Diary of a Mobile Addict

MoPocket.com

2010-10-28T14:29:00.001-07:00

Hey loyal fans- if you've found this page looking for my latest rants on mobile tech, mosey on over to MoPocket.com, where I do most of my blogging these days.

-Mordy

"Why do you hate the iPhone so much?"

2009-11-25T07:29:00.000-08:00

People always ask me why I hate the iPhone.

The truth is, I don't.

The iPhone has many positive qualities, such as being an aesthetically pleasing piece of hardware and a beautifully polished OS that Apple fans have come to expect from their products.

I've played with them, and found them fun. I even recommend them to some people. However, what I don't like about them is what they represent and what they are continuing to do to the Smartphone industry.

Allow me to explain... I'm a hardcore power user who likes to push everything the limits of what is physically possible. I very often know exactly what I want, and if my computer or phone or car stereo or game system doesn't do something the way I think it should, I have no choice but to modify it and/or install software to make it work properly.

Heck, I hacked and installed a DVD player on my Wii because the Wii is capable of reading DVD discs, even though Nintendo didn't intend it to. Do I use it to play DVDs? Maybe once or twice... the point is, people shouldn't NEED to have another seperate DVD player if they already own a Wii. I sleep better at night knowing it works.

But I didn't come up with that on my own. There's a community of Wii users who felt the same way and developed and wrote a DVD player application. If the Wii weren't a popular device that had a large following already, the folks who put their heads together to do this probably never would have.

What's this got to do with phones? I'll get to that...

Another point: I didn't like it that my wife's netbook would go into hibernate when you closed the lid. Sometimes we wanted to just close it for a second and move to the other room without losing our connection, and when the computer goes into standby/hibernate, your internet does too, effectively ending your Skype, IM, etc, conversation. Very frustrating.

However, if I set it to stay on indefinitely when you close the lid, we may accidentally forget about it and run the battery dead.

So, I decided the best solution for us is to close and stay on, but if after 2 minutes it is STILL closed, then hibernate or shut off. The hardware is perfectly capable of this, its just a matter of software controllling it.

Well, quite frankly, there's no option like that in settings. Thankfully, there is a large user base for the EEE pc (since it was one of the first netbooks), and someone out there had located how the lid closing behavior works, and posted on a forum the script that dictates what then happens when it is closed.

Since the EEE also runs Linux, it was fairly easy to edit and write in BASH script to do the following:

When the lid is closed, Wait 120 seconds

Is the lid still closed? If yes, shut down. If no, stay on and exit script.

Worked perfectly. I didn't expect this kind of behavior out of the box since most people don't use the laptop the same way we do. Every user has different needs. However, the ability to modify it and tweak it and make it MINE, and work the way I want it to, is something very empowering and how all technology should work. After all, that's what technology is for.

What's all this got to do with phones?

Simple. Smartphones are like computers in your pocket. They are extremely versatile devices that should really be capable of just about anything. The only limitations usually are the software that is allowed to run on them.

The problem is, as was the case with the laptop above, manufacturers need to cater to the largest common denominator. Most people probably don't want the laptop lid to have a complicated if/else routine that waits 2 minutes before closing down. So, out of the box, it doesn't do that. But if I want to, I'm very much able to change it.

Now, the question is, how does one make change it if the manufacturer didn't think to give you that option?

Well, this is were I'd normally have to start figuring out how things work and hack it. But I didn't have to, because there was a large community of users who had figured out how the lid closing behavior works, and even helped me write my little script.

In fact, I think after I posted about this and got help on the EEE-user forum, someone else realized that this might be a common request, so they wrote an application for people to easily change how the lid works. Now anyone can do it.

My phone 2 generations of hardware ago had a major bluetooth bug that would cause quality problems and disconnect. A group of users, including myself, found that it was caused by a buffering problem in the BT driver stack. So, I went ahead and pulled drivers from a device that didn't have this problem, mixed and matched certain things while throwing ideas back and forth with each other, and eventually we solved the problem. About 3 weeks after releasing our solution to the message boards and Windows Mobile community, Sprint released an official update that fixed Bluetooth, and their solution looked very similar to ours.

Coincidence? Perhaps. The point was that even if Sprint hadn't updated anything, we had the power to fix and tweak and create our own solutions.

This is why the iPhone will never be a good choice for me. Apple is famous for their walled gardens with this device, not allowing users to control and tweak things without their permission.

Their phones are created for the largest common denominator, and quite frankly, that doesn't work for people like me. There are things I do on a normal basis that are not possible on the iPhone.

Apple fans will tell you that it is because they don't want the UI to become too complicated. Keep it simple, don't let people do anything that could mess it up, and you create a large happy user base.

The problem is, choices are the spice of life... what the best choice is for me, is not necessarily the best choice for someone else.

Look at desktop browsers- Windows users hated how buggy the old Internet Explorer 6 was, so some folks got together and created Firefox. And there's more than just that... nowadays, any type of computer can be running Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, etc...

What works for you might not work so well for someone else. I love Chrome, my wife still prefers Firefox. But we all agree that the default Internet Explorer is not for us. But Apple is not catering to that crowd. The iPhone is only allowed to run Safari. They will not allow any other browser to pass the app store. If I wanted to just write my own browser, for my own personal use, Apple won't let me. It has to go through their store. I can't even release a beta test for other iPhone users to try before submitting to the store. They want their equipment to "just work", and apparently the way to do that is to limit innovation and customizability.

Sure, you can hack your iPhone and jailbreak it, but they keep taking new counter-measures to prevent and discourage that, often breaking functionality for those who tread those murky waters.

This is interesting coming from a company who dares us to "Think Different" in their ad campaign. It would appear now that Apple is asking us not to think at all, but rather just take what they give us and like it no matter what.

If that is the mentality that the iPhone represents, well there is something for me to hate about that.

"But what has it done to the smartphone community that has you so angry?"

Well, if you notice in my little examples above, in most cases I wasn't alone in my endeavors. I relied on the help of other people, often much smarter than I, to work together and find solutions. If I had bought some cheesy off-brand Chinese netbook for $100, I would not have found a user group that already discovered where the lid closing script was.

If the wii weren't as popular as it is, I wouldn't have found people working together to figure out how to make it play DVDs.

If Sprint and Windows Mobile didn't have a cult following, I probably wouldn't have been able to find people to work together with in solving the bluetooth bug.

The iPhone is wildly popular, and has created a whole new breed of Smartphone users... users who were never interested in the complexity of a Smartphone before. As my dear friend Justin Oberman (creator of MoPocket.com) says, the iPhone works for his mom. There is no other phone that would work like that for her.

And I will agree with him for that part. The iPhone is simple and straight forward like that. So were simple phones like the Motorola RAZR, however. If the iPhone only attracted people who were never into Smartphones before, I would be fine with it. They deserve to have a nice feature set like that.

The problem, however, is that it has become a social status. Everyone wants to be on the winning team, and people who might otherwise be using and innovating and developing for other more capable Smartphones are confining themselves to the walled gardens of Apple.

Why is this a problem?

That means that devices and platforms with far more potential than Apple are in danger of losing their community. And if that happens, I fear that users as a whole will lose their drive to innovate and join the hordes of mindlessly being spoon-fed from Apple's silver platter.

If everyone joins Apple, the few of us who want more than they offer, and are on the quest for a perfect phone will never get it. I can assure you, that perfect phone if it ever exists will not come from the closed minded model that Apple has shown.

Also, remember that Apple innovates to be competitive. Despite how iCulture views things, Apple is not in this to make the world a better place. They're in to make money, just like everyone else is. If the competition becomes a joke, they will cease to innovate. Its just how business works.

THAT is what I hate about the iPhone. Apple- give us back our communities, allow people to do more on your phones, and I will have no fight with you. There is no reason for any one device to dominate the market.

Yes, this is a personal battle.

As I said before, I still recommend the iPhone to people who would be too confused by the choices and options on a more open Smartphone. I just don't like what the iPhone represents, and how people treat it like it is the best thing that's ever happened.

More like the best that's ever happened for non-tech savvy folks who want to feel like they are down with technology.

Perhaps that's going too far...

Sprint rumored to be offering free call forwarding on all their plans...

2009-11-02T07:08:00.000-08:00

Reposted from what I wrote yesterday on MoPocket.com:

There has been a rumor circulating that Sprint will begin offering unlimited conditional call forwarding (meaning forward when no answer or busy) on Nov. 8th.
Until now Sprint has charged 20 cents a minute for forwarding any kind of calls, which has made alternative Voice Mail systems such as Google Voice impractical.
In fact, according to an anonymous source, Google Voice is the very reason for this policy change: Sprint has decided to create some sort of working agreement with Google to offer their enhanced Voice Mail service (visual voice mail, messages sent as email attachments, transcribed messages so you can read them like a text message, etc) instead of the boring old call-to-listen voice mail system most of us have been stuck with.
I didn't post this right away because I was skeptical at first. With all the policies Sprint has been tightening lately, adding a new service for free on every plan (not just their new "Everything Plans") didn't seem too likely. However, a recent update on the official Google Voice webpage has confirmed the following:

Starting mid-November 2009, Sprint is enabling free conditional call forwarding on its network, allowing you to use Google voicemail with your Sprint phone number. (Standard charges will continue to apply for immediate call forwarding.)

Sounds pretty legit to me.
The potential uses for this go far beyond Google Voice, however. In poor reception areas, or at home/work you can have your Sprint number forward to your landline or even a VOIP line when you don't answer, and save yourself from using minutes. In fact, technically, if you've got a VOIP app on your smartphone, you can forward the call and then receive it using data instead of minutes... I actually experimented with this concept on T-Mobile a couple of years ago, and you can read more about that here.
How will you use YOUR free forwarding calls?

Samsung Moment and SERO - Thoughts

2009-11-01T17:43:00.000-08:00

....Maybe?

Remember when Sprint started requiring folks to give up their old grandfathered plans in favor of more expensive ones for new “popular” handsets?

As I pointed out on Mopocket, the policy is not consistent with all new handsets- Windows Mobile and Blackberries, for example, do not have this requirement- in fact, you can buy a Windows Mobile phone without even a data plan at all. We were hoping the new Android-powered HTC Hero would be part of this category, but alas, it appears the new “Everything Plan” policy is in effect for that as well.

The theory is that Sprint enforces this policy on their “exclusive” handsets. That is, the Palm Pre, Samsung Instinct, andHTC Hero are all exclusive to Sprint and therefore may be attracting new customers. These new customers are probably willing to pay a little more monthly for the phone (especially since the new plans are still cheaper than what they were probably paying before). Windows Mobile and Blackberry, however, exist on every carrier already. There has been no official response from Sprint confirming or denying this, however the pattern seems awfully clear.

So when Sprint released the new Samsung Moment, which is perhaps what became of the fabled Samsung InstinctQ, it seemed silly to get our hopes up. The Instinct brand of handsets have all required the new Everything plans up until now, so between that and the decision to make the Hero an everything phone, it would seem that the Moment is clearly going to have this requirement as well.

But wait, here’s something we weren’t expecting…

As fellow blogger Morts pointed out to me this evening, the online phone upgrade system warns you that you may have to change your plan when you select the Palm Pre, HTC Hero or Instinct. But when you select the Samsung Moment, it allows you to process the order without any mention of plan changes. Morts actually tried to do this from his old grandfathered SERO account (Sprint.com/SERO), which Sprint has been trying to phase out and getting very strict about lately.

Now, this doesn’t prove anything… many disgruntled users have been sold the Instinct or Pre by tele-sales only to find out they weren’t able to activate it on their plan once they received it. What’s different here is that if you order it online it usually warns you first with a popup before you proceed to the shopping cart. It doesn’t for the Moment.

This might actually fit with our theory regarding Sprint’s policy: The HTC Hero has an exclusive award-winning HTC Sense-UI interface on it, which is currently exclusive to Sprint. The Moment has the same stock Google Experience that the T-Mobile G1 and MyTouch have, which means it is hardly an exclusive experience.

So, will the Moment be compatible with grandfathered plans such as SERO? We haven’t had any confirmation yet as the phone was just released today, but we will try and find out tomorrow and report back. Meanwhile, any legacy/grandfathered plans out there want to chime in with your experience?

Sprint's obnoxious "EVERYTHING" policy...

2009-08-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

Hey, I'm all for a great deal. Sprint's new "Everything" plans that debuted with the first Samsung Instinct are a great deal for the services offered - Unlimited data, text, pic mail, GPS (telenav), Blackberry services, Sprint TV, you name it. The top tier plan even includes unlimited minutes, and at only $99 is far less than any similar spec'ed plan on any other carrier.

The problem is, its not a great deal for everyone.
Some people don't want to pay for services they don't need. Maybe someone already has a GPS and doesn't care for Telenav, or doesn't beleive in the power of SMS. Heck, some people just want a smartphone for use as a PDA, and don't even want a data package for it!

Apparently, Sprint doesn't care about those people when it comes to their new line up. The Instinct requires that you have one of their "Everything" plans, or else they won't allow your phone on the network. Even if you paid full retail for it.
Perhaps that is because the Instinct was originally designed to directly combat the iPhone, and the primary selling point is that it was able to do things the iPhone couldn't at the time (3G, GPS, record and share video, etc). If they wanted iPhone customers to be impressed, they need every Instinct to be able to show off everything it can do.
Don't like that? Don't buy an Instinct!

The problem is, it didn't end there... The new Palm Pre also requires an Everything plan to be active on the network. That means that if you've owned a Palm for years, waiting for that big new OS overhaul they've been talking about, you're going to need a new plan- even if you love your grandfathered plan that you've had for years.

Some people don't WANT Telenav GPS or Sprint TV... maybe people don't even use texts, or want Data on their line (there are, beleive it or not, people who just bought Palm Treos to use as an organizer while also being a phone- not necessarily interested in the "Smartphone" aspects of it). Some people have been with Sprint for years because they have an old plan that suits them like a glove and don't want to change anything!
Sprint doesn't care about people like that, apparently.

Sprint will tell you that in order to get the most out of your new popular high-end phone, you MUST have an unlimited services plan... implying that it is for your own good, and not worth having without it. Besides, its such a great deal... and I won't argue that, it IS a great deal. But only if you are in the market for such services.

Many business professionals I know have been drooling over the Palm Pre, but currently only pay for minutes and data (a $15 add on). Some of them would have to pay almost double their current monthly bill for the privelage of using the new Palm phone, just to use it the same way they are using their older devices now.
That just doesn't seem fair... since when is it a requirement that we take advantage of EVERY feature a phone has?

Why don't they just require every Samsung Rant or Moto RAZR to have data, sms and Navigation?
Better yet, why is it that new Windows Mobile handsets, such as the Touch Pro, which rivals the feature set of the Pre or Instinct (and then some), does NOT require an Everything plan?

The answer, I think, is because people wouldn't pay it. They'd jump ship to another carrier and pay less to use the same phone with the only features they care about. So why enforce the policy on certain handsets?

Although they've never officially explained their policy, I think I may understand Sprint's logic behind it:
The only other popular phone to date that has special plan requirements like this is the iPhone, on AT&T. Since the iPhone is exclusive to AT&T, the carrier charges whatever they want for it because people can't get it anywhere else.

The Instinct and Pre are currently exclusive to Sprint. Sprint is pulling the same shtick, albeit charging less for more features than AT&T.

So, the good news about this is that the Palm Pre will not be exclusive to Sprint for long... Verizon is slated to get it by the end of the year. The question is, what will Sprint do then? Will they lift the requirement and allow grandfathered users or plain ol' minutes-only plans to upgrade?

An even more interesting question is how they will view the upcoming Android handsets announced... Android is already available in 2 variations on T-Mobile. The operating system isn't exclusive to Sprint. However, the hardware will be, at least in the US.
The two rumored handsets are the HTC Hero, which has been winning hearts of reviewers over in Europe for a while already, and a new Samsung called the InstinctQ.
I would go out on a limb here and guess that Sprint won't enforce the new plans since people can satisfy their Android itch on another carrier. However, Samsung's title of "Instinct" concerns me. The previous Instinct models were exclusive and required the new plans... Is the name here a sign of things to come?
And the HTC Hero is not the same Google-branded version of the OS that T-mobile has... the HERO sports HTC's new Sense-UI that has gadget nerds swooning. Sprint may be the exclusive carrier of that, as well.

So what's it going to be, Sprint? At least there's always the new Windows Mobile handsets for the rest of us... it'd be nice to have options, though.

Quest For the Perfect Phone

2009-08-13T23:57:00.000-07:00

After reading up on the Touch Pro 2 and discussing the cons (they took out the flash and D-pad?!)with some of my fellow mobile enthusiasts, I've come to an odd realization:

Every phone manufacturer seems to have been missing the point ever since the iPhone came along and royally screwed up the market and its demographic.

It seems to me that each new design tries to fix things that aren't broke, and make themselves something they're not.

I've decided that I need to vent a little bit on this subject. Its a little bit different than the style of posts I've been writing here, so I'm going to keep it separate over at http://angryphonecritic.blogspot.com/

I'll still post my opinions on mobile tech here, but for now I'm going to reserve my phone criticism for that site.

Check it out and let me know what you think...

Android on Sprint! Good news and bad news...

2009-07-28T10:59:00.000-07:00

Its official! Sprint is getting at least one Android phone in 2009!

Its hard to believe that it was almost 1 year ago that Sprint CEO Dan Hesse proclaimed that Google's Android OS wasn't "good enough" for the Sprint brand, despite Sprint being part of the Open Handset Alliance that is backing the Google phone OS (and releasing buggy phones all the time- who are we kidding, Dan?).
I personally think Mr. Hesse is making up excuses for T-mobile getting it first...
But whatever the case may be, this is good news, especially for those of us on Sprint who have been waiting for a peice of the Open-Source pie!

Now for the bad news...
Well, its not bad news for everyone, but I'll just call it less-than-good-news.

Lately, Sprint has developed a bad habit of forcing anticipated hot new phones to be on special "everything" plans, like the Palm Pre and the Samsung Instinct.
While some smartphones, like HTC's Windows Mobile handsets, seem to be immune to this phenomenon, I have reason to beleive that this handset will not be an exception.

There have been rumors of a new Samsung phone running Android called the InstinctQ, which just passed WiFi certification. So far, the other two Samsung phones called "Instinct" were exclusive to Sprint, so if this rumor is true, it points to what may very well be the new Android handset Mr. Hesse was referring to.
The problem is, like other handsets marked "Instinct" (original Instinct and Instinct S30), Sprint has them exclusively and forces them to work only on their more expensive plans.

This is surely bad news for anyone on a budget plan, family plan, or grandfathered plan (SERO users, I feel your pain). You heard it here first, folks- I do hope I'm wrong about this... please, if anyone finds anything that shows I may be wrong, let me know!

Thoughts re: The Touch Pro 2

2009-07-08T15:38:00.000-07:00

As the current owner of an HTC Touch Pro, I've been eagerly anticipating the Touch Pro 2's release in the states.

That is, until I started reading more about it...

There are quite a few improvements made over the current generation, including a new widescreen display which tilts, and a dedicated conference calling system on the back (as opposed to a standard speakerphone). They also managed to make it a bit slimmer despite it being wider and longer to facilitate the huge 3.6 inch display, and improved battery life (the T-Mobile literature claims 8.5 days of standby!).

The strange thing is, they didn't seem to really change it much under the hood- RAM, CPU, even the camera megapixels, are all about the same as the Touch Pro.

Not that there's anything wrong with that- the Touch Pro takes great pictures and has plenty of memory to go around, but you have to ask yourself why they didn't make this device more of an upgrade. Its the same complaint people have with the 3GS- its just not necessarily significant enough an upgrade from the 3G to buy a new device now.

Then the real con:

It appears that they removed the D-pad! One of my biggest gripes with the Touch Pro is its lack of buttons compared to other (older generation) Windows Mobile devices. It makes the OS harder to navigate, but at least you always have the D-pad when you want precision input. Alas, Touch Pro2 took even that away!

At least the HTC put a couple of hardware buttons on the bottom (which the Touch Pro did not have), but it really seems silly that we can't have a D-pad AND buttons! What's wrong with having our cake and eating it too, HTC? Why does it have to be one or the other?

As far as the OS goes, HTC is planning a WM6.5 official upgrade, which is nice, and a new TouchFLo interface that works in landscape mode.

Now, I'd like to point something out about TouchFlo...

I don't like it.

In fact, I did some slightly scientific studies of my own, and found that it took more steps to navigate the OS and get the information you need with TouchFlo than just the plain old Windows Mobile today screen!

The new TouchFlo might be better, but I've found the same is true of all touch-friendly mobile interfaces. But I'll save that for my next post... until next time.

Palm Pre "faster" than iPhone 3GS

2009-07-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

...or, at least according to ZodTTD, creator of infamous game system emulators for handheld-devices.

