Mobile Choice Blog

AOL launches new UK mobile portal

AOL has launched AOL Mobile, its new mobile internet portal offering channels from its web service, including email and search functions.

The site also promises to 'transcode' any website into mobile-friendly pages - although given that some mobile browsers (and, indeed, operators) already do this means it might not be that useful to all mobile users.

AOL Mobile search is prominently placed on the new portal's homepage, while channels ported over from AOL's UK website include sport, news and entertainment, with more to follow in the coming months. To check AOL's new portal out, text AOL to 85885 here in the UK.

Get cute with a Hello Kitty Bluetooth headset

The problem with Bluetooth headsets is, well, they're a bit dull aren't they? Sober, serious-looking gadgets whose sole aim is to look unobtrusive while dangling from your ear. Which is what most mobile users are looking for, we daresay.

For anyone who prefer to rock the 'teenage Japanese girl' look, though, how about this Hello Kitty Bluetooth headset, which has just surfaced in Japan. We don't know how much it costs, or how you can get hold of one from the UK, but it's a colourful alternative to almost all of its rivals.

Pair this with a Miffy handset, of course, and your cutesy rating will shoot through the roof.

(via Engadget Mobile)

Philips launches Xenium 9@9k mobile with TWO MONTH battery life!

That's right: two full months of standby time for a mobile phone. Which considering most new handsets need recharging every couple of days is some achievement.

The phone in question is Philips' Xenium 9@9k, so the downside is that it's not one of the major phone brands. The company is promising 1,440 hours of standby battery life, and an equally impressive 17 hours of talktime.

Its camera is only VGA-resolution, but it does have Bluetooth, a built-in FM tuner, and a microSD memory card slot. Hopefully this won't be the last phone to offer supercharged battery life, although there must be a limit to how long current phone batteries can stretch before manufacturers need to switch to another technology, like futuristic fuel-cells.

(via Engadget Mobile)

Jamster launching music download service for Nokia XpressMusic phones

You might know Jamster as the home of the Crazy Frog, but there's more to the company musically than amphibians spouting gibberish over a dance beat. Thank goodness, is all we can say.

Jamster has just announced that its Jamster Music full-track download service will be made available on Nokia's 5310 and 5610 XpressMusic handsets, via the Download icon on their main menus. It's a subscription-based model, in which you pay £4.50 a week for six music downloads a week, choosing from 1.4 million available tracks.

It's slightly confusing though, what with Nokia having its own Music Store whose downloads work on both those handsets, as well as operators' own music stores. Still, if you're an XpressMusic handset owner who fancies downloading, at least you're spoilt for choice when it comes to stores.

(via Mobile Entertainment)

3G iPhone rumoured... for Spain and Italy

The web is full of rumours this week about Apple releasing a 3G iPhone, which won't please the tens of thousands of people who snapped up the 2.5G version when it went on sale with O2 this month in the UK. However, don't worry just yet, since the rumours are sketchy, and focus on Spain and Italy, rather than the UK.

So, one rumour says the 3G iPhone will go on sale in Spain next May, while the other says Vodafone will have it in Italy, but only after Christmas. Some form of the iPhone will surely go on sale in both countries soon, since they haven't got Apple's handset yet.

However, launching a 3G model there so soon would be a controversial move by Apple, which would enrage early adopters here in the UK. It seems fairly sure that a 3G iPhone will launch next year, but it remains unclear whether O2 will let people upgrade before the end of their 18-month contracts.

Want to make the perfect soup? Consult your mobile!

Making soup is easy. Step 1: crack open a tin of soup. Step 2: heat it. We told you it was easy. Yet if you prefer the complicated route of actually chopping and cooking ingredients, we've found a mobile application that might make that a bit easier too.

It's called Knorr: Mobile Cookbook, and it's a Java application offering 20 delicious soup recipes - we assume most if not all of them involve Knorr stock cubes, obviously. The application also gives you cooking instructions and pictures.

The bad news is that right now, you have to be Polish to get the application, as it's only being sold there. But it's probably only a matter of time before it comes to the UK too, since we are a soup-loving nation. Until then, we'll have to stick with the cans.

(via The Cell Freak)

You wait ages to text a bus, then three SMS along at once

That headline might not work, but at least we tried, eh? MobHappy has some interesting news about Yorkshire-based mobile service yournextbus. It launched two years ago, and lets you send a text message to find out when your next bus is arriving, although there's also a WAP site.

The news is that the service has received two million text messages so far, with a further million hits on its WAP site. It might not be a 'sexy' mobile service like TV or downloadable music, but it seems to be one that people genuinely want to use. Of course, if our buses ran like clockwork, nobody would need it, but that's a separate rant for another time.

Local councillor Ryk Downes reckons 13% of passengers are using the buses more as a result of the service too, so it's clearly paying its way.

yournextbus article (via MobHappy)

HTC introduces new Touch smartphones with extra memory

We're big fans of the HTC Touch smartphone, which is currently being touted to mobile users as a rival to the iPhone. HTC has just announced a couple of new colours for the device in Asia - white and burgundy - which may appeal to anyone who shunned the existing green and black versions.

Better still, the new Touches have been given an upgrade, doubling their memory from 128MB of RAM to 256MB, which should make them run faster. There's no news on when these upgraded Touch handsets will come to Europe, but we're hoping it's soon. Not least because in Asia, the new models don't cost any more than the old ones.

(via the::unwired)

Want to know if iPhone's any good? Ask a teenager...

That's what SMS Text News has been doing this week, corralling a horde of youngsters to give their views on the iPhone. It's a pretty wide range of opinions too, with several loving it, but others pointing out some of the obvious flaws, like the camera quality, the 18-month O2 contract, and the expense. Here's a couple of samples:

"It's like a flashier and more expensive version of the N95. It's just a show-off phone not a good long-term phone."

"I think it sounds like a great phone but it's just too pricey for young people. Lower the price about £100 and I'd buy it."

Interesting reading, and you can see what the others said via the link below. We wonder if Apple will drop the price to make iPhone more affordable for younger users - or maybe they could launch a cheaper iPhone Nano with most of the features but at a cheaper price.

(via SMS Text News)

ITV debuts The Hot Desk, its first made-for-mobile TV show

The All Saints comeback didn't, it's fair to say, go that well. How they must be gritting their teeth seeing the almighty fuss that The Spice Girls are currently getting. However, that hasn't got All Saints stars Nicole Appleton and Melanie Blatt down. They're co-hosting a new ITV show called The Hot Desk, which has been made exclusively for mobile phones.

Joined by T4 presenters Dave Berry and Emma Griffiths, they'll be interviewing celebs, schmoozing at parties, and generally bothering people with their big desk (that's the gimmick, see). Each show will be two minutes long, and will be free to access from ITV's own mobile site. Data charges will presumably apply though, so watch out if you're not on a flat-rate tariff.

Liam Gallagher is the first interviewee. Hang on, isn't he Nicole's fiance? Keep it in the family, then.