Review: Vlingo Plus For Blackberry

I recently downloaded Vlingo Plus For Blackberry as it is one of the apps that RIM is offering free of charge to make up for their multi-day outage. It bills itself as a “virtual assistant” that allows you to speak to your phone to get it to do things. For example, one of my associates asked me to say “Find Pizza Hut In Mississauga.” It listed all five locations in Mississauga. Nice. I was also able to get it to dial my phone as well as send text messages simply by saying “Dial 416-310-1010″ or “Text John. I am five minutes away.” All I have to do is press the right side button. That might be an issue while driving. But it does work with my Bluetooth headset, so I won’t hold it against them. However, if they could find a way to integrate it with the button on my headset, it would be perfect. It also has a feature called SafeReader which reads your e-mails, calendar reminders, and text messages to you. It works WAY BETTER than Drive Safe.ly Pro which stopped working for me after a few days. You can also use it to do status updates of your Twitter and Facebook accounts by voice as well.

What are the downsides? There aren’t not really any. The app could use some refinements such as location awareness, plus I noticed that it had problems processing my requests via WiFi. Disable WiFi and all is good. Kind of annoying, but nothing that is major in nature. I highly recommend this app to Blackberry users. Plus you can’t beat the price of $0.

Wind Mobile Backer Calls Investing In Canada “A Mistake”

Naguib Sawiris is a guy who’s loud and bombastic. But he’s also very successful having made Orascom Telecom a significant player in the Middle East and Africa cell phone marketplace as well as backing Wind Mobile Canada. Thus, you have to at least listen to what he has to say. Such as what he said to the Globe And Mail recently:

Naguib Sawiris, the brash telecom mogul who started an Egyptian political party after the revolution there, says he was misled by the Canadian government, regrets “totally” his decision to invest here and tells other international financiers not to invest in Canada.

“I tell you we will not bid – unless they set aside the frequencies, unless they really show seriousness that they want to create competition,” Mr. Sawiris told The Globe and Mail’s editorial board Thursday. “But to say, ‘We want to create competition, we want your money.’ They take our money and they leave us to the dogs.”

Ouch. There was more:

“Anybody who asks me, I tell him, ‘Look, we are the stupid investors that poured a billion dollars into Canada here and created 1,000 new jobs, please don’t do this mistake. Don’t come here,’” Mr. Sawiris said. When asked whether he regretted his decision, he added, “Totally. I would actually, if they would give me my money back, minus 10 per cent, I would take it any day.”

Oh yeah, when it comes to the “big three” in Canada, namely Rogers, Bell and Telus, here’s what he had to say:

“You have the most inefficient operators in the world. And why are they like that? If they were that good, why are they just in Canada here?” he asked. “Why don’t we have Rogers in the U.K. or Germany? Why is Vodafone everywhere? Why is France Telecom everywhere?”

He does has a point. Having spent extensive amounts of time in countries such as the UK and Germany, I can say that wireless carriers there are out to provide the best service for the lowest price. That doesn’t happen in Canada. Also one suspects that if any of the “big three” set up shop anywhere else on planet Earth, they’d get their butts kicked due to the fact that they don’t know how to compete.

Now here’s the other side of the coin. What I suspect that Sawiris is doing is shaking things up prior to the upcoming government auction of wireless licenses so that he can slant things in his favor. It’s not what I’d do, but I’m a computer nerd and not a PR expert. And its worked as he’s now got the attention of the government as well as two of the “big three.” The real test is what happens the auction takes place though. Stay tuned for that next year.

Retailers Slash Prices Of Playbook Hoping Someone Will Buy One

If you’re one of the few people who would want to buy a Blackberry Playbook, you’re in luck. According to the Globe And Mail, prices on the slow moving tablet have been slashed:

The across-the-board price cut – which brings the cost of the 16-gigabyte version of the Playbook down to only $200 from a previous price tag of $500 at Best Buy – follows a similar price cut implemented weeks earlier by wireless carriers Bell Mobility and SaskTel, which started discounting the PlayBook in late October.

