INQ have teamed up with SingTel to give away three INQ Mini 3G handsets.

The competition is open to those of you in Singapore. To enter, just upload a picture, video or wall post telling us what makes you INQ, over on the INQ on SingTel Facebook page.

It really is as simple as that. The phones also come with a 6 month subscription to SingTel’s iOne price plan.

The competition ends at midnight on 28th December and three lucky winners will get a handset each. Be creative, spread the word and get your friends to like and comment on your content!

Terms and Conditions Apply. See INQ on SingTel page for details.

Today is another exciting day for us as the INQ Chat 3G is released in Sweden.

You might remember how the INQ Mini 3G was launched in a tattoo parlor in Stockholm. Well, on Thursday, trendy restaurant Judit & Bertil premiered a collection of INQ art relating to the INQ Mini and INQ Chat 3G. Pictures from Thursday can be found here.

The hotly anticipated INQ Chat 3G is now available on the local 3 network in Sweden, more countries are to launch the Chat 3G very soon.

Likes : Music Gigs, Cats, Sneakers

Dislikes : Celery, Trance Music, Paperwork

This is the first of a series of interviews to give you an insight into the people and working practices behind INQ. It’s nearly a year since Sheen joined us back in January 2009.

Explain a little about the purpose of your role as Head of UI. What is it all about?

My role is to deliver the best possible experience for INQ handset users. The UI team at INQ make sure people are able to use our devices intuitively and effortlessly. We want you to get to where you want on your phone without thinking, without too many steps, without pausing.

So how do you go about making the best possible user experience?

First we need to see what is technically feasible and how phones work from a human psychological point of view. Then we focus on our creative pursuits such as interaction design and bringing our visions to life through colours, fonts, look and feel. Also, an important principle in making a great user experience is simplicity.

Describe your experience at INQ in the last year.

At INQ, we believe people should be able to choose how they communicate with everyone around them. The pertinent features of social networking, instant messaging and email are very important and must be recast for mobile. For example, user content should be uploaded easily to allow you to communicate quickly. One of the challenges we face at INQ is improving and innovating our future handsets without compromising existing simplicity and elegance.

So how do you think social networking can evolve regarding the user experience?

Success comes from services that take the ‘mobile’ element into the highest possible consideration. So to make the experience successful, social networking services will have to support the user when they are out and about. They will have to allow for immediacy, spontaneity and the fact that the user is immersed in the real world. This is very different from being connected through a PC.

This interest in mobile internet, when did it begin?

I have always been interested in adapting new technologies to make them easier for people to use. So five years ago I entered the field of telecommunications. The mobile internet was gaining traction and its potential to change peoples lives appealed to me.

So, how did you end up at INQ?

I’ll let you try and make sense of this. I used to be a DJ for about fifteen years in Sydney. Through music I got into using computers, so I studied computing and that’s when the internet started to happen. I then got myself a job working at a newspaper designing their online presence. For example, I worked on their classified section. I thought it was revolutionary how searching for a job was changing from checking newspapers to searching online websites. Then I moved into interactive TV and developed applications before moving onto mobile phones and improving the user experiences.

What is the best thing about working at INQ?

INQ is a great company with great ambitions and is very creative. For me, creativity equals ideas and executing these ideas is certainly one of the best things. Also, seeing people use their INQ mobile phones for the first time brings great satisfaction. The other day I heard an INQ ringtone on a bus. I felt happy to hear that, knowing I was part of it.

After a very busy few months at INQ, we’re proud to say that the INQ Chat 3G is available in Italy as of today.

The Chat has been hotly anticipated and the release in Italy is set to start a domino effect with releases in other countries due soon. 3 Italia is the only network where you can get your hands on the latest addition to the INQ range.

Visit your local 3 Italia store to get yours and see the handset in action, or visit our Facebook page for the latest Chat updates. If you’ve signed up for the latest Chat News on Facebook already, then you’ll be the first to know when the INQ Chat hits the stores near you.

We’ve stuck some great work by British illustrator and photographer Brett Wilkinson on our recent help cards.

Wilkinson’s stuff is striking and colourful, which we like. He says he’s inspired by just about anything and everything:

“Photographs, music, nature, flowing forms, patterns, street culture and the universe.”

We love the eclectic nature of this man. We also love the reasoning behind his work. As he says,

“My imagination is a realm of shapes, colours and curious personalities.  I illustrate to capture a state of mind, full of happiness and memories.”

That’s definitely something worth sharing.

Discover More

Onesidezero - Brett Wilkinson’s own site, full of his latest work.

Wilkinson’s Flickr stream - check out the evolution of some of his pieces, including this one we chose:

INK THIS - creative workshops and exhibitions run by Wilkinson and artist Gurps Kaur to inspire and educate other artists.

@OSZdesign - Keep up with Wilkinson and his work on Twitter.

Things We’re Tweeting About is INQ’s new blog feature. INQ is full of tweeters so we will regularly compile a list of our favourite tweets.

Liking:

The 100 most beautiful words in the English language - But are they the most beautiful?

Visual Complexity - excellent site to visit every so often for a good dose of data visualization.

Mobile application that helps diagnose diseases by hearing you cough.  Watching this with interest.

Dream interpretations - Very interesting NY Times article. Discusses a new theory suggesting that the main purpose of dreaming is as a warm-up for the day ahead.

Using:
What The Trend? - Find out why terms are trending on Twitter.  Very useful for some of the odd ones.

Font capture - Create a font from handwriting.  There’s something really nice about creating fonts simply by writing.

Mix Cloud - Cool site that celebrates the lost art form of radio - On-demand radio shows, Podcasts and DJ mix sets.

Random:
Giant Robot attack - Short sci-fi video of robots destroying everything…

Parahawking - Slightly crazy - fly in a steerable wind driven parachute with your guide: a specially trained hawk!

INQ Fan Page

We’ve just redesigned our Facebook fan page, making it the place to go for all things INQ! If you want to buy an INQ, check out exclusive news, share great content or get handy tips then head over to INQ Mobile on Facebook.

New features include:

Get INQ

INQ is now available in eight countries, and more will follow soon. You can buy yours simply and quickly straight from our fan page.

A little help

Quick access to help and support -  FAQ’s, user guides, and help cards. For more in-depth queries, it’s just one click to our support page at Get Satisfaction.

Express yourself

Make the fan page yours. Taken a great unboxing video? Upload it to the fan videos.  See a beautiful piece of art or something you think feels INQ? Add it to the fan photo album. Following our news? Leaves us a comment and let us know what you’re thinking.

Stay up to date
For exclusive INQ news, photos and videos, Facebook has it all.  With the launch of the INQ Chat approaching, content and information will be appearing on the fan page very soon…

Don’t miss out, become a fan of INQ Mobile on Facebook here.

If you live in Sweden you might catch our “Are you INQ?” campaign running as ads on MTV. If you don’t, then you can check them out below. We really like their feel.

In collaboration with 3, MTV is also running a competition called “How INQ are you?”, which gives our fans in Sweden the chance to win INQ Mini 3G handsets and become an MTV VJ for a day. So why not go for it if you’re local.

It’s been a busy past few weeks at INQ with the INQ Mini 3G continuing to successfully launch across the world. We thought it was about time we review the reviews. So, here’s a selection.

Phones Limited reckon the INQ Mini 3G is awesome.
“The INQ Mini 3G is a petite yet intriguing handset. The handset is the ideal phone for those who love to stay hooked with their friends over social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.”

BANGBANGTECH said the INQ Mini 3G had an impressive array of social networking features, they also said:
“If you have a lot of Skype or MSN contacts, this could work out well in saving you some cash on top-ups.”

“It packs an amazing amount of features into such a small price tag that it’s difficult to really find fault.”

Know Your Mobile described the INQ Mini 3G as:
“A budget supercharged social networking phone that packs a social networking punch.“

While Wireless Week wrote a review titled INQ Mini Masters the Feature Phone.
“The INQ Mini represents a major step forward in the evolution of the social mobile feature phone.”

“INQ has made the affordable feature phone cool again. They’ve done so by offering consumers the full package. Right down to the box it comes in, the INQ Mini is stylish and playful.”

Finally, Wired.co.uk reviewed our INQ ¹ a while back but described the Mini 3G  as sleeker, smaller, sexier.
“It’s small, cute and easily pocketable, with a handsome noir-ish face and an   interchangeable back plate.“

To get more frequent updates of reviews and blogs about INQ, just follow us on Twitter by clicking here.

We’re delighted to announce the INQ Mini 3G is now available in Ireland. As of today, you can get it exclusively on the local Three network.

Be one of the first to get your hands on the latest Social Mobile by popping in to the nearest 3 store or by ordering yours online here.

« Older Entries

Newer Entries »