As many of us know, Apple announced a new iPhone, the 3GS, within days of the Palm Pre's launch. The release was widely beleived to be something to steal some of Palm's thunder since the Pre seems to be treading on all sorts of Apple's turf (syncing with itunes comes to mind).

So what did Apple do?
They made the iPhone, um, Speedier (hence the "S" in the name?). Yes, the primary difference between the iPhone 3G and the new 3GS is the speed of the CPU and graphics. Most of the time, end users won't notice any performance difference (the platform was already pretty speedy), however it is widely beleived that this speed boost will spark a whole new set of high end games, further pushing the iPhone platform as a gaming device.

Ready for the irony?
ZodTTD, developer of PSX4all (an app that plays full-blown Playstation games), has just released a Palm Pre version of his game platform. And you know what? The Pre outperforms the iPhone 3GS!

Read more about it here:
http://www.zodttd.com/blog/2009/06/30/palm-pre-gets-some-playstation-action/

Sorry Apple, you will always have your fans, but maybe you should have made the 3GS more than a marginal upgrade, at best.

Palm Pre syncs with iTunes?!

2009-05-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

Wow. Just wow.
Some other "reputable" mobile bloggers have been calling the new Palm Pre too little and too late, and predicting that it will, despite all its fan fare, sink into the depths of relative obscurity in a market where Palm has become obsolete.

In fact, CrunchGear went as far as to call the Pre an Also Ran (a term I wasn't familiar with).
To quote:

An “also-ran” is, literally, “a horse that does not win, place, or show in a race.” The world loves an underdog but it never loves an also-ran. It forgets about an also-ran.
And so we reach nearly the end of Palm Pre madness and I’m afraid to report that after all the magic, all the tears, all the joy the Palm Pre will be just another phone. It won’t save Palm, it won’t change paradigms, and it won’t send the iPhone hegemony crashing to its knees. The Palm Pre will launch with a whisper, not a bang.

I must admit that up until the announcement of the Pre's feature set, I was also convinced of Palm's imminent failure, although now I see a bright future possible.

Those other bloggers may argue with me, but this little tidbit announced today may sway the few unconverted souls:

The Pre will sync music and photos with Apple's iTunes.

If this isn't now the most likely candidate to give the iPhone a run for its money, I don't know what is.

Windows Mobile 6.5 - Step in the right direction

2009-04-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Windows Mobile 6.5 has been leaked and floating around the interwebs for a while already (months?). However, since the initial ported versions weren't stable enough and no official devices had been released with it, I didn't have any first hand experience to report about.
Until now.

With the HTC Rhodium around the corner (a wm6.5 successor to the HTC Touch Pro), it appears that the gurus at XDA-developers.com and ppcgeeks.com have finally ported semi-stable editions of the new operating system for many current HTC devices.

I took the plunge (for the sake of science?) and tried a cooked up 6.5 OS on the HTC Touch Pro, and I must say- this is a big step in the right direction for Microsoft.
The new things I noticed that impressed me are as follows:

-Native kinetic scrolling works and is smooth - that is, you can now swipe your finger in just about any application and it will scroll as you'd expect it to (ala iPhone, Android, etc). Yes, we had this ability before with HTC's bio-touchflo and some available third party applications, however it was inconsistant and not very smooth (Some applications did it properly, others would scroll too fast, some too slow, some didn't work at all). Now, its integrated into the OS, and appears they've got it right.

-New today screen widget system "Titanium" - Sure, HTC had Manilla (TouchFlo3D), but it was a resource hog and not really well integrated into the system in my opinion (each tab on Manilla/TF3D may as well have been its own running application since you could only see what was on the screen at a time). Titanium is native, integrated into the OS, and TOTALLY CUSTOMIZABLE with a widget system Microsoft is implementing to create new plugins. One thing I didn't like about Manilla/TF3D on my Touch Pro is that I was missing my RSS feed and active tasks PIM displayed on the today screen. With Titanium, I could develop my own plugin (or hope someone else beats me to it).
(See image of Titanium + custom weather plugin already developed on right)

-Graphic Overhaul - In order to modernize the look of the OS, many of the system graphics and UI elements have been redesigned.
This includes system icons, the start menu, scroll bars, heck even the context menu windows are now larger, scrollable, and more finger friendly (see image on left).

Many haters out there are complaining that this is "nothing more than a skin atop WM6.1", just as 6.1 was to 6.0. The underlying workings of the OS haven't really changed much (although as I mentioned, it does seem snappier). However I think those people are missing the point.

Unlike certain other platforms (*cough* PALM *cough*), a entire overhaul of the system is NOT what is needed. That is, Windows Mobile is a completely competant, feature packed multi-tasking system that other platforms are still trying to catch up with (Notice how all of Apple's new feature announcements are things WM has always been able to do?). The only problem with it, is the interface. The UI is getting long in the tooth, especially compared to ground breaking new UIs on other platforms. A fresh new look is EXACTLY was Microsoft needs, and 6.5 (or at least the ported unofficial version I had the opportunity to play with), is a huge step in the right direction.

Sure, Windows 7 will have some nice new media integration and what not, but in my opinion Windows Mobile is doing just fine. It just hasn't been so pretty until now. Its still not going to win over an iPhone loyalists, but its enough that you shouldn't feel like you have to choose between a capable platform and a pretty one.

Bill and the Reality Distortion Field

2009-03-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

This is a direct copy of my recent post on mopocket.com:

So the iPhone is getting another long awaited update. This time, they've addressed more wish-list items, such as copy/paste and MMS messaging, sending iPhone users all over the world into fits of fanatic rejoicing.
The list could have ended there, however it goes on to include a whole bunch of new features many had almost given up waiting for, including:

- Some sort of A2DP the details at this point are still vague- but I'm severely disturbed that the "quintessential music phone" didn't even support this until now
- Voice memo, finally in a native integrated application
- A landscape keyboard that works not only in Safari, but in any application
- Turn by Turn navigation apparently not native, but they will finally allow third parties to access and offer such applications- most likely they will be carrier-controlled turn-by-turn features (ala Telenav, etc)

There are more, but these are the ones that have been on most people's wishlist since the first iPhone. Why these features didn't exist until now is anyone's guess, but better late then never I suppose. The funny thing is, these aren't new or revolutionary features... in fact, things like Telenav, A2DP, MMS, and Voice Memo are available on virtually every standard issue phone you can buy, even the ones that are free on contract. And features like Copy/Paste and universal keyboard input methods (as well as working push email, another thing they claim will be improved in 3.0) are available on virtually every device that can be called a Smartphone.

While I'm happy to see Apple finally catching up, the press coverage and enthusiastic fans' response to it leaves me with an odd feeling.
To quote a disgruntled Engadget.com reader:

I don't believe the press how they are all so positive about some company that is actually fixing their mistakes months after the release of the product!

Could you imagine that i.e. Nokia would put their flagship phone on the market without it having MMS, copy/paste or multitasking? I don't think that the press would like that at all, but in the case of iPhone everyone is treating this failure as some success. What are the Apple marketing people doing to your heads?

Am I the only one, who finds this very late "fixes" rather embarrassing and incompetent?

I'd chaulk this one up as another example of Steve's infamous Reality Distortion Field.

I'd like to also point out that there are many things the iPhone is still lacking after this update, and although Apple has some sort of excuse for each one, I'm not buying any of them:
- Tethering Apple claims the carriers won't allow this, however why do other "Smartphones" allow this without a problem?
- Voice Command Not sure what the excuse is on this one, although you can purchase third party apps if you really want this feature. Still sort of lame that its not integrated.
- Background processing Apple claims it eats up to 80 percent of the iPhone's standby battery life, so they left it out. I call shenanigans on this one, as Android, Symbian and Windows Mobile do this without a problem, and average better battery life than the iPhone. If this is true, it is the fault of the OS for not knowing how to process background threads efficiently.
- Video recording Anyone's guess, however I'm guessing that the company is more interested in keeping things simple and user-friendly. Still, plenty of plain old camera phones offer editing features.
- Flash support For a device that claims "the real internet" is in your pocket, its surprising that they are one of the ONLY Smartphones not to offer some form of flash in a browser.

As far as Apple's excuses go, does anyone remember when Apple said they won't allow third party applications because they make the user experience unstable (back in iPhone 1.0)? Look at the App Store now. Its sort of amazing how once they found a way to profit with the concept, it was OK to allow third party development.

The bottom line as far as I'm concerned, is that this a very worthy update for iPhone users and I'm happy Apple is finally supporting all this. Perhaps not to the extent that the rest of the media world and Apple fans are, however I possibly missed drinking the same Kool-Aid as everyone else.

Thoughts re: Remote Wipe of Prototype Phone from MWC

2009-02-25T09:26:00.000-08:00

As some of you may already know, a prototype WM6.5 device (according to reports, a Diamond 2 or Touch Pro 2) was stolen from Mobile World Congress last week.

Industrial espionage expert Les Goldsmith already told the Daily Telegraph that this could be very bad for Microsoft if the beta's bugs are reported before the final product is released (does anyone really expect MS to release something that is 100% bug free??).

Luckily for MS, they have reportedly performed a "Remote Wipe" of the data, including the OS, as soon as the phone was reported stolen.
Whew, that was a close one, Microsoft!

However, this is raising a lot of eyebrows in the mobile user community. Remote wipe of data is nothing new- its already possible if you are set up to sync with an Exchange Server, as a security precaution. That's an understandable data security feature for private info- a corporate exec or celebrity loses their phone, it can be remotely hard-reset (storage card included) before anyone can copy the sensitive info out of it. It won't return your lost hardware, but at least your data is safe. In some cases, devices have the option to be rendered useless, as a theft deterrent system (marking an ESN or IMEI number as "bad" so that networks won't activate it).

However, how does an OS-wipe work?
Do they remotely send a command to wipe out the ROM? Does it format its own EPROM chips so that you can't even get to the bootloader? This is entirely new- and, I might add, entirely unlikely.

First of all, why would this feature exist? Aside from the current situation (in which Microsoft is preventing its unreleased OS from falling into the wrong hands), when else would a remote wipe of the OS EVER be necessary? Would a user EVER want this done?
It seems very unlikely that Microsoft would go through the trouble of devoting R&D time to this kind of safety feature, just for the MWC. Clearly Microsoft is taking its sweet time innovating for the OS as a whole (judging by how far away the legendary version 7 is slated to be), so are we to beleive that development is being slowed because they are wasting their time with temporarily useful security precautions?

No, I think there may be something very fishy about this story.
Here's what I think may have happened:

MISQUOTED
Sol's phone was stolen, but they can't really remotely wipe the ROM. Its possible that they only did a remote wipe of user data using standard Exchange features. This means the ROM and 6.5 OS are still at large, however the press and/or MS Employee quoted heard the term "remote wipe" and assumed the Microsoft secrets were secured as well.

COVER UP
Sol's phone was stolen, and the MS code can be extracted and leaked. Microsoft comes forward and claims that the ROM is "remotely wiped", which will make people less interested in trying to find the leaked ROM online.

EXTREME COVER UP
Sol's phone was never stolen, however there are already unofficial early betas of 6.5 floating around the net since before MWC. Microsoft, in fear of having the bugs reported before the software could be ironed out, claims that the ROM was stolen, but "remotely wiped", which will make people assume 6.5 roms floating around are merely unofficial hacks trying to get publicity, or at worst able to be remotely wiped by Microsoft! This may keep more people waiting for official 6.5 release devices.

PUBLICITY STUNT
Its also possible that this whole thing is a publicity stunt to show how versatile and synchronized the new OS is. Lose your phone? No problem- we can remotely do things you never dreamed possible. Does this feature really exist, though? Perhaps, although I still find it unlikely.

IT SORT OF TRUE
Now, its possible that Sol's phone was stolen, and that MS was able to lock out the phone using a remote bomb command to prevent potential theives from using the phone. Betas of 6.1 used to have a timebomb built in as I recall- to avoid it being leaked out and used on a large scale, they included a snippet of code that would prevent the OS from operating after a certain date. The final version of the OS could easily have this snippet of code omitted, leaving everything else intact.
Its entirely possible that MS included a remote-bomb along the same principles... namely, send a command to lock the user out of the phone. Such a command would NOT format the ROM however, and much less prevent someone from dumping the ROM, finding the lock and removing it (as someone did for 6.1, if I recall correctly).
It could also be an exposed new feature for OTA updates- it could be pretty useful to have portions of the OS update over the air with carrier updates (MS has included Windows Update on WM devices, but to my knowledge nothing has ever appeared on it). If stolen, perhaps they rolled out a bogus update that fried the bootloader. Unlikely, but possible.

ITS TRUE AND WE'RE ALL IN TROUBLE
Perhaps Microsoft really DOES have this feature, and if so its a very scary one indeed. This raises the same questionable practices Apple instituted with its "kill switch", namely that they have the ability to remotely lock/shut off/wipe portions of the code running on your phone. Now, in Apple's case they claimed it was to help prevent rogue code or faulty apps that might do damage to your handset, but of course that's what they would claim. No one wants to beleive in the whole "big brother" controlling their device, and many people are happy enough just assuming its for their own benefit.

Are there any other theories out there anyone would care to share?

Windows Mobile 6.5 (For real this time)

2009-02-16T23:29:00.000-08:00

Ok, so maybe the video I posted last time was a bit lame (not an official 6.5 debut, but rather another leaked 6.5 beta hacked to work on a Touch HD)... but today at Mobile World Congress, MS dropped the real deal on us with a demo running atop some hot new HTC hardware (The Diamond 2 and Touch Pro 2 were announced and put on display at the event as well- HTC has been busy).

I haven't had any first hand experience with the OS so I can't really share my thoughts with you yet... however, you can read more on it at WMExperts, and see a video captured at the event by the Endgadget crew.

Looking forward to this when it comes our way...

WM 6.5 Features Leaked

2009-02-15T14:06:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm looking forward to seeing where MS goes with Windows Mobile to stay competitive in this emerging era of commonplace smartphones...

A brief look at version 6.5 of the OS has been "leaked" according to many tech blogs, but it appears to be simply the buggy beta that got out a few weeks ago, but hacked to run on a Touch HD.
Lame, if you ask me, but if you haven't been following the 6.5 news, this is an interesting look at things to come.

Keep in mind, its buggy as all heck and the final version will be MUCH smoother (hopefully?)...

The Saga of HTC's Video Performance...

2009-02-09T20:16:00.000-08:00

...Or, why doesn't video play smoothly on my Diamond or Touch Pro???

Not so long ago, there existed a Smartphone manufacturer named HTC. HTC always used standard tried-and-true CPU architecture from companies like Intel and TI, until the dark lord Qualcomm arrived and changed everything. Qualcomm, an accomplished temptress, offered HTC a "device-on-a-chip", which would drastically reduce manufacturing costs while delivering top-notch performance for mobile devices. All they had to do was sign on the dotted line...
What HTC may not have realized at the time is that Qualcomm's promised performance came at a price- their graphics drivers required proprietary code with high-priced licensing fees! Oh, woe is HTC!
The decision was made to release the devices without proper video acceleration- after all, they are supposed to be WORK/CORPORATE devices, and have no business playing video or games! Surely the kingdom would be happy with this compromise...

So began the saga of the failed video performance on the most recent wave of HTC devices. This problem first reared its ugly head with the HTC Kaiser (Tilt*), Titan (Mogul*), and Vogue (Touch*). The lack of proper video drivers was often so bad, it would make the entire OS seem sluggish compared to the previous generation of devices with "slower" processors. This inspired many angry letters and even a couple of websites petitioning for HTC to release proper drivers, or threats of class action law suits.
(Note: Previously I mentioned Samsung included better drivers for their Omnia, but it appears they just avoided Qualcomm's MSM chipset entirely and went with the Marvell chip. The Verizon literature implies that they are incorrectly using a Qualcomm CPU)

HTC apparently listened a little, and announced that the NEXT set of devices would have 3D acceleration for some nifty new TouchFlo interface. The Diamond and Touch Pro were released with much fanfare shortly thereafter.
However, as I blogged about previously, the Touch Pro (which I've recently made my primary phone) had some minor performance issues out of the box, reminiscent of the previous generation of Qualcomm based devices.

While swapping to a later version of Windows Mobile alleviates almost all of the slow-downs (stock version is sort of laggy in general), the video STILL seems to have trouble keeping up when playing back movies at full sized VGA resolution.

The reason for this, is the missing peice of the Qualcomm Puzzle: Qtv

Qtv is a display driver specifically designed by Qualcomm to deliver high performance video to small screens that are powered by their chips. This is part of what Qualcomm has been dangling over the heads of OEMs for royalty fees. Unlike D3D, DirectDraw or GDI, it is NOT a standard video driver and the code to make it work can only be obtained from Qualcomm directly, and only by paying for the licensing rights to it. This means that while the new Diamond and Touch Pro devices have beautifully flowing menus and 3D effects, actual plain-old video playback still lags.

So how do I get the best video playback on a Diamond or Touch Pro?

In order to get full video acceleration, you're going to need to use the Qtv driver. However, since it is proprietary, most popular video playing applications (TCPMP, divxMobile, etc) DON'T support it, offering the industry standard DirectDraw method at best. DirectDraw support has improved since the first wave of Qualcomm based devices (which originally barely worked at ALL), but it still seems to have trouble drawing VGA video smoothly. In other words, if you're using DirectDraw, you're probably NOT going to get smooth full-resolution video.

For the Diamond/Touch Pro, HTC decided to cave in and license Qtv for their new HTC Album (which is normally used to play back video taken with the device's camera), and it appears to have trickled down to the bundled Windows Media Player as well. This may mark the first time that a video plays smoother in the bloated WMP than something like the open-source TCPMP.

In fact, the hardcore users over at XDA-Developers have even developed a tool to convert videos to high quality Mp4 that HTC Album can play, citing it as "the best way to watch full sized videos on the Touch Pro". They even go on to say not to bother complaining if you are using CorePlayer or some other player, since they do not contain the full Qtv support.

NOTE: I did a little comparison myself to see the difference, and found an mp4 of a TV show played PERFECTLY in HTC Album (had to place the video into the "storage card\my videos" dir for it to show up) in full VGA, whereas TCPMP could barely keep up with the frame rate, delivering 10-12 frames per second (as opposed to the nearly 30fps it was encoded at).

But doesn't CorePlayer now support Qtv?

Sort of.
Qtv is propietary, and the folks at Core haven't paid for the code, so they don't have it. However, what they DID do is figure out how to call the video routine overlay. This is similar to how desktop-based DVD player apps tend to work on hardware accelerated PCs- they paint a box of a specific shade which the renderer uses to overlay the video, thus taking the rest of the work away from the OS.
This works pretty darned well, although from my testing, it doesn't play mp4 as well as HTC Album which has "real" qtv acceleration.

Still, Coreplayer supports DivX avi files, which I've always found a great deal more efficient than mp4 video. In fact, I was able to take DivX videos directly from my computer and drag them over to my Touch Pro (no conversion/encoding needed) and play them surprisingly well when set to Qtv (benchmark reported playback at about 90% full speed, which means only some frames dropped and there). Still, HTC Album seemed to do this more effortlessly.

The only problem with using CorePlayer's Qtv is when using the video out function. The overlay doesn't translate well, and creates a flickering blue screen every few seconds, which is VERY annoying. Hopefully the team at Core is going to come up with a workaround, but for now the best option especially for video out is using HTC Album (or... *Gulp* Windows Media Player!).

Hopefully more workarounds will come out soon. Personally, I'd love to see someone rebuild TCPMP with full Qtv display drivers... Perhaps one day.

--------------

*When listing alternate names for the Kaiser, Titan and Vogue, I picked the most common carrier branded versions so that people may recognize them more easily. In this case, the AT&T Tilt, Sprint Mogul, and Sprint Touch, respectively. These have many other names on various carriers, as I am very well aware. No need to point out alternative instantiations.

Nokias from the eyes of a WM user

2009-01-28T08:42:00.000-08:00

A Rant/Personal reflection:

Here in the states, I spend most of my mobile time on CDMA devices. However, I recently took a trip overseas for a week so I brought along some GSM counterparts to use with local SIM cards.

While I have access to some older Windows Mobile GSM phones, I opted to take some more modern Nokia Symbian devices courtesy of my connection with MoPocket.com. Its been a while since I used GSM, and I always felt they had better devices due to the larger market demand. So, this was exciting to me.

I'm familiar enough with Symbian to use it comfortably, however I really did miss some of the integration that Windows Mobile offers. Let's set the record straight: Symbian is a great and surprisingly powerful platform, and I've always been impressed playing with it... but I'm not exactly running to convert from Windows Mobile.
However, one thing I must admit- Nokia builds EXCELLENT hardware.

