Altitude Communications- Your Optus Business Partner

There are, across the world right now, over 1 billion unused and unwanted, obsolete mobile phones.  These phones contain lead, mercury, cadmium and plastics which are toxic and can be harmful to the environment.  When metals like lead, mercury and cadmium are put into landfill, they slowly breakdown and can contaminate the surrounding soil and groundwater.  Unfortunately this process can contaminate the drinking water and food supply of people living nearby.

A lot of electronic waste (E-waste) is often shipped off shore to developing countries, where it is deconstructed manually and valuable metals such as gold and copper can be hopefully salvaged and sold off.  This process however can mean the impact of decisions made by people wanting Western luxuries, are not felt by those buying the products. Instead it’s those people trying to find some value in the waste that can suffer the ill effects.

Not all is lost however.  The recognition of value of phone and electronic components is slowly being realized, and phone manufacturers are working on making phones and devices more eco friendly by constructing them with post operating functions in mind, i.e. Phones are built to work and are built to be deconstructed easily after their useful life has ended.  This not only saves on e-waste ending up in landfill, but the costly components (both financially and environmentally) such as gold and copper can be stripped and recycled into new phone components and commercial uses.

Smart phones aren’t immune to recycling pressures either. Smart phones and devices such as tablets and new TVs all contain ‘rare earths’. These minerals aren’t astonishingly rare, but they are found in such low concentrations, that extraction becomes expensive and demand is growing.  China has a large control over the supply of rare earths as it is a world exporter, whilst the US and Europe are trying to ensure a reliable supply with limited success.  As a result of all this, the tiny amount of rare earths and heavy metals in most mobile phones means that we are better off recycling or phones today than we are mining our dumps tomorrow.

If you would like to help our phone recycling effort, you can come down to Altitude at 260 Wirraway Road in Essendon Fields during of our Friday BBQ and donate your old handset. Who knows, you might even score a free snag! Alternatively, we can organise to pick up your old phones.

Contact us today for more information.

Check out Altitude Communications Customer Myles Harris with is unboxing of the HTC One X. Let us know if you want more information about this handset.

As you will no doubt be aware, the Samsung Galaxy S III has been announced recently with much fanfare. (We have no actual release date as yet for when it will be released on the Optus network but please click here to get in touch if you are keen to be kept informed and we will be sure to let you know when it is launched.)

This really is an exciting handset with some great features. It has all the features you know and love from the Samsung Galaxy S II but it just gets better! Check this out for some awesome features:

4.8-inch Super AMOLED Plus HD Screen – meaning awesome graphics!

8MP Camera on the back and 1.9MP camera on the front – great looking photos and a serviceable conference call camera.

21Mbps HSDPA+ with LTE - meaning this handset takes advantage of 4G networks. It really is a phone of the future.

Quad Core processor – meaning all the features run fast and you should be able to run multiple applications in the background.

NFC – QR Codes were all the rage a few years ago, but Near Field Communications (NFC) will quickly surpass this. NFC is already huge in South East Asia and popularity is growing in Australia. It would take more than one article to explain NFC but give Hamish a call in the office if you want more information.

There will be a 16GB and a 32GB model available but we aren’t sure what options will be available on the Optus Network.

As well as the physical hardware, there are some great software features on this handset. These include:

S-Voice – (Samsung’s answer to Apple’s Siri)). This means you can dictate messages. You can update your calendar and you can go through your media files. One sure to be abused feature is the ‘snooze feature.’ You just tell your phone to snooze and the alarm turns off! Perfect for an extra 10 minutes sleep on a cold winter’s morning.

There are some great features from the camera too. If you hold down the camera button, the device will take multiple shots and choose the best one! No more taking dodgy blurry shots with this camera.

Obviously this is not a hands on review of the Samsung Galaxy S III. As soon as they are seen in Australia we will get our hands on one and we will let you know what we thing after playing around with it.

As we mentioned, please click here to get in touch if you want to be kept informed of updates.

These days your business mobile phone really is more than just a device for phone calls and text messages. A smartphone has become an essential business productivity tool and Optus has (and is) introducing a number of Applications to make your phone even more vital and more useful.

The Optus Go Places App provides free voice guided turn by turn navigation making it easy for you to get to your destination. You can also discover great cafes and restaurants at your destination where you can hold that important business meeting. Check out some of the great features and benefits.

