My new Lumia red hot 920

The Lumia 920 is a fantastic device indeed, it feels great and works like it is supposed to. Windows 8 has many new features, and is slightly different from WP 7.8 on my old Lumia 800. I liked the 800 at lot, but I could not resist the 920.

New features include possibility to change font size, from small to extremely large. It has also a zoom function which can be activated and enables you to double tap with two fingers, much like the IPad, great if you forget your glasses. Nokia Maps seems to be using offline maps now, and Drive Beta is offers the same offline maps as WP 7.8. Position fixes are fast, but I would like an App showing exactly which satellites it is tracking, GPS, Glonass? The Apps are slightly different form the WP 7.8 version, for example the data and phone counter application is (not yet) available. I experienced some problems with Bluetooth, but fortunately all my data was stored on Windows Live. Actually there is little need for Bluetooth, apart from Bt earphones and keyboards. I did not use it on my Lumia 800 at all.

The new NFC technology provides new features like the possibility to use your phone for small payments. However, at least my bank does not offer this service, and it will take time before this will be a reality. I did not make much tests with the camera, the Arctic winter here does give little opportunities, because it is dark and cold outside. One more feature to mention: screen shots, it is possible to take a picture of the screen, which is handy to send for example a map to somebody. Facebook is deeply integrated into the WP structure, which is nice if you like it.

I did experience some battery drain problems, which seemed to be related to Skype, reinstalling it corrected this problem. It is wise though to uncheck unnecessary background processes, for example Nokia Drive is background enabled by default.

WP is easy to use, and to see how easy I did a factory reset on the old Lumia 800 and gave it to my son, who needed only five minutes to get it going, transfer the contacts from his old phone and install some Apps. After five days of intensive use, I would say it is the greatest phone I ever had and recommend it to anyone.

Lumia 920, the fastest phone

The Nokia Lumia 920 has a fast edge over the iPhone 5, at least in Europe. This is because the European LTE (Long Time Evolution) technology uses a different frequency than its US counterpart. As the Lumia 920 is fully compatible with the European system it is able to use the maximum speed offered by the network. Also the Lumia 900 has 4G compatibility. Of course the user has to make sure he has a provider contract with sufficient network resources. At least in Finland one has to choose between various network speed options.

For this reason I chose for the Lumia 920, I ordered it last week, and am waiting for delivery. This might take some time due to the unprecedented high demand for the device. 

Lumia 920, the fastest phone

The Nokia Lumia 920 has a fast edge over the iPhone 5, at least in Europe. This is because the European LTE (Long Time Evolution) technology uses a different frequency than its US counterpart. As the Lumia 920 is fully compatible with the European system it is able to use the maximum speed offered by the network. Also the Lumia 900 has 4G compatibility. Of course the user has to make sure he has a provider contract with sufficient network resources. At least in Finland one has to choose between various network speed options.

For this reason I chose for the Lumia 920, I ordered it last week, and am waiting for delivery. This might take some time due to the unprecedented high demand for the device. 

Reviews and tests

Testers and critics

I just read a review of the new Nokia Lumia 920, which was very positive indeed. However, my attention was attracted by e single point in the article. It stated that the Lumia 920 had no micro-USB port protection like the Lumia 800, and this was considered to be a negative issue. This is interesting, because I remember the criticism the Lumia 800 received because it has a protected micro-USB port. It was considered too fragile! Now I own a Lumia 800 and the little flap protecting the USB has worked flawlessly. It has a magnetic surface which keeps it perfectly in place.  Sometimes one wonders if it makes any sense to listen to those guys! Anyway the Lumia 920 seems to be a pretty cool thing, and perhaps a major plus is the possibility to use it with your gloves on, as that will make it much easier to use it during wintertime, at least here in Finland.

Actually the Lumia 800 has become very popular due to the attractive price at the moment. It is more compact then the larger 900 version and the Microsoft Office connection makes it very useful for business users.

It seems to me that the more you use the Windows Phone interface the more you like it,  Android and iPhone just feel old fashioned and confusing.

A Secret App

If you are interested in your Lumia’s internal wellbeing, battery status, and other diagnostics, there is a ”secret” application which can be unlocked easily and free of charge. To get the diagnostics just application just dail ##634#. You can test your device, check battery charge an a lot more.

