Out and about and need to record at home?

If you have Sky TV you can use one of the best mobile apps out there - Sky Remote Record. The application is available for a variety of platforms, including iPhone, Android and Symbian, but is even supported via SMS.

With all the methods you do need to register for the service on the Sky.com. If you have an iPhone you will need to visit the iTunes Store, but for other devices you can simply visit http://p.wecomm.com/sky on your mobile.

To record a program just select a genre, I chose Entertainment. You are then presented with a view very similar to the normal Sky EPG. In the pic I have turned my phone to landscape to get a fuller view.

Choose the program you would like to record by clicking on it, you then get a summary of the program. On the summary page you simply click on "Record". This request is sent from the app to Sky, they then send it to their satelite and then down through the satelite tranmission to your set top box.

And that is, great user experience. But even if you dont have a whizzy phone you can even record via SMS, see below.

I am not aware of other providers doing similar, but I am a Sky subcriber, so if you have Virgin / BT Vision etc let us know via the comments.



To Set Up a Recording via SMS
Compose an SMS in the following format, separating each section with a full stop: Programme title. Channel (name or number). Date DD/MM. Time HH:HH e.g. Lost. Sky1. 18/02. 22:00

Send this SMS to 61759 (61SKY) if you are a UK customer, or 53759 (53SKY) if you are an ROI customer

You'll receive a message to let you know your request has been sent to your Sky+ or Sky+HD box. Each confirmation using this method costs 25p/€0.50.

Who is winning the browser war?

Looking at the statistics provided by comScore MobiLens (July 2010), one can see that while the iPhone is a large slice of the browsers at 29.6%, Nokia (using the Symbian OS) is still delivers the largest slice of mobile internet traffic at 37.3.

Also of note is the rapid growth of Android, already at 10% in July nearly doubling from a year earlier, I think that by year end it will have increases substantially due to new handset releases.

What is also noteworthy is the huge differences between some countries in Europe, here Nokia remains much more dominant. This should be remembered when working with clients who's users are across Europe.

Are you an Angry Fan?

I know that there are lots of fans of the iPhone game Angry Birds, and the good news is this highly addictive game is coming to Android, albeit in a 'Lite Beta' version.


Having sold 6.5 million copies on Apple's App Store, the release is the first stage of Rovio's (the publisher for the Android version) attempt to repeat the success on Android, with a paid version of the game due to launch soon.

The game's launch was accompanied by a mini-controversy over name-squatting, thanks to an existing Android app called Angry Birds, which is a practical-joke app. That app has since been renamed as Angry Birds Joke, leaving the way clear for Rovio's paid version.

Do you play? How did you get on? Why is this game so additive? Please share your thoughts.

Not the only fruit....

Less than two years after Google opened its Android Market application store, consumers have now apparently downloaded more than one billion apps to their phones (according to estimates from analytics provider AndroLib.com).

Although Android store is still far behind Apple's rival App Store, which recently topped 5 billion downloads, interest in Android is clearly on the up.The report boasts about 92,000 applications, showing rapid growth, and is on pace to hit 100,000  by the end of the month. Developers have already submitted over 10,000 new applications through the first 15 days of July, compared to 15,000 new Android apps in all of June. An increase in volume, but perhaps not quality.

Last week, Google introduced App Inventor for Android, a free software tool enabling users to create their own Android applications regardless of previous programming experience - I have signed up and expect to see my efforts in future weeks. Under development for a year and tested in environments including a variety of schools, App Inventor for Android does not rely on conventional coding - instead, consumers visually design the application's appearance, using blocks to specify its behavior.