A while back I wrote about how superbly simple the Nokia 1100 was to use. Seems that the random complexity handset manufacturers add to devices are getting to people as Nokia are now advertising a new handset catagory of Beautifully Uncomplicated. First device in the catagory is the 6233 phone. It has a lovely photograph of a couple holding hands running along the beach naked having dropped their clothes on the beach. One can only hope that their phones (it must be two, right? Nokia’s slogan is connecting people after all!) aren’t going to get a good dunking in the sea. It’s a lovely eye-catching photograph that brings some much-needed colour to a grey autumn in Scotland.

But wait a minute. Have a look at the spec sheet again. It’s a 3G business phone with more bells and whistles than a traction engine. So what is the relevance of the lovely picture? And where, one might ask, is the lack of complexity? I’m left to summarise that it is due to being a Series 40 device, not an S60, and hence not a phone pretending to be a computer.

Everything seems to be breaking. Google Calendar went down last week just as I was trying to add some critical information. The error reporting was not exactly stellar - “You’re event could not be saved” etc - until I tried to reconnect and was bounced to my Google Account page. This is a Beta service after all, so occasional unplanned outages are to be expected.

No excuse for BT, however, as those are supposed to be robust customer-facing systems. Yesterday I was travelling and had remembered to set up my BT Openzone £10/month account before leaving. Nice deal if I can get it to work. T-Mobile at Starbucks told me that too many people were already using that account, whatever that means. BT Openzone at Stansted airport let me login, change password, and then - nothing! No connectivity, and it would not let me log in with either the starter password or the new one I set.

One comment on the £10/month account - it can only be linked with a BT Mobile or BT Broadband account, or paid directly from a credit card. Why not a BT landline?

Talking of which, I tried to check my on-line phone bill. It won’t let me log in. So I get them to send me the password. Initially that puts me to a nice empty page. I come out and try again, this time it lets me change the password, then redirects to a lovely blank page. Sigh. Does nobody test anything?

Picking up on Google Calendar again, the outage highlights what might be a more general problem with Ajax-based solutions. The user interface runs happily in the browser, but isn’t able to tell me that the backend has really, really, really gone away. I don’t know when it came back up again, but I’d have been surprised if it had recovered cleanly.

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I’m in the middle of a major house move. At least the new house has a steady, solid 3G signal!

It has long been a source of curiosity to me how many mobile phone shops there are, especially here in Britain. There are numerous chains as well the network operators growing range of shops. And they all look expensive and shiny. Clearly they are making disproportionately large profits. It has long been time for the margins to start pushing specialist retails into the fringes, just like in any other domain.

So now it has started. Vodafone are stopping The Carphone Warehouse from selling Contract devices, although Pay as You Go is still available. While you can never rule out megalomania when dealing with network operators, it certainly looks like the retail approach is going to change. I expect to see more, similar announcements over the next few months.

I’m not worried about the future of The Carphone Warehouse as they are a strong and effective chain with many other strings to their bow.

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Originally uploaded by Richard M Marshall.

That’s what the sign in this pub window says!

Now back in a lovely sunny, smoke-free Edinburgh after a grim and wet London.

Both MoMo and Telco 2.0 were superb events, and I would recommend them to those interested. I’m going to be reporting on them as time permits over the next few days.

Next MoMo is on November 6th, celebrating the event’s first anniversary.

The next Telco 2.0 is at the end of March, so be there of be left behind.

I noticed that you can now pay your London Congestion Charges by SMS. Cool.

I’m in London most of this week and being asphyxiated by the smokers. In Scotland we haver a complete smoking ban in all public places, and I’d forgotten how a meal out is turned into a disagreeable ordeal by the inconsiderate actions of others. The UK-wide ban can’t come quickly enough.

I’m speaking twice twice this week in London, so you’ll get to see me and our Ad360 Mobile Advertising Platform in action.

Mobile Monday, 2nd October, CBI Conference Centre.

Telco 2.0, 4th and 5th October, Hilton London Tower Bridge.

See you there!

The strangely-named Siemens BenQ has filed for bankruptcy. One less set of incompatible devices to worry about. Sympathy to the workforce who are likely to be out of a job, despite accepting pay cuts to try and keep the business afloat.