The devices I brought with me, an N95 and E71, are both superb examples of Nokia's smartphone design experience, giving you just enough power to replace a PDA while not forgetting to be a phone first. Touch screen would have enhanced form factors like the N95, but I didn't really miss it. Key navigation was easy to perform one-handed without looking, even after using it for just a couple of hours. I consider this further proof that touchscreens aren't always better (makes me more interested to see how Nokia's touch devices will fare).

The N95 is already considered older hardware, yet it sports TV out, GPS, a real 3.5mm headphone jack, dedicated media keys, and a Carl Zeis lens 5 MegaPixel Camera!

I actually found myself taking most of the pictures on my trip with the N95 since it was easily accessible from my hip as opposed to taking out my Canon shooter each time. The pictures are indiscernible from those taken by a "real" camera, with the exception of low-light situations (the flash isn't really bright enough for a normal camera).

On the plane, I found I was able to watch an mp4 encoded video at 700kpbs that my HTC Titan was too weak to play smoothly through normal headphones, and even use a splitter if my wife wanted to watch. I also found that the 3D game support left behind from the days of the N-Gage made some pretty compelling arguments to call it a gaming platform. Suddenly my WM handsets, with their inadequate gaming keys, driver-related poor video performance, and proprietary headset jacks didn't seem so great.

I'm still a fan of Windows Mobile.
But all I'm saying is that if Nokia didn't completely ignore the CDMA market with S60 devices, I would be OK with one.

Palm Pre - rebirth of a mobile giant?

2009-01-09T07:29:00.000-08:00

...or, "holy #$@%, I'm actually EXCITED about an upcoming Palm device??"

Most of my friends know that I currently prefer Windows Mobile devices for their balance of power and features. What most of them don't realize is that I always felt that I'd switch in a heartbeat if something better came out... but sadly that hasn't happened yet.
Android is still missing some features I use on a regular basis, iPhone's OSx is far too limiting and crippled... Symbian comes close, and has a pretty competitive feature set, however arguably not any better than Windows Mobile. Blackberry shouldn't even be considered a Smartphone to begin with (its a messaging device, not the same thing).

But never in a million years did I think I would ever consider Palm to possibly be my next Smartphone OS.
Most of us gadget junkies got started on Palm Pilots back in the day, but they've been something of a joke for the last few generations of handsets. Their extrememly limiting OS has had no major updates in a decade (note, I said MAJOR, not the little things they added here and there over the years- those don't count), which has caused many industry anylists to predict its demise.

But, as I mentioned earlier, Palm seems to have been secretly workin on something behind closed doors.
Apparently hiring top device and OS design gurus from competeing companies (such as Apple, for example), the project has been stirring up Treo fans all over the interweb.
As an enthusiast, I heard about the OS they were working on (Nova) and the device (Palm Castle), but never really gave it more than a glance and possibly a mention.
I was predicting Palm's efforts as too little too late.

Well, that all changed this CES.

I'm actually really impressed at what I'm seeing and reading.
I now regret any moment in which I dismissed this effort as "same old Palm". This is NOT same old Palm. In fact, forget everything you knew about Palm. This new company is like the Chuck-Norris-Ninja-Pirate of Palm, which makes everything Palm did until now pale in comparison.
Yes, this could really be what brings them back from the proverbial dead (or at least, proverbial "no-one-cares-what-you-release-anymore").

The OS, which is based on some sort of Web rendering engine, can be easily customized by anyone who knows basic web programming (html, xml, etc), not to mention appears to support some killer over-the-air sync services, A2DP, and advanced multitasking. Basically, all the things wrong with the old Palm OS and then some.

Then there's the hardware. Internally known as the Castle, the Palm Pre (pre? Pre-what?) seems to also have listened to everything people disliked about older Palms:

No more cramped screen, display is now a majority of the device, while the KB slides out from underneath (a pet peeve of mine was a device as large as a Treo had a screen size barely larger than a standard phone).
Standard mini-USB port (no propietary connector)
3.5mm standard stereo jack!! (about time)
Sleek and thin device design (no more clunky Treo form factor)

The problems I forsee with this offering, however, is that it will not be compatible with older Palm Apps (this is a whole new Palm, remember?), so real Palm fanboys may be upset about that. The Palm haters will have a hard time adopting this as well, which means I predict it may have a slower launch than they'd like.
Also, the hardware looks great, but there are a few top-of-the-line devices already out with higher specs in some areas. For example, the Omnia is pushing a killer 5mpixel camera, while this is still sporting only 3. The HTC Touch Pro also sports only 3mpixels, but it has a higher resolution screen (640x480). And both the Touch Pro and Omnia are available for a while already now, while this is not slated to release for a couple of months.
What does that mean? It means that when the Pre is finally available, these specs will be considered standard already and no longer high-end as the next wave of devices is announced.

What I could see happening, however, is that this will be offered at a mid-to-low tier price point, to compete directly with the G1 and iPhone 3G (under $200). If Palm manages to do that, we could have a winner here.

Things in the mobile space are about to get a lot more interesting...

Thoughts regarding: The Blackberry Storm

2008-12-28T09:07:00.000-08:00

I get asked my opinion on this handset a lot, so its probably due time I write something about it.

To be perfectly frank, I don't understand the reason for the Storm. RIM caters to a specific crowd of users who have stuck with them because they prefer the Blackberry platform. Clearly, touchscreens aren't particularly important to these users- Despite the endless models of touchscreen devices being released all around them, Blackberry users have remained glued to their trusty RIM handsets.
Why?
Because touchscreen or not, when it comes to messaging, blackberrys work well. Period.
They may not have the best multimedia options, or support mind blowing 3rd party applications, or even have many interesting features at all... but that's not why people buy Blackberrys. They buy them because they are a great email and messaging device. They are intuitive and straight forward and offer features like corporate email without getting too complicated.

Consumers who want fancy multimedia, games, and shtick are not looking at Blackberrys. They're looking at iPhones.
Consumers who want the most powerful and versatile devices in the world aren't looking at Blackberrys either. They generally prefer the more adaptive yet exponentially more complicated Smartphone platforms such as Windows Mobile, Android, or Symbian.
People buy Blackberrys when they want a no nonsense handset that consistently delivers a professional experience. This is where the Storm fails.

RIM, if you're reading this, why are you trying to fix something that ain't broke?
As I've blogged before, touchscreens are fun and gimmicky, but very often can't compare to good ol' fashioned buttons.

They're clearly trying to break out of their professional-oriented mold, and reach out to the people who are looking into other devices.
However, all it takes is a few moments with this device to realize their lack of experience is showing. It doesn't even approach the feature set and fluidity of competing products.
Meanwhile, they ruined almost all the things that make Blackberry great. They ditched their keyboard (something that was fantastic on almost every blackberry), and re-wrote their OS to be touch-sensitive and "fun".
The problem is that since this is their first foray into the world of Touchscreens, the new OS is buggy as all heck. Users have been reporting that the device doesn't always respond as expected (screen reorient to landscape didn't flip keyboard when I tried to type in landscape mode. I was stuck with a sideways keyboard).
Additionally, the big selling point, the "press-and-click" touchscreen, creates a very counter-intuitive user experience in my opinion. While playing with one, I found that pressing a letter on the keyboard only highlighted the area. In order to actually enter that letter, one must give an additional push downward to make the whole screen click like a button. Cute, but not practical. Sometimes you feel like you're typing because it is reacting to your keypresses, but unless you "click" as well, no text is being entered. Additionally, some things work without clicking (such as finger scrolling through menus), and other times a click is required (pressing a button).

All in all, it wasn't the WORST device I've ever used (the Moto Q still holds that crown), however it was dissapointing for a Blackberry. Its the sort of device someone could probably get used to, and learn the ins and outs over time, however people buy Blackberrys because they are not supposed to have learning curves. If you want to learn the ins and outs, you may as well buy a more capable smartphone, such as a Windows Mobile device.

So in the end of the day, what do we end up with? A Blackberry messaging device without a keyboard that pales in comparison to other touchscreen phones, AND to previous Blackberrys. A true Jack of all trades, but master of none.

The proof is in the users... a friend who works in a Verizon store told me that the Storm is the most returned handset on Verizon currently in his store, with new users showing buyers' remorse at an alarming rate.

Can RIM fix the Storm? Perhaps in the next version. But why? Why is this worth doing when there are plenty of touchscreen devices that offer the same push email experience and sync, but do a better job and have more features?

My personal opinion is that RIM should drop the storm, and go back to focusing on what makes their handsets great. Maybe they should work on fixing that firmware issue in the Bold...

Sprint + Android = Ok, fiiine. Soon.

2008-12-18T13:06:00.000-08:00

Well, Dan Hesse's arguments about Android not being ready for Sprint became quite the controversial topic.

I should have posted this earlier, but Sprint is now announcing plans to adopt an Android handset in the near future, as was always expected. Apparently, Dan's comments meant to illustrate that they were watching and gauging T-mobile's success with it before pulling the trigger themselves.

In fact, at Sprint's mobile developer conference last week, Google's VP of mobile technology, Rich Miner, was a keynote speaker.
So, it would appear that Sprint never turned their back on Android, as was speculated. They just decided to play it safe.

Given their current economic status, perhaps that was a smart move. Here's to hoping something turns up soon (HTC Pegassi, anyone?).

2G, 2.5G, 2.75G... isn't 2G DEAD?!

2008-12-08T07:26:00.000-08:00

Most people know that 3G means faster than 2G.
The standard school of thought is that the older 2G data networks will give you roughly the speed of a dial-up modem, whereas the modern 3G can rival some broadband connections.
What people seem to forget is that we're not actually referring to the speed of the network, but rather the generation (hence the G) of technology.

This is why the latest news from Nokia Siemens Networks might seem puzzling to some:

"Nokia Siemens Networks has made the world's first Downlink Dual Carrier EDGE end-to-end call with mobile devices ... that can double data speeds to 592 kbps on existing EDGE-capable GSM networks, providing a user experience that is akin to 3G."

I'll bet many who read this are scratching their heads and saying "Isn't EDGE/2G dead?", I mean, why else would we have made such a stink about the original iPhone being only EDGE in a world of broadband data devices?

The problem is that many people equate EDGE, 2G, and Dial Up data speeds, and that is not necessarily true.

Anyone remember GPRS? It was the GSM data network that predated EDGE. It was the first data network to use packet-switching on a cellular connection, which meant data and voice were separate. The original 2G data was NOT packet-switched, and therefore data sessions exists as a phone call (you would "dial up" the Internet as a phone call much like a home dial up modem, and your line would be in use during the session, often using your cellular minutes), not to mention data speeds averaged around 9.6kpbs or a theoretical 14.4. Meanwhile, GPRS was able to rival dial-up modems, and reach speeds of 60kbps.

Before GPRS was around, the next (3rd) generation of cellular network was being planned, and hoped to offer higher data rates and packet switching, among other features. So when GPRS came around and offered packet switching on the current network without any major overhaul of the equipment, some people wanted to call it 2.5G. This was never an official term, and so it remained "2G" since the 3rd generation technology was almost ready to come out.

Then there was EDGE.
EDGE was supposed to further bridge the gap between 2G and 3G by offering 4x the data speed of GPRS (reaching a theoretical speed of over 240kpbs, although real-world use averages around 150kbps), once again without a complete overhaul of the network as the next generation 3G would require. Some people wanted to call this 2.5G, and those who referred to GPRS as 2.5G wanted to call it 2.75G, and the whole name game became a real mess.
Therefore, no new names were adopted, and the title remained 2G for all of these technologies since it still existed on the second generation network.

Now, Nokia Siemens is offering a theoretical 590kbps for towers using EDGE with little more than a software update. With the low end of 3G data averaging around 500kpbs, this seems to bring 2G hardware into almost the same ballpark as far as data transmission speeds!

This is sure to confuse the general public, not to mention it begs the question of what to refer to this as- 2.875G?

I'm laying claim to that title. If this tech becomes mainstreamed, I'm going to call it 2.875G, and think you all should too!

2008-12-08T07:16:00.000-08:00

I wrote the following for mopocket.com first. I decided to go all Dave Barry at the end with a mock conversation. Well, I thought it was kind of funny... Hope you enjoy. -Mordy

I’ve seen this ad all over the internet lately, and its really been bugging me (click image to view full size).

In it, Sprint claims that with their new Samsung Rant, I’ll be able to “Experience texting at 3G speed.”

Can someone please explain this one to me?

Maybe I’m missing something here, but doesn’t Text Messaging get ZERO benefit from 3G data?

Texting (or the more technical term, SMS) was created as a way to embed short messages of up to 160 characters into the same networks used to carry digital voice.

3G Data came much later, and was created to offer high-speed internet access. It actually works using a separate (but parallel) technology to the voice network.

This is why SMS rates and cellular data rates are usually kept separate when billing. (Side note: Sometimes when roaming or in spotty coverage areas, one may find the data network does not work, however SMS works fine wherever you have voice coverage.)

Everytime I see this ad, I wonder who thought this was a good idea for a catch phrase. Then, I wonder who at Sprint gave the OK for it. Does anyone in the marketing team know how their phones work?

I actually picture the conversation going something like this:

Marketing rep #1: “Ok, how should we advertise the Samsung Rant?”

Marketing rep #2: “Hey, isn’t that the one that’s replacing the LG Rumor as our flagship texting phone?”

Marketing rep #1: “Yup.”

Marketing rep #2: “Ok, so how about : If you liked the LG Rumor, you’ll LOVE the Samsung Rant.”

Marketing rep #1: “No, people hated the Rumor, look at the blogs. We gotta compare it to something the public LOVES”

Marketing rep #2: “You mean like the iPhone 3G?”

Marketing rep #1 (cringing): “Yes. Like the iPhone 3G. In fact, suddenly people who don’t even know what 3G means are jumping to replace their 2G iPhones for it.”

Marketing rep #2: “Ok, so how about we mention 3G and Texting on a keyboard in one sentence? Experience texting at 3G speeds!”

Marketing rep #1: “I love it!”

Marketing rep #3: “That doesn’t make any sense.”

Marketing rep #1: “Quiet you, when did you even get here? Look, we had another terrible 3rd quarter net loss, and we need some positive results. If it means we have to market ourselves to ignorant people, so be it.”

Marketing rep #3: “But its idiotic.”

Marketing rep #1: “I don’t recall asking you. Let’s print it!”

Marketing rep #2 (beaming): “Already sent.”

Marketing rep #3: “Well, there go our jobs…”

Well, something like that, probably.

Honestly, I love Sprint, and they’re still my favorite underdog carrier. But I couldn’t resist commenting on this ad- I see it everywhere.

Well, I guess it works. Here I am discussing the Samsung Rant to the public, and I may actually have to try it out. Why? Well, I quite honestly can say I’ve never experienced texting at 3G speeds, and I’d like to see what it is like.

Until next time…

Shocking G1 bug found!

2008-11-09T10:32:00.000-08:00

Chalk this one up in the history of classic OS bugs.

Everyone has been very excited about the fact that Android is based on Linux, however no one anticipated this would lead to the greatest bug ever found in a mobile OS.

Apparently, the G1's version of Android has been running a phantom command-line shell underneath the GUI, which has super-admin root access and receives a copy of all keystrokes entered.
What does that mean?
Well, in a nutshell, it means anything you type into the phone is ALSO being entered into an invisible linux command line- so you could be entering commands and messing with the system without even realizing!

In fact, this is how the bug was originally found, by user jdhorvat on Google's code board:

I was in the middle of a text conversation with my girl when she asked why I hadn’t responded. I had just rebooted my phone and the first thing I typed was a response to her text which simply stated “Reboot” - which, to my surprise, rebooted my phone.

Wow. Imagine what would happen if someone texted you, asking you for a reminder of some hardcore Linux commands!

Epic Fail.

Luckily, since Android is open source, the problem was found rather quickly and an update fix was pushed out over the air to users before this bug had a chance to be publicized.
Still, if you're running firmware version 1.0 TC4-RC29 and earlier, try typing these 8 keystrokes: -r-e-b-o-o-t-.

That's a pretty serious bug if you ask me, and this makes me wonder about Dan Hesse's comments about Android not ready for Sprint yet...

More on this here.

Sprint Touch Pro - Sluggish from the get-go?

2008-11-04T14:34:00.000-08:00

Well, its been a very exciting week- The Sprint Touch Pro was available in third party retailers (read: Best Buy) since last Sunday, and is available in Sprint stores across the country as of yesterday.

I'll be honest, I've been looking forward to the Touch Pro ever since I found that the Sprint Mogul (HTC Titan / 6800) suffered from a lack of RAM. 64MB may have been enough for the days of WM5, however HTC's other WM6 devices all came with at least double that (AT&T Tilt, Sprint Touch/Vogue, Touch Dual, etc). The latest versions of Windows Mobile demand more resources, so its been sort of baffling to Titan users that we are stuck with a measly 64MB on this device (The "memory leak" due to OS and system caching has created a familiar outcry by Titan owners in the PPC world).

That alone would be enough of a reason to upgrade to the Touch Pro. However, initial reports by prominent users in the PPC Development community are NOT entirely positive.

If you've been following my blog, you may recall a post in which I held an early version of the HTC Diamond, and had mixed feelings about it:

However my personal opinion is that the HTC Diamond seemed to lag a bit in its responsiveness. Sure, it was pretty and full of eye candy, but it wasn't as smooth and quick as I would have hoped, in fact the Sprint HTC Touch next to it seemed to be faster despite being previous-generation hardware.

Now, many early adopters assured me that the later Sprint production models were better and not laggy at all, which was somewhat uplifting to hear. However, for the brief moments I've actually seen a Sprint Diamond/Touch Pro in action, I still felt the same way.

While some random users are claiming this is the best WM device in history, some respected members of the development community are agreeing with what I noticed:
User GGuruUSA of PPCKitchen.org fame mentioned that "it's not super laggy on mine, but it is a little".
NueRom creator and Windows Mobile virtuoso no2chem of PPCGeeks fame also confirmed my impressions in a chat:

[16:40] even with some standard optimizations, etc.. this thing is still slow as molasses..
[16:40] there are some stupid htc apis for mutex that slow things down
[16:40] but.. shouldn't be that slow
[16:40] yet there is lag doing basic tasks like opening start menu

So very disappointing to hear. I was very much looking forward to this device to fix the performance problems of the HTC Titan/Mogul, however it looks like this device isn't the savior we hoped it out be.

I'd like to point out that since I don't own a Touch Pro for myself (yet)*, I can't verify this first hand. Its only an impression that I got which has been confirmed by people who's opinion I trust. Any Touch Pro users out there want to chime in? Anyone up for some comparison videos?

*I tried twice to buy a Touch Pro, however Sprint seems to be having a hard time selling me one. Not sure why they're being so difficult, but hopefully we'll get the ball moving soon so I can give you my full review on this highly anticipated device.

Sprint "Too good for Android"?!

2008-10-25T19:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, this one gets a great big "You've got to be kidding me!"

Apparently, Reuters has quoted Sprint CEO Dan Hesse as saying Android is NOT ”good enough to put the Sprint brand on it.”

Back when the Open Handset Alliance was starting to make news, I remember feeling very excited to see Sprint's name on the list of interested carriers. Honestly, part of me sort of felt that this meant Sprint would be getting the first Android phone, since they could severely use some positive press.

I must give credit to T-Mobile for actually being the first with an Android product out the door, but I figured Sprint's Android phone was to follow shortly before the "big boys" ( AT&T, Verizon ) catch up.

Dan, Please... Sprint needs this. Sprint is currently my preferred provider for data services (with their liberal smartphone policy and 3G coverage practically everywhere), yet their smartphone lineup is dominated by Windows Mobile devices. Now, I'm happy enough with WM because I can make it do whatever I want, however the interface could use a makeover. I don't feel that WM is for everyone, and it'd be nice to see some options available on Sprint. However, since Palm OS is still stuck in the Dark Ages of an antiquated feature set, Symbian has thusfar ignored the CDMA market, and the iPhone being, well, by Apple (we're cool cuz we're exclusive!).... Android was poised to bring a breath of fresh air into Sprint's lineup.
Mr. Hesse, its been a shaky relationship, and you're new there, but I've grown to love Sprint. However, Windows Mobile is not the most intuitive platform, and many people consider the HTC devices "broken out of the box", only to be "fixed" with aftermarket software and ROMs. I've seen many people not willing to take the time to learn WM, and promptly return their devices for something simple, like a Blackberry. Yet, Sprint is usually the first to release the latest HTC devices while other CDMA carriers work the kinks out first. Android is still 1.0, and may not be perfect, however don't think for a second that Sprint is too good for Android.

