I received some limited information from 3UK yesterday, about a new £10 per month plan.  This is aimed at the many current customers who topup with £10 a month; in essence, 3UK seems to be saying “instead of spending £10 per month on topups, take a £10 per month contract, and this means you won’t need to topup each month, and we’ll even throw in a new phone in the deal”.

Given 3UK’s current lowest plan is a £12 per month contract, and that’s a promotional rate, it’s not clear whether this will be a promotional tariff or a permanent plan (as permanent as any mobile tariff ever is).  Also, I wouldn’t expect the high end phones such as the Nokia N97 or HTC Hero being available on this plan, but it’s interesting that they are looking at providing a low end tariff.

I’ve always been a fan of devices which support firmware updates, but I’m even more of a fan of devices where manufacturers release firmware updates that not just fix problems, but also add new features, and that latter category now applies to Canon and the Canon EOS 5D Mk2, with the new v2.0.3 firmware.

Already sporting some impressive video capture capabilities (on top of being a pretty good DSLR), Canon have said the new firmware will contain:

“The addition of new frame rates expands the camera’s video potential, providing filmmakers with the ability to shoot 1080p Full HD footage at 24fps (actual 23.976fps) – the optimum frame rate for cinematic video. 25fps support at both 1920×1080 and 640×480 resolutions will allow users to film at the frame rate required for the PAL broadcast standard, while the new firmware will also change the 30fps option to the NTSC video standard of 29.97fps.

A new histogram display for shooting movies in manual exposure, shutter-priority (Tv) and aperture-priority (Av) have been added, and exposure modes will also be available in movie mode. Improved audio functionality will allow users to set sound record levels manually using a sound-level meter displayed on the LCD screen. The audio sampling frequency has also been increased from 44.1KHz to 48KHz, providing the optimum audio signal typically required for professional or broadcast material.”

This is good to see, and for those fortunate enough to have a Canon EOS 5D Mk2, the new firmware should be available in the next few weeks.

Having decided to not launch any phones at MWC, Nokia have now launched a new phone at CeBIT instead!  The Nokia C5 phone is a S60 3rd Edition device, and will, like all new GPS-enabled Symbian devices, ship with Free Ovi Maps and Free Navigation.  However, as well as having a facility for updating your Facebook status built into the device, it also has finally brought the level of integration so far only seen on a handful of devices; it will allow you to see your friend’s Facebook status updates within the Contacts application.

The phone will also feature Nokia Messaging for email and IM, and will ship with a 2GB microSD card (and supports upto 16GB).  Even more interesting, when the phone ships in Q2 this year, it should cost around £100 on PAYG, which shows that Symbian is really becoming available across all devices within the Nokia range, and is no longer tied to the high end “smartphones”.

I’m impressed that they have added this level of integration into the device, although it remains to be seen how well Nokia can support this functionality over the months and years to come, especially if Facebook make changes which mean an update is required.  I also hope that Nokia release this application, or Contacts plugin for other devices, or at least integrate it into the firmware of other devices.

Here’s an interesting application, which was pointed out to me today; it’s called Juice Defender (despite the screenshot saying Juice Control), which allows you to create a set of rules to limit certain battery draining functions; for instance, you can set it to only activate 3G & WiFi for a minute every few minutes, and whilst it does the activation, it will also check for updates and emails, but will then shut those connections back down to help save battery.  There is a element of being location-aware, so you can set rules based on location too (although you’ll need Ultimate Juice for that, which is available from the Android Market).

There are 5 main triggers:

• Battery – when battery level gets low (less than 15%), disable APN/WiFi, and re-enable them when battery level is restored. APN/WiFi will also be enabled while the device is being recharged.

• Schedule – regularly enable APN/WiFi for a short period of time, to let background data sync occur (email, Twitter, Facebook, stock quotes…). If Quick is disabled APN/WiFi stays enabled for a longer period, useful if your data connection is very slow or you need to sync lots of data.

• Night schedule (requires UltimateJuice) – disable APN/WiFi during night time; you can also optionally put the phone in Silent Mode.

