John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on December 9, 2008
First off, we’d like to say thank you to everybody who has downloaded the Easy Wi-Fi application, in either version, and especially to those who have left reviews at the App Store. Unfortunately, Apple doesn’t provide developers with any way to respond to the reviews that are posted there, so to those asking questions in that forum we’re sorry, we have no way to respond to you. If you’re still looking for an answer, please try our own discussion forum where we try to answer every question in a timely manner. On to the reviews now though… I wanted to highlight some of my favourite reviews from the App Store, and perhaps answer some of the questions I see in there frequently. Favourites: From martino13: Awesome Incredible time saver. A must-have app. From KennMSr: It’s About Time It’s a shame AT&T didn’t provide this app themselves when they release[d] the service, considering how many time the[y] released a teaser then retracted the service. … From CieloBrezza: Much needed for Wifi users Awesome app, truely a must-download for AT&T iPhone users. Saves time and trouble. And finally, from TradeYourselfIn: Exactly as advertised People need to read the damn description, before giving…
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on November 30, 2008
A new version of Easy Wi-Fi specifically for iPhone users with AT&T plans went live in the app store over the holiday weekend. This version is trivial to set up – you just need to enter your 10 digit AT&T iPhone number into the settings page – and simple to use: connect to the Wi-Fi network, launch the app and it will log you in. Much simpler than typing your phone number in each time, waiting for the SMS from AT&T and then clicking the link in that to get connected. In addition to all the AT&T Wi-Fi network locations (like Starbucks), it will also connect you to all the networks that have just click through web pages in our list of supported networks. And we’re working on an option to allow you to unlock this version and add more networks, using our web portal. By the way, if you already have the original, multi-network, version of Easy Wi-Fi, then you don’t need this one: you can simply add the AT&T Wi-Fi (iPhone) plan to your Devicescape account and you will have the same capabilities. Do you run a Wi-Fi network? Would you like a version like this specifically tailored…
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on November 26, 2008
It’s Thanksgiving week here in the US, and while I’m a Brit, I’m always happy to celebrate somebody’s holiday with them! So, for those who will be enjoying large meals and catching up with their family over the long weekend, I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. And for everybody in our global community, whether you’re on holiday or at work, I thought I’d throw out some statistics about Wi-Fi usage, internet usage and Devicescape usage that I thought were interesting. Mobile Internet I was presenting at a JETRO Houston event last week where one of the many interesting things I learned from my co-presenters was that in the late teen to early twenties age range, more people access the internet through a mobile device than with a computer or laptop. And the next couple of segments in that chart weren’t far behind either. Japan has a great mobile data infrastructure to support this of course, and a lot of public access Wi-Fi networks, all of which help to make mobile access simple. The real surprise for me though was the low number of smartphone users (around 2% of mobile subscribers). I’m sure with the popularity of devices like Apple’s…
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on November 10, 2008
Last week’s announcement of AT&T buying long term partner Wayport for $275 million cash illustrates the increased strategic role of Wi-Fi for service providers as they push out media-centric services to users. With today’s robust Smartphone market and increasing consumer data usage, carriers are looking for way to offset huge cellular investments and pushing out longer term 4G deployments like LTE and WiMax. Wi-Fi can provide excellent coverage indoors and in congested areas as a complement to cellular, at a lower cost of carriage. Moreover, Wi-Fi provides a high-performance, low cost network connection for many different types of device and applications. Much like the AT&T acquisition is a solid proof point to the co-existence of 3G and Wi-Fi, Devicescape has also experienced increasing consumer and OEM demand for Wi-Fi on handsets. As more and more service providers embrace Wi-Fi in their strategies, the requirements are flowing down to handset vendors to integrate Wi-Fi and supply devices with both types of radios. Importantly, the Wi-Fi has to be extremely easy to use and integrate tightly with the operators networks, as well as the traditional Wi-Fi locations of home and office. This is all happening at a great time for Devicescape! Our…
John Gordon
Chief Technology Officer
Posted on October 30, 2008
