For Some, A Cheap Smartphone Misses the Mark

I was just responding on Twitter to Vision Mobile (@visionmobile) about an article that they tweeted. In this TechCrunch piece, it was alluded to by Eric Schmit that a $70 smartphone is going to be some sort of holy grail for the adoption of smartphones. And at that pomint, its not inconceivable that there could be an Android mobile in every pocket. I get the entheusiam, but I don’t think a $70 smartphone will make that happen – the device costs totally misses the pain point that most people have with mobiles – the cost of service.

[Palm Addict] How My Nokia N8 Navigates Situations

I have it in me to write a bit more about this, but maybe later when I am not occupied with my family’s new editon. Still then, this piece, posted at Palm Addict, will have to do:

Even though my Nokia N8 is a model that only seems to get accolades when the quality of its camera comes into play, it's actually a very solid performer in just about every function that I need for it. Most recently, I have pushed it a bit further with an beta applicaiton called Situations, which allows me to set some rules for it which change it's functionality depending on certain contexts.

Read the rest at Palm Addcit

Lingering Thought: Verb + Name (Me + Context) Should Equal Communications

Its keeping my up after an 8hr drive, and so I know that there’s something there. My lady and I were talking about it (and she understood); I was sparked by my previous post on phone numbers, and then got another poke from several pieces by Mr. Tony Fish. There’s just got to be a better way to communicate with people than to remember and use several registrations, numbers, and services. What if it were as simple as a verb and a name? What if it were really that simple?

Carnival of the Mobilists No 262 at Tego Interactive

The other day, I started to wonder where the Carnival of the Mobilists was, and then boom, the folks at Tego Interactive the 262^nd edition. Its a short list of reads this week, but reaches across mobile a bit more than usual. Take and read and enjoy.

A Need for Technology Ratchets

An old post, but man does it feel good to read/consider:

Which all makes me wonder: Are we are destined to hit a point where our global intellectual capacity is so taken up with maintaining the technological status quo, that we will loose the capacity for further technological innovation?  Or even worse; are we heading for a technology innovation impasse ends up degenerating into an uncertain and unenlightened future?

I have to say, I’m not an optimist here – that is, unless we learn how to build effective technology ratchets.

A mechanical ratchet, as everyone knows, is a device that allows movement in one direction only. By comparison, a technology ratchet can be considered as something that allows technology development to move forward, but prevents or inhibits it from moving backward.  The idea is to find ways to hold onto ground gained through technology innovation, without having to constantly expend huge amounts of effort in doing so…

<a href="http://2020science.org/2010/03/07/why-we-need-technology-ratchets/Why We Need Technology Ratchets at 2020 Science

Why Don’t Modern Mobiles Do A Better Job of Linking Data Between Apps

Back when I used a Palm PDA, there were a few applications which gave you this ability to take a snippet of data from one application and link it to another application (and its data store). It wasn’t easy to do this for some apps, you had to add some special brackets and a command for which app you wanted to link to. But, when you linked it, then it was literally a matter of tapping on what was linked and you went to that other app. There were even app suites which came out by the time of the Treo which shared data between them (contacts, calendar, notes, and tasks) which made the management of people and their relationship to whatever data/tasks easier – at least within that suite. These days, you have to beg and plead for a developer to take advantage of an API to keep data linked, and even then, its more like sharing (copying between data stores with a link-back to the other content maybe added). If modern mobile platforms/OSes are so good, then why is such a feature neglected?

Carnival of the Mobilists 261 at Camerjam

Even though its late in the week, and the next Carnival of the Mobilists is just a few days away, I sometimes don’t get to do the fun reads until the weekend. Thankfully, Camerjam’s hosting of the 261^st COM has plenty of good reads, including my own piece about phone numbers. Make sure that you take a read, and stay tuned for upcoming Carnival postings.

Turning Lists into Behaviors that Transform

Maybe its age, then again, maybe its been that sense that’s been there the whole time. I seem to be moving towards one of Excapite/Nigel’s observations that much of what we do today online is just making a prettier spreadsheet. The companies whom are doing better are pushing beyon just list presentations and crafting aspirational experiences which embed or reveal something more… human. And after re-reading today’s post on Mobile Ministry Magazine, I’m even more convinced of this.

Public Evernote Notebook, Domains, Experiments

Last night I was talking with my lady about personal branding strategies that I’ve done. I mentioned to her about the personal domain that I have and how that’s something that I use to map to pretty much any service that I choose. In this way, I can move around a bit but keep the direciton/destination (mostly) familiar. In the midst of talking with her about this, I thought about trying something new, using a publicly-shared Evernote notebook and a sub-domain.

Poem: Velo-Valentine (If Pedals Pedaled Closer)

My car was taken from me
I couldn’t get any closer to her if the wind would let me
So I managed to find my pedals
And take in the gear by gear 

Of Biking and Stereotypes

When you tell people in Charlotte that you like to bike, the conversation can go a few directions. There’s the one perspective when you are asked all kinds of bike-centric questions (type of bike, where you ride, places you’ve ridden, etc.). There’s the perspective of folks who just nod and walk away. Then, there’s that of those folks who don’t ride at all (“you ride here”, “I can’t ride,” “I’ve not ridden in ages,” etc.). That one hit me again when I visited a church the other day and was introduced as a biking friend of one of the members.

Nokia Belle Impressions on my N8

Thanks to the generosity of my g/f, I was able to get my hands on a Windows laptop in order to do the recently-made-available update of my Nokia N8’s operating system to the Belle version (the previous version was named Anna). What follows are my impressions and thoughts as I am taking some time to live with this pretty signifiant change to my primary mobile.