Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Talking with Shozu CEO Chris Wade

2009-07-09T06:04:32-07:00

About a month ago, Shozu announced that their formerly free iPhone application would have a price hike. Intrigued, I plunked down the $4.99 needed to buy it, and gave it a whirl. It works well, allowing you to shoot photos or video, and upload them for sharing, immediately, to over 51 destinations. Moreover, it builds in a replication mechanism. For example, you can upload to Flickr, and it will automatically replicate the content on Facebook. Efficient on bandwidth, time, and your wallet! Shozu even functions as a kind of micro social media application, allowing comments to come back from your friends.

So I jumped at the opportunity to chat with Shozu Chairman and CEO Chris Wade. A serial entrepreneur Wade joined Shozu as Chairman toward the end of last year, and became CEO about 30 days ago.

Wade has made it a focus to find new ways to make money from Shozu. Historically, they’ve made money by licensing to handset manufacturers, a model he feels won’t scale well due to the small number of manufacturers. They’ve also tried ad models, which he feels are immature.

With the introduction of their $4.99 price point on June 4th, the company shifted its focus from the handset manufacturer to the end user. Wade likes the app store because not only can you make money, but it’s also an instant source of feedback on the product. Plus, he says that charging for the application “ensures the survivability of Shozu”, and that they will continue to update it. In this environment, he doesn’t believe that the model of funding via VC’s is viable any more. Focusing on the end user means that they have to “worry about customer support, and worry about the evolution of the product”, rather than the next funding round.

Wade also provided some interesting insight into who we share with and how. Shozu users can upload to 51 destinations on the web, but the average is just 3.5. And the #1 destination? Not Flickr, not Facebook, not MySpace…. but email. Sharing with the world is eclipsed by simply sharing with friends and family.

Smackdown: Nokia N97 vs iPhone 3GS

2009-07-03T18:06:00-07:00

Nokia’s N97 is the latest in their range of high end smart phones. The first N-Series phone with a touch screen, the N97 also hides a flip-out keyboard. Laden with 32G of storage, a 5 megapixel camera, Nokia Maps, Nokia’s Comes with Music service, and more, this phone is a feature laden treat for mobile phone buffs and a worthy opponent to Apple’s newly released iPhone 3GS. In fact, the specifications for the N97 versus the iPhone 3GS are nearly identical, right down to the dimensions.

So which is better? I took both for a spin on a recent trip to San Francisco to find out.

Let’s start with the fact that the N97 is not Nokia’s first touch screen phone. That distinction goes to the 5800 XpressMusic. The N97, however, is a much better touch screen device than the 5800 was. More thought has been put into finger-tip user interfaces, and the interface itself is faster and feels more natural. For example, on the 5800, to scroll the screen, you had to put a finger on a small scroll bar and push the bar. On the N97, you simple touch the screen and swipe in the direction you want to scroll – a la Apple’s iPhone. One noticeably absent gesture, however, is the iPhone “pinch” for enlarging and shrinking a screen.

The biggest difference between iPhone and N97 is simply the fact that the iPhone is designed around the absence of a keyboard, whereas the N97 is designed to add touch features to a keyboarded device. That has profound implications for user experience, and generally iPhone succeeds better than N97.

The Home Screen is a new concept for Nokia. Unlike previous N-series devices, the N97’s home screen can be customized with widgets allowing you to see various kinds of information at a glance – weather, presence status of friends, emails received, or a summary of your Facebook account, for example. It works naturally with the touch screen as well. This short video shows it in action.

When compared to the iPhone springboard, it’s clear that Nokia has taken a different approach. N97 designer Axel Meyer had an explicit goal to connect the people around you with the content that you wanted to share with them. The result is that the N97 home screen provides a variety of different and useful information “on deck”. iPhone, by comparison, focuses on easy access to applications. Nokia’s approach is promising and may ultimately have more appeal than the iPhone springboard. However, it is easier to find and use applications on iPhone, because applications on the N97 are buried two folders away from the home screen.

