Mobile Ministry Magazine

Tomi Ahonen has written a piece called "Smartphone Realism Part 2; What is biggest factor to global market success" where he talks about several factors relating to why smartphones are different than the rest of the mobile segment. One part of the (long) post that got my attention was his careful and detailed telling of the true cost for mobile phones - whether subsidized or not. Here's a snippet of what was said:

...I can tell you that the real consumer price for the iPhone 3GS is about 700 dollars which is what customers pay in those markets where there are no subsidies, like Italy. Yes, anyone who thinks in America that the price of the iPhone 3GS is 200 dollars, has been fooled. Exactly like the 25,000 dollar car that you bought paying 5,000 dollars up front, did not transform into a "5,000 dollar car" the real cost 700 dollar iPhone 3GS is not somehow with a magic wand converted to a "200 dollar smartphone".

The iPhone 3GS is and continues to be a 700 dollar phone, in every country, whatever the actual payment plan. (Same is true of the N97 which in Italy costs about 700 dollars and in the UK is available "for free" with contract). Hidden within your two year contract, AT&T has factored in the monthly installment payment of about 21 dollars per month for 24 months (plus interest). AT&T then gives you some package or bundle of voice minutes, text messages and data access, and estimates how much that would cost; then adds some factor for fraud and delinquent customers; then adds a healthy profit margin, and forces you to pay that amount. Say 100 dollars per month. ..

Read the rest of the post at the Communities Dominate Brands blog.

The important take away here is that you don't get what you pay for, you actually get less. Make sure that when you are considering a mobile, that you are not just looking at the purchase price, but the entire price of the device, especially if there is a contact involved.

While we've talked about this in the MMM Smartphone Guide, its great to hear someone else plainly state the truth here.

Labels: cost, purchasing, smartphone

Still here. Busy week in hand.

Great deal going over at Expansys (both the UK and USA shops. The BenQ E72 Windows Mobile smartphone is being sold at a ridiculously low price. For US folks its $127.99. That's the price without a contract. Frankly speaking, its a steal.

Will be back in a few days, until then, thanks for the prayers and engaging conversations.

Labels: Expansys, purchasing, smartphone

I didn't forget about the MMM Smarpthone Guide. The last section, speaking about the spiritual issues relating to device ownership, will be included in the next issue of MMM. So to that end stay tuned.

Be sure to check out the rest of the MMM Smarpthone Guide. And if there is anything that we are missing, please be sure to place it in the comments or ask questions. This is your resource.

Labels: MMM Smartphone Guide, purchasing, smartphone

In this section:

• What is Total Cost
• Calculating the Contract Costs
• Options

What is Total Cost

Given what we have covered so far, its apparent that mobile phones can cost more than just what that simple number advertisments would say. There is the cost of the phone, the cost of a voice plan, SMS/MMM plans, email/Internet, insurance, and numberous other add-ons that the carrier can offer. This can take a simple contract that looked very affordable, and make it not so much so - especially after any taxes are added onto it.

This is in effect that total cost that needs to be looked at when thinking about attaining a mobile device.

Calculating the Contract Costs

If you have a mobile contract, the best and easiest way to calculate the total cost of the mobile device/service is to:

• Start with the cost of the phone that was paid upon signing the contract
• Add the base contract cost (usually the voice aspect) times 12 or 24 (the months that the contract was signed for)
• Add the costs of all additional services times 12 or 24
• Add $15 per month for taxes
• Compute

This will give you a very rough, yet near accurate estimate towards what you are paying for your mobile device over the course of a contract.

Options

Given all of this, what are your options. Many people cannot afford to purchase a phone at its market price, and seeing how much a mobile really costs puts a sad note on what is looked at as a near-needed means of communication. Here are some suggestions for cutting costs for using mobile devices:

• Purchase a used or refirbished mobile from sites like eBay and Craigslist
• Decrease the number of minutes for the voice plan and exercise discretion towards what calls need immediate attention
• Purchase a mobile with Wi-Fi, cut the internet service plan, and utilize free/low-cost hotspots to get mobile data to the device
• Have a carrier that is similar to the bulk of those whom you speak to, then lower the minutes plan, since in-network calls are usually free
• Always ask about doing one year contracts
• If your contract has finished, ask about any additional fees that were related to the subsidy paid on your mobile and getting those taken out of your monthly charge.

