Since the release of the iPhone 4 Glo Networks have been impressed by the functionality of the video calling app, called FaceTime. FaceTime allows video calling between two iPhone 4′s via the internet (requires both device to be connected to WiFi).

Utilising either of the devices cameras (the iPhone 4 has a  camera on the front and the back) you can either switch from an existing voice call to video with a tap of an onscreen button or you can initiate a video call from the contacts list. As you can use either camera it’s possible to choose between showing your own image via the front camera, or showing whatever you point the back camera at (and still see the person you’re chatting to).

Apple seem to have been marketing the video calling capabilities of the new iPhone for leisure use, with adverts showing things like a couple sharing their baby’s smile or friends helping each other decide what to wear, however, we, here at Glo, are beginning to see  potential in the app for business purposes (particuarly in our line of work!).

Here’s an example: Imagine a situation where a cable has become unplugged in a server room. The person who discovers this may not know where the cable should be plugged in, and as such phones their IT support provider. Now from experience we can tell you it’s not always simple to describe cables, or the sockets they should be plugged into over the phone. However if both of the people in the call were able to use FaceTime they could simply point the rear camera at the cable in question and the support engineer will instantly be able to see what they’re dealing with!

Although FaceTime is only available on the iPhone 4 at present, and only with a WiFi connection,  Apple has pledged to release it as an open standard, allowing other companies to develop around it. This means you could soon be seeing FaceTime appearing on other devices, and possibly (with support from phone service providers) over 3g!

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Windows Mobiles, and before it Pocket PCs, have been around for years. And I’ve been an advocate of them since 2001 when I started with my Compaq Aero. Obviously things have changed with Symbian, Android and iOS (iPhones) but I’ve always headed back to the Windows Mobile Devices in the end, that is until now ..

Having had an iPhone 3G  since it’s launch I’ve been a reluctant fan. I say reluctant fan as it’s GPS was very flaky (moving me to a motorway slip lane at it’s whim), screen resolution is ‘low’, none-upgradable storage and battery is plain daft, not having access to the Gbs of space on the device and lastly not being able to carry out any form of customisation all mounted to a less than perfect experience.So I tried out the Motorola Droid (Milestone) with Android and the HTC HD2 with Windows Mobile 6.

Even though the Motorola had a physical slide out keyboard I couldn’t use it. My manly thumbs just couldn’t press the one key I wanted at a time and resulted in me spending ages correcting myself. Androids App Store, marketplace wasn’t as easy to use as the (Apple) App Store and I really couldn’t find a nice text file reader that did exactly what I want (AirShare on iOS). Android seemed nice and I can see the potential but it just wasn’t polished enough for me and so the device went back within 5 days.

The HTC HD2 was another fun experience but lasted nearly 5 months. A fantastic bit of hardware with a gem of a screen. Everything looked amazing on it with it’s high resolution. In the end though a number of niggles got to me, the on-screen keyboard just didn’t cut the mustard and, though it was a good attempt, it just didn’t have the same responsiveness that the iPhone offers.

All this makes me wonder how good the HTC EVO is. Combining the lovely HTC hardware with the new ( hopefully polished?) Android OS, sounds like it could be the ideal match!

So now the iPhone 4 is here, and looks like it could well be the answer to my wants and needs. Although one of my colleagues here at Glo did brave the queues and pick up an iPhone4 on release day, we’ve yet to have an opportunity to give it a thorough testing, however with a bit of luck the GPS will actually work correctly off the bat and I wont need a car cradle for it to fo it’s job properly! With Skype no longer working or supported on Windows Mobile devices and no sign of it ever coming to Windows Phone 7 and a similar situation in the case of a decent Spotify client coming, I doubt I’ll be heading down the MS phone route again. Pitty as I have had a lot of love for that platform, it just looks very aged now.

Having said all that the Samsung Galaxy S running Android looks is very interesting indeed !

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Apparently some of us here at Glo Networks have been slacking on keeping up with the Apple iPad release information, and this has been on the Apple website for about “a week”.

However, incase you’re like the rest of us geeks who don’t bow entirely to the feet of Jobs then you may be interested in hearing that the iPad is due for release in the UK on Friday 28th of May, with pre-orders being accepted from Monday 10th of May.

Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and Switzerland also have the same dates.

The iPad has a suggested retail price of £429 (inc. VAT) for 16GB, £499 (inc. VAT) for 32GB, £599 (inc. VAT) for 64GB for Wi-Fi models and £529 (inc. VAT) for 16GB, £599 (inc. VAT) for 32GB and £699 (inc. VAT) for 64GB for Wi-Fi + 3G models. However, some mobile carriers (O2, Vodafone and Orange) in the UK have plans for subsidised units.

Interestingly Apple are claiming that they have sold over one million iPads and users have downloaded over 12 million apps from the App Store and over 1.5 million ebooks from the new iBookstore.

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According to this help document on the Skype website they are no longer supporting or providing Skype for Windows Mobile. And within days of that annoucement it appears that Skype is now avalible on Symbian.

Of course Windows Phone 7 isn’t Windows Mobile so they may well change their mind when it comes out.

But with a supposed $1 billion investment on the way from Microsoft in the mobile market things could get interesting.

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Faxing from user desktops is an IT solution Glo Networks have been able to provide to several customers but a short while ago we were asked about something new to us: sending SMS from user desktops.

After some investigation we found our chosen faxing software, GFI Faxmaker, could also be configured to send SMS. This is done via a third party SMS gateway, namely Clickatell.

SMS credits are purchased from 3rd Party supplier and Faxmaker is then setup to forward outgoing SMS to the online gateway. Now all the user has to do is send an email to mobileno@specifieddomain.com and the body of the email will be sent to the mobile as SMS.

