Roland Tanglao's Weblog

The N91 is a great music phone if you are a power user or geek. Why? Well because it doesn't "just work" with iTunes which is what most people are using. With the Nokia Music Manager on my Mac, I can sync playlists (but not smart playlists) manually from iTunes. I, as the user, have to manage what will fit on the N91 rather than having iTunes do it like it can do with smart playlists. So all in all not for normal people who use iTunes. Need seamless iTunes integration for normal people!

If you don't use iTunes and you don't mind drag and drop (which is less than 10% of the world I guesstimate!) then the N91 works fine. I dragged 2.5 gig of random music onto my N91 last week and it was fun listening to it.

Having the phone and your music is very compelling. After my week of having my music on my phone, an iPod integrated with a phone done right is inevitably in Apple's future methinks; Apple is of course biding their time and waiting for an opportune moment.

It's a no brainer that the phone and music player will converge especially if the phone has a standard headphone jack and (for those with money) supports stereo Bluetooth headsets.

My prediction: the Pop port will go the way of the Dodo and by 2010 all phones will have normal headphone jacks and all handsfree talking will be done either via speakerphone or a wireless headset.

I must admit I was skeptical but the Nokia Podcasting app (currently in beta) works quite well and it works with video podcasts like Rocketboom (I tested out Rocketboom's 3GP feed at http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog/tele_daily_enclosures.xml and it works well!)

My trial N70 (thanks Andy and Nokia!) hangs seemingly randomly. I haven't reported it yet because I have been trying to figure out how to reproduce it reliably. Here's the sequence of events:

1. Take a few photos or videos
2. Launch ShoZu and try to select a few photos or videos to upload.
3. Up and down cursor keys don't work, rest of the phone seems to work (i.e. making calls, other apps)

If I then reboot the phone, Shozu, the phone and the cursor keys work fine.

From The Obvious?: Nokia and a spinning colour wheel of death.:

QUOTE

Doc quotes Paul Boutin as saying:

Nokia would never ship a phone with a spinning color wheel of death.

I wish they had because then at least I would have something to stare at when my new n70 hangs which it does on a wearyingly regular basis!

UNQUOTE

[NOTE: Since I don't believe in whingeing :-), this will be my last post complaining about high mobile internet rates in Canada. My last post about this was: Wireless data in Canada is ridiculously expensive | Boris is right.]

I am very lucky to have my grandfathered unlimited mobile data plan from Fido of $50. Last month I used 252 MB of traffic (I am guessing about 75% was transmitting N70 cameraphone 2 megapixel photos via Shozu to flickr and 25% transmitting N70 cameraphone videos MPEG 4 of between 1-3MB each via Shozu to roland.blip.tv)

1. 500 KB plan: $5 + 251 * 30 = $7535
2. 5 MB plan: $25 + (252 - 5) * 10 = $2495
3. 25 MB plan: $50 + (252 - 25) * 30 = $6860
4. 50 MB plan: $75 + (252 - 75) * 30 = $5385
5. 100 MB plan: $100 + (252 - 100) * 30 = $4660

I guess the $50 that I pay is a lot cheaper than $2495 or even $7535 that others have to pay, eh :-) ?!?!

Not to mention the fact that you have to pay "4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally" (which I guess includes the US). I don't have to pay this roaming fee in the US with my grandfathered plan.

Very interesting and very depressing for Canadians who actually want to create and share their mobile phone's photos and videos using the mobile internet i.e. without going through the "mobile phone to PC via Bluetooth or USB" chain of pain. Can somebody do the math for Rogers, Telus and Bell? Love to know if they are any cheaper! But somehow I doubt it!

From Options you can add.:

QUOTE

Mobile Internet options
Within Canada and the U.S.

Combine any of these options
with your monthly package. 		Monthly charge
500 KB 		$5
5 MB 		$25
25 MB 		$50
50 MB 		$75
100 MB 		$100
hiptop option - Unlimited data
hiptop device required 		$20

Note 
	

Data transmission charges of 4¢ per KB apply for downloads. Options also available without a monthly airtime package (except 500 KB option and hiptop option), in which case, a system access fee of $6.95 per month applies.


