Tag Archives: Android

Steph goes sleuthing in Shoreditch

I’m not a techie by a long stretch of the imagination although I’ve become au fait with writing blogs and doing the occasional social media posting so I’m not a total dunce.

But when it comes to phones my teenager son sees me in the dark ages. ‘What you need Mum is a mobile app to do that’ he tells me…

So, on behalf of other women who might feel like me about these things, I determined to find out more when a mysterious envelope arrived, addressed to Agent X (aka the FOXY Voice) with a ‘comms apparatus’ in it and an invitation to make my way to St Pancras, undercover, to make sense of all this.

Rendezvous was in the entrance to the Hotel Renaissance lobby where I joined a small group of similarly curious ‘special agents.’

We were part of a team to be led by Agent Limo and his men; all wearing black suits and aviator sunglasses. We all soon adopted the same suspicious and nervous twitch, looking over our shoulders uneasily expecting the unexpected at all times…

‘Top secret’ we were told as we were directed into stretch limos specially selected for the occasion (the champagne was on ice…) and poised to take us on the next stage of our journey.

‘Here’s the comms apparatus you need for the evening’ said Agent Limo and after assembling our new San Diego smartphone from Orange we were introduced to our vital partner in crime for the evening, Telmap’s M8 navigation app to help us through the thrills and spills the evening was about to reveal.

An art theft in Hoxton

‘Something’s happening in Hoxton so search for local tweets as clues’ we were told. Easy we found. That’s what M8 Community is all about. We soon picked up on the shady rumour that something was about to happen at the hip Hoxton Gallery so using our sat nav map app M8 we were able to direct our limo driver there in record time, arriving at the same time as the paparazzi and to the sound of flash photography as we attempted to disguise our everyday identity. Just in case.

And just in time to witness the theft of the valuable piece of art on the easel…

Just as the artist was about to unveil it, a helmeted Stig-like biker rushed in, grabbed her art off the easel and rushed out again before we’d had a chance to sample our now badly-shaken martinis…

Off again, but this time fast and on foot, assisted by M8 tweets and navigation app, we found ourselves in a local gangster bar with time for further refreshments.

Fed by further clues, we found ourselves in the men’s urinals (it’s a long story, best told over a drink), to see the thief with his artwork under his arm in the streets below hailing a London bus towards Shoreditch.

A wedding in Shoreditch

And so we followed in hot pursuit, this time aided by strategically placed special agents en route who had seen the villain ahead of us. To the unlikely venue of Shoreditch Town Hall…

‘No’ the receptionist said ‘we have no art thieves here…’ but then she paused adding ‘…unless it’s the couple getting married upstairs?!’

And so it was. We sneaked in en masse and with phone cameras flashing catching the Vicar, organist, bridegroom in full leathers and biker helmet on and, surprise, surprise, the bride who was the artist herself!!

By this time the police were involved and after a brief and noisy skirmish mid ceremony the couple were accosted, admitted to insurance fraud, hauled off to prison and the work of art was finally revealed…

The work of art…

You’ve got it – the highly valuable new work of art we’d been invited to see was Telmap’s new M8 map app.

The very one that’d helped us through London’s busy, hip and stylish streets that evening to eventually solve the canvas crime in question…

My M8 verdict?

I’m impressed and think other women will be, particularly when navigating towns and cities they don’t know. It’s also free and comes with useful Trip Advisor and Facebook feeds from local friends.

I can now use a mobile map app and used M8 to get me back to St Pancras and Sussex that evening. And whilst I use Google maps on a daily basis I had foolishly thought that map apps would be much the same whoever owned them but I’m now told that Telmap’s M8 is literally streets ahead of Apple’s iOS 6 which none of my fellow agents could recommended in its current unreliable state.

So that’s fairly impressive I thought – for Telmap to steal a lead over Apple in terms of sat nav mobile apps. So I now look forward to reading what better informed techie others say about M8 and its performance compared to Google maps…

To visit the M8 website: http://www.mylocalm8.com/

To download the free UK live sat nav by Telmap M8 for iPhone:

To download M8 for Android: Google Play

Thank you Telmap for one of the wackiest, most memorable and fun evenings I’ve spent for a long time!

I found myself in good company, well fed and watered and in an area of London I hadn’t realised is now the ‘in’ place for sophisticated nightlife.

Very enjoyable.

FOXY

PS: Here’s the video in case you don’t believe me…