Mobile Phone News:

A recent survey carried out by the price comparison website Moneysupermarket.com questioned 2,000 UK adults about what they hate most about mobile phone usage. The top five pet hates are (in no particular order): people talking loudly on the phone; a person texting while talking to them; loud music being played on phones; using a phone in a restaurant; and swearing on the phone in public.

The conclusion to these annoying habits of others? Slapping an Anti-Social Behaviour Order (ASBO) on them, that’s what! ASBOs are usually reserved for rowdy vandals who just generally want to cause mischief and upset, but one in ten Brits think the Anti-Social Behaviour Orders should be given to ‘inconsiderate’ mobile phone users.

An ASBO is, and I quote : “a binding agreement between a person or persons who have committed acts of anti-social behaviour and the police. The principle behind these orders is that they act as a legal and binding contract signed by all parties concerned in the hope that they will reduce the chances of the individual in receipt of the ASBO from causing any further acts of anti-social behaviour”. According to LawandParents.co.uk, two forms of activity which can see you being given an ASBO include: “using intimidating verbal language” and “causing excessive noise”. (So technically, three of the things mentioned in the list of bug-bears, above!!)

More than half of respondents said they believe that the thoughtless use of mobiles in public should be punished - with the most popular option being a 12-month ban on using their phone in public. But one in 10 respondents went further; suggesting offending mobile users should be given ASBOs.

So next time you’re out in public - let’s say on a train somewhere - and being a little too loud on your mobile, stop and think about others in the carriage around you - most of us don’t want to listen to how the plumber showed up 20minutes late, or how your colleague is a pain in the butt, or even what you are having for tea that night! We don’t want to listen to your fowl language and we certainly don’t want to listen to your music, most of us have iPods for that! So if you think you’re being clever and cocky doing any of the above, think again, cos we’ll be the ones having the last laugh when you are issued with an ASBO and your cheeks turn a slight shade of red. Ooooh, imagine the silence that will descend, closely followed by the titter of sniggers from the people around…

Leave us your thoughts about the use of ASBO’s for these inconsiderate phone users.

According to BoyGeniusReport.com by the end of the year, the iPhone will be available in Singapore, India, the Philippines, Australia and Canada. Apple seems to be shying away from exclusivity agreements; the SingTel version will be an exclusive launch in the Philippines and Singapore, however Vodafone is currently set to offer the iPhone in India and Australia. Optus is also set to provide Australian service while Rogers, a Canadian network operator has said they will pick up the iPhone later this year too.

The question on everyone’s lips, is will these countries opt for the current 2G iPhone, or the much awaited 3G version? My thought is, due to the lack of stock of the current model, it will be the next-gen 3G version of the handset.

Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. (the software provider for the iPhone) has announced their financial results for 2008 first quarter and stated that: “we have materially lowered our growth expectations for 2008 due in large part to reduced revenues associated with the iPhone”.

In saying that, Apple have really come up against it, with a recent report stating that in 2007 an Austrian discount chain was selling unlocked Apple iPhones, while T-Mobile sold unlocked handsets in Germany for a short time. Then in February this year, of the 3.7 million iPhones in operation in China, 10% were being operated unlocked. Only in France are unlocked iPhones officially sold, through Orange, as the law requires it there (French law dictates consumers must have the choice of choosing to buy an unlocked version). However, disappointing sales of the iPhone across Europe have recently seen Apple agree to let Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) sell unlocked iPhones without mandatory service contracts in Italy.

The sheer demand for the current iPhone is possible proof enough that the popularity of the new handset will be equally as huge… if not bigger! Unfortunately, with websites offering to unlock iPhones for as little as £29.00 (or even for free) the battle continues to make these handsets as ‘hack-free’ as possible.

Leave a comment and tell us your thoughts.

Has anyone noticed the cleverly worded adverts that appear to offer things like mobile games, ringtones and wallpapers for ‘free’, only to sting you with some indecipherable small print after you’ve signed up?

Well I have been caught out by something similar. I’m not 100% sure how it’s come about, but I’ve got a pretty good idea, and I’m quite cross. So I thought I’d warn you, as you may be getting ripped off in a similar fashion.

