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Adults banned from searching children’s computers or phones under a new law passed in Chongqing, southwest China

It is a ruling that teenagers around the world will regard with a certain amount of envy. Parents in one Chinese city are to be prevented from snooping on their children’s online activity and text messages.

Adults, including family members, are banned from searching through children’s computers or phones under a new regional law passed in Chongqing, southwest China, state media reported today. The regulation outlaws snooping into their emails, text messages, web chats, and browser history. The regulation is designed to protect the rights of children, but is surprising given widespread concern in China about excessive internet use among young people and their access to unsuitable material. Psychologists have sought to have internet addiction listed as a clinical disorder and treatment camps have sprung up across the country. The Chongqing Evening Post described the new regulation, adopted on Friday by officials in Chongqing, as the first of its kind in the country. Other Chinese media said it expanded an existing national rule. But both experts and children doubted whether it would have an impact in practice.

Lu Yulin, a professor at the China Youth University of Political Science, told China Daily that children were unlikely to take their parents to court.

“Parents who habitually check such information won’t stop due to the regulation,” he said.

Eleven-year-old Song Jingbo, from Xi’an, told the newspaper he did not think his mother and father would be able to access his data anyway, adding: “I am far more internet savvy than them.”

China has the largest population of internet users in the world and minors alone account for more 126 million of them, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.

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(Source The Guardian)

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BBC Trust rules that corporation’s smartphone apps do not need to pass full public value test, despite rivals’ concerns

The BBC Trust has given given the all-clear to the launch of the BBC’s iPhone apps despite commercial rivals’ concerns about their market impact.

Smartphone applications for BBC News, BBC Sport and the iPlayer did not require further scrutiny through a public value test, it said.

The trust’s review included research into the apps market by a media consultancy firm, Mediatique.

BBC trustee Diane Coyle, who led the review, said: “The apps market is rapidly taking off as more people choose to get their news, sport and other online content while they’re on the move.

“The trust has a duty to represent the interests of licence fee payers, who will increasingly expect to access BBC content in this way, but also to listen to concerns raised by industry.

“In this case we have concluded that while the apps market is developing quickly and we will monitor the launch of BBC apps, a PVT is not required.”

The Trust said a public value test was not required because the iPhone apps did not involve the creation of new content.

But it said the impact of the BBC services on the apps market should be monitored and would be reviewed six months after launch.

“In circumstances where the BBC’s apps have an unanticipated impact on the market it will remain open to the Trust to call the proposals back in for further consideration or to consider any fair trading complaints on appeal.”

The apps were in line with previous BBC activity, which already offered a range of basic web apps for mobile devices, it said, adding: “The proposals are also in line with current market trends including the growing penetration of smart phones and mobile internet usage.”

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Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, bbc, email, iphone, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, months, new, phone, phones, review, service, smart phone, test, uk

New Mobile & Latest Deal News!

The new Nokia C6 is out now on T-Mobile and it comes with up to £240 cash back on an 18 month contract.

With a 4 row QWERTY keyboard and a 3.2 inch, HD touchscreen display the Nokia C6 brings social networking to the palm of your hand. The homescreen can be customised with your favourite applications and can display emails, messages and Facebook updates from your top contacts.

All the email accounts you could ask for are supported such as Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and Gmail. The C6 can store up to 10 different email accounts and let you simply flick between them. Access to the Ovi store gives a huge choice of applications for the handset including Instant messaging clients like Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk and Windows Live Messenger.

The built-in 5 megapixel camera features autofocus and flash and can also record video clips. A secondary video camera is also included for use during video calls. Nokia Ovi maps offers on-foot and driving navigation to help you explore new places. Other features include an expandable memory to 16GB, quad-band for international use and a multimedia player that supports all popular file formats. An FM radio is also included as well as Wi-Fi/WLAN for web browsing.

Compare all Nokia C6 deals

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Early experiences by various testers show growing interest in new interface experience from Microsoft – but excitement is restrained

The early previews of Windows Phone 7 – for which reference hardware has started shipping to developers – are in. What to make of them? I think the best way to describe them would be a crouching ovation: people who’ve tried it like the fact that Microsoft is trying something different with the mobile experience, but they really can’t decide if it’s going to be a success or not.

Engadget’s in-depth preview (an intriguing concept) is sort of positive: “Microsoft still has a few months before it intends to get the first volley of Windows Phone 7-based products to the marketplace, but we’ve recently been provided with reference hardware — a not-for-retail Samsung called “Taylor” that’s closely modeled on the Symbian-based i8910HD — to get a feel for where they’re at as the clock ticks down.”

Quick briefs: “We were extremely surprised and impressed by the software’s touch responsiveness and speed. In fact, this is probably the most accurate and nuanced touch response this side of iOS4. It’s kind of stunning how much work Microsoft has done on the user experience since we first saw this interface — everything now comes off as a tight, cohesive whole. It really put one of our major fears about Windows Phone 7 to rest. We haven’t seen any substantial lag while using the device, and the short transitions between applications or pages are well suited to the overall experience.”

Although: “the controversial cut-off text is still present, and while we happen to like the way it looks, it’s definitely an acquired taste, and there are times when it just doesn’t work, like in the Office hub where PowerPoint looks like it reads “PowerPoir.” And two other things: “There are two big omissions here, in our opinion. The device won’t support copy and paste, and won’t support third-party multitasking of apps. We knew this would be the case given what we heard at MIX10, but it doesn’t stink any less now. The former really doesn’t make any sense to us, especially since Microsoft did a good job of nailing text editing and selection (at least in Word, and really… you guys make Word), and it looks like it would only be a short walk to a contextual pop-over for copy and paste functions. The latter is practically inexcusable in this day and age — even Apple (which has been a complete laggard in this area) now supports basic multitasking.”

But they like the keyboard (“the keyboard in Windows Phone 7 is really, really good. We’re talking nearly as good as the iPhone keyboard, and definitely better than the stock Android option. It’s one of the best and most accurate virtual keyboards we’ve used on any platform — and that’s saying a lot”) and screen resolution (“the Windows Phone 7 standard 480 x 800″).