Many new applications have been added to marketplace, gMaps, or Google map which supports street view is very handy. Another nice one, Blood Pressure (Free) can be used to store blood pressure data, draw a graph and send the data by email. A nice Live Tile Clock app is Uno Clock, it gives you a tile with a one handed clock, updated every ten minutes. 

Lumia 900 supports GLONASS , what does it mean

Global Positioning System (GPS) has been integrated in mobile telephones for a long time; Nokia was the first to experiment with integrating GPS and mobile phones. I still have one of the first, it used and GPS cover which was sold separately. With this phone you could get the location in latitude and longitude degrees and store it for later use, pretty much as basic GPS devices, it was slow and needed open space to get a reliable position. Since, the devices have become smarter, faster, and more important global map coverage is standard. All phones have been using the US GPS system, as it is available for free, accurate and reliable. The 24 GPS satellites give 24 hours global coverage.

So what is GLONASS? GLONASS is the Russian counterpart of GPS, and the Nokia Lumia 900 supports both systems. GLONASS has an additional 21 satellites with global coverage, and by using both the amount of available satellites nearly doubles, which greatly enhances positioning capability. 

Theoretically one can calculate a position using three satellites, but for better accuracy a minimum of four is needed, high buildings, forest or other objects can blocks satellite visibility, and that is why adding 21 GLONASS satellites is important.

Europe is building its own global navigation system, Galileo, but this is still under construction, and will be operational somewhere around 2020, adding 30 satellites to the present GPS and GLONASS platforms. 

More Windows phones

HTC HTC has unveiled two new WP 8 phones, and this is a good sign for Microsoft and also for Nokia, as the Windows Phone group is growing. More phones, more users, more applications, it will be good for the market. The HTC devices look very much like the Nokia Lumia series, and some may think this is bad for Nokia. However, if you look at the specifications one notices that the HTC has a lot less to offer in comparison to the new Lumia WP 8 devices.  

The HTC phones have no 4G (LTE), a smaller screen, the camera has on optical image stabilizer (OIS), only one flash LED and less resolution.  Also the memory of the HTC is also 50 % less than its Nokia counterpart. And also only the Nokia has downloadable maps for car navigation. And this is till the greatest advantage of Nokia, be it the Symbian or Lumia series devices.

Lummia 920 and iPhone 5, now we know

So now we know, iPhone 5 and Lunia 920, different design, different operating system, but otherwise pretty much the same. Both have 4G, although it is not certain in which countries it will work. Basically it depends upon the operators, how fast they can build their 4G networks. Actually 4G is very limited in most countries, and there are a lot of different systems all being marketed under the same 4G name. And at the moment many areas are lacking even 3G connections, and for normal phone calls GSM is actually sufficient. And as 3G and 4G even more needs a denser network due to the shorter range I think GSM and 3G will be here for quite some time.

As many have notices the iPhone 5 is not very revolutionary, a bit thinner, wider and lighter and a better camera, but no OIS, (optical image stabilizer), a feature the Nokia Lumia 920 has. The iOS probably has the same problem as Symbian, it is getting older and it will be difficult to create something really new. WP 8 is new and will evolve and get better all the time.

At the moment I am using two phones, a Nokia E7, with a query flip keyboard and a Lumia 800. I just updated the E7 with the new Belle refresh version, and I still have the opinion that it is great, the email widget shows me when and what new emails I received. No widgets in iOS or WP! On the other hand the Lumia is very easy to operate, has a great audio quality and has many Apps you do not get for the Belle version.

What I would like is a Lumia WP8 with a real keyboard, like the E7, this would be a productive piece of equipment. I have an iPad so I do know what the iOS is like, and it is ok, but not the system I would prefer to work on, however, at the moment it is the only viable tablet option. But I will not buy an iPhone, why? As I have an iPad, I really do not need to use a small screen for mailing or web surfing, I can just check if I have any important messages and answer them on the iPad. No need to buy an epensive phone for that. These expensive phones are often quite easy to break, a bit of water and it’s a gonner.

So I will wait until I can see and feel the 920 and make up my mind if ti is worth to change my 800 for a 920. 

Screen lock, can save you money!!

You might ask why use a screen lock, there is a PIN code and I don't have any secrets! But there is another use, one that can save you a lot of money. To illustrate this I tell you a true story, which happened in Germany. The person in question was commuting to work when she noticed her cell phone was missing, assuming she forgot the phone in her apartment there was no reason for alarm. After returning to her apartment she did not find her mobile and realized it was lost or stolen in the underground. After contacting the phone company and locking the phone everything was under control. When the next bill from the telephone operator arrived it was clear something was definitely wrong, a 2000 € bill! The person who found or stole the mobile had made some very expensive long distance calls around the world in about twelve hours. This kind of damage is not covered by insurance, and the bill had to be paid.

