Posts Tagged ‘Vodafone’

Vodafone 360: H2 Will Not See Light of Day

July 28th, 2010

Vodafone has been in quite a standoff with both Orange and T-Mobile in the UK. The mobile network operators have been trying to win over consumers with promotions, smart phone exclusivity deals and superiority in basically every facet and aspect they have as an advantage that is applicable to the mobile phone industry.

One of the things that Vodafone tried out not so long ago was the range of bespoke Vodafone 360 units. Thing is, if you were one of the people who grabbed one of the said handsets, such as the Samsung manufactured M1 and H1 range, and enjoyed using the device then there is very bad news for you.

Those who are looking forward to upgrading their mobile phones with the latest 360 handset will not be able to. Vodafone has given an official announcement that no more bespoke 360 phones will be made and released following their Samsung made units. The company will, instead, focus on the development of their 360 services and will be including their 360 platform on company released handsets. This is a snippet from the official announcement posted by Vodafone:

“From now we will be focusing all efforts on expanding the range of handsets and platforms that support Vodafone 360 and in developing and enhancing the suite of Vodafone 360 services. Consequently there will be no further development of bespoke Vodafone 360 handsets.”

That means that the company’s follow up to the Samsung made H1, the H2, will also consequently cease production. As of now, the company’s 360 service allows people to access contacts on different mobile phone units. It also gives users access to many music files, downloadable video clips as well as mobile games via their 360 shop.

With the halt in bespoke devices, the company will have all the means to focus on delivering noteworthy developments in terms of apps and all the time to improve their services further.

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Nexus One No Longer Available on Google Online Store

July 22nd, 2010

The Google Nexus One has been taken off the online store –actually, the entire Google online store has been shut down. It is the same thing either way, as the only product available on Google’s online store is their self branded Android handset.

According to the developers of the world famous search engine, they made the Nexus One for a very specific purpose, and in that regard, the smart phone is a success. But the company has no plans to keep selling the handset indefinitely and has finally decided to pull the plug on the online store.

Of course, the Nexus One is still available through other means. Vodafone UK is still offering the impressive Android smart phone on various plans and tariffs. In the meanwhile developers who were not able to snag a unit earlier this year will still have a change to get the device straight from Google –the developer exclusive channels are going to remain open. This means that the Nexus One will still serve a very important purpose in the development of the Android operating system.

While Google has directly announced that they have no intentions of working on or releasing a Nexus Two smart phone, no one can say if the company will stop working on actual smart phones altogether. As long as the industry’s technology keeps evolving, so will the Android operating system –and Google will eventually have to come up with a technologically superior handset to serve as part of their new developer’s tools.

For those who missed out on the details of the Google phone, this device was actually manufactured by Taiwan based phone maker, HTC. It also shares many similar hardware features with the Desire, an HTC made Android handset. Both devices use a 5 mega pixel camera, a 1GHz Snapdragon CPU and both phones have 3.7 inch AMOLED capacitive touch screen displays.

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Why Text Donations are Important

July 8th, 2010

It is not too uncommon to see various methods through which people can be able to help out others in need. The most common method would be to donate money. After all, the average people has work, daily tasks and basically lives that do not allow them the leisure of volunteering an entire week or even month of their lives in the service of other people.

But people are actually willing to be part of it. Despite the economy, people naturally want to help out. While that may seem as a very optimistic point of view, the success of text based donations proves the point quite well.

Texting is an easy thing to do. It takes only a few moments, and a single text message can be sent from anywhere that is covered by a network (which is about 70% of the UK). It is accessible, fast and something that people are more willing to engage in as compared to having to spend an hour in commute looking for an obscure address to drop off a donation. Even a trip to the post will take at least fifteen minutes (for those lucky enough to be living nearby).

By taking out time and energy from the equation, getting people to donate is made much easier (take the success of the drives for the quake and flood victims of the recent months and last year).

According to the chief executive of the Charities Aid Foundation, John Low, “Donating by text is popular because it is instant and easy for donors.”

Mobile network operator Vodafone UK is adding a nice incentive as well: the operator will be giving the entire proceeds to charities –as opposed to deducting a transaction fee from the donors. Officially, they are the first network operator to establish this new standard. It would be nice if other networks also followed suit.

