I am not a fan of the various lotteries that telecoms companies regularly run in the name of promos. However, Etisalat are running a promo that is quite intriging. Subscribers stand the chance to win one of two phones every single hour of the day for ninety days from Monday, 08 June 2009.

If you recharge your phone within the hour with N200 and text your State of Residence and Full Name to 5000, you stand the chance to win one of the following phones within that hour: Nokia 2680 Slide or Nokia 5130 Express Music.

For participants who load N500 and above and send the required text message to 5000, they stand the opportunity to win high-end phones like the Nokia E63, Nokia 6600 Slide, Sony Ericsson C902 or Samsung S8300 within the hour.

N200 and N500 every hour? Etisalat must be smiling to the bank right now.

My wife tells me that a number of her colleagues testify of people they know who have won phones in this promo. Do you know anyone who has?

There it is, if you want to give this a shot, go buy an Etisalat SIM and start firing. Let’s know too if you win a phone.

This is just a short tip for those who need to carry out critical tasks over their GPRS/EDGE/3G/3.5G connections, but have been generally frustrated with unreliable performance.

The best time belt to get your mission-critical or heavy online tasks executed over a GSM network at the moment is between the hours of 5.30 a.m. and 8 a.m. During this period, even file uploads are swift with a capital “S”, and you can imagine what downloading is like.

Barring any other hitches, the networks are least congested during this period.

I enjoy the Android OS and interface, its shortcomings notwithstanding. One of those shortcomings, as mentioned in my 10 gripes about the G1, is the lack of a documents viewer/editing suite onboard.

Initially, that was not a problem, as I was sure that I would be able to get a 3rd party application to fill this gap. Sadly, till date, I do not yet have a documents viewer and/or editor on my G1, and it does not look like I will get one soon.

No; it isn’t because there are no such apps for the Android platform. DataViz have Documents To Go for Android, and there’s also Quickoffice for Android. But the only way to purchase them (or even download a trial) is from the Android Market. “Great then“, you might say, “So go ahead and get ‘em!”

Ahem, the problem is that paid apps on the Android Market are not available for our region yet. Yes; at the moment, no-one using an Android device in Nigeria can purchase anything from the Market yet. I’m not sure if any African country is currently serviced by the market either. Free apps are available for download though – and I have benefited tremendously from those.

Both DataViz and Quickoffice say that their applications are available only via the Android Market. I am not sure how it will hurt them to make the applications available for download or purchase on their respective websites. It just sounds odd that their prospective users are denied an alternative acquisition platform.

Meanwhile, both DataViz and Quickoffice offer downloads of trial apps and purchased apps for other mobile OS platforms directly on their websites. Why this strange approach to the Android versions?

Anyway, here I am stuck with a superb device but cannot do something as simple as view my MS Word documents, muchless edit them.

Is this a deal-breaker for me? You bet; it is.

I haven’t had a smartphone in donkey years on which I couldn’t read my Office documents, so this is very limiting for me.

Checking the specifications of the upcoming Android devices, I do not see Documents viewer or editor listed for those either. Google, what’s going on here? This is a show-stopper, unless of course Android is being marketed as a consumer-targeted OS.

In which case, I’m out, seeing that I belong on the business end. I’ve certainly found one more reason why I will opt for a Symbian device – and this is a very strong reason.

I love Android, but I’m a fanboy of no platform or manufacturer. I use devices that meet my needs, especially those highest on my list of priorities.

Honestly, I am stumped at the moment. After using Android, it feels painful even considering using older mobile platforms like Symbian and WinMo.

But what alternatives do I have? I so need to be able to read and edit documents without having to boot up my PC. In the meantime, my heart will go on and on for Android… the lover I may not be able to continue with for now, unfortunately

Due to be available towards the end of quarter three of this year, Nokia on Monday announced the successor to the highly popular E71 – the Nokia E72.