If you can release the Mogul, which was released with a bluetooth problem at launch, and didn't have the promised EVDO and Rev A until half its life span had passed, not to mention the Moto Q (arguably the buggiest smartphone of all time) and others... and have no problem putting the Sprint brand on them... then I'm sorry, there's no excuse not to release Android.

I'm wondering if there's more to this story...

Android Launch Press Videos

2008-09-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

Well, today was the big Android press conference in NYC that all the big bloggers have been talking about lately.

I unfortunately couldn't attend, however I followed the progress remotely... I was actually surprised to even find a few live feeds from the event made public via QIK.com (GREAT software, by the way, more on that in a future post).

The most interesting bit?

Google is offering over-the-air-sync with a supposed full two way push with Google Apps. That's right, push Gmail, Google calendar, contacts and Google Talk, all built right in.

This is the sort of thing people pay tons of money to have a Blackberry Enterprise Server for, or Microsoft Exchange with a WM device. Heck, even Apple has been trying to offer this with Mobile Me for a yearly premium, and it doesn't even work properly.

Google is just giving it away, and let's face it, who doesn't have a google apps account already?

That's just the tip of the iceburg. Check out more in this informative video:

Joss Wheadon deems the iPhone "Horrible"?

2008-09-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

I think Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog is becoming one of my favorite short films of all time.

I was slightly amused to find a scene in the first act in which Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris) uses an iPhone as a remote control to drive a van.

Does this mean Joss Wheadon and his brothers (who wrote and created the internet phenomenon) consider the device "horrible" enough for their evil character?

Well, as I wrote on MoPocket, there is a later scene in which he answers his phone, and it is NOT an iPhone, but rather a simple looking flip phone. So, are they trying to say Dr. Horrible uses an iPhone or not?

After doing a little curious researching, it turns out co-star Nathan Fillion owns an iPhone, and someone had decided it was a good idea to use it as a prop for a remote control.
The fact that it was recognizable may have been a technical goof.

What do you people think? Did the writers perhaps think this was a clever gag (a character who sings about anarchy and social change uses the most overhyped social status device ever), or is it just that the iPhone makes a pretty darned cool looking capacitive remote control?

Read more here.

For the sake of development, stop stealing other people's work!

2008-09-16T14:11:00.000-07:00

The Development Community is arguably one the biggest reasons Windows Mobile is still a popular platform.

Forums such as XDA-Developers and PPCGeeks.com are teeming with brilliant minds who create applications that not only add new features to a WM device, but even change the interface itself.

Lately, one of the most buzzed about projects is the s2 series, developed by an XDA regular who goes by the username A_C. The s2 series started with a simple screen-unlocker, S2U2, which was clearly inspired by the iPhone's "Slide to Unlock" screen.
However, it mutated into much more than a simple lock screen, and now offers customized real-time information as well as integrates with his media player, S2P (slide to play), which is a graphically beautiful finger-friendly music player and browser. A_C then went on to create S2V (Slide to View), which is an image viewer in the same graphical vein as his other S2 applications.

Although all of the S2 applications are still considered unfinished "works in progress", many users claim that they are more stable and have better features than some commercial applications on the market.

It should also be recognized that A_C never planned to make money from these applications. He does not it for a living, rather he creates them in his spare time because it is how he beleives a Windows Mobile device should work. As such, he has clearly stated numerous times that his applications are totally free.

My opinion is that A_C is a good guy. The problem is, good guys often get taken advantage of.
According to this thread, A_C was appalled to find the s2 applications have been bundled and sold as part of "iPhone themes for Windows Mobile", without giving him a penny or even asking permission.

Many sites, including www.iphonethemeforppc.com, as well as countless ebay auctions are trying to sell the s2 software for their own profit, which of course is very frustrating for A_C to see.
In vain, he has tried to report every auction to ebay, contact the authors of the sites selling it, etc... however they seem to not care, offering petty excuses or ignoring his requests.

The end result? A_C has decided to halt all development of the S2 series for the time being.

Nice work, fellas. It looks like a couple of unscrupulous idiots have ruined it for everyone else.

Spread the word. Boycott sites that are selling this stuff, send them angry emails, etc. This is not the first time such a thing has happened, but in order for it to end everyone must voice their opinion. For the sake of the development community and coders/users everywhere.

Sprint HTC Diamond and Touch Pro Official Release Dates!

2008-09-10T11:03:00.000-07:00

Well, the speculation can end now. Sprint has made the announcement official on their web site.
Also, the pictures that appear in their image gallery (which can be found here) confirm the color situation that we mentioned earlier, as well as the official launch names of the devices (thankfully not Herman and Victor, as speculated).

In a nutshell:
Sprint Touch Diamond: Will be released on Sept. 14th for $249 with a new contract. Device is two-toned, with a burgundy back side.

Sprint Touch Pro: Qwerty-version will be released on Oct. 19th, for $299 with a new contract. Device is solid black.

There, that settles that. Now let's see how they are in person...

Chrome: The color of world domination.

2008-09-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

I wrote this to appear elsewhere, however it was not ready so I'm just posting it here instead.
-Mordy

Well, it certainly seems Google is no longer satisfied with simply living inside your web browser.

No, Google wants a more serious relationship with you than that.
Sure, they've virtually led the pack as far as Web 2.0 and application-driven websites (Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs, etc), but now they want to also BE your web browser.
Google Chrome is a new open source and powerful web browser that is the first to be designed around JavaScript and Web 2.0 applications. In other words, instead of offering an HTML text-and-image based browser that has support for higher-end application driven content, Google has actually designed a mini-platform the other way around- designed for running content first, that happens to also support plain-old html.
Its all explained in this nifty comic-book style write up, quite effectively I might add.
The concept is quite simple: Google has been trying to play nicely within the limitations of current web browsers, so why not just invent your own that runs your applications smoother?

Flash back to the mobile industry for a moment. If you recall, Google has always focused on being mobile-web friendly, offering special versions of their Gmail, Google Maps and search engine pages optimized for mobile web browsers or WAP. However, since mobile web browsers are so severely limited in features, Google decided to break free of the browser and write stand-alone applications for Google Maps and Gmail that run on compatible phones.
However, since not all phones offer the same features or APIs, the Google applications differed slightly from device to device (some devices don't support satellite imagery, others support voice-recognition for search).
So, Google took the next bold step and challenged the entire mobile industry by creating its own entire mobile Operating System, Android, instead of conforming to what is already out there.

That makes many people such as myself wonder- how far will Google go with this on the desktop? They've already created a Google Earth downloadable as well some other apps to break free of the confines of the web browser. Now, they have their own browser.
Many conspiracy theories emerged years ago that Google is planning its own desktop OS to rival Microsoft and Apple. This has mostly been dismissed as rumor long ago, however that was before Android and Chrome were announced. This could change things.

If Android had never become a reality, I would have said that Google doesn't have the gall to attack the desktop market. But Android is already a big slap in the face to popular Smartphone platforms like Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, Linux Mobile, and Apple, all of whom Google has actually written applications for in the past. The announcement of Android left these folks in a state of denail and/or confusion... If I were them, my thoughts would be "but I thought we were friends?"
The desktop market COULD be next.

The interesting thing about all this is that I think this marks the first time that the desktop industry can look to the mobile industry for a possible taste of things to come. Chrome team consulted with the Android team about their use of the Open Web Kit system when designing the engine for their browser. If Chrome and Android hit off with the success that they have potentially, I'd say a Google OS is around the corner.

Google. First you lived in my webbrowser. Tomorrow, you may own the world. Lookout...

The problem with Windows Mobile

2008-09-04T10:36:00.000-07:00

WM fanboys, be still! This post is part of a bigger article which I will go up when finished. To get straight to the point, start at the line which reads "Too many cooks".
-Mordy

Windows Mobile, love it or hate it, is still one of the most popular mobile operating systems to date. Looking at the specs on paper, this OS has every reason to be great; Not only does it have an integrated familiar set of Microsoft productivity tools (Outlook, Word, Excel, etc), it is also a versatile and open platform that is capable of running virtually infinitely complex and advanced third party applications.
It also has to its advantage a legacy of mobile operating systems dating back to the 90's, which means that countless seasoned developers and applications already exist for it, as well as a bit of a cult following. Combine this with the size and scope of the OS, and Microsoft should have a clear winner here.

However a large percentage of first time Windows Mobile users return their handset after trying it out, and market analysts say WinMo is far from "winner" material. Some even predict its impending doom. Why?

A few moments with the stock OS is all takes to understand. For all the words people can use to describe Windows Mobile, the adjectives you won't hear are "easy" or "user friendly". In fact, for every WM user that loves the platform, you're bound to find ten others who found it confusing, unstable or downright maddening.
The hardcore WM fanboys will tell you that Windows Mobile is far too powerful and therefore too complicated for some to comprehend. It would seem that the users who prefer standard feature phones or Blackberry OS fit that theory, since RIM spoon-feeds the user basic features such as messaging without much support for a real mobile computing platform.
The same could be said about Palm OS, since palm does not support as much development or even basic multi-tasking. Less features theoretically equal an easier to understand phone.

I don't think that's the case. Personally, I think Symbian and the upcoming Android OS at least match if not outshine Windows Mobile in power and function, as well as support for advanced development and UI tweaking... yet average folks who've tried it don't find it as maddening as Windows Mobile for daily use.
While we're at it, even the iPhone OS (which officially reached the status of Smartphone with its app store) has some fairly advanced features, especially when "jailbroken", and people absolutely LOVE that UI- in fact, they love it even more than simpler phones with less features. The iPhone, while not as versatile and developer friendly as other smartphone operating systems, showed the world that clearly you can have a phone with advanced features that is still easy for the masses to use.

So what is is that keeps Windows Mobile from being great?

Too many cooks.
I beleive that WM suffers from "too many cooks spoil the broth" syndrome. In other words, there are too many different people with different goals involved from the moment the software is designed until it reaches the user's hands. This leads to a complicated web of counter-intuitive interface design.
Take this example of a typical WM handset:
-Microsoft designs a general use OS based on a vague set of hardware.
-Hardware OEMs target a specific audience and create a device with hardware capable of running windows mobile.
-Software development team writes drivers for hardware, and tweaks parts of the OS to properly utilize their hardware configuration, often in ways Microsoft didn't anticipate.
-Carrier gets a hold of device, pre-installs certain software applications and tweaks certain features and UI to support their services.
-User buys devices, and gets thoroughly confused with what he/she is presented with.

A practical example of this is the microsoft X button. They decided, for one reason or another, that the X-button closing applicaitons would make the device harder to use. So they made it minimize instead. The result is that people who think they've closed the media player by clicking the X still hear music playing in the background. They frantically try to figure out why and eventually pull their battery. Now, let's say a third party designs their own media playing application, and decides to do users a favor by hard-coding it to close when someone presses on the X are instead of minimizing like the system would by default.
Meanwhile, phone manufacturer HTC steps in to solve that problem on its own, and introduces their HTC X-button software, which changes the behavior of the X button system-wide to what you determine (close, minimize, press-and-hold, etc), and gives you a list of what is running on the main screen so you can close something that didn't close like you thought it would.
What is going to happen to that media player when they press the X if someone is running on an HTC device with their X-button software pre-installed, such as the HTC Touch?
The user may be presented with some unexpected behavior other than what they think will happen.

Then there was the Palm hardware running Windows Mobile- they added their own threaded text messaging system, which was signature Palm until Microsoft decided to add their own and have it built-in to the OS in version 6.1. However, the Palm version was a little bit different, and when they embraced 6.1 for the new devices, they were faced with a user interface decision: Keep their threaded app on the phones so that people who enjoy how it works or are used to it can continue to, OR switch to the new standard threaded app for compatibility. Some people like the new native one because it seems more integrated into the system. Other people preferred the functionality of the old one. Either choice you make, Palm is going to annoy and/or confuse one set of users.

In contrast, take a competing device like a RIM Blackberry- designed completely by RIM, core OS, hardware and software, and RIM hosts its own servers for messaging. Then, they offer the device to be sold through a carrier for service. The end result is a smooth and consistent interface because this single company was responsible for quality control the entire time. The same can be said for Apple.

Now, that doesn't mean Windows Mobile is doomed to be always be difficult, however it just means that you won't get that polished experience out of the box- you'll have to work for it. Thankfully, since WM is an open platform, there's no shortage of third party applications and customized UI tweaks that the end user could install to make their device work better for them. Once you've learned your way around the OS, you'll actually find it very efficient, powerful, and even surprisingly stable. The problem is that you shouldn't be expected to learn all this in the first place. Ultimately, the perfect OS would be one that is as open and powerful as Windows Mobile, but with the finesse and user-experience quality control of Apple's.

My hope for the future is that Windows Mobile 7 will introduce a platform that is more user friendly out of the box, leaving less that needs to be modified by third parties. It'll be difficult, but if MS plays its cards properly, it's possible. In this world of open-source startup mobile OSs and Apple's UI dominating the market, MS needs to find a way to do this.

Windows Mobile Must-Haves

2008-09-03T09:12:00.000-07:00

Every hard-core smartphone user has a list of applications that they wouldn't be caught dead without.
As a mobile enthusiast, I don't actually have such a mental list- I keep a directory of installation files on my storage card so that I can share my list with other enthusiasts that I meet from time to time.
The problem with this is that since any good list will change with the times (new apps come out, others become obsolete), my directory has become an awful mess.
So, I've decided its time to go over it and write up a quick list of what I consider essential for my Windows Mobile devices. Note that since I am currently using a "Professional Edition" device (aka, Pocket PC edition), many of these links are for touchscreen Pocket PC's only. Sorry, Standard (Smartphone) Edition users!

Perhaps some of you will find something new and useful here.
If you find anything essential to add to this list, please let me know!

TCPMP (+ Flash Video Bundle) - TCPMP (aka The Core Player Media Player) is the free, open-source predecessor of the commercial CorePlayer app. This relatively low-footprint app can play just about any audio/video format that you throw at it. The fact that it is open source means that people are always adding new formats and developments to it. My personal favorite is the Flash Video Bundle (linked to above), which acts as a Pocket IE plugin to recognize a link that contains embedded flash video (such as YouTube, GoogleVideo, Megavideo, etc) and gives you the option to play it in TCPMP. So, in other words this package enables your device to play divx, xvid, mpeg4, etc, as well as streaming web-based content. And its free. That puts it at the top of my list.
Quick Menu - A running application manager/enhanced start menu. Qmenu addresses one of the biggest problems plaguing WM devices- controlling and closing your running applications. Microsoft decided, whether they had good reason or not, to do away with the taskbar concept that desktop windows uses to show you what's open, and further complicated matters by making the X button minimize your program instead of closing it. This created an OS that is infuriatingly confusing to use out of the box, and I'm fairly certain this is one the biggest reasons people return WM devices after trying one out for the first time. Luckily, there are dozens of third party applications to give the user control over what is running, switch to different programs and close them when done. I found QMenu the best personally, because it places the running tasks on your start menu, so they are accessible from anywhere without taking up any space on your screen. It also takes over the X-button and changes its behavior (short press to close, long press to minimize, or vice versa, etc), gives you a cascading start menu (sometimes useful, but you can actually choose to have the old start menu come back when you prefer), and places some useful tools on its start menu such as bluetooth toggle, and memory hibernate command (run this to force apps to release any held memory when available RAM is low- VERY USEFUL!).
FtouchFlo - Finger scrolling throughout the entire OS. This is great for those that prefer the iPhone-style flick of the finger to scroll around the screen without having to tap and hold the scroll-bars. The problem with this, however, is that some apps offer finger scrolling of their own (such as google maps, opera, etc), and ftouchflo will need to be disabled to use those properly. Luckily, you can rather easily add programs to exclude from ftouchflo using Schap's Ftouch configuration tool.
MochaFTP - This is a real gem that many people are not aware of. It turns your device in to an FTP Server. Yeah, you heard me... a SERVER, not a client. I blogged about this one over here.
WMWiFiRouter - If you have a cellular data plan and your device supports WiFi, this nifty little app will turn your PDA into a portable WiFi router. Great for road warriors who want to connect their laptops, skype phones, PSP, or anything that supports peer-to-peer wifi networking. The latest 1.0+ verions of the application are commercial, however pre-1.0 versions work well and are available as freeware.
Opera Mini - The fastest desktop-view web browser there is currently- loads full scale web pages that you can zoom in and out of in a matter of seconds. How? With the help of a little server-side compression. In other words, when you request a page, Opera's servers render it first, then compress the result and send it to your phone where it is rendered the way you'd expect it to look on your desktop. This means even a 2G phone can offer an experience similiar to browsing on a desktop with adequate speed. I should just add that many who are concerned with privacy aren't fond of the server-side model, since your data is going to someone's third party server first. Personally, I find this browser too good to let pass- but maybe avoid using it for bank accounts, etc. NOTE: This program runs in a Java Environment, and needs a runtime such as Esmertec Jbed to run. If you don't have Java, and/or don't like the idea of server-side compression, there is also Opera Mobile, which is a native WM app, and is very nice. However, it is not free nor as fast.
Palringo - Instant Messaging, supports all the regulars (AIM, MSN, Jabber, Gtalk, Yahoo, ICQ, etc) in addition to offering their own voice client as sort of a Push-to-talk. Best feature? Insert a live pic taken with your phone's cam into an IM. Better than trying to describe something you're seeing in text...
MS Voice Command - A commercial voice recognition app that goes far beyond dialing contacts. Without any prior training, VC allows you to ask your phone to play music by artist name, for example. Or, you can ask it when your next appointment is, and it will read it to you, or allow you to launch any program in your start menu by name. Heck, you can even ask it what the time is if you're too lazy to check your watch and have your headset on. This is roughly the same technology MS developed for their new MS/Ford Sync that is coming with new Ford stereos in cars. The Problem: MS seems to have stopped selling the PPC version, although it is still being developed and comes built into the rom of very specific devices. You can still buy the older obsolete version for $40, however it has compatibility problems with newer handsets and does not work properly with Bluetooth. The updated versions which worlk FLAWLESSLY have been extracted from the few Windows Mobile devices that come with it (the HTC Diamond, for example), and spread around all over forums and blogs for free. However the fact that MS still sells the old version for $40 means the distribution of the newer extracted versions are questionably software piracy. Therefore, I prefer not to link to it, however a good Google search will probably find you what you are looking for. I seen some people who want a clear conscience buy the $40 version and install the extracted update. I recommend you do what you feel is right.

There are many, many more applications that I use on a regular basis (slide2play, skyfire, mapopolis, Total Commander, etc) however they are not "essential", and some of them are still in beta and not worth posting about until complete. I will try to update this list or add another list of Recommended (vs Essential) Apps in another post.

But before I finish this post, I would like to add one more thing that I consider essential however did not list with the others because it does not apply to everyone.
As a "good Jewish boy" (in addition to being a Mobile Enthusiast), having access to a digital Siddur (prayer book) and Chumash (Bible) for Windows Mobile are essential. These and much more Judaica are available for free from http://jewishcontent.org/. The software there is very simple, however, and actually requires you to install your own fonts for it work.
Thankfully, this is actually really easy- just find a unicode compatible font (I picked Arial), and copy it from your desktop windows/fonts dir into the windows/fonts dir of the Windows Mobile device. Then run the application. Done.

Have anything to add to my list? Leave a comment...

HTC Diamond and Touch Pro Dates Leaked

2008-08-31T19:40:00.000-07:00

I've held an HTC Diamond and played with it, in GSM form.
My initial reaction was that it was nice, but not amazing as I had hoped. Could be because it was a demo unit, but I'm wondering how the CDMA model will compare, what with all the rumors of various flavors being released on a multitude of CDMA carriers states-side.

Well, thankfully I won't have to wait too much longer- or rather, at least now I have a better idea how much longer I'll need to wait thanks to some supposed leaked internal Sprint documents.

As always, take these with a grain of salt, but it seems to be on par with many of the current release date rumors for Sprint.

More on this over at wmpoweruser.

New Instinct vs. Iphone 3G videos

2008-08-26T20:55:00.000-07:00

I gotta admit, I really enjoyed seeing Sprint's aggressive marketing of the Samsung Instinct, especially since it combined my two passions: Mobile tech and film making.

I'll be honest:
I'm not the biggest fan of the Instinct.
However, I do appreciate seeing someone else try to promote an iPhone competitor.

Do I expect the Instinct to be an "iphone-killer"? Not a chance.
Apple is a marketing machine, and they sure do know how to push that "reality distortion field" into making consumers believe this is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Just look at how much carriers in other countries are charging for the 3G. But, I don't believe the iPhone deserves the pedestal it has been placed on, and so I appreciate seeing others take a stab at it.