Then again, there are points where Engadget’s not so happy, which tallies with some of the doubts I expressed earlier (though I must point out that I’ve not held a WP7 phone, nor seen it demoed): “Windows Phone 7 doesn’t have “contacts,” per se — it has a People app, and there’s quite a difference. This is a thoroughly social platform, and it doesn’t really seek to make any sort of differentiation between people you talk to / text / email, those you just casually observe, and those with whom you’re “friends” in name only. If that kind of philosophy reeks of Motorola Blur or Palm Synergy, you’re on the right track; as soon as you add a Windows Live, Exchange, or Facebook account, it pulls in every contact associated with that account and disperses associated content throughout your entire phone — there’s nothing you can do about it. That means, for example, that your Pictures app could have a bunch of shots of your ex’s aunt’s new boyfriend’s dog in it (more on that in a bit), and there’s not a whole lot you can do to stop that behavior without completely removing your Facebook account from the phone.

“With Exchange, this strategy is probably fine in most cases — contact sync is one of the main reasons you use Exchange ActiveSync, really — but seriously, Facebook is another matter altogether. If you’ve got a lot of Facebook friends, this renders your People app all but useless as a traditional phone contact list.”

Over at ZDNet UK, there’s another preview which goes (like Engadget) into plenty of detail: “Microsoft has stripped away all unnecessary information (almost too much, actually — the status bar displaying battery life, signal strength, and so forth goes into hiding after a couple of seconds) and soft buttons, and created a Start screen that consists of ‘live tiles’, which are essentially dynamic widgets to your favorite apps, contacts and hubs, and also display alerts, such as new email and missed calls. You can rearrange the order of the tiles and remove them by doing a long press on the screen. You can also ‘pin’ new tiles, but to do so, you must first navigate to the list of apps or the People hub, find the item that you want to add and then pin it to the Start screen.”

OK, and those hubs… “The names of the hubs are pretty self-explanatory. For example, the People hub merges contact information from your various accounts and then displays them in one long list. A swipe to the right will show you Facebook status updates (unfortunately, Windows Phone 7 will not have Twitter or MySpace integration at launch) and lets you add comments, while another swipe will brings up the people you’ve contacted most recently.”

“This type of panoramic UI runs across all the various hubs with bold, attractive text splashed across the top to identify different subsections (a.k.a. Pivots) and in some cases, a small contextual toolbar along the bottom of the screen to help you perform app-specific tasks.”

“Some might complain that this type of navigation requires too much scrolling and can be overly complicated. Admittedly, this is true when compared to Apple’s iOS 4 and Google’s Android, and may be a turn-off for consumers. On the other hand, we appreciate the ability to do so many things from one place without having to launch several different apps, so we have to give Microsoft kudos for thinking of this kind of organisation. We also like the consistent UI, which makes it easy to work the other hubs.”

Another point which has been made elsewhere: “What’s interesting about Windows Phone 7, though, is that at times it feels as though you’re getting two completely different experiences on one phone. The Start screen/menu list and some apps — such as the phone dialer, email inbox and calendar — are completely minimalistic, while other aspects of the phone, including the aforementioned hubs and multimedia features, are more sophisticated and elegant. It doesn’t hurt the navigation, as such, but is doesn’t make the phone feel like a cohesive unit either.”

And the big question: “Will this resonate with users? Frankly, we think it’ll be a hard sell initially. Despite all the improvements made to the UI, it’s still more involved than other operating systems. That said, we’d also caution you not to dismiss it completely, simply because it’s different. Change is scary, but it can also be a good thing.”

It’s a long review, which you’re urged to read in detail.

Meanwhile the Wired Gadgetlab has put its sticky fingers all over the screen: here’s the video. Their principal comment: “Still the lack of any kind of real app store is a major hindrance. Also, Microsoft just will not give up on the Zune marketplace. It’s admirable, but maybe they should re-examine their reasoning for keeping it.” But surely the Zune Marketplace is Microsoft’s leg up to an App Store? Abandoning it would look weird.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

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Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer, certainly thought so. So we thought it might be worth a point-by-point comparison

Comparisons are odious. That’s why it’s usually journalists and marketing people who indulge in them. So indulge me while I pick some apart.

Quoth Kevin Turner, Microsoft’s chief operating officer – the man who makes sure that the money is coming in right, who makes sure that the wheels of the company’s bank accounts are turning fast enough to satisfy shareholders – earlier this week: “One of the things that I want to make sure that you know today is that you’re going to be able to use the Windows Phone 7 and not have to worry about how you’re holding it to make a phone call.” He said it at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, adding: “It looks like iPhone 4 might be their Vista.”

Though Turner wasn’t to know it, Apple was even then preparing its press conference to explain what (if anything) it was going to do about the whole iPhone 4 reception issue. 22 days after the release of the iPhone, Jobs led a press conference explaining that anyone who’d bought an iPhone 4 could have a free “bumper”. (The office joke: 1 day to diagnose the problem, 21 days to prepare and rehearse the presentation.) Those reception problems? Common to all phones, insisted Jobs, who deflected lots of questions in his customary expert way.

That leaves the “PR experts” who earlier this week told Cult of Mac that Apple would have to recall the iPhone 4 looking pretty stupid. Because they were stupid. Pause for a moment and remind yourself: on what grounds are items recalled? Oh yes, when they cause injury or death, or pose a hazard to the public. Losing your data reception because you (avoidably) covered the exposed antenna definitely likes in the category that Twitter calls #firstworldproblems. The idea that Apple would recall a device on that basis is simply laughable. In every newsroom, there’s a point early in the day when your news edior asks you what’s going to happen over some scheduled story: on Friday morning (UK time, before Cupertino was yawning and turning the alarm off) I was asked what would come out of the Apple press conference, and I said that Apple would portray problems with antennas as common to the entire industry, that it would offer free bumpers or cash refunds, or a full refund for anyone who wanted them, and that there was no chance of a recall. Do you think I qualify as a PR expert on that basis?

But let’s go back to the eminently sane and reasonable Kevin Turner. In his speech, he acknowledged that in the areas both of Vista and mobile phones, Microsoft had a bad patch. He’s happy now to praise Windows 7, and is full of expectation for Windows Phone 7. (Others differ, of course, but we have to wait and see.)

However, the idea that the iPhone 4 might be Apple’s “Vista”? Let’s try the comparisons.

Vista: fell seriously behind schedule, requiring Jim Allchin to take the project through a “reset“.
iPhone 4: released on the schedule everyone expected, at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

Vista: dropped much-promised features including WinFS as part of the “reset”.
iPhone 4: we don’t know what features were planned for it; we only know what we got, which is a ceramic case to (try to) improve signal reception, and a screen with a remarkable pixel density.