  $5 per month for 500 KB
Combine this option with your monthly package
500 KB of data transmission
Mobile Internet enabled handset or PC Card required
4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally
Each additional MB costs $30

Taxes, international mobile Internet roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

back to top

  $25 per month for 5 MB
Each additional MB costs only $10
Mobile Internet enabled handset or PC Card required
You can subscribe to the $25 package alone or you may, except in the case of a hiptop or world PC Card, add it to a monthly airtime package.
4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally

Taxes, international mobile Internet roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

back to top

  $50 per month for 25 MB
Mobile Internet enabled handset or PC Card required
You can subscribe to the $50 package alone or you may, except in the case of a PC Card, add it to a monthly airtime package.
4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally
Each additional KB costs 3 ¢

Taxes, international mobile Internet roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

back to top

  $75 per month for 50 MB
Mobile Internet enabled handset or PC Card required
You can subscribe to the $75 package alone or you may, except in the case of a PC Card, add it to a monthly airtime package.
4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally
Each additional KB costs 3 ¢

Taxes, international mobile Internet roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

back to top

  $100 per month for 100 MB
Mobile Internet enabled handset or PC Card required
You can subscribe to the $100 package alone or you may, except in the case of a PC Card, add it to a monthly airtime package.
4 ¢ per KB while roaming internationally
Each additional KB costs 3 ¢

Taxes, international mobile Internet roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

back to top

  hiptop option - $20 per month
Unlimited data
To surf, chat, manage your e-mail, stay organized, take pictures and download.
hiptop device required

Available with the hiptop device only; must be combined with a monthly airtime package. The Unlimited data hiptop option does not include text messages and is subject to certain restrictions. Taxes, international GPRS roaming charges, system access fee ($6.95), and other applicable charges not included.

back to top

UNQUOTE

And I am giving out Shozu swag like tshirts courtesy of the fine folks at Shozu (and I have no affiliation with them other than being a happy user of their stuff! See you there! Bring your mobile and I can help you install Shozu after my demo!

From February Event: EQO and Shozu | MoMoVan.:

QUOTE

Roland Tanglao, Co-founder and Chief Blogging Officer of Bryght, and extreme Flickr addict will demo the mobile picture sharing application Shozu.

UNQUOTE

Very handy when you are going into a meeting. Hold down the "#" key to toggle between Silent and General (now if only you could specify which states it toggles between, I would prefer Pager which I lovingly refer to as pleasure mode :) ! and General rather than Silent and General). This feature is a series 60 feature, so it's probably not new to the N70 but very nice nonetheless.

Need an N70 strap or mounting device to allow me to stabilize it when walking around (video sightseeing like audio sound seeing tours) and also a strap that allows me to take video and have the strap on the same time.

Well, I had to deactivate and reactivate Shozu on my N70 and now it successfully uploads both photos and videos to Shozu but unfortunately when Shozu emails the video to blip.tv and Now Public, it's not showing up (or they are both being very slow). I know that Shozu has the video and that it emails properly because when I get Shozu to email me, I get the email with the video attachment now problem! This is weird because 3GP from my old 7610 worked fine and quite quickly via Shozu to blip.tv, perhaps blip.tv and Now Public can't handle MP4 which is the video format from the N70?

Aaargh, email is really the wrong way to do this. We need a standard video upload API. How about the Atom Publishing Protocol?

Aaargh! Just in time for my "real time" election video blogging tomorrow, Shozu no longer is uploading photos or videos. Every time I get error 5005 and rebooting the phone doesn't help. I have an email into their support team (using their contact form) so hopefully it will get fixed before then. It's (I guess) one or more of the following:

1. issue with my mobile carrier, Fido
2. bug in Shozu
3. bug in N70

It's very strange because Shozu worked just fine on Friday night and I can surf the web on my phone using Opera so GPRS access is working. Aaargh!

N70 cool feature of the day: if phone is locked, opening the camera using the cover launches camera app and when you are done and close the cover the phone automatically relocks!