The stuff that really made me chuckle was Sprint's Instinct vs. iPhone ads made at the new Samsung's launch.
At the time, they showed the Instinct up against the original iPhone (2G), with such examples as:

Showing the Instinct finish loading a page while the iPhone continues to chug along at what appears to be excruciating Edge speed.
Showing location based services on the GPS enabled Instinct while the iPhone showed you "somewhere in this ginormous circle" with triangulation and Google Maps.
Downloading music over the air with the Sprint store, vs iPhone requiring WiFi to access iTunes

All these videos were well made and perfectly executed with movie narrator voices and witty body language by the fingers demonstrating.

However, now that the iPhone 3G is out, which introduced GPS and 3G, they had to pull some of their older ads.

Thankfully, they managed to cook up some fresh new ones.
These include some stuff STILL not fixed in the new iPhone, such as replacing a battery, turn-by-turn GPS routing, and some network comparison stuff showing 3G coverage (which Sprint has plenty of) and a features/price comparison with the plans.

In any event, its worth checking out these videos, even if you LIKE the iPhone. They're pretty funny.

Follow the link:
http://www.instinctthephone.com/?dl=video/vs

T-Mobile 3G - Compatibility?

2008-08-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned recently here, T-mobile USA is FINALLY rolling out 3G in 27 cities by Oct 1 of this year, just shy of that 2009 prediction.

But before you start fantasizing about unlocking that iPhone 3G, Nokia E71 or Blackberry Bold, I forgot to mention its not compatible with other 3G networks. That's right, you heard me.

Yep, since T-Mobile had to buy that unused 1700mhz spectrum from the FCC to make 3G happen, it will be working on frequencies completely different from AT&T, which in turn are completely different from GSM elsewhere in the world.
Anyone who's ever bought unlocked phones is already familiar with the difference between Europe's 3G UMTS vs. United States versions of the phones.

But now, you'll also need to consider special T-Mobile USA edition phones if you want 3G. There are 3 primary versions of GSM 3G: UMTS 3G for the rest of the world, and 850/1900 AT&T or 1700Mhz T-Mobile USA. This is going to make handset purchases very difficult, and further complicated one of the greatest benefits of GSM: compatible portability.

I'm not the biggest fan of CDMA, but at least their network technology is far less confusing!

Sprint HTC Diamond (Victor)- RED?

2008-08-15T07:40:00.001-07:00

Back in June, some blurry photos were released online of the new Sprint Diamond (or HTC Victor).
Than, in July, this same user (ksemt7781) posted:

"To answer one question I saw come up in the forums, The back of the diamond is burgandy and ruberized like the palm 755 was. "

Interesting- With the exception of the metallic-blue T-Mobile Wing, you don't normally see HTC devices branded in colors off the gray-scale spectrum. But, since these were all rumors from an as-of-yet unverified source, there's no reason to really believe any of this...

Until now, anyway. Over at SprintUsers.com, a user has posted a photo gallery of what appears to be a Sprint branded HTC Diamind, with Victor-style curves and... a "burgundy" back.

There is no connection between this and the previous PPCgeeks.com user as far as we can tell, so its possible that these are two independant sources pointing to the same thing- the red Spring Diamond is real.

Its also possible, as engadget.com speculated, this is an elaborate photoshop job.

I think this is the real deal, personally. What I'm wondering is, will only the Sprint one be red, and is Telus really going to get this first?

T-mobile USA: Officially the last major network in US for 3G

2008-08-06T09:44:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, I loved T-mobile.

In fact around the start of this blog, actually.

This was not without good reason- T-Mobile may be struggling now, but they used to be the TOP of their game when it came to wireless data not too long ago.
Now, they are officially the last major network to roll out 3G data service.

Oh, the irony.

Just after the turn of the century, when Deutsch Telecom bought out VoiceStream to create T-mobile USA, the country was introduced to many new exciting data services and devices.
T-mobile USA had an advantage over the other new budding GSM networks because T-Mobile in Europe was already one of the leading wireless providers in the world, and brought some of that experience to the States along with mass-produced GSM phones.
The end result was T-mobile was the first to offer many bleeding edge data handsets, such as the first Blackberry with integrated voice (Blackberry 5810), the first Pocket PC Phone (XDA), and Danger's HipTop (Sidekick).

But, it seemed T-mobile was more interested in flashing their new handsets than improving their network. Meanwhile, GSM competitors AT&T and Cingular were slowly gaining subscribers by adding towers and rolling out their faster data networks.
By the time T-Mobile said they were rolling out EDGE (2.5G) data services, Cingular and AT&T had combined into one company, and had already announced their 3G network plans.
Meanwhile, CDMA providers Verizon and Sprint had already had their EVDO 3G network running. Somehow in the mix of things, T-mobile had fallen to the bottom of the pack.

T-mobile was my service of choice for many years; they had an open network design that allowed 3rd party handsets, super competitive data pricing, and always treated me well as a customer. I almost felt bad leaving them, as if I'm somehow cheating on a loved one. But, in the summer of 2007 when I heard that T-mobile's plans for 3G might take them into 2009 before full rollout, I decided it was time to jump ship. EVERYONE had 3G by then, except T-mobile USA. It was time to give up.

I'm now with Sprint, who has excellent 3G coverage.
Now, I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that Sprint is the best network out there, however I have 3G in places AT&T does not, and although Sprint has its infamous customer service snafoos, I've been thoroughly impressed by their network services.
Between their competitive services and pricing, and the fact that they've been in talks about 4G WiMax (Xohm) for a while already, I've never looked back to T-mobile since making the move.

T-mobile has recently announced it is rolling out 3G by Oct 1 in 27 major cities. While its good to see that they're going to make it 3 months shy of the 2009 prediction, its very possible it will be well into 2009 before a more national rollout is complete.

Once upon a time, I would have been ecstatic to see this news. Now, I can only sigh and feel bad for all those still stuck with the big pink T. I'm really, really, glad I left. *sigh*

More new HTC handset news...

2008-08-05T11:28:00.000-07:00

According to this engadget post, there is now some more evidence to point to my theory of the HTC Diamond coming to CDMA will in fact be the HTC Victor, and the Diamond Pro most likely the HTC Herman.

In my last post, I mentioned that Telus seems to be getting the phone first, however an article from the China Post has mentioned that Sprint should be getting the new HTC phone some time in August- which we are already in!
Telus has been advertising the phone for some time already, but who will get it first?
It's still entirely possible that the China Post published a typo, since all evidence until now pointed to a Telus release first.
Meanwhile, I had pointed out that pictures on the Telus site indicate the Victor version (curved corners, non-angled back) as opposed to the sharp corners and oddly angled back of the GSM Diamond.

In fact, a leaked picture of the supposed HTC Diamond with Sprint branding has emerged and has been circulating the internet (see image on right).

Note the curved bottom on this handset- that's one of the telltale signs that this is a Victor-styled device, and not the original GSM Diamond style.

So, it would appear that all hands are pointing to the sleek and professional-looking Victor/Herman style handsets in store for the new bread of HTC north-american CDMA market.

Now, that doesnt mean that all cdma diamond-class devices will look the same- according to the engadget post linked above (as well as the phone arena article it sources), the Verizon version of the Diamond will be different from the rest of the pack.

Sporting a stainless steel case and "wimpier" specs (less CPU mhz and memory), the Verizon Diamond will likely look very different. At this point details are still scarce, but the VZ version may look more like the GSM Diamond in all its angled glory (or lack thereof)... We shall see.
Predictions anyone?

HTC Diamond is coming... to TELUS first? And its a VICTOR?!

2008-07-28T12:19:00.000-07:00

The HTC Diamond, one of the most talked about Windows Mobile handsets currently, is finally making its CDMA debut under carrier branding here in North America.

However, its not coming first to Sprint (as many of us hoped/thought), or even to the US for that matter... No, the first CDMA Touch Diamond will make its debut in Canada, on the Telus network.

Rumors that Telus might get it first have been circulating for a while now, however they appear to be confirmed as it appears on the Telus website as an upcoming handset!

In case you haven't seen or used an original HTC Diamond, it sports a thin body style with a glossy finish, flat sides and sharp edges. To finish off this angular design, the back of the Diamond has a rather odd array of triangle/diamond-ish shaped angles, apparently to promote its namesake:
I'll be honest, when I first saw this design, I didn't much care for it. I was excited at the specs (VGA screen, beefed up CPU & memory, touchflo 3d, motion sensors...), however less excited about the actual look, even when I held one in my hands.
It felt like they are trying too hard to be something new and different with the hard angles and backside (my guess is they were afraid some might say it looks too similar to an iPhone... *gasp*).

I rather liked the older HTC Touch minimalist design, with its rubberized surface and easy-on-the-eyes curves (If I didn't feel I need hardware buttons so badly, I would probably use one), and I would have preferred something a bit less, well... loud.

In steps the HTC Victor.
This oddly named device has the same hardware and specs as the Diamond, however with softer curves and a more simple surface.

If I had to pick between the two, I'd rather have the Victor version than the original GSM Diamond.

The Victor was an odd announcement, however. It got very little press coverage, and it seems no one said much about it at all.

Rumors began to emerge that the state-side CDMA version of the Diamond and its slide out keyboard-toting Diamond Pro (HTC Raphael) would actually be the HTC Victor and the HTC Herman, respectively.
(I'm not making those names up, but I sure do hope they have a darned good reason to call a phone the Herman!)

In any event, after some pictures of the new Telus Diamond, I was pleasantly surprised to see some very similar curves to the Victor. (see pic on the left)

Looks like they figured the North American demographic would be more interested in the classic and elegant Victor design rather than the angled and odd-backed GSM Diamond that is doing so well in Europe. I think they're right.

I haven't yet seen any shots of the back of the device, but here's to hoping it really is the HTC Victor. The front clearly looks like it.

There's still a chance it will look different once it hits Sprint/Verizon (the Titan has a color difference from Telus to the Sprint Mogul version, and the Mogul and Verizon xv6800 look totally different), but I'm excited to see there's a chance we'll get "the good one"!

I'm curious- does anyone think the GSM version with the angled back looks better?

Mobile ME doesn't work?

2008-07-21T10:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, so there's marketing hype, and then there' s lying.
Apple claimed its new MobileMe service is supposed to be a push email and information sync for consumers as an alternative to an Exchange Server.
Any Windows Mobile user will tell you that they'd love to be able to get push email without an Exchange Server, however some sort of server is needed to make all this "push stuff" work (much like a Blackberry needs BES to push).
Thankfully, there are alternatives to Exchange Servers (such as funambol), and I'm always on the lookout for others. This is initially why I was interested in hearing more about MobileMe and how it works.

Apparently, with version 2.0, Apple recognized the only way to target the Blackberry, WinMobile and SideKick users was to include push email and OTA real-time information sync. For the corporate users, the iPhone now supports Exchange Sync in real time via Activesync, which is a good move on their part.
But for the rest of consumer America who don't have access to their own Exchange Server, Apple offers Mobile Me.

Only, you don't get your own email address... you have to use a .mac address. Oh, and its not actually Push.

Huh?

Yeah, according to this writeup by Fabrizio Capobianco on his Mobile Open Source blog, the MobileMe system claims to be push, but actually works on intervals.

Wow. Did Apple lie?

Follow the Link for more info.

Treo 800w mini review

2008-07-16T08:20:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned earlier, Palm just released its latest Treo device- the 800w.

The W means its a Windows Mobile OS device as opposed to the Palm OS. Its an interesting move that their only new handset with the "Treo" branding is running WM.

Palm appears to be rethinking its handset strategy: the sleek new Centro running Palm OS is being marketed towards younger audiences, while devices with the name "Treo" are more full-featured devices for working professionals (or gotta-have-it geeks).

While its smaller and lighter than previous Treo models, the 800w unfortunately appears not as thin and sleek as the Centro handsets. It does however includes much more hardware: a WiFi radio, aGPS receiver capable of stand-alone mode, and more memory and CPU power than any previous Palm device, yet it's still trying to mimic the Centro's styling and button layout.

Sounds like a nice package to me. Here's what we've found after a day with the device:

Design
A classic Treo layout, the 800w is a square-shaped screen atop a full Qwerty keyboard. Now, I'll be honest, I never cared much for this design in the past. My philosophy has always been that if you need a device this big, at least use the real estate for a large display and hide the 30+ keys away when not in use (My personal favorite smartphones looked like regular phones, actually). I've had the same complaint with Blackberry devices as well. However, I know some people prefer this layout for one-handed use, so to each their own. Still, it'd be nice to see Palm do something different once in a while.

Back to the 800, it's noticeably lighter than the 700w, and appears to have solid build quality.
The keyboard is slightly different than the older model as well- buttons are a little less raised and the keys a little closer together - but it's still easy enough to use and works well for one handed operation.
The stylus, however, has a very cheap feel to it. It's plastic and flimsy, especially when compared to the one that came with the 700w. Again, I'm sure there will be replacements available but Palm should have included a better one.

Function
Call quality seems fine, no complaints so far.
Screen resolution is once again a non-standard square of pixels (instead of the QVGA standard). However, with WM6.1, Palm managed to squeeze out a higher res 320x320 instead of the older 240x240. The result is very nice.
Lag in navigating menus is much improved over the 700w, as is the camera quality (although the pictures still leave a bit to be desired).
Voice dialing over BT works out of the box, although I have not used it a lot yet.
The GPS adds a nice touch and works well, and searches made from the today screen panel are very easy to use to find places or businesses nearby.
Data speed was average for a smartphone in my area. Using the 1MB test on dslreports, I got 832 kbit/sec. This is in an area with great reception, but no Rev. A yet.

Potential Problems
Battery life is clearly going to be an issue. The 700 came with 1800mAh battery, the 800 with an 1150mAh. Extended batteries are available, but it's a little disappointing that they included such a small one. Its too early to tell what average use it like, but I'm not crossing my fingers.
At least they allow swappable spare batteries, unlike certain "other" phone manufacturers... *cough* APPLE *cough*

All in all, its a solid offering. Personally its not my style, but I do admit that its the most compelling Treo I've seen to date.

The question is, will this be enough to save Palm?

(Special shoutout and thanks to Y. Haas for supplying a device and his opinions)

Android working on HTC Titan!

2008-07-15T14:05:00.000-07:00

I already mentioned this over at Mopocket, but I'm excited enough that I'm writing about it here too...

The big brains over at XDA-Developers and PPC Geeks have been working on ways to port leaked versions of Android to current HTC phones. They've been doing some pretty amazing things so far, but due to technical reasons, it required a lot of RAM to boot.

More specifically, this "hack" required the OS to load from RAM over Windows Mobile, since it needs the hardware drivers.

This is fine for devices with 128+MB of ram, that give you plenty of space to load into even after Windows boots. However for devices like my trusty Sprint Mogul (HTC Titan) with only 64MB, this was filed under "not possible".

But some PPCGeeks forum members (l33tlinuxh4×0r and dzo) have managed to get it to boot and be functional despite the limited RAM.

“Android boots, The touch screen works. You can make phone calls. You can browse the internet.

This will NOT mess up your phone. It runs from ram and there are no permanent changes.”

(Copied from original thread here)

The needed files and instructions to make this work can be found here.

COOL!

Now to try some of the community Android projects such as Funambol...

Palm Clinging to Life with the Treo 800w?

2008-07-14T10:28:00.001-07:00

Palm.

The classic "we used to be giants" story. Once upon a time, Palm was the undisputed king in the mobile computing market, in both hardware and software.

They showed the world that touch screen handhelds were not limited to science fiction, and enjoyed their status despite the often more powerful alternatives that hit the market.
That was all before they made some rather, well, nearly fatal business moves in the last few years.

The first big mistake, in my opinion, was their lack of OS development.
After no major advances were made in the OS department, people started looking elsewhere- When the the color Palm IIIc came out, sporting its 8-bit palatte of 256 colors and simple beep-tone generated alarms, Windows Mobile already had high-end multimedia and digital music features, supported full 16-bit (32k+) colors, could multi-task and gave developers to power to create high end applications like VoIP.

When Palm realized they were falling behind, they desperately tried to keep the OS and their hardware caught up, although they always seemed to be just one step behind.
Nevertheless, fearless fanboys stood by them, hoping the next Palm announcement would place them on top once again.

Then there was the Palm Folio. Possibly the biggest disappointment in the history of mobile computing. The fanboys started to dissipate, and Palm was quickly loosing their status.

However, even before they dropped the Folio, Palm started embracing Windows Mobile, a move that shocked many fans and non-fans alike. Oh the irony!
Little known fact: Many of the behaviors considered odd of Windows Mobile are because MS made their interface less desktop-like and more simplistic, in an effort to mimic the success of the non-multitasking Palm OS. Windows CE (which looked remarkably similar to Windows 95/98) was not received as well as they had hoped. Later becoming Pocket PC and finally changing names to Windows Mobile, the lack of taskbar and misunderstood X button are still in use today because of the influence Palm had on the market.

The move led many to thinking-
Does this mark the end of Palm? Are they now to fall back and join the ranks of HTC and other manufacturers who simply develop hardware and license an OS from Microsoft? With so many manufacturers who sell Windows Mobile (Samsung, Motorola, HP, etc), will that even be enough to save them?

Just when we thought Palm was going to disappear, they released the Palm OS Centro. The Centro was geared at a younger crowd, with fun colors and a slick new design (especially when compared to the bland older, bulkier Treos), and a cheap $99 price tag.

At that price, you could buy a smartphone for about the same price as a middle class feature phone.
The Centro became wildly popular with the young crowd, thus breathing at least a bit of new life into an otherwise dying platform. With the release of the iPhone, however, there was only so much of the younger demographic to share.
Sure, Palm isn't down for the count yet, but the Centro alone probably wouldn't be enough to keep them going.

Enter the Treo 800w.
The Treo 800w is designed as a high-end smartphone device, trying to gear towards power-users / corporate business.
They packed just about as many new features as they possibly could while still trying to look more like the Centro in style than the older brick-shaped Treos.

Its got Windows Mobile 6.1, WiFi, GPS, EVDO Rev. A (like the Centro, it's released as CDMA on Sprint first), 128 Mb of Ram, and some special UI customizations to make the whole thing run all shiny.

I'll be honest, I haven't been the biggest fan of Palm's Treo line, but this is the first of their devices that interests me personally. I'm still not a fan of always-there-Qwerty devices with tiny keys, but if I had to get one this would be my choice.

The question is, will this be enough to save Palm?
My opinion is that hardware developers are going to have some good times soon- Open Source systems such as Symbian, Android, and LinuxMobile are all the talk now, and any manufacturer can release any number of devices with their choice of these platforms royalty free. If Palm can stay afloat long enough for this new wave of device to become a reality, then perhaps they can survive as a hardware manufacturer alone.

I'm curious to hear what others think...

Happy iPhone day!

2008-07-10T09:04:00.001-07:00

Well, love it or hate it, today is a big day for Apple fans.

The new 3G iPhone is released, which takes care of the top item on the complaint list from the original iPhone, AND firmware 2.0 is release, effectively classifying the iPhone as a smartphone.

Yes, the iPhone now officially supports third party software, albeit via Apple's iTunes store (so it still needs to be sanctioned by Apple, not a totally "open" system- but a start).
That takes care of my biggest complaint with them, and while its still not my platform of choice (by a longshot), I recognize it in the ranks of Smartphones everywhere.
Its graduation day, folks.

I therefore have decided to call today iPhone day.
Seriously, lets see if we can get this name to stick. Who's with me? Spread it!

Thoughts regarding Apple's 3G phone

2008-07-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

Well, I've successfully avoided the subject of the new 3G iPhone so far. Most of the folks who read this already know I'm not the biggest iPhone fan, and unless you've been living under a rock, chances are you already know everything about the new one.

I did have a conversation with some other Mobile Technology enthusiasts recently, and felt like sharing a thought I had.

The original iPhone had many pros and cons, the cons usually involving missing features considered "standard" on most phones, especially ones at this price point.

An editorial column on Forbes.com has posted a bluntly truthful writeup about all things wrong with the new iPhone, and it basically reads as a list of things that are still not fixed from the original.

Some of the items that many of us will recognize are:

No support for Video recording

No support for MMS

No support for Stereo Bluetooth (the quintessential music phone doesn't have this?!)

Non-removable battery

Lack of expandable storage

Lack of any kind of Voice Command (Can anyone recommend a touch screen while driving?)

That top of that list used to be 3G. It looks like they addressed that biggest complaint with a new model, but what about the rest of these features? Most of them can already be found on phones that come free with a new plan, so how can Apple have overlooked them?

People used to say that these are all things Apple will fix in the next version, and I'm still hearing that now.
The problem is, this IS the next version! They've only addressed ONE complaint.

To me, this looks like the work of a sinister (if not brilliant) marketing strategy. Look how many people bought the iPhone at its full price despite the fact that it lacked the 3G that was already standard for high end phones.
Now, look at how many people are going ga-ga over the NEW 3G model, and are willing to drop all that money again.

