Great rant on The Register: How the mobile phone biz lost the plot

Matt Mizenko sent me a link to a great rant article (click here) on The Register about how the mobile industry lost its groove (it’s getting stale, but I only just read it).

There are some really good points made about how ‘in the old days’ the industry was a while lot better and simpler.

Quite:

The [Nokia} 3210 is the Model T Ford of mobile phones. By 2000, the phone was cheap enough that almost anyone could afford it. Yet despite its affordability, it was packed with features not yet seen in the mass market; most of them market firsts. Among other things, it introduced internal aerials, T9 predictive text input, downloadable ringtones, downloadable operator logos and a user interface as easy to use as a doorbell.

Sigh.

But, here’s a biting quote that brings a chuckle:

The N-series must surely take the cake as the world’s most ill-conceived range of phones, being slower than treacle, as reliable as Windows 3.1 and clearly designed by a committee of unloved marketing droids.

Go give this article a read and let’s all grumble together.

I suppose this article can be one we can point to when we get upset at the idiocy of the industry.

Has anyone played with Fidg’t?

Fidg’t (previously known as GearON) seems quite interesting, intersecting many of the areas I like – aggregation, mobile, visualization.

Has anyone played with it? Seems interesting (here’s a review).

Link: Fidg’t: Your Social Networking Address Book:

Fidg’t, Your Social Network Address Book. On the Web Fidg’t unifies your online identities, for you and your contacts across multiple social networks. Fidg’t then provides updates from your network of friends across the Web, on the desktop, and mobile. The Fidg’t visualizer is a visually dynamic desktop application that allows you to explore what your friends are attracted to. Fidg’t mobile let’s you and your friends chat, post photos, browse galleries, and share play-lists on the go.

A Nokia Mac app! Hooray! Nokia Media Transfer is now out!

I’ve been using this for a while and it really is nice. It plugs a gap between my phone and my Mac.

Dare I say Nokia is finally playing properly with Apple? Well, I don’t know, but I do know that Nokia phones are no longer second class citizens in the Mac universe. This is indeed a step in the right direction. Together with iSync, you can now transfer contacts, calendar, photos, videos, and music between your dearly paid for Mac and your dearly paid for Nokia phone (alas, only Nseries phones).*

This app makes it easier to transfer music from iTunes to your phone. It also makes it easier to get photos and videos into iPhoto (and back). It doesn’t work on DRM’d (hiss, Apple FairPlay) music and videos, but free stuff will be properly converted to play on your device (assuming you have the right device, yada yada). UPDATE [10jun]: It can also transfer iTunes Plus (purchased but not DRMed music). See Nokia Media Transfer FAQ on Music for more info.

Yes, you can have your cake and eat it!

Link: Nokia – Download – Main – Download software – Get support and software:

The Nokia Media Transfer application enables you to transfer pictures, videos, podcasts, music, and files between your Nokia mobile device and your Mac.


*ah, but I also want to synch my to-dos and notes and bookmarks, too. sigh.