This story makes it very clear that a screen lock is a necessary evil, you also lock your house for the same reason, security. Of course you could use a prepaid card, that would limit your loss to the amount on the card, but most people have monthly contracts. My iPad has a lock which allows ten errors, after that all data is erased, the device of course can be initialized again, but the data is secure.

Some phones like Windows Phones or iPhones have some sort of tracking system and be remotely locked using the internet. With the GPS tracking you can check where your device is, did you leave it at home or is it moving on its own? If you have a windows phone go to windowsphone.com to find, ring or erase your phone

WindowsPhone.com

WP 8.0 update?

Thinking about the issue of the new Microsoft Windows Phone 8.0 version and present Lumia phone models I must say the problem is perhaps exaggerated. As the life span of a present Smartphone is about two to three year at max the need to have the latest version of WP is probably not my first priority. From my experience Updating to a new operating system on a platform designed for use with a previous version is usually not very wise and often just leads to the notion that net new version runs slower, as the hardware was not designed for it.  Another thing to keep in mind is that the difference of one version with another is often marginal and mostly “cosmetic”.  For the Lumia 800 and 900 owners (as I am) I would say, just use it and install the updates and improvements you get from Nokia, WP 7.5 is great as it is. When the new series come which are designed for WP 8 you will have the option to update the complete phone. There will be interesting new hardware features waiting, the Pureview super camera to mention one innovation.

The WP system is getting more and more relevant applications, for example free software (Secure Pics) to put your images behind a lock to protect them if your phone gets stolen (you might end up on Facebook or Youtube unintentionally). As a matter of fact, it is very wise to use the automatic screen lock feature (although it is a bit of a nuisance), I met people who had to pay thousands of Euros after their phone was stolen, as somebody used it to make very expensive long distance calls.

Exciting new features in WP 7.5

The recent updates of WP to WP 7.5 have introduced some new exciting features.  Possibly the most interesting one is the possibility to use your phone as a Wifi hot spot. From the settings panel you can choose the new internet sharing tab. This gives you the possibility to give access to the internet through your Lumia to a maximum of five devices. You can use VPA protection or create an open WLAN. It works well, and I had no problems connecting to the internet using the Lumia as a Wifi hotspot. I used this before in my Nokia N900 using JoikuSpot to connect my laptop to the internet using the N900 as a hot spot. Now I can do the same with my lumia 800.

Another new innovation is the possibility of face recognition, when uploading images to Facebook or SkyDrive. More or less the same feature as you find in the Picassa image storage program from Microsoft. Picassa by the way, is my favorite program to keep track of all my digital images, it is free and  orders your images by person (face recognition), date or location, it uses the GPS coordinates your smart phone attaches to the images. It is great to see where your geotagged phone images were actually taken. 

Improving Nokia Lumia Navigaation

The Car navigation App was recently updated with the possibility to save locations, like your home, or the place you parked your car. This is a significant improvement; however, it would be even better if it could sync with the places stored in the on line Maps application. These saved locations can be pinned as tiles to the start view. You can change the names or delete them by pressing long on the saved location.


 I still miss information on petrol stations and the like in the off line mode. This would be of great help when driving abroad. For example, during my last trip in Holland I needed a petrol station and I could not  find any on Nokia Drive in offline mode.  the ability to create and store routes would be a welcome feature.

Another App worth mentioning is Creative Studio; it is free and can do all kinds of funny thing with your pictures. The best thing I noticed was that is able to create panorama images, and functions much better that the AutoPanorama application.

Find it difficult to read Lumia SMS messages, here is a suggestion

If you have trouble reading the small text of the Lumia SMS messages, perhaps you forgot your reading glasses. Here is a trick which helps; press the text body of the message long and choose the copy option. Then leave SMS and go to Microsoft Office and create a new Note. In the empty note you can now paste the copied text message and enlarge it using the pinch gesture with two fingers. Works great, and you can also do this the other way, copy a note and paste it into the SMS message.

