.

Also read the Skype blog post.

There are many voices out there that say that only a few mobile OSs would survive and among them Apple, Google (Android), RIM, and Microsoft (Windows Mobile). Nokia’s OSs are not mentioned. One of the major reasons brought up is that Nokia is not a SW company but a hardware manufacturer only. I am not sure though if that is correct. In particular if Nokia continue to make the right moves like this free SW GPS, and acquires SW companies, then they have their current market leadership behind them. Also, unlike both Google and Apple, Nokia have a very strong relationship with the mobile operators as their distribution partner. To change a working infrastructure is a tough thing to do and typically requires really big differentiation and benefits. Of course Apple is able to deliver them but also seems to be the only vendor out there with that capability. That would reduce the battle for Nokia to one company “only” which is Apple. And to do that they need to do more than provide SW. Nokia have known that for a while and that’s the reason why they launched their Ovi platform, offering free music downloads and now free GPS capability. Of course free is not a good business model for a CE vendor and that’s why they have to really integrate this all well so that they offer an alternative to the Apple platform (touch phones, iTunes store, music player, apps, ebook reader). Looking at their website that’s exactly what they are working on but you can also see their main deficiency: while maps are free, network download charges for synchronization are of course not, and depend on your operator and your mobile plan. Apple would have provided deals with the major operators offering a complete end-to-end user experience (and if it is only that you can conveniently buy/activate it through iTunes). So still some way to go for Nokia, but first steps look promising at least.

One additional question now is what will happen with GPS vendors when what they offer is essentially a freebee on mobile phones. Worth a new blog post I think…

I tried out this startup company’s service today and it worked very nicely. At first I was not sure what it might bring in addition to web presentation services such as GoToMeeting or Webex, but it soon became clear.

While GoToMeeting still has no smartphone app, which I consider as pretty weak, Webex has that too. MightyMeeting’s approach is to upload your presentations (the limit is 20 MBytes per presentation) and then run it from there. So it is the SaaS version of these two other web presentation tools.

What are the advantages of doing that? The biggest advantage I see is in being able to run an online presentation simply from your iPhone, iPod Touch, Android or other smartphone and not having to be at your laptop or PC. Of course you can run it from there, too. While it is also possible to run a presentation and advance the slides from your smartphone while your laptop is connected to an LCD beamer, I was not then able to select a full-screen view, which is not ideal of course as you always see the border of the program and the browser. The program is in beta so I hope they add full screen view as well in that operation. One can expect that they will add better usability and communication features such as VoIP (a basic chat function is already supported) over time too.

This tool is free right now. No idea how they plan to commercialize it. One approach could be to come out with an enterprise version that they charge for the same way the others do. MightyMeeting btw won the last event of Founders Showcase run by TheFunded in Silicon Valley where every 3 months about 200 entrepreneurs and VCs come together to listen to pitches from very early stage companies and then vote for the best one that evening.

On my trip to the US I could not resist the saving potential buying a MacBook. I got the lowest cost model as I did not see any real difference to a MacBook Pro and I looked into all the details. All in all with some software I saved about 500 USD compared with what I would pay in Switzerland. Not bad when the total amount was only 1500 USD.

Now after I set up all my SaaS links, imported my contacts, synced the calendar with the Mac iCal and put all my PC data onto a 2.5″ super small portable hard disk from where I will use it in the next few weeks whenever needed, I was ready to go. I did not think a VMware installation would be necessary to make the switch from Windows.

My first working experience was awesome. The screen is a beauty and so are every other detail. Hard to understand why it took me so long to switch.

The Safari browser is quite fast which is important for me since I have lots of software in the cloud. I don’t see the need for any other browser - sorry Chrome and Mozilla. Now I am thinking to maybe get MobileMe so my iPod Touch and MacBook stay automatically synced and data is stored in the cloud as well. The only thing I did linking me back to the MSFT world was to buy Office for Mac as I don’t think Apple’s office suite will guarantee 100% backwards compatibility to my long list of MSFT Office files. So that’s it. I think Apple will make life for MSFT, PC vendors and mostly mobile phone vendors a tough one in the coming years.