Vista: met enormous resistance from consumers, who couldn’t understand why it looked and ran so differently from its well-received and hugely popular (if insecure) predecessor, Windows XP.
iPhone 4: sold 1.7m in first three days, of whom 75% were owners of the previous version, according to data on both sides of the Atlantic from Bloomberg and AQA.

Vista: met even greater resistance from Microsoft’s main customers in enterprises, who didn’t like the fact that it didn’t run a lot of the software that ran on Windows XP.
iPhone 4: ran any and all apps that ran on previous iPhones and/or iPod Touches.

Vista: offered substantially greater security and reliability than predecessor.
iPhone 4: offered the same security and reliability as predecessor, plus cooperative multitasking.

Vista: was the subject of a court battle which exposed internal emails from Microsoft, revealing disquiet inside the company over OEM PCs which described themselves as “Vista-ready” even though they would not be able to run any but the lowest-specified versions of Vista.
iPhone 4: is the subject of a claim by the Wall Street Journal that people within Apple knew about problems with the antenna, but that Jobs nixed their criticisms because he liked the design. At the press event on Friday, Jobs called this “total bullshit”. Decide for yourself who’s telling the truth.

Vista: Microsoft never “apologised” for Vista, since it didn’t feel the need to.
iPhone 4: Jobs admitted that “we’re not perfect” but then added that nobody is. You’d be hard-pressed to really call it an apology.

Vista: Wouldn’t run on some Microsoft execs’ machines when they tried to upgrade them.
iPhone 4: Worked OK – though some people updating older phones have had problems with the latest (iOS 4.0.1) update “bricking” them.

So on balance, is the iPhone 4 really like Vista? It’s hard to overstate how monumental a screwup the development of Vista was. The entire development had to jettison key elements, such as WinFS (for search), and try to focus on getting the operating system out of the door. And as soon as it was released, people started complaining about its weird user interface experience; which led a Chinese Australian to set up a site where people could unload about it. (He was snowed under within days.) It’s still worth looking at that site, and seeing whether the points that people have made there have been fixed in Windows 7.

In short, the iPhone 4 antenna issue isn’t Apple’s “Vista moment” – despite what Turner might wish. It’s an annoyance to people who’ve spent that money, but Jobs’s numbers about the low level of returns (1.7%) compared to the 3GS (6%) – which will be pored over by analysts, and will have the force of a financial statement, meaning that if Jobs has fibbed then he’s theoretically liable to be hauled in front of the Securities and Exchange Commission – indicates that unlike Vista, users are actually very happy with it. (That’s also the anecdotal response I’ve had on Twitter.)

Sure, you might be annoyed, if you queued overnight or for hours in the baking sun, that the phone isn’t perfect. But there are lots of phones; personally I don’t have an iPhone or an iPad, because presently I think they’re too expensive for what they offer. You could easily choose another. The snark on view on Twitter indicates, to me, a strange sort of envy on the part of many people; a desire to see a company brought down because of its hubris, rather than its failings.

Certainly, Apple has never wanted for hubris, but it does try to live up to its own aims.

But what about the company that made Vista? There are still challenges ahead for Microsoft: the fact that Google is winning Office customers over to its much cheaper Google Apps products (something that Turner alluded to in his speech – search for the first mention of ‘Google’); the fact that it is only managing to grow its Bing search engine share by spending $1 for every $1 of business it brings in; the fact that Windows Phone 7 remains an unknown quantity which the company has all but staked its reputation in the mobile market on. (Sales of Windows Mobile licences, the previous generation, are dwindling; it would be interesting to see what the licensing revenue is for them. Apparently HTC, once – possibly still – the biggest licensee of Windows Mobile is going to go with Windows Phone 7 – though it seems to be doing rather nicely out of Android at present.)

Lastly, the point that so many people overlook about Apple relates to its ambitions for the iPhone. These are rarely stated. When Steve Jobs launched it in 2007, he said the ambition was a 1% share of the entire phone market: “10 million units and we’ll go from there.”

That’s not the sort of barnstorming that you expect from most companies; they talk about capturing huge chunks. Apple wasn’t looking to get huge share. But you can bet that, being Apple, the plan was to make a lot more than 1% of the profit out there. Apple doesn’t necessarily want to dominate the market for smartphones (though it would certainly be happy to do that, just like the market for digital music players, where it effectively has a monopoly). It just wants to dominate all the profit. The cost of issuing these free bumpers to iPhone owners is going to be about $50m at the most (assuming 5m buyers and a $10 cost to Apple for the whole transaction.) The issue might have cost it more – but you can bet it’s not going to stop it rolling on. That’s perhaps the only way in which the iPhone 4 is really like Vista: it’s not going to stop the next stage of its ambitions.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, 3gs, all, android, apple, cheaper, compare, compared, comparison, consumer, email, free, google, HTC, iphone, latest, lg, marketing, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, released, returns, room, sam, sim, sol, storm, test, three, Touch, twitter, uk, update, world

Microsoft should abandon or entirely reboot its mobile strategy because its latest product is barely as good as the iPhone from 2007 on the present developer offer

The as-yet unreleased Windows Phone 7 is a “waste of time and money”, a “disaster” that Microsoft should kill as soon as possible. So says Galen Gruman of Infoworld, who has watched an in-depth demonstration of the new phone software at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partners Conference which has been going on all week at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

Windows Phone uses a “contact-centric” approach, where rather than doing “tasks” (in the iPhone app way), you are presented generally with contacts, and informed when someone has done something (updated their Facebook/Twitter feed, called you, etc). My personal first impression of the screenshots was “that’s really not going to scale to the point where you have 300 people in your contacts book and 20 Facebook friends and 50 emails and 100 people you follow on Twitter and 30 apps”, but I thought that was just me not following the thinking behind it.

But it looks like I may have been right.

Gruman started the year being impressed with early demos of Windows Phone 7 – but that’s worn off in a big way.

“Announced to much bravado in February as the platform that would breathe life into Microsoft’s mobile ambitions, Windows Phone 7 looked based on very early previews as if it might bring something new and exciting to the table. Back then, I noted that I was impressed by what I saw — with the caveat “so far.”

