 Wallet system can be used everywhere an Oyster card can, i.e. on all tubes, buses and selected overground trains that run throughout the capital.

Vodafone chief Arun Sarin stuck a pin into the iPhone launch party balloon this week via a barb apparently aimed at St. Steven of Jobs. According to a piece published in the FT on Monday, Sarin says that the iPhone offers a “a pretty poor experience” for the user, which when you consider that the entire Apple ethos is all about the user experience, the slap in the face comes as close you could get to making rude comments about everyone’s mothers.

Vodafone didn’t take too kindly to the network-exclusivity of the iPhone in European markets to the extent that it pushed for an unlocking in Germany via the courts, forcing its main rival in the German markets - T-Mobile - to come up with the goods.

Sarin needn’t have bothered in France, where laws stipulated that Apple’s new wunderkind would have to loosen it’s belt and allow customers choice if it wanted to play ball, although for some reason, Sarin isn’t going to push for iPhone neutrality on his home turf - perhaps his relationship with O2 head Matthew Key is cosier than it is with Jobs.

The mobile industry has a right to be afraid - The arrival of the iPod along with the iTunes store succeeded in making the music industry look flat-footed, Internet-phobic and backward looking, irrevocably changed the way in which people consume and listen to music, and more than anything, placed Apple in a considerable position of strength, whilst reinvigorating the brand power of a company whose fortunes in the decade previous were less than rosy.

Apple clearly hope that the iPhone will do for the mobile sector what the iPod did for the music market, and with Vodafone currently the world’s biggest mobile network, they have everything to lose.

Sarin’s criticism appears to have been levelled at the text message functionality of the iPhone, admittedly one of the main flaws of the handset. Whilst the screen will dutifully re-orient itself to a landscape format for video and internet purposes, apparently it won’t do the same for writing text messages - surveys have repeatedly shown that European consumers, British ones in particular, prefer to text rather than talk.

Figures published by European number crunching stat agency Eurostat show that take-up of mobile phones across the continent has eclipsed growth in the fixed line sector by a considerable amount, with overall demand for mobiles increasing 14-fold in nine years since 1996.

13 EU member states had over 100 mobile monthly subscriptions per 100 households in 2005, and 20% of the population of the majority of members solely rely on their mobiles, and do not have any fixed line phone service to speak of.

Sweden bucked this trend by having no inhabitants whom relied exclusively on their mobiles. Cypriots are reportedly the most chatty, talking on average for 6 minutes a day on their mobes, more than twice the UK average, which is approximately 2.8.

According to a survey carried out earlier this year, UK residents prefer to text rather than talk, possibly because us stiff-upper lipped types get oh so terribly flustered when trying to talk to loved ones, either that or we’re too busy gorging ourselves on tea and biccies to talk. Chocks away old bean!

Following their extensive upgrading of their 3G network to facilitate their highly popular mobile broadband service, Vodafone have done a technical boo-boo which has seen their entire 3G network in and around Greater Manchester come temporarily crashing down, severely twisting everyone’s collective melon.

A hardware fault has seen Vodafone customers having to rely on 2G services for basic phone functions, as users have reported calls dropping on the 3G network and texts being delayed by hours - commuters have reported that some areas around London have been hit as well.

Switching the handsets to 2G seems to fix the problem, of course this means no mobile internet for those that need it. Vodafone have identified the problem and aim to have the network up and running ASAP.

Watching movies, downloading music and surfing the web - besides making toast, what more could you want your phone to do? Pay for stuff at the checkout perhaps?

Seemingly wrenched from some dystopian sci-fi narrative where all currency is stored inside tiny microchips embedded in people’s wrists, Nokia have teamed up with Barclaycard to road-test mobile phones that come with RFID chips embedded, allowing shoppers to pay for CDs, clothes and other goods with their mobile phone.

Customers will be able to make payments by swiping their handsets at RFID readers to begin the transaction, with purchases under £10 going through straight away, with anything above this figure requiring PIN entry. Early next year, around 1,000 shops in London will trial the service before any nationwide rollout is considered. Retail outlets participating in the scheme include Books Etc, Coffee Republic, Eat, and McDonalds.

