Category: Mobile Technology

Read about Adedeji Olowe’s take about everything to do with mobile technology and how the mobile has become a platform to engage and live lives.

Nothing Good Lasts Forever

When I moved to the Android world the first thing I kicked off was the inglorious Samsung keyboard for Swiftkey. It felt so good.

Like everything that looks too good to be true it didn’t allow me to enjoy it too long. It started dragging my phone badly with typed messages taking seconds to appear. Sometimes as long as 5 seconds.
 
I haven’t been known for patience so I promptly kicked its butt out for something more in use but less popular. Google Keyboard.
So far its working like charm but let’s see how long that lasts before I hit the divorce courts.
 
 

MTN and Etisalat vs Me

I ported from MTN to Etisalat about a month ago. That isn’t news.

I’m naturally a loyal person – I could have broken a few hearts but it’s nothing personal just business. After all I have been using same drycleaner all my professional life and the thought of dumping them, even when I moved to the other side of town, is painful.

But MTN had it coming – the data service doesn’t work well. Voice is trashy; and then they started stealing my money. It got so bad they could have done better if they robbed me at gunpoint in daylight or nighttime depending on what’s convenient, not for me, but for them.

So on a bright Saturday afternoon, my daughter playing the dutiful sidekick, we marched down to Etisalat and got the freaking phone ported.

It felt good.
Only for a while.

You see, Etisalat works but they are darn expensive. How I managed to go through double what I used to pay monthly at MTN (less the robbery) still baffles me. Also the data varnishes so fast I turned my phone bottom up to see if it’s leaking data. At least that should have formed a puddle, somewhere.

I don’t know what I’m going to do, an evil thought is forming though. I could get a dual SIM phone and use an Etisalat for the data and MTN for the voice but the thought of porting back isn’t pleasant. You see, I have some little imps working in my office who are going to jeer on toadstools if I dare port back to MTN. I’m sure those guys are getting paid to make my life miserable. That’s an aside.

Electronic Payment Gets Interesting

Somewhere in the news, PayPal finally admitted Nigeria into its elite club as you can now use your Naija issued cards to register. But come to think of it, was it because of the pressure? Or because Nigeria is less fraudulent? Probably not. My experience with PayPal has been shitty at best so I’m sure it wasn’t done for some altruistic reasons.

My take? They probably started seeing numbers showing that Nigerians not only travel too much (Lagos – London is one of the most lucrative routes in the world and Emirates flies 3 times into Nigeria on any day. Kenya Airways practically hovers over Lagos) but also spend just too much, including what they haven’t earned yet.

In my previous life hawking cards like omo alata all over Africa I witnessed the gradual build out of card transactions on Amazon, Alibaba, Asos, etc. and any half brained nitwit can imagine where the trajectory is heading. Now the dudes in PayPal are not dumb (not sure ignoring Nigeria before was a smart move) and are jumping into the fray.

Or could it be connected to the fact that Amazon has launched a competing payment service that works better (Amazon is simply amazing) and has over a hundred million users to start with?

In other news, I could see the gradual loss of influence on card business in Nigeria. Get me right, the card business is booming but the other non-card payment sector is growing at a fast greater clip. POS is finally looking like a decent investment. ATMs have become invisible – you just expect them to be there. Internet banking is still the black sheep of the family, it hardly works and you just tolerate it like a bad mother-in-law but this one isn’t going to keel over yet. I would give a pass mark to Cashless Nigeria – it hasn’t been easy but I think we will finally get there. In 5 years time, mark my word, we electronic payment will own this town.

I don’t know what issues Nigeria has with Mobile Money – it isn’t just happening. I believe that sweating to replicate what happened in Kenya is just a frustrating cul de sac. Of recent I have been having some beautiful thoughts on what I feel we could do to make the Mobile Money corpse walk (I’m not morbid, Hardley Chase said that!).

Enough of the ranting for today.

Cashless Nigeria by Force, by Fire!

I was recently reviewing a CBN report on Cashless Nigeria and it is scary to know that 65% of Cash in Circulation is outside the banking system. I guess everything the CBN can do to cajole those who have ecstasy at the sight of cash wouldn’t work. Time we did it differently. What will happen if the CBN changes the Naira design with 1 year for everyone to comply or the Ghana-must-go of cash becomes an anthropological artifact? The whole cash would have to come to the banks to be changed, isn’t it?

What if the CBN puts a cap on the amount you can get back as cash but the rest has to be paid into some accounts, even if it is a mobile wallet? What if there is no penalty for pay in but there is for cash out?

We have done even crazier things in Nigeria and we can pull this off. The whole Cashless stuff is kind of tiring when you consider the efforts guys have put in but then nobody said it’s gonna be easy. The rest of the country is going to be on Cashless in few months and I hope we can drag them kicking and screaming into the new dispensation.

Samsung Galaxy S4 Keyboard Sucks. The Internet is a blessing. SwiftKey Rocks

Galaxy S4 Keyboard is poor and should be replaced. Had a problem with mine and replaced it with SwiftKey.

It’s early morning and I know I should be hugging the road to work instead of harassing the world with my ranting.

I barely managed S4 inbuilt keyboard and then one day the insane software lost all my learned words and wouldn’t learn any new grammar. Like it suddenly got tired of going to school!  Imagine typing local food names in Yoruba and the crazy keyboard starts suggesting words that ensures my jail time is calculated with a computer.

Anyway I hit my second brain;  The Internet.  Drums roll!

Apparently Sammy has been doing this to a lot of people. After bumbling around for a few minutes, I saw a gazillion good reviews of SwiftKey. Someone even said it saved her marriage, healed her of cellulite, yada yada. Ok, that was a joke.  I have used it for a few minutes now and it works as recommended. I just typed this post on it (and corrected the typos and poor grammar on a keyboard at work).  I dare not do that on a stupid Sammy keyboard, I will probably be tied down from the keyboard-induced insanity by now.

If you use Galaxy S4, this is the keyboard for your phone: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.touchtype.swiftkey.phone.trial.
It is a trial but I’m gonna pay for this!