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Nexus One Finally Out of the Online Store

May 18th, 2010

It is a commonly accepted fact that the main reason as to why the sale of Google’s Nexus One smart phone failed was due to the fact that the handset was being exclusively sold in the Google online store. The UK release of the device was much better since it has been confirmed that Vodafone UK will be selling the handset directly from their stores. Seeing the large potential of the move, Andy Rubin and the folks at Google decided to take the same approach in the US as well.

Below is Andy’s official post:

“We launched Nexus One in January with two goals in mind: to introduce a beacon of innovation among Android handsets, and to make it quick and easy for people to buy an Android phone. We’re very happy with the adoption of Android in general, and the innovation delivered through Nexus One. Already, a lot of the innovation that went into creating Nexus One has found its way into numerous Android handsets, like the HTC Evo 4G from Sprint and the Verizon Droid Incredible by HTC”.

“But, as with every innovation, some parts worked better than others. While the global adoption of the Android platform has exceeded our expectations, the web store has not. It’s remained a niche channel for early adopters, but it’s clear that many customers like a hands-on experience before buying a phone, and they also want a wide range of service plans to chose from.”

“As we make Nexus One available in more countries we’ll follow the same model we’ve adopted in Europe, where we’re working with partners to offer Nexus One to consumers through existing retail channels. We’ll shift to a similar model globally.”

“Once we have increased the availability of Nexus One devices in stores, we’ll stop selling handsets via the web store, and will instead use it as an online store window to showcase a variety of Android phones available globally.”

“Innovation requires constant iteration. We believe that the changes we’re announcing today will help get more phones to more people quicker, which is good for the entire Android ecosystem: users, partners and also Google.”

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Internet Education: Vodafone Brings 450 Schoolchildren Online

March 29th, 2010

As said before, internet access should be a right. Unlike other luxury goods, internet access is now becoming a modern day commodity –even more significant than owning a landline or having cable TV. With the strong impact of the internet on society and our constant need to be online, it is no surprise that there is a need to educate children on the ways of the internet.

The difference between a child with net access and a child without one is pretty significant. Many school curriculums today take for granted the fact that children have access to the internet. Research papers, studies and even basic homework are expected to be accomplished with the aid of being able to find reference materials and data instantly online.

Beyond practical usage, getting net access also allows children to stay in touch with their peers. With many post school, interaction happening on internet forums, social networking tools such as Facebook or on the micro blogging site Twitter, children who have no access to the internet are easily alienated from their peers.

The Birmingham City Council has teamed up with mobile network operator Vodafone in order to help bring 450 disadvantaged children the freedom and opportunity to be online. The children will be loaned laptop computers with internet access through mobile broadband connection. In order to keep track of the devices being loaned, Vodafone has been allowed to install Secure Remote Access services on the devices.

More than being able to help the kids out, this is also a pilot project –which means that if it succeeds, it will also be applied across the UK. While plenty does ride on the shoulders of the program, there is plenty of hope that we will see more of this soon.

Get to know more about the Vodafone and City Council project at Mobile Today UK.

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Vodafone’s Twitter Incident Explained

February 11th, 2010

Vod TwitIt is a minor issue, but considering that people ought to know the facts straight, here’s a quick summary of what really happened last Friday.

A Vodafone employee handling the web relations left his desk to talk to a colleague; left onscreen was the Twitter account of Vodafone UK. Another employee thought it was the personal account of the web relations staff and decided to play a little prank by posting “is fed up of dirty homos and is going after beaver.”

As it turns out, the account was actually for @VodafoneUK and of course, the message got retweeted by many who saw it. Employees of Vodafone quickly deleted the post and apologized to the public due to the nature of the post. The culprit was then suspended from the company.

Such is a quick recap of the explanation given by Jakub Hrabovsky, the current head of web relations at Vodafone. In any case, here’s kudos to their great work in quickly fixing up the little fuss.

For Vodafone, that little incident is completely forgettable; the mobile network has been doing great these past few months. While January did start out odd as Vodafone announced that they were removing both the HTC HD2 and the XPERIA X10 from their 2010 line up, this was quickly forgotten when the network operator launched the iPhone.

The launch was successful and they sold 100,000 units within the first week. So far, iPhone subscribers are growing, thanks to the superior 3G service provided by the company. With the re-release of the Femtocell Sure Signal 3G booster, Vodafone has effectively covered even the areas where they have little to no 3G coverage. The operator has also recently expressed interest in releasing the Apple iPad in the UK

Read more about the Twitter incident and Vodafone’s side of the story at Pocket Lint.

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