If you thought that the mobile companies in our part of the world fight over ads and claims of better service or coverage, watch this. Two giant telecom firms, Verizon and AT&T pointing fingers at each other – this is fun. For more on the story and the lawsuit read this.
I spotted an interesting article from WSJ, The Joys, Pains of Switching Smart Phones. For those who want to switch from one smart phone to another, there’s always this excitement of trying something new combined with leaving something familiar and convenient. Then there’s the work involved in moving information from one handset to another. In the end its a matter of personal preference. Here’s an excerpt.
The old adage that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence can be extended to our technology cravings. Even the person holding the shiniest new gadget can’t help but eye a neighbor who has a different device and wonder, “What does that do that mine doesn’t?”
Thoughts like these are especially prevalent when it comes to the devoted owners of BlackBerrys and iPhones. All too often, the people carrying these smart phones are curious about what one device has that the other lacks.
The most outstanding observation from my switch group in favor of the iPhone was an appreciation for its applications, or apps.
They used things like driving directions for the first time because these apps looked and worked better on the iPhone than on the BlackBerry. And they went through a downloading frenzy during which time they found all sorts of apps for the iPhone, such as games, entertainment and those that enhanced business-travel productivity. “Browsing for games. Probably should leave the office now,” said one person’s notes.
Though Research in Motion’s BlackBerrys also run apps (including some of the same ones as for the iPhone), BlackBerry’s App World offers only a little better than 2,000 apps. Apple’s App Store boasts more than 65,000. A shortcut to the App Store ships preloaded on iPhones. BlackBerry App World is preloaded or virtually preloaded by carriers at their discretion, so a shortcut to App World may not be visible.
The most obvious difference between iPhones and BlackBerrys are the keyboards. The iPhone uses an on-screen keyboard, while the BlackBerry (except the touch-screen Storm model) uses a tactile QWERTY keyboard. As expected, the switchers had trouble using the iPhone keyboard—especially for the first few days. But after about a week, most people in the group had adjusted well to the on-screen keys and the iPhone’s auto-correct feature that fixes mistakes as long as you keep typing rather than stopping to fix an error. One person said, “I was a skeptic, and didn’t think the typing would work for me at all, but it actually hasn’t been too bad.”
The BlackBerry keyboard’s static position below its screen means all letters, numbers and symbols must come solely from pressing those keys; this is done by pressing ALT or Shift keys for numbers and symbols. Some switchers noted that pressing a button to change the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard from letters to capital letters or numbers took a bit longer than on the BlackBerry.
My switchers were ecstatic about using the iPhone’s Safari Web browser. They enthusiastically said searching, browsing and reading were all made much better and more visually pleasing compared with their experiences on the BlackBerry browser.
WSJ published an interesting story about the surge in use of abbreviations in text messages. I think that Twitter has made these even more popular and speeded up their acceptance in mainstream lingo. As the story mentions, LOL and OMG are already in the standard English dictionaries. Parents are one group who may need this info!
With over one trillion text messages sent and received in the U.S. last year, according to CTIA-The Wireless Association, an industry trade group, you run the risk of feeling out of it if you don’t know the jargon.
Here are a few popular shorthand texting terms. My question is: Are there any such abbreviations for Roman Urdu? LMK (let me know).
Saw this at MSN and couldn’t resist posting. Have you ever seen this kind of ‘mobile’ phone before?
Not really, I am joking. But if you were to look at this screen shot from PTA site, this is what you may think about Wi-Tribe. I thought it was amusing enough to share with you all. Oh by the way there’s subscriber info about the WLL subscribers. As you can see all the customers of Wi-Trib(ut)e went on vacation from Feb to April of 2009 and magically doubled in number after that. Does anyone has a better explanation for this?
I figure you know what the logos above stand for. If not, this is a quiz for you. If you do, then suggest a title. Hint: this is related to a previous guest post.
I found this hilarious message at Karachi Metroblog. The spelling mistakes are included for free to entertainment you. Don’t forget to send the NIC with your phone if you want the millions promised below. LOL – this guy sends spam via sms and asks you to mail all the info!
BTW I do get plenty of spam on the blog (comes with the territory I guess) and on my gmail inbox. It is annoying to get these spam messages but once in a while a message becomes a source of amusement.
Citizen journalism has its own rewards. Consider this piece, contributed at See n Report. Well with advertisement and publicity some believe that there’s always room for more!
This picture has also made it to number of other blogs as well …
Google’s Zeitgeist was the site which had information about the search patterns, trends for Pakistan and other countries. I was always amused by the search terms and the variation of those over time. Now I hear that Zeitgeist is being replaced by other related products by Google, listed below. It will be more interesting to see what people search from their phone and what search engines are used there. Yahoo and Google are likely to be the major search engines on mobile phones.
Here is the last set of queries published by Google Zeitgeist, in summer of 2008. By now these terms must have been replaced with more current topics but still some of these are quite amusing, even hilarious. The one thing that has not changed: Katrina Kaif remains on the list of most popular searches in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Top Google Queries in Pakistan In June 2008
Here’s another post by Tee Emm on this topic. Thanks to Badar Khusnood for sharing updated information.
Tough phones, laptops and other gadgets serve a niche market segment. I recently tested a tough phone: XP1 from Sonim, shown here. I was impressed by its design and high degree of tolerance to take abuse. The company, Sonim, claims it to be the world’s toughest phone.
This ruggedized GSM phone is great for use in rough and tough conditions such as construction, outdoor activities, under water and for security professionals. It comes with a push-to-talk feature and SOS service for emergencies. Otherwise it is a bare-bone phone. There are no fancy applications or multimedia capabilities.
This kind of phone is not cheap (around Rs. 22K) but apparently there is a good demand from certain industries and it is in use in Europe. Is there a market for this kind of phone in Pakistan or South Asia? At least its good for venting out anger. Check out the hilarious videos of the phone at toughestphone.com.
Hilarious illustration of cost of ownership of an iPhone by Joy of Tech.
I found it amusing that Warid is giving away a McDonald’s meal with Zem recharge or new SIM. It is one of the amazing marketing techniques that a freebie sounds so tempting, even if you have to spend 500 Rs to get it. Given the popularity for McDonald’s in Pakistan (even though commonly regarded as junk food in developed countries), I assume it must be a popular promotion for Warid. Whoever said that cell phone se peit nahi barta (cell phones don’t feed) probably did not hear about this one!
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