To give you my opinion right away: I can’t imagine that Motorola and Verizon will by addressing some of the possible shortcomings of the iPhone ecosystem make their own Droid launch a success. Product management is more complicated than looking at  the market leader, writing down all its product specs and then simply bringing out a product that shows better features. This strategy succeeds only in a commodity market. But Apple and the iPhone, app store, iTunes ecosystem is NOT a simple product only but a thought-through end-to-end user experience product & service offering. The Motorola and Verizon folks have obviously still not understood this otherwise they would not have launched such a desperate campaign merely addressing - mostly - features. The strongest point was the openness of Google’s Android platform but also here they did a quick-and-dirty job. Not surprising knowing how desperate Motorola is these days to finally get back on track with a successful mobile phone after its long-time-ago success of the Razr.

But if you want to tackle Apple then you must take them on in a completely different way. And I think they are vulnerable because any company who is arrogant will miss opportunities or simply not do the best job possible. History has shown that over and over again. Unfortunately the Indian or Chinese style of product management, comparing spec sheet features one by one is not enough to make an impact. This has to be done differently…

I have been using Evernote now for quite a while, primarily to organize the weekly and daily tasks. Also whenever I have a new idea I write it down as a note and sync it when there is WLAN access available, like at my home or in the office. Evernote has evolved form a simple note taking tool to an archiving system and how this looks has been described by Guy Kawasaki at length. I don’t think I will use all of these things but perhaps you will find some of them useful? Forwarding e-mails to my Evernote e-mail address and with that archiving them is something I have decided to do now.  Here’s a summary of all the things you can do:

• Forward email to your unique Evernote email address.
• Upload text, photo, or voice recordings via an iPhone, Palm Pre, or Windows Mobile phone.
• Drag-and-drop audio, images, PDFs, and files into Evernote on the desktop.
• Attach Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF documents to an email and send them to your Evernote email address.
• “Save PDF to Evernote” from the printing dialog box.
• Clip websites and blogs.
• Send documents directly from a scanner.
• Tweet text with the string “@myEN”.
• Upload from cameras directly to Evernote using the wireless EyeFi card.

Who would have forecast only a few years ago that Dell would drive the innovation of laptop technology forward? Dell was well known for me-too, high-powered professional laptops for a relatively good price. Up until they ran into support problems and the “Dell is hell” story made its round, hurting the company quite a bit. Now that Michael Dell is back he seems to be doing a lot of great things. Firstly they started using social communities for innovation as well as for tech support, which also appears to have had a great effect on the culture of the company. And now they have announced the Latitude Z, which is full of great innovation. It is pricey still, but in a short amount of time I am sure this will all become more affordable as always.

Watch this:

What else could people do on 9/9/2009, other than get married? That’s probably what Dell’s PR folks were thinking. In December 2008 they unveiled the original Adamo laptop but without much media buzz at the time. Now this week on September 9, a new Adamo was shown that measures 9.99mm in height, making it the thinnest laptop. Compare this with Apple’s MacBook Air which is 19.3mm high and you see that it must be unbelievably thin. Some folks who had their hands on a it were amazed about it. see here

No other info is available yet. If you want to be informed of news you can submit your e-mail on this site.

Every so often fun things happen and shame if you only hear about it 4 weeks later. This time it is infamous Paul Carr’s very own story to accept Michael Arrington’s call to write the Saturday column at Web 2.0 blog/news portal Techcrunch. I think it is a smart move to try to lighten up the otherwise very dry reads about the dozen or more Web 2.0 startup news pieces every day mixed with a good dose of Apple, Google or Microsoft stories to increase readership - of course. Now I have to admit that I have not read Paul Carr’s Techcrunch columns yet but will start doing so from tomorrow on and with that read - yes - Techcrunch. His first intro post shows the kind of blog posts you have to expect and not take too seriously, or should you take it seriously? Bringing nothing to Techcrunch…; as the boss in the movie Good Morning Vietnam with Robin Williams said “…well, that is funny”.