• Screen – enable APN/WiFi while the screen is on to allow browsing, tweeting, procrastination and general internet-powered enjoyment, regardless of scheduled events and battery level.

• Location (requires UltimateJuice) – this trigger controlled by the ‘AutoWiFi’ button. It disables WiFi when the device is not in range of any known WiFi network. The location is determined via the cellular network, so it’s usually quite coarse. It’s a fully automatic set-it-and-forget-it WiFi manager!

The priority order of the triggers is 1) location (WiFi only), 2) screen, 3) battery, 4) night schedule, 5) schedule – this means, for example, that when the screen is on APN/WiFi will be enabled even when the battery is low, or that the regular schedule won’t occur during the night period.

This looks a very interesting application, although whether Locale (which we covered here) offers more facilities (especially if you have regular access to a power source).  If you are interested in Juice Defender, then see the authors website here.

On Friday I mentioned that v3.04 of Ovi Maps was available from Nokia Beta Labs.  Since then I’ve discovered that one of the main ways that this version can claim “Improved positioning speed and accuracy” is that within the application Ovi Maps now includes support for WiFi positioning.  Now, many of us are used to seeing this feature within Google Maps, which uses both Cell ID and WiFi positioning as well as having GPS support.

This now makes 3 different solutions available for Symbian; Google and their Cell ID and WiFi positioning within Google Maps (Google positioning is also used within the latest Alpha version of Gravity, the Social Networking client for Symbian via the fairly new public API), Skyhook Wireless and their Maps Booster solution (which we covered here, and adds support for Cell ID and WiFi positioning into the OS, making it available to all apps), and now Nokia are supporting WiFi positioning within Ovi Maps (in a similar way that Google support it within their Maps application).

This is a nice feature to see, although personally I would have preferred Nokia to either work with Skyhook Wireless, or to integrate the solution into the OS in the same way that Maps Booster does, as just providing it within their own application seems a little selfish, however, it’s a good start.  After all, on the iPhone there is a single positioning system used by all applications, although I do note that Android is expanding; whereas the base OS uses Google’s system, GoWalla (a social location app similar to FourSquare) now uses the Skyhook Wireless Cell ID and WiFi positioning information.

Apparently Nokia have been working on this for some while, to the extent that for the last 6 months Nokia employees across the world have been collecting WiFi location data for Nokia, allowing them to start with a fairly comprehensive database, as opposed to starting with no data at all.  I’m still waiting to understand from Nokia how exactly the WiFi location system will work in the long term; for example, if you have GPS enabled within Google Maps, then you will help Google self-learn new Cell IDs and new WiFi access points by providing the data to Google.  This self-learning also helps when an access point moves due to the consumer moving house (something I experienced when I purchased a WiFi access point from a friend, where Google constantly placed me in the old location of the access point until sufficient GPS-based survey data lead Google’s self-learning system to move the location to my house).

In comparison, Maps Booster from Skyhook Wireless relies upon their own data collection, although there is a website where you can notify them of errors in the database, which (again, based on personal experience) only takes a few days to update with the new information.  Having said that, I don’t know whether the iPhone location positioning (that is provided by Skyhook Wireless) has any element of self-learning.

As I said, at this stage, I’m not sure what method Nokia are using for learning of changes, although I hope to be able to report on that soon.

On the other hand, I have been using Maps Booster on a couple of Symbian phones since writing about it, and I am finding it very useful.  It has had the odd little blip, where it has put me in the US a couple of times, but then over the same period of tested it, Google Maps has placed me hundreds of miles away from phone too.  It seems to me that Maps Booster has some element of caching of data, as when I am at home and in range of a number of WiFi access points, my location appears pretty instantly in Ovi Maps, whereas at work, where it relies upon cell ID only, it seems to take a little longer to place me.  Although this still relies upon having an internet connection, using it with Ovi Maps (with the maps already downloaded via the Nokia Map Updater) it uses a lot less data than Google Maps for a similar journey, which is good news.  For longer journeys, I would still recommend using the GPS to keep the location information accurate, but for short journeys, especially walking (and especially when in between tall buildings, such as London), then Maps Booster is proving to me to be as useful as Google Maps’ equivalent.

