For the longest time I’ve been ranting and raving about not been able to use my iPhone when I travel. Apparently that is about to change. In my quest for using my iPhone overseas I discovered a few useful tips that can help me along my trip. Here’s how to prepare an iPhone for an overseas trip:

Step 1: Jailbreak it!
Yup. Jalibreak it. It is not illegal to jailbreak your iPhone and it will pay off if you want to use it in another country. Many publications actually recommend Jailbreaking the iPhone. Just follow the instructions on this website and you’ll be good to go in no time.

Step 2: Get yourself a Global Pre-Paid SIM Card
There are many options to choose from depending on the country you live in. But you want to make sure whatever plan you choose will have at least FREE unlimited incoming calls and GPRS data available (3G network), also make sure is a Pre-paid SIM Card

This company (GO-SIM) for example has a travel plan for €27.60. In Germany T-Mobile offers a plan called “Smart Traveler” with quite a decent offer.

Step 3: Get some travel apps
Here a few of my favorite apps to use when traveling:

	DB Navigator: Let’s you check out the train schedules of the Deutsche Bahn at any time. Useful even without WiFi network.
	Tripwolf: This app currently has a free and a paid version. It downloads a city guide to your iPhone (for just about any city) that you can browse without having to be connected to a network. On the paid version you can get additional info. If you are connected to a network, you can get pictures with each review.
	Qype: International community with recommendations on Restaurants and Bars. Since is international, once you are connected with your Sim Card, you’ll be good to go.
	Lonley Planet Travel Guide: Travel guide for any city with recommendations from other users.
	Sit or Squat: is an app that helps you locate the nearest toilet. With your 3G network activated you’ll be able to use it in any country.
	Lufthansa Launcher: If you are traveling with Lufthansa, this app will help you book flights, check in, check timetables and check the flight status.
	Wikitude: This is an augmented reality app. It will inform you about places by using Wikipedia and other sources. Please note this app only works with the iPhone 3Gs

So everything started this last summer. My bike was basically dead and I wanted to go biking with my son, so I opened an account with “Call a Bike” the renting bike service from the Deutsche Bahn (trains) here in Germany. Starting at 0,08 EUR/Min is not the cheapest service, but somehow convenient when you are bikeless. After registering online I was almost daily using the service. The whole process of renting the bike is a terrible pain in the neck. It should be easier, especially if you have an smartphone with you. I though this service needed an app to boost their business and make life easier for everyone.

A screen from my iPhone app
Click to enlarge

An app? yes. For starters finding a bike can be a challenge. Although they have many, people seem to use them a lot, so you have to find one that is free. The DB have on the Website a Google map that tells you where to find the bikes. One would think that if you are on the road it would be a mobile friendly website…think again. Frustrated by the service or rather the lack of it, I decided to create a concept for an app that could solve the problem and make the whole experience more pleasant.

I downloaded a Power Point presentation where the whole process and the customer journey is explained to the detail and used it as the basis for my concept. I was aiming for:

• Open a new account directly from your mobile phone
• Read a PDF with the more important info
• Do the whole unlocking process via mobile phone
• Have a bike locator
• Speed and minutes counter
• Street map and route recording for further sharing
• Guided tours around cities in Germany (these could be sold for extra)
• Also in two languages German and English (there are tourists that also use the service)

I rolled up my sleeves and went to work. All pieces where finish to put a presentation together. It was the end of the summer and I though it might be stupid to come up with such application now when people will rarely use this service in the next following months. So I decided to put it off to the following month: October. The app could be ready for next summer, I though.

Official Call a Bike app

Those of you with an iPhone and living in Germany probably know that an official app from Call a Bike was release recently into the app store just a few days/weeks ago. Developed by the company INOZ from Berlin, it became an instant success, featured in the top position of the app store. Tho, still in version 1.0, it features a bike locator and lets you via Click-to-call rent the bike. It won’t take long before they work out version 2 featuring what I mentioned above.

As soon as I saw the app my jaw fell to the floor. “Don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today” , “The early bird gets the worm”… All these similar phrases came to my mind at once. With technology timing seems to be in most times the decisive factor. When is just the right time and when is not? Are you too early on the game or too late? I guess there is a lesson to be learn here but I don’t seem to grasp it. What I do know for sure is that as soon as I get a similar idea, I won’t hesitate to at least build a prototype as soon as possible. If the idea is crap it won’t survive anyway and if is good it will stand the test of time… No excuses, just business as usual: blood sweat and tears (well, maybe not the tears).

