Has it been a week already? 9 days even. It's amazing just how fast weeks pass these days, I have no idea where the time goes. Is it my age?

We've already covered Halloween themes. What else is special about October? Autumn maybe? Though I wasn't entirely happy with the themes I found.

On the way home from the gym, it was already getting dark. I looked at the clock and realised it was only 4:30pm! Winter is well on it's way and that's when it struck me why not take advantage of that and use it in my post. So Dark themes, how's that for creativity?

I've picked out my personal favorite dark themes and tried to keep the selection diverse. Let me know what you think.

Credits to Pizero for the awesome Black Zero V2 Theme.

Black Zero Theme

Blackish Red Theme

Big Cat Theme

Glowing Butterfly Theme

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Already imported volumes may still be sold. However since the 26th of September it is no longer allowed to import that kind of electronics. Exceptions exist however, i.e. for medical equipment and children toys. Logically no one desires to see a baby sucking/shortcircuiting a lithium-ion battery. Particular faulty ones that might burst into flames.

It seems Apple is forced to redesigning their iPhones to use replacable/removeable batteries in their iPhone or lose a lot of lucrative buisiness in Europe (600+ euro's for an unlocked one, building cost 200 euro's). The fixed battery has been an eyesore in many iPhone users and a replacable version will no doubt be received with delight. I do wonder how Apple will spin this to the public?  A brilliant new feature? On popular demand? Turning from dollar green into eco green?

And its implementation? Encode the batteries so only expensive Apple branded will work?  The extra costs for the adjustments will no doubt be paid by the customer.

For now it is iPhona non grata!

Dutch websource: www.tweakers.net

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oZ on Oct 11, 2008 12:43 PM:

I love a good Apple bash as much as anyone, but I think you may have it wrong here. Apple will be forced to have an external battery to be sold in those countries, but mark my words -- there isn't going to be anything particularly special about that battery. Sure, it'll probably be designed to Apple specs, it isn't going to be a Nokia or SE battery, but people will make generic knockoffs -- just as they do now.

I firmly believe that Apple does this battery game for aesthetics, not because they're looking to make more money. They like having the smooth back, they like not having unnecessary lines, divots, tabs, or sliders on their hardware. Look at the hemming and hawing necessary to add a volume rocker to the iPod touch. Apple will head back to the drawing board and figure out a way to make the battery replaceable while maintaining the aesthetic they're looking for. It won't be cheap.

snoyt here: I gave Apple its due concerning batteries and ecofriendliness. I would not call that bashing.

MiniMage on Oct 11, 2008 1:08 PM:

And the Air?

Constable Odo on Oct 11, 2008 9:14 PM:

What is the matter with these people behind this sealed battery device tirade. I've never seen a rechargeable flashlight, men's electric shaver or electric toothbrush that had a removable battery and I'm fairly certain there are more of them than iPhones. There are probably lots of small devices that you can't remove the battery such a rechargeable toys. Most of the smaller mp3 players have sealed rechargeable batteries. Why the heck are they singling out the iPhone?

Probably plenty of people just throw away toys along with the removeable batteries into the trash without even checking.

Batteries for Ricky is not a new band playing opening slot the Glasshouse next Thursday, nor is it a new charity telethon, unless Ricky does want us to raise batteries for whatever his cause may be.

Early in September when I posted my Nokia (life)viNe review, Ricky asked about the battery usage of the Nokia viNe mobile app (not yet released, in closed beta as of Oct. 2008).  He asked if I would use the Nokia Energy Profiler app to monitor the battery usage and power draw-down of the the Nokia viNe mobile app vs. the native NSeries geo-tracking and photography.

As a dutiful foot solider in the mildly-scientific mobile experiments, I loaded the Energy Profiler on the trial Nokia N82 and ran it as I tested the native GPS/geo-tracking while I took photos and then later started recording with Nokia viNe while taking photos.

The results are....

My own anecdotal experience is that the GPS plus photography = hot camera phone and low battery life, while the Nokia viNe mobile app does not make the N82 go hot and the battery lasts at least 4-6+ hours or more of normal to super usage.

As you can see from the photos above***, using the GPS/geo-tracking with the camera* causes spikes of battery drain over 2 watts while I took the photos or used other mobile apps (top two screenshots of the Energy Profiler), but later in the session using just the Nokia viNe mobile app to track my geo-path and take photos at the same time the battery usage consistently stayed under 2 watts with occasional spikes even under heavy draw (bottom two screenshots).