Of course, ironically just after I wrote about wondering whether I could live without Google Maps and use Ovi Maps instead, Google released Google Buzz, which shows Google is still innovating within their client, and which has probably lead to me using both clients; I would love to switch away from Google Maps, but until Nokia integrate more sharing options into their client, or applications take advantage of the Ovi Maps SDK, I’m pretty tied into Google Latitude (more than I realised when I thought I could move away from Google Maps).

Finally, over the weekend I asked Nokia to comment on the situation regarding coverage on elder phones, and received the comment “It’s coming”.  Now I can’t guarantee that was aimed at FP1 (as opposed to supporting more FP2 phones which is still formally missing), but I think we’ll see an announcement from Nokia on this issues soon, but not immediately (I would suggest another few months before we see anything definitive).

Nokia have released, via the Nokia Beta Labs, an update to the Free Ovi Maps solution, now at v3.04.  The new features are:

• Improved positioning speed and accuracy
• Map zooming with faster speed
• Improved search for cities with zoom out to city level

This is good to see, and if you want to try it out (remember it’s a beta version, so may not be perfect), then head over to the Nokia Beta Labs to download this new version.  If you think your device (whether S60 3rd Edition FP2 or S60 5th Edition) is not supported, it’s worth trying one of the other similar models (within the same OS group); eg if you are using a Nokia N86 or Nokia E75, then try the 3rd Edition FP2 version even though your model is not explicitly listed; strangely some people seem to have had success with this method, and others not, so it’s not clear whether or not other devices of the same OS (other than the original 10 or so Nokia announced) can access this software or not.

One word of warning; if you are using a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, you need at least v31 firmware, which is still not available for some Orange models and all 3UK Nokia 5800 XpressMusic devices, and this despite 3UK giving assurances last month that they were working at fast as possible to get this update out to their users.

Now, about all those of us with S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices; Nokia released a statement (via a Q&A session) about supporting existing and elder devices with the Free Ovi Maps service.  They said they were working to extend the compatibility to other current devices (although I believe they meant FP2 devices), and from now on, all GPS enabled devices will be supported with Free Ovi Maps, but could not give any timelines or guarantees over elder devices; although a ray of hope was that their exact comment was “We can’t say when it will be available”, which seems to imply there is still a chance it will happen.

What I can say is that the Beta of v3.04 isn’t available in an FP1 version, so it’s fair to say it’s going to be a while longer before it comes out, if it ever does…

When I met up with 3UK last month, they were explaining that generally the main reason they take longer to get phones is that as a company they will purchase a much smaller quantity of any particular phone than the larger networks, and hence their requests for stock and customisations will always take second place.  They also commented that in terms of phones like the iPhone, they felt the costs were too high, both to them and to the consumer.  Well, I think this is about to change…

The day before I met 3UK I heard rumours that their Customer Services staff had been saying they would be carrying the iPhone within 3 months, and both that and a direct question on whether 3UK would be stocking the iPhone were, looking back, not actually answered on the night.

This week I’ve heard more Customer Services staff saying the iPhone will come next month (although personally I suspect it’ll be announced in the next month or so, as opposed to being on sale), and 3UK have put out a statement today saying that they don’t have a commercial relationship with Apple, but that they hope to resolve that in 2010.  That post also states that the Nokia E71 was their best selling phone of 2009, but what it doesn’t say is that the HTC Hero, costing £35 per month, is their current best selling phone.  This shows that buyers are willing to spend £35 per month on a 3UK contract, something that may not have been so apparent a year ago when PAYG and £15-£20 per month contracts were much more common.

Combine all these thoughts with statements by 3UK last month that they felt they should advertise their “Coming Soon” phones better and I think the iPhone is going to be announced fairly soon; in my opinion it’s rare for networks to talk about phones before they are pretty much ready.  With the experiences of the HTC Hero, 3UK know their customers will happily pay more for high spec smartphones, and with the comments from their own Customer Services staff I think this all shows it’s coming to the network.