Driving with Nokia navigation on the Lumia 800

When I arrived at Amsterdam airport I rented a Toyota Auris hybrid, which has a build in GPS navigation system, the only thing missing was the SD card with the maps.  Fortunately I had installed all necessary maps on my Lumia 800, the Netherlands, Belgium and northern France.  To save money I turned off internet roaming and started the navigation application. I searched for my destination near Middelburg in the province of Zeeland.

Now driving in the Netherlands is different from driving in Finland, as in Finland traffic is easy and one drives in the same direction for long distances. In the Netherlands and Belgium to get from one place to another one has to change lanes and make turns every few kilometer or even more often. Therefor a good and reliable GPS navigation system is a great help if you are not familiar with the area. And it is also a lot safer if you know beforehand which turn to take.

To test the Lumia navigation I even started the phone without the SIM code, so no network assistance was used at all. And it worked great, all the way from Schiphol to the direction of Rotterdam and to the south along the western coast down to Zeeland went without any mistake, which saved fuel and nerves.

The offline maps contain a lot more than just roads and addresses. A vast body of information related to tourism, road services, you name it, it’s there. For example the picturesque medieval city hall of Damme in Belgium was easy to find. A great App, provided standard on the Nokia Lumia Windows Phones.   Of course there is still room for improvement, for example there should be a link to your favourite locations of Nokia Maps and the possibility to save locations directly from the navigation App.

New Features in Nokia Maps

The great news is that the Windows Phone version of Nokia Maps can now synchronize with the maps.nokia.com server, so now I got my favorite locations collected with my previous Nokia phones into my Lumia. This is an important improvement; however, I am still waiting for the moment that Nokia Maps, like Nokia Drive will work off line. I would also like to see higher accuracy satellite or aerial imagery.

The Symbian version of Nokia Maps works off line, and has been improved so that the pictures you take are shown on the map, this look really great. I would like this feature in Lumia as well.

At the moment there are over 80 000 applications in the Nokia Marketplace for the Lumia family, and more are coming all the time. On App which caught my attention was the geocahing application from geocahing.com, which enables you to search for hidden geocache “treasures”. Another interesting App is FotoSmynth, producing panorama images on the fly. Actually the panorama can be a sphere, with you in the center.

Nokia Maps on E7

Nokia Maps on Lumia 800

Apps I still need: Screen Capture for Lumia Windows Phone (avalable for Symbian phones). Also a battery status application would come in quite handy.

Now: Nokia TV

Nokia launched its Nokia TV application, at the moment only in Finland. This application gives Lumia phone users access to the online collections of (at the moment) Finnish TV companies. For example, one can view news, documentaries etc. which one did miss on TV. Of course, it is a bit like YouTube, but, due to format issues, these online TV depositaries cannot be viewed using the iOS on iPhone or iPad. To use this application one needs a good 3G connection or WiFi, otherwise the data stream gets interrupted. Real time TV is does not show you, but off course this may change in the future.

Finland was probably chosen to launch this new feature, for two reasons, first of all,  TV companies maintain web sites hosting online program material, news, documentaries, series etc, and secondly the 3G and WiFi coverage for mobile devices is extremely good in Finland. 

TV programs can be viewed only, not downloaded for obvious copyright reasons. But a great addition to the growing list of WP Apps. It runs in Nokia Lmia 710, 800 and 900 phones. 

Lumia 800 camera issue

A few words about the Lumia camera, I had problems with image quality, as had many others, sometimes the images were great, sometimes out of focus. There seem to be two issues, first of all some phones had beed factory defaulted to “Macro” photography, making focusing quit impossible. First go to the setup, change all features to normal and remember to save to changes.

The other feature is focus, I am hasty, and usually do not read instructions, and blamed the camera for that. The camera operates in a two stage fashion, first press the button halfway and wait for the BEEP, and press the button fully down. Pressing the shutter button all way down without the beep will result in an out of focus image for most of the time.

Lumia, My Friend

Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak said recently ”Nokia Lumia Windows Phone is more a friend than a tool”. See WPCentral or WPPoweruser. I share his opinion as I have the same experience. The Lumia is elegant, and the use is simple and smooth. Even the little hatch covering the USB port which was criticized by many is flawless, and looks really nice.

The use of tiles makes more sense than the old way of putting small icons on a background image which is often confusing. And the fact that Windows Phone is new and dynamic, has the weight of Microsoft behind it and therefore will evolve into something really great has much appeal to me.

