Using Yahoo! Go on the Nokia N90
On February 6th of this year, I wrote a post about Yahoo! Go. It had just recently been launched and I was very excited at the possibility of a consumer giant such as Yahoo entering the mobile space in such a big way. Or, at least, what looked like a big way.
I just couldn’t get Yahoo! Go to work at all on the N70 I borrowed from one of my brothers. It just wasn’t having it. A week or so later I came across a post by Andrew on The Register commenting along the same lines. I was extremely disappointed.
One of the things that really turned me on — and I mean from a mobile perspective of course — was the email. I read from various sources that Yahoo had integrated the email on the device so that service was almost ‘blackberry like’. Then there was the integration of the address book, photos, calendar, messenger and more.
Recent announcements from Google that ‘the web is mobile’ have also put a different spin on Yahoo! Go for me over the last few months. News that Yahoo had negotiated to pre-install the service on every new Nokia Series 60 handset also got me excited for the industry in general. It’s the sort of thing that crosses the geek barrier — I can very much see my non geek friends going ‘oh look, a Yahoo icon’ when they get their new Nokia.
Well, the other day I was off to meet Justin of BuddyPing for a bit of steak. Chez Gerard again. I’m becoming a regular. I remembered he had wanted to see what it looked like so before I left to meet him I headed over to the Yahoo! Go site and downloaded the ‘sis’ install file.
Pain the neck. Total pain in the neck. You have to download the file to your desktop THEN bluetooth it to your handset. I’m fine doing it but I can’t stand what this means for non geek users. (Anyway, I suppose an over-the-air 1.8mb download isn’t what you want if you’re paying £2-3 per meg.)
Sat on the train heading into the Big Smoke, I clicked a few buttons to do the setup. I was half expecting it to fail. But no. It worked perfectly well on the N90. Bish bash bosh I was up and running.
I opted to hook in the email only. I wasn’t sure what it meant to ‘integrate’ my calendar & contacts yet.. and whilst I was on the train I didn’t want to risk something screwing up as a result of a flakey data signal. Within a few seconds everything was setup!
Now, a while ago, I though it would be a good idea to publish my various IM details here on the blog. I put up my yahoo username and alas, every since then, I get about 10 spams a day. Not a big deal per se, however, it’s become a bit of a pain. No one emails me on my yahoo address you see. So every time I get a spam mail, my N90 beeps.
It’s a bit of an arse, but you know, that’s my problem and not a reflection on the Yahoo! Go service per se. So it’s been working well.
I didn’t integrate my photos as I’m having far too much fun with ShoZu.
But, in the spirit of testing, I think I’d better give it all a go. I’m going to give the whole thing a proper run through – mail, calendar, contacts, photos, the lot.
As of tonight I’m copying my main email address to my Yahoo. I’ll see how I cope.
Yahoo! Go is downloadable here.