What if a year from now, we see Apple saying "You want expandable storage? Here's a NEW iphone! Come spend your money AGAIN!" and then a year after that "The first iPhone with video recording capability! Come, sign a new contract!".

I'm interested in hearing what you all think. Is this part of a brilliantly deceiving Apple marketing strategy, or did they have some other reason to leave out those features? Or do you think Apple didn't do it on purpose at all, and it was merely an oversight?

HTC @ Digital Experience!

2008-06-27T08:41:00.000-07:00

*For those that weren't aware, mopocket.com has recently asked me join their team. I'll still be posting more of my personal opinions and more technical thoughts here, but much of my writing will be posted in both places. So, in case you see an identical article under someone named "Mordy" over there, yes... it's THAT Mordy.
---------

Thanks to my recent connections with MoPocket.com and its creator Justin Oberman, I was invited to attend the "Digital Experience!" technology showcase in NYC this past week.

I was particularly excited to hear that HTC was showcasing some of their new handsets at this event, especially since the “underground” Pocket PC community has already aquired the unreleased rom for the new cdma Diamond and extracted the software. I was playing with some of the unreleased apps on my handset, and I wondered what HTC would think of that if I showed them...

So, the day of the event I flashed my phone with the latest "bleeding edge" firmware (at the time, the rom I chose was no2chem's 5069k from PPCgeeks.com), expecting to wow the HTC reps with what the underground development community has done with their hardware.
Instead of shocking the HTC reps, however, I was thrown off guard by actually recognizing the rep behind the table- It was Eric Lin of Phonescoop review fame.

I've actually seen Eric's mug on many youtube phone reviews, sometimes posting my own counter-video to comment on something he said. I wasn't exactly expecting to meet this guy in real life, much less find out he now works for HTC!

A sample phone scoop video with Eric, maybe some of you recognize him:

Eric knows his phones, but since he's only been with HTC about 6 months, he didn't seem to be able to offer much more than the normal "scripted/canned" answers that I knew and expected to my questions. In fact, when I pointed to the Sprint Mogul on display and called it the Titan, he wasn't familiar with the name.
For those that don't know, HTC creates OEM devices that get repackaged under various names and outer guises, yet are often the same phone under the hood. For example, the Sprint Mogul, Verizon VX6800 and P4000 are all really the HTC Titan, only resold with different names and often modified outer casing. The development communities tend to call devices by their internal HTC name since its the easiest way to keep track.
At first he thought I meant the Tilt on display, offering to correct me in calling it the Kaiser, or TytnII, sucessor of the original HTC Tytn.
Being the mobile enthusiast that I am, however, I pointed out that yes, the Tytn is an older GSM device, but the Titan is a current CDMA phone, closer to the Kaiser in generational hardware, although often confused with the Tytn due to name similarity.
HTC devices get rebranded all over the market, so its not surprising that people get them confused or that even HTC employees can't keep track. But I would have thought they'd know their own internal names of hardware.
But enough about Eric, he's a great guy and I hope to bump into him again soon.

Meanwhile, I got to play with the REAL HTC Diamond instead of just using parts of its software on my device. I gotta say, its pretty. If you're a Windows Mobile fan, you've already heard about its new touchflo3D eye candy, fabulous VGA (640x480) screen, touch-scrolling d-pad which can be used as zoom controls, and gyroscopic level sensors (which apple calls "accelerometers") that not only detect orientation, but can be used to play a nifty little virtual labrynth-style marble game, where you tilt the phone to navigate a marble with simulated gravity. That's cool.
The phone is actually smaller than it seems in pictures, has a nice glossy finish, and a crisp screen.

However my personal opinion is that the HTC Diamond seemed to lag a bit in its responsiveness. Sure, it was pretty and full of eye candy, but it wasn't as smooth and quick as I would have hoped, in fact the Sprint HTC Touch next to it seemed to be faster despite being previous-generation hardware.
Now, in defense of this device, it WAS a demo unit, and it appeared that someone had already loaded up a pop3 email address with over 200 new emails waiting. Floor models always get a bit abused, so its possible (especially with Windows Mobile) that the lag and slow downs were caused by someone messing around a bit.

I would like to share one more thing that Eric told me. Before I moved on to see more of the show, I asked him about the HTC Dream and the conceptual Android devices.
He wasn't allowed to share much information with me, but he did tell me that he played with one, and that it WAS in fact very cool. He seemed pretty enthusiastic about that, so here's to hoping HTC cranks out a real winner when Android launches...

For more of my take on the Digital Experience! show, check for an entry on Mopocket.com this coming week.

What makes a smartphone “smart”?

2008-06-16T08:16:00.000-07:00

(The following is a copy of something I wrote for another blog. -Mordy)

What makes a Smartphone "smart"?

The term Smartphone is thrown around a lot in current marketing, but how many people can actually peg a definition to it?
Personally, coming from a background in Windows CE development, I usually hear the term Smartphone to refer to the following:

A low-profile Windows Mobile device that incorporates a phone module and does not include a touch screen.

These devices, which originally resembled standard phones with numeric keypads (such as the HTC Tornado, HTC StarTrek, and Motorola MPX200) ran an OS Microsoft called Smartphone Edition, which was optimized for key navigation as opposed to touch screen input. They were for people who wanted a “phone first, and a PDA second”, or rather a PDA that looked and operated like a phone.
Microsoft’s full blown touch screen handsets that resembled a PDA were referred to as Pocket PC Phone Edition in contrast.
(I say this in past tense because MS decided recently not to call them Smartphone and Pocket PC Phone anymore. They are now Standard Edition and Professional Edition, respectively)

On the other side of the playing field, however, Palm refers to their Treo line of handsets as “Smartphones”, despite the fact that they all have touch screens and look like PDAs, including even their wx models (which run Microsoft’s Windows Mobile)!

Clearly Microsoft’s definition of a Smartphone is not shared by the rest of the industry.

So, perhaps a Smartphone refers to the marriage of a well known PDA (such as Palm or Windows Mobile) with phone components?

Most people in the market for a “Smartphone” want to be able to replace their tried-and-true PDA and phone with one device. So, perhaps the term refers to a familiar PDA Operating System merged with a phone?

This can’t be the case since there are many devices on the market called Smartphone, many of which are not running Palm or WM.
Nokia, who offers a wide variety of handsets for various markets, calls their high end phones running the open Symbian OS Smartphone. The belief is that the term actually originated from their Communicator line of handsets, which was marketed as being “a Smart Phone”, since it offered smarter features than the rest of their handsets at the time.
Nokia’s Symbian handsets, which run on non-touch screen devices that resemble phones, seem to agree with Microsoft’s definition of the term. They are phones that look and work like phones, however underneath the hood they have the power of a full blown portable operating system.

To complicate matters, you must also consider Sony Ericsson with their P900 series of phones that runs Symbian… but with a touch screen!
These SE devices are also called “Smartphone”, despite looking like a full blown touch-screen PDA.
Clearly the definition needs to be less specific.

Perhaps a Smartphone refers simply to a phone with PDA features?

That may have been in the case in the late 90’s, when phones that carried the title Smartphone clearly had features which differed radically from standard features phones of their time. The problem now, is that most modern phones have PDA features.
I used to sync my Sony Ericsson T610 with my outlook calendar and contacts, send and receive email, and browse the mobile web as well as play games. The T610 was a fairly standard feature phone in Sony Ericsson’s lineup, yet only the P900 series was worthy of the term “Smartphone”.
Same story with Nokia phones, with some of their low-end s40 handsets offering roughly the same set of features out of the box as their Symbian counterparts.
So what, in the eyes of Nokia and SE, is the difference between devices labeled “smart” vs. the others?
Perhaps a Smartphone refers to a phone with an Operating System that allows third party development?
This is the definition that always made the most sense to me, and the one I used to live by.
A standard feature phone has a limited set of features that it can do out of box (for example: music player, calendar, contacts, java games, email, etc).
A Smartphone is a phone with an open architecture OS, which allows third party applications to add new features or even change the very user interface. These devices can grow and evolve with the user’s needs, therefore it makes sense to call a phone that can learn new tricks “Smart“, or at least smarter than the average handset.

But don’t all phones these days allow you to download and install little programs?

Yes, average phones such as even the Motorola Razr can have some degree of third party development, in the form of Java applications installed that add new features. The difference is that they run in what is referred to as a “java sandbox”, that is, it has to play within the confines of the limited control Java gives the developer. The Java environment does not allow the feature-altering power that a real development API offers.
You don’t get access to the hardware features within Java, instead you get a limited set of commands such as drawing graphics on the screen, playing tones, interpreting keys, etc…
The result is that simple applications that can run inside the sandbox, such as games or shopping list calculators, are available but you can’t change the user experience of the phone (for example, a new voice command to control how you dial contacts) or develop code that takes control of the hardware (for example a VOIP application like Skype).

Although this definition makes the most sense to me, sadly, it doesn’t fit with all the devices currently being marketed as a Smartphone.

RIM’s Blackberry, the LG Instict, and the first edition iPhone (before being opened up with the new SDK) were all touted as “Smartphone” even though the development support was severely limited, if existent at all.

So, then perhaps the definition of a Smartphone is simply a phone that has high-end computer like features (email, html web browsing, etc)?

The problem with this is that most of those “Smart” features are now available on even standard fare phones!

Applications such as Opera Mini, which despite running inside the Java sandbox, can be installed on almost any standard device supporting Java, and manages to deliver full blown html web pages on any size screen. In fact, many users claim that Opera Mini is better than the browser that comes with their Smartphone.

Then there’s Funambol, an open source startup that focuses on data synchronization across any platform and device. So you can synchronize your PIM with your home computer, office computer, and many common phones. It even has a system to support Push email on almost any device, something the Blackberry is famous for.

If Blackberry style email and iPhone style web browsing are what make those phones “Smart”, then all current phones can be considered Smartphones!

Sadly, the conclusion is that there is no industry standard definition of a Smartphone.

The term appears to have changed with the times, and is now sadly lost to marketing jargon. Whereas once upon a time “Smartphone” implied certain features, now you can have two phones with identical features yet only one is marketed as a “smart” device.

If I wrote the book on the mobile industry, I’d have clearer suggestions for device titles:

Smartphone: A phone device that has an open platform Operating System that allows full development to create and change the software, similar to a full blown mini computer. Examples: Palm Treo, HTC’s WM lineup, OpenMoko, Symbian OS, and the upcoming Google Android.

Advanced MultiMedia Phone: A platform that offers glitz and glam high end features, especially multimedia, while not offering the full flexibility of a Smartphone. Examples: iPhone, LG Voyager, etc.

Portable Internet Messaging Device: Devices that offer smart features such as web browsing, push email, and other business class capabilities. Examples: RIM Blackberry.

I think that would solve a lot of the confusion, such as “Why can’t my blackberry run skype like that WM phone” or “how come the iPhone doesn’t have a keyboard?”.

Sadly, for now we’ll just have to make our own definitions.

MochaFTP - Another Windows Mobile "GOTTA HAVE IT" App!

2008-05-13T10:02:00.000-07:00

Or, how to drag and drop files to your Windows Mobile phone without wires!

Every now and then, an application will catch my eye that is so unique and useful that I just have to write about it.
Unlike some other apps I've spoken about in this blog, MochaFTP is not new software. In fact, I'm always surprised when people haven't heard about it since it dates back to at least the days of Windows Mobile 2003, and perhaps even the Pocket PC days of yore.

But aren't there already plenty of FTP clients on Windows Mobile?

Yes, but MochaFTP isn't a client.

Its a SERVER.

This little program will create an FTP server out of your handset that will allow any computer with an internet connection to send and receive to.

The interface is very simple. Run the application, and it will display a status screen with your current IP address, data meters, and details of the current activity.
(See screenshot to the right)

By default, anonymous login is enabled. You can set permissions and additional Usernames/Passwords by poking around in the File menu.

Once you've given yourself a Username and Password for Read/Write access, go over to any computer and enter the IP address of your handset into any FTP client, or even Windows Explorer if you don't have an FTP client that you prefer (remember, the syntax is ftp://username:password@yourIPaddress if using explorer).

(The Pic above may have been squeezed to fit into the layout space. On a Windows PC, you can right click and select "view image" to see the original)

You can then browse your entire directory structure remotely, and drag/drop files as you please.

So is this similar to USB Mass Storage device applications such as Card Export or Wm5torage?

Actually, it has quite a few advantages over the USB Mass Storage apps.
For starters, those apps usually only give you the Storage Card, whereas this gives you the entire directory structure, internal memory, Extended Rom, etc.
Also, obviously you don't need to physically attach a cable to connect to a PC since its all over the air using your data connection.
It will, however, be somewhat slower than using USB, and this will become more noticeable if transferring large files on slow data networks and/or if your device supports USB 2.0. However, for smaller files such as pics and documents, this is a fantastic solution.

Is it Expensive?
Actually, its free.
It used to be commercial software, but the author has declared it freeware, and provides the registration code on his website.

What are you waiting for? Go get it!
http://www.mochasoft.dk/freeware/ftpd.htm

SofCon 2008 - The Mobile Future

2008-04-29T10:00:00.000-07:00

Being the predictable Mobile Addict that I am, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to attend the SofCon 2008 convention in Santa Clara, California.

The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the future of Mobile Technology, and the panels of speakers were chosen for their relative expertise in this field.

Many of the panelists were celebrities in the Communication world, such as former Chief Technologist for the FCC Dave Farber, and Senior VP of Nokia Bob Iannucci.

The topics were interesting, the speakers often colorful, however the real fun began when the floor was opened up for questions and the panelists got to talk to each other.

I have to admit, there was a LOT I wanted to say at this event. Sometimes I felt that the information being discussed was flawed, sometimes the panelist didn't understand the question, and sometimes I feel that the panelist was just plain not up to date. However, while the floor was open to questions, it was NOT open to comments. One person tried to make a comment during one of the Q&A sessions, but was met with an almost rude "Do you actually have a question?" before he could finish his statement.
I found myself whispering comments to the person next to me, but was often shushed by others sitting around us. There were so many things I would have liked to have added, but had to keep it inside.

Well, that is at least until now. Isn't that the beauty of blogging? I get to decide what is allowed to say here. So, I'd like to share with you some of the highlights of this event, and perhaps some of my own opinions on it as well.

Apple Fanboys/Girls

At first I found myself presented with an abundance of iPhone fans. Most of the talking seemed to be about how Apple revolutionized the industry with its technical prowess and industry changing innovation.
I'll admit, the iPhone did break all kinds of new ground, but I wouldn't say because of technical prowess. Rather, the iPhone is as news-worthy as it is because of the way Apple has become such an aggressive marketing machine. They continue to convince people that nothing like this has been done before, and that everything to come out after this point is just a carbon copy of their concepts.
As someone who follows the industry, it bothers me immensely when people actually buy into that hype.

Madeline Duva, who is the president of 3rd Eye Consulting and a panelist at this event, mentioned that the iPhone caused more people to use the mobile internet today then ever before, and also caused the carriers to introduce flat-rate data plans, which apparently barely existed before its introduction according to her.

During the following Q&A session, someone asked why the iPhone isn't as popular in Europe as it is here in the states.
She answered "because of the lack of 3G networks here". Overseas, she says, 3G is almost everywhere, whereas here in the US we're just starting to see 3G data populate. So, if you've been using 3G data in Europe, a 2G iPhone isn't as attractive as it is here.

At this point I found myself digging my fingernails into the tabletop. Sitting in the front row, at least I was able to make eye contact and cast her an glaring look. I think she may have noticed.
But a glare alone could not possibly convey what I wished to share.

Mrs. Duva, I don't even know where to begin. I'll start with this, though:
1) Apple did not cause more flat rate data plans to emerge. Flat rate data plans have been around in the US for nearly as long as the mobile web has been. I know because I've had data from almost every carrier, and always had an affordable flat rate option. Almost a decade ago, even AT&T, who carries the iPhone, gave me a flat rate data plan for my Ericsson TDMA phone. In fact, I've NEVER had a metered data plan for as long as I've been using data in the United States.
Europe, on the other hand, seems to be too squeamish to allow many unlimited data plans. The reason for this, in my opinion, is that people will actually use them more there. Most Americans are pretty clueless when it comes to mobile phone tech, and I'm going to go out on a limb and say that THAT's why the iPhone is popular here.
Apple targetted people who didn't know how to use Symbian, or found Palm and Windows Mobile OS to be too complicated. I feel like in Europe and the rest of the world, people aren't afraid to use a "real" smartphone, and thus there is very little appeal for the iPhone since it is severely limited in comparison.

2) 3G is alive and well in the US. In fact, the 2nd generation of 3G is already being rolled out, and 4G (WiMax?) is already in the works.
I left T-mobile this past year because they seemed to be the last on the bandwagon for 3G data. With Sprint (who isn't even considered a leader in wireless technology), I have a reliable EVDO signal almost everywhere I go, and often getting the even faster recently updated RevA when travelling to major cities, and only switch to the older 1x data when roaming on Verizon or someone who doesn't have an EVDO roaming contract.
Last I checked, AT&T was rolling out a solid 3G coverage map as well. I travel a lot from coast and coast, and I have yet to find any major area that lacks 3G coverage. Sure, there are places less densely populated that still lack 3G, but they also lack cell phone towers at all!

Many of the other panelists, including Stuart Card expressed agreement with Madeline's view on the subject, and the iPhone continued to come up in general conversation.

The Apple Critics
That's not to say that everyone was an iPhone nut. A few people there did seem to see past all the hype, and were actually some of the more entertaining speakers at the event.

MIT's Ted Selker (who is credited with inventing the Thinkpad's pointing device among other things) brought some interesting inventions to show off to the crowd as examples of using sensors in unconventional ways.
In fact, instead of using the regular microphones for the Q&A sessions afterwards, Ted threw me a beach ball (another perk of sitting in the front row) with a wireless mic embedded inside to talk into. Very entertaining to listen to, and very creative. I'll share more about my conversation with him in a future post if I have time.
My personal favorite line, however, was when he picked up his Nokia N95 and exclaimed "and by the way, this beats the pants off of any iPhone!". There was a small applause at that point, which I think I may have started.

Another entertaining speaker was Funambol creator Fabrizio Capobianco who actually bought one of the first iPhones when they came out (I may have seen him in that line in front of AT&T in Palo Alto that friday evening actually). Fabrizio was refreshingly down-to-earth, very funny, and well, I've used Funambol myself so I must admit I'm a fan even before I met him.
Funambol is multi-platform, and is actually credited as being one of the first solutions for iPhone users who wish to sync their PIM with other services, such as Outlook, Exchange Servers or the standard Linux SyncML system.
Fabrizio, however, opened one of his statements with "the iPhone browsing experience sucks", which was met with some murmuring since the moderator of his panel mentioned being an ipod-touch fan.
When discussing the current state of the art, he mentioned that people like Funambol because it brings blackberry-style features to other devices, including standard phones. "People used to come to me with their Razr and Blackberry and say, can you converge this so I only need to carry one device?".
He then continued to say that nowadays, people come instead with an iPhone and a Blackberry and ask the same question, except now its worse because there is no keyboard on the iPhone. "They want an iphone with a keyboard, which just doesn't make any sense at all".

In case you're wondering, I found out later Capobianco is currently using a Windows Mobile device.

As always, Apple fanboys, this is nothing personal. I just think that people give the iphone too much credit and its nice when people who know what they're talking about seem to see through it.

Well, there's much more to say, but I'm going to have to continue this in another post. Until next time...

AtekSoft applications bring interesting new features to PPC phones...

2008-03-05T08:39:00.000-08:00

With a Pocket PC, can you do...

Video Out?

2-way over-IP video chat?

There are some interesting new doors that can be opened using AtekSoft's WebCamera Plus software to someone with a little engineering creativity.

I have been playing with the software lately, which claims to "Transform your PDA or Smartphone to [a] high-resolution web-camera" (a feature that some of you may recall from AtekSoft's earlier software release, CoolCamera).

Basically, what this means is that the PPC software will broadcast to your PC, in real-time, whatever your camera is currently able to see.

Using their desktop software, the stream of video is received and viewable (see pic on right) at a respectable frame rate for a webcam (my tests averaged 4-5 frames per second).

The purpose of this software is that windows will accept the incoming video as a standard webcam device, and be instantly compatible with most webcam applications (such as skype, netmeeting, etc), thereby eliminating the need to purchase a separate webcam for this purpose.

That's a pretty cool concept and all, but webcams are so inexpensive... in fact, many low-end webcams can be bought for about as much a license for this software! So, why would someone want this?

Well, for starters you can carry it with you when you travel and have one less thing in your bag. But that's not why I find this worth writing about. Where it gets REALLY interesting is when you take into consideration that WebCamera Plus can connect to the host PC not only via USB, but also over Bluetooth or IP (WiFi, 3G, etc)!

