vufone blog

We’re all very excited over here at vufone to release our brand new mobile client that will quite literally sync your world!

Anyone with a symbian, java, Android or blackberry device can download here and follow our relatively easy install steps to automatically synchronize, back up and share all the personal stuff on your phone with wherever you want it to end up – photos to flickr or facebook, videos to youtube (soon), calendar or contacts to Gmail or Outlook, and a whole lot more including saving all this and your favorite SMSs to our secure web server.

You can also use vufone to automatically update content on your favorite web locations to your mobile phone and share your personal content with your friends via our simple web interface. You set it up once and our little blue vufone buddy (cute, huh ?) takes care of the automatic back up and sync for you. So without further ado, here are some screen shots and a quick clip showing off what we can do to help you sync your mobile and online worlds.

So far we’ve received a great response from our beta users as well as extremely helpful input on what to improve so please keep that feedback coming!

Roy & Team vufone

vufone main menu screen

vufone media selector screen

vufone media preview screen

I’m new around here.  Let me introduce myself.  My name is Jeb Brilliant, and I’m a bit of a mobile nerd.  I also pride myself on being very up-to-date on all the news and goings on in the mobile industry.  I like most anything that’s mobile and wireless.  What I like more is anything that can save me time and effort - that’s where vufone comes in.

Since I’m new here I thought I would start at the beginning by explaining in my own words what vufone does.  Basically it’s a sync application on steroids.  First it will sync your calendar and contacts from Outlook or Google with your handset, but vufone also syncs your text messages (SMS), photos, music, videos, documents, and tasks.  vufone is the only app that can sync so much of your content all in one program.  The vufone website acts as the middle man and does a great job of it. I had a very convoluted system for syncing that I am simplifying with vufone.  I’m going to focus on calendar and contact syncing in this first post.  Please also bare in mind I see things as a Nokia smart phone user so my view on some things may be a bit different then yours.

I started off by signing up for the vufone service at www.vufone.com.  Then I sent out a link to the download via a text message.  It arrived in a few seconds and I clicked it and started the download process.  As I was downloading the app to my phone, a Nokia N79, I clicked on the calendar section of the vufone website and found the Google logo.  By clicking on it I was given the ability to authorize vufone to sync with my Google account.  It couldn’t have been easier.  Calendar and contacts are authenticated separately, so follow the same steps for the contacts section.

Once I had authorized vufone to sync with Google calendar, the download to my phone was complete; then I began the syncing process.  After a few minutes I was set, the calendar on my phone was fully synchronized with my Google calendar.  The best part, and most important to me, is that now my phone can sync with Google automatically and regularly without me doing anything.  I don’t have to try to remember to sync my phone anymore it’s all done for me and, like I said before, anything that can save me time and effort I like.

In the next blog post I will talk more about another great vufone feature.  It’s nice meeting you all and if you have any questions or want to chat you can email me at Jeb@vufone.com (email will be active in another day or two) or on Twitter at @JebBrilliant.  Please also add @vufone on Twitter so you can follow us and keep in the loop.

Great news to all those who didn’t register to the vufone mobile phone backup and sync service before March. We have launched our March Promotion campaign - get vufone for your mobile phone for just $9.99/year or $0.99/month !

Yes! - Our full mobile synchronization and backup service with annual upgrades and guaranteed service level agreement for a whole year for just $9.99 !

We just released a new vufone agent that supports sync over wifi. You can upgrade the agent from the server or manually download it to your PC and send it over bluetooth/cable to your phone. Here is the direct download link: vufone_s60_3_0_v_2_03_4_signed.sisx

The vufone Team

vufone - synchronize your phone to the web

vufone is a personal utility which allows mobile phone users to backup, synchronize and manage their phone on the web. The vufone service allows seamless, periodical, automated and simple bi-directional synchronization or contacts, calendar, messages, images and photos, video files and music to a secured account on the web. vufone also allows you to mesh up and share your data with services such as Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, Youtube, Google Calendar and Google contacts.

visit us at http://www.vufone.com and watch our short intro video.

Register on vufone.com by March 1st and get one year free service !

