The iPhone is a wonderful device. I use it so much throughout the day that sometimes I feel like is an extension of myself. Sadly the batteries don’t last longer than 3 hrs. Apple has a few recommendations on how to make the most out of it (http://www.apple.com/batteries/iphone.html). Not enough if you ask me.

I’ve been reviewing a few options for extra power to use “on the go” that can keep me using my iPhone the whole day. While there are many options available in the market, I researched what I consider to be the best options based on price and performance:

Mophie juice pack air™ (yes the name is a reference to capitalize on Apple’s famous laptop): This puppy promise to double your life battery and protect your phone at the same time. Is the thinnest battery extension of it’s kind. Starting at 79.95EUR is not a bad deal. It comes with a feature called “Standby Mode” that lets you choose to either use the extra battery or just use it as a protective case. It also connects directly with USB cable so you can charge your phone and the case at the same time.
Since the mophie website doesn’t offer more than marketing jargon here is a small table to have an idea of what to expect in terms of battery life.

Standby Time: Up to 270 hours
Talk Time: Up to 4.5 hours (3G) Up to 9 hours (2G)
Internet Use: Up to 4.5 hours (3G) Up to 5.4 Hours (Wi-Fi)
Audio Playback: Up to 20 hours
Video Playback: Up to 6 hours

Website: http://www.mophie.com/product-p/1059_jpa-ip3g-blk.htm

SOLiCharger by Solight: “Summertime and the living’s easy…” Yup you guessed it “Solar power”. Take advantage of charging your iPhone while hiking, at the beach or simply at the Beergarden (those living in Munich) with the most abundant energy available on earth: the sun.

Starting at 39.90 EUR (I hate these prices by the way, as if we are complete morons and don’t see that is 40 bucks ) is a good offer. The adapter plugs underneath your iPhone and charges it in about 4 hrs of direct sunlight exposure. Alternatively, it can also be charged with the regular USB cable that comes with your iPhone. The phone can be used while the device is attached. If you don’t use it for a while, a built-in solar panel on the back will provide enough power to keep the SOLiCharger fully charged. However, if you are outside, why would you want to use the phone anyway.

Website: http://www.sollight.com/products/solicharger.cfm

Standby Time: Up to 270 hours
Talk Time: Up to 10 hours (3G) Up to 9 hours (2G)
Audio Playback: Up to 28 hours

Website: http://www.igo.com/Accessories/PowerXtender-Charger/invt/ps002640004

Website: http://greennpower.com/

So what is the use of having an iPhone that is completely useless outside your country? Apple has a problem of always complicating the most simple things. Tying up the iPhone with a particular mobile operator was certainly a smart business move, but a lousy branding exercise. Will there ever be a day when we can use our phones everywhere? I really hope so.

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.

Very good and comprehensive report of the Mobile Life in Germany for the next few years. The report puts the whole German mobile market in perspective and what to expect in the years to come. Oh, and yeah that in the picture is Angela Merkel…

If you want to get it shoot out an email to Dr. Katrin Penzel (Katrin.Penzel@Goldmedia.de) and she’ll email it to you at no cost.

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.

“Mankind Is No Island” by Jason van Genderen. The winner of the 2008 shortfilm fest Tropfest NY, entirely shot using a mobile phone in NY and Sydney. Thanks Pedro Lopez for bringing it to my attention. If you are wondering what does this have to do with Advertising? absolutely nothing… isn’t that great. I like the video because is a great showcase of the quality that can be achieved using a mobile phone and great imagination.

So what if: the spots are no longer produced by Agencies but by the consumers themselves using the mobile phones. A network of people sharing video tips about just any possible product you want to buy. Telling real stories about brands and breaking up with the deceiving world Advertising often portrays. Eventually this will lead to better quality products.

So what about the experience or the story that the brand allows me to tell? quality and trust are the best values you can get from any brand. Brands that already have it have nothing to worry about, brands that don’t… Well, they should get better or die.

It sounds like YouTube?… The problem with YouTube is the clutter, there is so much of everything, that is hard to find exactly what you’re looking for. I am thinking more about a platform dedicated exclusively to help consumers find the best products for the best price.

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.

Cool: The device provides a 3.25 in (8.3 cm) TFT-LCD flat touch-sensitive scratch-resistant screen, a nice camera with video recording capabilities, 1GB onboard memory and an expandable memory slot support for a microSD card of up to an additional 16GB and a rechargeable-replaceable Li-ion battery with up to 5.5 hours of GSM (roam anywhere) talk time.

Un-cool: Many reviewers complain of usability issues, lack of WI-Fi support and the fact that is not yet 3G ready like the iPhone.

Blackberry is a company that has been able to create a cult-like set of followers to the point of calling the device “Crackberry” among those ultra-mobile, ultra-connected junkies. If they keep making their brand strong, the minor technical difficulties will be overlooked by their loyal fans.