Basically, you don't HAVE to be in anywhere near your computer to view what's on the phone's camera! If you've got an unlimited data plan for your phone, or perhaps a WiFi network, you can put the phone down, connect to a computer via their IP address half way around the world, and view whatever it is currently seeing!

This is where things can get creative.

Some Additional Ideas/Uses for WebCamera Plus:

-Remote SpyCam
Since I have 2 little kids of my own, the first thing I thought of was using it as a makeshift baby monitor.
I could put the phone down next the crib, and watch it in a window on my pc as I work.
Before I was married, my first thought probably would have though of using this as an impromptu security camera. Either way is useful.

-Video Out
As soon as people start using Pocket PCs for media, you inevitably start seeing people ask if there is any way to get Video Out (assuming to connect to a TV like the iPod video).
There have been a very select few Pocket PC devices that supported external video connectors in the past (notably the classic Toshiba models), but most current devices are simply not capable of doing it.
There have even been some hardware add ons (via SDIO slot) to try and achieve this, however they fall sadly short of expectations (the device linked to here does not actually display what is on the screen of the PPC, but rather displays slides from special presentation software that you have to run on the device. Basically this only replaces using your laptop for powerpoint presentations).

WebCamera Plus has a feature that allows you to broadcast the contents of your display instead of the live camera feed. The result? Whatever you're doing on your device appears on the big PC screen in real-time!

The sample video here shows a few seconds of the Curious George movie playing on my desktop, video being output from my Sprint Mogul using CoolCamera Plus.
Surprisingly, the framerate for this went as high as 6fps.

Now, this is clearly not the ideal way to watch video (original video is a smooth 29fps), but it WORKS. And its good to know if you want to do something connected to a large screen, such as for a presentation.

-Two way video conversation
This one I'm going to have to get back to you on. I have been able to do it, but it would be video only, no sound, which means you'll have to mime to your other party.
Also, there is a great deal of lag/delay doing it this way, and its a VERY convoluted backwards way of doing this.
In other words, I'm sure I can come up with a better way, but this is what occurred to me first, and its what I tried... and it WORKS.

Basically, it involves using a remote desktop application (logmein.com is my preference because the framerate is as close to real time as I've ever seen for a remote desktop app), and skype & webcam plus receiving software installed on a host computer somewhere.

This is what I did:

On the Windows Mobile device, set the network settings of WebCamera Plus to be the host computer's IP address.
Log into the Host PC using logmein (or app of your choice). Be sure to leave WebCamPlus running in the background.
You should see your webcam live stream on the remote desktop, albeit delayed and a bit slower than normal. If the remote desktop application is not fast enough to keep up with the video (looks more like a slide show), this won't work. Therefore, I recommend a fast app (like logmein) and a solid 3G connection.
Using the remote desktop, start skype, and call someone who has a webcam as well. You will now be able to see the incoming stream on the remote computer (slow and delayed, but I got a few frames per second, enough to see what's going on), and they will see whatever you are broadcasting from your phone on location.

Problem with this, aside from the lack of sound, is that at least in my case, the Mogul only only a rear-facing camera, which means I can't see them while they see me (have to keep turning the phone around).
But it IS cool to show someone something, for example "Hey, you'll never believe what kind of car is parked behind my office! sign on skype, I'll show you". The person can see what you're pointing at, and you can see their reaction.
Yes, I know, this is very much a less-than-ideal solution, but it IS something that can be improved upon. As I said, this was just the first thing that came to mind. Someone could eventually write some sort of desktop server app to do this better, perhaps send video back to your phone using ORB instead of viewing it over remote desktop... who knows. Let me know if you've got any brighter ideas!

Make your PPC-phone a portable WiFi Router!!

2007-11-28T13:07:00.000-08:00

...or, yet another use for your WiFi-capable PPC phone!

So, its great to have those WiFi HotSpots in the airport or local coffee shop when you've got that laptop and time to kill, but what if you could have a portable hostpot? One that follows you wherever you go?

Well, if you've got a high speed data plan on your Windows Mobile phone, and happen to also have WiFi, you can turn that little device into exactly that!

Its an ingenius little app that some folks have developed called WMWiFiRouter.
Gotta respect the simplicity of the name, right? What it lacks in creativity it makes up for in doing exactly what its name describes.

Now, this is not exactly a new concept- after all, road warriors have been able to get online from their laptops for a while now, whether by installing a cellular data card, or using bluetooth to tether to their phone.

But this is just too easy... and has some advantages over the other ways to get online with your cellular data.

Why is this better than a laptop data card?
-No additional hardware to buy
-Can use existing phone plan (most cards require their own service plan)
-Connection can be shared with multiple devices
-No software/drivers to install on Laptop or device

Why is this better than tethering using Bluetooth?
-Faster! Bluetooth 1.2 (which a majority of devices still use) maxes out at around 700k for data. If your 3G connection is faster than that, you'll be bottlenecked by bluetooth's transfer rate.
-WiFi laptops are far more common than BT enabled ones.
-Range of distance is far better with WiFi
-Integrates into your data connections like any other WiFi connection (no bluetooth configuration of dial-up networking or anything)

Oh, and the best part... with this, your connection is Multi-Platform!
Let's not forget about all those WiFi enabled devices that aren't laptops, such as PSPs, Ipod Touch, other PDA's, VoIP devices, etc...

Read more about it over at XDA-Developers in this thread by TalynOne.

Sprint allows non-branded devices on their network - Not all its cracked up to be?

2007-10-30T22:39:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: This article was based on information from reputable sources, including MSNBC and CNET, as well as countless blogs and tech forums. However, there is speculation now that this information is based on a misprint from their legal settlement.
See the bottom for more details.

Quick background:
Here in the US, there are two leading cellular technologies- GSM and CDMA.
GSM (Global System for Mobile communication): A global standard that allows device portability using SIM cards to swap devices on a whim.
(Examples: T-mobile, AT&T)

CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access): A faster and arguably more powerful network (at least as far as deployment in the states), that identifies each device by a unique number called an ESN.
(Examples: Sprint, Verizon, Alltel)

------------------

History of the "Problem"
One of the biggest advantages of GSM service was always that your phone number and account are identified by a SIM card as opposed to a particular device. This means that you are free to use any device that you wish (and swap as well), as long as it is compatible with your card. CDMA, however, identifies your number and account by device. This makes swapping devices tedious, and also greatly limits the number of devices available to you since most providers will only allow a device that they recognize as their own to log onto their network.
In other words, if Sprint picks up a particular device exclusively, you can't bring it over to Verizon with you because Verizon will not recognize the ESN number as one of their own.
Sprint, in an apparent effort to receive some positive press for a change, decided to mix things up a bit...

Recently, Sprint made a bold move by allowing any CDMA device to connect to their network.
This means that if you had a particular device on Verizon or Alltel and wanted to switch to Sprint, you could bring your old device with you. Or, if you can't find the perfect phone for you on Sprint's selection, you now have the option to buy it from another carrier and activate it on Sprint!

CDMA users who have been jealous of GSM's freedoms are undoubtedly pleased to hear this. After all, now you have the choice of any CDMA phone in the world!

But is this really as big of a deal as it seems?

Why its not all its cracked up to be...
This doesn't really open up that many doors to Sprint users... There are VERY FEW unbranded CDMA handsets in existance. Why? Because CDMA is inherently a "locked" technology.

Quoted from a Message Board post:

While its nice that Sprint opened up this option for us, it really doesn't mean that much since available CDMA handsets are far more limited than other "open" technologies, such as GSM. Sprint may allow us to use VZ's handsets now, but their lineup is very similar (with the exception of a select few exclusive handsets on both sides).

GSM devices are sold left and right overseas because you can use a SIM card in ANY GSM phone in the world, whether your provider sold it to you or not. Its recognized as a global standard and its portability allows anyone to mass produce a phone on a whim and sell it to GSM users all around the world!
CDMA is sadly not like this... if no carrier picks up a particular CDMA model, the manufacturer usually drops it like a hot potato. HTC has announced many CDMA devices that never saw the light of day since no carrier signed a deal with them, whereas almost ALL of their GSM prototypes became a reality through third party vendors such as imate and dopod.
In fact, many high end phone companies make a living selling ONLY unlocked GSM handsets, and indeed many of their models can't be found by any carrier anywhere. Yet, any GSM user is free to pop in their SIM card and use it.

CDMA, sadly, is not like that. The only models available are ones that someone, somewhere, decided to carry on their own network, and are usually only ones that are profitable to market to large demographics. Meaning the interesting and rare phones often don't make it to CDMA at all.

CDMA devices, unlike GSM, need to be activated by the carrier, and while its nice that Sprint is allowing ESN's outside their database, just having this "freedom" does NOT mean all that much.

Honestly, I use Sprint for now, and it'll be nice to be able to have a few VZ-exclusive devices, but in all truth I don't see their lineup (or any overseas CDMA models for that matter) to be any better than what we already have. That is to say, they all fall short of offerings. This is CDMA.

I could see it becoming more like GSM sometime in the future, if Verizon follows suit and creates a market for unbranded devices, but for now, well, its just not all its cracked to be.

NOTE: This entry, while still possibly providing an interesting point of view regarding different cellular technology, is based on information that is yet to be confirmed.
Sprint was brought to court in the state of California regarding a policy in which they would lock their handsets to prevent customers from activating them on another network.
Sprint has settled the dispute by announcing that they will provide the information to unlock the devices upon request.
The Rumor:
One of the lines on their official settlement website states that:
"Sprint has agreed to provide customer service representatives with information to help respond to questions from customers or potential customers about activating a non-Sprint phone on the Sprint CDMA network."
This line, however, seems to standout as irrelevant to the case at hand. Just because they will unlock their handsets doesn't mean that they have to allow everyone else's in! Many speculate that it is a typographical error, and that it really should read along the lines of "Sprint has agreed to provide customer service representatives with information to unlock devices for use on other services when requested".
However, the argument for the legitimacy of the sentence is that the CDMA carriers can still be considered "anticompetitive" for not accepting phones outside their network, even if they unlock their devices. Sprint may be doing this to cover all their bases in the settlement... or, its just a big fat rumor that made it into the news. Only time will tell.

Look out, T-mobile! Here comes Airave!

2007-09-17T15:23:00.000-07:00

BREAKING NEWS!
Move over T-mobile! SPRINT is also offering (better?) VOIP alternatives!

Back in June, some of us may recall T-mobile's launch of @home service, an add on that allows you to use your broadband router at home to suppliment reception and/or minutes.
This was a real treat for those of us that had spotty reception inside a building, or wanted to use our phones as the primary unlimited line at home (since it doesn't use your regular minute allotment).

The problem? You needed to have a special WiFi enabled @home compatible phone!
Windows Mobile enthusiasts such as myself found this useless since no @home smartphones were planned (and if you had included WiFi on your smartphone, you could follow my article here, and do roughly the same thing).

Well, according to this source Sprint has been testing and is positioned to release the Airave service.
Airave, like @home, plugs into your broadband connection and routes all calls from connected Sprint phones over IP instead of the cellular towers, thus offering better signal and saving you minutes.

But what makes this more interesting than @home is that apparently no special phone hardware is required!
All you need to do is plug the Airave box into your router, and it will supposedly mimic a Sprint tower, allowing ANY normal Sprint phone to connect to it!
This is very interesting indeed...
I have recently begun playing with Sprint because of T-mobile's lack of 3G, and I must admit that I like how ambitious they are. Between this and the rumored WiMax, they might be a powerful position very soon... (too bad their customer service is rated so poorly!)

All you ever wanted to know about using your phone as your primary mp3 player... (PART 1)

2007-08-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

...or, why your Windows Mobile device is better than an iPod!

Music phones aren't anything new anymore. Virtually all current phones have some sort of mp3 player, even if only to play ringtones. Many of the later ones support expandable memory cards and have advanced controls and equalizer settings for optimal sound.
Yet, most people don't shop for phones as music players.

Why?
My guess is that many people beleive that the quality of a standalone device (iPod, Zune, Sansa, Archos, etc...) is somehow superior. The truth is, every combination of sound processor and amplifier will sound slightly different to the trained ear, but how many people can tell the difference between an iPod, Zune, MiniDisc or even CD player when music is played on the same set of speakers? The audible difference in quality between these, if any, is only noticeable to the keenest of audiophiles (Do you know which one has the best quality? leave a comment if you do!). While its possible to have a sub-par sound processor, any half-decent PDA or music phone will have the same quality components that the standalone audio players have. The truth is, the quality of the speakers / earphones make much more of a difference than the quality of the device output- a Pocket PC with high end Sennheiser earphones will sound worlds better than an ipod with the stock white earbuds.

The problem is, most Windows Mobile phones don't have the standard 3.5mm stereo jack for using your own headphones!
So how is one to rock out to our favorite tunes in High Fidelity if we can't attach the good quality headphones?

There are many ways to attach a set of 3.5mm headphones (or home stereo) to your phone's tunes. The most common is the:

2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptor
The most common connection found on any mobile phones is the 2.5mm headphone jack. These smaller siblings of the standard 3.5mm mini-jack exhibit the same shape and format as the standard ones, only 1mm smaller. If you've got a music phone with one of these, all you need is an adapter such as the one pictured here to plug in your full sized speakers or headphones.

But be careful! Not all 2.5mm jacks are created equal!
Many music phone early adopters found this out the hard way. Some adaptors would work well, while others would only give you sound in one ear unless you pull it out slightly. It seems that there was an argument between device manufacturers as to what the pin readout should be on these plugs.
In order to understand why this is, you have to take the evolution of these plugs into consideration:
Before cell phones had stereo, all audio component stereo jacks of various sizes had the same basic pin layout:
The tip would be the left channel, then a ring separating the next surface which would be the right channel, followed by another ring separating the rest of plug for ground. (See image on left)

Full sized audio equipment would use this configuration on 1/4" plugs (guitar amps, studio headphones...), standard sized consumer electronics used a smaller 3.5mm mini-jack (iPods, CD players, computers...), while some very few smaller devices decided to use an even smaller 2.5mm sized plug with this layout (ipaq 19xx series, some mini-disc players, portable audio recorders, some chinese keychain-sized mp3 players...).

When the first mono headsets for phones started coming out, they adopted the 2.5mm micro sized jack, and swapped the left audio channel at the tip with a microphone channel (since these headsets only operated in one ear). This was cheap and easy to manufacture, and was quickly adopted by other manufacturers as the standard. This wasn't much of a problem for stereo equipment because it was generally obvious not to mix and match components- stereo music equipment had no mic for the phones, and phone headsets had only one ear for music.
The problem is, what do you do when you add stereo sound to a phone? Now, instead of needing only 2 channels (1 speaker, 1 mic), you need 3 (Left, Right, and mic)!

This is where things have become a horrible mess. Wanting to be backwards compatible with older 2.5mm equipment, most cell phone manufacturers decided to add a 3rd pin before the ground one. However, Motorola, Samsung, and LG (to name a few) decided to add the left channel as the new 3rd pin, leaving the tip for the mic in case you wanted to use your old mono phone headset.
HTC, who makes my favorite WM devices, decided to follow the original stereo pinout of Left being the tip in case you wanted to use older stereo equipment!
The end result is that if you buy a 2.5->3.5mm adaptor, you might get sound in one ear only since it thinks the other ear is a microphone!
Pulling it out slightly will remedy the problem because it is connecting to different contacts on the jack, but it won't stay in the plug like that.

Bottom line:
Not all 2.5mm plugs are the same, so make sure the adapter is compatible with your device before you buy it!

In general, many adapters will say "for cellular phone stereo" versus just plain stereo. HTC devices will work with the plain stereo (such as the adapter pictured here from radio shack), while other phones need the ones marked "cellular".

Of course, if your phone has a proprietary connector (such as the new HTC mini-USB stereo port, or the Nokia pop-port), than you are less likely to encounter compatibility problems when searching for an adapter.

NEXT ISSUE: Forget adaptors, connect your speaker system or favorite headphones wirelessly!!
In part 2 of this entry, I'll review some wireless solutions which have worked really well for me. Stay tuned...

The Truth About the iPhone

2007-07-04T01:51:00.000-07:00

The following is copied from an entry I wrote for something else.
More information and personal opinions will follow when I find some more time.

I had the unique opportunity to be here in Silicon Valley (home of Steve Jobs and birthplace of Apple Computer) for the release of the much hyped Apple iPhone.
There was in fact a line forming from the local AT&T store down the street, waiting for the doors to open at 6:00, and a local mall was so swamped in front of the Apple Store that Wozniak himself showed up on his Segway Scooter to keep the crowd in control (gotta love the Woz).
All this so that these hardcore fans could be of the first to drop $600 for the latest piece of the Apple Pie (oy, puns).
But is this really the "Jesus phone" that its been hyped up to be? Can anything really be worth the aggressive marketing, countless press releases, and of course the outrageous price tag?

Well, now that its out, I'll tell you what I've learned of this coveted gadget.

As an ipod this will not disappoint you. It is said to be the best interface yet, and that's saying alot since the ipod is known to be the standard in user friendly audio players. I'll admit that I'm not the biggest ipod fan personally, but I'll also admit that Apple has always had a very well designed interface for all of their products. One over-enthusiastic fan describes the new interface as "designed by angels". Yes, its very pretty.

But since it is called the i-PHONE, the cellular phone features must be considered as well. Sadly, this is where the iPhone begins to disappoint.
The early adopters have reported that the call quality is actually not so great, not deal-breaker awful but still worse than your average motorola or nokia phone. Also, surprisingly missing for a $600 behemoth are some music features found in standard phones, such as the stereo bluetooth profile (for wireless music) and being able to set an mp3 as a ringtone. Many users have reported that the text entry has a very steep learning curve, however that may be a complaint that will smooth itself out as people get more acquainted with the device.
Another surprisingly missing feature for a device that claims to have a revolutionary web browsing experience is high speed internet (aka 3G data). AT&T has had 3G phones for a couple of years now, with speeds approaching broadband internet, yet the iPhone is only capable of EDGE (2G), which translates to speeds comparable to dial-up in a majority of the country. This is very disappointing since most of AT&T's lineup supports 3G, especially devices costing more than $100. While the zooming in and out of webpages may be pretty and fun, some users have reported that average websites take over 2 entire minutes just to load. (2 minutes may not seem like much, but try counting to 120 before you can view your site and you'll understand how that can be excruciatingly slow)
Other would-be-nice-to-have features are a removable battery so that you can swap a spare when travelling (iphone's battery, like the ipod, is serviceable by Apple only), and a couple of physical dedicated buttons for call control (other touch-screen phones have at least a FEW real buttons so that you can easily jump to certain screens without having to tap your way through menus. Some online reviewers complained that the lack of buttons on the iphone at all means call controls were buried in menus, making it difficult to jump from music playing to placing a call).
Once again, these aren't deal-breakers, but one should expect more from a device with so much fanfare.

I would like to also express my biggest pet peeves with the hype surrounding this phone- it is being touted as "the most revolutionary smartphone to date". Ok, let's set something straight- the iPhone IS NOT A SMARTPHONE! It may be smartly designed, but the definition of a smartphone is a phone with PDA-like features, capable of installing 3rd party software and totally customizable.
Examples of a Smartphone include the Palm Treo line, Motorola's Q, the HTC Windows Mobile Handsets, Nokia's Symbian S60 phones, and Sony Ericsson's P900 UIQ series. These devices allow you to install software that directly accesses the hardware of your device, and effectively allows you to make your phone the perfect fit for YOU. Don't like that web browser? Scrap it and install another one. Want a better media player (perhaps to play DivX video)? Install one and make it your default media player! Want to turn your phone into a webcam? well you get the picture- the iphone can't do any of that, and thus is not worthy of the term "Smartphone".
Devices such as the blackberry and sidekick are NOT smartphones because they do not have operating systems that allow you to install your own software like a computer. Basically, they have many features, but you are limited to whatever it does out of the box and will never be able to add new features to it. This is the category that the iPhone falls into.

Now, that's not to say that the iphone is without its own merit... The Apple fanboys out there (the type with posters of Steve Jobs in their bedroom) will argue that the "missing" features are not must-haves for a cellular phone. After all, you can still buy many non-PDA phones with slow internet 2G speeds that don't have any mp3 ringtone support, or any music support at all. However, keep in mind that these phones are usually $50 or less. For the amount that they are asking for this device, you should expect more. Heck, for this price I'd expect it to mow my lawn and put my kids to sleep!

THE BOTTOM LINE:
If you've been waiting for the next generation of Ipods, this is it. Its a work of art, has a great interface and sports killer audio and video functions. That is, assuming 4-8GB's is enough room for you!
If, however, you're looking for a full-featured top of the line phone, this is nothing more than an expensive toy. Is has sub-par call quality, lacks a customizable operating system, and is missing features that other much cheaper phones have.

