If You Don't Give Us Power We'll Take It

Regarding my post on the lack of openness on the Helio Ocean I came across this today Opera Mini for everybody! Custom apps! Yay!

So to summarize this for the decision makers at Helio, this group of people took the time to figure out how to run applications on your phone without any help from you. Can you imagine what they could pull off if you encouraged them to develop for the Ocean?

Why Some Phone are Loved by Nerds or:

Why Some Phone are Loved by Nerds or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Open platforms.

As most people know I'm a phone nerd, ever since I spent a year doing wireless research for a government agency several years back, I've been pretty in touch with the whole wireless scene and have a good idea of what's going on. From doing all of this research I've been a huge fan of Sony Ericsson and Nokia and for the last five years I've exclusively used their phones. One of the best features for these phone is that YOU can easily get FREE development environments for their phones and they have detailed specs and white papers, they want you to make apps for their phones. This also applies to Windows Mobile and Motorola but I don't really use them so I can't comment.

A few months ago I broke ranks and bought a Helio Ocean. It has some cool features and the service plans are reasonable, but it main weakness is the lack of apps. When I say lack of apps, I mean a real shortage. If they exist I can't find them and I'm not just talking about apps for the phone I'm putting the computer side down as well. I knew going in that I wouldn't be able to sync with my Mac, but I was okay with that. but what I did think would work was syncing via XP in Parallels, but there doesn't appear to an app to do it, I installed what was on their site but it doesn't seem to do anything except for recognize the phone as mass storage device. Which doesn't really do shit because dropping mp3's and movies to the folders doesn't work either. So on a whim, I tried http://developer.helio.com there is a site, but you have to be approved to develop for them. So I wrote the email address asking for an invite as my current employer develops mobile apps hoping to get an invite.

The response made it clear as to why there aren't many apps for the Ocean. To get access to the site, I'd need to do the following. One pitch them my application idea. They'd have to approve the concept internally and then I'd have to sign an NDA to just to get access to the tool kit from which point I could then figure out if we even have the ability/desire to write these apps. That is an awful lot of hoops to make one jump through for people to write apps that will help sell THEIR phone and THEIR service. I think it is a bad decision overall and will hurt them in the long run, because the keyboard makes a lot of apps very attractive. Think ssh, vnc, an Opera browser and integrated IM client the list goes on.

Sigh

Helio Ocean and Attachments

A commenter asked how well the Helio reads attachments.
Basically it comes down to a couple of things, one it only seems to read images (jpeg, gif and png) sounds (mp3 is all I've tried) and html attachments. As for things like PDF, Word Docs and the rest not a chance. What I end up doing is using gmail and their preview or read as HTML seems to work well enough.

Summary of Unlimited Wireless Data Services

Commercial: We have the most complete and fastest wireless network in the world and we now feature an unlimited plan. We even sell a card for your PC you'll have unlimitied broadband Internet access everywhere you go.





PS:If you'd actually use this as your primary Internet connection your usage volume will be considered abusive and we'll cut you off.

HBH-DS970 Review

HBH-DS970
Originally uploaded by dcdan.

I have the Sony Ericsson k790i which I used to test the HBH-DS790. And here is my one minute review.

The sound quality is great and it works well with the phone for both music and phone calls. It pairs with my MacBook Pro, but it doesn't seem to work beyond that, so I can't use it with my Mac. I've also found that when in "multipoint" mode it would often have hiccups in the music that make it very difficult to listen to. The controls are nice and easy to use. The battery life could be a little better so expect to charge it every other day if not more, but it can use the same charger as the k series phones so you should be okay, if you like to travel lightly
I'll give it 7 of 10 *s


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