The Nokia E72 continues the design tradition of the E71 with a candy bar QWERTY keyboard. It also has essentially the same software elements albeit enhanced – s60 third edition feature pack 2. The new kid on the block builds on the success of its predecessor, while at the same time bringing a few new things to the table. The upgrade in my opinion is not in any way revolutionary, rather, it is an incremental one.

This latest E-series device comes equipped with a 5.0 megapixel auto-focus camera with LED flash, an upgrade from the 3.2 megapixel camera on the E71.

Nokia has implemented an optical Navi key (track pad) in the centre of the D-pad of the device for a more intuitive and animated scrolling in the menu. While this is new for Nokia E-series, the technology is not new as this has been implemented by Samsung on a few of their devices.

One of the new things that the E72 brings to the table is somewhat of a surprise. There’s now a chat application pre-installed called Ovi Chat that is integrated into the contacts application. What it means is that from the contact menu you can chat on Yahoo and GoogleTalk. This is highly welcome as there will be no need to install a third party application to do chat.

Another surprise that the E72 springs on us is the inclusion of the N-series style image and video gallery. I am truly happy about this as I hope that it marks the end of the old and boring image gallery that E-series owners have been subjected to in the past.

Nokia messaging is on-board out of the box, with support for multiple e-mail accounts. The interesting part is that there is a lifetime license for Nokia messaging on the E72. There is also a life-time license for Ovi Chat.

Other upgrades include a digital compass embedded in the map application, QuickOffice editing suite is now up from the 4.3 version to 5.3 with support for Microsoft office 2007.

Is the E72 a true upgrade from the one year old and very successful E71? While I was hoping for the Symbian foundation OS, I am of the opinion that the E72 has come to take the shine from the E71.

Here is food-for-thought for those who still don’t think that the mobile web has real use: How to Blow a $2.1M Sale Using the Mobile Web.

I can’t relay how many similar experiences I have had – and never looked in the direction of the seller/business again, because alternatives were waiting for me.

The mobile web is here to stay, and if you are serious about business, get on it! If you are here in Nigeria and need to have your existing website mobile-proofed, or want a mobile-friendly site done from scratch, you can’t go wrong with Alireta. Call 08084391076.

Please don’t get tired. We report news, and Google’s Android OS is currently hot news. Different manufacturers are announcing Android phones on all fronts. At the last count, we had:

• Huawei (U8230 – and this one looks sleek)
• Samsung (i7500 Galaxy, BigFoot)
• Motorola (Heron/IronMan, Calgary)
• Acer (A1)
• Dell (Unannounced, but spy pics available)
• Haier (H7)
• ZTE (name unavailable yet)
• LG (name unavailable yet)
• HTC (Hero, Lancaster)
• Garmin (name unavailable yet)
• DoCoMo/KTF (name unavailable yet)

All these are in addition to the HTC G1/Dream and Magic/MyTouch 3G which are already available. Everybody seems to be getting on the Android groovy train.

The PR guys at GloMobile consistently tout their network as Nigeria’s most advanced GSM network. In addition, they tell us that Glo is also building Africa’s most advanced netwwork.

But how advanced (read: intelligent) can this network be, given the following:

1. Newly activated SIMs are not automatically provisioned for mobile data. “Less advanced” networks like MTN and Etisalat do this.
2. Even OTA (SMS) activation for data usually does not work. In the last one year, I have had reason to attempt to activate GloMoibile GPRS/3G on a number of SIMs by sending “Activate” to 444. All I get is a return SMS that my activation request will be processsed within 48 hours. In all cases, it never happened. In one case, 4, 320 hours later, that line has still not been provisioned
3. Going to a Gloworld outlet for activation often does not work either. There’s a particular SIM with me now, OTA provisioning has been attempted about 100 times without any results, and the SIM has been to Gloworld Opebi thrice in the last 6 months. Still no show.
4. The Glomobile billing system (especially for contract data subscribers) has a mind of its own and regularly bills outrageously (or some people at Glo are intentionally scamming subscribers

Personally, I am tired of this mess. If you need easy GSM mobile data activation/provisioning, your best bet are MTN and Etisalat. No; Zain is not much better than Glo in this regard. You will only end up sending lots of activation codes and visiting Zain centres – and if you are lucky, your line gets to be activated.

