Mobile Technology Archives - Page 8 of 12

50,412,559 Nigerians on the Internet

The reality is, I’m not much better than the armchair consultants I ranted about. Some months ago I wrote that Nigeria doesn’t have more than 17M internet users. I did my calculation based on MTN’s year end result and extrapolated that for the whole industry.

Please read paragraph 5 of page 50 of the MTN Group Annual Report for 2012.

Not a bad try but then NCC poked their fat fingers into my eyes and called me a freaking liar.
Based on the current data, as of July 2013, 50,412,559 dudes are ~~watching porn~~ using the internet in Nigeria from mostly their mobile devices.

Well I’m starting to see that around. Not that I can see 50M Nigerians dancing Azonto on the internet. After all, how many users actually come around to read my rants? I’m not that popular. You never know, I could be suffering from a chronic case of megalomania.

I can’t overcome the temptation to rant.
Some years ago, Blackberry was the king of Nigeria’s fondlesmob market. But they were expensive and very bad. Sammy and Lugi boys came around but they were expensive too. Then Ching Chong! The market is now getting driven by extremely cheap, I mean outrageously cheap, Android phones knocked out from X,000 Chinese factories for the world to use. And they work! Some days ago, I heard how the 5 inch Tecno Phantom A+ apparently sold out in Lagos; at N35K a pop, that was a badass bargain :-). Now we even have N14K full Android phones and of course they are all on the internet. The executives of MTN and others must be going through a paroxysm of excitement.

By the way only about 114,760,406 lines are active now. That’s more than all the population in the other African countries combined 10 times. OK, that was a joke!

Crapware by another name is Blackberry Q10

I have nothing to say but that Blackberry Q10 is an absolute piece of crapware.

How did I arrive at this point? Not so hard. Almost everything that worked in the old BB has changed, almost no backward compatibility. Contact names no longer appear when called but for the most annoying one, the numbers for my contacts now get mixed up with others. Imagine calling Sade and it shows as Sola! When I want to call, I wouldn’t find a contact’s name unless I switch to Blackberry Balance to see the name on the work contact list but yet I can see the same name on text messaging. You can’t call a contact directly from the BBM Chat. The notes folder no longer synchronize to Documents.

Meanwhile, did anyone ever do quality assurance before unleashing this terrible but not cheap phone on the world? For a company like Blackberry, you would imagine that they would put in more than an extra effort to ensure that the basic features work. Maybe that is why they are where they are now. I wonder if the road for them is up or down.

But as for me, can’t wait to dump Blackberry forever.

Blackberry's Lunch Up for Grabs

About 3 years ago, I predicted that Blackberry would eat Nokia’s lunch. It wasn’t a prediction that required too much clairvoyance, it was apparent that Nokia was running down a slippery slope. Too bad, Blackberry ate not only the lunch but also the dinner. As far as Nigeria is concerned, Nokia is going through a time of famine. Nigeria is not the aberration; Nokia is actually next to dead; a permanent lodger at the business ICU for the past few years.

But then the story is going around full circle for Blackberry. You would wonder if this is not stale news considering that Blackberry is now getting unearthed in archeological digs in the US and other places. Well, in Nigeria the story is different.

Blackberry has been on the decline year after year for quite a while but the performance in Nigeria has been different. Because the Blackberry was the easiest and cheapest means of going online for the average folks, the sales was huge. Despite that RIM (before becoming Blackberry) treated Nigeria with contempt. No regional office, no full warranty for devices sold here.

BBM was a nice feature – you could chat all day long without additional cost of SMS. Mobile web, when available, was also nice. Most people access their emails and other things via the BBM only. Some even got a workaround on BB service on Airtel where the BB device becomes a mobile hotspot. MTN’s too mean; they never allowed that.

While I don’t know any Nigerian without a phone, it got to a level where I didn’t know any middle class folk without a Blackberry. There is even a movie about the darn thing; the movie was as crappy as every single Blackberry service.

Then Samsung and others discovered the Nigerian’s love for everything shining. For the last few months, S3 and S4 have been flying off the shelves as quickly as they could be stocked. The telcos also wised up; now there is plethora of data plans every Johnny can sign up for. Unlike the BB service where the data limit is uncapped, the mobile plans have Fedoras on them, you browse hard it finishes fast.

Why are guys dumping Blackberry? Because it is the crappiest phone you could have. It is slow; buggy; dies on you without a care; no local warranty. So you are practically on your own. Try to reboot a BB device and you would see a child grow up into an adult before it comes by. Everyone thought the Z10 would provide redemption, but alas, it didn’t.

So once again, it is swan song for another device. Blackberry would be way of the Dodo by December this year. Mark my word.

Do I feel bad for them? Not at all! I hardly feel bad about anything.

Online Banking is Fractured

It all happened in Nigeria.

I’m a customer. A brand new customer.

I just got a new account because my old bank was pissing the day light out of me. Or maybe I just got a new job that requires that I open my salary account at a bank my workplace sold its soul to.

Enough rambling.

My account has been opened but I don’t want to come to the bank. Why should I? I’m not confirmed yet so I could kiss consumer loan a sweet 6 months good bye. I’m not in the mood to queue up. The tellers are tacky and I desperately yearn for the days when customer service officer was a pretty girl not the ones that could make a Boko Haram cower in fear when she opens her mouth to spew gunshots.

Ok. I need something, anything, that wouldn’t make me ever to come to a banking hall again. I mean, I could get my account officer to bring the mortgage forms to me over a lunch at Yellow Chilli. Some good things come with having a nice job.

I was nicely told I need a suite of e-banking services. Ahem! That’s OK. And what are those?

A separate form for internet banking. OK.

Another for SMS alert.

Another for Email alert.

And yet another for mobile banking.

Now, I’m almost losing my temper.

Why not a single online sign-on and one profile to rule them all? I mean, I see same emails on my browser, in the damned BB my company gave me, on my sexy iPhone, and even with SMS! Same username and password, life is good!

Apparently, most banks coupled these applications together from a basket of vendors. They don’t talk to each other. They don’t share profiles. They don’t even know about each other’s existence. I be damned!

When the banks get it right, let me know. As for me, I’m off to play golf.

Galaxy S4 is Awesome. Yawn!

The S4 is the new kid on the block and it’s an absolutely fondle mobile. Think about it, it’s got every thingamajig on earth. 5-inch super amoled screen, a zippy new Samsung Exynos 5 or Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro processor. The only thing it doesn’t do now is brew coffee.

It is amazing how quickly we have arrived at a point where a new phone doesn’t awesomely shock us anymore. The specs are converging, the laws of hand-held mechanics are getting to a point of breach.

Can someone remember when people drool over PC config (memory, hard disk, sound)? Those times have gone – nobody cares. Nobody ever comes around to check out the sexy new laptop you slugging around. Even the tablet life is reaching that point.

So, I guess by the time Galaxy reaches the S6, it wouldn’t make news anymore. unless maybe it could make coffee but then every Chinese knockoff would be making coffee too.