Nokia viNe plus taking photos*  wins for less battery usage.

***
Notes:
* ...as well as using email, checking the web, and other usual bits to relieve boredom while driving to a client meeting in LA**.
** No judging about my mobile use while stuck in LA traffic, until a 35 mile drive takes you over 1.5 hours.
*** Per usual, if you are looking at these photos while on Black Phoebe :: Ms. Jen, you will see the nice Lightbox slide show with captions, if you are looking at it on Darla Mack's site, then you will just see the photos without the nice Ajaxy goodness.

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A day after Verizon announced a 3 cent premium charge for SMS content providers, AT&T sent this message out to their prepaid subscribers. AT&T was a in minority for US carriers by offering real data options without the need for a contract or only on specific handsets. This move appears to enforce the idea that prepaid is a dirty word or less valueable to the company whereas the prepaid market is a highly covetated and competitive among carriers throughout Europe and Asia. Let's hope this isn't an upcoming downward trend among wireless carriers' services. This might provide further evidence for the US Congress reviewing ever increasing SMS charges: that is whenever they can get back to normal business.

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After freaking out about my syncing issues with Ovi and my N96, my SG informed me today that the N96 plugin for iSync is now available for download.

I am one of those people that MUST have my up-to-date contact list (which happens to be over 500) on all my devices. Now I'm not quite sure what the issue is that I was having with Ovi, but I wasn't able to sync my existing contact list to the N96. Not all of my contacts transferred and most of the ones that did came through without telephone numbers. After several attempts and re-attempts I would end up getting "host server issues" so I just gave up.

Thanks SG for saving the day!!

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Yet it survived, but not without a cliffhanger. Strangely the upgrade program said my phone upgrade went wrong and it needed to redo it. Again and again. I nearly went slightly mad from this deadlocked circle. But then decided to ignore the statement and after a reboot the new firmware was there. I verified it with *#0000# and it looked OK to me.

The phone seemed slightly slower first time after a reboot, and software that was first time accessed after the reboot took a bit more time to start. Yet it seems to work at normal speed now, and all configurations and software is still there and running.

Which is pretty awesome indeed. UDP is really a very nice feature. I can't remember how often I have upgraded the firmware of my N95 and reinstalled, synced and backupped that phone. Hours and hours of work, which now are no longer neccesary.

Nokia? Read this carefully! Never ever dare to built a phone without the UDP feature!

I might start billing you for unneccesary lost time ;^)

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Nikhil Chawla on Oct 10, 2008 2:07 AM:

Oh dear oh dear....I must be the luckiest one then as I didn't get even a slight hiccup in updating my N82.It was as easy & smooth as inhaling fresh air :) Well,I wont deny that I was apprehensive about it as I hadn't read a positive review or a blog post saying it went successful.In fact, so many people had already bricked theirs that I had almost dropped the idea of going through the hassle of updating till a major update came by.Now,I can smile and say:
'All's well that ends well.'
And ya doubtful users who still haven't updated yet can count on Darla & Me that it went just ok..lol

Snoyt here: Never bricked a N95 and this is the first firmware update of my N82. Still UDP is pretty new for Nokia.

Cj on Oct 10, 2008 10:44 AM:

Random question here, but is your "Switch" Application working on your v30 firmware ?

Snoyt here: Did not test it. But it's there.

Nikhil Chawla on Oct 10, 2008 6:07 PM:

Yes CJ,its working the same way it used to.
Though I didnt find any major changes in this update other than these:

Music player is speedy-er.. Louder too. Equalizer helps out more. Messaging is notice-ably faster.But the sad part is that ASR is dead slow now I can count a second and half for it to flip to landscape.. "slow-ish". And something between 1.5-2 seconds to flip back.

And Snoyt,I totally agree with you that UDP is completely new territory for Nokia.Hope it betters with time :)

Snoyt here: The deadslow ASR is an 'improvement'. I suppose it is designed to filter 'involuntary' vibrations of your hand on the subway i.e.

I personally didnt have a lot of positive things to say about it, because I still think the last generation games were more interesting overall, but this survey might shake things up abit and can only serve to improve N-gage v2.0 . So please do take the time to complete it when you can !

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