Yesterday AT&T finally announced the free Wi-Fi access for their iPhone customers in the US. That opens up the Wi-Fi networks in Starbucks, McDonald’s and many other places to iPhone users, giving them high speed access from their phones while they sip coffee or enjoy a their lunch. Using Wi-Fi is much better than EDGE (as those of us with first generation iPhones, or who live in areas that don’t yet have 3G coverage can confirm), but it is also usually faster and more reliable than the 3G network as long as you have a strong signal. Unfortunately, the official AT&T way to get this free access involves jumping through hoops each time you want to connect in a new location. Assuming you have the attwifi SSID already in your preferred networks list (i.e. you’ve connected to it once before, and not told the iPhone to forget the network), then you will need to do this: Fire up mobile Safari and load a page so that you get the special iPhone captive portal page. Enter your 10-digit mobile number and check the box to agree to the Acceptable Use Policy. Tap ‘continue’. Wait for a (free) text message from AT&T…
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on October 30, 2008
Hello Everyone, Those of you with mulitple devices using Devicescape may have noted some inconsistency in our naming convention. When we first started with the Devicescape automated login product we wanted simply to have the product and the company name be completely consistent. Hence, “welcome to Devicescape” and “Download Devicescape onto your device”, etc. Unfortunately we faced naming issues, first on the Nokia devices and next on the iPhone, and ended up deciding to use the “Easy Wi-Fi” product name for those platforms. Now, with the Easy Wi-Fi application the most popular WiFi app on the Apple App Store (!) and just about every Nokia N and E series phone showing “Easy Wi-Fi” we’ve decided to rationalize all of our products under this name. It’ll take a month or so to make it through all of our clients and web site, but expect to see Easy Wi-Fi being the consistent name. Hope you like it! So, while we’re on this topic, we made a few other changes too. In line with this mission of making Wi-Fi, well, easy, we’ve decided to consolidate all of our various technologies into one product. We haven’t yet released it, but this 3.0 version of…
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on September 29, 2008
I’m excited to announce the availability of Devicescape for iPhone and iPod Touch on Apple’s App Store. Thanks to all of our users out there who have been so patient: it took us a lot longer than we thought to figure out how to make this release! As you can see in this screen shot, the new version looks quite a bit different. Because of Apple’s current limitations on running in the background you need to launch the app to login. But you can manage your account and check your usage history directly, which I think is quite handy. If you’d like to check out the application, search for “Easy WiFi” on iTunes or download it directly from the App Store.
Dave Fraser
Chief Executive Officer
Posted on August 12, 2008
Wanted to keep you all posted that we’re working hard on an official release of Devicescape for Apple’s App Store. All being well this will make it out there in the very near future. The exact acceptance process and timeline is a little bit unclear. I’m very excited about the new application as it’s much improved, with plenty of handy new features which improve usability. The team here has done a very nice job. The current limitations of Apple’s SDK don’t allow us to work in the background so you need to start the application and hit “login”. Still, that’s a lot nicer than wrangling with Safari and tedious login pages. Many thanks to the hundreds of thousands of you with the current “hacked” version, for your enthusiasm and patience. Watch this space!
Posted on July 2, 2008
If you haven’t been swept away by the flash flood of green tech and green groups sprouting up these days, you must be living under a rock. Everywhere I turn, there is a new green company and a new green trend. Just last week at the Connections Digital Living Conference, a company that shared the stage with us was successfully touting it’s eponymous Green Plug technology. That same week I was invited by Premier Power to a party at a green bar, the Temple, where, according to the invite…”Green is Glamorous.” Is it a bubble? Almost certainly there are bubblicious aspects to what has been happening – lots of money flowing into an unproven and low P/E industry, but greener technology is an essential ingredient in the future of technology if not the future of the entire planet. I’ve heard some great ideas – and my favorites so far are the ones that are simplest. Easier ways to recycle. Solar powered NOCs. Universal plugs for devices and gadgets that save waste (and the amount of weight I have to pack when I travel). Solar powered device chargers. Solar powered Wi-Fi access points. And just so I don’t focus exclusively on…
Posted on June 27, 2008
All this week, at the Connections Digital Living conference we’ve heard about how seamless connectivity is de rigeur for making digital living in the home and on the go a reality. Phil McKinney from HP projected that this would be ubiquitous by 2010 – and I suggested that Devicescape had a way to get us there. The attached connections-digital-living-devicescape presentation, given on stage at the conference yesterday by Simon Wynn, VP Products at Devicescape, goes into more details of our role in making access seamless – and driving value for you.