Yes; it is more a game of chance.

The flip-side is that because of the diffuculties of getting activated, there are relatively and significantly fewer users on both Glo and Zain data services, making both of them relatively stable. At least, generally, they are more stable than MTN data. Etisalat’s high mobile data tariff seems to help maintain stability on their network too.

You see, you cannot eat your cake and have it.

Thinking of it, it is either the Glo network is not so intelligent. Or it is that the network is so intelligent – infact, far more intelligent than the people who operate it (apologies to all my guys at Glo) – that the personnel have not gotten the hang of how to put it to work as intended.

What do you you think?

Thanks to Symbian Guru for the heads up, all owners of Nokia E51, E52, E55, E63, E71, E72, E75, and E90 can now upgrade their QuickOffice application to the latest version 6.0. The new version has full support for viewing, editing, and creating Microsoft Office 2007 documents, including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

The update is available through the QuickOffice application on the phone. Launch the application and go to the Quick Manager area to initiate the upgrade.

I was able to successfully download an upgrade for the E51 with me.

If you own an E-series device, go ahead and download your free update right away.

Here’s the official press release:

Quickoffice® Offers Free Updates for Select Nokia® Eseries Devices

Latest version of Quickoffice, office viewing and editing software suite, now available for download via on-device, e-commerce portal Quickmanager™

Dallas, TX – June 15, 2009 – Quickoffice, Inc., the leading global provider of mobile office productivity software, today announced it will be offering free upgrades to the latest version of Quickoffice for users on certain Nokia Eseries phones. Currently this program includes the Nokia E51, E52, E55, E63, E66, E71 (excluding AT&T E71x model), E72, E75 and E90 devices.

Starting today, users of the above devices can download Quickoffice 6 as a free upgrade via Quickmanager®, Quickoffice’s secure on-device, e-commerce portal. Quickoffice 6 includes more advanced document viewing and editing functionality of Microsoft Office 2007 documents, ZIP file support, password-protected file handling, Excel 2007 chart viewing and multiple usability enhancements. Subsequent software updates released by Quickoffice for these select devices will also be available on a continual basis, including PowerPoint 2007 format support. Quickoffice 6 will initially only be available in English and a fully localized update will follow in the near future.

“Through our long-running partnership with Nokia, most S60 users have already benefited by receiving Quickoffice on their devices as part of their phone’s initial firmware, providing users with essential viewing and editing functionality of Office documents,” Gregg Fiddes, VP of sales and strategic partnerships for Quickoffice. “Recently, we’ve been working with Nokia to provide these S60 users with an easy and reliable way to update their Quickoffice software. Now, through Quickmanager, they can easily access the latest version and begin utilizing these new enhancements and feature improvements we’ve developed.”

To subscribe to an RSS feed of all Quickoffice’s news, please visit http://www.lewiswire.com/us/lewiswire/Quickoffice/c/117 and click subscribe. To sign up for Webinars from Quickoffice to learn about the latest product updates, visit http://www.quickoffice.com/webinars/.

About Quickoffice
Quickoffice is the world leader in providing mobile office productivity software and solutions for mobile devices. The company’s robust product suite includes its flagship smartphone office suite, Quickoffice® Premier, its Content Transformation Solution (CTS) infrastructure and the Bitflash® Rich Media Engine. Quickoffice Premier is an award-winning smartphone application that provides native viewing and editing of Microsoft® Office documents in over 47 languages. The software ships as an on-device solution on tens of millions of smartphone devices annually. The CTS client/server infrastructure offers network optimized, anytime, anywhere access to digital content and high-definition viewing of such content. The Bitflash Rich Media engine is the industry’s highest rated SVG-T engine providing rich user experiences on over 300M mobile devices worldwide. Platforms supported by Quickoffice include Symbian®, Palm ®, Blackberry®, iPhone® and Android. Privately held, Quickoffice Inc. is based in Dallas with offices in London, Ottawa, and St. Petersburg, Russia.

