Shout About Mobiles

With Apple firmly against Flash and the thinking being that html5 is going to replace it, a lot of websites have changed to this new format to allow support for both the iPad and the new iPhone.

But it is good to see that not all manufactures have dropped the Flash service, Android have released a beta for Flash 10.1 for their phones; although at the moment it is aimed at developers to adapt their applications and websites.

It should go to a public release shortly, so it will be joining the N900 amongst other phones at giving a brilliant web experience via Flash.

The rumors have begun to appear again about phone manufacturers producing ways of allowing customers to pay for items via their mobile phones. At the moment, you have to call a number and pay by your card, or set up a standing order.

That is all expected to change.

Yes, previous rumors have disappeared as quickly as they arose without trace, leaving nothing behind to show there was actually anything in the pipeline.

But now we have heard that Orange is meant to be in talks with Barcley Card about producing a device with NFC technology (Near Field Communication).

The idea is that when you go to buy certain items, like a train ticket or your weekly shopping, all you need to do is to swipe your phone over a scanner and it will take your details and charge your account. Easy! Whether or not this idea catches on is yet to be seen, but I feel it could be a great idea.

The question I am asking though, is would this technology need to be agreed by all the networks and manufacturers? If one network said no, would phones using their SIMs still be able to facilitate this service?

Hmm…

But, it is only early days for this idea, so let us hope that the idea takes off and helps us reduce the amount of things we need to carry in our pockets and bags.

We used to see QWERTY keyboards all over the place; from Blackberries to the Sony Ericson P-series, from Nokia communicators to Palm Treo’s. But they’re slowing dying out now…

Ever since Sony Ericsson dropped the P-series in favour of the XPERIA range, the QWERTY keyboard has been fast disappearing from our phone shops. And Nokia now seems to be retiring their Communicator range.

Nokia’s new smart-phones that they have just released are the E55 and the E75, both of which have QWERTY keyboards however the E55 is supporting a dual QWERTY keyboard. No idea what this will look like, it might be like the Sony Ericsson P1 and M600 or it might be like the Blackberry Pearl phones, I’m not sure yet - but I am hoping it will be more like the former (Sony Ericson) but by the look of the device I am expecting it to be in the Pearl format. Boo!

The E75 is going with the slide out QWERTY keyboard, but it will be in keeping with the standard phone keypad, much like the HTC S710.

But what is replacing the QWERTY?

Their replacement is the slide out keyboard and the touch screen (but not the ill-fated 7280 which didn’t have a keyboard as such). So it now appears that style is overtaking ease of use. Don’t get me wrong, having a keyboard on the front of the phone can make it look fairly ugly, but at least when you are typing emails or a text, having a keyboard makes things a lot faster.

I’d rather use the Nokia E71 than the Apple iPhone.

With the arrival of two new smart phones, the BlackBerry Storm and the HTC Touch HD comes the desire to have them no matter what cost. So you can guess that most of us will be looking around for the best loans deals around. But how much are the handsets, that a loan is needed? The answer is around £500. So as you can see a loan for most of us is the only option.

Most of you will be thinking why not get the phone as part of a new phone contract or upgrade? Well as you know most contracts now are up to 24 months in length and that is a hell of a time to be committed to one phone. So buying the phone outright lets you have potentially two phones in a year, which can’t be bad. Read more…

With the current credit crisis and the ongoing threat of a recession, many people are looking further afield for property. So how far are people looking? Well many are looking at Europe and in particular places like Spain, France, Italy and even Bulgaria.

How are we searching for property abroad? Easy, we are all using our mobiles more and more. With the cost of mobile data roaming decreasing across the industry it has now become more cost effective for us to use mobiles overseas. Many operators operate special offers on roaming tariffs such as Vodafone who offer their “passport” service.

Read more…

A report released this year questioned 6000 people in the UK and USA about the effect mobile phones and internet technology has on their everyday lives. The report highlighted the relationship people have with technology.

The younger generation and particularly teenagers see the mobile phone as a best friend and a must have gadget. The range of packages on offer has increased massively over recent times and it is now very easy for people to have access to a full range of mobile services that were previously limited to contract users.

The use of mobile services in the UK and USA such as text messages are varied indeed. When it comes to keeping in touch with friends and family both countries pretty much performed the same.

There is the ever growing demand for an increasing range of technology and mobile broadband is having a fairly major impact on the way we work, meaning we are no longer dependant on wires for internet meaning we can use laptops more and more and this is really useful for people who working from their virtual office environment and sometimes find themselves on the road most of time. They can now have access to the internet as and when required.

This demand for mobile internet means that networks have to invest more and more into it to make the service faster and more reliable. T-Mobile for example is launching their HSUPA service that will speed up broadband greatly and hopefully open up the service to more and more people.

Today, Shout About Mobiles wants to know what mobile phone do you use. How easy do you find the features are to use? What do you primarily use the phone for?

What we also want is a list of features you would want or would look for in a new phone. Would it be 3G or a touch screen interface? What do you think about the state of the mobile phone market? Are we sold phones with features we would never use in this lifetime?

What would be good to have is a list of prefered networks you use. We want to know do you use your phone network supplier for the choice of phone or simply for the value you get from the tariff. Personally i use my provider simply because of the tariff on offer.

Please leave us your comments below.