It's always good to take a walk through the tube even if you can't stand the delays, grime and the folks playing music. It's good to get a view on what the mobile market is pitching to end consumers. The Nokia N900 Maemo device was arguably never intended for the average 24 year old female on a 35/month contract. Indeed when I originally talked to Nokia back at the start of Q4 2009, they were -- broadly speaking -- unsure if any operators would 'range' the device. And that issue didn't really bother them either. The N900 is almost a reference device for Maemo, for the future of the company's super-high-tech gadget series of devices.

If you hunted around in early January, you could pick up an N900 on a contract from some of the equipment re-sellers online. But it's only recently that Vodafone in the UK has officially offered the device. Super news for interested geeks. I'm not sure that advertising the device in the tube is the best thing to do. Nokia doesn't necessarily need normobs or mobile civilians walking into Carphone Warehouse and evaluating the N900 against (for example) the iPhone. The N900 isn't for the faint of heart -- it's a hugely powerful device that the super-geeks will *love* but that your average consumer will have issues with.

I'm pleased Vodafone has taken it on to give the geeks a choice. I don't reckon they or Carphone need to advertise that much though. If you were interested you probably were already on the operator site regularly searching for it, right?

In this week's newsletter, I explored a few elements of the future of mobile shopping and discussed -- with a few examples -- how I was using mobile to transact products and services.

At the end of the editorial I put up a link to a quick form asking what kinds of products and services readers bought via their mobiles. I also asked what the most expensive item was that they'd bought.

Goodness me there have been some terrific examples. One chap bought a car! *On his phone!*

I'll be writing up the feedback shortly. If you'd like to contribute, the link is at the bottom of the newsletter editorial (it should be languishing in your inbox from around 10pm last night).

This one is for the sysadmins out there -- of which I know there are a lot reading. If you've been wondering when RIM would organise support for IBM Lotus Quickr, then wonder no more! It's here:

RIM is launching today the new BlackBerry® Client for IBM Lotus® Quickr®, enabling secure mobile access to IBM's document-based collaboration software from BlackBerry® smartphones. RIM is also releasing a new version of the BlackBerry® Client for IBM Lotus® Connections® for enterprise social networking. These applications, along with the BlackBerry® Client for IBM Lotus® Sametime® for unified communications and collaboration, deliver secure, deeply integrated and intuitive mobile experiences for enterprise customers on the BlackBerry platform.

This is excellent news for those organisations wedded to the IBM Lotus platform. It's good news for RIM too as it'll keep them squarely in the frame for mobile messaging for those on the Lotus platform. More information at blackberry.com/go/lotus.

For all those who might think the mobile industry is limited in imagination, I am delighted to publish the very first (and, unless there are any other budding artists reading, probably the last) poem about the mobile industry.

This has been sent in by a reader who wishe to remain anonymous.

Palm – you’ve really blown it
You've really stuffed the goose
Your widget launch in Ireland
Is the knotting in your noose 

Fear not though dear Palm, my son
Do not fret for fudging up
For Google might just buy you
And treat you as its pup

For Ireland is the place you see
Where all these firms now go
To pay less tax and hire new staff
Of English tongue they know 

Apple’s seed is spreaden now
Into the farrest field
But never fear, oh Palm my son
You might just strike a deal 

Coffee to smell, you have a lot
But not all of it you must
Find developers who want a taste
And in them put your trust

Thank you to the anonymous Mobile Wordsworth for sending this in. Fantastic!

I look forward to a time when I can take a photo with an iPhone and have the device automatically upload in the background. But I can't help feeling held back by the iPhone's one-thing-at-a-time architecture.

Here's a case in point: Today I was on the District Line platform at Victoria when I spotted a 'Bluetooth Douchebag': A chap wearing a Bluetooth earpiece whilst operating a BlackBerry Storm. In the underground ("tube"). Where there is no signal.

I whipped out my (Orange) iPhone 3GS and snapped a picture. I've twitpic'ed it. The problem? I'm on the tube too going from station to station so the signal is up and down. I'm trying to send the picture by multiple methods from my iPhone but each time, because of the unstable connection, the transmission fails and then times out. I feel like I'm back in 1995. The numerous methods I'm trying all seem to need a proper connection. They can't transmit 2k... Then another 3k... Then another 50k. It has to either work first time or not at all.

This is hugely inconvenient as I'm now reduced to shepherding my data connecitivity. All of a sudden I need to watch signal strength and estimate throughputs trying furiously to dodge the stupid failure messages. It's also massively inconvenient because the fault-tolerant technology exists. ShoZu developed it years ago. But you need background processing for that.

I know many will ask, 'How often are you wanting to transmit a douchebag photo whilst on the tube', but that's not the point. I had fault-tolerant data connectivity managed by ShoZu 3 years ago on my Nokia/Symbian devices. More and more it's clear to me that the iPhone, in many respects a genius device, simply doesn't meet my rather demanding requirements. I'm still delighted by the strange feeling of contentment and capability that washes over me when I grasp my Nokia N86 (complete with ShoZu installed).