Groceries at the supermarket… 40 euros. Pay everything with you mobile phone… Priceless. Well OK not priceless, but certainly convenient.

There’s been a big controversy around this type of payment for a few years now. The neo-Luddites argue that cash should not be replaced and some companies worried about security and the implications of it. Truth be told, once the infrastructure is in place, everyone will use it. There’s no doubt about it.

According to the latest study from Goldmedia consulting, there is a huge majority in German who are willing to get tickets (plane, train, concerts) via mobile phone. So it’s just a matter of time.

People will decide
In places like Japan for example, is common since 2004 to pay with your mobile phone. The testbed of the world is way ahead of mobile technology for their own good.

On the other side of the world, like some villages in Africa, mobile minutes are treated as currency. So I cannot help to find it funny that you can pay cab ride in Nigeria with your mobile phone but not in New York.

Some companies are already looking into the future. With an initial investment of $70 million Euros, Nokia is playing with the idea of a mobile-phone-payment solution that could be knocking your door sooner rather than later.

Here is some stuff you should be able to pay:

• Music, videos, online game subscription or items and digital goods.
• Transportation fares (plane, bus, subway or train) and parking meters.
• Books, magazines, tickets and other hard goods.

Personally, I don’t walk around with a lot of cash. Most of my daily transactions are done electronically. My phone has replaced, my camera, my watch and the newspaper… Why not my wallet! It’s one less thing I have to carry with me, specially in places like Barcelona full of pick-pockets. Hope it comes to Germany sooner than later.

Phones for Fashionistas
Fashion labels like Prada, DG, Gucci, Armani and even ELLE Magazine are well into the mobile game already. Producing their own “Glamphones” together with companies like LG, Samsung, Panasonic, Nokia and Motorola. Don’t be surprised if you find Kate Moss and the likes chatting away in style with their phones flashing some well-known fashion logos.

This fashion fever is been around ever since the now deceased Xelibri series from Siemens came out in 2003. The design of the Xelibri series broke every standard there was at the time, treating the phone purely as a sophisticated fashion accessory. From that point on the mobile phone evolved from a communication tool to an accessory, to a fashion statement to finally, a status symbol.

Pimp my phone
Fortunately there are options for the Fashion victims of the world. The company Fashion Cell Shop for example specializes in getting you a glamorized spark for your phone, offering a wide collection of covers, cases and accessories to choose from. If this is not enough, with Sparks by Stella is possible to add the extra “Bling” some people crave for.

But personalizing and customizing mobiles phones is nothing new (remember back in the day the a Nokia 2100 with interchangeable covers?) what I am still trying to understand is to why carriers and mobile phone companies refuse to pick up on it even more. Other companies like Reebok, Nike or Converse, let you design your trainers, share your design and later on buy it. All according to your specifications. What’s stopping mobile phone companies from letting us do the same with our phones?

Seasonal phones
I recently found a Nokia phone selling here in Munich, referencing the super hit series of Sex and the City. Probably, the latest marketing trick to get rid of the left over models that didn’t sale.

Funny enough, I don’t personally like any type of customization other than the way it comes from the factory. I don’t own a case, or a skin or even tried to customize the interface. Then again, I own an iPhone, which is a model from a company very conscious about industrial design, user experience and “Kansei” (japanese word for engineering our senses and perception into objects).

Our phones are so dear to us that the level of “Aichaku” (japanese word for love to objects and your relationship with them) towards them is getting stronger every day. It is then easy to understand and empathize with people who want to treat their phones like something special knowing that the lifecycle of the device won’t be longer than a year or two. But fashion is about the latest, the hottest and the trendiest. What is “in” today is “out” tomorrow. I guess that in the mobile arena there are no “old timers” worth keeping around.

After the recent elections fallout, the Iranian government has been trying to cut every possible way of communication to the outside world. Journalists are not allowed to enter Tehran and some Iranian officials are even accusing England of inciting the demonstrations taking place at the moment. Iran has turned into “I ran” the hell out of there before getting shot.