Of course, Wozniak mentioned that there are not so much applications for WP than for iPhone or Android, but we are just at the beginning of the life cycle of WP, more will come in an increasing pace. 

I just tested Skype for WP and it worked extremely well, simple yet very functional. The quality of the connection using 3G was excellent. My favorite weather applications are AccuWeather and Weather (by Matti Nieminen).  To follow the stock market I use MyStocks Portfolio. Other good Apps are Facebook, Google, Compass VO, GPS Satellite, Spotify, WhatsApp (free messaging) and Free Talking Alarm Clock. There are many mapping apps besides the Nokia and Microsoft ones, for example SketchMap Free, making it possible to make a quick sketch on top of a map.  I am not in games, but anyway Angry Birds are there if you are interested.  Another application is the NightVision Goggles, App, which changes the camera into night vision mode, well ….

There are also unofficial Apps on the web, and these can be “sideloaded”, but you need to do some “hacking” for that, not too complicated, but anyway, if you are interested.

Notes on Lumia

My opinion on the Lumia is very positive, WP is easy to learn and operate, even with one hand. I guess the bigger screen of the Lumia 900 will be and advantage over the 800, but that is a matter of opinion and money of course.

The small SMS text although ok for most people can be copied and pasted into for example Notes of Mobile Office. Mobile office has a pinch operated zoom function. The lack of functionality to send contacts by SMS or email can be corrected by downloading free software, the best seems to be Contact Sender, which creates SM or email messages from contacts. The reason for this can be that Microsoft wants people to start to use their Cloud services, where all user data could be stored “safely”. But still one needs a fast and easy way to send contact details to a colleague or friend “on the move”.

Taking panorama images is another issue I am working on, there was great software for both Symbian and Maemo platforms, but at the moment I have not found any useful App to do this.

Lumia

The Lumia 800 is a great phone indeed, simple to use and fast. The tiles of the menu move smoothly, and it is easy to modify the layout. A protective glove comes with the device; I think it is wise to use it as it covers the four buttons which slightly protrude from the body. Used with the body armor the feel is superb. It is easy to make telephone calls, and the sound is great.

Taken into consideration that the Windows Phone environment is new for Nokia the result is very good indeed, and improvements and updates will make this platform even better.

I just installed the latest update and this improves battery life, however, the thing that I miss are a good battery monitor App.

The other issue is the fact that the developers assume that all people have the same eyesight; font sizes cannot be changed. For example the text size of SMS messages is very small, and I would like a larger font. One possibility would be the solution of the Apple iPad, tapping to enlarge the entire screen.

Nokia Drive navigation works well, maps can be preloaded, but there is no possibility to store important personal locations. Nokia Maps has the possibility to save favorite locations, but lacks the functionality of preloaded maps. This feature is a major plus of the Nokia Symbian phones.

My suggestions for immediate improvement; Nokia Maps, and changeable text size, or if possible a large scrollable virtual screen. 


Another small issue, it seems to be impossible to send contact details (phone number, address etc) as an SMS, email or Bluetooth, this is a strange glitch. Possibly Microsoft has never thought about this feature which is standard in any phone. There is a solution, there are some free Apps, iTextContact and TextContact lite, which send contact details by SMS. However, not very elegant.

My Lumia 800

This week I got my new Nokia Lumia 800, a blue one, this makes it easier to find it, as most phones are black. The Lumia has a new micro SIM card, smaller than the normal card, possibly to get rid of older still functioning phones.

The phone looks very nice, feels lightweight after my N900, lies comfortably in my hand and is easy to operate. However, it is definitely different from Symbian or Maemo phones, For starters, the setup is very easy, and actually there are very few things one can change or should change, it just works fine. This might sound difficult to people who love change things, but for the everyday users it is a great improvement. One small example; it takes tens of different parameters to setup the WLAN of our university to get my N7 Nokia (Symbia) on the net, but I needed only to give my username and password for the Lumia. Crystal clear screen, smoothly moving menus and great telephone reception are standard

The first thing I had to do was to transfer my contacts from the old Nokia N900 to the Lumia, this is done using an special contacts transfer application, using Bluetooth, very simple. After this I needed some apps I am used to, GPS, mapping, clock, flashlight etc, all could be found on the Noka marketplace, some are free, some not, but it works fine.

Now to connect the Lumia to a PC, one needs new software, Zune, which is a bit like iTunes for the iPad. Anyway it works, but I am not really crazy about the combination of backup and update features with music and video. I actually liked Ovi Suite, as it is very easy and straightforward.

