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Channel 9’s Windows Phone 7 Developer Training Kit
Channel 9 Windows Phone 7 Jump Start Videos with Andy Wigley & Rob Miles
Consumer Introduction to Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 7 Video Resources
EVERY SUMMER, SOMETHING STUPID happens to my mobile phone data usage pattern. This summer it could be my stupidity, a rogue Android application or something strange about the way O2-Ireland passes my phone off from EDGE to 3G and back while I'm commuting to work. I can't tell what's happening but I know that Google Listen downloaded Leo Laporte's This Week in Google Episode 52 last Thursday while I was en route to Tipperary Institute and by the time I parked the car next to my office, I'd racked up more than 41 euro of data charges. That's more money than I pump into the car for a week's commuting. I shouldn't be paying data charges to O2 because I'm subscribed generous data plan so I'm investigating what's happening. In the meantime, I'm reviewing my APN settings and switching back to using a SonyEricsson Satio and a Nokia N86 for some of the best megapixel shots that you can get from mobile phones of the Irish countryside. Check back in a fortnight if you want to see what my monthly mobile phone bill is.
I like O2-Ireland's service and will buy a rugby shirt with the O2 logo if I get some comfort in regard to my mobile data usage.
More: TWiG Cost Me a Bomboo.
AFTER USING THE SMALLEST Android phone on the planet (the SonyEricsson Xperia X10 Mini at left) for a fortnight, I can proudly assert that it is impervious to the Deathgrip that Steve Jobs showed with the iPhone 4. Even though Apple's newest phone has twice the antenna array, side-by-side practical tests show it has at least one bar less signal strength than the X10 Mini. This does not detract from the iPhone, however, as most of my friends don't use it as a phone. Instead, they consider it to be a smaller version of a iPad and a victory for consumer choice.
I think the business press needs to take Steve Jobs to task for some misleading comments that he made while trying to draw RIM and Nokia into an Apple mistake. Jobs is famous for distorting reality. His claims about antenna engineering are deliberate attempts to distort the public's understanding of antenna engineering. RIM and Nokia have successfully designed industry-leading wireless data products longer than Apple has designed top-rated user interfaces. There are engineering reasons to avoid designs like the one Apple used in the iPhone 4 and Apple's poor performance with the iPhone 4's antenna array shows why. I don't need to encase my SonyEricsson or Nokia phones in smart cases to keep them connected during voice calls.
I LAST ATTENDED a big Nokia gig like the one at left just after the first iPhone hit the market. I remember muffled voices in the crowd who were wondering out loud what Nokia was going to do to head off the iPhone's apparent success. Nokia executives on the front stage weren't worried, suggesting that Nokia innovation was probably the reason the iPhone was such an instant success. In private conversations with Nokia executives, I heard people confidently telling me that Nokia's global market share was dominant and Nokia's ecosystem from the high end to the low margin starter phones forecast sustained success. Based on profit warnings and erosion at the top end of the market, Nokia is losing ground. In fact, I think the company is losing mindshare as developers pull away and start coding applications in the iPhone App Store and the Android market. While I'm still using a Nokia E90 as my primary business device, I know that I'm increasingly isolated by friends who find the iPhone and Android ecosystems so compelling.
AFTER INSPECTING ALL the desktops around work, I discovered I'm giving the office its first Micro USB Charger for communal use. It's a €20 Blackberry charger rated with a higher output than the standard SonyEricsson charger that came with my Xperia X10. Although the United Nations has convinced companies to offer the same recharging connection, there are machining problems when plugging in a charger from another manufacturer. In the X10's case, I can feel the metal micro USB does not fit as snugly when I use the Blackberry charger. But the thing does charge the phone and I guess that's fine. There's no problem getting the cable to slip into the phone's charging port but I had to stop myself from pushing the cable as deep into the socket as the SonyEricsson connection reaches. Neither the Blackberry charger nor the SonyEricsson charger are rated at an ampere of output. The Blackberry charger is rated at a higher power setting but the SonyEricsson's charger appears to finish the job faster than the Blackberry's charger. By 2012, when all mobile phones use microUSB, I wonder if mobile phones will ship without chargers. I imagine at least two Micro USB chargers will be in plain view at work by then. 