Historically Iran has been a country where freedom of speech is forbidden and media is controlled by the government. This time around, Iranian citizens have turned to the use of non-traditional media (blogs, twitter, youtube…etc) to broadcast the truth to the world. In this context the mobile phone has become an instrumental part for reporting events as citizens use it to take pictures and record videos that find their way to the internet in a matter of minutes. In the current climate it’s easier and safer to walk around with a mobile phone than with a camera. The broadcasting can take place on the go without the risk of doing it at home and get detained by the law enforcement (which would normally mean that your life is as valuable as a farm in the middle of the desert).

Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) admitted selling a surveillance system for “lawful intercept functionality” to the Iranian government, powerful enough to pinpoint the exact location of every phone, listen to every call, read any SMS and watch every video or picture sent. Basically they have full access to any mobile phone operating within the country. Despite all that, new videos, posts and pictures are showing up every day for the world to see. After so many years of oppression Iranians are so fed up, that they’re willing to take the risk and show the world what is really happening in their country.

The sad part is that contrary to other concepts like the GoogleMap mashup Ushaidi monitoring the 2008 elections in Kenya or recent ones adopting the same model (Nigeria, Lebanon and Mexico for example), Iranians don’t have the chance to put their data in a central location. Some videos and short messages have made their way to YouTube and Twitter, but the rest are scattered around on the internet like a message in a bottle.

Once again the mobile phone has prove to be a powerful ally in the fight for social change. Allahu Akbar.

About a year ago Garmin (GPS Navigation System guys) announced the Nuvifone, the natural evolution of their navigation system, featuring local based services way before any other device at the time. In addition it was possible to play mp3 audio and video files. By far the best of its class. The anticipated iPhone killer… So what happened? Nobody knows for sure. My gut feeling tells me that it wasn’t the device itself or the technology behind it, but a serious anal-retarded-management decision of some kind.

Delay after delay kept the nuvifone from hitting the stores until today. Rumor has it, that Garmin will drop the project altogether. I would love to see what they’ll come up with next… and to be fully honest I am not expecting much. The smartphone market is filled with devices equipped with better features than any Nuvifone could offer. at the moment the nuvifone promise to deliver… Are your ready?

- Traffic alerts: Wao, I am really impressed… not.
- Ciao: connect with several social networks. The good ones. None of that facebook stuff.
- Weather: a new revolutionary service…
and in addition, flight status, panoramio, local search and safety cameras… The phone has a extremely bad SDK and no other apps can be installed. Gee, where do I sign to get one?

After the introduction of TomTom’s navigation system for the iPhone 3.0 this year, is just a matter of time before Garmin sales will start dropping like a plane without fuel. For sure there’s nothing smart about any smartphone they have or had in mind. That is the price a company pays for not seizing the opportunity and grabbing momentum by the balls.

If you have a smartphone, video is certainly nothing new. Most smartphones offer the possibility to play local video or over the internet. The promise of faster connections seems to be around the corner, but we know already than in places like Japan (the mobile test bed of the world) superfast connections have made possible TV Channels on the mobile phones. It is not surprise that advertisers are eager to recycle their Ad spots and get them mobile. However this is not a good idea for a medium so personal, intimate and in which relevant content is expected. We’ve learned our lessons from the internet and we know that the 30 sec spot will not work.

MTV Networks is finally waking up to the fact that TV alone won’t cut it. They’ve already lost a lot of their audience by lagging behind during the whole Internet revolution. This time around they want to make sure to stay on the cutting edge once again. As part of their research on VOD (Video on the demand) together with MobiTV, MTV just aunched “The How To Show“. Made exclusively for mobile phones, this show brings celebrities to showcase their trade. You’ll get to see the occasional 20/30 sec spot to begin each episode. But since the whole thing still an experiment, I guess we can forgive them for the moment.

Some stats for the skeptics

According to Nielsen’s Three Screen Report 13.4 million Americans watched 3.3 hours of Mobile video in the 1Q of 2009 and the numbers will increase when bandwidth become faster and more available. Teens for example, between the ages 13-17 are avid viewers of mobile video reporting an average of 6.5 hours of video on their mobile phones each month. These figures makes them the premium target group for any mobile video campaign.

