I have missed a couple of turns of this fabulous collection of the weekly highlights in mobile-related blogging but that should not put you off as there has been lots of good stuff going on whilst I dragged my kids through Hannover, Berlin, Heidelberg, Paris as well as joined the masses that tried to invade Mont St Michel… So here’s a quick wrap-up on the carnivals that I missed:
#185 was hosted by Eric Chan on his Mobile Slate blog. Eric covered posts highlighting a few challenges: on (trying to) hosting posts on a mobile device, of LBS and mobile search. He also unearthed a post that is a little more upbeat, namely why this is a great time to invest into mobile!
#186 ran on AllAboutiPhone.net and was, well, NOT all about iPhone. Matt Radford covered posts on mobile advertising (and what brands want), an outlook on what Sprint might do with Virgin, Palm’s approach to the app world and why Steve Jobs hates the app store (yes, I blinked at that, too).
#187 appeared on the Mobile Stance blog hosted by Jamie Wells where we learn about Orange’s take on Blyk’s advertising ideas, get some ideas on what a mobile WebOS might look like and a couple of posts on how traditional publishers might look at mobile for their rescue (plus the 5 best revenue generators for iPhone).
#188 was hosted at the Golden Swamp by the Grande Dame of the Carnival of the Mobilists, Judy Breck, herself. Judy highlighted posts that query Nokia’s mass market iPhone strategy (and why Dave Stewart will not be any kind of messiah) as well as one on the sustainability of the mobile industry (which is very good indeed!).
Finally, and that brings us up to current, the 189th carnival was hosted by the formidable Peggy Anne Salz on her MSearchGroove blog. She points us to a great collection of mobile facts, another take on Nokia (including its “new” Maemo OS), a look on which mobile OS will prevail and on Apple’s control policies for the app store.
There is of course much more in the above, so make sure to spare an hour or so to read them. It’s well worth it. So now you know it…
Image credit: http://www.photos-voyages.com/paris/carnival09.html
The all-the-rage iPhone (can someone please come up with a worthy competitor, please, so we have other things to talk about, too?) is said to be increasingly the businessman’s (and woman’s!) phone of choice. 
I am not sure how it is elsewhere but in the UK where O2 holds the reigns on the iPhone, it appears that this might only be true for the ones that work for very generous employers (or those whose IT departments are not very cost-conscious) or that have only domestic businesses to pursue. Because when one attempts to make one’s iPhone travel-proof (and, remember, the data usage is what makes it such a delight!), you get somewhat of a rough awakening: transferring your all-you-can-eat data plan to international territories, fail. No such thing. No can do. The only thing one can do is buy a data packet of either 10MB (for £20) or 30MB (for £50). And this even though I am on one of the dearer packages on offer.
Now, would I own a Nokia N-97 with a Vodafone contract, I would 
Last week was quarterly reporting week, and both Apple and Nokia let us have a glimpse on whatever they did. Subsequently, some reported (via Twitter) that the iPhone outsold the N series for the first time.
Nokia 
Apple, by contrast, 
Nokia has 
Fishlabs produced an iPhone game for this (aptly called “Waterslide Extreme”). Interestingly, other than a Barclaycard logo on the main menu screen, I could not (yet) find any mention of the brand. Anyhow, Barclaycard seems to be super-happy as Fishlabs now has reported a whopping 2m downloads in one (!) week, which have generated 16m “engagement minutes”, presumably meaning that players engaged with the brand.