N9 Apps #3: ShotMee

ShotMee is another shining example of MeeGo’s open glory. One thing many N900 users noticed on the announcement of the N9 was the omission of a few neat features, like an FM transmitter and the ability to take a screenshot. While Nokia Store for MeeGo may not be crammed with half a million apps, the ones it does have tend to be important and useful, and that’s exactly what ShotMee is.

The app is a free download and is simple enough: open it, minimise it, and you take a screenshot by double-tapping the side of the phone. If you’ve ever taken a screenshot on the iPhone and found it quite frustrating having to readjust how you hold the phone and try not to let go of the power key too early, lest you lock it instead of taking a picture, you’ll appreciate the simplicity on offer here. Regardless of how you’re holding the phone, just take one hand and double-tap it on either side or bottom of the phone (the actual physical side, not the screen), and a screenshot is saved in the gallery. Tap the notification bar immediately after taking the shot and you’re able to share it or use it as wallpaper, and even set it as your avatar.

Free, easy to use, and its intuitiveness means you don’t need to find the gallery to use the photo. What more could you want?

N9 Apps #2: Firefox

By and large, a browser is a browser. Especially when it comes to mobile phones; some are better in that they display Flash content, others allow you to view pages as you would on your computer rather than a mobile version, and the N900’s stood apart by featuring a fully-fledged cursor that allowed the user to interact with drop-down menus. The difficulty isn’t so much in using a browser on a phone, but given the amount of time many people spend on their home computers we all have a list of favourite websites and the problem is remembering what they are to access on a phone.

The beauty of Firefox for the N9 (and indeed Android) is that it syncs beautifully with your Firefox profile on your computer, giving you immediate and full access to open tabs, history and bookmarks. Book a train ticket on your computer, leave the tab open and when you get to the station you can have the reference number and other information at your fingertips by opening the same tab.

On the N9, Firefox loads quickly and is responsive to use. Coupled with the plugin from the Nokia Store, it also allows users to view Flash content, so you can watch the videos on the BBC website for example, instead of being greeted by the notorious grey box informing you that you can’t see it, as happens on so many devices.

For standard browsing, there’s little benefit to be had from choosing Firefox over the default browser. However, if you want to have easy access to your computer’s browsing information wherever you go and keep your browsing habits synced, and view anything you want on your phone, then it’s a definite must-have for any N9 user.

N9 Apps #1: Inception

I’m as much of a fan as Nokia adopting Windows Phone as the next person. It’s intuitive, easy to use and all information is there at your fingertips. But as a former N900 owner, there’s something to be said about the fun that can be had on an open-source platform with community support. When Flash wasn’t updated on the N900, a community workaround was released to allow new videos to be watched in the browser. When Nokia didn’t introduce portrait mode to the tablet, the community did it. That level of support and development kept the platform fresh and exciting, and with the N9 also being an open Linux platform the fun continues with MeeGo.

Nokia has lent me an N9 to trial and while it’s in my possession I will be doing app reviews, and the first one will be looking at an app that embodies the community spirit and the power of an open-source platform: Inception.

The thread at talk.maemo.org describes Inception thusly:

The Nokia N9 is an amazing piece of hardware running an amazing mobile OS. However, advanced users have often been frustrated by its sometimes-limiting Aegis security system. Aegis, like many other security frameworks, blocks many legitimate tasks beyond truly dangerous activity, and makes it difficult to customize your N9 to run on your terms.

This problem is one of the past: INCEPTION allows you to assume direct control and liberate your Nokia N9’s full potential.

INCEPTION is:

  • Easy. INCEPTION allows you to open up your N9 in less than five minutes, with no need for a PC.
  • Safe. INCEPTION makes no major changes to your N9 on its own – it merely unlocks the door so that you can use your own discretion. INCEPTION can be uninstalled at any time with no side effects.
  • Effective. With INCEPTION, the only limits on what you can do with your N9 are your own. INCEPTION turns the N9 into what could be the most powerful and open handheld device on the market.

INCEPTION doesn’t disable or remove Aegis by itself – it just puts you in the driver’s seat.

In other words, Inception allows developers to create apps and modifications, and users to install said apps and modifications, that take full advantage of having open access to the N9.

While iOS and Windows Phone can’t dream of such a capability, and Android still masquerades as being open-source, the MeeGo community has stepped forward to show its true potential.

Order Pizza…From a Fridge Magnet

If you thought being able to order a Domino’s pizza online or through an app was an impressive new way to get food, then Red Tomato Pizza‘s idea will floor you. Forget your computer or your smartphone, because this company lets you order your favourite pizza by simply pushing a button. On a magnet.

Unfortunately this is something only residents of Dubai can enjoy, but we may see the invention make its way to Europe in the future. The user creates an account online and says their favourite pizza, which is then linked to the account (and presumably can be changed whenever you decide you’re bored of a particular pizza). The magnet syncs, through Bluetooth, to the user’s smartphone, and when the magnet (shaped like a pizza box) is pressed, the pizza is ordered. A text message is received shortly after as confirmation, and accidental presses can be cancelled by sending a quick SMS to the company.

