The X10 will come with Symbian, so I have no interest in this as Symbian is not good enough as a smartphone OS.

The Nokia W10 will feature some standard features such as having a Super Amoled screen with 16 million colours, full hd video recording, proximity sensor and gyro sensor.

The “not standard features” include a 4.5″ screen, TV out via HDMI, 15mp camera by Carl Zeiss optics and here’s the killer for the tech junkies out there it will feature a 2GHz Quad-Core Processor with 32GB storage and micro sd of 64GB. It has 2GB Rom and 2GB Ram graphics card.

It sounds sexy and is making my mouth water.

Heres to Nokia and Microsoft – can’t wait.

But there will arise an occasion where you have to move away from being the client pleaser to being the person that says NO. At this point the client is no longer your friend and what you have to do is almost be weary of every step you take. It is never as simple as just saying NO.

It sometimes proves to be a real headache as in most cases, Designers are almost always in a subordinate role and whether you are the biggest corporate or the little man on the side-walk – the general rule in business is that the client is always right. It’s clear to me from working in different industries that being able to gently tell a client NO, is almost an art form. You don’t want to lose your client!

The other important note is that not all clients are deaf to advice, but if that one instance of “NO” is not handled well it could lead to your client having this negative perception about you and we all know perception becomes reality with people. It should also be made clear that sometimes your “NO” is actually an attempt at understanding the “WHY” from a client. What I sometimes forget as a designer is that clients are paying and imagine if it were myself paying for a service and the company tells me NO! That would not be a great feeling!

We should also consider such things as project status, what I mean to say is that it’s a very different situation if you are telling the client “No” when they are still briefing you in or at the early stages of the project to if the project was half way through and a problem arose. If you really think about it at the early stages, you could actually dish out the bullshit to tell the client no and they would buy it. If however you have started the project it would make more sense to be honest and ensure you deliver all the facts to the client.

With all of this “NO” talk there are simple guides that we could follow to help the client absorb what you are saying:

1. Say NO, but always offer an alternative – it makes you look useless as a designer if you say NO and then just leave your client hanging.
2. Say NO, but say it nicely – remember perception could kill your relationship with the client, so listen to the conversation and ensure that what you are saying cannot be perceived as you have disregard for the client.
3. Say NO, but still assure the client of your skill – This will help if you are going to work with this client in the future. It’s almost an assurance that you as a designer are good at what you do, however on this project the circumstances were against you.
4. Say NO, but show the client you are thinking about the end result - You want your client to know that you have their best interest in mind with the choices you make as a designer. I’m hoping clients would be more accepting of  a “NO” if they are aware that you are looking out for their best interest.
5. Say NO, directly and clearly –  Don’t beat around the bush, you want to ensure that everyone is on the same page, thus allowing to customer to do what they need to and still have time to do so.

Personally, saying “NO” is never easy and it’s even more difficult to remove the stigma of – you are just a designer that says “NO” for everything –  from your client’s mind. Whatever you do just be tactful.

Just a very quick overview on the Indaba 2011, there were plenty of speakers, who lacked a certain presentation skill, they might have had the very best subject matter, but their presentation let them down with the exception of Robert Wong, Oded Ezer, Michael Wolff, Mark Shuttleworth, Charlie Todd and Alberto Alessi. These truly were the speakers that inspired me to think about how I can add value creatively to improve the world we live in.

With no respect to any other speaker, it just seemed that the quality of speakers from years gone by has drifted and no to mention that in this every changing world where Digital has become pivotal it amazed me that the Indaba had such a small showing as far as digital goes.

This was the biggest disappointment to me.

The setting of Cape Town International Convention Centre was great, the creative on plasma and other displays was also sadly disappointing, with this irritating Absa promo clip that they kept playing and not just playing they kept playing it a million times a day.

Heads Up guys – We are creative people, WE GET BORED easily. I hope next year has a few more and importantly, better display advertising.

Ok enough with the disappointments, but really people attend this event looking for that dare to be great moment, with the notion that they will be inspired by the wonder and amazement of industry experts.

I certainly believe the highlight by far was Robert Wong, such an excellent speaker, just a pity he was the practically the last speaker on the last day.