Backup your mobile phone Regular automated backup of your phone (contacts, calendar, messages, photos, videos and music) No cables needed, over-the-air backup Safe copy of your mobile information on a secure server Contacts, messages, calendar, photos, videos or documents Restore to any new phone brand or model Synchronize your phone with vufone or other services Get your Microsoft Outlook meetings or Google Calendar on your phone Automatically synchronize Microsoft Outlook contacts or Gmail contacts to your phone Synchronize your Microsoft Outlook tasks to your phone Use your phone contacts in Microsoft Outlook or Google contacts Manage your phone contacts and calendar on the web Periodical and automated synchronization over the air Upload and Share your photos, videos and music Upload your pictures, videos and music from your mobile and view them online Download music, pictures and other files from the web to your phone Create online albums and show them to friends and family on the Web Send your pictures and videos to friends’ phones Upload your mobile photos and videos to your favorite social network Facebook, Flickr, Picasa, YouTube View your photos and videos online in full quality More Cool Features MyPersona - make your picture appear on your friends phone when you call them Grab pictures from any Internet site directly to your vufone account and your phone using our Internet Explorer and Firefox plug-ins. Turn any web picture into your phones wallpaper Listen to your mobile music online

Supported Phones

see our supported phones page for a full list of supported phones using Java, Symbian and Windows Mobile platforms from Nokia, SonyEricsson, Motorola, Samsung, HTC and more.

Use vufone in your local languge.

Currently supported languages are: English, Spanish, German, Italian, French, Dutch, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Portuguese and Russian.

vufone wizard

One of the biggest challenges developing a mass-market mobile application using J2ME (targeting, for example, Nokia S40, SonyEricsson or Motorola devices) clients is application permissions - or more accurately - how to effectively help users to download the application and set its permissions correctly.

When a mobile operator deploys a service onto his phones he can preset or pre-load the client with the right permissions and his own certificate to the device and that’s it. Third party service providers or software developers need to rely on different mechanism. When we (or other software developers) develop a software to be downloaded to mobile phones, we need to sign the application with a certain authority (such as Java Verified, Verisign or Thawt) which grants the application permissions to access data on the phone. Alas, these permissions are lower than of the handset manufacturer or the mobile operator and require the user to manually set the permission of the application.
For years this requirement resulted, IMHO, in a major setback of mobile application development and prevented real innovation to penetrate mass-market devices.

The reason I’m sharing this frustration is that this problem was the focus of the recent upgrade of the vufone service.

When registering to the vufone service users basically need to follow 3 main steps:

1. Download the agent to your phone
2. Set the application’s permissions correctly to allow smooth access to the data on the phone
3. Configure your account with the data you would like to sync, how often etc.

Since we cannot override the current crippling J2ME signing processes, we developed a special wizard which guides you though the entire process with real screen shots of a phone. Moreover, during the entire process the phone reports exactly what you did so we can either progress automatically to the next step or offer you the correct troubleshooting steps to correct your steps.

I believe that this is the first time such a tool is available and I’m certain that following these easy steps,  screen shots and simple guidance on the screen (both web and phone) will simplify this process.

Currently we implemented the full Wizard for Nokia S40, Nokia S60 and SonyEricsson devices. Other devices see a more basic version. We will add the wizards for other phone platforms in the upcoming days. We will be happy to hear any feedback to the wizards we introduced to vufone.

Almost a decade ago, in the JavaOne conference of 1999, Sun Microsystems introduced a new Java Virtual Machine for small-memory, limited-resource, connected devices, such as mobile phones. The first K Virtual Machine (KVM) was demonstrated on Palm OS, as a proof of concept. Since then, it has become part of the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) platform, or as it is called now, Java ME. Today, Java ME is the most common application platform for mobile devices, including most GSM and iDEN phones and some CDMA phones, such as those that are provided by Sprint in the US. The importance of Java ME is that it has opened mass-market phones that are running embedded operating systems to third party application developers. However, the main challenge now is how to develop an application that would be portable across different devices, seamlessly.

Although most mobile phones today support Java ME, it doesn’t ensure any compatibility between them. Realizing the different capabilities of different devices, Java ME is not a monolithic platform. A specific Java ME runtime environment is defined by 3 layers: configuration, profile and optional APIs. Most mobile phones support the Connected Limited Device Configuration (CLDC). On top of that you will usually find the Mobile Information Device Profile (MIDP). But, when it comes to optional APIs, the number of combinations is enormous. Each API is defined in a specific Java Specification Request (JSR), which is denoted by a number. Common examples are JSR-75, which includes the PIM API and the File Connection API, JSR-82, which specifies the Bluetooth API, and JSR-120, which specifies the Wireless Messaging API. Many applications require one or more optional APIs. The vufone mobile application, for example, requires JSR-75 and JSR-120.