The last few months, I received two messages a week; the first was a little enticer - it said something along the lines of “answer the question in the following message correctly to be entered in to a prize draw to win a Wii / Apple iPhone / LCD TV” etc etc. basically dangling a carrot in front of your nose to generate interest and get people to reply. Then the second message would come through with the question and three possible answers. Now, I didn’t fall for this (as such) because the questions were so darn easy that the chances of winning were like a million to one! (And with Google etc you stood a pretty low chance of winning anyway, even if the question had been tricky!)

Anyway, I was getting these messages quite a lot, but I would simply delete them as soon as they arrived. I remember thinking “Ooo, a text message! Who’s this from? Oh… 81121″ and this feeling of disappointment would swoop over as I found it wasn’t a message from a friend haha. But one day I actually read one of the messages and the opening line was, and I quote: “FREE MESSAGE” and for some reason, that I really can’t put my finger on I immediately thought “Hmmmmmmm”. I got straight on the phone to my network operator and explained the story. She got my details up on screen and her reply was, again, I quote “Oh dear, you’re getting ripped off there Miss!”

It turns out these “free” messages were actually charging me! Despite me not doing anything with them other than deleting them!! In one month, I’d received EIGHT text messages and had been charge £6.00!! I was furious! The assistant was fantastic and advised me on what to do, which was to simply text the word “STOP” to the number. And like magic, they stopped. But even so, over the months I’d been receiving these messages I’d lost out on £15.00!!

The assistant and I got chatting and it turns out that my number may have been stored, after texting in to a TV show to vote for my favourite person to win. Now, I can’t say exactly which is one because I don’t want to point my finger and accuse wrongly but things such as reality TV shows are a classic example. Granted, this sort of thing has been going on for a long time, since certain shows were fined for still charging people for entering competitions etc after the closing times, but you don’t necessarily realise that you are a victim of it. Despite this being the case, industry regulator PhonepayPlus (the watchdog formerly known as ICSTIS) has only recently announced that it’ll be keeping a sharper eye on services.

I did a little scouting round the internet and according to The Register problems with this kind of complaint seem to have arisen from companies clearly breaking rules, for not ‘outlining clear and accurate pricing and honest advertising’, for which penalties have already been imposed in 2008. A formal review is underway that will look at how to deal with unsolicited texts and the wanton use of the word ‘free’.

According to The Register, teenagers are by far the largest target audience for these sorts of promotions, so you may want to have a little chat with kiddiewinks who have a mobile phone of their own and just advise them that there is a chance they are actually being charged for services they believe to be ‘free’.

So my advice to you is, anything that you think is suspicious and not as legit as it wants to claim, investigate with your network operator. You could be losing out on money too that you really didn’t want to give away to some sneaky company who want to cash in your vote. If you are texting for ‘free’ ringtones etc, just check the print, because you will more than likely find that you are being charged for every message you receive. It borders on exploitation if you are apathetic towards or unaware of the sorts of hidden costs you might encounter, and I’d hate to put a figure on how much they’ve managed to scam along the way…. I bet it’s along the lines of millions though!

Let me know your thoughts or share stories with us.

According to The Register a glitzy London hotel was the setting for the launch of HTC’s new handset, The Diamond. It’s the latest phone in a long line of heavyweight contenders to try and grab the crown from the iPhone - following a recent announcement from HTC, it seems as though Apple will have quite a fight on its hands.

The Diamond is roughly the same size as Apple’s iPhone, the display’s resolution is a much larger (480 x 640), although the HTC device has a smaller, 2.8in touchscreen. Again, similar to the iPhone, users can view the album covers of their music and flick across from image to image - the phone’s internal accelerometer (I feel like I should say that in a deep manly voice!) allows images to be viewed either horizontally or vertically with a flick of the wrist (sound familiar….?). Other features to mention are the built in A-GPS that you can use with your choice of satnav software and 3.5G data allowing speeds up to 7.2MBps accompanying high upload speeds via HSUPA (where’s Technical Markus when you need him hey?). There’s also built in WiFi, Bluetooth 2.0, an FM radio and 3.2MP camera.

In addition to this impressive range of specifications we think it looks great as well. The back of The Diamond is very much like another big seller; Nokia’s 7900 Prism, but you could argue that this is simply a “coincidence”, call it a play on a theme - the zigzag effect is similar to that of a diamond… but then I am a girl so possibly looking in to this a little too much! Haha.