Free turn-by-turn navigation – This allows you to easily find where you are going and assists with nearby points of interest (such as parking and petrol stations.) There is a premium version that can provide you with live traffic updates and speed camera warnings. Turn by turn navigation is unmetered so won’t come out of your allowance.

Restaurant Guide – Find local restaurants and make a booking (directly through the application at participating restaurants.) You can view restaurants by price, cuisine and rating. You can share your ratings of these restaurants via Facebook and Twitter.

SMS Location – You can easily tell friends or clients where you are using the convenient SMS Location feature.

Go to optus.com.au/optusgoplaces for more information on Optus Go Places.

We like the free Drive application with downloaded Maps. This is great if you are travelling overseas!

If you’d like to find out more information about the Nokia Lumia 800, please contact us.

With the release of the Nokia Lumia 710 and Nokia Lumia 800 using Windows Mobile, we thought it would be worthwhile to share with you some of the best Windows Mobile Apps available on the market place. So here are our top 10 apps that we think you should have:

Vlingo- Voted as a “Must have Utility App of the Year” by OVI users, Vlingo provides users with their own virtual assistant through their voice command. Vlingo can help users do things easier and faster whilst being able to do more things at once. Through voice commands, users can tell Vlingo to write up an email or text message and send it to a contact. Command Vlingo to find a restaurant or bring up gps guides and the virtual assistant will do that for you. It is the app that will help users find and do many things without having to physically do it themselves.

Facebook- Facebook is rated as the top social networking browser and allows users to be able to stay active on their phone anywhere they go. With this app you can find anyone through mutual friends or friends list, stay connected, get live updates and chat to friends online. The Facebook app also allows you to upload pictures, like statuses, comments and Facebook pages all in one. This app is the centre for all the social networking needs and a great tool for both business and pleasure

Skype- Skype allows you to get connected to friends and family all around the world for free. The application uses the phone 3G or wifi connection to conference call or video call to anyone around the world. (Just don’t use it on 3G data roaming whilst you are overseas or you are going to end up with a very large bill!)

Whatsapp- Whatsapp is a smartphone messenger offering users who share the same application to send and receive messages, pictures and video messages around the world for free. The application uses the phone 3G or wifi connection to send messages. So now sending pictures and videos to family and friends around the world does not have to cost anymore money all from the touch of a button.

Specials Board- The Specials Board app gets you exclusive deals for restaurants, bars and café’s located near you. This app will help save on costs and will present the best deals. Savings can start from 2 for 1 deals, percentage discounts on a present bill or a voucher off on the next bill. The app lets you limit out your search to local deals, types of deals or deals from saved favorites listing out the latest offer.

The Weather- The Weather app lets users retrieve up to three global weather reports simultaneously. With real time reports, users can check the weather from a selection of over 10,000 cities. Weather reports can also be selected to automatically change according to the location recognized by the phone through a Geolocation function within the app.

Flixster- Flixster is the top movie app to watch movie trailers, view session times and read reviews from rotten tomatoes. Users can now read movie synopsis, view movie length times, find session times and get directions to the nearest cinemas all from the one application.

Evernote- This award winning app can turn your phone into an extension of your mind. The app integrates all types of files and imaging that you want to keep into one location. Keep memories, ideas and notes all in the one place and let Evernote synchronize all that data from your phone onto the Web or to a computer. Evernote will keep all files into different folders which can be easily accessible.

Foursquare- Foursquare keeps users staying connected around the world. It is a one stop application to let users meet up with friends, find new places to go and receive special offers around the world where ever they may be. Manage photos, updates and contacts all from the same application anywhere in the world.

Fruit Ninja-This top rated game lets you smash, squash and slice fruit. Swipe your fingers across the screen to slice the fruit that you see fly into the air. Beat the highest score but try not to slice bombs accidentally which will take away one of your life spans. This game is fun, mindless and definitely addicting.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) is a new integrated software solution that ensures the security, monitoring, management and support to all types of business mobile phones including mobile phones, tablets and smart phones. The software is designed to allow for Over-the-air-programming of business mobile phones by IT departments, which gives businesses the ability to configure their phone fleet of phones without the need for staff physically being there themselves. The purpose of MDM is to optimize functionality and security for businesses whilst greatly reducing support costs and business risks.  It can really help your fleet of business mobile phones

Over- the-air programming (OTA) capabilities are one of the main important features if MDM and can provide IT managers with a number of great opportunities. MDM software ensures that company IT departments are able to manage the mobile phone devices that are issued around the business. Updates are sent automatically to employee devices and handsets can be locked to prevent usage in a way that is unauthorized by the business.

