TheSmiling-Blog

Hi friends,

you might have read about the mobilers campagin to enhance mobile phones. Please help me and my team with our research and fill out the form behind the following link:

Mobilers Questionary (in german)

Thank you very much.

Last night I received the over the air (OTA) Update for my HTC Magic, Android 1.6.

My first check was on the new search bar, which I think is just great. The default settings let you search for your applications, contacts and websites. You can add music to it so it would also search for artists and playlist.
I also discovered the new home screen widget “energybar” (I don’t know if this is the right translation here, but the german word is “Energieleiste”), a bar that offers quick switches for GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, Sync and Display brightness. I know, there are plenty of apps who can do that, but I still hope it can turn on my wireless network much more faster than any app can do.

While sitting around in the bus on my way to work, I played with the 1.6 version and discovered the new features:
SpeechSyntheses: a text-to-speech engine … I’m not sure where this is working and how .. but I’m sure I will know by the end of the day :)

To activate the SpeechSyntheses, I had to download this app first and the new android market app popped up: I really like the new design and now apps can show 2 screenshots which is really helpful for the user.

Now let’s get to the feature that I’m really thrilled about: VPN connections
Yes, we are really getting to the business applications now, just awesome. Under “settings > wireless” you now have a VPN-Settings item where you can set up PPTP and L2TP VPNs with pre-shared keys or with certificates. I’m only missing and OpenVPN client, but I’m pretty sure that android will get to it.

So far, I’m really happy with the new update and that vodafone managed to get to it quickly. My #mobilers phone, the Samsung Galaxy, will not get any OTA Updates for Android as far as I know. I have to install the Samsung Software (which only runs on Windows *strange*) and then try to update the phone over USB. I’ll let you know when I update (or try to update) my Galaxy but one fact is already clear: This is everything else but user friendly!

Finally, the picture I took with my Samsung Galaxy of the Update-screen from my HTC Magic while updating to Android 1.6. Isn’t that paradox :) (sorry for the quality, I just woke up ;) )

Android 1.6 HTC Update

Yesterday we, and with “we” I mean the Samsung mobilers :) , had a great and interesting day at the Samsung headquarter.

Samsung mobilers … what’s that?

The mobilers are 3 groups, each of 6 persons with diverse backgrounds and interests, that were chosen from a pool of 230 interested parties for this promotion, who will dive into the mobile phone  scene to generate a lot of ideas concerning the improvement of mobile phones and mobile applications.

Every mobiler is equipped with a brand new Samsung Galaxy mobile phone with the android operating system. The idea behind all this is, that average consumers now can talk about their pain with mobile phones, say what is missing or could be done better, to improve mobile phones and help Samsung with the development.
The workshop included presentations about marketing, distribution and business model generation, and of course, a brief introduction to the android operating system on the Samsung Galaxy. We also had a great tour through the Samsung World Hall, the presentation room that shows almost the whole product range of Samsung … wow, did you know, that Samsung produces fridges, backing ovens and washing machines, ha, now I got you ;) Another interesting thing: “SAM SUNG” means “Three Stars”.

The mobilers promotion isn’t a small thing at all: The president of Samsung germany, Sunny Lee, had a few words for us and we are the first mobilers group that improves this promotion outside of asia … awesome!

As you know, I’m already an android user and also developer and I have the HTC Magic since the beginning of this year. I now have the chance to test the devices against each other and tell you about my experience. Just give me some time to get to know the Galaxy better, some buttons are placed at different locations and I have to set up the same applications that I have installed on my HTC. One thing that I can already tell: The display of the Galaxy is better. It’s brighter and the colors are more brilliant than on the HTC Magic.

If you’re interested in the mobilers activities, our twitter tag is #mobilers. As you can see, I came up with a new blog-category especially for the mobilers and will give you updates every now and then. By time, I will also need your help to get your opinion and needs in the mobile world. I hope that you can spare some time for me then to help me get my job done.

Finally I have a few pics for you of the Samsung World Hall with their products:

It is never disappointing when I visit webmonday in Frankfurt.
Although I’d count myself as a developer/techi, webmonday always holds a lot of interessting topics besides development.

This time, we had

• Andreas Demmer with “Wireframes & Co.: Conceptual Design als Projektbaustein”
• Mario Hachemer with “Barcamp Mainz – Was ist ein Barcamp und ist das was für mich?”
• Kerstin Hoffmann “Verachtet mir die Klassik nicht! – Warum Kernkompetenzen und menschliche Tugenden über den Erfolg von PR und Netzwerken im Web-2.0-Zeitalter entscheiden”
• Johannes Kleske with “#todolist #fail – neue arbeitskonzepte für kopfarbeiter”
• Martin Seibert with “Wikis in Agenturen und Unternehmen“

It’s also impressing that there were around 80 to 100 people attending this time. The room was packed and the after-presentation-networking-time is the best chance to get to know new and interesting people.

The visitors voting after the presentations also settled the whole presentation time for the future webmondays in Frankfurt:
It will be set to 90 minutes which holds room for 4 to 5 speakers. I think that’s a good decision: not too less and not too much.

As Darren always pronounces: If you like it, tell others … and that’s what I’m doing here!

PS: Next time the twitter wall will also filter on the real webmonday frankfurt hashtag #wmfra ;)