Colin Charles Agenda

I happened to be awake last night so I caught the announcement via livestream for Facebook Home. I’m glad its just a system launcher. There are many (I myself on my phone use Nova Launcher), but from the demo, this is beautifully designed with a new take on the interface. The demo showed it being smoother than butter ;)

Chat heads look interesting. Some may claim it being bothersome or unintuitive, but most iOS users have this already turned on via accessibility settings assistive touch since the home button breaks far too easily. Why a little white dot when you can now make it do things for you?

I was impressed with the amount of partners on launch day. Buy-in from manufacturers like HTC, Samsung, Sony, Huawei, Lenovo, ZTE, Alcatel. Chipmaker like Qualcomm. Telcos like AT&T, Orange, EE. I can only expect this to grow of course. Gives great competition in the mobile landscape for 2013.

You see, FirefoxOS has a huge amount of partners & buy-in. I continue to be surprised that Ubuntu doesn’t have a similar page.

Am I switching from iOS as my main phone? Unlikely. I’m almost certain that many at Facebook, including Zuckerberg runs on IOS. But I will be playing with this on my secondary device (the Galaxy S3). I’m a little surprised that the April 12 launch isn’t available for the Nexus set of phones… and in Asia, the Galaxy Note form factor is popular, where did that go?

HTC First will be the first device to come with the Facebook Home system launcher as a default. I’m not sure how this is different to them applying skins and admitting that Facebook does it better. This isn’t the first time they’re playing around with a Facebook phone though.

Interesting times as Facebook has confirmed that their strategy is clearly mobile first. The fact that they built this on top of Android can’t really impress Google very much ;)

Others have also covered this well, i.e a strategy for Facebook, how this isn’t good for privacy.

I shared this from The Economist quite some time back: Counting raindrops. Here is an example of folk using mobile phone networks themselves for weather forecasting. 

Today I stumbled upon Cumulonimbus. They have an Android application called pressureNET, which makes use of the barometer in some Android phones. This is user-contributed atmospheric pressure readings, embedded on a Google map. It is available to view at http://pressurenet.cumulonimbus.ca/.

It seems many devices have a barometer as well. Samsung leads the pack with the Galaxy S3, S4, Note, Note II, Galaxy Nexus. It also comes with the Nexus 4 & Nexus 10.

I’m the only one amongst my close friends & colleagues that still use a BlackBerry. I use it primarily for email. During its heyday, it was dead popular for BBM (BlackBerry Messenger), but group messaging apps like Whatsapp came along to disrupt it.

I see that BlackBerry is now finally offering free calls over WiFi for BBM users. Its unlikely to work on my aging Bold 9700, but I’m holding out for a BB10 device.

Is this a first? No, not really.

In the USA, T-Mobile offered this feature since probably 2007 – see more about UMA (Unlicensed Mobile Access). I used to be dead jealous of friends with these kinds of BlackBerries as they could be in Iceland and still call the USA for free over wifi basically.

Now it comes to everyone on the BlackBerry.

However, is this still important? We’ve had several generations of FaceTime that transmits both voice & video over WiFi. The latest iOS 6 even allows this to happen over the 3G/LTE networks, so Apple has just said it is OK to make use of all that bandwidth even when you’re on a mobile connection.

Is BlackBerry being disruptive with this feature? Far from it. I think many have ditched the platform. I am willing to give BB10 a go, but I have no idea if I’ll stick with it for much longer.

And the connection between FaceTime and BBM? Most BlackBerry users carry an iPhone. Don’t forget to read Mark Suster’s good post on this.

I know nothing about the African continent, having never stepped foot into it before (something I’m sure I will remedy within the next decade). I read a piece in the FT Weekend about Alan Knott Craig, Jr. (@alanknottcraig), an entrepreneur in South Africa that runs Mxit. Mxit is impressive: 750 million messages a day served, plus allowing 581 million mobile users in Africa to make electronic payments.

You have got to love Mxit’s mantra: help more Africans make more money.

This is a social entrepreneur at his best. I’ve already picked up his book titled: Mobinomics: Mxit and Africa’s Mobile Revolution, which I presume will be an interesting read.

He is also a workaholic with suggestions on how to improve his work-life balance with 3 simple rules:

1. no working after 6pm
2. no working on Sundays; and
3. no travelling for more than seven consecutive nights

I just subscribed to his blog and followed him on Twitter and am totally eager to learn more about this amazing continent.

Via NYT: Days Are Numbered for Unlimited Mobile Data Plans

In Indonesia, nearly a third of the population is younger than 15 years old. So Telkomsel, the leading mobile operator in the country, offers a data plan called FlexiChatting for customers who want to do just one thing: gain access to and update Twitter and Facebook accounts on their cellphones.

Once more of this starts happening, we’re looking at inspecting packets. Some sites are more free than others. Consumers will love this because they save money and access services that they believe are important to them: Facebook & Twitter.

However this stifles innovation. How will the next Twitter or Facebook start? The startups that are coming to disrupt will be the underdog and will only be available to data rich folk; not the average joe.

Today HTC had some interesting announcements: it cut its revenue forecast for the fourth quarter of 2011 to no growth. This used to be in the range of 20-30%/quarter. In some markets, they realise they are losing out to Apple and Samsung.

My introduction to HTC came with the Google Nexus One. It was an awesome device, and made me fall in love with Android. I then tried the HTC Desire HD right after my Nexus One died; it made me so unhappy, I switched to an iPhone 4 within a couple of weeks.

Samsung has built the Google Nexus S, and the upcoming Google Galaxy Nexus. The future is wide open, as you might get devices from Google-Motorola. If you’re buying an Android device, only buy a Google-sanctioned device. The rest are basically outdated when released and will never make you happy (and I say this, liking the Samsung Galaxy S2 for example).

Is HTC suffering because they’re building a Facebook phone? Google would have known this, thus pushing their phone manufacturing towards Samsung. HTC already has at least two “Facebook phones”, i.e. phones that have a Facebook button on them that takes you directly to Facebook. I cannot imagine how this is a selling point, but if your life is inside Facebook, it makes absolute sense.

And it got me thinking. HTC has bet on Android and Windows Phone. Microsoft is working closely with Nokia on Windows Phone. If Windows Phone rocks, it will rock best on the Nokia’s. Where does this leave HTC?