Three teenagers tell it like it is

Tim Green talks to teenagers three teenagers about their mobile lives. And very telling it is too. Admittedly, this is a sample group of three, but the swing from BlackBerry to iPhone is obvious in this peer group. I’m surprised at the lack of Android adoption but that’s possibly a fashion thing. And boys are living up to their gender stereotype by being more represented at the extreme end of the scale – either the best or the worst phone and not much in the middle.

One of them says "I'm not addicted to my phone, but I am addicted to my iPad. The school gave us all iPads, and all we ever use them for is Instagram and SnapChat and YouTube. Everyone's connected all the time. They must have thought it would help us with learning but it's completely backfired. They even tried to change us to a new Wi-Fi signal but we knew it would block off lots of content, so we all carried on using the old one."

Now there’s a lesson in there somewhere about mobile devices and education….

Read more here http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/read/tim-green-only-boys-use-android/022209

“The world’s first hand held visual communicator”

I’m having a bit of a clear-out at home and whilst going through some old magazines, I found that I’d kept a very old issue of Hello Magazine – Issue 638 from November 21, 2000 to be precise. Now Hello is not a magazine I have ever bought or kept habitually so I had a flick through to see why I still had it. Inside was this advertisement feature from Vodafone for the ‘Vodafone Message-Cam’. It’s not a device I remember at all. I was more than a bit sceptical about camera-phones at the time as my focus was on SMS marketing back then.

Bearing in mind this was from November 2000, before we had camera-phones, it was very much ahead of its time. You can see from the advertorial that the girls are having fun taking selfies and sharing them via email (we didn’t have WhatsApp, Facebook or Twitter back then). Anyway, I’ve scanned the whole thing in for you to have a look at as I think it’s interesting.

Worthy of note…

Colour touchscreen; selfies, sharing shopping photos, internet browsing (does this make the device the world’s first mobile tablet?), treating a mobile device as fashion, email on mobile – and all this *thirteen* years ago. This device was ahead of its time but clearly they were spot on with many things we just take for granted today with our mobile devices.

I wonder how many they sold….?

 

In case you can’t read the copy very well, here’s a transcript of it for you:

Advertisement Promotion.

Girls Night Out

The Vodafone Message-Cam is set to be the ‘must have’ gift on every Christmas wish list

Every season one fashion item always becomes the essential accessory for serious fashionistas. This Christmas, it has to be the Vodafone Message-Cam. Designed by Casio exclusively for Vodafone, this ingenious little device is the world’s first hand held visual communicator with in-built digital camera, which attached to your mobile phone, allows you to send pictures, emails and surf the web. So when Vodafone asked us to test out the Message-Cam, we decided to give it the full paparazzi treatment.

Models are constantly travelling, so keeping in touch with their friends while on jobs around the world can be tough. We asked models Marie and Marit to take the Message-Cam with them on a girls night out in London and give us their verdict.

The girls headed for Zilli Bar, a favourite Soho hot spot, and invited a few girlfriends to join them. They took shots all evening, emailing the pictures immediately to friends around the world and around the corner! It was incredibly easy and a lot of fun. Everyone wanted to get in on the shots, even the waiters.

The Message-Cam’s digital camera has a fully rotating lens so that you can take pictures of yourself or the friends you’re with. You can freeze and edit the pictures on screen,, select the one you want to send, add voice or text message and then email anywhere you want. The screen is full colour and touch-sensitive which makes it ideal for surfing the web. It includes a sound and photo album, voice recorder, clock, SMS editor, calendar and calculator. All this, plus full Internet access and WAP browsing capabilities.

The girls though the Vodafone Message-Cam would make postcards obsolete and would be great for all sorts of occasions, from weddings to parties, or even shopping. Imagine photographing yourself in different outfit and then emailing the pictures to a friend for advice. The over-whelming verdict was that this was an accessory no girl should be without!

The Vodafone Messaged-Cam comes complete with a Siemens C35i WAP phone and data cable. It’s a limited edition and available through Vodafone Stores nationally, priced £349.99. For your local Vodafone Store call 0800 – 10 11 12.

+++++++++ Here's what the device looks like in the flesh

Want to know a bit more about it? The AnswerBank can fill you in here. And as recently as 2007, geeks have been hacking the device.

Mobile Developers: PlayBook Application Development Using WebWorks Course–just a few places left

For the techie developer types who read my blog, this one might be of interest. Sanyu, who looks after developer relations at RIM just tipped me off to let me know there were just a few places left to attend a couple of London workshops to learn how to develop and deploy PlayBook apps. Plus you’ll get a PlayBook tablet to take home with you. And although the tablet world is currently dominated by iPad, there are other devices available and the PlayBook is definitely a contender. I’m a fan. I like it for its convenient size and great web browser. Anyway, on to the details of the course next week…

Overview
This one-day course is designed for experienced HTML5/JavaScript/CSS developers who wish to leverage their existing skills to create applications for the BlackBerry® PlayBook™.   The course will include both instructor-led content and hands-on walkthroughs in which participants will create, compile, package, and deploy code on their own laptop to a PlayBook tablet.

Who should attend
HTML5/JavaScript developers needing to learn the fundamentals of WebWorks in order to develop and deploy PlayBook applications. There are no costs to attend although space is limited and all participants will receive a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet to take home to continue their development and testing.

Upcoming Dates and Locations (these are next week so get your registration in)
· April 18^, 2012 - London  - register here  |  · April 19^, 2012 - London  - register here
And if you’re a keen BlackBerry developer, why not join the BB10 jam in Orlando. I’ll be there to take a peek at what’s going on and what kind of apps and services are being developed on BlackBerry and I’m looking forward to seeing what the BlackBerry 10 platform has to offer. It’s a bargain price of $299 for the 3 days and includes your meals too. Plus, a little bird tells me you’ll also get a BB10 prototype device. Official details below and link to register.

Register Now for BlackBerry 10 Jam – May 1-3 in Orlando, FL
Join us for BlackBerry 10 Jam – a conference dedicated to providing the BlackBerry developer community with insights on the BlackBerry 10 platform.  Don’t miss this unparalleled opportunity to learn how to make applications that stand out! Register now at www.blackberryjamconference.com/registration

Follow the BlackBerry 10 action on twitter #BB10JAM

        

dotmobi database to make mobile developers' lives easier

Andrea Trasatti dropped me a line the other day to let me know about his new appointment as Director, Device Iniatives for dotmobi. As part of this, he'll be overseeing the new device database that dotmobi is putting together. It's early days yet, but Andrea's in charge of designing, building and launching this new service.

"The database will provide structured data, accurate to a degree not found in existing public resources. Information will be obtained from – as well as shared with – the global development community and published online. This will simplify the development process and enable developers to create the very best experience for users, based on comprehensive and reliable intelligence."

Sounds like a great resource. Good luck with it Andrea!