“No caveats now: Windows Phone 7 is a waste of time and money. It’s a platform that no carrier, device maker, developer, or user should bother with. Microsoft should kill it before it ships and admit that it’s out of the mobile game for good. It is supposed to ship around Christmas 2010, but anyone who gets one will prefer a lump of coal. I really mean that.”

Ouch. What’s happened, Galen?

“The early demos were intriguing due to the use of the card metaphor to organize apps and information, providing a possible fluidity among apps and information that would let users swim through their business and social activities. And the distinct UI — though based on the unsuccessful Zune media player — looked as if it would stand out from the crowd of mobile devices that have largely copied the iPhone UI, such as Google’s Android, RIM’s touch-oriented BlackBerry Storm, and Palm’s WebOS.”

Hmm.

“But that was just the lipstick. Now, in Microsoft’s in-depth demo this week at the Mobile Beat conference, there’s no mistaking the big pig behind the gloss. Seeing the UI in action across several tasks, not just in a highly controlled presentation, shows how awkward and unsophisticated it is — I had the same feeling you get when you got a movie based on a great trailer, only to discover that all the good stuff was in the trailer and the rest of the movie was a mess. A pig, in fact.”

There’s plenty more; it’s worth reading in depth. Gruman says that as well as resting on old technology, Windows Phone 7 is simply outdated:

“The bottom line is this: Windows Phone 7 is a pale imitation of the 2007-era iPhone. It’s as if Microsoft decided in summer 2007 to copy the iPhone and has shut its developers in a bunker ever since, so they don’t realize that several years have passed, that the iPhone has advanced, and that competitors such as Google Android and Palm WebOS have also pushed the needle forward. Microsoft is stuck in 2007, with a smartphone OS whose feature checklist might match that era’s iPhone but whose fit and finish would look like a Pinto next to a Maserati.”

Gruman went along to a presentation at WPC (which has been generally described as “lacklustre” – and certainly seems to have been much smaller than in previous years by all accounts) and was worried by what seemed like poor responses to the handful of outside developers who had come along.

Arguably, WPC is not the place where you’re going to find the hottest WP7 developers; it’s more about geeing up the people who will resell Microsoft products. But the fact that only a few months short of the grand launch of WP7 it can’t wow even developers for the platform sounds bad. Gruman’s description of the presentation makes it sound like one of those uncomfortable events where the tumbleweed was always at risk of rolling past.

And as for the “locked in a bunker since 2007″ jibe – don’t forget the Kin, which seems to have been the victim of political infighting at Microsoft, as the incoming developer team from Danger (which Microsoft bought to produce the Kin) found themselves mired in layers of management that effectively brought them to a dead stop. Read the full horror of it at the Mini-Microsoft blog (by a disaffected Microsoft manager, but the comments are from ex-Danger staff and others).

Back to Gruman, who points to the flaws with the “tiles” method:

“… the big tiles quickly eat up screen real estate (about four fit), so you don’t get the compact access to apps that all the other major mobile operating systems provide. I bet this will depress app sales for those poor souls unlucky enough to get seduced by the Microsoft brand or the inevitable discounts at the cellular stores as the carriers try to dump these devices in January 2011 for $25 (shades of the unlamented Kin).

“Plus, Microsoft has done its usual trick of gumming up the UI, even though this one is relatively simple. There are two ways to navigate through tiles: in panorama mode and in pivot mode. In both cases, the tile continues to the right, and you swipe to see more. In panorama mode, cut-off text on the right indicates there’s more (at Mobile Beat, a developer asked if users knew what that cut-off text was for, and the Microsoft rep essentially admitted they didn’t get it was a way to say “more”). In pivot mode, each tile is self-contained, and there is an icon to indicate there is more. It’s a subtle difference: Using a panorama basically means the tile continues because it won’t fit on screen, while using a pivot means you have a series of what are essentially pages. I bet developers and users will get confused very fast.

“Visions of Vista’s litter of control panel dialog boxes, Microsoft Bob, the Office ribbon, Clippy, and Windows 3 flew through my head — not that Windows Phone 7 looks like any of these; it just shares the same flaw of being obtuse.”

And that’s only for starters. Other complaints: the browser, IE7 with a bit of IE8, doesn’t support HTML5; there’s no multitasking except for Microsoft’s own apps (Android and, now, the iPhone both support cooperative multitasking by all apps); there doesn’t seem to be interapplication communication for third-party apps; there’s no copy-and-paste (emphasis added) – even though Apple was roundly and rightly criticised for not introducing it until summer 2009, and Windows Mobile 6.1 did have it.

Gruman says there’s going to be no come-from-behind take-over-the-world for Microsoft if this doesn’t succeed: RIM (prepping BlackBerry 6), Android, Apple and Nokia will all eat its lunch and dance on its grave.

At this point, people usually begin an ad-hominem, to ask whether Gruman is biased or (sigh) in the pay of company X or Y. Judge for yourself from the Infoworld author bio and item list.

Meanwhile, if anyone else has had a hands-on with Windows Phone 7 – via the developer kit or other methods – we’d love to hear about it. Good? Bad? Indifferent? What’s it really like?

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, android, apple, Blackberry, blog, card, comments, confused, email, google, iphone, latest, line, maker, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, months, new, nokia, palm, phone, phones, released, review, reviews, sam, sim, storm, test, tmobile, Touch, twitter, uk, update, world

What we love and what we hate

Things we love

Grown-up festivals

The summer season means fun weekends. But we would much rather go to real festivals than London’s Underage one – that’s only cool when you’re 14.

BlackBerry hype

Everyone who is anyone has got one. People used to ask for your number, then your Facebook name; now it’s all about your BB pin.

Friends

The most important thing in life – they make you who you are. They love what you love, and hate who you hate.

Glee

Everyone’s addicted. It’s silly, but you’re laughing with it, rather than at it, like High School Musical. Unlikely to rush out and join a choir though

Napping

Do it most of the time. We finish something then immediately need a lie down. Nap time should be compulsory at school.

Things we hate

Celebrity relatives

Who is Pixie Geldof? We despise young people who are famous for nothing.

Teen advice

No, I’m not pregnant and yes, I know that drugs are very bad. You’re not being completely patronising at all.

txt spk

Connecting with us via txt spk. “R u ok? Nd hlp? Talk to ur doc l8r 4 free advice”. Er, no thanks.

Parents on Facebook
Their only reason for joining is to spy on us. Unlike. Let the Twitter switch-over commence.

