New version of Synble is here Part 1 of 3

We have released a new version of Synble today. There will be updates to web pages during following weeks, but the big step of having a new client is now taken. Check the frontpage downloads links for brand-new client. It will soon be available through Ovi Store also (acceptance tests are under way). It is important that you uninstall existing Synble application. New one is Symbian Signed and can't be installed on top of old one.

Web service will be upgraded gradually, we will change the looks and some of the functionality within coming weeks, but here is a sneak peak of what we will offer. First of all, we have taken something off. We no longer support groups, so no more Synble and Everyone. They offered a medium for random shouting and to be honest there are much better services for random or more organized shouting (you might have heard about Twitter for instance :). In business terms we have clarified our brand and we are now shouting following from the rooftops:

Synble is your Inbox!

It means that we want to be a number one tool for you to organize your messages. Your feeds, notifications and alerts are now in your inbox. While your Inbox is now on web as well. At the moment Synble means SMS, but in the future it might mean something else in addition. As you may have noticed I used the word "tool" not "web 2.0" or "social service" for instance. One implication for the "tool" part is that we will be charging something for the use of this service at some undetermined point in the future. There will be a free service and a premium one, but we will tell you more when that comes closer. In the near term, we will offer you an option to send real SMS from our web pages and we will charge a reasonable price for those. This is just a way to offer an answering channel from IM and Web to your non-Synble friends (you still probably do have that kind of friends...) We will add "forward to email" function and we will open up the APIs with proper documentation/examples during the following weeks. If you want to start working on a Synble add-on, please let us know and we will let you participate in API formation.

Part II: The new client will be out soon. Part III: Changes to web perhaps sooner.



Btw, If you want to know, what else is going on in the Synble Ltd. world, check http://www.googasync.com.

SMS Forwarding with Synble

Somebody asked me why Synble was created. Well here is the raison d-être (pardon my French) for Synble existing. Ok, to be honest this is only one of the reasons, but this the most important use case for me:

On other day I was having lunch at the Indian restaurant nearby. Apparently I dropped my business phone (Nokia E71, if you need to know) there. And I didn't notice it. I received messages from my E71 as they were forwarded to my personal phone (Nokia 6220 Classic) and the Synble web page. I SMSed people back and a day and night went by. All of a sudden my wife calls and asks whether I have lost my phone and I said, no, I must have it on my pocket or somewhere (I am not the most organized person on this planet). To my surprise my wife says that someone called her from that restaurant and have told that they have my phone. Oops, I run couple of blocks and get my phone back. The phone I never realised was lost.

Well, to be honest Synble doesn't really exist for the sole reason I sometimes lose my phones, but it does no harm that I get the messages forwarded to my web inbox and other phone(s) regardless of my phone's location. I often leave my personal phone at home, when I am on a business trip and I sometimes leave my business phone at home when I am not on duty. In either cases, I can access the messages and phone calls on the other device whenever I find it convenient.

So how does one setup SMS forwarding between two devices?

First, I download Synble from the synble.com, then I set up an account on Synble. Secondly, I log on to Synble web page, go to settings and add a new phone number to "My numbers". Then I send a text message from that phone to confirmation number. And that is it. I am set to go. I just install Synble client on the other phone and log on to my account.

Now, what then? Just leave the client on on both phones and SMS sent to another phone will be delivered to your other phone within minutes with the cost of data connection. I find it extremely useful service, but I must admit, I am a tad biassed here.

Updating firmware

I updated firmware today to my E71 and thought to share my experiences. Normally this process goes pretty smoothly, biggest thing is to install all the software again as backing up applications never really works like intended. 

Anyway, today everything went completely wrong. First I tried to create a backup with Memory application using the option "Back up phone memory". Well it started to do something, progress bar went really fast and then it crashed. I tried it few times without any luck. I haven't had any problems with this application before and I've used it like from the beginning. 

