You know what would be great? A handheld device that lets you check your email. Yes, yes, we know there are several such devices around but all the Blackberries and iPhones and E91s and HTC Touches.. they are all hampered by the fact that you can do other things with them like make phoncalls or play games. Not so the Peek.
No wait, we have the the wrong way around.. it is the Peek that is hampered by the fact that there are loads of devices that do what it does and more, while it is just lets you check your mail. That’s it, there is no more.
It’s difficult to know what Peek are getting at with their self-titled debut. Is there really a market consisting of hyper-focused email obsessives who hate answering the phone so much they would rather spend $99 on a device that doesn’t do voice? Even corporate contracts seem like wishful thinking on the part of this new startup. Why pay a $20/month contract for such a limited device when you are likely to have to pay for a phone as well?
Maybe I have this all wrong, though. Anybody out there who thinks this sounds like a winner? Let us know in the comments, please.
If you are jealous of Blackberry owners’ ability to always, always, ALWAYS be working and to never be more than a pocket vibration away from the next urgent office memo (or if you just like getting emails from your mates when you are out and about) you might want to take a look at BlueWhaleMail.
BWM is a free push email service that runs on most Java-capable mobile phones. With push email, you never have to go and check to see if you have any email waiting for you - the email app will do it for you and just let you know when something new pops up.
Of course when we say free we mean that the app is free to download and use - it is supported by banner ads above your mail - but you still have to cover the cost of having an email app check your mail server every couple of minutes.
This can work out quite expensive if you don’t have an ‘all you can eat’ data plan. Unusually (and commendably) BWM have gone to some lengths to show you how much using their service will actually cost you, and to recommend reasonable data packages from a variety of providers. For example, a light user (2-3 emails per day) can expect to use up about 9MB of data per month. A heavy user (50-100 emails per day) will use up to 50MB per month. If you were on a typical PAYG SIM this could cost around £143.
Signup is pretty simple, with a java applet on the BWM site doing most of the legwork. BlueWhaleMail is available here.
Well if it’s good enough for sex, chocolate and World of Warcraft, then it is good enough for texting and emailing (just ask Blackberry owners) so reports Ottawa Citizen.
According to an editorial in this month’s issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, Internet addiction or compulsive e-mail/text messaging (among other things) is a common enough compulsive-impulsive disorder to warrant a place in psychiatry’s official guidebook of mental disorders.
Apparently text and email addiction have all the classic hallmarks; cravings, urges, withdrawal an increased desire for better equipment and software, or more and more hours online. Dr. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, claims that sufferers can lose track of time and neglect “basic drives,” such as eating or sleeping. Worse still, relapses are common among sufferers and in some cases psychoactive medications or hospitalization are necessary.
He argues that the phenomenon warrants being included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, psychiatry’s official dictionary of mental illnesses. The next edition is due out in 2012 so it will be a while before we know if text and email addiction make the cut. It seems likely though, we can think of several people we could have sectioned if this comes to pass.
(Via textually)
Market research firm ChangeWave Research claims that 59% of iPhone-owning business customers are “very satisfied” with the handset, compared to 47% of BlackBerry users, 40% of Nokia users, 30% of Samsung users, 25% of Motorola users and a lowly 10% of Palm users.
People have already seized on the survey as proof that the iPhone could unseat the BlackBerry as the device of choice for business users. To which I say “Phooey!”. Of course people love the iPhone, with its touchscreen and intuitive user interface. There’s no reason why businesspeople should be immune to these features either.
But is an iPhone really more satisfying to use for mobile email - the most popular business application on phones - than a BlackBerry, considering the latter’s physical keyboard and full push-email features? Can you get iPhone working easily with a corporate network, and will your IT admin let you? It’s questions like these that would really show if iPhone has a future as a business handset. Apple certainly isn’t marketing it as such…
(via Zdnet)
I am forever missing calls and texts due to my phone being at the bottom of a bag or a pocket and my ears being full of MP3s. Remind Me looks like it could save me a considerable amount of grief - perhaps it will do so for you.
The app runs on S60 3rd Edition phones and reminds you (do you see what they did there?) about a missed text message, email or calls by playing an alert every couple of minutes until you deal with it. You can configure both the alert tone and volume as well as the period between reminders.
Reminders are tied in to your phone’s Profile settings so you can elect to receive (e.g.) only call reminders while in ‘General’ or SMS & Email reminders while in ‘Outdoor’ mode.
Remind Me is available from MobiFun on a 10-day trial - the full version costs 10 Euros.
Apple’s iPhone is, let’s face it, a consumer device. By which I mean if you work for a big company, your IT department isn’t going to be certifying it for syncing to your office PC any day soon. Plus your boss won’t sign off any £269 expenses from the O2 shop. For shame.
However, iPhone is gradually finding friends in the corporate world, including companies like SAP and Salesforce.com, with the former even announcing that the next version of its CRM software will work on iPhone BEFORE BlackBerry has. Why? Their own sales bods were buying iPhones, then asking the company if they could use them for work purposes.
Analysts say iPhones could become more popular within workplaces for this very reason, especially if Apple signs deals to beef up the device’s integration with corporate email.
That means licensing Microsoft’s Exchange technology, mind. ‘If they made the iPhone compatible with Windows e-mail, meaning Outlook, that would really make sales take off,’ US analyst Shaw Wu told Reuters.
Something tells me the iPhone isn’t going to see off BlackBerry handsets with physical keyboards anytime soon in this sector, but what do you think?
(via Yahoo News)
If your Windows Mobile smartphone’s full of pictures, videos and music tracks, what are you going to do with them? How about turn them into your own short film complete with soundtrack, special effects and narration.
TrackAxMobile is the smartphone version of a PC program letting you take your content, put it together into a ‘video mix’ including videos, photos, text, effects, soundtrack and narration, even credits, which you can then share via YouTube, Flickr and other, similar sites. Or, if you’d prefer you can save it and email or MMS the video to your mates.
It’s incredibly easy to use and with the minimum of practice you could creating your own mobile masterpieces in a matter of minutes.
If it sounds interesting, there’s a seven-day evaluation version you can try from trackAx, or you can buy it for around £15.
Momail, a free mobile aggregation service, has just launched in the UK.
The service - previously only available in Scandinavia - is designed to be easy to use, mainly by gathering all your incoming emails on separate accounts, into one inbox.
What makes this so appealing is that you don’t need to download special software or anything because Momail uses the pre-installed email platforms already embedded in handsets. It will also automatically configure pictures and documents in attachments for viewing on your mobile.
Momail claims its service can work on over 950 different mobile phones released in Europe alone - including the iPhone.
When you reply to emails, Momail will automatically configure the answer to come from the email account to which they were sent.
And that’s not all. Momail can be automatically configured to handle email traffic with the minimum of user input and will automatically check for viruses. Push alerts and remote PC access (anywhere in the world) are also cool additional features.
Momail is free to use, you just have to pay for the emails you send and receive from your mobile. To find out more or sign up, go to the Momail website here.
