Nokia leaves Asterisk users in the cold

A commentator to my last post "Why Truphone and Gizmo5 applaud that Nokia turns it's back on mobile VoIP" doubts my argumentation by asking:

I thought Truphone is based on the built-in SIP client? Then it would seem unlikely that Truphone applauds Nokia dropping the mobile VoIP stack from certain models.

My answer is the following:

Yes, Truphone until now works on top of the built-in SIP client. But the Truphone software develops more and more into a standalone application: with the inclusion of SMS, callthrough where no Wifi is available, presence information and so forth. They aren't afraid of building their own SIP app since it ties the customer even more to them. Therefore Gigaom wrote:

Truphone isn’t waiting around for Nokia to do something. A company spokesman told us: “From Truphone’s perspective Nokia has removed the VoIP client from all the N-Series phones for the planned future. We are putting in a replacement client functionality so that existing customers are not orphaned.”

Don't forget that Truphone has a very high pricing for Wifi calls! Their software is convenient to install, but many other VoIP companies are three times cheaper. That's why they would be very happy to be your only mobile VoIP provider. Vyke already launched their own client, as you can read here, and Gizmo5's CEO Michael Robertson officially applauded Nokia's move in a FierceVoIP article.

The only losers are the cellphone users, since these 3rd party apps are much more difficult to use than the native SIP client. Read this insightful comment, posted at Phoneyboy's blog:

"I’m using VOIP on Nokia’s phone via my own asterisk server. How can Nokia expect me to develop my own Internet telephony application so that I can continue to use it? There are simply thousands of small users out there for whom this is beyond what they could do. This will leave them out in cold.

And further comment. Any third party application will have hard time to match the comfort of integrated symbian UI, where normal and internet calls are integrated together and one push of a button decides which one to make. Just compare this with Fring whose UI is just terrible."

We tinkerers who use Asterisk, Voxalot, Voipstunt, PBXes and Iptel.org are out of the game for the new Nseries devices. I am afraid that the Nokia E71 is the last cool device for a VoIP aficionado like me. Hopefully the Android devices will have more to give. Phoneboy calls us, who use 10 VoIP providers on our Nokia devices, a "minority". Nevertheless he "understands the frustration". Thank you!

But still I think that he is wrong, or maybe just blue-eyed, when he says: "It sounds like the problem is only limited to these two handsets". The problem affects all Symbian Series 60 3rd generation Feature Pack 2 (S60 3.2)! This means: All new handsets from now on are affected. Nokia's VoIP isn't revolutionary disruptive anymore, but has changed to a big boys' only business.

P. D.: I have just found a new Gigaom article about the topic: "Nokia Clarifies Its Future N-Series VoIP Plans". Thanks for quoting my thoughts.

Why Truphone and Gizmo5 applaud that Nokia turns it's back on mobile VoIP

Om Malik has asked "Is Nokia Turning Its Back on MobileVoIP?", pinpointing to the fact that the new Nseries devices N78 and N96 lack an own SIP client, while Nokia before embraced mobile VoIP on it's Nseries and Eseries devices. Charlie Schick of Nokia Conversations says the report of the death of VoIP has been "grossly exaggerated" and people like Phoneboy, Gizmo5's Michael Robertson or the company Truphone are buying that argumentation, although it has its flaws. Truphone, Gizmo5 and Fring must have realized immediately that they are winning from Nokia's move. That's why they are holding back their horses.

Nokia says that it's no problem that they have removed the native SIP client from their latest handsets, since companies can develop their own VoIP software based on great APIs. But it's not as easy as Nokia is trying to say: There are hundreds or thousands of companies without an own software for mobile VoIP. They just rely on the SIP standard. In Germany it's GMX, 1&1, Sipgate and the several Betamax daughters. Together they have millions of customers, I am one of them. These people cannot use VoIP on the new Nokia phones. I have always ten or more VoIP providers installed on my Nokia E61i's SIP client. This way I can always use the cheapest route and leverage free on net calls.

It would be nasty if had to install ten or more pieces of software for that purpose. It's already annoying that Truphone requires a special software because they don't give me my SIP password. That's a perversion of the idea of standards. If I need a special software for every company's offer why is there a standard called SIP?

So as a VoIP tinkerer I have to stay with the older Nokia devices, or at most I can change to the E71. But Nokia's new Symbian release, S60 3.2, is no option for me - as long as it has no own SIP client. It's obvious why companies like Fring, Truphone, Gizmo5, Vyke and others are applauding the Nokia move. It ties their customer to them and makes it more difficult to use other companies' offers. With a native SIP client, which allows to be connected to several different SIP services at the same time, I can be promiscuous. Even the most disruptive mobile VoIP companies prefer to lock me in their walled garden, but I don't want that.

I still believe that pressure from mobile operators has caused this move of Nokia. HSDPA and HSUPA have brought great bandwith to the latest handsets, enough to use it for Voice over 3G. With the right voice codec you can talk about 15 minutes and use only 1 Megabyte of data. Filtering for VoIP packets slows down the mobile data networks and therefore it's not very common. If you combine that with the right VoIP provider, like Betamax, this means free mobile phone calls to more than 30 countries. Only data prices apply.

