Mobility Now

Opera Mini 4 Beta has been released this morning. It now provides the full desktop browsing experience. This is a revolutionary product. It’s bigger than the iPhone. Why? Because over one billion people currently use a cellphone, and are restricted to browse only WAP pages because they don’t have a smartphone. Yet the vast majority support Java, and by downloading this simple 200k program, they can now browse the full Internet with a desktop like experience, right now, for free.

But Opera Mini won’t get media coverage, I can guarantee you that. Yet these same media sources will keep running daily iPhone coverage stories, building up hype in the public. It’s not based on how useful it is for people, it’s based on how sleek and sexy looking it is. If it doesn’t come in a shiny box with an Apple logo on it then clearly there’s no reason to cover it.

The new Opera Mini 4 Beta uses a technique similar to the S60 browser to provide both the full screen view and a mini map to allow scrolling. It also brings other new features such as better CSS support and faster download times. An online demo of the new browser is available on the Opera site.

I for one am glad Opera made the transition to the desktop like browsing experience. Now alongside S60 users, any Java phone can have access to the full Internet, the way it was meant to be. But hey, it doesn’t have the Apple logo on it, so who cares, right?

Installing third party applications and games is a big part of smartphones and even many normal cell phones. Yet many people don’t do it, either because they don’t know how, or they only use their provider’s options. Here I’ll attempt to describe what it takes to add software to your device and the ways to do it.

The first thing to find out is what your device supports, and then how to get the software on the phone. Java is the universal language in mobile phones. Most phones support Java applets, and most applications are thus Java based. There are some devices who do not support them, such as most BREW devices which are CDMA phones on providers such as Verizon or Sprint in the US. Also some Windows Mobile devices don’t come with Java support but that can be downloaded from Microsoft.

On top of Java, smartphones have the particularity of using a real operating system, and being able to run native applications made for their system. Windows Mobile, Symbian, Blackberry and Palm are the most popular devices. One particularity to be careful about for native systems is the version used. For example a Symbian S60v3 application will not run on S60v2 or on Symbian UIQ.

Once you’ve found out which types of applications your device supports, then you need to figure out how to transfer the application on the device, or if you can at all. If you have a locked device that came from a cellular provider, it may be locked preventing you to install third party software. The reason they sometimes do this is to make sure you only buy software through their online store and thus get more money from you.

Now that you know you can install applications, you have a couple of options on how to transfer the file. You can use Bluetooth, a USB cable or over the air (OTA). If your phone supports Bluetooth, and you have a laptop or a USB Bluetooth dongle, then that is the easiest way. You can make a connection with the computer and beam the file over using the PC client software. If the device or computer doesn’t support Bluetooth, you can get a USB cable and use the manufacturer’s software to transfer the file. Note that this can be a much harder option, and varies considerably between manufacturers. Also some manufacturers don’t make their client software freely available.

If local transfer modes fail, you can always install it directly from the phone as long as you have mobile web access. Note that this will cost you data usage unless you have an unlimited data plan. Simply go to the web site containing the application you want, or save the file on your computer then upload it to one of the many free online hosting sites, then download it from the phone mobile browser. The device should detect it and offer you to install.

Finding out how to install third party software can be tricky at first but is very easy once you know how. A last piece of advice would be to not download from untrusted sites, as it may contain viruses or pirated software. Here is a list of some popular software sites:

• GetJar - Free and commercial Java software
• Handango - Commercial software for Palm, Symbian, Blackberry and WM
• PocketGear - Commercial Windows Mobile software
• All About Symbian - Free and commercial Symbian software

There are a few questions that come up time and time again on smartphone forums, and one of them is “how can I use Instant Messaging on my device”. As people get more mobile, after SMS and email, the next thing they want to do is IM. As I said in a previous post, right now the mobile IM world is a mess. There are tons of products, more appearing all the time, and they are all evolving very fast. Unfortunately there is not one answer to this question, and they all have strengths and weaknesses. Here I will simply list some popular ones with the various features they have.

Official clients

First, there’s the official clients. Both MSN and Yahoo! Messenger have a mobile client. The Yahoo! one comes part of their Yahoo! Go package. That application is massive and includes the IM, as well as local search, news, stocks, mail, search and more. The client works on hundreds of phones, mainly high end and several mainstream ones. Many lower end phones do not support it, as is the case for most of these apps. Yahoo! Go is currently at version 2.0 “Gamma” and is free.

Microsoft has its own client also. Pocket MSN (now renamed to Live Messenger) comes pre-installed on Windows Mobile smartphones and Pocket PCs. You can also buy it from Microsoft if you don’t already have it. They don’t have an official client for any other type of phone, at least not in the US. Interestingly enough it was discovered that the MSN China site has a version for S60 Symbian phones, which I have to admit I think was the best mobile MSN client of them all. I say was because unfortunately that application no longer works outside of China and Taiwan.

As far as I know there is no official mobile IM client from AOL or Google.