Artfully hidden beneath the screen is a small keyboard. The keyboard took a little practice to be able to use well, but once accustomed to it, I was able to compose short emails as easily on the N97 as on the iPhone. Managing email was a little more difficult on N97 versus iPhone. The iPhone is really optimized for reading, filing, deleting and forwarding emails which makes for a smoother overall experience. One sorely needed improvement to N97 email is an auto-correct feature to allow spelling errors to be more easily corrected.

Another appealing aspect of the N97 is the fact that it can be used to watch video. It’s becoming more and more common to watch video on planes and while commuting on a small form factor devices like the N97 or the iPhone. And because you can pop the screen up on an angle by folding out the keyboard, it’s not necessary to hold the N97 in hand for hours at a time – a definite improvement compared to iPhone.

The camera on the N97 is a gem. With 5 megapixels of resolution, Carl Zeiss optics, and a xenon dual-LED flash, this is the equivalent of today’s snapshot cameras. Other camera phones can’t hold a candle to any of the N-series phones, simply because of the attention to detail that Nokia lavishes on the camera. For example, here are two unretouched photos of the San Francisco skyline – the first shot with iPhone, and the second with the N97. The iPhone photographs have a pronounced blue cast to them. Notice how much brighter, color saturated and clearer the N97 photograph is. Moreover, the differences become even more pronounced when each photograph is viewed at its original size (click on the photograph to see it full size).

The impact of the extra pixel density can be seen in other ways as well. For example, the photograph taken with the N97 presents several opportunities for cropping and digital zoom. I’ve created a dramatic photo here by cropping, warming the color temperature and saturating color. The same crop and manipulation of the photo taken on iPhone is dramatically different. Moreover, even after cropping the N97 photograph it is still 1496 pixels wide – large enough for a small print.

The digital zoom on the N97 is also quite good. The photo below is unaltered. It’s a little blurry because of the digital zoom, but with sharpening it could be improved easily. iPhone is simply unable to take this shot.

You can really get some amazing photographs with the N97. Here are a couple more that I shot walking around San Francisco.

The N97 also supports the capture of widescreen video. I found it easy to grab small clips, although the tiny form factor of the device made it difficult to hold steady. A welcome addition would be some image stabilization capabilities in the camera. In the absence of that, a small tripod would be very helpful.

The impact of 5 megapixels of video capture can also be seen in these two short clips of a fountain I walked by in Detroit’s Airport on the way back. The Nokia clip was shot on a two year old N95 equipped with a similar 5 megapixel camera to the N97. The clips are near identical, showing the same fountain. However, the Nokia clip shows much greater clarity, color, and detail than the iPhone clip does.

Another N-Series feature I took advantage of while in San Francisco was navigation. Both iPhone and the N97 come with mapping software, a compass, and the ability to plot a route. In addition, the N97 includes a 3 month license for Nokia’s navigation application. After the initial 3 months, a navigation license can be purchased from Nokia for €49,99 (about $70) annually. Coupled with an aftermarket dashboard mount, this turns your phone into a viable substitute for a dedicated navigation system from a manufacturer such as Garmin or Magellan. You will, however, want to purchase a car charger, as running the screen constantly results in a rapidly depleted battery. Navigation for iPhone will be available as a third party application from TomTom later this year.

Web browsing is roughly equivalent on both devices. The Nokia browser and Safari on iPhone are both webkit browsers, which means that they render pages nearly identically. iPhone has the edge, however, because of the multi-touch “pinch” gesture. It’s simply easier to display and read a web page on iPhone.

And what about music? Music is, after all, Apple’s heritage. Surprisingly, the N97 is very good here. With 32G of memory, expandable by a further 16G SD card, the N97 can hold more music. The N97 playback application is not as slick as Apple’s iPod application, but it’s still very serviceable. Plus, the N97 includes speakers for stereo playback if you don’t want to listen on your headphones.

Other notable differences:

Battery life: N97 wins over the notoriously bad iPhone power consumption.
Gaming: Both devices support touch screen gaming. In addition, the N97 puts a gamer style D-Pad on the device, whereas iPhone simply uses the accelerometer to create innovative new games. However, the sheer number of games available in the iPhone app store make iPhone the better gaming platform.
Screen: N97 wins with a 640×360 pixel monster vs. the iPhone 480×320.

So N97 or iPhone? Which one wins overall?