Correcting speech

We know our constant use of the word “like” is, like, grammatically incorrect and irritating, but we don’t actually care.

Skins wannabes

No one we know is like a Skins character, and if anyone tried to invite us to a Skins party, we’d run a mile.

Teen readers – do you agree with the list? Email us at g2feedback@guardian.co.uk

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, all, Blackberry, email, free, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, twitter, uk

New Mobile & Latest Deal News!

The Sony Ericsson Zylo is out now on The One Plan from 3. For just £28 per month you get 2000 minutes to any network, virtually unlimited texts and free calls to other phones on the same network. It also comes with 1GB of data per month. Amazing value for money. Other tariffs are available from just £13 per month.

The Sony Ericsson Zylo has social networking at its heart and includes a Walkman player for enhanced audio quality. Facebook and Twitter come pre-loaded to get you to the latest wall updates and tweets quickly and easily. Web browsing with HSPA offers a speedy browsing experience with Google Search to help you find the information you need.

The 3.2 megapixel camera features Photo fix, 2x digital zoom and geo-tagging. You can post your snaps on Picasa and Flickr to share the moment with family and friends. The camera can also capture video clips and the pre-loaded YouTube application allows you to upload your clips or view a huge variety of other videos.

The walkman player features shake control, Clear Stereo and Clear Bass to make the most of your music. Listen to your favourite tracks out loud or enjoy stereo sound on a Bluetooth headset. The internal memory can be expanded up to 16GB so you can carry your music collection with you.

Entertainment options include a FM Radio with RDS, video player and video streaming. All message options are included with SMS, MMS, Email and instant messaging.

Compare all Sony Ericsson Zylo deals

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Wireless email firm NTP Technologies has filed lawsuits against Google, HTC,
LG, Apple, Motorola and Microsoft alleging eight separate patent infringements.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: all, apple, email, google, HTC, lg, moto, motorola, new, uk

Wireless email firm NTP Technologies has filed lawsuits against Google, HTC,
LG, Apple, Motorola and Microsoft alleging eight separate patent infringements.

Read Full Story…
(Source Yahoo UK News)

Tags: all, apple, email, google, HTC, lg, moto, motorola, new, uk

Giffgaff has rewarded its customers with their first payout – for acting as its sales and technical staff

A new “community-run” mobile phone company, which is offering the chance to earn hundreds of pounds a year by spreading the word about it, has announced its first payments to customers.

One Giffgaff user received £654, and more than 40 others earned at least £200 apiece. Payouts are earned by recruiting and by helping other customers with their technical problems.

Giffgaff, which went live in November as a “sim-only” service (you use your existing handset), is the latest example of a web-based business that gives people the opportunity to make money by, in effect, becoming a salesperson or troubleshooter. The scheme therefore allows the company to save on advertising and call centre costs.

Who’s behind the company?

Giffgaff – an ancient Scottish word that means “mutual giving”, apparently – describes itself as a mobile phone company “where the community is at the heart of it”, and which does things differently to the “faceless” big networks. It is online only, with “no wasteful shops or excessive call centres”.

So some might be surprised to discover Giffgaff is wholly owned by 0₂ – and runs on its network.

While some potential customers might be disappointed that this isn’t a truly mutual, member-owned organisation, others may feel more comfortable signing up with a company backed by a big name.

Mike Fairman, the chief executive, says that while 0₂ provided the capital for the business to start up, Giffgaff operates independently, with its own offices and staff. “It’s very much an arms-length arrangement … this is very different from 0₂.”

The company declined to divulge its customer numbers, but says it has a 6,000-strong online community.

Is it worth signing up as a customer?

If you are looking for a cheap pay-as-you-go service, Giffgaff’s pricing is quite competitive. UK calls are 8p and texts 4p – this matches Asda Mobile’s pricing – with free UK web browsing on your handset until 1 October. After that, mobile internet will be charged at up to 50p a day for most people, says a spokesman. Customers can get free calls to one another.

As the company points out on its website, 0₂ charges 25p for calls to other networks and 10p for texts.

It is offering a range of “goodybags” – a mix of UK minutes, texts and mobile internet that last for a month.

You can order a free sim card online and top up by card or voucher.

What about those payments to customers?

Promoting the company and helping out other customers in Giffgaff’s online forum earns rewards. Promoting the company could include giving sim cards to friends or even making your own video and putting it on YouTube.

One point equals one pence. Sending your friend an email about Giffgaff would earn you 50p. If you send Giffgaff sims to several people, you get £5 for each one that is activated.

The rewards for helping with customer queries vary depending on criteria, such as how the person who asked the question rated the answer.

How is the money paid?

The points earned are converted into pounds, and the cash paid out twice a year – in June and December. You can have the cash paid into a PayPal account (you can’t have it paid direct into your bank account), get it as airtime credit for your phone, or donate it to Cancer Research, the charity chosen by members.

How much can people make?

Giffgaff claims the amounts people can earn are “limitless”. It says more than 40% of members were rewarded last month. The average user received £14, while 42 people earned more than £200.

One 19-year-old Londoner received £206 for spreading the word among his friends and helping on the community forum. He is putting the cash towards a new laptop for when he starts university in September.

Liam Salomone (pictured), 30, of Northolt, Middlesex, earned £654 for sending emails to contacts, answering queries on the forum, and encouraging friends to sign up.

“It’s much better that a mobile firm pays its customers to market their product than to waste money on advertising,” he says, adding: “I’m saving the money for a trip to South Africa with my mum. We’ve both spoken about visiting there for years, and now we have an opportunity to do it.”

Does anyone else do this sort of thing?

Mobile network 3 runs the “Free Agent” scheme, where £5 is paid into your PayPal account every time a friend with a 3G phone orders a sim from you and tops it up by £10 or more.

You don’t have to be a 3 customer to sign up to the scheme, and the company is offering a number of online tools to help people promote the offer.