I see this event as having such potential and I really hope next year is up to scratch.

I absolutely enjoyed Michael Wolff, simple – plain – to the point. He makes a good point in highlighting how design can bring value to people.

The other two people who I enjoyed were Charlie Todd and Alberto Alessi. Charlie Todd who has almost made a living out of being different through humor. His creative flair to causing trouble is an inspiration.

Alberto Alessi for me, rescued a disappointing day 2. Day 1 started on a massive high and left the delegates wanting more on the same power level. Several speakers on day 2 were good but again it was more about the wow factor which was lacking. Alberto Alessi went through the family business history and displayed what makes his skills so unique.

So what remains?

The DI party and day 3 for me and then it’s back to Jozi.

Nokia has officially announced that they are aligning their strategy with Microsoft. This is key, if Nokia wants any chance of staying alive in the smartphone world.

Over the past few years, Apple and Google have consistently beaten Nokia at innovating and this in in-spite of the fact that Nokia has a massive R&D department.

what does this mean for you as a business?

The early adoption of RIM and BlackBerry has forced the business world to be connected and stay connect all the time. RIM however have failed to delight with innovation as well and this is where Windows Phone 7 and Nokia could gain momentum.

The service offering of a Nokia device powered by Windows Phone 7 is attractive when you considered the success rate of Windows 7.  The operating system has been accepted well by most users and even large corporates. This means then that Microsoft and Nokia have the opportunity to offer a range of services that RIM could only dream about – sorry BlackBerry but with each passing day your devices because a teenage craze for children with no airtime who want to use BBM.

The model that made you famous has been outed by the innovation of Android, iOS and certainly now, Nokia and Microsoft.

What you should look out for is the following:

1. Nokia still leads the market with such things as imaging and this is definitely something Windows Phone 7 can build on.

2. Nokia still is the largest supplier of mobile phones, building good reliable mobile phones, this will also be a key point for Microsoft to look at.

3. Bing is not my favorite search engine, but for sure it will be part of the New Nokia offering, while Bing may not be a great search engine, its image search is awesome, and on a Nokia smartphone with super imaging, this might be a useful tool id it is harnessed correctly.

4.  Nokia maps – to date is still the best mapping tool and beats the crap out of Garmin and TomTom especially since it’s free. Again a valuable point for Microsoft to think about.

5. Applications – this is going to be great, if Microsoft and Nokia can get closer to the Android, Google expertise in this arena, there is certainly going to be good competition in pipe lines. I’m a Windows user and even though I use a Mac, I still love Windows, if Nokia and Microsoft can create an experience for Mobile Phone users that is the good parts of using Windows on a PC, this will in the end be a strong deciding factor for user leaving iOS and Android for Windows Phone 7.

What you should notice is it’s not longer about the mobile device it’s now about the mobile environment or as the new catch phrase that bouncing around – it about the Mobile ecosystem.

I hope from the hard times, Nokia has released that it’s about actually innovating and not just saying you’re doing it. It’s about being able to move quickly in the consistently shifting digital environment. Hats off to Nokia and Microsoft, best of luck on this new partnership…

PS – Please could I have a Nokia device with Windows Phone 7 on it…

You will need:
Greenpois0n
Mac
iTunes
Redsnow 0.9.7b6

Method:

1. Connect your iPhone and close iTunes
2. Click Applications >> Utilities >> Terminal
3. Type in the following: sudo nano /private/etc/hosts
4. This will open your host file, simply add a # in front of the gs.apple line and then save the file
5. Still in Terminal, type in the follow (please add a space after the word “open” and then drag Greenpois0n to Terminal): sudo open
6. Terminal will open Greenpois0n with superuser access
7. Follow Jailbreak instructions on Greenpois0n
8. At the third step of the jailbreak – DO NOT LET GO OF HOME Button -
9. Even though it looks stuck on your phone, if you look at Greenpois0n on your MAC you will see the process bar is still going, letting go of home screws up this process.
10. Once you done jailbreaking you will see you have “Loader” as a new icon and no Cydia
11. “Loader” has an error, just ignore it and do this to get Cydia
12. Run Redsnow 0.9.7b6 >> select “Install Cydia” and let Redsnow do it’s thing
13. Don’t worry about your Untethered Jailbreak you will still have it once Redsnow completes.
14. Once complete you will have Cydia, simply open Loader >> option >> delete app
15. Done

GeoHot became famous a few years ago as one of the youngest people to jailbreak an iPhone, his first jailbreak was a hardware jailbreak, which then lead to a world of new opportunities for anyone owning an iPhone, the solutions for jailbreaking quickly became software jailbreaks and more more people are using them.

