Yesterday I blogged about how my phone had replaced a variety of different gadgets in my life. The importance of my phone doesn't end there though, I am also completely addicted to other mobile activities such as email (I use the Java ME Gmail client) and web browsing (combination of S60 Webkit and Opera Mini). I know all the statistics point to voice and SMS still being the *only* killer mobile applications but hey, I'm a dreamer and this blog post is all about the future.

Another indispensable mobile application for me is Google Maps (Symbian version). I love this application so much I can't imagine owning a phone without GPS and map access ever again. I bus and walk every where but I haven't used the A-Z (famous book of London maps) for years. I can spend an entire bus journey following the flashing blue dot and studying the local area on my phone. As a result I have found myself visiting interesting places I would never even have realised existed before using this technology.

There are of course a whole slew of other applications I use regularly including the recently installed Nokia Step Counter which is a statisticians dream come true. I often find myself bogged down in the technical nightmares of mobile development, encountering ridiculous network operator hubris and subject to the Luddite views of friends and other technologists but through out I hold on to the knowledge that this is still a nascent technology with a long way to go. Only 15 or so years ago people who used a mobile phone were laughed at... now people who don't use a mobile phone are in the minority. I love the endless possibilities this technology offers. I work in a great industry.

I know it's an old topic but I am still fascinated how each generation of mobile phone I own supersedes a different personal electronics device in my life. First to go was my alarm clock, then the battery in my watch died and I never bothered to replace it, then my phone became my primary camera and finally it was my MP3 player. I travel light but I still carry keys, travel tickets, bank card and money along with my phone. I would love my phone to replace those items leaving nothing for me to worry about except the phone itself.

One possible limitation of this extreme convergence is that if someone loses their phone they lose *everything* which is both an immediate practical concern and a longer term security risk. However with data moving to the cloud and with ubiquitous unlimited data packages a long term inevitability these issues can be overcome. Surely there are enough clever people out there to think of creative ways of solving a problem as simple as losing a mobile phone. :-)

I say bring it on!

Update: O2 Wallet is a working example of how mobile phones could be used to replace travel cards and make payments for small purchases.

Regular expressions are a very important part of our development tool kit at Paxmodept. I have been a big fan ever since my Perl days and we use them to validate HTML form input, match user agent patterns in our provisioning platform and retrieve data from text files. On the weekend I was getting to grips with regex in Python and thought I would do a quick comparison of the regex classes in Ruby, Java and Python. In all I would say the implementations are fairly similar. If you don't use regular expressions you should. Jeff Atwood recently had a good blog post on the subject.

Nokia to acquire Symbian Limited to enable evolution of the leading open mobile platform

The acquisition is a fundamental step in the establishment of the Symbian Foundation, announced today by Nokia, together with AT&T, LG Electronics, Motorola, NTT DOCOMO, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone. More information about the planned foundation can be found at www.symbianfoundation.org.

Mobile leaders to unify the Symbian software platform and set the future of mobile free

To enable the Foundation, Nokia today announced plans to acquire the remaining shares of Symbian Limited that Nokia does not already own and then contribute the Symbian and S60 software to the Foundation. Sony Ericsson and Motorola today announced their intention to contribute technology from UIQ and DOCOMO has also indicated its willingness to contribute its MOAP(S) assets. From these contributions, the Foundation will provide a unified platform with common UI framework. A full platform will be available for all Foundation members under a royalty-free license, from the Foundation's first day of operations.

Given the emphasis on open and free I would say this is more a reaction to Android than the iPhone.

I went to see My Bloody valentine at the Camden Roundhouse last night. The ushers were handing our ear plugs as they were showing people into the venue and what a statement of intent that was! As you can see from the pictures I had seats way up in the rafters on the side and my hearing is still slightly numb today. For the last 20 minutes of their set they played a wall of jet engine noise at the audience. The rafters were vibrating and it was so loud that I could hardly hear myself think. Along with the interesting visuals it made for an incredible experience.

Palringo's BlackBerry version has been getting some great attention in the news recently.

Matthew Miller: The Mobile Gadgeteer

The Boy Genius Report

Okay, so after a few days of playing around with our new Samsung/F480 (Tocco) and LG/KF750 (Secret) I am starting to understand the new user experience concepts implemented on these phones. It's not all good but certainly not as bad as I originally thought.

LG Secret

* It's not a true touch screen phone.Touch screen interaction is limited to only a few features on the device. I just don't get this... seems a waste to me.

* The navigation pad and soft keys are flat touch sensitive areas at the bottom of the front case just below the screen with the middle fire button being an actual physical button. I can't even start to explain how much I hate this type of input. I hated it on the LG Chocolate and I hate it even more on the LG Secret. The haptics make up for it but it still sucks!

* It has a standard 12 button slide out keypad.

* Native browser is by Obigo and supports AJAX.

* The operating system and user interface are okay.

* The Aroma JVM is good! Most features of Palringo (socket connection, image upload/playback and audio upload/playback) work except the audio upload which is an resolvable encoding issue. Wow! An LG with a good JVM. What is the world coming to? :-0

Samsung Tocco

* It is mainly touch screen with a few physical buttons on the sides and front of the device.

* The drag and drop home screen is great. I like it a lot!

* The OS and user interface are good and generally I am much more partial to this device than the LG Secret. The only issue is scrolling which might just require some regular usage before you master it. Haptics are good.

* Native browser is by Netfront and supports AJAX.

* Again the JVM is good! I think the Tocco uses the Aplix JBlend JVM (but I stand to be corrected on this as I know Samsung also use Sun's Hotspot JVM). All features of Palringo worked perfectly although the native navigation bar inserted at the bottom of the screen is slightly annoying. The pre-installed Java ME applications don't have this and go full screen so there must be a work around. Again... wow! Java just worked.

Personally I would choose the Samsung over the LG but call quality was slightly iffy and I couldn't Bluetooth images to my PC for some unknown reason. I still prefer my N95 to both.

I absolutely love my Nokia N800 internet tablet and it's become an indispensable part of my *home* life. It has basically freed me from my work desk by allowing me access to the internet from anywhere in my house. One use case is researching historical context on Wikipedia whilst watching films and another is simply sitting in the back garden reading Reddit with a cup of tea. I can't imagine life without it. However, it does have it's shortcomings and I often find myself dreaming of what it *could* be like.

Here's my take on the perfect digital tablet.

* A5 size touch screen device with no physical keyboard and a good screen. No pointer is required, fingers only. The larger screen size should allow for easy typing on a virtual keyboard.

* Simple and elegant industrial design which includes a stand with charging capabilities. More iPhone than Kindle if you know what I mean. :-) Some type of scroll wheel is essential. Accelerometer to determine orientation.

* At least 5 gig flash memory with a basic file system.

* Wifi and USB cable connectivity. Bluetooth and Infrared would be cool but they aren't essential.

* An open and extensible OS with a simple iPhone like UI.

* A good browser. The version of Firefox on the N800 doesn't handle AJAX sites very well but Fennec looks like a step in the right direction.

* A digital book reader.

* A full screen image viewer so that it can double as a digital photo frame when not being used for anything else or when it's charging.

* An audio and video player.

* If the device has Infrared it could double as a universal remote control.

* A basic gaming framework. More DS than PSP.

* A content and application search and discovery mechanism which includes a store front for commercial material. This doesn't imply the device should be a closed environment. The store should be so simple and easy to use that people *choose* to buy content rather than pirate it.