The Phones Show video podcast (used to be The Smartphones Show)

Standard QVGA version: / High res VGA version:
www.thephonesshow.com, in conjunction with current sponsors S60

The Carnival of the Mobilists, #143

You may have noticed the subtle name change for this site/show. The idea of rebranding slightly was to also encompass phones that aren't technically 'smartphones' but which these days have an awful lot of smart and interesting features. One has to move with the times, you know! If you mention The Phones Show in dispatches/links, please use the new name - thanks! Oh, and a variety of URLs will work, but www.thephonesshow.com is probably easiest.

And so to the Carnival. Nope nothing to do with Carnival on the Nintendo Wii, which my daughter loves to play, pictured here. And nothing to do with the street carnivals across the UK each weekend at the moment. We're talking mobile here, in a week in which the first Google Android-powered phone was launched, the T-Mobile G1, and this inevitably forms a kick-off point for a couple of carnival posts.

Shaun Zelber reports the launch news from a USA perspective, with photos. He worries that the G1 is too locked into Google, just as the iPhone is locked into Apple, but he also welcomes the competition.

Ajit Jaokar just made it under the wire with a post speculating that despite Android's own software marketplace, the likelihood is that all popular applications for the platform will be free.

Statistics are close to my own heart, so I was pleased to see Chetan Sharma, who runs his own consulting firm and here posts a summary of mobile phone industry stats for the first half of 2008. Especially interesting to note that data revenues for some operators are now 40% of their total income. And yet still, in the UK, data's hardly talked about when phones are advertised or sold... Staying with stats, Ram Krishnan reports figures from Sweden on how mobile broadband is out-pacing fixed line broadband - surely this is the way of the future for us all? Health scares from all the radiation aside!...

Justin Oberman provides less an analysis post and more a blatant plug for his company's new mobile/S60 product, Flyscreen, which uses the power save screensaver as a way of showing Web 2.0 content. I'll forgive him the plug though, as Justin's such a regular on the Carnival.

One major theme in recent times has been mobile advertising and this Carnival is no exception. Russell Buckley reckons that mobile ads have a long way to go, using progress from the first TV ads as a benchmark and the iPhone as a modern day platform example. Meanwhile, Andrew Grill quotes new stats on mobile ads, pointing out the balance that has to be made between helping the user pay for their experience and generally annoying them. And Carnival Mother Judy Breck also stays in this topic while referring back to Russell's work, pointing out the essential new features for mobile advertising made possible by the new iPhone-leading approach.

Abigail Adams has been reading up on the latest 'contactless' means of paying for things with a mobile and points out that getting people to switch to a new way of paying is much more than simply providing a new technology (e.g. NFC).

Thomas Menguy reports on Sony Ericsson's Project Capuchin and, in a highly technical piece, discusses the age old problem of which languages and runtimes should be used for mobile applications.

Barbara Ballard has posted a number of great accounts from the Design For Mobile conference, summarising the main speakers and their themes.

Stalwart and visionary Tomi Ahonen gets the prize for the longest submission of the week, looking at the similarities between the Internet as a whole and mobile as 'mass media' platforms. And yes, the article is probably partly lifted from his brand new book, but again the plug is full justified as the book itself is a must-read.

James Cooper quite rightly points out how on-message Apple is with its advertising, pointing out (shock horror) all the things you can do with a phone rather than doing an arty, glitzy lifestyle ad that bears no relation to the product itself.

Mohtashim Abbas has been looking at the things that need to be in place for Mobile Financial Services to be a success.

Martin Sauter has found a solution to a problem we all face - that of large automatic desktop app updates tying up our bandwidth limited tethered connections when we're out and about being road warriors.

Igor Faletski looks at nine steps mobile app developers can take to make sure their creations take into account the context of the typical future mobile user.

Tom Godber gets my 'post of the week' though, with his excellent look at fragmentation in the Mobile web - how should sites and developers handle the variations in users, equipment and expectations?

Finally, from a site close to my own heart, All About Symbian, Tzer2 muses on the cult of the early adopter and how their addiction actually helps everyone else in the long run.

Thanks to the others that submitted entries this week, sorry you didn't make the final cut and I've left your posts untagged so that they can be picked up by the next Carnival host, Xellular Identity, if the editor sees fit! See you there!

Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of the mobilists using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Smartphones Show episode guide

Show 65 - Hands-on review of the Samsung Tocco; Musings on Xenon flash in phones; hands-on review of the Nokia N79

Show 64 - Hands-on review of the Nokia 6650 clamshell; an iPhone conjuring trick; hands-on review of the Samsung G810

Show 63 - Hands-on review of the Nokia 6220 Classic; hands-on review of the HTC Touch Diamond (vs iPhone 3G)

Show 62 - Hands-on review of the Motorola MOTO Z10, plus my roundup of THE Top 5 (smart)phones

Show 61 - Hands-on review of the new Nokia E71, plus news and a preview of the show's future

Show 60 - Hands-on review of the Toshiba Portege G910 clamshell communicator, plus a bumper news section (including iPhone 3G) and a rant on lack of freedom in phone contracts

Show 59 - Hands-on reviews of the Asus M930 and the Black Nokia N82, along with photo overlays on S60-shot MP4 video files on an Apple Mac, News, and a plea for help

Show 58 - Head to head between the world's top 4 camera-toting (smart)phones, the Nokia N95, the N82, the Sony Ericsson K850i and the LG Viewty, all with 5 megapixel optics; Hands-on, full review of the i-Mate Ultimate 9502

Show 57 - Creating a work of Position Art with an N82; Faster Google searching on Windows Mobile and S60; Hands-on, full review of the Samsung i550 smartphone

Show 56 - News of Windows Mobile 6.1 and other top stories, the Smartphones Show FAQ, a guest spot, explaining Tilt Shift treatment of smartphone photos, plus a hands-on mini-review of the Nokia N81 8GB

Show 55 - hands-on review of the Samsung i450 (the poor man's Nokia N95?), reflections on the Apple iPhone SDK and future gaming plans, plus a walk through on adding push GMail to your smartphone

Show 54 - news from CeBIT, a walkthrough of geotagging and photo sharing with Nokia's Ovi, a look at the Blackberry Internet Service and a tutorial on putting in a Windows Mobile 6 upgrade to a bargain basement smartphone

Show 53 - extended news from Mobile World Congress, plus iPhone tips, reflections on convergence progress in the last 10 years.

Show 52 - hands-on review of the Palm Treo 500v, a roundup of the very best S60/Symbian applications and a mini-review of the Blackberry Curve 8310.

Show 51 - hands-on review of the Sony Ericsson W960i, plus Apple iPhone tips

Show 50 - hands-on review of the Nokia N82, with every gadget under the sun and a Xenon flash; an introduction to the world of the RIM Blackberry - is it a serious smartphone contender?

Show 49 - a look at some smartphone bargains; overview of the HTC Touch and Touch Dual, plus a review of all the add-on keyboard utilities;using your smartphone as a wireless modem for your laptop

Show 48 - extended news, including the Nokia N82, plus a real world head-to-head between the Apple iPhone and Nokia N95 8GB

Show 47 - hands on review of the Nokia E51 smartphone, plus a feature on qwerty keyboard input on mobile devices and a walkthrough of upgrading a Windows Mobile 5 device to Windows Mobile 6

Show 46 - news and a bumper head-to-head review - Nokia E90 versus AT&T Tilt (a.k.a. HTC Kaiser, TyTN II, etc.)

Show 45 - video news from the London Smartphone Show 2007, review of the Nokia N95 8GB and a report on MP4 video software

Show 44 - video news from HTC's big launch day in London this week, with hands-on time with the Shift, the Touch Dual and the S730; "Can a smartphone replace a laptop?"

Show 43 - news from the smartphone world, including video from Nokia's E51 launch and Apple's iPhone UK launch, a look ahead to the London Smartphone Show and a hands-on review of the UBiQUiO 503G

Show 42 - news from the smartphone world, including video from Nokia's huge Go:Play event in London; tips for getting best performance out of your smartphone's GPS; my pick of the Top 5 most desirable smartphones in the world

Show 41 - a bit of a GPS theme - a roundup of five completely free GPS navigation solutions for your smartphone and a hands-on review of the new Nokia 6110 Navigator.

Show 40 - I define my Smartphone 'Standard' for 2007 and highlight the Nokia N95, plus a hands-on review of the Windows Mobile flagship, the Toshiba G900 - was it pushed out the door too quickly?

Show 39 - A hands-on review of the Nokia 6120 Classic, a hands-on review of the Sony Ericsson P1i, and a feature on syncing to an online PIM service (MobiCal)

Show 38 - A hands-on review of the Apple iPhone, comparing to the music-focussed Sony Ericsson W950i Walkman and the Nokia E61i Communicator.