I couldn’t find the stats for Germany (reliable anyway) for video usage, but in a country with 80 million people and 70% market penetration, that’s a hell of a lot of users! Pretty sure a big chunk is watching video.

Why Mobile Video and why now? Obviously a video still the most compelling medium to reach any audience because of the storytelling power it can provide. However, television is static and turn the user into passive recipients of content. Not good. So, imagine how powerful it could be to create videos that are relevant for users and how companies can establish a REAL dialog with their consumers. The next logical level would be to be contextual, followed by more personal and relevant video content delivered to you. Content that is associated with the brand of your choice and that follows that sense of “Forever there” that consumers are looking for from their favorite brands. Nobody seems to listen that the time has come for companies to give meaning to their brands and stop trying to compete for attention. In this context advertising is no longer a competition about who can scream louder, but who can be present at the right time, at the right place and who can actually give something back in return for the loyalty. The 30 sec spots while convenient for an Ad agency to recycle and play it on your handset is not only intrusive but sadly ineffective. We are at the stage now, where the new medium tries to adopt the format of the old medium(TV/Internet), but new uses for mobile video is just around the corner. I’ll keep you posted

Proving that advertising is more about engaging people than click-through rates, the New york agency Ringleader developed an ad campaign using Click-to-Call to create some buzz for the horror film “The Signal“. The most notorious part of this film is a mysterius transmission sound that turns people into serial killers.  The campaign gave the option of clicking on a number to listen the distinctive horrific sound (of course the campaign was mixed with other elements like video and a mobile website to create the total experience).

Another good showcase for this technology was seen in the campaign developed for Nickelodeon’s go, Diego, go presentation at Rose Garden auditorium in Portland last year. The Click-to-Call was used in combination with a promotional code to receive a 3$ discount to see the show.

The Click-to-Call apps

Several apps are now dedicated exclusively to provide you with a large database of telephone numbers for you to call. Apps such as the Yellow Pages, German Telefonbuch, White Pages, Qype… available not only for the iPhone, but also for other platforms like the Blackberry, Android and hopefully the anticipated Palm Pre (though too early to say).

The most challenging aspect of Click-to-Call is not how many clicks you get or even how many calls, but how many of these calls will convert into actual sales. To measure this efficiently is at the moment is not very clear and from what I understood very expensive to correlate.  According to Richard Rosen – “Call measurement requires an investment in dedicated phone numbers and some type of usage charge in order to prove ROI to an advertiser. Pay per call requires an entrepreneurial investment by providers in the phone lines in hopes of generating a premium “per call” fee to recoup those costs”. Richard Rosen is the owner of the consulting firm Calling Strategies which specializes among other things in Call Tracking.

In the next post we’ll be talking about the use of video as an advertising tool on mobile devices.

In february this year, the company Samsung Electronics unveiled in Korea the first solar powered full-touch screen phone called Blue Earth. By charging with the solar panel located on the back of the phone, users can generate enough electronic power to use the phone for about 4 hours talk time and with the option of the conventional plug-to-a-socket if necessary.

Blue Earth is made from recycled plastic called PCM, which is extracted from water bottles, helping to reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions in the manufacturing process. The device, including charger, is free from harmful substances such as Brominated Flame Retardants, Beryllium and Phthalate (whatever that is). The phone will be available in Europe this year but no real dates are given by Samsung.

Why is this important? In my opinion this is a revolutionary concept that when perfected will set the standards for new devices to come. We need technology and we love to be connected but it doesn’t have to be at the cost of destroying our planet.

MobileActive.org is a community of people and organizations using mobile phones for social impact. They help NGOs around the world to increase effectivity by enabling these entities to organize communications, service and information delivery. In this website you can find information about mobile usage statistics in different countries as well as open source tools that NGOs can use to benefit from the 3.5 billion mobile phones around the globe.

They provide very interesting reading materials available for free download. Such is the case of the report titled A Mobile Voice: The Use of Mobile Phones in Citizen Media. This reports covers everything from the evolution of the mass media through the latest trends in the mobile media arena.

Why is this important: we can no longer rely on traditional means to be informed. With all available techonology in our hands, we have the reponsability to inform others about  whatever we think is necessary. Like Jello Biafra stated once “Don’t hate the media, become the media”

Here is a video from mobileactive.org about what they do: