This is very exciting news. While Apple’s iPhone OS and Google’s Android OS have been fiercly battling for the top-dog spot in the mobile OS market, Intel and Maemo have struggled to be noticed at all. Which is kind of sad, because I consider both of these platforms superior to the two major players (Nicolas already described some of Maemo 5.0′s features on the N900).

With this merger, these two currently minor players promise to become a serious competitor instead of fighting for scraps left over by Apple or Google. After all, Nokia is still the largest manufacturer of mobile handsets – it owns almost 40% of the smartphones market vs 17% for Apple according to Gartner – , and anybody watching the Linux crowd is no doubt aware of  Intel’s  immense contributions to the Linux kernel in the past few years.

I just hope they release a usable SDK to application developers A.S.A.P.  I wouldn’t want MeeGo to suffer the same fate as Maemo did:  a superior platform alone won’t sell many phones if only a handful of apps (~ 164 at the time of this writing) are available for it. This shouldn’t be too much of a problem though. Unlike Android, which has a custom Java-based virtual machine for running applications, both Moblin and Maemo currently use toolkits already well-known within the open-source community, GTK and QT (MeeGo will only support QT, however). The learning curve for new developers shouldn’t be that high.

Let’s just pray that Nokia and Intel will expedite this merger so that we won’t have to wait too long for the first handsets. Nokia had Maemo 6.0 planned for 2010-11, but I think it is safe to assume 6.0 will be dropped in favor of MeeGo.  Early 2011 would be great, but  I guess I won’t get around buying a Nexus One until then…

Nicolas was kind enough to invite me to share my experiences with mobile VoIP, specifically with Sipdroid on the Android platform. I’ll start by providing a quick summary of the technology, and how applications are now utilizing it.

Simply speaking, VoIP – short for Voice-over-IP – is a general term for technologies which route phone calls over the internet, rather than regular telephony networks. The result is very cheap telephony, or in the case of pure internet-to-internet communications, free telephony.

The best example for this technology is the extremely popular Skype software: internet-to-internet is free, but whenever the regular phone network is involved (for example when calling a mobile handset via SkypeOut), a miniscule fee is charged.

Skype uses a propietary protocol for communication. What most people don’t know is that VoIP communications was standardized ages ago as SIP, a technology which currently is extensively used in corporate environments, but not (yet) that popular in the private sector.

To use SIP, you need either a VoIP-enabled phone (all the desktop phones at my workplace are plugged into the LAN!), or a software client, commonly called a “softphone”. This gets you the free internet-to-internet calls. For internet-to-regular-telephone calls, you will additionally need a service provider. There are hundreds of providers to choose from (most of them a lot cheaper than Skype), however for beginners I recommend sipgate.

[singlepic id=91 w=320 h=240 float=left]Luckily enough for Android users, there is a great SIP client for the Android platform: Sipdroid (http://sipdroid.org/). Sipdroid tightly integrates into your phone. When Sipdroid is active, all outgoing calls are automatically routed through your SIP provider. You don’t pay or use any phone minutes because your end of the call is going through the internet. You just pay your SIP provider’s minutes, which are dirt-cheap. Best of all: by using a WLAN hotspot, you can use SIP from any place in the world, for the same cost! There is no need for roaming, because all calls are going through your internet connection.

I merely touched some if SIP’s features here. There are tons of others (one or more phone numbers for incoming calls, online voice boxes, etc.). I can only recommend that you check out one of the “beginner” VoIP providers and see what you are mission out on

On a side note: I realize the above may be a too laborious or time-consuming solution for some. There is another SIP client for Android callue truphone. Truphone offers everything in a bundle (SiP provider, software, etc) – just register an account, and that’s it. The issue I have with truphone is that you are locked into their service, i.e. you can’t switch between providers.

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Nicolas, thanks for the opportunity!

The big news here is that Spotify has launched its mobile version for iPhone and Google Android’s owners! This is somehow surprising, knowing Apple’s usual protectionist habit, that it finally decided to let it in its AppleStore when we know that Spotify is a direct rival to iTunes. Is it a demonstration of good will or did Apple finally realized that the future of music lies within its ability to remain available anytime, anywhere and for free?

The free app allows you to stream any of its nearly 4 million tracks over WiFi or 3G and syncs playlists for playback while disconnected. However, it is available exclusively to Spotify Premium members in the UK, Sweden, Spain, France and Norway (a US launch is expected soon).

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In one of its articles published last month, Mashable highlighs that it is possible to “store up to 3,333 songs in offline mode, making it ideal for listening to your music on the plane. The core selling point, however, remains the same as the desktop app: on demand access to 6 million+ tracks. Another neat feature: it syncs with the desktop via wifi…no need to hook up your USB cable. Even US reviewers are blown away: Wired’s Epicenter blog claims it’s so good that “you’d have to pry it out of my cold, dead iPhone before I’ll delete it from my phone”.

