Steve P. Jobs died yesterday at 56 due to complications of pancreatic cancer.
Steve was a true visionary, that had a taste for product design and a perfectionist mind that led Apple to the top of the industry, in sales, units sold and most importantly – customer loyalty.
Steve, I wasn’t an Apple fanboy from the start, in fact, I was one of the ‘I’ll never get an iPhone’ type of people, and later ‘I’ll never get an iPad’. But now, I’m sporting both. As a marketer I’ll continue to take chapters from the unwritten book by which you conducted Apple’s PR and marketing, which made Apple one of the top brands in the world, and definitely the most loved one.
You have changed the industry with your breakthrough ideas and beautifully designed products, and changed the way I, and my family, lives. So thank you. And RIP.
We’re doing brilliant things here, around data compression – very relevant to business travelers, and travelers in general. In a sentence: Onavo is about saving you money when you’re doing data roaming with your iPhone (Android coming soon) abroad.
We’re currently in closed alpha, but accepting new beta testers. If you want to join, email your name and mobile carrier to: info at onavo.com.
For those in a hurry, here’s the 3min summary of the Google Zeitgeist 2010:
LOTS of data can be found in the Google list, and plenty of insight is available on each search query. There’s also an interactive map where you can zoom in, change timeline and compare events – feel free to explore for yourselves.
Last month at Nokia World 2010 I caught a glimpse of Foursquare for Symbian, demoed by Foursquare stuff, and have been waiting patiently for it to become publicly available. Earlier October, it has been released to Ovi Store.
The Profile screen
Most Symbian users (me included) haven’t waited for the official app, using the excellent Gravity application to manage our twitter, facebook, google reader and foursquare – but Gravity had its limitations with Foursquare, such as adding/viewing tips and to-dos. After a week or so of using Foursquare for Symbian, couple of thoughts:
Richness of features
Unlike Gravity, Foursquare for Symbian has all the features of the other mobile apps (iPhone, Android and Blackberry) – a big advantage. Now, after checking-in to a place, I can view to-dos, add tips, view nearby twitter updates and much more. I can also approve/decline new requests and add new friends – actions I could do only on the web (or mobile web) until now.
Tips for Ben Gurion Airport
Register new users
A big plus for Foursquare. Although it’s the most popular LBS in the world, it still lags in total number of users compared to giants as facebook and twitter. The ability to join Foursquare from the app itself can ease hundreds of millions of Nokia owners into the location-based arena.
User interface
Something’s went wrong here, not clear why. In both the touch and keyboard versions (see Foursquare demoed on Nokia N8 at the bottom of this post), the actual screen allocated to Places, Friends, To-dos, is too small. The top and bottom include Foursquare and Phone menus, leaving just 2 lines of results to be displayed in each screen (Friends, Places, To-dos, Profile). Symbian is the 4th mobile app to be released (with Android already in V2.0), so the UX/UI was already available. Even on the N8, with its 3.6″ screen, there are too many menus and logos and too little LBS information.
Performance
Get used to this screen, speed isn't its strong suit
I tested Foursquare for Symbian on my Nokia E72, which was installed on the 8GB memory card, running from the phone’s 256MB memory (my actual free memory is under 60MB). Start-up time is awful, about 30 seconds and navigating from one screen to the next also takes too much time (compared to Gravity). An action of checking-in to a place (assuming the app is running) takes about 45-60 seconds – way to much for the mobile worker on the go.
Overall
Foursquare for Symbian was due a long time ago, but it’s finally here. The UI isn’t perfect and I would appreciate the option of changing the default ‘homepage’ (from Friends to Places). Nokia users finally have a free alternative (Gravity costs 9.95 USD) to help them make the first step into LBS.
I’ll be attendingNokia World 2010 next week, Sep. 14-15, at London, UK, the first Israeli blogger to attend this yearly Nokia conference. I, along with several journalists, are flying to London as guests of Eurocom-Nokia (Nokia Israel), who are covering our expenses.
I’m arriving to London on Monday noon (the 13th) and will be leaving Wednesday night (the 15th). Not much time, and plenty of things to do (scroll down to my agenda), but I’d love to meet fellow Nokia World attendees, facebook/twitter/LinkedIn friends in the area, or colleagues, for a beer (or burger, depending on the time).
The Experience Lounge will feature pretty much everything Nokia and its business partners are offering, including latest products, offerings, services and applications, as well as a networking platform for mobile experts.
Here’s my agenda so far – if you have any suggestions, do add them in the comments and I’ll do my best to attend. You can follow me on twitter and foursquare for the latest updates, announcements, pictures, videos and check-ins.
This is my personal blog. The postings here do not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of my past employers or of my clients. It is solely my opinion.