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(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, card, charges, consumer, email, free, latest, lg, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, networks, new, phone, phones, service, sim, Sim Card, test, uk

Poll finds email, IM and social networks sell mobile data

HTML5 could take bites out of Apple’s dominance of mobile applications today – provided developers target lucrative niches. A poll of over 4,000 punters points to the old regulars of email, IM and social networks as driving increased mobile data usage. 65 per cent of UK consumers and 74 per cent of US consumers polled said email tempted them to use data on a mobile phone. Just 15 per cent and 30 per cent (respectively) cite games.…

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(Source The Register)

Tags: 3, all, apple, consumer, email, iphone, mobile, mobile phone, networks, phone, source the register, uk

With iPhone and iPad sales responsible for the majority of Apple’s revenue, the company is losing interest in what was once its keystone product

In the technology world, the name Mary Meeker is one to conjure with. Her official job title is managing director at the investment bank Morgan Stanley. Unofficially, her title (granted by Barron’s, a specialist financial publication) is “Queen of the Net”. This is mainly because her regular research reports on “internet trends” have become required reading for anyone interested in understanding what’s going on in the networked economy.

But it also has something to do with the fact that she’s been around a long time. In August 1995, for example, her employer was the lead manager on the Netscape IPO which triggered the first internet boom, and she was the firm’s leading research analyst. In August 2004, Morgan Stanley also led on the Google IPO – and guess who was their leading analyst then too. Given the seven to one ratio between internet and calendar years, this means that Ms Meeker has been watching the industry for about 105 internet “years”.

Her latest “internet trends” presentation is a powerpoint essay so overloaded with data it would cause Edward Tufte, the celebrated expert on data visualisation, to faint. For me, two charts in particular stood out. The first shows sales of smartphones and PCs on the same timescale. It suggests that, sometime in 2012, sales of the phones will exceed those of PCs. The second chart contains two pie-charts which capture the distribution of Apple’s revenues in 2007 and 2010. The differences are striking.

In the second quarter of 2007, for example, 47% of Apple’s revenues came from its Macintosh range of computers. The iPod accounted for 29% of revenues and iTunes for 11%, while “Others” accounted for the remaining 11%. The iPhone brought in 0% for the simple reason that it didn’t go on sale until that summer.

Spool forward to the first quarter of 2010 and, according to Meeker, the iPhone now brings in 40% of Apple’s revenues, while the iPod and iTunes together account for 24%. Sales of Macintosh computers are now responsible for only 28% of the company’s sales. These are the numbers which underpin Steve Jobs’s recent assertion that Apple had become a “mobile devices” company.

He followed up with a new metaphor, likening PCs to “trucks” – ie things that companies need to have but which few individuals own. This kind of talk prompted journalists to wonder whether his long-term strategy was to get out of the computer business altogether. In a nicely ironic touch, a blogger wrote a “Dear John” letter from Steve to the Mac (you know the genre: “It’s been lovely knowing you but I feel that the time has come for us to realise our individual potentials separately…”). This triggered a terse, irritable response from Jobs. Suggestions that Apple was thinking of dropping the Mac were, he emailed, “completely wrong. Just wait”.

Well, we’re waiting. Some seasoned Mac users are beginning to get impatient. Dan Gillmor, the prominent Silicon Valley observer and evangelist for “citizen journalism”, has been a Mac user for many years, but recently announced that he’s moving to Linux running on the beautiful new ThinkPad laptops emerging from Lenovo. Other Mac users are beginning to mutter about whether Apple has essentially lost interest in what was once its keystone product. Sure, the company continues to make incremental improvements in the MacBook, Mac mini and iMac lines, but somehow the fire has gone out.

In a way, that’s not surprising. Companies go where the commercial opportunities are. The inescapable conclusion to be drawn from Apple’s recent history is that the spectacular growth opportunities are in mobile devices, not deskbound computers or even laptops. The iPad is selling at a rate of a million a month. More than 1.4 million of the new iPhones were sold in the first four days. And the pace seems to be increasing. It took the first iPhone 74 days to reach its first million. The iPad got there in 28. Only things like the Nintendo Wii (13 days) shift faster. Then there’s the small matter of the 40% contribution the iPhone now makes to Apple’s bottom line. In those circumstances, if you were Steve Jobs, what would you focus on?

For the rest of us, the thing to focus on is the way smartphones are overtaking PCs as the gateway that most people will use to access the internet. There are now only three players in that game – Apple, Google (via the Android operating system) and RIM (makers of the BlackBerry). Until recently, I would have said that the (open, permissive) Google/Android system would win out over the (closed, tightly controlled) Apple device. But sales of the new iPhone lead one to wonder if it will be Apple, and not Google, which replaces Microsoft as the company we love to hate.

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(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, android, apple, Blackberry, blog, email, google, growth, iphone, latest, line, maker, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, sam, sim, sol, test, three, Touch, uk, world

Every iPhone ever made uses a ‘totally wrong’ formula to show signal strength, says Apple, after antenna complaints

Apple has confessed that it has discovered that every iPhone uses the wrong formula to calculate how strong a signal it is receiving – meaning that it seems to show good reception when the signal is weak. It has promised a software fix for the problem “within a few weeks” which will match that used in other phones.

The explanation, in which the company says it used “totally wrong” calculations to work out the strength of the signal, seems to explain why some people have complained to the company that they see a dramatic dropoff in the signal strength displayed when they hold the iPhone 4 in a particular way. Within hours of the phone being delivered to customers last month, dozens had posted videos on YouTube showing that the number of “bars” indicating reception strength fell abruptly when they picked the phone up from a desk.

Apple says in a press release on its site that it was “surprised” after the launch of the phone to read reports of reception problems, especially those who reported that the signal strength dropped completely – from five “bars” (the strongest reception) to none when held in a way that covers the antenna on the bottom of the phone.

But after getting “hundreds of emails from users” and seeing articles about the problem, it took the phones back to its laboratories – and discovered, it says, that it has been measuring signal strength wrongly since the very first iPhone, in a development it calls “simple and surprising”.

The company explains: “Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong. Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays two more bars than it should for a given signal strength. For example, we sometimes display four bars when we should be displaying as few as two bars. Users observing a drop of several bars when they grip their iPhone in a certain way are most likely in an area with very weak signal strength, but they don’t know it because we are erroneously displaying four or five bars. Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place.”

That would mean that the apparently strong reception that vanished when the phone was picked up was a mirage – and that the abrupt falloff was because the signal strength dipped below the normal levels for a lower range of bars.

The review site Anandtech investigated the iPhone 4′s reception earlier this week, and found that there is comparatively little difference between the signal strength needed to get four “bars” and one: a difference of 12 decibels’ signal strength is enough to boost the apparent reception from one to four bars. A difference of 10dB is equivalent to a tenfold difference in the power of the signal, and a 3dB difference equates to a factor of two in the signal power.