Labels: MMM Smartphone Guide, purchasing, smartphone

In this section:

• Definition of a Smartphone
• Locked and Unlocked Smartphones
• QWERTY, Thumbboards, and Other Input Options
• 3rd Party Software

Definition of a Smartphone

There are a number of definitons as to what a smartphone is, but for the purposes of the guide, we will stick to this:

A mobile device with a cellular radio and mainstream operating system that allows for the creation and manipulation of information, has a web browser capable of viewing most websites, and has the ability to download 3rd party software which is developed using advanced programming languges and scripting functions.

Using this definition, we can designated smartphones being those phones that utilize the following operating systems: Windows Mobile, Symbian S60, Symbian UIQ, Palm OS, Access Linux, BlackBerry OS, and iPhone OS.

Locked and Unlocked Smartphones

Smartphones fall into two broad categories: locked and unlocked. Locked phones are traditionally sold through carriers (AT&T, Verizon, Orange, Rogers, DoMoCo, etc.) and the softawre and use is locked to that network's use only. Because carriers subsidize the cost of mobile devices, this ability to lock smartphones to their network allows them to recoup the costs of supporting the device.

CDMA phones (Verizon, Sprint-Nextel, Alltel, and a few others) are sold locked to the carrier and network. Until recently, you were not able to take a (for example) Sprint-Nextel phone to the Verizon network and activate it for use on that network. This has now changed. However, CDMA phones are not compatible with GSM networks. 3G for CDMA phones is spoken of in some variant of the term EVDO.

GSM phones (Orange, AT&T, TMobile, DoMoCo, etc.) are usually sold locked if purchased from the carrier. However, they are also in more abundance and sold unlocked because GSM carriers are much more in number than CDMA ones. The ability to take a GSM phone from one carrier to another is as simple as switching the SIM card. The SIM card holds your account information and ability to use that network. In the case that putting the SIM card in another phone does not work, a request for a SIM unlock code is usually all that is needed to have the phone work on another network. 3G data speeds for GSM phones is associated with the terms HSDPA and UMTS (expect to hear LTE added to this in a year or so)

In some cases, do use a locked phone on an unlocked phone, you will have to terminate your contract in order to fully purchase your mobile. In these cases, you normally have to ensure that you are not violating the terms of service for the manufactuer of the phone in addition to the phone carrier for moving to another network (this depends also on your country's rules for using phones on various networks).

Purchasing an unlocked phone usually means the phone does not come with a contract, and therefore also does not come at a lower price. The carrier subsidy which is added into the cost of the contract is not a part of purchasing an unlocked phone. Unlocked phones can be purchased from a carrier - but the cost is usually at or slighty above market value.

GSM and CDMA phones, whether locked or unlocked, might also have additional facilities such as Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth use that might be subject to the branding needs of the carrier. Check with the carrier and manufactuer for the differences here and plan your use accordingly.

I wrote a bit more about locked and unlocked phones here.

QWERTY, Thumbboards, and Other Input Options

Smartphones are characterized also by input options. QWERTY (or QWERTZ) keyboards, various forms of thumboards, and touchscreens with other types of input options such as handwriting and customized keyboards are distinctive features of smartphones. There are smartphones with normal numeric keypads, but they might not be the best for all users for responding to email and writing documents.

Smartphones also have the ability to utilize external keyboards such as those that connect to a connector at the bottom of the device, or use Bluetooth wireless keyboards. The use of these is determined by a driver that is downloaded to the device. After the said driver is downloaded, the external keyboard is usable for inputing text.