The N97 is a smash hit when it comes to photography and video. If you care about taking great photos or videos and sharing them with others, then there really is no better choice than the N97. However, you will have to compromise on user experience. The N97 is less polished than the iPhone, and Apple’s iPhone experience is simply easier and better integrated overall than the N97.

If applications are important to you, especially email, iPhone 3GS is the better choice. Applications load faster, are slicker and easier to use, are better integrated with the platform, and there are simply more choices on iPhone.

I’ve been carrying a Nokia N95 and an iPhone for over a year now. I really do enjoy photography with the N95 plus the features of the iPhone. I’ve tried several other Nokia N-Series devices over the past year as they’ve come available to me, and always returned to the N95. After four days of carry an N97 and the new iPhone, I can honestly say that I would make the upgrade from the N95 to the N97… but I’m not yet ready to give up the iPhone.

RIM and Nokia need a Manhattan… project, that is.

2009-07-01T08:19:38-07:00

The Boy Genius has published an angst filled missive directed at RIM on the future of BlackBerry OS. Here are a few choice quotes:

“RIM’s OS is more than antiquated, it’s borderline laughable.”

“There’s so many limitations to RIM’s OS, and even RIM’s data network that it offsets all the wonderful things they’ve managed to accomplish.”

“RIM delivers the same tired package in new hardware and people are starting to catch on. App World? Seriously? From every single developer I’ve spoke to, it’s a non-starter.”

“I’m just frustrated that RIM is going through hardware like it’s nobody’s business yet fails to deliver on the things that everyone wants. Screw business people, screw consumers, everyone wants a WebKit-based browser. It’s inexcusable RIM doesn’t get it.”

To be fair, you should read the whole piece. I’ve quoted some of the most negative things Boy Genius has to say to make a point. The point is that the business of mobile telephony is a software business now, and no longer a hardware business.

I’ve spent the last couple of days as a guest of Nokia learning about a tremendously exciting project they have under way in San Francisco which I’ll write about in the future. It’s obvious in conversation with the Nokia team here that the company has a tremendous and far reaching vision of what mobile can be about. However, Nokia suffers from a similar affliction to RIM. Symbian OS is different from BlackBerry OS. The same as BlackBerry OS, however, it is a maturing design that is now behind the state of the art.

Both companies are known and respected as innovators. RIM primarily gets credit for email, while Nokia introduced the world’s first GPS enabled phones, and the best camera phones in the market. Both are being perceptually eclipsed because others have shifted the basis of competition from handset innovation to applications and the overall integrated user experience. The basis of competition has shifted to the operating system and a war for developer mindshare.

RIM and Nokia have a challenge ahead of them. As early smartphone innovators, they created this market. They are undisputed leaders. Others, however, are poised to steal the market away from them. RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis and Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo ought to have an internal “Manhattan project” under way to counter the threat from Apple, Google/Android and Palm. Perhaps more than any other aspect of that effort they should consider stealing a page from Apple, focusing their efforts on fewer new phones, operating system innovation, and more new software.

Pillow talk with Calliflower

2009-06-30T10:42:27-07:00

In The Ideal Task Manager National Post writer Danny Bradbury highlights iPhone applications that are big for small business. The lede for the story? Calliflower. Last week Danny asked us if we had any small business users using Calliflower for iPhone. I made a few phone calls, and asked several of our customers if they would be willing to talk, including Sonja Podstaskyj who runs a virtual assistant business at afishinsea.ca. The rest is history, as they say. Sonja uses Calliflower on iPhone to organize and check in on her clients global conference calls from the comfort of her bed. At 5 AM, it sure beats getting up.

Pillow talk, anyone?

Mashed-up beetles? Not what you think.

2009-06-29T18:24:54-07:00

This may be the ultimate wireless mash-up. The photographs below show a wireless interface developed at UC Berkeley, which is implanted in flying beetles. It’s part of an experiment designed to create “cyborg beetles” which can be controlled in flight. The plaque reads, in part:

“The miniaturized thorax-mounted system consists of a neural stimulator, muscular stimulators and a micro-controller. Flight initiation, cessation and elevation control were accomplished through neural stimulus of the brain which elicited, suppressed or modulated wing oscillation. Turns were triggered through through the direct muscular stimulus of either of the basalar muscles.”