Now, I might be wrong of course, and I suspect it’s possible they’ll only pick up the iPhone 3G, although I suspect they’ll be able to sell the iPhone 3GS too.  I also suspect that if / when a new iPhone 4th Generation model is announced in June / July, it won’t be seen on 3UK for a little longer than the other networks (due to the commercial points in the first paragraph), but we may well see some form of iPhone on sale on 3UK before too long.

Interestingly, unlike some Nokia phones, it appears that people aren’t having problems getting their 3UK SIMs to work in unlocked iPhones, so that bodes well.  Of course, I would expect 3UK to ship it with their own Skype on 3 and Email on 3 solution, which may take a little while to get ready and released into the App Store.  In fact, I wonder if this is the only thing stopping the announcement happening today, hence why 3UK are happy to start talking about the device…

ZOMG It’s CJ has just published it’s review of the Nokia Booklet 3G, and it’s a very impressive review, covering all areas of the device, with a massive number of pictures too.  It’s well worth a read to find out more about this High End (although only medium spec) stylish netbook.

I was fortunate to be able to spend half an hour with a Nokia Booklet 3G a couple of weeks ago, and was quietly impressed.  The device was light, stylish, and very nice to use.  It’s not perfect though; due to the nicely sized keyboard (with a nice gap between each of the keys), the screen looks quite small in the top, and in fact, I wonder if Nokia will increase the screen size within the current laptop frame sometime soon.

The particular unit I tried also suffered from a small irritant in that the screen hinge was too loose, and allowed the screen to move too easily, making it difficult to walk around with the device in one hand (yes, not the best way to carry a laptop, but something that many people will do).  At times it felt like the screen would not stay put, although it never moved on it’s own it didn’t feel right (and speaking with others, this fault does not appear to afflict other models).

However, the main problem I found was the 1GB of memory made Windows 7 a little sluggish, and again, hopefully a memory upgrade will come soon to improve the device.  I wasn’t able to test the 3G functionality, but having 3G and HDMI built in does make the device very useful, and the battery was rather impressive too.  One other minor issue was that after being used solidly for over an hour, the CPU was making the case a little warm.

All in all, if you are after a very stylish device with a similar design ethos to a Macbook, but running Windows, then this device is worth a look; if you don’t need the latest greatest kit, I would suggest possibly waiting until the next version comes out to make it a truly all round device.

Thanks to the team at WOM World Nokia for letting me have a play with the Booklet (and thanks for the hospitality when I dropped in unannounced).

The Guardian has covered some of the business information behind the merger between Orange and T-Mobile (here), but it’s the interesting possibilities that caught my attention…

Firstly, and a real winner for 3UK, is that as part of the merger, the combined company will give up, and pass over to 3UK, 3000 more mast sites, which will increase their planned total for this year to reach 16,000 mast sites.

Also, Orange and T-Mobile will have to give up one quarter of their spectrum in the 1800MHz range.  Now, wouldn’t it be interesting if 3UK bought up this spectrum, and used it to provide a 2G service instead of relying upon Orange to provide that service…

Everything is still being discussed, so these conditions may still change, but it’s good to see that things are progressing, if a little slowly…

If you have recently bought a Kindle in the UK, whether the Kindle 2 or the newer and larger Kindle DX, then you may find that if you go into Menu / Settings, your firmware (as displayed down the bottom) is v2.2; yet Amazon promote the Kindle as having the ability to download firmware updates over the 3G network; so why isn’t your device on the latest firmware (v2.3.3 in both cases)?

Well, it seems that although the functionality for 3G network firmware updates is now available, you have to be on a v2.3 version for it to work, so a device that shipped with v2.2 won’t ever update.  If you are in this situation, simply head to the Kindle Software Update webpage, where you can download the latest firmware for your device (please make sure to select the right device; chances are you’ll be looking for the Kindle (Global Wireless) version, but make sure first, and then follow the instructions to download and then copy the file to the root directory of your Kindle.  Once you then unplug the Kindle from your PC, you can then go into the menu on the device to apply the update; it will take some time, although you shouldn’t lose any content.

In case you were wondering, the v2.3 firmware also brings with it other features (as covered here); mainly PDF file support, ability to select portrait / landscape mode, and better battery life and although this and all other firmwares “should” be available over the wireless 3G link, this can often takes weeks to show up, and so it’s worth a regular check of the Kindle Software Update webpage in case a new feature makes a new firmware worthy of a manual update.