3rd Party Software

The final distinguishing feature of smartphones is the availability of third party software. A careful distinction here is made between custom written software and widgets. Some phones, called feature phones, might be able to download weather and calculator applicatoins, but these are usually widgets - designed only to give surface level functionality and do not integrate with the core system software.

Smartphones not only have the ability to use widgets, but also can use software written in a native code (C++, VB, etc.) that accesses low level system functions to enable a look, feel, and function that is consistent with the rest of the operating system.

Some smartphones are also able to use web applications (such as Google Docs) due to their more advanced web browsers. The ability to use web applications is dependent on the browser and the hardware of the mobile device. While some smartphones can view the data within web applications, not all are able to also be editing stations.

Conclusion and Next Section

Here, we talked about the basics of a smartphone. In the next section, we will look at how to choose a network, carrier, and phone plan that best fits the smartphone that you would like to purchase. There are several variables that go into each of these and you should be aware of as much as possible before going into any retailer or purchasing something online.

If you have any questions on this section here, please place those in the comments, and to the best of my ability, I'll answer what I can.

Labels: MMM Smartphone Guide, purchasing, smartphone

Got a requst for a topic area that hasn't been covered in a while and let's just call this the Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM) Guide to Choosing A Smartphone.

Below you will see a list of links that cover various aspects. Bookmark this page as an easy means to get the entire series.

• Types of Smartphones
• Choosing a Network, Carrier, and Plans
• Evaluating Total Cost versus What the Price Tag Says
• Spiritual Software and Issues

Labels: MMM Smartphone Guide, purchasing, smartphone

I write this a good bit before writing Part Three of the MMM Mobile Experiment Report but this is a great article posted at the Biblical Studies and Technological Tools blog about thinking about what technology and faith will look like given what we have seen happen in other media and lifestyles in the Western church.

Without going too far into things on my end, here is a snippet of this great thought-piece:

I am also wondering, then, if we might actually become more dependent on private resources/devices rather than network resources. I.e., it will be lots easier to secure a personal device not connected to any network, and I will be more confident in working with guaranteed secure resources not based on the network. This does mean that I believe that someone will still be developing and providing technological resources for biblical studies, but I also suspect that the choices will be greatly reduced. We are already seeing the convergence of best features of the various Bible programs, and as this trend continues, the only differentiating factor will be cost. I just hope we aren't all buying Wal-Mart or Google Bible software after they buy up every other current company in this field

Read the rest of the post The Future of Bible Studies and Technological Tools.

Related Articles:

• New King James with Microsoft OneNote (Palmsolo)

Labels: Bible, church, community, education, gospel, mission, mobile, mobility, networking, phone, purchasing, software, stewardship, study, tech, urban, worship

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A friend of mine has been debating when to get the Nokia N810. He basically wants it to replace his laptop for the lighter ministry tasks that he does. He's been doing his homework, looking at his budget, and basically learning all that he can about it before he makes the jump, but the question that he has is "when?" You see, for him it is not so much that its there, but when should he get it is the more important question.

For those who follow technology of any kind, you know that there is planned obsolescence for all of it. Nothing seems to be meant to last forever, and in some cases, not much longer than the 5 minutes that passed since your purchased it. However, being a good steward over our resources means that we have to take a proactive approach towards attaining mobile technology, and for many of us that leaves us in a constant wait pattern.

So how do you decide to pull the trigger? Here are some things that have helped me in the past on this side of decision making:

• Have you prayed about it or just told God that you wish that you had it?
• In investigating the device or software, have you noticed complaints for basic functionality or advanced features?
• Has the device had a major recall during its product life? Or is there a standing glitch that has not had any communication from the manufacturer that it will be addressed at some point and time?
• What devices/services are planned to come after this? How long from this point until that new device/service is released?
• Have you checked the Buy/Sell threads at the fan sites for this item (usually used, but the price is a lot lower than purchasing new)?

What about you, what kinds of decisions do you go through before making a purchase?

Labels: mobile accessories, mobiles, mobility, N810, Nokia, purchasing, tech