We’ve already set this up for one customer and would be more than happy to discuss/answer any queries regards the solution.  Please feel free to contact us for more information.

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The next Windows OS for phones has been has been announced; Windows Phone 7 series was showcased at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this week.

The OS is not due for release until Q4 2010 and currently no devices which will run it have been announced.  As such the OS was demo’d on a prototype device, however several device manufacturers and phone networks have already pledged their support.

The look and feel of the Windows 7 Phone is a departure from the previous Windows Mobile OS’s, with the interface looking looking less like the previous incarnations and more like the one sported by the Zune HD media player.

The OS uses user configurable, dynamically updating, tiles on the homepage. These tiles can be linked to an application, media gallery, people and probably much more. They can displaying information such as new calls/texts, emails and even status updates automatically pulled from social networking site like Facebook and Windows Live.

Delving further into the interface will reveal another new interface feature of the OS, something Microsoft is calling Hubs. These have been described  as an ‘app that make sense of your apps’, what this seems to mean is a Hub is a page that links to other functions or media. Each Hub will  have it’s own emphasis and can link to both local content (stored on the phone) and cloud-connected content (stored remotely and delivered via the web).

Although Microsoft have yet to reveal it fully, it seems applications on the OS seem to be dealt with in a similar way to the iPhone, coming pre-installed with the essentials, with further apps available from a Marketplace. Office has been confirmed, though so far only the Office Hub has been shown so it’s still unknown how the individual apps (Word, Excel etc.) will look/feel.

Searching is contextual depending on what is currentlydisplayed on screen (eg. when viewing photos the search will default to a photos search) but pressing the Search button ( a MS requirement for any devices which wish to run the OS) from the Home screen will launch the confirmed Bing Search app. This can search the device and the web and will try to intelligently guess which you are trying to perform. All results are displayed in the app rather than launch the browser, keeping the same aesthetics as the rest of the OS in order to make this feel seamless.

Here at Glo-Networks we have mixed feelings on Windows Phone 7 . Currently it is looking very pretty and quite innovative but Microsoft have been quite stingy with the info on certain aspects (Sharepoint link up, gaming capabilities, Xbox 360 link up etc..). We will be reserving our overall judgement on it until more information is available, however from what’s currently known it seems people who use the current version of Windows Mobile (v6.5) will definitely find the new OS massively different and, potentially, lacking in the features that have kept them loyal.

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So Windows Mobile 7 now called Windows Phone 7 and looks very nice. Infact it’s very pretty indeed, however does pretty mean practical and useful ?

All Windows Phone 7 devices will be a Zune (Microsofts iPod). There’s a lot of Office related apps and screens built in.

More info coming shortly.

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Opera are the makers of what is reported to be the most widley used browser for mobile devices, Opera Mini. The Opera Mini browser has been available for various mobiles, smartphones and PDA’s since 2006 however it has never made it to the Apple ran App Store for the iPhone.

The iPhone version of the browser has apparently been in developement, possibly even ready for release, for some time, but so far the app has been turned down by Apple. It seems Apple did not like the idea of competition for the iPhones built-in Safari browser app.

However all this may be about to change, Opera Software have announced here  that they will be giving their partners and the press a preview of the ‘Opera Mini 5 Beta’ browser for the iPhone at the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Febuary 15th-15th. With this announcement it seems likely that there has been some progress on an agreement between Opera and Apple that will allow the browser to be released onto the App Store some time soon.

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Another use for the iPad was brought to our attention here, why not use the tablet to access and control remote desktops?

Although it could well be fiddly and clunky to use, if the App was done right and had enough developement to really use the touch capabilities in a natrual feeling way then we feel the iPad may have potential as a new kind of portable thin client!

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For any that may have missed the media coverage of the Apple announcement, we at Glo-Networks would like to draw your attention to the new Apple product coming soon – the iPad. The device has long been rumoured and many have/had high hopes for it, so here are my thoughts:

The iPad is the Apple take on what’s called a tablet computer (a flat, slate shaped computer with a touch screen or stylus interface) and according to Apple the device will be “the best way to experience the web, emails, photos and video. Hands down.”, bold claims from Apple there. The device does look like it brings smart new direction to the tablet; however, it looks like a giant iPhone.

The similarity with the iPhone does not stop at the aesthetics of the device. Just like the iPhone it runs Apps (in fact Apple say that all iPhone Apps will run on the iPad) and just like the iPhone it is only able to run one App at a time, with no multitasking capabilities.

This seems a little underwhelming in my opinion, I love my iPhone and have sampled the delights of many a different App however one of my biggest gripes with the device is that in order to switch between active Apps they must, in effect, be closed and the next relaunched. The fact that the iPad, which is basically supposed to be a PC (albeit a flat, touchscreen PC that you can carry), cannot do two things at once seems quite a drawback.

Another complaint that has been raised against the device is the screen itself. Although it looks impressively bright and clear, the ratio is only 4:3, meaning all those 16:9 HD movies in your iTunes library will only cover a portion of the display! And although the screen is large the bezel surrounding it looks overly large also.

But let’s try to take a look at the positive for a moment.

The battery life is claimed to be 10 hours while surfing/watching videos/listening to music which does sound more than sufficient to keep you entertained on the commute to work.

It also has a book reader and a book store App, making it compete directly with the Amazon Kindle. Although the iPad looks like it will be more expensive, it does have a tonne of features that the Kindle is distinctly lacking.

In summary I’d say that the device does look the business and, if you are a looking to buy a book reader, is a veritable steal in comparison to the feature sparse Amazon Kindle. If, however, you are buying it to in lieu of a laptop, or even a netbook, there are products available that would likely fit the bill much better and for a lower price!

Will anyone here at Glo be buying one, I have my doubts..

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