I’m a huge fan of Panasonic – they invest more in R&D than comparable brands and year in year out deliver innovative and exciting products. I cannot take my hefty DSLR everywhere I go and after some research I found that the pocketable Panasonic LX3 point and shoot camera had received rave reviews. After a few months of use I’ve been hugely impressed with the LX3 – the colours, detail and warmth of the pictures belie the small size of the camera. An added bonus is the 720p HD video recording.

Before setting up my own business and also embarking on my design and music career I sold mobile phones. Anyone worth half their salt in the industry will tell you with great enthusiasm how exciting working in one of the most dynamic technology fields really is. Not a week goes by without a new release from one of the key manufacturers, a new piece of software or even groundbreaking technology being introduced into the market.

The past few years have seen a real advance in the world of mobile communications. To those in the know – remember your cynicism when 3G first appeared? 3.5G now is a MUST HAVE if you’re using your mobile device to it’s full network potential. Whilst digital content providers continue to make huge strides in increased revenue it is the productivity possibilities in day to day business operations that really interest me, not to mention the value of the enhanced multimedia capabilities of devices now.

A few years ago checking emails on a phone over a GPRS or even ‘dial up’ connection was possible and sometimes useful but always slow and frustrating. This was especially true when you needed to action something in relation to a received document or attachment but your mobile device simply lacked any ability other than to read the text headers of the email. Nowadays HSPDA (3.5G) makes it possible for large files to be downloaded in an instant and utilities such as ‘Quick Office’ enable not only viewing of Microsoft Office attachments but also their editing, sending and reviewing on the move. Adobe even offer a PDF viewer for such files on a mobile. In short the mobile office has really arrived.

As mobile phones have evolved this has often seen feature creep permeate different models but the industry has up until now lacked complete convergence in unique devices. We’ve so far seen fantastic camera quality in various Nokia and Sony Ericsson mobile phones but this hasn’t always been matched by a similar lean to office or business related tasks. Indeed Nokia have even tried to split their product line into the ‘N’ series (Multimedia) and ‘E’ series for business. But what if a power user wants complete convergence? i.e. a multimedia powerhouse but simultaneously the ability to take his or her office on the road?

The Nokia N95 built up considerable hype as a product that was going to deliver the above. Alas it has been plagued by problems – notably extremely poor battery life and worse still the distinct lack of utilising the scalable UI resolution promised by the latest Symbian OS. Being able to only view 4 or 5 email headers at one time makes for a poor communications tool.

As for the Apple iPhone this has a long way to go in development before it can be taken seriously as a true multimedia / office-on-the-go device. Sure it looks fantastic, sports some incredible technological feats and is an ‘Apple’ but the lack of 3G, let alone 3.5G, the poor quality camera and dubious input methods mean that Apple are not even playing catch up with Nokia / Samsung or SE right now. However Apple is investing serious time and effort into the iPhone and it would not surprise me if with some small tweaks the iPhone becomes the enterprise phone of choice.

Things look set to change this Christmas season and I’m genuinely excited by new handset offerings from the major manufacturers. The mobile comms business is really now on fire and in part I’ve Apple to thank for this. The other players have realised the sheer power of Apple’s branding, hype and PR machine and are responding quickly and with products that I believe outshine the iPhone in virtually all key productivity areas.

Nokia have addressed the shortcomings of their flagship, the N95. Now rebranded in gloss black as the N95 8GB they’ve tweaked both the hardware and software to offer a compelling solution. The fantastic 5 megapixel camera remains sans cover (a good thing in my opinion, I couldn’t stand the fiddly two handed operation of the former unit), the poor battery life has now been remedied by the use of a larger and higher capacity unit and various tweaks to the OS UI as well as the inclusion of an extra 8GB flash memory (plus 100mb internal RAM) mean that the N95 8GB is a serious performer. Operating on WCDMA 2100 + E850/900/1800/1900MHz frequencies the new Nokia flagship speeds through browsing, emails and streaming video with ease. The increased RAM helps with opening multiple applications at once and what was once a good attempt at a ‘jack of all trades’ now becomes a unique and powerful multimedia device and office tool. I’ll be posting a review of the N95 8GB soon.

Possibly the most hyped mobile phone launch in the history of the device, Apple’s iPhone is available in the USA today. I’m eager to cast eyes on it myself but simultaneously can’t help but feel a huge pang of disappointment. Will a touch screen keyboard REALLY work? I want to whip my phone out and send a text quickly – I can’t imagine any touchscreen being so fast as to deliver the rapid-fire texting of my favourite Nokia hardware keys. The camera seems a huge letdown too – with cheap basic phones such as the superb Nokia N73 delivering such wonderful photos for both web AND print the iPhone’s device looks poor in comparison.