Although I was tempted to write a “War and Peace” article on the issues of privacy surrounding Location Based Services, I won’t.  Last week a website was set up called Please Rob Me, which tries to show the risk of providing too much information on the Internet, which could lead to impacts in the real world; the point the website is making is that by providing information as to where your home is, and the fact you aren’t there, could increase your risk of being robbed.  Now, although it’s unlikely a robber is sitting watching your FourSquare / Brightkite / Google Latitude check-ins, the risk still exists.

So, what can be done about it?  Well, first of all, it’s well worth reading these articles (here from FourSquare, and here from Brightkite), but in essence, here are some key thoughts:

• When you check-in, think carefully about the settings you use, and whether you want (or need) the world to know about you are at this location (especially if the location is your home).

• Think about whether it’s wise to then have this information passed over to Facebook and/or Twitter.  Whereas FourSquare and Brightkite especially offer privacy controls, once you publish the information and location on Twitter (and increasingly Facebook with their new privacy settings), it’s available for anyone and everyone to see and search for.  Oh, and a lot of people are getting fed up with Twitter streams filling up with FourSquare check-ins, so it’s wise to turn this broadcasting off, if only to not annoy your friends.

• Don’t forget other services, such as Plazes, Dopplr, TripIt and Upcoming also reveal where you are going to be in the future, which you may want to think twice about too; although some, like TripIt, allow you to set some trips as private so they won’t display in public information until you change that per-trip setting.

• If you are using Fire Eagle to broker your location information (and it’s a very useful tool in this respect), again, remember it has the ability to control whether applications / websites can read and/or write your location information, and if reading it, what level of accuracy you give them access to.

• As Brightkite mention, if you realise afterwards it might not have been a wise move, look for a delete option to remove the information.

If you look at my profiles on these services (and others like it, let’s not forget this problem isn’t new, it’s just FourSquare and Brightkite are getting more and more users), you’ll often find the I don’t broadcast any location unless it’s to friends, and even then, I may not reveal all the information; on Google Latitude for example, I can set some people to only getting city-level location information, so instead of being able to precisely pinpoint me on a map, they simply get a rough location; this is a useful feature for people you may speak to online occasionally, but don’t have enough information to be able to implicitly trust them (note: this isn’t about not trusting them at all, in my opinion it’s about whether you would tell them your whole life history warts’n'all).

As a passing comment, the latest version of Gravity, v1.30 (6350), includes support for FourSquare, as well as offering geo-location facilities; for S60 5th Edition and S60 3rd Edition FP2 devices (Nokia E72 etc.), this can be either cell ID location information, WiFi positioning information, or GPS information, whereas for S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices, it’s currently only cell ID and WiFi positioning (due to needing to get each version of the app through the long Symbian Signed process to allow access to the GPS information on an FP1 device).  If you are not a FourSquare fan, we’ve recently covered the S60 5th Edition Brightkite client (see here) that could be used instead.

So, although you’ll find I have accounts on most of the location based social networking services (Plazes, FourSquare, Brightkite, Google Latitude, TripIt, Dopplr, Upcoming), you’ll often find I’m (as FourSquare nicely phrase it) “Off the Grid”, or only visible if we’re already friends, and equally, although I have the ability to provide geo-location information on my tweets, I rarely do, as (in my opinion) it’s often not relevant where the tweet was actually written.

Also, you’re more likely to find me using location based services that have a range of privacy options, in the way that Brightkite used to (unless I’m mistaken this isn’t possible now) and Google Latitude still does; allowing not just control over who can access the information, but how accurately they can access it.

We’re hearing that Vodafone will be removing the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic from their range by the end of the week, and it’s likely as we progress into March that the other networks will follow suit.  As the phone has been out for a while, it seems it’s being replaced by the Nokia 5230, which although is a nice phone, has some less features compared to the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic.

