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Metrolife
7DAYS
WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 18, 2009 23
Office chic
Batteries included
Formal workwear can be absolutely fabulous
BY PADDY SMITH G
et smart in this Classic, yet feminine and
fabulous outfit chic, black trousers are not
worthy of Quentin only elegant but slimming
Tarantino’s muse, actress too. Match with a striking
From Catalonia’s colourful capital, a
Uma Thurman. jacket and clutch purse.
tech geek bemuses the future of phones
BL
ACK TROUSERS
dhs 195
T
his month’s column comes from the jewel of Catalonia,
Barcelona. Here, crouching under the foothills of the
From Zara at Deira
City Centre
Pyrenees, the mobile phone industry is gathered for the
GSMA Mobile World Congress. And this edition was
expected to be a crunch year in phoneland.
After the iPhone turned the market on its head in 2007, the
smart money said that this time around, the established
brand faithful would pick itself up and fight back.
Partly, that was owing to Google’s surprising, yet critically
lauded, decision to launch an open-source mobile phone
operating system last year - Android. We’ve talked about
the OS before in this column (you can look it up online if
UTCH
you missed it). While Android entered the market with a
CL
arehouse at
dhs 85
bang, the hardware it ran on failed to excite aesthetes or
F
rom W
the early adopters who considered its slide-out QWERTY Deira City Centre
keyboard an anachronism in
today’s touchscreen world.
Journalists, analysts and
JACKET
other industry pundits poised
dhs 495
their pens for an influx of
highly adaptive touchscreen
From Zara at Mall of
the Emirates
phones: some running the
Android OS; some competing
with platforms that took the
best lessons from that and
Apple’s press-loving handset.
It’s early days (day two, to be
precise) at Mobile World
Congress, but the bellwether
already seems to be drifting
from the flock of expectation.
The press conference of
current industry leader Nokia HEELS
yesterday morning was notable
dhs 595
for its total lack of touchscreen devices.
F
The Finnish company was never going to be one to take a
rom F
rench Connection
at Mall of the Emirates
plunge in the Android pool (Nokia’s existing user interface
is arguably its best selling point). But there were no huge
cameras (Sony Ericsson announced a 12.1MP camphone
the previous evening), and while the phones had got
slimmer and smarter (something we’d all like to do), they
had all the surprise of a Dubai construction superlative.
HTC, the manufacturer of the first Android phone -
branded by T-Mobile - came next. But the company failed
to announce a single new handset running Google’s
operating system. Instead, they are embracing the latest
incarnation of Microsoft’s much-maligned Windows Mobile
OS. Sure, its new hardware looks the part (on paper and
off), but why HTC has turned its shoulder to the promising
new platform remains a mystery.
If the tide that has carried Nokia to the top of the mobile
phone charts is the simplicity of its software and out-of-
Setting sail
the-box ease-of-use, then perhaps its new direction, or
lack of it, is what the market (that’s mobile phone users
to you) demands.
The Arabian Gulf plays host to a four-day regatta
The company’s new handsets include the slide-out
keyboard skills of its E75 (pictured above), which follows in competitors home without a spin
the footsteps of its previous Communicator devices. Given annual sporting event, but due to around the waters of the Gulf, the
that these were among the most popular mobile email and T
he Maktoum regatta is popular
unforeseen circumstances the race Dubai Offshore Sailing Club has
messaging devices ever to grace the UAE’s shelves, it seems has been cancelled this year. decided to organise its very own
like a wise move. The E55, also launched yesterday, shuns Bad news for boating fans, but even regatta.
fancy facades and trivial tricks in favour of bringing a true more so for the many competitors The ‘DOSC Winter Open
smartphone into the everyman market. from France, Italy, Oman, Bahrain Challenge’ is a four-day regatta
After years of the industry chicaning from one must-have and Scotland that are already that starts tomorrow and will
trend to the next, perhaps mobile phones are finally in the UAE, with their boats in see over 250 competitors take
growing up. Or maybe the industry is simply pausing to tow, ready to take part. to the water.
consider its next step. Unless the next couple of days hold So, to avoid sending the Anyone interested in heading
some major surprises, it seems that refinement - not down to DOSC to watch the
revolution - is in the air in Barcelona this year. regatta is welcome from
11.30 onwards from
Paddy Smith is the
February 18-21.
DOSC is located just off
Editor of Stuff for the
Jumeirah Beach Road.
Middle East, a regional
Contact 04 394 1596.
edition of the world’s
biggest selling gadget
magazine.
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