More information is available at www.quickoffice.com, twitter.com/quickoffice, and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Quickoffice/80930822730

Press Contact for Quickoffice:
Katie Eakins / Amy Robinson
LEWIS PR for Quickoffice
619-677-2700
quickoffice@lewispr.com

Quickoffice is a trademark of Quickoffice, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective holders.

World’s number two (2) mobile manufacturer, Samsung, has gone crazy with the Omnia brand. The saga has its roots in the launch of the original Omnia, the i900, which we at MobiNaija were mot particularly fond of. But we hear that it sold in shiploads.

Next up was the Omnia HD i8910, running on Symbian s60 5th Edition. The specs of the HD got us hooked, but you know us – we’re lost without a QWERTY keyboard on our mobile devices.

But let it be said here and now, the HD outclasses Nokia’s self-proclaimed “world’s most advanced mobile computer“, the N97, in almost everything – and the HD was released before the N97. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

If Sammy had slapped a QWERTY on the HD, we would have jumped in the boat. Ah, but the mobile world does not revolve around us now; does it? Shall we move on?

Not too long ago, another Omnia was announced – the i8000, again pure touchscreen. But Sammy wasn’t done yet.

Three (3) new phones have now been added to the Omnia range:

1. Samsung B7300 OmniaLITE
2. Samsung B7320 OmniaPRO
3. B7610 Omnia Pro

All three of them run WinMo 6.1 and we hear they will be upgradeable to 6.5 later (insert caveats). I am definitely feeling the Samsung B7320 OmniaPRO with the QWERTY candybar form factor, but just looking at the full slide-out QWERTY keyboard on the B7610 OmniaPRO gives me goose bumps. As if.

I do wish that the keyboard had 5 rows instead, so we can have dedicated number keys. But, hey, a guy is free to wish…

Notice also that there are two “Omnia Pros”. How do we distinguish them in everyday speech? Those numbers B7320 and B7610 are not the kind of things I want to use when speaking everyday. Capiche?

One thing I have observed is that the Omnia range is made up of smartphones only. Perhaps that is Samsung’s plan. The Korean manufacturer has also said that the Omnia range of devices will not be restricted to one smartphone OS.

We have already seen a number of WinMo devices and one Symbian device in the line-up. When do we get an Android Omnia, Uncle Sam? And please put a QWERTY keyboard on that one!

We’ll behave and be good. Any thing you want us to do, if only you’ll grant us this one wish.

To the dynasty of Omnia!!

Windows Mobile has been long acknowledged as a powerful mobile operating system. Unfortunately, it does not seem that the guys at Microsoft realized early enough that raw power is not all there is to a mobileOS. Apple’s Mac OSx, Google’s Android, and more recently Palm’s Web OS, with the acclaim that they have consistently received, show that beyond just power, the end-user wants a sleek and user-friendly interface.

Fact: WinMo as it has been for years is far from user-friendly. Microsoft have made a lame attempt at improving the WinMo UI with version 6.5. But it does not seem to cut the mustard. And it isn’t available on any devices yet. So, WinMo followers have no choice but to hope (and probably pray too) that WinMo 7 will be really different.

However, there seems to be an easy and logical path for transforming WinMo into the delight of users.

HTC’s home-grown solution to making their WinMo products user-friendly has been a toast of WinMo users and reviewers alike. Dubbed TouchFlo 3D, it is sleek, touch-optimised, and gets the job done.

Would Microsoft consider the option of paying HTC to completely integrate TouchFlo 3D into the WinMo OS? That shouldn’t be difficult, seeing how far HTC have gone in implementing this icing on the WinMo cake.

For many current WinMo users, TouchFlo 3D is one of the key reasons why their mobile experience is much easier. And fun.

