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I have been sending top ups to friends who have been running on prepaid juice for the past 2 days. Despite the 3rd world infrastructure, our telcos seem to have advanced methods of disseminating cash and prepaid load.

Photos and more information can be found via MLQ.

Post from: Cellphone9

Between the two, I’d like to think the iPod touch version is the best among the rest. This is due to the platform itself, adopting the famous haptic scrolling and huge buttons. But what the iPod / iPhone version severely lacks is the search feature for adding friends. Sure you can search through your friends list, but not outside your network. Bummer.

The Blackberry (Storm) Facebook app seems to have better integration, as it is more complete. The friends list feature is also more collapsed, allowing less data to be sent and thus faster loading times. There’s also a separate tab for adding new friends.

[photo c/o author]

Post from: Cellphone9

Today I thought I’d take a look at the good ‘ol days when the Visor Handspring revolutionized the PDA industry. Here’s a website screenshot from roughly 2001, with the “Ice” blue mid range Visor deluxe sitting with an ice pack. Back then, 8MB of memory and a monochrome screen would set you back 150USD. Today, that usually gets you a mid range phone.

Handspring was particularly adamant in selling accessories and one-upped Palm by adding a more colorful plethora of choices such as stylus tips and cases.

And yeah, the springboard modules. Those were crazy back in the day. Imagine if every app you wanted to install was housed inside a big ass memory card. That was big back then. The Nokia N-Gage followed thus route as well and later on fizzled out the concept to OTA downloads, turning N-Gage into software, from its hardware roots. For Handspring, well, they were less lucky — they got reacquired by Palm.

Ah Handspring, those were the days.

[image c/o archive.org]

Post from: Cellphone9

Touch screen phones are the in thing today. Everyone seems to want one. Or rather, maybe the market is making us think we want one. If you’ve read the Authenticity Book you will realize how thought provoking the discussion on authority is. Truth is, the iPhone wasn’t the inventor of touch screen phones, but boy did they authenticate it as a way of life. When BlackBerry released their own touch screen phone, is it a fake iPhone? When Nokia released its 5800 phone, is it really just a real product, fake iPhone? You tell me.

Phone manufacturers tend to sit back to discover what the next big trend will be. Then they mass market it producing half wit products that don’t really make you want to go “Wow!” Instead, they try to copy, looking more like a failed iPhone than a real product.

P.S. — the Nokia 5800 and BlackBerry Storm are actually great touch screen devices.

Post from: Cellphone9

GruvMe is interesting although in its current beta state there isn’t much to see. The site reminds me of a flash games site that caters to Nintendo Wii owners — since you can run flash on an Opera browser, technically speaking you can run these games on the Wii Browser. The same concept works for GruvMe, but they seem to be spinning the concept towards iPhone users who don’t want to be limited by the YouTube channel (odd?). GruvMe makes use of QuickTime to stream movies — both independent and blockbuster — as well as act as a social network of sorts.

I personally don’t know how services like GruvMe can make money as opportunity cost wise, there may be more ad dollars spent on other things, but since this is still on limited beta, we’re excited to see what they have in store.

Post from: Cellphone9

On the 1st of April we will hide some number of ‘Eggs’ word on our product description texts. For every ‘Egg’ found we will give you one registration code for the software present on our website at www.symbianguru.com. You need to indicate the post where you have found the word and copy the phrase or sentence with this ‘Egg’ word. Also do not forget to name the software you are willing to have and IMEI number of the phone.

I’m assuming the Symbian Guru site will be doing an update to their site come April 1 that will allow you to paste the text with the word “Egg” somewhere and retrieve your codes. Happy hunting!

Post from: Cellphone9

We’re in the era of 3G data connectivity with the big players – SMART and Globe slugging it out to see which one holds the better service. In fact the NTC recently proclaimed Globe to be the overall winner with SMART at a very close (like really close!) second. We’re past 2G and the basics. We’ve enjoyed good reception, SMS and calls for many years now with the two giants; now we’re ranting about cheaper (!) and faster (!!!) 3.5G / HSDPA connectivity. After reading the survey results from both the Manila Times and INQUIRER.net it made me see how far behind SUN Cellular was in terms of basic services – namely calls (I guess we can add SMS there as well):

Yet, Smart registered 93 blocked calls (3.79 percent of 2,475) while Globe posted 49 (1.99 percent) and Sun, 779 (17.05 percent). On dropped calls, Smart registered 35 (1.42 percent), Globe 35 (1.42 percent), and Sun 48 (1.95 percent). [source]

This is definitely alarming. I’m starting to believe that promos that call for “unlimited” service does have a negative impact on service quality. I don’t know if it just so happens to be so, but SUN’s service quality has been in question ever since with dead spots in several regions of the metro and calls dropping before you hit 15 minutes.

I also wrote, in my personal blog how the impact of “bottomless” or “unlimited” can be a marketing ploy we need to watch out for:

Sadly, anchoring of prices can work negatively as well for consumers when marketers weave in the concept of “free” “bottomless” or “unlimited” which is a very powerful word in this industry. When we see “bottomless iced tea” in the menu, we go for it, and restaurateurs know we will – that’s why they price it high even if we only finish two or three glasses – still way beyond break even price. The “Unlimited” calls and texts of SUN for instance charge P25.00 per day, which is P750.00 per month. The average prepaid usage for calls is 214 minutes per month based on consumer research and at a buck per minute for “unlimited rates,” that’s really P214.00 per month for calls. On a daily average, calls should cost P7.14 per day, not P25.00 (more less 350% higher?). [source]

N.B. I recently started a small Internet advocacy called One Dropped Call – compiling news here and there from SUN Cellular. It’s not a place to rant about services – but more of a sounding board that compiles news – both good and bad – about the Philippines’ weakest link.

Post from: Cellphone9

With the release of two new Motorola phones, the ROKR EM30 and the ROKR EM25, Motorola has released new artist collaborations. If you’re from the west, you definitely have never heard of these guys as they’re more famous in South East Asia. Nonetheless, they rock!

The new collaborations include artists such as Imago, Nyco Maca, Queso, Angulo and DJ Mark Nicosia.

[photo c/o Odyssey Live and Motorola PR ]

Post from: Cellphone9

Animoto, the photo presentation site that makes kick ass videos (Samsung Roadshow Video here) is offering $5.00 off when you sign up for a subscription plan with them. All you need to do is enter the code in bold below when you sign up for a new account subscription or click on this link.

Here is the coupon code:

hqmnftcy

Post from: Cellphone9

As someone who lives in the Philippines and visits San Fernando one or two times a year, I can say that the Crucifixion rituals have really grown into a tourist event. In fact, a lot of the crucified have been doing this for years – being “Veterans” in this art.

Since the local telcos are huge on advertising, they always sponsor big events, especially in the provinces. This is but another way to monetize a local feast. There are of course, religious ramifications but these events are being looked at as more cultural than Catholic Church inspired.

Post from: Cellphone9