The technology, which is already widely used to tag library books and passports and is used to make fast payments at toll booths, and Barclays have already made the smart decision to trial a combined credit and Oyster card, meaning that in the future, your SIM card could well replace your credit card.

Much has been made of Apple’s attempt to invert the mobile phone business model by announcing exclusive deals with network operators, which saw the manufacturer leading the network, rather than the other way round. It was months ago when Apple announced that O2 would be getting first dibs over here, Orange in France, T-Mobile in Germany. US network Verizon, got exclusive rights to flog the phone when it was released in the States.

However it seems that European market forces are intent on upsetting Steve Jobs’ applecart (sorry). Last month, French law forced Apple to promise that customers would be able to buy an iPhone that didn’t entail them being tied into a lengthy contract with Orange, and now a court in Germany has ruled that T-Mobile must offer the iPhone to everyone, even without the requisite 24-month contract.

French law prohibits the exclusive sale of any handset, whether it has been graced by the palm of St. Steven of Jobs or not. As a compromise, Orange will be selling both a locked and an unlocked version of the iPhone. We’re not quite sure how it would work if you bought an unlocked iPhone in France, then switched to Orange, and then tried switching to someone else;

The German ruling came at the behest of Vodafone, who had unsuccessfully tried to secure a deal with Apple themselves. Vodafone is the main competitor to Deutsche Telekom in the German mobile market, of whom T-Mobile is a subsidiary - UK-based Vodafone are pushing for the iPhone to be made available to anyone in Germany, but curiously will not be challenging O2 for supremacy on their home turf.

According to Richard Wray in today’s Guardian, “O2 said yesterday that it was confident its exclusive deal does not contravene UK or EU law. Vodafone said it did not intend a legal challenge in the UK.”

O2 is owned by Telefonica in Spain, Orange is owned by France Télécom, and T-Mobile is owned by the aforementioned Deutsche Telekom. Vodafone is based in Blighty and yet they’re not going to push for non-exclusivity in their home market. Hmm. Another case or rip-off Britain?

As it did here, the iPhone went on sale in Germany on November the 9th ; it is due to be released in France next week.

Orange have announced the signing of a deal with The Cloud, the biggest provider of Wi-Fi hotspots in Europe. The deal will allow Orange customers to take advantage of The Cloud’s network of Wi-Fi hotspots across the UK, positioned in practically every McDonalds, Starbucks, Coffee Republic, and Caffé Nero in the country.

Orange already has Wi-Fi agreements in place with BT Openzone here in the UK and France Telecom in, er, France. This agreement now extends Orange’s Wi-Fi footprint to more than 10,000 hotspots.

“The reach of our Wi-Fi coverage is critical but the user experience is what really counts,” says Anthony Keyworth, Director of Products, Orange Business Services. “We have numerous Wi-Fi partners complementing a range of other wireless technologies, but no matter which network an Orange customer is using, the user interface and billing remains consistent.”

The Cloud has opened up several thousand hotspots throughout the UK, in pubs, shopping centres, and other areas frequented by large volumes of people - find out where your nearest Cloud hotspot is by going to their site and typing in your postcode - us at Mobile Phones were surprised to find that many of our locals had Wi-Fi access. So next time your landlord is changing the barrels, you’ll have time to do a bit of wireless surfing.

The LG KU990, otherwise known as the Viewty, has made a neat stage-left entrance into the market amid the maelstrom of hype surrounding the iPhone, and along with the Nokia N95, is one of the few smartphones out there that has the features and the functions to stand up to Apple’s great white hope.

The KU990’s common name alludes to both the high calibre of the built-in camera (5 Megapixel, with autofocus and xenon flash) and its aesthetic appeal. The Viewty is very easy on the eye, featuring a 3-inch 240×400 LCD touchscreen display on one side, and dedicated space for the camera and flash lenses on the other side, taking its cue from the Sony Ericsson CyberShot range. At a first glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the Viewty was merely a digital camera, and not a high-powered smartphone.

The LG Viewty also shoots video at 120 frames per second, which allows you to slow it down and watch it in slow-motion when you play it back. Videos can easily be uploaded to YouTube as soon as you’re done filming. However, the sliding disc that is mounted around the camera lens, isn’t quite as intuitive as the thumbwheels it was presumably intended to replace.