Even if you have a mobile phone that has all the required APIs, it is still not enough in terms of compatibility. There are many different implementations of Java ME. Although they implement the APIs that are defined by the relevant specifications, there are still different interpretations of the semantics behind these APIs, and sometimes even bugs in the implementation. In many cases, the specifications define the API as a framework, but leave the definition of the actual resources behind it to the implementation. For example, the PIM API, which is specified by JSR-75, provides access to contacts, calendar and tasks. However, it allows each implementation to support different PIM categories and any subset of fields per PIM item.

The most painful aspect of deploying Java ME applications is the issue of signatures. There are several operations which require permissions, such as accessing the network, reading and writing user data, sending SMS, and others. APIs that provide access to these operations are restricted and the application will be allowed to use them only if the application manager grants the relevant permissions. How does the application manager decide which permissions to grant? This is the tricky part…

An unsigned MIDP application (MIDlet) is considered untrusted. If the application is signed, it can be mapped to 3 protection domains: third party, operator and manufacturer. If the signature is valid and is authenticated against a certain root certificate that resides on the device, then the application will be assigned to the corresponding protection domain. Finally, the security policy specifies which permissions are granted to each domain. This policy is set by the manufacturer or operator and is completely hidden from the developer. The outcome is that in many cases it is impossible to know in advance which signature is required until you actually try it. Furthermore, some devices allow only applications in the operator or manufacturer domain to access certain operations. It means that as a third party developer you may not be able to install your application on these phones.

To summarize, Java Micro Edition has become the most common application platform for mobile devices in the last decade. However it still suffers from some major deficiencies that create pitfalls for application developers. We hope that these issues will be addressed by future implementations of Java ME.

I’m happy to update that we released a vufone client for windows mobile professional edition devices (WM 5, 6 and 6.1). Now you can use all these touch screen windows mobile phone to sync to our service.

We will be released the windows mobile standard edition (a.k.a smart-phone edition) shortly.

Checkout the new supported device page - there are over 280 supported phones now.

Cheers,
Rafi Ton

In the 3rd quarter of 2008 the global smartphone market reached its weakest year-on-year growth, according to Gartner. Worldwide smartphone sales to end-users reached a total of 36.5 million units in Q3 2008, 11.5% increase from the same period in 2007. 3 years ago, Gartner predicted that more than 200 million smartphones will be sold in 2008. Well, it is not going to happen, but at least they can blame it on the economic climate…

While the size of the smartphone market is growing slower than expected, it is becoming more and more fragmented. A year ago, Symbian-based smartphones dominated the market with 63.1% market share, leaving Windows Mobile far behind with 12.8%. In Q3 2008, Symbian is still the leading smartphone Operating System, but has fallen below 50% market share for the first time. RIM (15.9%) and iPhone (12.9%) are getting stronger and outsell the numerous devices based on the Windows Mobile platform (11.1%). Android is still behind, but it will probably gain momentum in 2009, as more device manufacturers will endorse it.

With so many different mobile phones that claim to be smart, nobody really knows what the definition of a “smartphone” is. Is it the variety of applications that are offered for Symbian? Is it the Microsoft office support of Windows Mobile? Is it the excellent mobile email support of Blackberry? Is it the advanced touch screen and Internet capabilities of iPhone? Or maybe the “old fashioned” QWERTY keyboard is good enough? It seems that for most users, a smartphone is a powerful device with some combination of the above, but actually it is a matter of freedom. It is the freedom to install and use whatever application I like on my smartphone, just like I would do on my PC. Yes, it comes with many pre-installed applications such as browser, PIM, email and others. But I should be able to install my favorite email application for example, and get a user experience which is at least as good as the built-in email application.

The freedom for the end user is an outcome of the openness for the developer. That is, 3rd party application developers must have full access to the same APIs that are used by built-in applications in order to provide real freedom for end users. This is not really the case for all smartphone platforms. When Apple released the first version of the iPhone, there was no official SDK for application developers. It means that the first iPhone was shipped with a limited number of built-in applications, which should have been the ones that the user really needs and likes. “Surprisingly”, since different users have different preferences, hackers quickly provided a jailbreak, which enabled 3rd party applications on iPhone. Apple released the first version of the iPhone SDK in July 2008, but the functionality that it provides is still very limited, compared to applications that are developed by Apple and its affiliates.