How Vodafone and Nokia compete on a mobile social phonebook with GPS

I see a very interesting competition developing between Nokia and Vodafone. All signs indicate that they are in a race to present the first social phonebook on cell phones which makes use of GPS. The two contenders are their recently bought subsidaries: Plazes from Germany and Zyb from Denmark. Vodafone seems to be ahead in this race.

Three weeks ago I attended a press workshop at Nokia Maps, which has its developer center here in Berlin. I already wrote about it in this article. They showcased the latest functionalities of Nokia Maps 2.0 and how it can be connected over the internet with other services. "There are 60 billion phonebook entries on Nokia cellphones", said Michael Halbherr, CEO of Nokia gate5 GmbH. "That's the biggest social graph of the world." In the near future a Nokia cellphone's address book shouldn't show only phone numbers. A click on a name will also reveal the friend's actual location, what he does and what are his plans for later. Every entry becomes a node in a social network, as we already know it from Facebook, LinkedIn, XING or the like.

That's why in July 2008 they bought the German startup Plazes, also from Berlin. It let's you see on Google Maps where your friends are if they have entered their location either on Plaze's website, by SMS or through an automatic Wifi localization. Soon Plazes will become a part of Nokia's Ovi and work with Nokia Maps on mobile handsets. It will make use of the cellphones' GPS facilities.

The funny thing is that yet for weeks Zyb is announcing the same functionalities on their website. In the last months Zyb has developed from a simple tool for internet backups of cellphone numbers into an outgrown social network. The features on their website remind me of Plaxo Pulse and are all based on mobile phonebook entries.

But the real interesting stuff comes with their mobile software which is being announced on their website but cannot be downloaded yet. At least not with the 4 different mobile phones I have tried. Also there is no press release, which could have explained more, but that could be part of a viral strategy. At least blogger Pat Phelan got wind of it quite early and I heard from other exclusive previews. The new Zyb features look stunning and resemble quite exactly what Nokia has announced as future plans for Plazes:

The end of... "Where are you at?"
If your friends allow you to, you'll be able to see where they are right this minute. No more texting everyone from the restroom Friday night.
Using location technologies - and your own text input - the ZYB Phonebook quietly and securely transfers your location only to those you allow to see it.

The end of... "What are you up to?"
Show your ZYB shouts as your status line, let your friends see your Facebook status or Twitter tweets.
Millions of people including some of your friends already tell various services what they're doing right now. We'll use that information and combine it with ZYB shouts and your phone's calendar to show your friends what you're doing. If you allow them, of course.

The end of... "What new number?"
"The number you've dialled cannot be reached". We hate her voice as much as you do, that's why the ZYB Phonebook updates your friends' phone numbers automatically.
In ZYB there's no such thing as outdated contact information. The minute your change your own phone number, it is distributed to your connected friends in your ZYB Phonebook. They'll simply have your new info as soon as they sync their phones.

Vodafone bought Zyb in May 2008 for $50m, just some weeks before Nokia snapped up Plazes. Zyb's screenshots remind me very much of the Powerpoint about Plazes' mobile future.

New Zyb mobile app brings Twitter, Facebook, Plazes and LBS.

To me it seems that both applications will do basically the same, only that Vodafone's Zyb is nearer to market. On Wednesday I will probably get more information because I do an interview to a person involved.

Craving for Android

Some say that Google's Android is losing its mojo after it turned out this week that only the contest winners of Google's Developer Challenge get the latest SDK, while all the others have to use an outdated version from February. I hope that this is no real issue but just Google holding back its latest version until they iron out the worst errors. If not, they would get the same error reports from the developer community over and over again.

I really believe in Android since I installed it on my Nokia N810 on July 8, 2008. It looks much better than the original Maemo Linux and the browser is a dream compared to the device's original MicroB. Although Android runs only virtualized inside of Maemo, its browser is faster than Maemo's and versatile. It fills the entire screen and gives some kind of smooth iPhone feeling to the often stubborn Linux device. Here you can see a screenshot we made for AreaMobile.de:

Website of AreaMobile.de on Android browser

In the German language article I explain how to get Android running. Kudos to a user of the Internet Tablet Talk forum who goes by the name of QWERTY12! He made it all possible, you can find his installation instructions here. Although there isn't even a dedicated device on the market and the numerical keys don't work on the N810, I love to surf the web with Android. It's a wonderful preview of things to come. Some geeks even posted a video on Youtube about how to run Android on a Nokia N95, but I am not sure if it's a fake.

What I am sure about is that Android could get the best out of my Nokia N810. I use it nearly exclusively for websurfing and some casual emails, that's where the device has its flaws. Mozilla's Fennec browser could give some hope but usually it crashes in less than a minute on my N810. That's why in most cases I use a Symbian based Nokia E61i for websurfing and emailing to go. That's even more ugly but at least it works.