Whether or not Microsoft takes the path I have recommended, one thing is certain, whatever interface it is that Microsoft implements for WinMo will always be judged by how well it performs against TouchFlo 3D.

As a software platform and data application consumer device, the typical modern smartphone can do all that a consumer laptop can do. Every bit of it. This is well known even in Microsoft’s HQ and even Steve Ballmer seems to recognize this. But for the consumer of digital services, a mid-range standard mobile phone, a non-smartphone cellphone, can actually deliver seven unique abilities that no personal computer can match today…..

Yes, the phone can do everything a PC can do, but also there are seven things a modern phone can do, that the PC cannot. The modern mobile phone is inherently superior in capability than a laptop or desktop PC. Inherently superior yes. There is sound reasoning why so many are abandoning the laptop and selecting the iPhone or the Blackberry etc.

These are not some company secrets tightly guarded in the headquarters of Nokia, Samsung and Motorola. The seven unique abilities of mobile beyond those on PCs are openly listed at Wikipedia and explained in full in books such as my latest hardcover book, Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media. The mobile phone is not an inferior tiny PC, it is a superior communication, consumption and creation device, far more powerful than the personal computer – of any size, and with any size screen.

- Tomi Ahonen

Here is the Wikipedia entry refered to by Mr. Ahonen:

Mobile offers seven benefits that cannot be replicated by the six legacy mass media. They are:
1 Mobile is the first personal mass media
2 Mobile is permanently carried
3 Mobile is always-on
4 Mobile has a built-in payment mechanism
5 Mobile is available at the point of creative inspiration
6 Mobile has the most accurate audience measurement
7 Mobile captures the social context of media consumption

Many may claim that the internet offers some of the benefits (personal, payment, audience accuracy and social context). The internet is only semi-personal such as shared computers at home and the office, and the ability for example of employers to read content consumed by employees. The internet in its native form cannot handle money or payments, and requires cumbersome work-arounds such as Paypal accounts and using credit cards. On mobile payments can be enabled on the click, such as with downloading ringing tones.

The internet promised full accuracy of users, but with firewalls, deleting cookies and false web identities, there is no accuracy of audience on the internet. On modern mobile networks every user is uniquely known and even if they attempt to hide behind “pre-paid” (pay-as-you-go) accounts under a “Mickey Mouse” type of name, the true identity of that given phone and its phone number, and any media consumed on it, is fully known and accurately tracked on the network. The same allows the capture of social context, not possible across internet services, only possible within a given internet service like Amazon etc. On mobile networks, if the operator/carrier decides to track it, all social context information can be captured.

And people keep wondering why I say that mobile is the future…

I have spent the last few weeks talking about the Android OS, and how it is the best thing that happened to mobile phones since the iPhone Honestly, while Palm’s Web OS has a lot of eye candy, reviews coming in suggest that it has some catching up to do with Android.

Back to topic, there can be no doubt to my readers that my new-found love is Android, after years with Symbian. Still, Symbian has its strengths, the strongest (though not so significant) being that it is a more mature OS. But that is a story for another day.

So, now that I have chosen the path of Android, is there any reason why I would get a Symbian device now?

Yes; if I needed a top-notch camera on my smartphone, I would get a Symbian device at this point in time. It is not because Symbian is better than Android in imaging capabilities. It is simply because Nokia makes some of the best camera phones out there, and Nokia makes the majority of Symbian devices.

Last week, ‘Dayo and I put the venerable-but-still-very-much-in-the-game Nokia E90 to use for imaging and video, and we were still awed by the quality of shots and clips we got from this device.

By the way, I still hold to my earlier position that the Nokia E90 is arguably still the best all-rounder. That guy rocks! I just wish Nokia would revamp that user interface.

Nokia has several other Symbian devices with amazing imaging capabilities. Until other manufacturers like Samsung and LG (both of whom are strong contenders in the camera game) roll out their Android phones, the Android platform currently has no competitors against Symbian when it comes to cameraphones.

It sure didn’t help that the first Android devices were from HTC – well known for less-than-stellar cameras on their devices.