Now the thing I do not like, on my Nokia N7 I have Nokia Maps with downloadable maps which can be used offline. One can mark favorite locations and synchronize them with the Ovi service. In the Lumia ther is the same Nokia Maps but has no downloadable maps. Nokia Maps in Lumia is more like Google maps or Bing Maps. It is possible to mark favorite locations, but there is no way to import the old (Symbia) locations from the Ovi service. This is something I am very dissatisfied with, and I just would like to see the same functionality as in Symbia Nokia Maps. The Nokia Drive, car Navigation works fine, no problems with that. Maps can be downloaded easily, although I have noticed that some time ago Nokia started to downgrade (made the size smaller) maps, so many smaller forest tracks and dirt roads have been removed, that was a pity as I often need these, but I do understand it, the maps grew too large and it became very slow to download them.

The camera has eight Megapixels, Zeiss optics, standard in many Nokia phones, the results are a bit blurred, and I think there is a problem with shutter speed It seems that I got better results using a fixed ISO (100) value as compared to the automatic value. I compared the results with a Sony pocket digital camera and there was little difference.

As this phone is now in the Microsoft Windows realm it is easy to sync with SkyDrive, it can actually sync pictures on the go. However, I found out that this automatic SkyDrive upload feature does drain the battery really fast if you are in an area with a slow network. But it works and is simple to set up. The same counts for email, very simple and easy to configure.

ISO value 100

Landscape, ISO 100

Megalomania, pixels, MegaBytes, CPU's and Apps

It seems that mobile technology developers are in an everlasting race to get devices with more pixels, more processors, more memory and bigger screens. The question left often unanswered is what the customer really needs. Or even, do the customers even now what they need, it is clear that perceived needs and real needs are different issues. It is also clear that there are different needs for personal and corporate use.

The combination of camera and phone is extremely useful, the integration of GPS, digital compass, and accelerometer helps navigating from one place to the other. Manufacturers often like to indicate the number of pixels, or the resolution of the camera. This however is only  part of the story, quality of the lens, flash and software are perhaps much more important.  The second camera for video calls is often available, but who really uses this option?

GPS and digital compass, it is great for applications spying on you, but if you do not have good and on board stored maps and navigation software it is of limited use. Mostly one needs navigation abroad, or in places with limited 3G coverage. As far as I know, Nokia is the only company providing downloadable global map coverage and integrated free car and pedestrian navigation software.

Some devices have dual core processors, nice, but do you need this, it will drain the battery even faster than the normal power hungry mobile device would do. Do you remember the old mobile phones which would be up for ten days? I guess not.  In my opinion battery life is one of the most important issues at the moment, for all mobile devices, phones, tablets and laptops.  A huge amount of memory 16 or 64 Mb, it costs a lot of money, but do you need it? This is what one should be able to calculate, especially as cloud storage is often available for free.

The Apps, Apple boasts perhaps a million of apps, but what does this mean, how many are useful, very often there are tens and tens of versions, different languages, some can be just junk, often they are of no use at all. And certainly I do not like to give my credit card details, a fact which became evident when user data and credit card numbers were stolen.

My needs are simple, easy and good quality telephone calls, point to point free downloadable maps and navigation software. Good electronic mail and a fast browser, all together with a battery life of ten hours full time use. Text input should be simple, allowing for male fingers of average size, not the tiny fingers of a child of seven. Touch screens are great, just what I wanted, but since the screen now reacts to my finger and a pencil does not work the screen must be big enough to point to the right spot. Even while driving on a bad road. An issue which came up only recently, my privacy, so I need certainty that my private life stays private, and my contacts, location and other data is not skimmed by some smart app.

In short, all the pixels, Megabytes, Apps and CPU’s will not help you make a phone call if the the battery is empty when you need to make that important call. Also the user interface must make it easy to operate the telephone, even in difficult situations. Also tasks, appointments and email should be up to data and synchronized between all mobile and desk-top devices.

For outdoor use I would prefer a water and dust proof device, also use in extreme cold or hot environments can be a point of importance. It is sometimes necessary to use a telephone using gloves! The compass and GPS are of course a must for outdoor use, but battery life can be a matter of life or death. 

Where is the Eco in the Mobile Ecosystem?