WITH ALL THE NOISE, you might not know that Apple does not feature in the top five mobile makers in the world by shipment. Top of the list is Nokia, with 36.4 percent of the global market in 2009, according to market research firm Gartner. Steve Litchfield reminded me of these percentages in an All About Symbian podcast a few months ago. Today, Ciara O'Brien looks at the risks different phones pose to business interests. "The NCircle survey, which question 257 security professionals between February 4th and March 12th, placed Apple iPhones at the top of the (security threat) list, with 57% of those who took naming it as the biggest threat. Only 13% of security professionals think Nokia phones pose a risk. This compares to 39% who viewed Google's Android devices as the greatest risk and 28% for Blackberry." Research firm Gartner is forecasting that Google's Android operating system will surpass Apple's iPhone in global smartphone market share by 2012.
MILLIONS (14m) OF PAGES appear on Google when asking for information about "memory full Nokia" like I did. Unlike many of the people complaining online about a lack of main memory, I believe mine is totally a result of (1) too many message attachments in email, (2) too many (hundreds) of old SMS text messages inside custom folders, (3) the presence of several bloated Java programs that insist upon installing themselves on the main phone and (4) the presence of full-featured guidebooks attached to Nokia Maps. Brendan Coleman, the local Nokia repairman, tells me I could do a factory reset (*#7370# with lock code 12345), then reload sections onto the phone one at a time to see which bogs down the phone. I my case, I know the "settings" menu has issues, so I'm manually going to pull off a dozen wifi profiles and remove and replace the special profile application that I really enjoy using. I may have to remove some of the US map data from the phone as well because the phone wants to update the map guides whenever I have the GPS and map funciton running. All things considered, the Nokia E90 continues to serve me as a daily phone two years after I slipped it into my pocket. The photo (above right) shows a normal day's work on a phone that's been dropped onto concrete five times since November 2007.
THE FASTEST WAY we can produce creative multimedia content in Tipperary Institute is by using smartphones that our students currently carry. I've got a few sample phones in the photo at left and the shot reflects the fact that Nokia multimedia phones are the most common model on campus, followed by iPhones and SonyEricsson devices. Smartphone sales are up across Europe and we try to specify the kind of capability a smartphone should have in our third level multimedia curriculum. A 3.2 megapixel camera leads the specification list, along with Bluetooth and Wifi capability. If a student qualifies for a network-subsidised device, we recommend getting a phone that connects over wifi, shares via Bluetooth streaming (A2DP protocol), has removeable memory and comes with a removeable battery or supplemental battery pack. Within a few years, it will be difficult getting a bog-standard mobile phone anymore, since even the iPhone is now subsidised down to a EUR 80 price point. Even during the current recession, 28% of mobile phone sales in 2009 have been smartphones. That percentage will double by 2012, if you believe the cross-talk that came out of Nokia World in Stuttgart this week. That's actually a good trend, and one that universities should consider when setting strategies for better student learning becacuse smartphones are already prominent as the second screen in many college students' lives.
ONE REASON WE stay in the Affinia Manhattan is because we can run several devices simultaneously on its LodgeNet wireless internet access service. Lodgenet costs us $11.95 per day and its all over the hotel. At night, you can find people sitting on the carpet in the lobby with their netbooks (or European iPhones), using the connectivity to post photos or check email. I use it upstairs for video uploads, iTunes purchases, Online Meeting Rooms sessions, and sync services to Mozy, Ovi, and Dropbox. This is a robust business class wireless service, one that the hotel should consider emphasizing as a competitive advantage for returning visitors. I's stood outside the front door, running Qik on my Nokia E90 at left, tethered to the hotel's Lodgenet service. It's one of the reasons I return to Affinia Manhattan. 
ONE OF OUR UPGRADE options is the Nokia E71 and we may get one if we believe we can hook it into a tightly-controlled Exchange email account. With Nokia's Mail for Exchange software, the E71 becomes a true push email experience. You need to download free business software to get the official Mail For Exchange support page by Nokia. I think there will be issues with Microsoft Server ActiveSync because the network administrator must have granted access to the IP block used to access the server from our home. It will probably mean the IT admin should revise some of the settings under IIS > YOURSERVER >WEB SITES > Default Web Site >Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync. The Microsoft Technet site also has some very detailed advice. Although the upgrade plans in our lives normally allow us to slip into the best new technology, the E71 is priced below the €100 mark. Its E72 brother has some features we'd like, including a 5-megapixel camera with an LED flash, easy geotagging, real Bluetooth 2.0, memory expandable to 16 GB via a MicroSD slot, and a standard headphone jack.
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