Other phones use different measures to indicate signal strength: different versions of RIM’s BlackBerry, for example, will show only two bars out of five with a signal strength of -80dB – which would be enough on the iPhone to show five bars.

Apple says it intends to fix the problem with a software update which will mean that the displayed signal strength matches the formula recommended by AT&T, the sole phone provider for iPhones in the US. There is no comment yet from UK phone providers as to whether the formula they recommend for signal strength is the same as AT&T’s. Nor is AT&T’s measurement system available online: the phrase “recommended formula” does not appear in any of its developer documentation, and an AT&T representative said that “You will need to speak to Apple about its letter.”

But Apple insists that the iPhone 4′s wireless performance is “the best we have ever shipped” and that for the vast majority of users, “this software update will only make your bars more accurate”.

The company is facing a class action in the US from angry buyers of the iPhone 4 who have complained that Apple knew about the issues with the antennas before the phone was released. The company has not yet responded to the lawsuit, though in its letter it points out that dissatisfied customers can return their phones for a refund.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 12, 3, all, apple, best, Blackberry, email, iphone, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, released, review, review site, sam, sim, sol, uk, update

New Mobile & Latest Deal News!

The Nokia E5 has an utterly superb battery life. With up to 29 days standby and up to 18 hours talk it’s perfect for perfect for anyone who needs an exceptional battery life, such as heavy users or those who travel on a regular basis. One-touch gives access to contacts and social networking sites and with live updates from Facebook posted straight into the contact list keeping up with the latest news and gossip has never been easier.

The latest version of Nokia messaging offers full instant messaging and support for multiple email accounts such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail and Ovi Mail. For business users Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes Traveller applications are also supported. A-GPS and Ovi Maps with free walk and drive navigation boost the appeal of this 3G handset that additionally connects to the Internet and the Ovi Store in speedy fashion using the HSDPA Web browser.

The 5 megapixel camera works well in all lighting conditions, it has fixed focus and an LED flash. Images, music and video files can be stored onto the 256MB internal memory that can be boosted up to 16GB with a microSD card. Keeping up with the latest news, weather, sports and music releases is simple using the stereo FM radio with RDS and listening in private can be achieved by connecting your own favourite headphones to the 3.5mm audio jack. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and quad-band international roaming. The 4 row QWERTY keypad with dedicated nav-key fits nicely into the ergonomic design of the superb Nokia E5.

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Subscribers to discount website Groupola can pick up handset for £400 less than Apple charges – if they are quick enough

A discount website specialising in ‘city deals’ is offering users the chance to purchase the new Apple iPhone 4 on 1 July for just £99, compared to the £499 Apple charges . Groupola.com only has a limited number of handsets available and is offering them exclusively to its email subscribers.

It says it is able to offer such low prices because it relies on group-buying to regularly offer discounts of up to 90% on events and products across the UK’s major cities and tourist attractions.

O2 is selling the 16GB iPhone 4 for £209 if you sign up to an 18-month contract and spend £30 a month, while Vodafone wants £219 for the 16GB version if you also spend £30 a month for 18 months. You can compare packages here.

Mark Pearson, managing director of Groupola, says: “Given that the iPhone 4 sold out through pre-orders alone in just 48 hours through the Apple store, we thought it was only right to offer loyal Groupola.com discount hunters another bite of the cherry. We’ve proved that the concept of group buying can work within the UK.”

To purchase the iPhone for £99 you need to be an email subscriber, so you’ll need to visit the site and sign up to receive daily alerts. You will be sent a link on 1 July which will allow you to purchase the phone on 2 July on a first come, first served basis.

“My advice is to open the link the second the clock ticks over at 9.30am – by 9.31am you may already have been too late,” adds Pearson.

The firm has admitted that the deal is a loss-leader and there is only a limited number of phones available. It has also said that people can easily unsubscribe from the daily alerts should they wish to.

Read Original Story…
(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, apple, apple iphone, charges, compare, compared, consumer, contract, deal, Deals, email, iphone, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, months, new, o2, phone, phones, prices, sol, uk, vodafone

Mobile company claimed its 3G network reached most people, but ad watchdog said this could not be substantiated

The advertising watchdog has forced Orange to retract a claim that its 3G network reaches more people than competitors’ networks, after a challenge from rival company 3.

A press ad run by Orange for its mobile broadband made the boast that “the Orange 3G network covers more people in the UK than any other operator”.

Hutchison 3G Ltd, parent company of 3, challenged the line, arguing that on the basis of population coverage it had the largest UK 3G network.

Orange argued that it had the biggest network measured by population coverage, while admitting 3 was larger by geographical coverage.

The mobile operator said that its own population coverage percentages “were calculated based on a marriage of in-house tools and recognised public domain population to location information and that the claim was capable of objective substantiation”.

However, the Advertising Standards Authority said that while Orange may have intended the ad to solely mean covering more people where they lived – as opposed to wherever they might geographically go – the claim was ambiguous.

The ASA checked Ofcom’s UK geographical coverage maps for the big five mobile companies and found it was not ranked No 1.

As a result the ASA banned the ad, ruling that it was misleading because Orange could not substantiate the claim as it was not based on directly comparable measurement and reporting methods.

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(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, 3, all, email, HD, largest, line, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, networks, new, orange, phone, phones, sol, uk

New Mobile & Latest Deal News!

Free on Vodafone with 9 months half price line rental via redemption cash back. Great deal on Samsung’s stunning Android phone with its 4 inch Super AMOLED display.

The Samsung Galaxy S has the Android 2.1 operating system and a high performance 1GHz processor to provide a superb user experience via the TouchWiz interface. The 4 inch super AMOLED display and resolution of 800×480 pixels place this smartphone in league of its own.

Web browsing is provided by a 3G HSDPA Internet connection and ensures the experience rivals that of a home computer or laptop. Google Talk, YouTube and a media player are but a few of the features the Galaxy S gives access to and with A-GPS support and Google Maps nothing has been forgotten in this must have package. The 5 megapixel camera utilises image stabilisation and auto-focus to capture high quality pictures and has the flexibility to be used as a HD video recorder.

Connectivity options include Bluetooth and quad-band reception for a better experience when overseas. SMS, MMS, instant messaging and email access ensure you can keep connected by your choice of format wherever you may go. Dimensions of 122×64x10mm make this smartphone pocket friendly and at only 118g it can be carried around almost unnoticed. The Galaxy S comes with 8GB internal memory, which can be upgraded with an additiona 32GB microSD card.