Canadian broadband needs an upload overhaul.

2009-06-27T06:51:40-07:00

Yesterday YouTube doubled the upload limit available to users in response the increasing number of high definition videos that are being sent to the site. Now you can upload a 2G file, instead of a 1G file. YouTube has made it easier to upload a high definition file as well. According to Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee.com, YouTube has done this because “HD videos are now becoming a significant part of the YouTube library”.

They look gorgeous, no doubt. Check out this trailer from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Click the full screen button to see the full impact. It’s really darned impressive.

Don’t expect to see a lot of Canadian high definition content, however. Not that there aren’t people in this country shooting high definition video, who might have a strong desire to share that video. It’s simply a matter of bandwidth and usage caps. All broadband providers in Canada, excepting a few small outfits in Vancouver, cap usage at between 50 and 150G of transfer per month, and restrict upload speeds to under 1 megabit per second, except Shaw who have raised their upload limit to a meagre 2 megabits. We’d be in our graves before YouTube received our videos at these speeds.

	Uplink Speed	Downlink Speed	Monthly Allowance	Price
Rogers “Extreme Plus”	1Mbps	16Mbs	95G	$99.99
Bell Internet “Max 16”	1Mbs	16Mbs	100G	$72.95
Telus “High Speed Turbo”	1Mbs	10 – 15Mbs	100G	$43
Shaw “High Speed Warp”	2Mbs	25Mbs	150G	$94
Videotron “Ultimate Speed Internet 50”	1Mbs	50Mbs	100G	$89.95

Pathetic, no? Even worse, most of the small business offerings from these providers consist of repackaged residential service, with a better service agreement and a higher price.

Does it matter if a few people can’t upload video? Perhaps not, unless you’re a Canadian culture supporter or Heritage Minister James Moore. But what about the other impacts of capped usage and restricted upload bandwidth – the economic and environmental impacts? Applications like VPN, remote desktop, and VoIP are the cornerstones of telecommuting strategies. Those applications are dependent on high speed upload as well as download. When telecommuting is impaired, it has an economic impact to business, and an environmental impact on society. We should all care about that!

So how about it Rogers, Bell, Telus, Shaw and Videotron? Download speeds have increased steadily over the last decade, but we’ve had upload speeds of under 1Mbs since the dawn of broadband. Shouldn’t we have better?

Skyhook: how iPhone OS 3.0 delivers location services

2009-06-26T10:03:25-07:00

Many folks assume that iPhone’s location services are GPS based. In fact, they’re not. They use a complex amalgam of WiFi hotspot location, cell tower triangulation and GPS provided by Skyhook Wireless. GPS service, by itself, is vulnerable to overhead obstructions, and can take as long as 5 minutes to obtain a fix. However, once fixed, GPS is accurate to within 10 metres, or 30 feet. So-called assisted GPS (AGPS), is a hybrid in which GPS is augmented with cell tower information. AGPS can obtain a fix with accuracy dependent on the density of cell towers, very quickly. However, in countries like Canada, where long distance 850Mhz signals are common, AGPS is only accurate to perhaps 3,000 feet. Nevertheless, it’s common for mobile location applications to use AGPS to first establish a crude fix, and then zoom in as the more accurate GPS fix is established.

Skyhook’s innovation is to augment that with WiFi hotspot locations. Why WiFi? It can be wonderfully accurate, to within 30 to 60 feet, or 10 to 20m which is roughly the same as GPS. WiFi can establish a fix within less than a second. And, WiFi is not vulnerable to overhead obstructions, so it can be used indoors.

Skyhook’s technology relies on a database of WiFi access points in over 2,000 cities (and growing). Much like Google, they use vehicles to drive cities, and using a laptop in the vehicle, they chart the location of WiFi access points. In addition, on iPhone as users use the mapping application, new locations and newly discovered WiFi access points are automatically added to the database. It’s a kind of automated crowdsourcing, based on usage.

Here’s the coverage map for the Ottawa area, for example. You can see that there are few unmapped places, except on the outskirts of the city. Theoretically, very accurate fixes, indoors and out, should be available from most parts of Ottawa.

