OK, so I've had a chance to (very quickly) scan through Yahoo! Go and read a bit more about it. The demo earlier this week was fairly impressive, but I wondered how it *felt*.
It seems a bit monolithic for my tastes - a 1.8mb native app is a significant download, particularly given that it's essentially a bundle of separate services: syncers for mail, calendars and photos and a load of bookmarks. There doesn't seem to be any syncing of news stories which seems like a missed opportunity: I already have an address book and calendar on my handset, but a news reader would be something *new*. This seems ideal to be broken down into separate apps - I'd be prepared to bet that most Yahoo! customers only use a few of all the available Yahoo! apps, but they're being treated as if they all use them all here.. Me? I don't use any Yahoo! services to any extent, and this app doesn't persuade me to. Now, if they gave me Flickr syncing, and used that to tease me into using other Yahoo! services, that might be more compelling. Shozu gets it right here, I think.
On some handsets, like the 6680, there seem to be problems. But the 6680 is pretty tight on memory for anything - Orange Homescreen + iSync zonked it out for me and made it unusable (with the camera only working 30% of the time), so I don't think we can blame Yahoo! for this. Perhaps they should warn 6680 owners though; this might be particularly pragmatic considering that for a while the 6680 was *the* handset for mobile/techie early adopters. For a more recent handset with more memory like the N70, Go seems a bit safer. I'm still very nervous about installing third party software onto my handset which alters how it works though (Yahoo! options pop up in my message reader now) - and keeps asking me about it. No, I don't want you to sync. No, I don't want a Yahoo! theme for my phone. Christian sees this integration as a feature; perhaps these concerns are just paranoia on my part.
Overall, Yahoo! Go seems rather niche. It's a nice stake in the ground for Yahoo! to demonstrate that they're taking mobile seriously, but practically speaking how many high-end Series 60-owning folks make use of so many Yahoo! services, want to use them when they're mobile, and want to pay for the privilege? We're back to the standard mobile problem of reach vs functionality, and this app is firmly wedged up at the functionality end of that curve. I'd be more impressed by a set of (perhaps simpler) apps which tease a significant chunk of Yahoo!s UK audience away from their desktops and onto their phones.
As an aside, I also find the use of proprietary protocols to do syncing confusing, when Yahoo! are simultaneously pushing their SyncML efforts elsewhere (which look great, though I've not tried them).
Christian's comment that the app will be preloaded onto S60 handsets is *very* interesting though... handset vendors and Yahoo joining forces to take on carriers? Hmm...
Quite a few people are making comparisons between ShoZu and Yahoo Go Mobile. Clearly the full Y! Go Mobile service bundle is much broader than ShoZu, but the PIM and photo sync apps are based on similar technology to Cognima's.
As CTO of Cognima (creators of ShoZu) I should admit my bias up front, but I thought it might be worth sharing some of my initial reactions to the Yahoo Go Mobile services.
On the plus side, I'm impressed with the overall vision for Yahoo Go Mobile, although I take Tom's point that many users will not want the whole bundle of services.
A nice feature of the Y! Go Photos app is the full photo sync with my Yahoo Photos album. This could be useful for using the phone as a display device for photos uploaded to web with a digital still camera.
On the negative side, the photo uploads start again automatically from the beginning of the file if interrupted (e.g. by loss of network coverage or an outgoing phone call). This means that users can end up sending much more data than they think, as well as running down the phone battery. (ShoZu also uploads in the background, but resumes from the point of failure so it sends only fractionally more data than for an uninterrupted upload.)
Also, the Yahoo sync apps poll the server quite frequently in case there are server-side updates to collect. Most of these connections don't return any data but still cost the user money (sometimes huge amounts of money - for example when roaming on Spanish networks that charge a minimum data connection fee of 100 KB at £10 per MB). Polling also drains the phone battery. For these reasons Cognima has always believed that polling for updates is a bad thing, and that the phone app should really not make any connections except in response to a direct user request.
Andy
Posted by: Andy Tiller | January 12, 2006 at 10:34 AM
I've been using Yahoo Go for about a week now with a 6680 and I am quite happy with it. Memory was a problem before, Go doesn't seem to make it worse, though. I like the calendar and address book synch as well as the messenger and the picture/image/PTT send options in it. I've deactivated/don't use the other Yahoo Go functionality as I use another eMail server, etc. Also I configured Yahoo Go to do only manual synch's and so the app doesn't bother me with permission requests at all.
For me it's quite the other way round: Since I tried Yahoo! Go I do use the Yahoo calender and address books which I haven't used before.
Martin
Posted by: Martin | January 12, 2006 at 10:36 AM
Hi tom,
i am using nokia 6680 the problem is that yahoo site doesn't allow me to download yahoo go coz it says this application is currently unavailable for your phone.
But you were saying that u used yahoo go for 6680 , if possible can u send me the .sis file of yahoo go which i can install in my phone.
Posted by: Sankaranand | October 14, 2007 at 10:28 AM