Apple has tried to with every new version of iOS to block out the exploits but as with anything in life, there is always a way around it.

GeoHotz then turned his sights on Sony with the PS3 and as you imagine, Sony try to stop it as well – Sony took the rough mean, “I’ll smash you into pieces” approach and at present have a temporary restraining order against GeoHot – pretty much GeoHot cannot provided his Jailbrak solution for the PS3.

For the old people at Sony: Here’s the thing about technology / information and innovation, no matter how hard you try you cannot stop technology from improving. Sony announced a new firmware update and within 24 hours of the announcement – the new firmware was jailbroken.

It should provide a good lesson for the old (thinkers) of this digital age – stop fighting development / embrace it and allow it to assist you in defining how far you can progress. The fact that someone can jailbreak your software means that your software is not perfect, it means that there is a kid out there that is smarter than you senior developer. Slapping him with a restraining order, will just get some other kid out to make you look stupid.

Respect to GeoHot and KaKaRoToKS -

KaKaRoToKS for jailbreaking PS3 firmware v3.56

While I may have an iPhone, the reality is that while it may be pretty, the battery life on the iPhone 4 is terrible. If you even dare leave a background application running, you are doomed…

I enjoyed playing a round of Angry Birds on my HTC Desire, I managed to get to level three which is great. Sadly all you get for the iPhone is a watered down version of game – Angry Birds Lite – which sucks.

In comparison, the game play is far better on the HTC Desire than the iPhone 4, the game is also free on Android whereas it will cost you a Dollar or around R7 in SA if you are able to locate it. I have 3 itunes accounts all of which are officially useless to buy the game from SA.

The iPhone 4 also according to Jobs is supposed to have much better screen than the competitors out there, but again if you use Angry Birds as the measure, the iPhone 4 does poorly at displaying this game. The hardware spec has been juiced up a bit as the the iPhone now comes with a 1Ghz processor (it needed that) I somehow am still not totally impressed. I am hoping to playing around with some jailbreaking option and cydia and test out whether I can extend the power of the device.

For now, rather take your money and get a Nexus S – yes I know it’s a Samsung, but it promises more than I have found so far on the iPhone.

First things first – I had to go get a new micro sim in order to use the phone and the new sim will take about two hours to activate. It’s a bit of a pain seeing as every other device manufacturer uses the default sim card.

With all the crazy talk about the antennae issue, I also got myself a cover just incase.

Looking forward to see how the iPhone 4 matches up against the HTC Desire

Right, down to business, 2010 in review shows us many key technologies to follow and it’s almost easy to see what’s coming out next. IBM are determined to bring holographic calling to mobile and who knows maybe by 2015 they will. There are more current happenings such as the unbelievable rate that Mobile has taken off.

BlackBerry (RIM) has almost become a non-existent player with Apple and Google dominating the arena. The battle for Mobile OS domination remains close between these three companies, with Apple still being the best for Developers to make money and Google being the best for the consumer.

The key trends for 2011 in mobile will no doubt be the avenue of payments, this is certain. The ability to control your life from your mobile phone is where the world is heading  and the alarming rate of financial companies getting involved in the social sphere simply confirms that surely this is the future of 2011.

You would have heard about Goldman Sachs and the R50 Billion they putting in Facebook, you may even have heard about how JP Morgan is expecting its eCommerce revenue to grow by nearly 20% this year.

The need for mobile payments platform that is secure and easy to use has arisen – the question is who will answer the call?

Visa vs Mastercard, in our massive universe, these 2 seem to me like the only two who can pull this off. Yes the associated Wiki Leaks hackers gave them a freight but I do believe that one of these two is going to come out victorious in 2011.

So what’s your company doing in 2011?