So, had to go with PC Suite. Created backup, everything went nicely, updated the firmware and it worked like a charm. But... when I tried to restore the backups. PC Suite was just giving option to restore only "user data" which means practically my C:\Data folder. 

I checked the NBU (File container where all the backup information is stored) file with an editor and found out that all the data was there but PC-Suite just wasn't able to find them. So, I have the backups and no way to restore them. Great.

Luckily I remembered that Synble uploads contacts as a vcards and I had my contacts stored for testing purposes on my computer. Then I was able to use PC Suite contact manager to import all the vcards back to my phone. Thanks to Synble I have at least messages and contacts in a safe place. Everything else is now lost :(

I started thinking, how much you guys had problems with the backups? We really havent thought Synble as a backup service but if there is lots of similar problems we could provide somekind of way to restore the data (contacts at least) back to phone?

New features and improvements

We rolled out a new version of the web page today. 

New features and improvements are:

- Completely new profile/contacts page. Cleaner and better look.

- Mobile friendly pages launched. Just go to http://www.synble.com and your phone is recognized automatically. 

- Improvements on registration process.

We've also silently updated the client to version 1.2 few weeks ago already. As it was maintenance release, there was no separate announcement. Some bugs in some specific phones were fixed and very rough support for 5800XM introduced (it works but UI is not perfect yet).

Have fun and be patient if there is some glitches. Just hit the feedback button on the right and let us know the issues.  

Excellent Synble overview by The Guru!

Symbian-Guru.com has posted a great overview of Synble and some of its features. Thanks a lot! You can read it from here: 

http://www.symbian-guru.com/welcome/2008/12/stumble-into-synble.html

Powered by People

Synble is pretty much built top of the idea that we would like to evolve based on what our users think. This is a really new area what we are exploring so pitching some marketing mumbo jumbo would not probably help much. 

Instead we want to hear from you, the expert, what would make Synble greatest companion service for your S60 phone. Let us know what works, what not. What is hard to understand and what is easy but still doesn't interest. Sky is the limit so all kind of ideas and comments are welcome. 

We are planning our feature set for the next major release, here's few of them:

- Mobile web site for all phones. So that it would make sense to invite also friends that do not have S60 phones.

- Your "profile" page will be completely refactored. As it now shows conversations between you and the friend whom page you are viewing. In the next major version there will be a lot of new stuff added. We have nice list of ideas what we would like to have there but what you would like to have?

- Integrations to other social services. We've already Twitter but anything else what we should consider? Facebook is definitely in our list. Do you feel that this is important?

You can contact us by leaving comment here to our blog or open a question in Get Satisfaction. 

Using Twitter via Synble

Once upon a time Twitter was sending SMS' to everyone. People were happy etc. Nowadays only few countries are supported. If you are lucky enough to live in these few countries, this blog post probably does not concern you. However, we rest of us need some other solutions. 

Can you guess where this is leading? 

That's right, Synble is bringing this service back to you. As delivering messages over Synble does not cost, there are no similar problems what Twitter had with its service:

"Even with a limit of 250 messages received per week, it could cost Twitter about $1,000 per user, per year to send SMS outside of Canada, India, or the US."

So in other words you can receive direct messages and @replies to your mobile phone as a text messages via Synble by following these steps:

1. Go to Settings tab and enter your username and password.

2. That's it. Keep your client on and you shall receive the messages.

You can also send updates to Twitter from phone via Synble:

1. Make sure you've Twitter saved in your phone contacts. Phone number should be one of the official Twitter numbers (can be found here http://help.twitter.com/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=26). If you've contact already, no need to create it again.

2. Go to Synble client and hit update.

3. Try to send a text message to Twitter as you normally would. During that, query dialog appears and asks whether you want to send this message using Synble. Answering No of course means that it will go as a normal SMS and Yes that it is sent using Synble. Which then means that you don't have to pay any international SMS rates as the message is sent using your internet connection.

That's it and have fun!