David Herrold

Blackberry Bold (9000) preview

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Hardware, Mobile, Technology

Video link

The Blackberry 9000 Bold previewed in the video above features several useful upgrades (like wifi and video recording) that may create even more competition for the iPhone in the coming months.

According to the video, it will also feature some interface and application upgrades. I like the upgrades to the clock/alarm application and the ability to delete apps from the home screen makes that process MUCH easier.

The OS seemed very responsive and quick to open and close applications as well as saving data.

Looks like a great phone. I can’t wait to see the final release.

Tags: Blackberry, blackberry 9000, blackberry bold, bold, rim

The walking hazards of text messaging

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Mobile, Productivity

The instances of people doing bodily harm to themselves while walking the streets of London and sending text messages with their phones has increased to the point that the city of London has installed padding around lamp posts in certain parts of town.

The Daily Express says:

Six million Britons were injured last year bumping into lamp posts, bollards and litter bins while trying to walk and text on mobile phones at the same time.

New figures reveal that more than one in ten needed treatment for injuries including broken noses, cheekbones and even in one case a fractured skull.

Research among 1,055 adults discovered that 63 per cent concentrate so hard when they are texting that they become “blind” to objects around them.

Mobile phone users are now being advised to use template messages to speed up texting and look up every five seconds to avoid hazards.

I find this both funny and serious at the same time. This is very thoughtful of London politicians. It is also useful during the weekends for bar patrons who have a few too many to walk straight. I can appreciate that.

I would love to see the statistics for driving accidents caused by text messaging while driving. I suspect it happens more than we’d care to admit (I’m guilty of it, myself).

Isn’t this a bit like padding the highways with giant pillows so drunk drivers don’t hurt themselves?

Can’t we simply invest in hats and t-shirts warning our fellow pedestrians to “Stop texting and just walk!?”

Photo by mindshare

Tags: Mobile, sms, text messaging

Mozilla mobile browser on horizon

Posted by Dave | Filed under Browsers, Mobile, Software, Usability

Mozilla community (makers of FireFox, Thunderbird, Bugzilla, Camino and other fine applications) have announced their intension to build mobile browsers for both touch screens & non-touch screen phones.

I think they have a great shot at competing directly with the likes of Apple, Palm, Nokia, RIM, Microsoft, etc in the mobile browser market.  Most mobile browsers are lacking in basic functionality of some sort.

• iPhones can’t copy & paste.  It.  Can’t.  Copy.  And.  Paste.  Think about that for a minute.  Palm Treos over 6 years ago could copy and paste.
• Blackberry browser laughs heartily at your mobile CSS while slapping its knee.
• Internet Explorer Mobile is almost as fantastic as Internet Explorer’s desktop version.  D’oh.
• Opera Mini, god bless them, are trying, but not much better than the rest (frequent connection errors have tainted my once-cheery opinion of Opera Mini.)

Most mobile browsers have serious issues supporting JavaScript, CSS, AJAX, Flash, audio, video, etc.  None offer developers tools or plugins to allow any real dissection of a page.  I would LOVE some sort of “Email me page source” and “Email me screenshot” tools.  For that matter, many phones are capable of voice-dialing.

Why not use voice browsing to automatically open a browser and navigate to a preset audio bookmark?

1. “Find Starbucks” - could trigger google maps search
2. “Browse CNN” - open CNN mobile homepage in your browser
3. “Wiki Ben Franklin” - searched Wapedia for Ben Franklin references

There are infinite possibilities when you ponder all the available functionality of a mobile phone.  They are, after all, audio devices first and foremost.  Let’s put the audio to good use.

Speaking of functionality, Google is beginning to use a combination of GPS and cell tower pings to determine where a user is located for their mobile maps product.  It’s not perfect, but pretty accurate and more importantly, it’s combining interesting features of the phone (WAP & GPS) to create an application that is greater than the sum of its parts.

I hope Mozilla pushes the envelope and begins utilizing more of the phone’s capabilities than just a simple browser.

Track the progress of the browser development on Mozilla’s wiki pages:

Touch screen browser wiki
Non-touch screen browser wiki

Mobile sites: a few of my favorites

Posted by Dave | Filed under Mobile, Technology, Usability, Web design

Mobile LinkedIn is fantastic.

I just noticed today that LinkedIn (my work-related social networking site of choice) has launched an amazing mobile site. It feels nearly as robust as their full-featured site for searching and sending invitations.

I’m always shocked at how some mobile sites can tailor their user experience to give the perception of full functionality (even if that’s not the case).

Google and Yahoo offer many of their mobile applications & searches (calendar, maps, docs, email, etc). Mobile Google Maps has been the most impressive of the lot, in my opinion.

Bank of America allows you to check balances, pay bills, transfer money, etc. with your mobile browser.

Netflix allows you to search for movies and add them to your queue. This seems exceptionally handy if you are chatting with friends and someone mentions a movie you should see. You can immediately add it to your queue while you’re thinking of it.

I would be remiss if I didn’t pimp our very own mobile.chron.com in this blog post. I think we do a decent job of presenting diverse content (weather, news, sports, obituaries, etc) content in a very small space.

Mobile news sites such as the New York Times, CNN, Chicago Tribune, etc. offer some great mobile news user interfaces.

One of my favorite search tools is called Wapepedia. It is a simple mobile interface for Wikipedia.

You can find a lot more great mobile sites at cantoni.mobi.

Do you have any favorite mobile sites you find yourself using on a regular basis?

Tags: Blackberry, iPhone, linkedin, Mobile, Treo, WAP, wireless

Mobile presentation for BarCampNOLA

Posted by Dave | Filed under Design, Mobile, Usability

I put together a mobile presentation for BarCamp NOLA this weekend. Since I’ve been working on our mobile platform recently I’ve been taking some notes and reading about the industry’s best practices with WAP and mobile technology in general.

Let me know what you think.

- Dave

Tags: Blackberry, iPhone, Mobile, Treo, WAP, wireless

Alerts with Yahoo pipes

Posted by Dave | Filed under Mobile, Software, Usability

I’m not sure if I simply missed this when I originally set up my Yahoo Pipes page or if it is a recent addition. I was a little shocked to see the Google RSS chicklette in the header of my pipe output page. There are several other options (Bloglines, Netvibes, Newsgator, etc) in the “more options” link. All I have to say is, kudos to you, Yahoo, for recognizing the usefulness of having your competitors’ feed links in your product.

The other thing I noticed recently is the mobile alert system Yahoo offers for Pipes. This seems very useful. Imagine you are searching for a Ford F-150 in Houston. You could build a pipe combining search result feeds for F-150 on Craig’s list or Yahoo autos. (You can use other search engines like cars.com or auto trader, but results without RSS feeds are a bit trickier…but still possible).

Click here to read more…

Tags: alerts, Mobile, RSS, search engines, yahoo pipes

Where am I, Google?

Posted by Dave | Filed under Communication, Mobile, Software, Technology

Google has released a fascinating new feature for its mobile maps application called “my location.” I downloaded the new version of Google Maps for mobile tonight and tried it out. It wasn’t quite as accurate as a GPS, but was only off by about 200 yards. Not bad.