Like any Apple product of recent time, the iPad has been boosted into the pop culture limelight before even being released. Comedians and late night tv shows poked fun at the device’s name but this only helped bolster the hype. Early adopters and Apple fanboys/fangirls ensured that the iPad who be a success for Apple. Though content with my laptop (an Apple Macbook) and smartphone (Google Nexus One), I decided to join the masses and become an iPad owner. Would this device find it’s niche in my digital lifestyle or would it get an early place in my museum of unused technology? (more…)

If you’re an iPhone user and you’re local to Trinidad and Tobago, I found the following settings useful for allowing my iPhone to connect with my B-Mobile Edge data plan (Yes, you read that correctly, Edge, not 3G, but that’s another post by itself).

Go to Settings >> Network >> Cellular Network Data.

Enter the following values:

• APN: internet
• Username: LEAVE BLANK
• Password: LEAVE BLANK

It’s as simple as that. You’re iPhone should be connected to Trinidad and Tobago’s incredibly fast Edge network.

For more information, check out B-Mobile’s site.

*Note* These settings are for B-Mobile services in the British Virgin Islands but the settings work accurately on the iPhone in Trinidad.

Nokia has announced the Nokia E72 by briefly posting a video demo of the smartphone over at Nokia Conversations.

I understand that Nokia is a hardware company but its just wrong that they still show no software consideration for users of older handsets. 1st generation iPhone users will be installing iPhone 3.0 on Wednesday and will be reaping the benefits of the updated software along with their 3G and 3GS brothers and sisters.

So why can’t Nokia show their loyal users the same kind of appreciation? The Nokia E71x has proven that the Nokia E71 can run Feature Pack 2 (FP2) but Nokia has been reluctant to release such an update for the handset, claiming that Feature Pack 1 (FP1) was stable enough for business users and FP2 was untested in the business world.

Now that FP2 is heading to the business world, will the Nokia E71 see any kind of FP2 upgrade consideration?

As it stands, I don’t think it will.

I had a disappointing experience installing the latest firmware update for the Nokia e71. Don’t get me wrong, the installation of the firmware went as described by the Software Updater. Unfortunately, there is still a lot left to be desired.

I backed up the phone appropriately. I sync’d my phone one last time with Outlook, so my contacts, calendars and notes were all saved. I also manually backed up any pictures, videos and documents that were on the phone. Since the Nokia e71 does not have User Data Preservation (UDP), the firmware installation caused the phone to reboot after installation and wiped the phone clean. The next time the phone started up, I was inputting setup information for my phone. This is something that I do every time I run a firmware update.

The bigger problem is that any 3rd party applications that I have installed are also wiped from the phone and the re-installation of these applications (such as Calcium, Worldmate and Nokia Mail), took almost 2 hours. This is a hefty amount of time to dedicate to getting my phone back in order after an update.

After using an iPhone for a phone, it is obvious that Apple has all of the other handsets beat in this area. All an iPhone user has to do to update their phone is to sync it before the update, run the update, and then sync it again after to transfer your information. The sync not only transfers your contacts and calendars but it also transfers your photos, videos and 3rd party applications that you’ve purchased from the AppStore. It’s a painless 3 step process: sync, install, re-sync. Your smartphone should be this easy to update!

The average user will not go through the hassle of having to reinstall applications manually on their phone after an update. They simply do not care. Sadly, Nokia hasn’t made it easier for those who do take advantage of firmware updates for their phone. And if you’re listening Nokia, let’s try to reduce the disparity amongst your handsets. I was once a Nokia n82 and that phone had  UDP. UDP shouldn’t be a feature that you choose to deploy on some handsets and not others, this should be a STANDARD feature.

People are still mystified by smartphones. Lack of features such as UDP don’t help the demystification process either. If these devices are that cumbersome to maintain after a firmware update, the average user won’t care to install them. In addition, even the seasoned user would become wary of the process. I felt like going back to my iPhone after my e71 got wiped clean and I realized that I had to go through the entire re-installation process again.