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Authors such as Iain Banks and Martina Cole are increasingly supplementing book releases with apps full of bonus material

The way the books industry is interacting with digital media is developing faster than many had foreseen, with the latest example an attempt to offer fans of author Iain M Banks exclusive unseen chapters, his original notes and commentary for his latest novel.

Mobile software company TradeMobile has worked with Banks’s publisher Little, Brown to develop the free application for the iPhone, which launches this Thursday (1 July). Readers who have bought the paperback of Banks’s latest novel, Transition, will be able to scan a unique barcode on their edition with their iPhone, and companion features for the novel will be transmitted to their screen.

A best-selling author, the publishers also hope the new app may entice readers uninitiated into his complicated universe of difference worlds and civilisations. “For something as complicated as Transition it makes sense,” said Banks. “It’s very much like a DVD extras.”

The app also includes character biographies; after a “slightly anguished” email from his German translator, Banks realised that a character called Bisquitine might need her language and cultural references explaining.

“She appears toward the end of the novel and has an important part to play, and a very eccentric way of expressing herself,” says the author. “It took half a day to write and three to explain.”

Kirk Bowe at TradeMobile says: “You’re able to tap in a page number and get back all the characters, scenes and locations which may be relevant to that page.”

Beyond the iPhone

TradeMobile is currently in talks with Little, Brown about extending the application to other handsets as well as the iPhone. “This helps people who aren’t particularly familiar with an author, especially an author like Iain whom they might not have approached before … it will fill in the blanks that may sometimes scare people away.”

In March the number of books available as iPhone apps passed the number of games for the first time (www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/mar/09/books-overtake-games-iphone-apps). “It was a tipping point,” says digital editor Dan Franklin at rival publisher Canongate. “The plan is now to be creating something you can only experience digitally” — something which, he admits, defies the instincts of a publisher. “It’s our next challenge [but] it’s difficult,” he says.

TradeMobile’s Bowe feels the “companion” approach works particularly well for fiction. “Tolkien for example would be amazing,” he says. “Really for authors with rich, detailed characters and locations it’s great.”

Banks agrees. “It works well for science fiction, especially when you have a universe or place you go back to. These places gradually build up.

“It’s there if you want it – and that’s the beauty of it, it’s an opt-in thing. It’s not being forced down your neck; if you just want the story, you can have it,” says the author. “We’ll see how it does with the science-fiction stuff – if it’s successful it’s the obvious thing to do to extend it to my other novels.”

Added value

Little, Brown is part of the UK’s largest publishing conglomerate, Hachette UK, which has already launched a similar app for popular crime novelist Martina Cole, and has apps in development for authors including Stephenie Meyer, Patrick Holford and Ian Rankin.

“Anyone can replicate the experience of reading a physical book in an app. Our feeling is that just isn’t very exciting,” says head of digital George Walkley. “With Iain Banks and Martina Cole we’ve tried to provide added value and extra material for authors who have very passionate followings.”

At Canongate, Franklin is impressed with Little, Brown’s new app. “What is cool is that they’re getting it to directly interact with a print edition,” he says. “It’s very clever and something we’re looking to do.”

Canongate is no slouch in the digital department itself, however, launching a (paid-for) enhanced iPhone app for Nick Cave’s novel The Death of Bunny Munro in September, complete with videos of Cave and an audio version synched to the text of the book, scored by Cave himself. The app won second place in MediaGuardian’s own innovation awards, the Megas, earlier this year. And in May, it brought out an enhanced app for David Eagleman’s short story collection Sum: Tales from the Afterlives, featuring videos of Eagleman discussing the book, and a synched audio version read by the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Stephen Fry and Noel Fielding.

Like Walkley, Eagleman believes it is important for an app to be more than just an electronic version of a book. “An electronic version of a book merely grants portability. But a thoughtful app can open new inroads to explore the material, as well as ways to keep the material updated and fresh,” he says.

“By having the option to explore a book beyond the original text — by dint of videos, living links, and so on — it becomes a living, breathing, updating organism, just like the rest of our technology.”

Banks adds: “Everyone’s feeling around – no one knows what’s going to work. It’s quite a nervous time to be a publisher. They’re trying to do what they can to keep books interesting. We will just see how it goes.”

Eagleman agrees. “We’re at an exploratory period now, and no one knows where it’s going. If you imagine yourself 100 years from now looking back, it’s clear that apps are in their infancy and just learning how to crawl. Once they become adults, they might offer such a different experience of the material that they will speciate into an entirely different storytelling animal — as has happened, for example, with movies.”

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(Source The Guardian)

Tags: 10, all, best, email, free, iphone, largest, latest, launches, mobile, mobile phone, mobile phones, new, phone, phones, sim, talks, test, three, uk, update, world

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The Nokia X6 now comes in this special V Festival edition, called the X6V. It includes 25 free music downloads via the Nokia music store, free Bluetooth headphones worth £49.99 and V Festival and Shazam apps pre-installed.

The Nokia X6 has an impressive 3.2 inch touchscreen that covers almost the entire front of the phone. It’s pocket and palm friendly measuring 111 x 51 x 13mm and it’s great for watching movies with the 16:9 aspect ratio screen. With 16GB of internal memory there’s plenty of storage too. The X6 runs on Symbian OS v9.4 and has a 434 MHz processor, which is enough to compete with many other smartphones in its class. The new X Series range from Nokia with replace the XpressMusic range, it will focus on entertainment and social networking.

The X6’s TFT capacitive touchscreen gives a crisp, bright image and comes with scratch resistant glass. There is a built in accelerometer for automatically switching the screen from portrait to landscape, for widescreen images and videos. For texts and emails the X6 also supports handwriting recognition. A 5 megapixel camera is the same unit from the N97, it has Carl Zeiss optics, auto focus, LED flash and geo-tagging to take fantastic images and stamp them with their exact time and location using GPS. The camera also has video recording capabilities and there is the ability to edit images with software provided.

Connectivity-wise, the Nokia X6 has all the usual features you would expect in a smartphone, 3G, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and a microUSB slot to transfer files with or without wires. To ensure you never get lost the X6 has Ovi maps sat nav pre-installed, which is now subscription-free. The X6 combines style and technology to bring a fantastic, feature packed flagship phone to the new X Series range.

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