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.

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.

Here’s one problem everyone who uses J2ME web apps is familiar with. Permissions.

Many J2ME enabled devices require manual authorization when it comes to accessing the internet, media gallery or phone book. This could result in an annoying, never ending, drill.

Permissions can be manually set though. Once such action is taken, the annoying pop ups will simply stop and fluent flow of application will be permitted.

We have taken a few moments and created a short instructional clip for you. The clip demonstrates a step by step vufone installation and in addition will get you past the permission hurdle.

Hope you find it helpful.

Hoora! I can’t believe we’re finally here! vufone is launched!

Before we begin with vufone let me first catch my breath. Perhaps it would be a good idea to start where it all began and tell you what brought us to this point.

About 2 years ago, 716 days ago to be exact, I bought a new mobile phone. After nearly 20 years of Nokia addiction I decided to jump back in the water and I got the new (at that time, of course) Sony Ericsson k800i. The walkman capabilities, 3.2MB camera and slick interface just did it for me.

Excitement turned to dismay as the next few days were hard to imagine. The phone itself was great, don’t get me wrong, but I just couldn’t get my old data on it. Imagine the ultimate black book, my mobile contact list, after all these years. The ringtones, some of them cut specifically for me by a DJ prodigy who also happens to be my sister in law, were they all destined to be gone? and what about my messages? could they ever be salvaged? I was sweating bullets!

For the first couple of days I juggled PC suites, Nokia’s and Sony Ericsson’s respectively. I couldn’t get them to communicate with each other. I then pulled my bluetooth capabilities to the max. Finally, I registered to 3 different internet services that asked me to master guru terms like SyncML and forced me to dig deeply into my phone settings. In the end, I managed to transfer most of my contacts, some of my ringtones and none of my messages.

It sucked, it was cumbersome, it was tiring, it was frustrating and in the bottom line it was a failure. Then came a wonderful moment of Eureka. And we sat down, rolled our sleeves and decided to solve it.

2 years and later vufone.com finally opens to the general public. Vufone was primarily designed so you won’t have to go through what I went through, but we realized it can actually do much more. You don’t need to learn any technical term, just register and follow the instructions. The rest is up to you.

So what exactly can you do with vufone? Well, to start with you can back up, restore and manage all of your contacts, meetings, pics, clips, tracks, ringtones and messages. This means you can switch phones without losing a single bit of information. You can manage your appointments and meetings from our web or using our MS Outlook plugin. In addition, you can upload your pics and clips on an ongoing basis and share them with your friends via your favorite social networks. You can also synch your music tracks with your phone and play them on the go. Come to think of it, you can actually manage your phone using a friendly web based interface.

You may say “these guys probably support only a handful Windows mobile device” - well, No. Our focus was on mass-market phones. Sure, the service supports Windows Mobile and Symbian, but more importantly, it also supports your standard feature phones such as Nokia S40, SonyEricsson, Motorola and others.  Take a look at the Supported Devices page to see a full list of supported phones. Don’t see your phone there? drop us a note in the support forum. Supporting many languages was also a priority for us, realizing that as weird as it may sound, there are other spoken languages other than English. So, we launched the service in the following languages: English, French, German, Chinese (traditional and simplified), Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Italian.

Oh yeah, we realize our service ain’t perfect yet and we appreciate your support in making it such. For the next 3 months we offer it absolutely for free. For the lifetime of your phone that is. That’s right, join vufone now and get it all for free for the lifetime of your phone. 100% FREE. Guaranteed.

Happy to be here and thankful for your support and feedback, both good and bad (good is fun to hear, bad helps us improve).

Cheers,
Rafi Ton