Now, I don’t get excited about a new handset very often, but the vid below shows that it IS a goooorgeous phone!! As is very similar to the Apple model, and after playing around with friends iPhones and having endless fun just flicking through the album covers, I have to say I’m rather impressed with this phone. Although, that being said, as marvellous as this all sounds, what I reeeeeeeally want to know is; will the HTC Diamond come with a real diamond to boot? We offer gifts with our deals, granted they’re along the lines of a free wii etc but the ultimate gift with this little beauty would be a diamond necklace… or diamond earrings…. or a diamond ring…. or….

HTC have said that The Diamond will be available in the UK next month; however a price has not yet been decided. They also confirmed that all five major UK networks will be selling the phone - shame they can’t confirm that you could get a REAL diamond as a free gift though….

Check out the vid and let us know your thoughts. What d’ya think of the handset? And what would be your ultimate free gift?

Canadian phone makers, Research in Motion (RIM) have developed a clamshell Blackberry - a flip-phone Blackberry - and pictures of the new email handset have been leaked all over the web!

RIM, the mobile phone manufacturer who is known for making the business style Blackberry range has decided to take a step closer to a more customer friendly style. According to The Register, the handset, codenamed ‘Kickstart’, uses the SureType keyboard that’s already used on the Blackberry Pearl, along with the central TrackBall for navigation.

Boygeniusreport.com are behind the leakage of this new handset, along with the photos as proof of it’s existence. BGR states: “This isn’t fake, this isn’t a hoax. We’ve known RIM is planning to launch a flip phone within the year, and we now have the pictures to prove it!”. RIM are yet to actually confirm the rumours surrounding this new Blackberry but considering the pictures that have been flying around cyber space, I would say that this is a genuine story from BGR.

Pictures indicate MP3 abilities, along with a camera, which possibly shows that RIM are targeting consumers rather than corporate types… I sometimes consider a Blackberry myself, but I’m just not sure about this. Browsing through the initial set of pics that have been leaked, it’s not exactly an attractive phone. I much prefer the Blackberry 8110 GPS Pink - to quote Melanie, it’s a “gorgeous little device”! I whole-heartedly agree!! Or for the more masculine readers amongst you, there’s always the Blackberry 8310 Curve (it comes in two colours!) with its metallic finish.

Rumour has it they are planning to release the BlackBerry “Kickstart” by the end of the year, although we’re yet to get any information on pricing or regional availability etc.

So if you’re a BlackBerry fan and you happen to have always wanted a flip-phone, looks like your wish will soon come true. Now… considering the time of year this may be launched, a certain song by Mariah springs to mind! However… I’m no karaoke queen and seeing as the sun has finally decided to show itself, I won’t spoil it!!

Let us know your thoughts about the flip-phone Blackberry. Will it be appearing on your Christmas list this year?

People are going Mobile Broadband craaaaaaaaaaaaaazy. The world of advertising is obsessed with the must have dongle gadget that is taking over everyone’s laptops!

For example:

Just the other day I was in Surrey on business and everywhere we looked there was a mobile broadband advertisement…. whether it was a 20 foot advertisement at the train station, a P4U ad going up/down the underground escalators or simply information on the paddles of the tube. There’s no escaping the new obsession when you’re darn saaarf.

Also, I went to le cinema a couple of times last weekend (to see a different film I will add!) and although it was like déjà-vu watching the same ads again, the one that stood out was the Vodafone ad, with the little dude flying through space trying to race the dongle as it sped past at 7.2Mbps (14 times faster than standard 3G I will say!) Then I’ve seen that ad a million times since!

Aaaand finally, I listen to good old Galaxy Radio every morning on my way to work, and Hirsty, Danny & JoJo have been giving away a 3 dongle every day this week! What made me chuckle the most though was the examples they gave of where you can use this “amazing… thing” (that’s a quote btw) and some of them I can’t really publish!

Now if you haven’t heard of Mobile Broadband (or MBB as it’s called in the industry) WHERE’VE YOU BEEN?!?! But for those of you who may not know…. Mobile Broadband for laptops is a sophisticated new technology that allows you to access the internet on your laptop almost anywhere, even when you’re abroad.

