Monthly Archives: August 2007

My Cocoon

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O2 Cocoon

The nice folks at O2 have sent me a Cocoon to play with. My thoughts so far…

Things I like:

  • The form factor of the handset itself is quite nice. It’s got a nice weight to it and placing the music controls (pause, forward, volume jog-dial) on the outside are a nice touch. I’ve never really cared for clamshells as many feel cheap to me (even some of the Nokia ones :-) ) but I like the feel of the Cocoon when closed as well as open (but then the UI goes and ruins it—more on that below.)
  • The volume control jog-dial is a nice touch. Feels somewhat retro compared to the more space-aged controls about on other devices and I like not having to interact with the UI to adjust volume. That said, being able to (digitally) see the actual volume level on the outside of the phone is a nice touch. A good mixture of new and old combined. [If you haven't seen the Cocoon yet, the back of the handset sports an LCD status/display area that lights up through the phone itself—kind of like a Japanese rice-paper Ikea lamp with an LCD behind it. It displays all sorts of messages related to multimedia and device functionality—the name of a song that's playing, who a call or SMS is from etc.) A bit hard to explain but a nice subtle effect and surprisingly fun. Gives the device some personality!]
  • The phone comes with a cradle which I’ve yet to use (for personal reasons—my laptop is a bit unstable and I don’t want to install the PC Suite drivers or Windows Media 11 which are required for the synchronization.) I do like the aspect of giving the handset a ‘home’ on your desk. Reminds me of all the handset cozys I see in Asia. I could do without the drivers, extra software and cables however.
  • Nice touch…an adapter is included to plug two headsets into the phone!
  • Personalization features abound on this phone. I’m finding new ones all the time. They’re not necessarily always well implemented—Funny Frames for example superimposes a very pixilated ‘scene’ (birthday cake, clown’s head, big nose and sunglasses) around/above your photo)—but at least they’re trying.

Things I don’t like:

  • The UI really kills it for me. Grant it i’m a very visual person and accustomed to the Series 60 UI (not exactly a fun UI but elegant, well designed, takes advantage of coulour etc.) but the Cocoon UI just keeps disappointing. Some aspects of it seem far too basic while others are surprisingly colourful or detailed (the alarm clock animation for example—do people really care when they’re half asleep and trying to find the off switch :-) ) There are also usability issues like the shortcut menu/bar. Maybe it’s just me but I find it really hard to tell what i’m looking at as a scroll through it and the fact that all the icons (save a bizarre green bit on the corner of the music icon) are black an white (actually…more like a dull grayscale) really doesn’t help.
  • Where is the owner’s manual? A nice booklet with snappy copywriting and endless product shots came with it but what about a plain old owners manual? Turns out it’s on a CD which I applaud from an environmental point of view but since they took the trouble to include the booklet (full colour, thick paper stock, embossed logo on the cover) why not include some instructions in there too?
  • I’m disappointed by the absence of Flash Lite—even if just for the UI. I think it would have been a great addition and could have helped with some of the more visual aspects of the personalization features.

Overall, it’s a nice little handset. They’ve done a good job. I was chatting with someone last week who is also part of the Cocoon beta (small world) and he commented that it will likely be a great phone by the time they get to version 2 or 3. I tend to agree.

Eurobarometer: Mobile & internet habits of EU 9-12 yrs olds

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The European comission for Information Society and Media has released a very comprehensive report on the habits of European youth.

In a pan-European qualitative study covering 29 European countries, children of 9-10 and 12-14 years old were interviewed in-depth about their use of online technologies, like the Internet and mobile phones, and how they see and deal with risks…This study covers 29 countries (the 27 Member States, as well as Iceland and Norway) and it involves children of 9-10 and 12-14 years.

There is a seperate report available for each EU member country with a seperate section in each on mobile habits including download preferences, content acquisition habits, safety and digital literacy, mobile web use and the percentage of students with and without a mobile or computer access.

Findings in the overal European study include:

  • More than three-quarters of girls and boys aged 9 to 10 have one.
  • Nine out of ten girls and boys aged 12 to 14 have one.
  • More often than not the mobile phone was received as a present (from parents, uncles or aunts, grandparents).
  • Those who have a mobile phone show themselves to be very satisfied, and even “proud” to own one. This is clearly a form of valuation, a kind of “rite of passage”, the clear “sign” of access to a state of relative “maturity” and of belonging to a new group.
  • Among the youngest children, keeping in permanent contact with their parents is advanced by a majority.
  • Sending/receiving text messages is the favourite and intense activity of children, in particular, as we have just stressed, of the older children (aged 12 to 14). Apart from the fact that text messages are “cheaper” than voice calls, sending and receiving text messages is part and parcel of a specific “culture” in these age categories. This very evidently involves a language of their own, which is “coded” and differentiated, attesting to a mutual recognition and the sense of belonging to a group. In a nutshell: “you phone your parents but you text your friends”.
  • Connecting to the Internet by mobile phone is a very marginal use, deemed by a very large number to be pointless when you have a computer at home, but above all too expensive, complicated and also risky, since it potentially generates viruses.

Some of the country specific reports are in English so it’s worth downloading a bunch to compare attitudes in different countries!