Here’s a list of the iPod Touch apps I like the most and also some that I am still checking out some more as I have not yet seen their usefulness in full.

Twitter client

Twittelator is what I use the most. Sometimes also TweetDeck. Other clients that work well but are not that popular with me — but still worth taking a look as it is quite subjective — are Tweetie, Twitterrific, TwitterFon.

Traveling apps

The iPhone apps in the traveling category are growing rapidly and I am not up to date on all that’s out there now. I think LonelyPlanet is good, although I have not bought any iphone app. What I can recommend are Tube (London, Paris), BERLIN (TripPlanner), CityGuide (Barcelona, Roma), BucksMe (to find the next Starbucks nearby), worldtop7 (best restaurants to check out), and Beijing and Shanghai Taxi Guide — a MUST have when you are there.

Swiss apps

Yes, living in Switzerland you have a good choice of some really excellent apps like: PhoneBook (works super fast), ParkMe (shows in real-time the parking lots available in all the major Swiss cities), SBB Mobile (all the railway connections), Wemlin (all the buses and trams in Zurich), 20minuten and Tagesanzeiger apps, which are very good online newspapers, Swiss events, Swim Weather (shows details of all the public swimming pools), usgang.ch.

Games

My kids are the authorities on this. They like: Topple, Monkey, NFSU, Tiki Towers (is THE hit), Paper Toss, Hanoi. Shazam for recognizing songs works well and I use it quite often.

Weather

WeatherPro is the best I think, AeroWeather as a backup is OK next to Apple’s own Weather app. iWeather.ch I don’t yet find useful.

News

20minuten and TA in Switzerland, stern.de is well done, NYT, Instapaper, Newsstand (I like the most as blog reader), Stitcher for podcasts, TVGuide, TV Movie and netTV are all far from perfect TV guides and lots of usability improvements are needed for all of them.

Work tools

DocsToGo is similar to FileShare, OffMaps I consider as a work tool to help me find my way as a backup, Flight Status is nice to have and AirportStatus is good for only shows US airport delays, 30Boxes online calendar works very well, Convertbot makes converting Fahrenheit or inches into what I understand better - metrics - fun to use, mSecure keeps all my login names and passwords at one place — and man, how many there are! My ultimate week planning tool is Evernote, a must-try-out app! To find Wifi networks I use WifiTrak and WiFinder (this does not work under OS 3.0 anymore, though), to find FREE Wifi connections I try out iFiFi and FREE Wi.Fi but both with so-so success, you need to be patient so often not the best tool for work. I have now found WifiCafe and this app seems to also work in offline mode.

Social Communications

LinkedIn and Facebook work well on the iPhone, so does Skype (no more need for FRING, sorry guys), Brightkite and Mobeedo or aka-aki I am trying out still, so far it did not convince me as there are not enough people in it and anyway only works in BIG cities, maybe.

Fun for me

Cocktails, easyPasta, Holidays (to see when other people are taking off again), iChillout, CellarRat (quick overview of what wine area and year could be promising, so far did not use much at all). Schmap and Unlike I’ll probably delete soon, Trailers Int. shows the latest movie trailers, very nice app, CultureGPS is a mix of fun and business app, sometimes one and sometimes the other — try it out and see yourself!

The iPhone apps are overall now more sophisticated than the first versions. Still I have the feeling they are now reaching their limitations as there is only so much you can do with an app on a relatively small screen. Not surprisingly Apple seems to be working on a bigger screen version which will open up entirely new and better opportunities. E.g. web surfing on a small screen is still not that much fun and remains an exception for me even with Wifi connectivity.