So go on, take a look at the Mobile Broadband options we offer, with a USB Modem, and you will have to agree that it does what it says on the tin - they give you fully-mobile full-internet, wherever you are, at speeds so fast that it’s quicker than Speedy Gonzales himself!!

Oooooh dear, I think the advertising has gone to my head!!!! Time for the weekend I think….

Keep an eye out over the weekend for MBB adverts and let us know where you’ve seen them. Whether it’s in a magazine or a poster on the side of a bus, let us know!

Another wacky invention from the Japanese here: downloadable fragrances on your mobile phone! According to Mobiletor.com using this new, innovative and “exciting” technology, users can download fragrances of their choice which will allow them to “pamper themselves“. I’d much rather go for a facial to pamper myself… or a bit of retail therapy… but each to their own!

Now here comes the technical bit…

Once you have downloaded the scent you want, you transfer it to another device via infrared, which puffs out the fragrance with Gif images as well as sending out tunes that will “soothe you further from the mobile phone screens”. How exactly this is possible, I don’t know - I imagine, in a similar way to that of an ambi pur plug in…?

Mobiletor.com say, and I quote: “the scents will actually be loaded on to a different device which has a common cartridge which mixes the fragrances accordingly and brings in the type of air that has been downloaded on the mobile phone.” Am I the only person that wants to know how the heck they will actually be able to do this?! How can it mix the fragrances?! How will it know the difference between fresh linen smell and that of sweaty socks? It would be just my luck I’d feel like sniffing a squirt of a rose garden and end up with freshly cut grass (which I also quite like, but that’s beside the point!)

Also, there is no mention of whether you can use this with any handset. Will it work on a Blackberry 8110 for example? Or will it be contract / pay as you go specific?! All these questions… So little answers… And seeing as though the new technology is still being worked on, we will have to wait for more info, along with a launch date…

Whaddya think about this new mobile phone accessory? Leave us a comment and have your say.

I’m a big fan of music! Who am I kidding… I’m a HUGE fan of music. So every now and then you’ll find me sat watching music channels, checking out the videos and have having a little sing along / boogie round the living room.

A friend of mine came round last night for a natter so we put the music channels on for a bit of background noise. Then one of my favourite tunes of the moment came on - I hadn’t seen the vid yet and heard that there was a dance in it that was sweeping the dance floors across the globe! But funnily enough, I wasn’t concentrating on that, I was actually trying to determine what model the two handsets are which feature in the vid!

So a bit of “YouTube-age” was going on this morning.

Technical Markus and I are in agreement that one of them is Motorola V3, but the other…. well quite frankly, we’re baffled!

Check out the Soulja Boy video and let me know your thoughts… it features about 30seconds in, and then a few other times, further on.

*blows the dust off keyboard*

Hi everyone! Welcome to my first blog post!!

And what better way to start my new role as First Lady of mobile phones than to bring you news from The Register about LG’s new “skin phone”. Yes, you read that right, “skin phone“.

The LG-SH240 is LG’s latest slider phone - the key selling point of this handset is the silicon texture on the keypad which is said to mimic the feel of real human skin. Now, call me boring, but this is just outrageously gross!! Why would anyone, in their right mind, want to use a phone that feels like skin?! Eeeeeewwwww!

Having researched this a little more, the only other feature to really shout about is the 2 megapixel camera, which, by today’s standards is fairly lame. After releasing an amazing handset such as the Viewty, sporting a 5 megapixel camera (and the camera shots really are amazing quality) I feel that LG are taking a few steps backwards releasing this latest phone, in terms of quality (And… I will add… a few steps too far in the “weird” direction) however there are a few other features of this mobile phone, which maybe make up for the lack of megapixels…. HSDPA for high-speed data transfers and Internet browsing, Bluetooth connectivity, Music player, built-in maps, various dictionaries and video.

Now, not wanting to be disrespectful in any way, this handset is currently only available in South Korea - which didn’t surprise me in the slightest (being LG’s home country, of course) but let’s face it, Korea, Japan & China are home of some of the wildest and wackiest inventions. Having said that, in fairness, we can’t really say if touching the SH240 slider keypad is a nice feeling or just a weird one (my guess? The latter!!) and there are little chances of this handset making it across the waters to Europe or North America, but let us know your thoughts…

Leave us a comment and have your say…. LG-SH240 “Skin phone”. Cool? Or creepy?