The PlayBook with 32 gigabytes of memory is now only $300, down from $600, at most retailers, while the 64-gigabyte version is down from $700 to only $400. Rogers Communications Inc., however, is still selling the PlayBook at its original price, with the lowest priced, 16-gigabyte model remaining at $500.

You can almost smell the desperation from Waterloo. Though, they don’t admit that there’s a problem moving the tablets:

In an e-mailed statement to The Globe and Mail, RIM said the official retail price of the PlayBook remains unchanged, but that “RIM has various promotional plans in place with retail partners that are intended to help drive further sell-through of the BlackBerry PlayBook. A number of promotions will run during the holiday buying season and are being implemented in the form of instant rebates and gift cards within the consumer channel.”

The thing is, the price isn’t what’ s keeping it from selling. It’s the fact that there’s no e-mail or calendar functions without a Blackberry. If they fix that, they may have a shot at being a player in the tablet market. Perhaps they should focus on that rather than hoping that deep discounts will solve their problems.

CRTC Comes Down The Middle In Terms Of Usage Based Billing

Yesterday, the CRTC released a long awaited decision that affects Canadian Internet users that have so called “unlimited” plans. Those plans were under threat because the independent ISPs who provide those plans were going to be forced into being charged by the byte for the data they used. That won’t happen and instead there will be two options for the “big three” providers to charge independent ISPs. A flat rate or a rate based on capacity and the number of users. This pretty much kills the attempts by Bell, Rogers, and Telus to eliminate smaller ISPs.

So why am I not doing cartwheels?

Simple. The majority of consumers get their Internet access from one of the “big three” providers. Nothing changes for them as they are still subject to bandwidth caps and high prices for Internet access. While this is a step in the right direction, the government needs to do more to make Internet access better for Canadians as it is clear that Bell, Rogers, and Telus have zero interest in doing so unless forced by government. Or consumers wake up and see that they can get better deals elsewhere.

The fight continues.

Own A First Generation iPod Nano? You Need To Read This

Owners of first generation iPod Nano’s should read this post on the Apple website. There is a worldwide replacement program for owners of these iPods that’s meant to address the fact that they might overheat and catch fire:

Apple has determined that, in very rare cases, the battery in the iPod nano (1st generation) may overheat and pose a safety risk. Affected iPod nanos were sold between September 2005 and December 2006.

This issue has been traced to a single battery supplier that produced batteries with a manufacturing defect. While the possibility of an incident is rare, the likelihood increases as the battery ages.

Apple recommends that you stop using your iPod nano (1st gen) and follow the process noted below to order a replacement unit, free of charge.

I’m not sure how rare this is. I’ve written about problems in Japan has had problems with this generation of iPods before and there have been similar reports elsewhere which includes a similar recall in South Korea when the government forced them to do it. Clearly there’s a major problem with this iPod. I might have given them a free pass on this if they dealt with this sooner. But it appears that they decided not to for whatever reason. That really looks bad on Apple.

iOS 5.0.1 Update Doesn’t Fix iPhone 4S Battery Issues

Since the release of the iPhone 4S there have been reports of substandard battery life. Apple committed to coming out with a fix and this past week they did. iOS 5.0.1 arrived with the promise of fixing the issue, but it didn’t take long for reports that the update doesn’t completely address the problem. Apple for their part had this to say:

“The recent iOS software update addressed many of the battery issues that some customers experienced on their iOS 5 devices,” the company said in a statement given to AllThingsD. “We continue to investigate a few remaining issues.”

So a full fix is still in the cards and iPhone 4S users will have to wait for their problems to be fully addressed.

I bet the fanbois are not happy right now.

Flash On Mobile Devices Dead: Report [UPDATED]

ZDNN is reporting that Adobe’s attempts to bring Flash to smartphones and tablets may be dead and buried:

Sources close to Adobe that have been briefed on the company’s future development plans have revealed this forthcoming announcement to ZDNet:

Our future work with Flash on mobile devices will be focused on enabling Flash developers to package native apps with Adobe AIR for all the major app stores. We will no longer adapt Flash Player for mobile devices to new browser, OS version or device configurations. Some of our source code licensees may opt to continue working on and releasing their own implementations. We will continue to support the current Android and PlayBook configurations with critical bug fixes and security updates.