The touchscreen display is responsive enough; typing/texting isn’t really a problem, and the menus are not at all dissimilar to those found on the LG PRADA, which could be considered to be the Viewty’s slightly older sister (who went to modelling school in Milan).

Having said that, the touchscreen isn’t quite as polished and fluid as the one on the iPhone, but then again the Viewty’s camera is light years ahead of the 2 Megapixel relic attached to it’s rival. The Viewty also can happily boast full 3G internet browsing at near-broadband speeds.

In terms of taking the shine off of the big Apple, the KU990 could provide LG with a Viewty A Kill;

Other film titles considered:

American Viewty
Angels with Viewty Faces
Viewty and the Beast
Terminal Viewlocity
A Viewtyful Mind
A Room with a Viewty
My Viewtyful Laundrette

Vodafone’s launch of mobile broadband services has been a resounding success for both consumers and the group. Vodafone have accrued a whopping £1bn in profits from their data provision platforms in the six months to September this year, a significant slice of the £17bn the company raked in during the same time period; forecasts for the end of the financial year are now at £35bn, with the group expecting to make a total profit of £9.5bn once expenses are paid off.

The figures, from Vodafone’s own six month financial report, also suggests that the group’s decision to reduce pricing plans worldwide has also been significant in boosting revenue for the world’s biggest mobile network.

Today marks the launch of the first edition of the hugely anticipated Apple iPhone in the UK. Promising to do for the mobile world what the iPod did for music, the iPhone places emphasis upon presentation and user friendliness over power.

As you probably already know, the iPhone does away with any such trivialities as a conventional physical numerical pad or a Qwerty keyboard which has become the mainstay of smartphones over the years, replacing them with a shiny, responsive ultra-intuitive touchscreen interface through which practically every feature of the phone is accessed - the camera, the browser, the iPod, and the phone.

Making the leap from tapping away on a keypad on your Motorola or thumbing your way around a webpage on a BlackBerry to the smooth glacial iPhone takes some getting used to, but Palm Pilot veterans and LG PRADA aficionados should have no trouble at all acquainting themselves with the Apple way of doing things. Things such as predictive text and auto-correcting can be adjusted and turned off as normal, and so those first few days when you accidentally mistype will be corrected.

The Beeb did their part on Breakfast News this morning with two reporters reprising the Mitchell & Webb ‘I’m a Mac, I’m a PC’ ad, with one holding an iPhone and the other holding a Nokia N95 representing Macs and PCs respectively. The report highlighted the difference between the two handsets - highlighting the quality of the 5 Megapixel picture quality of the N95 and the motion shifting portrait to widescreen orientation of the iPhone.

Critics have been quick to point out the technical limitations of the iPhone, citing the 2 Megapixel camera, 8GB memory size (admittedly large for a mobile, but nothing compared to the 80GB iPods doing the rounds theses days) and, crucially, lack of 3G support for browsing. However, the strength of the iPhone is in it’s interface - Apple remain confident that the overall user experience of the handset will outweigh any perceived shortcomings.

In this respect, the iPhone is similar to Nintendo’s phenomenally successful Wii console - a piece of hardware which is technically inferior to the competition - the Xbox 360 and the souped-up PlayStation 3 - but features an innovative wireless control interface, unlike the traditional controllers of yesteryear, which has seen units fly off of the shelves.

Users have also expressed frustration with the inability to switch between network providers. Apple granted O2 network exclusivity in the UK (although we still reckon Orange would have been a better choice, if only for linguistic reasons) which is fine if you live in an area which gets good O2 signal. O2 can quite happily boast one of the best networks for coverage in the UK, but not everyone is going to get perfect reception - the fact of the matter is that some networks are better than others in some regions.

All things said and done, the iPhone looks fantastic and we can safely say that watching video footage on the phone is nothing short of stunning. Simple things such as moving the phone 90 degrees in your hand just to watch the screen orientation adjust accordingly raise a smile, and spinning through your record collection represented in the slide-dhow esque CoverFlow display is a joy. The iPhone has arrived in the smartphone market, and will change the way in which we look at and use mobiles forever.