To help raise awareness of its new marvel, Red Tomato Pizza has released two videos. One of which is a straightforward informational advert to explain how it all works. The other, more entertaining one, can be seen below:

 

 

Most Users Satisfied With Siri

Yesterday’s article reported that a Brooklyn man is suing Apple because Siri doesn’t perform as advertised (for him at least), but most iPhone 4S users are happy with the function.

According to a survey of 482 iPhones 4S owners conducted by research firm Parks Associates, more than half said they were “very satisfied” with how it performed, with 87% saying they use it at least once a month. A further 21% said they were “satisfied” and 9% said they were “unsatisfied”. Considering Siri is still a beta product, having over 70% satisfaction rate is quite good. However, it’s also worth noting that the survey was US iPhone users only, and it’s a fair bet to think that users from other countries would be less satisfied as Siri has a reputation for not recognising words very well from non-US accents and it does not perform as many tasks outside of America – it doesn’t find local businesses, for instance.

An interesting finding from the study was that most of the users only use Siri for a handful of simple tasks, like sending emails or calling a contact, despite Siri being able to schedule reminders, browse the web, play songs and answer myriad questions. In fact, 32% of those surveyed have never used Siri for playing songs, and 35% have never scheduled a meeting with it. While those features are going unnoticed, the ability to send an email is something of a hit, with 26% saying they use Siri to do just that on a daily (or almost daily) basis, although 30% have never used it for that function either. Whether these people do not use Siri much for anything, or if they don’t send many emails, or if they just prefer to type them was not explored. The statistics from this report suggest that Siri is useful to those who have tried it, but it’s not a runaway success and arguably hasn’t shaped up to be what was expected of it in Apple’s 2011 keynote.

Indeed, John Barrett, Parks Associates’ director of consumer analytics, spoke of some drawbacks to Siri: “Some said Siri didn’t work well against background noise. Others said it had trouble understanding commands. These problems could be amplified in a noisy living room, where the main TV would be located.”

How Siri progresses in future software updates and upcoming handsets will be interesting to see. Will it cope better with noisy backgrounds like Shazam does? Will it recognise more accents? And if it performs perfectly, will it have much bearing on who uses it and how?

 

Google Instant “Ruined” Man’s Life

Another day another problem for Google. This time around it involves Google Instant – the recent addition where searching in Google leads to it auto-completing your search using previous search terms by other users as well as language and location, as shown below:

 

 

 

For most people this is just plain annoying, but for an unnamed Japanese man, it’s been nothing but trouble. The auto-complete feature allows you to see – sometimes uncomfortably – what other people have been using the infinite powers of Google to find. But the man in question discovered that Google auto-completes his name with crimes that he says he has not committed. Part of the problem no doubt is that he isn’t the only person in the world with his name, but with just one of Google’s suggestions returning over 10,000 individual results, it’s quite a big problem. Such a problem, in fact, that according to his lawyers the search results, thanks to employers increasingly conducting their own checks using the Internet, cost the man his job and resulted in him being turned down for others.

With Google itself turning down his request to remove the terms, the Japanese man decided to forge ahead and sought an injunction through the Japanese courts. The Tokyo court approved it and declared that Google now needs to suspend it’s auto-complete results. While it sounds cut-and-dry, Google being Google (and overlooking their own “Don’t be evil” mantra) have decided to ignore the ruling. The Japan Times reports Google as saying that it “will not be regulated by Japanese law” and that “the case does not warrant deleting the auto-complete suggestions.” Why? Because “the suggested words were being selected mechanically, not intentionally, and thus do not violate his privacy”. On the other hand, it could be argued that if Google wants to be permitted to be an active search provider in Japan, it needs to accept that it should be compliant with the country’s laws. If nothing else, the man who sought the injunction is likely to suffer from this far more than Google would if it suspended just a few terms. His lawyer embellishes on this: “This can lead to irretrievable damage, such as job loss or bankruptcy, just by displaying search results that constitute defamation or violation of the privacy of an individual person or small and medium-size companies.”

Although Google Instant blocks offensive or otherwise untoward phrases being returned with the use of strict filters, this isn’t an isolated incident. In 2010 Google lost a lawsuit in France due to the suggestions that appeared on its Google Suggest. In that case, the plaintiff’s name prompted the words “rapist” and “satanist”. The man in question had been convicted on appeal for corrupting a minor, but according to the AFP, the “conviction was not yet definitive” when Google’s suggestions appeared. In losing that case Google had to make a “symbolic payment” of one Euro and to ensure it took steps to eliminate the chances of it happening again. As with the case of the Japanese man, Google insisted in 2010 that it would appeal the decision.

Prior to that case in 2010 Google lost another case in France that were once again related to its suggestions. Search Engine Land carries the story that Google was ordered by a French appeals court to remove the word arnaque, which means “scam”, from its Suggest list when people searched for the Centre National Privé de Formation a Distance (CNFDI). Google’s response to the ruling was that the Suggest tool was automated, but the appeals court rejected this by stating that as Google permitted people to report offensive terms, the search giant has control over the terms that appear.