Multi-services clients

There are a lot of unofficial clients, and those usually support multiple services. These typically come out of startup companies hoping to be your gateway to all the IMs of the world. Many of them now even support Skype or other types of VOIP.

One of the oldest and most popular choices is Agile. They have had a mobile IM client for a long time now and provide their application for most phones. Agile Messenger supports MSN, Yahoo!, GTalk, AIM, ICQ and XMP. A trial is available but then you need to buy the product.

IM+ is another application which supports MSN, Yahoo!, GTalk, AIM, ICQ and Jabber. It also has a free trial but then needs to be bought.

EQO is a more recent solution that also integrates all of MSN, Yahoo!, GTalk, AIM, ICQ and Jabber, but also includes Skype support. That means you can call other users of Skype, or even phone lines, over 3G or wi-fi, if your device supports it. This application is free and runs on a large number of devices.

Fring is very similar to EQO in features but it’s in beta and available only for some Nokia devices so far. It also supports Skype and comes free.

Then there’s Mig33. It talks to MSN, Yahoo! and AIM, but it also offers profiles, chat rooms and VOIP calls. It runs on most phones and the lite version is free.

The last one I’ll talk about is the IM client which may already be built into your device. Many phones, mainly most Nokia and some Sony Ericsson devices, come with a built in IM client. If the application hasn’t been configured by the provider, it won’t do anything without what’s called a Wireless Village server. That is a fairly old concept that was intended to provide a central service for mobile IM and not much ever came out of it. Fortunately someone recently started a service called Packetbox that aims to make those clients work again. It’s still in testing and not very stable but it may end up being yet another solution.

Lastly a note of caution. These multi-services clients all require you to signup for an account, and then require your login information for the various services you want to connect to, since they act as gateway between you and the official IM services. This is fine as long as they are trustworthy, but it’s something to keep in mind.

Google Maps is one of the most popular mapping web sites online. Google introduced it a few years ago and has added an impressive amount of features to it. Late last year, they released a Java client called Google Maps for Mobile (GMM) which is available for any mobile device supporting Java. It’s one of the mobile applications I have the most fun with, and I feel it’s one of the most useful yet unknown program out there. GMM isn’t exactly new, but Google has continued to update it in the past months, and today it features almost the same abilities and flexibility as the web based version. Here I will describe these features and how this simple app can help so much.

The first thing to do, if you haven’t already, is to install it. Any Java supporting device that has Internet access (or on which you can transfer applications) will work. Simply go to the web site and download it. A word of caution on using this application: loading maps from your mobile will take a lot of data, so unless you have unlimited data from your provider, you need to watch your usage or risk a high bill. Thankfully GMM has a data counter in the top right showing you how much it’s downloading.

The most obvious feature of GMM is of course to browse maps. You can browse using the arrows on your device, and zoom in by pressing the middle select button. The left soft key will zoom out, and the right one will bring up the menu. From the menu, you can toggle between map and satellite mode. From there you can also access the true power behind GMM.

The first really useful feature is the search. You can do either a local search or a business search. Simply bring up the menu and press 1 or 2 then enter either an address or a business name. One neat thing is you can enter a wide range of items in the search box. You can input a zip code and GMM will zoom in to the location of that zip code. You can enter “pizza” and GMM will show you a list of Pizza restaurants in the area you are currently viewing. You can enter a street or city name, or a known place like “sphinx egypt”.

Whenever you search for something, one or more points will appear on the map. Simply browse through them by using the keypad with the 1, 2 and 3 keys. Also, any time you have a point selected on the map, you can press * to bring up the favorites menu. You can save up to 9 favorites, and those can be either map locations, search results or directions.

The next feature that is very useful is to get directions. By pressing 3 in the menu, you can select 2 points, and Google will display step by step directions. This is very precise and the results will go through every step between those 2 points, telling you which roads to take including exits and road names. Use 1, 2 and 3 to scroll from the start position to the end. One fun thing to try is to get directions to go across the Atlantic ocean.

A recent feature they added is the traffic reports. In several major US cities, pressing # in the menu will bring up the current traffic maps, showing which roads have heavy traffic. Green roads have light traffic while red ones are congested. As Google rolls out this information to more cities, GMM will be able to access this new data.

Lastly, there’s also a more advanced feature known as KML files. A KML file is a list of points on Google Maps, originally created for the Google Earth desktop application, which shows information for each point on the map. For example, someone could create a KML file that shows each Pizza restaurant in Paris, with a short description, picture and link for each. External links will load in the phone’s browser. The way to load the KML file is to do a business search from the menu, and in the search box, enter the URL of the file. GMM will load the file and display each point on the map. Simply use 1, 2 and 3 to scroll between each of them. You can find a list of files people made public on the Google Earth forum. Note that not all KML features are supported.

Google Maps for Mobile is really a cool application, mainly because being Java based, it’s so universal and lightweight, and provides access to all of the Google Maps data in real time. Google keeps updating it and they recently released versions for Windows Mobile and Blackberry, as well as GPS support for a handful of devices.