By controlling and protecting the configuration settings on all phone devices in the same fleet, business risks and errors can be minimized or prevented. Through the use of MDM, managers can use over-the-air programming to remotely configure a single mobile device, a group of devices, send software and data or specifically wipe away data and lock up a device where it is lost or stolen. This software helps corporations provide employees with real time updates as well as the ability to remove corporate information automatically if an employee was to leave.  This way corporate information stays securely within the company.

Apple iOS systems support MDM within their devices and provide corporations with the ability to manage most functions “behind the scenes” with no user interaction required to update, amend or modify settings. The MDM software provides appropriate configuration settings that are then put in place automatically to all employee business mobile phones within the business so that employees are not required to call the help desk or need to manually update or modify settings in accordance with the company policies regarding business mobile phone usage. By sharing and connecting to the right server or MDM provider such as AirWatch, data and configuration settings may be controlled around the business and automatically updated.

MDM software ensures that user authentification is confirmed before it is enrolled into the server and only trusted users have access to the configuration settings. Some of these settings will give companies access to the accounts, passcode policies, applications, security and other settings. Therefore if a device is found to be lost, stolen or out of its normal use the MDM server will take action to protect corporate information and automatically wipe off any data that may be related.

The Mobile Device Management software manages and secures information within the corporation and is designed to help corporations and managers reduce support costs and business risks. If you would like to know more please contact Altitude Communications on 1300 551 787.

At Altitude Communications, we believe that the HTC One X is an exciting business mobile phone that many of our current clients as well as other business owners and decision makers would be interested in. This phone will suit a number of business owners who are looking at upgrading their handset

These days we talk about the mobile ecosystem. Communications is more than just a simple phone call or text message and professionals are becoming more reliant on their business mobile phones. They want convergent devices that are physically portable. The HTC One X recognises that managers are on the go and provides them with a business productivity tool to keep them at the top of their game.

Check out some of the great features of the HTC One X:

• Powerful 1.5Ghz Quad-Core processor for fast web browsing and applications
• 4.7” HD screen for picture quality imaging. It means you can easily see any documents and attachments that are sent to you.
• 32GB internal storage You can store data, files and applications on your phone as well as accessing information from the cloud.
• Only 9.3mm thin and weighs 130g with battery – This is a light weight and powerful device that won’t take up room in your pocket.
• Wireless movie projection and tuned with Beats by Dr. Dre Audio means that you can watch files on your device or project them on to a television screen.

As a business professional your staff may want feedback on a presentation and with the right applications you can view and edit documents whilst you are offsite proving your employees with instantaneous feedback. The power that the HTC One X provides can give you that peace of mind when you are on the go and need to access files. The 4.7” HD screen makes it easier to use and access files. Followed by the powerful quad core 1.5 GHz processor that is the first of HTC mobiles makes for fast web browsing and smooth multi-tasking within the phone.

Also with over 450,000+ applications available on the Android Market Place, the possibilities are endless. With a massive 32 GB internal memory, this phone will allow any type of file to be sent or stored and only 9.3mm thin this phone is the new phone that will travel with you around the world as your personal secretary, your laptop and your mobile phone.

With over 450,000+ applications available, managers can download a range of applications that can help them become a more innovative, efficient and effective manager. With applications widely and readily available, a logistics manager for example may download free applications such as the Bill of Lading Application that allow shippers and carriers to use and have access to the Bill of Lading in the palm of their hands. These apps available on the HTC One X help the prevention of accidents occurring or issues that may arise due to carelessness from the shipper as the applications have a step by step process for every task that needs to get performed.

This phone provides logistic managers with fast access to these files from the powerful quad core processor that allows for both quick and smooth multi-tasking of the phone which logistic managers can use to access and back track the Bill of Lading documents through the use of their phone.

If you believe that it is time to upgrade your business phone please contact Altitude Communications on 1300 551 787. The HTC One X is currently available for pre order.