Companies like Microsoft, Nokia and Apple have started marketing what they call “ecosystems”. Now the term ecosystem comes from biology and means for me a system of plants, animals and their environment. For the scientific definition, just Google around, for example Wikipedia gives a good explanation. There are for example rain forest ecosystems, or prairie ecosystems, lake ecosystems, basically an endless number of possible ecosystems. There are also artificial ecosystems, call them man made ecosystems, like aquariums, zoo’s and the like. 

But what would a mobile (smart) phone ecosystem be? Of course for marketing purposes it creates these “green” associations, must be good for the environment to have a smart phone. On the other hand it refers to the network of users, data, applications and devices. In real ecosystems there are flows of matter and energy, in these mobile ecosystems there are flows of information and data. Real ecosystems are made up of organisms which are interrelated, like deer eating grass, wolf eating deer, crows eating dead wolf. In biological systems there are also cycles of matter, carbon being fixed and released, the hydrological cycle of evaporation, rain, flow to the ocean and the process starts again. 

I do not see any relationship between an Android phone and the iPhone, more than the ability to connect to people speaking using these phones as phones. And that could be done already since Bell invented the telephone in 1876. Any mobile telephones can send SMS text messages; SMS was invented in the 1980’s in Finland, and is widely used all over the world. Smarter phones can send and receive electronic mail, which makes it possible to get information send from computers and tablets. Smart phones can also connect to the internet, through WLAN connections or GSM connections. The internet possibility brings the telephone nto contact with other devices and data stored anywhere on the planet. 

So it might be possible to see some resemblances between earth ecosystems and the internet, as the internet connects people (organisms), there are many interconnected devices and there are flows of information and energy (electricity). Dot eco (.eco) has also been proposed for a top-level internet domain, like .org and .com. However to speak of an Android or Microsoft mobile ecosystems goes too far. I have never heard of canine ecosystems, although there are many different dog breeds.

Living on a cloud

Has your laptop ever been stolen, lost or damaged so you lost your data?  Once when I was writing my thesis the hard drive of my computer was stolen. Of course I had a backup, but it was several days old and I lost some data. What if your house burns down and you lose all your files, pictures, everything even the backups! One option would be to store backups in a bank locker, however that is quite stressful, going to the bank every week or so.  USB sticks are handy, but easy to lose, what about going to a meeting and losing your usb-stick with the powerpoint file? CD-ROM disk are clumsy, their main use is for backup and distribution.

Cloud computing and storage has, at least partly solved our problem, it means that our data is copied to some large server, somewhere in a a controlled and safe environment. The data can be accessed from anywhere on the internet,by you or the people you give permission to. The general idea is that our data follows us through our everyday life and is at our fingertips in our mobile devices.  Pictures taken with your mobile telephone can be stored directly to the cloud server and hence you do not need to worry about your phone getting lost or broken. Remember, phones can be replaced, pictures not.

Now there are already many cloud services on the market, Dropbox, ICloud, GoogleDocuments and Microsoft's SkyDrive. the ICloud on the IOS operating system is limited to Apple devices and as there is no file structure, pictures can not be viewed using a web browser. Dropbox functions quite well, is work on both Apple and Microsoft devices, and is very simple to use, one of my favorites.

Now Nokia has come with a new range of Windows phones, the Lumia series, and it seems that for example the Lumia 800 has no port for additional memory, there is 16 Gb on boards, so what if? Well I was thinking about that, when I cam across the fact that the Lumia comes with SkyDrive, and therefore there is little use for storing data on the phone itself, except perhaps abroad, where access to the internet can be limited or expensive..

I have been experimenting with different cloud systems the last few months and it seems to work fine, I have not used my usb memory  only occasionally, and my data is always were I need it. Also the problem of finding the latest version has been eliminated.

There are of course some issues, as always, security, is the data safe and is your privacy garanteed?
I think that to be on the safe side, I would not store company trade secrets on a public cloud server, ther are enterprise cloud systems available for that. But for the normal file, holiday pictures and the like I think it is the way to go.

I will buy a new Nokia Lumia Windows phone shortly and will start to experiment with the SkyDrive concept to store mobile data on the go. I only need to choose between the model 800 and 900 :).
In the mean time I have opened a new Windows Live account to investigate the SkyDrive concept.

There is also an SkyDrive App available for IPhone and IPad, which is interesting, as Microsoft and Apple are competing ecosystems.

See also : SkyDrive

Nokia Lumia 800