One of my most major gripes however is the lack of 3G in the iPhone for European markets. I am almost convinced the Apple will in fact implement this. I was expecting Apple to in fact chuck in the 3.5G spec that is now becomming almost standard in high end phones such as the Nokia N95. This is a big oversight from Apple. Not satnav either? Not a huge issue but it would have been a nice touch and would have placed the iPhone in direct competition with the best smartphone on the block, the Nokia N95.

Perhaps I’m being a little unfair but of late Apple’s products have failed to inspire me the way they used to. Look at the rollout of their MacBook Pro line for example – offerring very little in the way of technological differences from the cheaper and much more attractive and portable MacBook line I failed to be convinced enough to part with my cheaper MacBook. Where’s a new sexy casing for the MacBook Pro line? Come on Apple!

I think if Apple had addressed the following they’d have a winner – 3.2 Megapixel camera with Zeiss optics and autofocus. 3.5G for all markets. Built in MSN messenger or ‘general’ IM Client. Memory card option. But I’ll have to wait and see – perhaps the sheer draw of owning an Apple mobile phone will be too much for even this hardened cynic!

Recently I did spend some time with the Nokia N95 and was almost convinced I’d not be able to part with it as I had only seven days to examine it and take it back to the O2 shop on Oxford Street for a full refund and cancellation of my new contract.

I currently own a Nokia N73. It’s a brilliant phone. The screen resolution / display plays a major factor in influencing how I feel about the device. As does the camera which is the best I’ve used on any mobile phone – the images are beautiful and always draw ‘wows’ from people who view print outs of pictures taken with the N73.

I thought to myself, ‘Surely the N95 will be like the N73 only better with more features, faster browsing, a better and bigger screen and camera…’

Alas no. I returned the Nokia N95 yesterday and felt disappointed with it. How can Nokia get things so wrong?!

The main problem with the N95 is the screen. It has a poor resolution and I’m baffled as to why Nokia chose to do this. On my N73 I can view ten email headers at any one time on the screen – the font sizing and choice of only one line per email enables me to do this. On the N95 I could view only four! There is no way on the N95 to choose only ‘one line per message’. Useless. 

Again this affects any menu item using font sizing on the N95. Calender entries seem massive and the active standby screen looks childlike in comparison to the Nokia N73.

I’m baffled by Nokia sometimes and wonder if they’ll ever succeed in marrying function with form. I look forward to the N95 successor.

So after all the hype the iPhone was ‘launched’ by Apple a few days ago but won’t see an actual release until June in the USA. I stayed up to watch the Keynote speech by Steve Jobs and as soon as he began discussing input methods I became extremely interested. Aside from the phone not supporting 3G or HSDPA (significant omissions) or posessing a decent camera I wondered how on earth the user would input data rather than simply search for it as demonstrated many times by Jobs during his Keynote.

The answer was nowhere near as revolutionary as I had hoped but simply a ‘soft’ Qwerty keypad that is displayed as and when necessary. In short this seemed awkward to use and my heart gradually sank as I realised that whilst very ‘cool’ Apple’s iPhone also lacks many of the wonderful things I love about my Symbian / Nokia smartphones of today. On this note I firmly believe that the Symbian OS operates the best smartphone platform right now – look at the forthcoming Nokia N95 and you’ll find a plethora of connectivity options (including high speed data), a great email client capable of sending and receiving attachments (including opening of Office documents), built in Satellite Navigation / GPS, a superb five megapixel camera and a keypad to operate the device. Also worthy of note is the ever increasing third party application and software library for the Symbian platform offerring items such as Instant Messaging (IM+ being my app of choice here), ftp clients, photo editing software, flickr uploading and many many more including games or music players.

Jobs stated that the iPhone’s trimmed down version of OS X will be closed to developers – i.e. Apple will be providing the software. What baffled me was the lack of any IM client on the device which means that support for AOL, AIM, MSN clients looks doubtful in the iPhone.

There are many positives, all mainly very ‘Applesque’. The UI looks gorgeous, the animation of menus is superb and the general look and feel of using the iPhone seems typically Apple. The mini Safari browser looked impressive and seemed to render pages well but again Nokia have already implemented Safari technology in their superb browser for their Symbian smartphones.