Firstly, it’s got a 2 megapixel camera, compared to the 3.2 megapixel on the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, and it doesn’t have WiFi (not a problem for many people, but still worth pointing out; whilst at home, my phones often download larger files and data, which would quickly cut into the data limits placed on phone contracts).  It does, however, have built in social networking features (although adding a copy of Gravity to a Symbian phone only costs around £8, and is well worth it in my opinion).  It does also have more flexibility when it comes to the home screen layout, which may appeal to many.  With the move to Ovi Maps v3 now being free for S60 5th Edition phones, both can have free Navigation, although with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic you may well need to update the software and maps before you get free navigation, whereas it’s more likely (although not confirmed) that the Nokia 5230 will ship with the free version out of the box.

So, if you are after a new phone, the Nokia 5230 is worth a look, but if the lack of WiFi will be an issue, then you might want to act quickly before the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic disappears from the shelves for good!

We’ve received confirmation from 3UK that they will also be selling the HTC Desire (along with Orange and T-Mobile who have already announced their plans to sell the phone).  This is good news for 3UK as part of their plans to expand their Android range to over 6 devices by June, although at this stage it’s not clear if they will only be selling the HTC Desire, or whether they will be carrying the HTC Legend too.

As with all other 3UK devices, it will feature Skype on 3 (Free Skype Forever), Email on 3, Free Windows Live Messenger, and will also have the Spotify client installed too.

Although 3UK have only formally stated “Spring 2010″, we understand it should be available in April 2010.

mobbler, the very popular Symbian Last.fm client has moved from version 0.09(265) to version 1.09(265), and is now Symbian Signed (and will be available from the Ovi Store very soon).  Although only a minor feature update, the move to Symbian Signed and being part of the Ovi Store is a major move for mobbler.

The feature differences with this new version are:

• Set the album art of the current song as your phone’s wallpaper
• Opening the browser is no longer embedded

If you hadn’t seen the new v0.09 version, it added the following features (with the first item a nice feature to help minimise data allowance) :

• If you’re listening to the radio, but you have a track on your device, Mobbler will now play the track on your device instead of streaming it to save you some bandwidth and battery. You will get a little hard disk icon in the bottom left of the album art if this happens.
• We can now fetch and show lyrics of the current track from Lyricsfly.com
• You can now add and remove track, album, and artist tags on the current track and also from the list views
• We now show if you have loved a track before
• We now show if the artist you are listening to is touring. You will get a red banner on the top right of the album art. On S60 5th Edition you’ll be able to click the banner to view the events.
• Remember the last searched for track, album, artist, tag
• Bug fixes

This new version has another logo change; the v1 logo loses the “crazy paving” background effect.  mobbler intend to continue releasing versions under the Symbian Signed process, but will still supply beta releases as self-signed versions.

HTC have released 2 very exciting Android phones this week; the HTC Legend (above) and the HTC Desire.  HTC have released some information about the devices here, but in summary:

The HTC Legend is made from a single aluminium block, features a 3.2″ AMOLED screen with an optical joystick.

The HTC Desire features a 3.7″ AMOLED screen, 5 megapixel camera, and is, in essence, very similar to the Google Nexus One, although it lacks the dual-mic noise cancelling feature of the Google phone.

One of the new UI features that HTC will add to both devices is the new “HTC Friend Stream that seamlessly aggregates all of your social communication including Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr into one organised flow of updates. This simple aggregation makes it easier than ever to focus on what friends are doing as well as to view the images and links that they share.  In addition to Friend Stream, people can be organised into specific social circles, such as groups of friends, colleagues or any other way that makes sense.”

In terms of availability, the HTC Desire should be available on Orange in April, and on T-Mobile on 26th March.  If you can’t wait for this, T-Mobile have just released the T-Mobile Pulse Mini on PAYG for £99.99, which is a very low price point for an Android device.  When I met up with 3UK a few weeks back, they talked about having the Hero replacement by June, and I do wonder whether they will be carrying the HTC Legend.

In other news, HTC have confirmed that the Android 2.1 update for the Hero will become available in March 2010 (although network operator versions may take a little longer), and have also apparently stated that the HTC Magic will not be receiving this update.  The Hero update will include the new enhanced Sense features mentioned above.