So, how well does it work?

On iPhone 3G, running OS 2.x, the mapping software would routinely place my office (on the left side of the map, pointed to by the red and yellow arrow) in the middle of the Ottawa airport west runway (shown on the right side of the map, with a similar pointer). That’s a distance of approximately 1km, and not very useful. To be fair, it was more accurate standing outside, since a GPS fix would eventually be found.

Running OS 3.0, however, produced this result. My actual office is not, obviously, in the parking lot. It’s located at the marker. iPhone has located me perhaps 50 feet from the actual location. That’s a significant improvement from a kilometre!

Depending on which access point the software fixes, the location can vary as well. The following screen, taken seconds after the first screen shot, shows that I have apparently moved to the other side of the parking lot. I was at my desk the whole time. iPhone simply triangulated off a different WiFi access point.

The above screen shot is significant for another reason. Two days ago, when I first received the 3GS, I parked my car in the spot indicated by the blue dot, and asked the phone to identify my location. What this shows is that the location that the iPhone automatically tagged from my request was added to the Skyhook database within 48 hours. Impressive, no?

As I stated initially, Skyhook is an amalgam of WiFi, GPS and tower triangulation. In theory, it should be able to work without any mobile service or line of sight to the sky. So, how well does it work without tower triangulation or GPS? The following shot was taken from an iPhone with no cellular service. Notice how the accuracy has diminished, and that my location has apparently moved to the far end of the building. Skyhook’s algorithms must take into account all forms of location information available, not relying on any specific fix.

I’m personally impressed. iPhone 3GS with OS 3.0 is a dramatic improvement over prior operating systems and hardware. Most tellingly, in the last two days it has changed the way I do local search. Because of the speed with which a fix can be obtained, I find myself turning more and more to the maps application rather than the browser to look for nearby businesses.

I predict many more people will do the same.

Rogers “Pay As You Go” US roaming

2009-06-25T05:33:18-07:00

The customer service fairy seems to have paid a visit to Rogers recently. Yesterday, I called and inquired about roaming rates to the US for my trip next week. I was pleasantly surprised to find that roaming data rates to the US have dropped from $6,000 per gigabyte, and that I could now buy a short term roaming plan for both voice and data.

The details?

$40 will get you 60 roaming minutes in the US, and $60 will get you 120.

A $10 charge will allow you to roam data at $1 per megabyte.

So what does that mean in practice? Normal data usage for me is around 300M per month. For my 5 days in San Francisco, if I use data normally, I would expect to pay $70. I also bought the $60 voice plan, and will use that in conjunction with Truphone Anywhere to avoid long distance charges.

At $130 it’s still expensive, but compared to the $474 I would have paid for the same service six months ago, it’s a steal. Moreover, it’s much less complex than my previous solutions – local SIMs and unlocking SIM carriers.

And the best part? No contracts. The customer service rep set the entire plan to expire in 30 days. It’s totally pay as you go.

Truphone adds 11 Nokia handsets

2009-06-25T05:11:29-07:00

The team at Truphone has been focused for quite a while on their iPhone products. Yesterday, however, they made an announcement that hearkens back to their roots. 11 new Nokia devices have been added to their list of compatible devices, including the N96, N78, N85, N79, 5630, 5800, 5320, 6210, 6220, 6650 and E63. All phones can use the Truphone Anywhere service, and on the N85, N79, and 5630 you can also use the Truphone Wi-Fi calling service. This brings the list of Nokia devices compatible with Truphone up to 26 in total.

Apple iPhone proves the axiom: it takes three tries to get any tech product right.

2009-06-25T05:00:04-07:00

It’s been famously said of Microsoft that it takes them three tries to get anything right. In actual fact, it probably takes every company three tries to deliver a truly great product. Release 1 – get the product to market. Release 2 – listen to customers and correct the biggest omissions in the product. Release 3 – fit and finish.

Take, for example, Apple and the iPhone. Famously missing 3G in the first release, cut and paste, search and numerous other features through the first 2 releases, iPhone OS 3.0 delivers the goods. And that’s what OS 3.0 is – the fit and finish release.