I remain confused with Apple’s entry into the Cellphone market. However if Apple perhaps develop a way for users to load in applications easily to the phone and open the door to developers then the iPhone may very well become a huge success. So far other manufacturers have failed to offer anything compelling in terms of cohesive application purchasing program – it has been left to third parties to push this.

I can’t wait to see the iPhone but also can’t wait to own a Nokia N95. Only time will tell if Apple’s judgement is as lucky this time as it was with the iPod.

Everyone loves Apple stuff. So when I saw how small the new iPod Shuffle looked on Apple’s website coupled with the similarly diminutive price I couldn’t resist placing an order. To be honest it was more of an impulse buy / cheap retail therapy exercise – I’d never really considered the merits of such a small mp3 player.

However months later I thought I’d post my brief review. The first obvious thing that strikes you with the new shuffle is it’s tiny size. It really is ridiculously small – walking into the gym ‘wearing’ it people ooohed and aaahed at the little music player. It’s about the size of a small thumb but thinner. Even so Apple have still managed to cram everything you need to listen to music into the shuffle. A headphone socket that ingeniously doubles up as a charging dock is found on the underside and there are lights (visible from two directions) showing the status of the tiny ipod letting you know if it’s on, about to ‘hold’ (press the play button for 5 seconds and the device buttons are rendered useless until you press play again for another 5 seconds, neat) or of course off (not illuminated).

You can shuffle songs or play them in the order that they have been placed on the ipod via iTunes. You can pause, play and fast-forward and rewind music and of course control the volume. That’s about it in terms of functionality – there’s no display to show you which tracks are playing – where would they have fitted one? Perhaps more importantly to Apple it would have cluttered the design. The shuffle is clipped to clothing or simply thrown into a pocket – it’s made of aluminium and is very light. Apple also offer the option of engraving the clip part of the shuffle which is a nice touch for gifts. Oh I forgot – it stores around 1GB of music. Audio quality is ok, nothing spectacular as with most mp3 players which use compressed audio…but it’s certainly fairly punchy especially when using better headphones.

GOOD

* Size
* Functionality
* Design
* Ease of use
* Capacity
* Software
* Battery life – seems to last for days
* It’s an Apple product
* You’ll take it everywhere, possibly using it more than your usual ipod

BAD

* No display or way to select individual tracks
* Audio not brilliant
* I keep losing it amongst paper on my desk

SUMMARY

A brilliant product and typical of Apple. This is great, I can take it anywhere and I just listen to my music. Who needs to select tracks when surely a random selection of your music library is more fun? I’ve found that my usual video ipod is now gathering dust – i can’t be bothered to look at tiny photos or videos or play games on the move – the shuffle has won me over, go and buy one they’re so cheap.

*****

Usually it’s obvious, courtesy of the many rumour sites, as to what Apple are going to do next. There’s also of course a frenzy amongst Apple fans waiting for their next ‘iFix’. Previously rumours that have excited have been centered around new Powerbooks or lately MacBooks / MacBook Pros and iPods. However this time round we might very well see some real divergence from the norm from Apple. Yes, there’s ‘Leopard’ the new OS but will that be launched on the ninth of January at MacWorld? There’s the ‘iTV’ which apparently looks like a MacMini but is some kind of media delivery device allowing all your photos, dvds, movies and so on to be streamed to your TV. There are a sprinkling of other rumours but none very concrete – new displays with built in iSights perhaps, new 8 Core MacPro machines possibly…and also the much hyped ‘iPhone’.

The iPhone intrigues me. Whilst many Apple blogs discuss the ins and outs of such a device I feel that Apple’s main problem is to deliver a smartphone (which surely is what people want from a computer company not just a ipod with cellular functionality?) that can really hold it’s own against, say, the upcoming Nokia N95. The reason I mention Nokia is because they make the best smartphones with the best smartphone OS (Symbian) right now, no question. The OS is intuitive, attractive and ultimately fast and functional. The Nokia N95 will sport every possible connection protocol from WIFI to HSDPA, will be able to play thousands of your MP3 files, browse the internet and even has built in GPS / Sat Nav.

I wonder what Apple can bring to the table that will turn the cellphone market on it’s head. We already have a multitude of phones that play music or are dedicated to this task (Sony Ericsson have really gone the distance here with their Walkman range of phones). However Apple innovate and provide the market with inspiration with their products. If they can do for cellular what the iPod has done for music then the iPhone will be a killer product.