Mobile operators and device manufacturers would argue that the primary purpose of any mobile phone, as smart as it may be, is still to make voice calls. The average mobile phone user cannot live with a situation where they cannot receive phone calls because it is stuck. Mobile operators will not only lose revenues because of that, but will also be the immediate target for customer complaints. Therefore the device must protect its core functionality against badly written 3rd party applications, which leads to a tradeoff between openness and reliability. RIM Blackberry devices for example, are known for their reliability and stability. This is achieved by allowing developers to develop only Java ME applications. Since Java applications are running on top of virtual machine, they are much more controllable and manageable than native applications. However, for the developer Java ME is a restricted environment, which does not provide full access to the phone’s resources.
Symbian is probably the most mature operating system for smartphones. Symbian was originally evolved from Psion’s EPOC OS, and is now fully owned by Nokia, which plans to merge it with S60 and UIQ into an open source platform. Developers can choose between the native SDK and Java ME SDK. However, native Symbian applications are much more powerful and provide a superior user experience than Java applications. In order to protect itself against bad and malicious applications, Symbian has introduced the Symbian Signed program in version 9.1, which requires developers to go through a certification and signing process to access certain capabilities. Similarly, Windows Mobile has privileged APIs, which require certification of Microsoft through the Mobile2Market program. However, Windows Mobile devices are more flexible than Symbian, since the user can turn off the security mechanism.

When Google introduced the Android platform, it featured the concept of “Applications are created equal”, which means that any application on the device can be replaced or extended, including core components such as the dialer. While it may seem as the most open platform for mobile phones, Android takes a similar approach to RIM (which is on the other end of the scale in terms of openness) and doesn’t expose any native APIs. Instead it provides a non-standard Java-like SDK, which is much more powerful than Java ME. Applications must be signed, but there is no certification process. Time will tell if this model is sustainable without harming the stability of the device.

First post in the series.

Apple’s iPhone 3G has been recently crowned as the most popular phone in US, according to market research group NPD. This is a very impressive achievement of Apple, especially as a new player in the mobile phones market. It may seem that the global mobile phone market is going to be dominated by iPhone and the likes. Well, not so fast…

Worldwide sales of mobile phones to end-users reached more than 309 million units in the 3rd quarter of 2008, according to Gartner. This market is dominated by 5 leading manufacturers: Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG. Apple is currently ranking at No. 7 with 2.2% market share, just under RIM. Sales of all smart phones (including Symbian, Blackberry, iPhone and Windows Mobile) reached 39.85M, according to Canalys. Thus, smart phone represent about 13% of the global market, which means that 87% of the new mobile phones are still running embedded operating systems. Given the global economic downturn, these numbers will probably not change significantly in the upcoming quarters.

What does it mean for mobile application developers? As the diversity of mobile platforms is growing and consolidation is not seen in the horizon, the challenges of developing cross-platform mobile applications become acute. Many companies that enter the mobile market tend to focus at the high-end open platforms, such as Nokia’s Symbian and Microsoft’s Windows Mobile, as the more mature operating systems. The newcomers in this arena are Apple with their OS X for iPhone and Google, which endorses the Linux-based Android OS. All of these are indeed powerful platforms for application developers, but if you really want to reach the mass market, you must target the embedded OS phones.

Those mass market phones are not open for 3rd party application developers, unless you use restricted run-time application environments, such as Sun’s Java Micro Edition (Java ME or J2ME) for most GSM phones and Qualcomm’s BREW, mostly for CDMA. Developing in these environments means that the developer doesn’t have access direct access to the underlying operating system and the phone’s resources. Instead, the developer can only use APIs that are exposed as an abstraction layer, which represent a fraction of the phone’s functionality.

Java ME is by far the most common application development platform for mobile phones today. When it first introduced by Sun, about a decade ago, the promise was “write once, run anywhere”. This utopia has never been materialized. Developers of Java ME applications must not only cope with the different implementations of the fundamental APIs (CLDC and MIDP), but also with the different extensions (JSRs) and security policies. The latter is becoming a major pitfall, since device manufacturers and mobile operators have created a realm in which they have more power than 3rd party application developers. The policies for 3rd party applications, even if they passed the JavaVerified certification process, are different among different devices and sometimes for the same device across different operators.

Another challenge, which is applicable to all mobile platforms, is the need to support different networks and access points. When a mobile application connects to the network it may be routed through various gateways. These gateways are not transparent, as one could expect. In fact, they may impact the application, especially if “WAP” APNs are being used. Thus, a client/server application must be tested carefully in different network configurations and the developer should be aware of these restrictions.