If you use the Internet from your phone but are unlucky enough to pay for your 3G usage you probably like the idea of using a wifi-enabled mobile like the Nokia N95. This works great, but it can be a hassle having to reconnect every time you want to go online in a different place and it is easy to forget and use your 3G instead. If you are in a foreign country this can be a VERY expensive mistake.
Psiloc Connect offers a simple solution with the kind of conection management that you would think your phone would do by default. Certainly, if I were a Nokia developer I would be kicking myself for not thinking of this first.
The app does all the hard work for you - just give it a list of wifi access points (or tell it to discover some) and it will try each in order of strength, only falling back on your 3G connection if the wifi fails. If you are really worried about your phone bill, it can be set to ignore the 3G option and just use wifi.
Psiloc Connect is available here for around 10 euros, with a free 10 day trial.
Whisher is a wifi sharing service that asks its members to share their home wireless connection in return for free access to its network - by sharing you effectively become part of that network, allowing Whisher members in your area to use your link.
The service has a substantial number of hotspots worldwide. including hundreds in the UK but the network only supported connections from a Windows or Mac machine running Whisher’s software.
Until now, anyway. Whisher has just launched a client app that will give access to any wifi-enabled Symbian S60 3rd edition Nokia phone.
The app is free to download for Whisher members and installs as a plugin to the Nokia wifi app. Selecting “1Click Whisher” from the connections menu will bring up a list of local connections with icons indicating if they are Free, Commercial or part of the Wisher network.
If any of you have any experience of using Whisher, please let us know in the comments. Is it any good? Just how common are their hotspots in your area?
Wifi connection management can be a bit fiddly on Windows Mobile, but WeFi looks like it might be a step in the right direction.
When activated, the app searches for nearby wifi hotspots and grade the quality of their connection before connecting you to the best. You can specify an app to launch as soon as a connecton is made and WeFi will also alert you if your IM contacts are online.
Here is a quick YouTube clip showing the app in action:
Last week we posted about an app called WMWifi that turns a Windows Mobile 6 device into a portable wifi hotspot.
As if in response to the wailing and gnashing of teeth from jealous Symbian users, freeware developer Joikusoft has released JoikuSpot - a 3rd Edition S60 app that performs much the same trick with Nokia smartphones.
Your phone will need built-in wifi (the app has been tested with the Nokia N95, N82, N90 and E61 among others) and ideally some kind of unlimited data plan with your operator.
If you currently use your phone with your laptop via Bluetooth this is defintely one to check out as you will get much better connection speeds via wifi. Although intended for use with a single laptop, there is nothing to stop you connecting multiple devices at once.
One caveat is that web access is enabled via a proxy server so you may need to reconfigure your browser to autodetect proxy settings if you have problems with HTTPS sites. Joikusoft also recommend updating your phone to the latest firmware for the best performance.
WMWifi is a cunning little app for Windows Mobile 6 that turns your handset into a portable wifi router.
Why would you want to do this? Well, apart from gaining the respect and envy of passing geeks (which should just about make up for the geekcrime of running WinMo in the first place) WMWifi will let you share your phone’s internet connection with any other wifi-capable devices within range.
At it’s simplest this will let you use your phone’s data connection with your laptop or iPod Touch. At the other extreme, you could run a whole office network through it - just be prepared for a shock when you get your phone bill.
The app is under development and there is no official documentation, although this forum at XDA Developers board has some fairly comprehensive notes with lots of tips provided by users.
WMWifi is available from here and is free for non-commercial use.
T-Mobile has thrown the cat among the pigeons by announcing free access to it’s wifi hotspot network to new users of it’s Web ‘n’ Walk data plan.
T-Mobile has the world’s largest hotspot network with some 39,000 access points of which around 1,200 are in the UK.
Pricing starts at £12.50 per month (with a Flext contract) and offers speeds of up to 8 mbps. Users have access to a 3G data connection and can switch to using a wifi hotspot when in range.
No word on how this affects existing users, but you would be rather annoyed if you had just taken out a contract and then spotted this post telling you you should have waited another week. If this applies to you - we are sorry, please don’t blame the messenger.
Ever wanted to copy a file from your PC onto your phone, but don’t fancy the hassle of connecting via USB and fiddling around with a file manager?
If your phone supports wifi and you have a Windows XP machine, Miniserver could be just what you need.
Miniserver is - as its name might suggest - a mini webserver.
Install it on your PC and tell it the directories that you want to share and then simply use your phone’s wifi connection to browse to a specially-created web page where you can download files from the shared directory to your phone, or vice-versa.
As well as an XP PC you will need a working wifi router that both the PC and phone can connect to. The app will autodetect your PC’s network settings and tell you the address to which you need to point your phone’s browser.
Although the app can be configured to run automatically when your PC starts up, it doesn’t seem to have much in the way of security so I would recommend not sharing any sensitive files and only enabling it when you need to copy a file - at least until that version number climbs a little higher.
The great thing about the mobile gadget market is that it is still all up for grabs. If 2007 was (eventually) the year of the iPhone, Apple’s finest has given the industry a vigorous-enough shaking that the only certainty for 2008 is that Nokia, Motorola & co will be falling over themselves trying to compete with it.
Here is my 2008 wish list.
1. A better iPhone.
Yes, well. It’s ok ,isn’t it? Impressive to look at, innovative, blah blah, etc. But we know that Apple can do better. iPhone 2.0 needs a better camera, some kind of text-entry system that doesn’t require the use of bizarre finger-condoms for high-speed texting and, above all, for Apple to unclench their buttocks and open the phone up to 3rd-party developers.
There is a wealth of programming talent out there that is already producing some amazing apps for hacked iPhones - it would be great if users could try them out without having to void their warranty and risk turning their phone into a plastic brick the next time Apple releases a firmware update.
Continue reading ‘Stuart Houghton’s 2008 wishlist’
Handy Wi sounds like a competitor to mobile toilet-finder SatLav, or perhaps a cheap knock-off of a certain popular games console - but no, in fact it is a Symbian S60 3rd edition app for finding and connecting your mobile phone to wifi networks.
A free download, Handy Wi searches for any wifi hotspots nearby and shows clearly which are open for access.
It can detect most common flavours of wifi - including several commercial services like Wispr and FON. It also lets you manage account numbers and access codes for multiple services and can be set to automatically switch to the strongest wifi source in range, so making VoIP a lot more practical and usable.
The app creates a new Internet Access point on your phone - HandyWi APN, so you just need to set that as the default connection for your other apps and everything should work seamlessly.
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