You just read it well: The big attraction of the Spotify app is its ability to store your playlists so you can listen to them while completely offline – on the Underground, on a plane, or wherever. Needless to say that this is a revolution in the music industry. For this, you definitely need wifi, and the foresight to remember to sync your playlists before you leave.

My feeling? I just can’t wait to have Spotify made available for Nokia S60 users… windows mobile users (Kerolic kindly shared a link to a video on which we can see Spotify running on a Nokia S60. It is just gorgeous!)

Read — Spotify on Android
Read — Spotify on App Store
Read — Spotify on Symbian S60

Brian Hart of The iPhone Blog conducted a detailed benchmark of those two Apps.*

How Do They Compare?

Shazam and Midomi are both excellent products and have nice interfaces, so the edge in this contest will boil down to feature sets. Without further ado, let’s dive in and compare these two contestants!

Shazam

The design and interface for Shazam is all about simplicity. When you open up the app, you are presented with My Tags, the main screen for Shazam which displays anything you tagged Today and anything you tagged that is Older. “Tagged” means you have identified unknown music with song title, artist, and other information associated with it.

From the My Tags screen, you can view older Tags or tap “Tag Now” in the upper right corner of the screen to tag some new music. Be sure to have your iPhone close to the music source when you tap Tag Now, because as soon as you hit the button, Shazam will start “listening” and do it’s best to identify the music your are listening to.

If Shazam is successful in tagging the music, your iPhone will display the artist, song title, genre, record label, and album from whence the song came. Album art will also be displayed. If you scroll down, there are several tag options: purchase the music via a link to iTunes, watch the music video on YouTube (if available), take and attach a photo, attach an album photo, share the tag with a friend, or delete the tag. All of this is very straight-forward, but requires an audible sound source of the original music. Shazam is simple and effective in it’s design and it’s easy to use.

So, to use Shazam, just open the app, select “Tag Now”, and let your iPhone listen to the music to identify the artist and track name. You can save your tag history and build your own list of music over time. You can buy the music you hear via a link from Shazam to iTunes. If your tagged music has a music video, Shazam will link you to the music video on YouTube. You can personalize your tagged music with your photos and send your tagged music to friends and family via email.

Shazam works well, is simple to use, and gets the job done. It does require a music source to tag your music.

Midomi

When opening Midomi, you will see a splash screen for a couple seconds, then the application will launch where you left off before. Midomi is similar to Shazam in that it helps you identify music and tag it, but if Shazam is the Toyota of identifying and tagging music, then Midomi may be the Lexus.

Midomi is loaded with more features. In addition to tagging music by “grabbing” the music (your iPhone listening to the music, then matching it with song title and artist), Midomi has additional options. You can sing the lyrics, hum the tune, speak the lyrics, artist or song title, or enter the information by typing it. This is all very handy if you have that song bouncing around in your head, don’t have a music source nearby, but want to put a name and face to your torment – just hum the song and Midomi will search it’s 17 million plus database.

Like Shazam, Midomi tags the song and gives you the options of watching the video on YouTube, buying the song from iTunes, bookmarking the song, and sharing with a friend via email.

There are a lot more screenshots for Midomi because there are many more ways to tag your music. If you have a music source, then great – select the “Grab” tab and let Midomi listen to your music. Or, use one of the other several tabs, like Type, Say, or Sing. Each is self-explanatory and adds additional dimensions to identifying and tagging your music on Midomi.

You can Type the artist, song title, or lyrics and let Midomi search it’s database. You can Talk into your iPhone and let Midomi recognize your speech, or if you are brave and consider yourself a shower-singing aficionado, then give it your best shot and Sing or hum the song. This latter method may be the least accurate given that it’s dependent on your talent level.

Another advantage of Midomi is the vast database of music samples. When you tag your music, you can play a sample of the music on Midomi, which may be helpful in verifying you have tagged the correct song. On a humorous note, when using the Sing method for tagging your music, the sample you play may be the singing voice of another Midomi user out there somewhere.

Conclusion

Both Shazam and Midomi offer features like tagging music with artist name and song title, linking to music videos on YouTube, and sharing your tagged music with a friend via email. However, this is where similarities end and Midomi takes it to the next level. With the additional methods of tagging (Say, Sing, and Type) and a database of music samples, Midomi is more feature-rich.

Midomi Rating

Shazam Rating

***

* I’m usually not a fan of reproducing content featured in other blogs or websites. That’s not the purpose of 52nd & West. But Brian Hart did a great job in this benchmark and there is not much I would have added from my personal experience, he did not already mentionned. So two thumbs-up Brian for this great review.

It would also be worth highlighting in this review that midomi offers on its website a free “voice search engine” for those who can’t run the mobile app on their cellphone. Another “plus” for this piece of software.