Search – not only did the team at Apple finally deliver the ability to search your inbox in this release, they went a step farther. You can search the entire phone – music, photos, calendar items, business cards, emails and so on. It’s the best search I’ve ever used on a mobile device.

Cut and Paste – the company that pioneered it on the desktop, finally implemented it on the phone. ‘Nuff said.

Camera – yes, iPhone 1 and 3G had a camera – with no autofocus, no ability to take video, and the same pixel count as the Olympus point and shoot I bought in 1998. iPhone 3GS corrects those deficiencies and brings the pixel count up to an anemic 3 megapixels, the same as Nokia’s 2006 vintage N93. It’s still not close to the two year old N95’s 5 megapixels, or the jaw dropping 8 and 12 megapixel devices coming from Sony Ericsson and Samsung. And for the price, how about some premium optics and a flash, Apple?

Sharing a contact – yes, unbelievably you couldn’t share a contact without installing a 3rd party application on prior releases of the OS. How long has BlackBerry been able to accomplish this simple feat? Now iPhone can too.

Speed – not just on the new iPhone 3GS hardware, but also on the 3G hardware, OS 3.0 is much snappier.

Voice Control – famously missing from a device that is often used in a vehicle and that has no physical buttons. Not just voice dial, however, but full on voice control. Driving home yesterday I told iPhone to “Play songs by Diana Krall”, and moments later was listening. As with search, this is the best voice dial I’ve used on a mobile phone.

There are numerous other enhancements, especially with the 3GS hardware. Every iPhone owner should install OS 3.0, at minimum. And, although it falls short in several areas compared to the competition, in my opinion the 3GS hardware is also worth the upgrade, if for no other reason than speed.

Third times the charm. Even for Apple.

Links for 2009-04-22 [Digg]

2009-04-23T00:00:00-07:00

A Cyber-Attack on an American City
Just after midnight on Thursday, April 9, unidentified attackers climbed down four manholes in the Northern California city of Morgan Hill and cut eight fiber cables in what appears to have been an organized attack on the electronic infrastructure of an American city. Its implications, though startling, have gone almost un-reported.

Links for 2009-04-21 [Digg]

2009-04-22T00:00:00-07:00

Link building vs Link optimization
Valuable advice on how to optimize the links back to your site.

Links for 2009-04-15 [Digg]

2009-04-16T00:00:00-07:00

An Incidental Interview #17 - Robert Scoble and Sheryl Breuk
Proof positive that Robert Scoble brings value and has important things to say.
Three possible outcomes for Nortel after bankruptcy
Good analysis of what Nortel bankruptcy means, and who the suitors for the assets are.
Farting Permitted, Politics Prohibited?
HuffingtonPost covers the issue of Apple blocking and/or delaying games with political satire.

Links for 2009-04-14 [Digg]

2009-04-15T00:00:00-07:00

Use THIS & convince your IT department to give you an iPhone
New Forrester Report reverses their previous critique of iPhone and says "Hell yeah! iPhone is just fine for enterprise use."
Last day of 14 day free trial of Calliflower Premium
Today is the last day of iotum's special offer to trial Calliflower Premium for free -- unlimited document sharing and unlimited conference calling in 17 countries.
Skype to IPO in 2010
Huge news. Skype, with $550 million in revenue this year, expects to IPO in the new year.

Links for 2009-04-09 [Digg]

2009-04-10T00:00:00-07:00

Billy Bob Thornton's blown opportunity
How would you handle the situation if you were Billy Bob? Probably not the way he did.
Thinking about writing an iPhone App?
This is the first installment of a developer tell-all -- what went well, what could have gone better, and what was totally WTF!

Links for 2009-04-07 [Digg]

2009-04-08T00:00:00-07:00

Reinventing the conference call - Great improvement ideas
Great ideas for improving those painful teleconferences ... Even more in Sasha Dichter's reference, http://sashadichter.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/telephonitis/

Links for 2009-02-03 [Digg]

2009-02-04T00:00:00-08:00

Calliflower on iPhone Releases
remains faithful to the Calliflower experience on the web, while taking full advantage of the iPhone experience giving you the hands down BEST mobile conferencing experience ever.