Additionally, the e-mail briefing to Adobe’s partners has been summed up as follows:

• Adobe is Stopping development on Flash Player for browsers on mobile.

Given how much noise they made about wanting Flash on iDevices in particular, this is a stunning turnaround. Assuming this is true, they will move to HTML5 support which basically means that they are adopting the Apple view of the universe. ZDNN says that this is going to be announced today. I’ll be watching to see if that’s the case.

UPDATE: It’s now official. Flash is dead on mobile devices.

Rogers Is Giving Away Tablets

My “best friends at Rogers” dropped me a note to say that they’re giving away Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablets this holiday season when you do one of three things with Rogers:

•  Get a Tablet when you activate 2 new lines on a voice and data Family Plan on a 3 year term
•  Get a Tablet for $149.99 when you add 1 new line on a voice and data Family Plan on a 3 year term
•  Get a Tablet when you subscribe to TV + Internet on a 2 year term (minimum Digital Basic TV + Lite Internet)

More details are available here.

Now as I digest this news, I wonder if this promotion has anything to do with increased competition in the TV, Internet and wireless space. After all, Rogers now has to contend with upstarts such as Wind in the wireless space and Bell who is making a push with Fibe TV. Not to mention you’ve got ISP’s out there who would love to steal subscribers from Rogers. It would make sense for Rogers to try and lock up their subscriber base to keep defections from happening. But perhaps I’m reading too much into this.

What do you think? Please leave your thoughts below.

Ooma Launches Home Phone Service in Canada

American based VoIP provider Ooma, Inc. recently announced that they are coming to Canada:

“We’ve received frequent requests to bring Ooma to Canada because of the high cost of phone service and we anticipate a healthy level of interest in eliminating expensive monthly phone bills. Free home phone service, outstanding voice quality and advanced features are an unbeatable combination,” said Eric Stang, Chief Executive Officer at Ooma. “Since Ooma began offering free home phone service in the U.S. with the Ooma Telo nearly three years ago, our subscriber base has grown quickly, doubling in the last year alone.”

Here’s the value proposition. Ooma offers users high quality voice calls via VoIP that includes voicemail, caller ID, call waiting and 911 service. According to Ooma, it will save you money:

After the initial purchase, customers pay only applicable taxes and fees. Based on an average phone bill of $40/month, the Ooma Telo pays for itself in just six months and customers will save more than $200 in the first year, more than $600 in just two years and nearly $2,000 in five years.

It sounds interesting and given the fact that our existing telcos aren’t really interested in providing value for money, this might be worth looking at. You can find out more here.

Mac Users Angry Valve Over Team Fortress 2 Update Fiasco [UPDATE x3]

Mac users who play the game Team Fortress 2 have been raging at Valve Corporation as well as Steam for the last 24 hours. Why? A recent upgrade has left them unable to kill each other online in the popular video game. A couple of threads on Steam Forums illustrate their anger. Now the question is, what will Valve and Steam do about it? The thing is that Mac users who play games likely only represent a tiny amount their revenue. So I suspect that Valve and Steam don’t have these issues as a high priority. Therefore, they get the shaft.

Bad move.

Mac users spend a lot on their computers. Therefore it stands to reason that they’d spend a lot on software and games. Chances are that Valve and Steam risk losing customers if this goes on for an extended period of time. It would be in their best interests to at the very least to come clean on how long it will take to fix this, assuming they just can’t fix it quickly.

At the moment, this is truly a #fail for Steam and Valve.

UPDATE: As of 9:46PM EST I am able to play Team Fortress 2 thanks to a Steam client update. Make that three in the last two hours, but not really. It looks like the same update being forced on Steam client users over and over again. Clearly they’re trying to react to the situation, but they seem to be doing it badly. Wow. What a #fail.

UPDATE #2: The constant updating problem now seems to be fixed.

UPDATE #3: So far this Sunday, my Steam client has updated to the same version twice. #fail