For the money, you'd be better off buying a regular 30gig ipod AND a decent windows or even palm powered smartphone. Or better yet, a small laptop!

How to never miss a call with your smartphone!

2007-04-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

...at least as long as you have WiFi or any other internet connection.

Almost everyone with a cell phone will tell you they have that one frustrating spot that seems to never have a signal. This usually happens in the center of a building, or a basement, where the RF waves just never seem to reach.

Recently, I found myself in this situation since I moved desks at work from a window seat to a larger office in the center of the building. Just as I feared, my desk is now devoid of almost all cell services, and I haven't been able to get a single bar there with T-Mobile.

I tried calling T-mobile and reporting a weak reception area, but we all know that probably won't do anything, at least not for several years. Oh, what to do!

Well, I'm happy to say that having a smartphone has paid off again...
I am now able to receive all my regular calls, on my cell phone, and the best part is it doesn't actually use my minute allotment for the month!
How is this possible?
Well, I've got 4 words for you: Skype for Windows Mobile.

In case you've been living under a rock, Skype (click for more info) is the one of the biggest internet-voice services existing. The basic premise is that you can make free PC to PC calls without the hassle of a telephone. While its not exactly VOIP, they do offer VOIP-ish services, such as Skype-In which assigns a local telephone number to ring into your skype account.

So how does this help?
Here's what I did:

I bought a Skype-in number.
I then installed Skype for WM Smartphone.
I then set my call forwarding if unavailable number to my Skype-In number (this can be set in start>settings>phone>call forwarding. By default it is the T-mobile voice mail number).
I then make sure I have an internet connection at work (WiFi or activesync, I will explain why activesync may be better below).

That's it!
How does it work?

Simple: When my phone is out of service, it registers as unavailable to the network. When unavailable, it will forward my calls to the skype in number which DOES ring on my phone (through skype) and then I can talk to the person.
This is different from busy or unanswered calls, which will still go to my T-mobile voice mail as long as my phone is on and has service. Basically, this will only happen when I'm out of service.

Doesn't Skype-In cost money?
Yes, it does.
However, it is VERY inexpensive... it adds up to about $3 or $4 a month, depending upon the plan you purchase. For me, its worth the few bucks to have my calls come in. Also, I'm considering using the skype-in number as a seperate business line as well... I could give people that number instead of my cell phone for privacy purposes. Its a worthwhile investment, especially if you consider that you're getting "extra" minutes (see next item).

Doesn't call forwarding still use your minutes?
Not exactly.
Yes, you use minutes, but not your regular minutes, at least not with T-mobile.
Most people don't realize that you get an additional 1000min for call forwarding (different plans may vary), which doesn't come out of your regular minute bucket. These are like free minutes from a separate bucket which I would never otherwise be able to use! Being that I don't use that many regular minutes in a month, I doubt I'll EVER make that many when just out of service!

Doesn't leaving WiFi on all day eat your battery?
Yes.
Most smartphones that have WiFi also don't keep it on when there isn't any activity. So, you could either set it to stay on, and kill your battery, or you could connect it to activesync when you're at a desk, and then just use WiFi when roaming around the office. Remember, Activesync not only passes the internet to your phone through the computer, but it also charges through the USB cable.

What if my smartphone doesn't have WiFi?
Ha, and you call that a smartphone?
Seriously though, all you Moto Q, Blackjack, and users of smartphones from yesteryear can still do this without WiFi.
As I mentioned above, you could always use the activesync solution, or use a bluetooth connection (AKA WiFi mini) if you'd rather not be tethered.

Isn't this similar to UMA?
Yes, sorta.
UMA stands for Unlicesned Mobile Access. Some providers, including T-mobile, are currently testing the prospect of allowing WiFi phones to make VOIP calls when available to save minutes and help poor reception areas.
The difference is that UMA will be a seperate charge from the carrier, and uh, it doesn't exist yet. You'll also need new phones to use it since no current phone supports UMA.

Good luck, and contact me if you found this usefull!
Feel free to ask any questions...

Wireless Stereo!

2007-02-07T11:52:00.000-08:00

Ok, we've all heard of Bluetooth, and should be relatively familiar with what it is.
Its a way to connect devices without wires, right?

Well, bluetooth is only as good as the devices that are released to take advantage of it.
The most common use is in wireless phones, where it can be used to connect to a handsfree headset, or sync with a nearby BT-enabled computer. But the potential goes far beyond that...
One day in the future, it would be nice to not have ANY wires on my desk at all... my monitor, speakers, printer, keyboard, mouse, scanner, webcam, etc... But that day has not yet come. While many of the devices on my desk can (and some are) wireless, they still haven't perfected the technology to a point that it can replace EVERYTHING, at least not easily. As of yet things like a video monitor feed over bluetooth aren't practical, and until recently, the audio quality of Bluetooth wasn't on par with wired stereo speakers.
Luckily, they're always adding new profiles, which are basically standards to attach to new kinds of devices.

The latest buzz in Bluetooth has been a serious upgrade to audio quality. Originally designed to carry little more than a monoraul phone coversation, people have expressed a great interest in having HiFi digital stereo sound over bluetooth. They call this profile the Advanced Audio Distribution Profile, or A2DP for short.

This allows for music lovers to be free of the wire tangles that many enthusiasts hate to deal with, not to mention you don't have to actually have your music player on your body... rather simply be in the same room as it. *

This also opens up new doors to convergence devices... many A2DP headsets such as the Motorola pair pictured here support both A2DP and the older audio profile designed for phone calls. With its built in microphone, you could listen to music and not be afraid of missing a call that you couldn't hear... the music will automatically pause as the headset switches profiles to allow you to hear a ring and answer the call. When you are finished, it will go back to where you left off.

Now, for you Windows Mobile enthusiasts who are reading this and wondering why I bring this up, here's my good news / bad news.

The good news: Microsoft started adding the A2DP profile to their bluetooth stack in newer versions of WM5 (aku 3 and up), and there are hacks available which will enable it in the older AKU's as well.

The bad news: MS's encoding algorythm stinks!
A2DP requires the sound be encoded using a system called SBC. For some reason, the way MS programmed their encoding, it creates an awful distortion on certain frequencies that are clearly audible with certain headsets.
For example, an I-tech R35 headset will play a very irritating hiss/ringing over vocal sounds when using a Windows Mobile device. However, these things sound great when paired to my PC's bluetooth which uses the Widcomm Bluetooth drivers.
Many headsets play the distortion differently, it may be more apparent in some versus others. Some won't even exhibit it at all, as is the case I found with a pair of Logitech Ipod headphones (designed to be used with an ipod adaptor, but can be paired with another BT device easily).

This is a serious problem for those who spend a lot of money on wireless headphones to find the quality is sub-par. Stay tuned for updates... hopefully MS will fix it in a future service pack.

* Theoretically, you only need to be in the same room (within 30 feet) of a Bluetooth device to stay connected. However, in practicality, many people find that a2dp requires you to stay a bit closer.

UPDATES!

2007-01-24T18:03:00.000-08:00

This shouldn't really count as a seperate post... its more like follow-ups from previous topics.

T-Mobile, T-zones, T-mobile Web and the Internet Myth...
Right after I blogged about T-mobile's internet plans, something kind of surprising happened. They starting giving stuff away.
The big difference between the cheaper plans and the expensive plans has generally been that the cheap ones were more restrictive- most ports were blocked and required a proxy for any web browsing.
Now, as long as you have some sort of basic internet plan (as far as I know this still won't work for free), you have FULL UNLIMITED ACESS to all ports, no proxy or anything required. No one quite knows why this is or how long it will last, but its been going on for long enough now that I wouldn't consider it a temporary fluke. Don't be suprised, however, if they turn it off tomorrow again.
Bottom line: There now seems to be no difference between any web/internet plan. So, choose the cheapest one if you want to save money, choose the expensive one if you want to ensure it won't be turned off tomorrow (or if you want to be "fair" and pay full price for your services!).

Windows Mobile Crossbow
For those of us following Microsoft's OS codenames...
It appears that Crossbow has been spotted on some prototype units, and it seems now that the original rumors are wrong concerning the numbering scheme of the Operating System. Apparently, word on the street now is Crossbow will be WM6.0, and Photon, still unnamed officially, is to be released sometime in 2008.

That's it for now, check back soon for more mobile news and thoughts.

Oh, and feel free to click any of the sponsored google ads on the bottom right of my blog... I'm not in charge of what they advertise, but google will help pay for my time to write this stuff.

How to run Pocket PC applications on your WM smartphone

2007-01-10T20:07:00.000-08:00

...or, how to make your Windows Mobile Smartphone device do just about ANYTHING!

Yes, your Smartphone is just as good as a Pocket PC if you know what you're doing!

A lot of Pocket PC fans out there are afraid that they may be giving up some functions when switching over to Smartphone Edition. Well, I can honestly say that after some initial skeptism and a lot of tinkering, I've been able to do everything my older PPC's did and then some!

As I wrote about earlier (see What is smartphone Edition Anyway?), Windows Mobile Pocket PC and Smartphone Edition are almost identical internally. The primary difference is in the input method that each device uses, to be more specific a touch screen interface on a PPC versus a joystick/keypad on the Smartphone.

Does this mean that they will run the same software?

Yes and no. All Windows Mobile devices (Smartphone, PPC, PPC phone edition, etc) can run the same actual executable code (.exe files) as long as it has been written for a Windows Mobile device. However if you actually try to install PPC software on a Smartphone (or vice versa) using Activesync, you might get an error message stating the device is incorrect and it will refuse to do anything.

So how can you run the software if it won't install?

Well, this is the tricky part. There are a few ways to do this, some are easier than others depending upon your situation. Your options are:
a. Attempt to install on your computer using Activesync. Sometimes this will just work beleive it or not. Certain .net programs can even be designed for BOTH devices- it has code built in for both types of input methods and offers the correct interface for your device. An example of this is the VNC dot net viewer (To the right and left you should see images of the same code running on a PPC and Smartphone, respectively). Other times, when Activesync complains that you have the "wrong" device, it will stop the installation. However, the files will already exist in a directory on your PC, sometimes just waiting to be copied over to the right device. A quick search of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Activesync\ may provide some .cab files that can be copied over and installed on your device. This may work for some apps, but others may still stop you when you install the .cab file.
b. Extract the files from the .cab installation file manually on your PC first. Most unzip/decompression utilities (as well as Windows Explorer's own built in Zip) will be able to open a .cab file to view its contents. You can try right-clicking on one and selecting open with -> Explorer and see if that works. The problem with this is that the files have the wrong extension names. If you are able to determine which file is the .exe and any other necessary files (on simple programs, the .exe should be the largest, and sometimes the only, file in there), then you can extract them, rename it to the proper extension, and you're golden with this method.
c. Copy from a real finished Pocket PC installation. What I've done for some programs is used an old pocket pc to install to, then copied the files I needed off of it. Don't have a Pocket PC handy? Well then you can run a virtual PPC (I beleive Microsoft itself even has some PPC emulators for developers) on your own computer, then copy the files off of it. I'm not going to go into great detail on how to do this now, but you may ask if you'd like more info. There's also the option of finding someone else who has a Pocket PC and wouldn't mind helping you out. I've found people on message boards over at modaco.com and howardforums.com who had even posted extracted files for the Smartphone community. That's nice of them.

Why do they make this so darned complicated?

Well, I'd like to think that MS had the best intentions when all this started. Its basically to prevent you from installing an application that might not work right because it was designed for a different device. You see, even though the .exe file will run, it doesn't mean it will run CORRECTLY. Pocket PCs all have touchscreens and at least a QVGA (240x320 pixel) display, while Smartphones inheirently lack the touchscreen and until recently didn't have QVGA*^{(see below)} resolutions either. The end result is that you may try to run a Pocket PC app on a Smartphone and find that you can only see a portion of the display and not be able to "click" the OK button or navigate the program at all without a touchscreeen! Vice versa, if you installed a smartphone application, it might take up an akward little corner of your display, and wait for a numeric keypress that you don't have on the average PPC.
Sounds like a legitimate concern, right? That brings us to the next question:

If Pocket PC apps won't run properly without touchscreen input, what's the point in all this?

Well, the truth is most of them will work just fine without a touchscreen. Some programs like the .net one mentioned above actually were designed for people like us to use, however not all programmers are so considerate. Luckily most PPC applications have mediocre navigation using the PPC directional pad for one handed use. Its clearly not the best way to use certain programs, but with enough keypresses you might be able to navigate around. Sometimes, as in the case with Skype for Pocket PC, you NEED to click an area of the screen in order to do anything. This can be very frustrating.

So what about programs that require a touchscreen (such as Skype)?

Luckily, there is help available. There is an ingenius little app called SPHelper, which as the name suggests, was designed to help us Smartphone users out. What this does is it places a mouse cursor on the screen which can be moved around using the joystick. You can then press the joystick in to "click" on something. This little app is amazing, it even has a built in task switcher so you can quickly jump from program to program, and a simple press-and-hold of the zero button will bring the cursor up for you. The program is Shareware which means that it will work fine for free, or you can purchase the program for about $10 and get rid of the annoying message asking you to register that pops up when you hide or close the program.

So is there anything missing that a full Pocket PC can do?

You mean aside from the bulk, fragile screens and lack of casual one-handed use that comes with a PPC?
All joking aside, yes, there are still some things to address. One is that bizzare fact that for some odd reason Microsoft left out copy and paste functions. Why, mighty Bill, WHY??
Well luckily you can add those features back with another simple little free application called Vito Copy Paste. Its pretty simple and does what its supposed to fairly well when you need it.
I'd like to add that there are other options such as Xbar and even SPHelper above also includes some sort of copy and paste function (but I haven't gotten it to work properly). Vita Copy Paste is simple and free, so I recommend it if you need those functions (I'm surprised how rarely I need it honestly).

Then there's the all important suite of Office Apps that's missing from the Smartphone. Yes, most devices come with at least a document reader (such as ClearVue), but come on- we all want to be able to EDIT them as well as view, right? Once again I have no logical explanation for why they left it out, but I'm excited that Windows Mobile Crossbow is finally going to include Mobile Office. In the mean time there are several office apps that can help you along. Here's some of my favorites:
Vieka WordPad - Simple word processing. Similar to notepad in Windows, with some nice features like html tags. FREE!
Ptab - This a Spreadsheet program that also has PC and PPC versions, fully compatible with MS Excel. Some say this one is actually better than Excel, but as far as I'm concerned whatever works is good enough. This is commercial software, but I use it regularly and I can
Documents to Go - This is not officially released yet. This should be the perfect document suite when it comes out because it includes EVERYTHING (Word, Excel, PowerPoint & PDF). In fact I heard from some Pocket PC users that they are hoping this gets released for PPC as well since it comes with more than MS Office Mobile does, and has something called InTact which lets you edit a document while leaving the format as it is on the PC (Word and Excel mobile sometimes lose some of the formatting when converting to mobile and back to PC). But, as of now DataViz is only making it for us Smartphone users. Sorry PPC fans!

Well, that's it for now. Good luck and let me know if you have any comments or if I left anything out!

Note for Landscape devices:
Users of the Dash, Moto Q, Blackjack, etc... Some Pocket PC software does not display properly in landscape orientation. So, even though you have a QVGA display, some programs may run off the borders of your display.

New Windows Mobile CROSSBOW!

2006-10-31T11:20:00.000-08:00

Ok Windows Mobile fans, word has it that there's going to be another release of our favorite CE-based Operating System by Microsoft.

Its currently codenamed "Crossbow", and will be released for both PPC and Smartphone (just like the other versions of WM). MS would like you to think that this is the next best thing since sliced bread.
Its not. Sliced bread is totally under-rated.

There has been speculation that Crossbow would be Windows Mobile 6, since CE 6.0 is scheduled to release Nov. 1 2006 (a day after this writing).
Its not.

Crossbow is merely WM5, but with a fresh interface that resembles the Windows Vista experience. In actuality, Crossbow's final name will most likely be Windows Mobile 5 Second Edition.

Most Pocket PC users out there won't care that much about this edition, since it doesn't seem to change all that much under the hood. Then again, you might be a Vista junkie, and want all your icons to look Vista-fied. That's cool, if you're into it. Otherwise, its pretty much the same.

Where it DOES make a difference is with the Smartphone Edition. Smartphone Edition of Crossbow has some nifty additions aside from the new look.

For example, take a look at this screenshot someone was able to take from a beta version (thanks to the good folks at GPSpassion).

See anything interesting here?

Yes, it seems that Windows Live is included in at least this particular build as well as MS voice command, but here's the clincher...
Note the icons in position 1, 3, and 9.
That's right, Excel, Powerpoint, and Word are finally back in Windows Mobile where they belong!!!

No more 3rd party applications needed to do what a Pocket PC does out of the box!!

This should be very exciting to anyone who currently uses a smartphone, and like me, has been very annoyed that Microsoft decided to leave these vital applications out!

Now, this is not to be confused with Windows Mobile 6, codenamed Photon, which is planned to be released within a year of Crossbow.
Microsoft has announced that WM6 will finally combine the Smartphone and PPC platforms. This should be interesting...

T-mobile, T-zones, T-mobile Web and the Internet Myth...

2006-10-25T09:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, this one's for all you T-mobile USA fans out there.

If you're a hardcore T-mobile user since the free wap days, then you already know about this. However, for those who seem to be so confused about the internet plans that T-mobile offers, allow me to explain.

There's a handful of different levels of access that T-mobile offers for internet on your mobile phone. The two major ones that are currently offered to existing customers are:
1) T-Mobile Web ($5.99/m)
2) T-Mobile Total Internet ($29.99/m)

The obvious difference is that #2, Total Internet, also gives you access to T-mobile's network of WiFi hotspots scattered across the country (starbucks, airports, etc...). However, most users could really care less about that, especially those who don't even have WiFi enabled phones!
The problem, however, is that T-mobile now requires this option for internet on their latest Windows Mobile phones. The reason for this is rumored to be because T-mobile is trying to make back some of the money they spent on this hotspot infrastructure, which seems to be much less profitable than originally expected.
But is that all there is to it? If you buy a WM phone from T-mobile, is your only internet choice to spend 5x as much as you would otherwise because they are pushing their hotpot use? Or could a MDA/SDA user just use the cheaper T-zones or T-mobile web and forget the hotspots?

What's the real difference?

Well, let's start by looking at what market each is geared towards:
T-Mobile Web: The casual consumer with an average handset.
-Originally, internet access on a phone was considered a novelty item that would get very little real-world use. How much bandwidth could you possibly use up checking your hotmail account on a limited-graphics mobile-formatted page every so often? For this, T-mobile offered a phone plan add-on that they called T-zones, which had an unlimited plan for $4.99. Times changed however, and people can do alot more online with their phones now than they used to. So, T-mobile raised their price $1, and changed the name to T-mobile Web (possibly to justify the price hike).
Total Internet: Power users who wish to have the full internet anywhere there is reception, for example a laptop with a cellular PC-card added in.
-These customers will clearly use more bandwidth, therefore a higher price is justifiable.

However, both plans advertise that they offer unlimited (ie. unmetered) data. So, what incentive is there to go with the more expensive plan? Why wouldn't a "power user" just pay a fraction of the price for unlimited data?
T-mobile has taken some precautions to prevent that sort of thing from happening. For starters, the cheaper plan is supposed to only allow web access and email access. To do this, they closed all the ports except for a handful and restricted the web port by forcing all traffic to go through a proxy server that acts as a filter. The result is that email and web work just fine, but chats, streaming media, VoIP and any other fancy tricks won't.

So, will the cheaper data plans work on my SDA/MDA?

The simple answer: Yes!
They don't want it to, but the truth is there's nothing different about it as long as you put the correct settings into your phone (since it uses the proxy server as a filter, you have to set it up in connections to get out to the internet).
You'll still be restricted to straight-up email and web (no streaming, etc...), but for most people that's all they really want anyway.

Will it be slower?

Not really. Some people seem to think you only get EDGE (the 2.5G upgrade T-mobile made in order to speed their cellular data 4x) if you pay for full internet, otherwise you're stuck with the slower (2G) GPRS speeds. That's just not true. That has everything to do with your phone's connection to the tower, and almost nothing to do with your tier of service. If your phone supports EDGE, and the tower you're connecting to supports EDGE, then you have EDGE speed. T-mobile is not set up to give different users different speeds.

What if I need more than just web/email, but don't want to pay for hotspots?

If you're someone who needs full, unrestricted access to the internet on your phone (personally I'd like to be able to stream media and use chat services), there are various workarounds, including hosting your own proxy server on an open port that doesn't have the same limitations. The easiest thing, however, would be to just claim you have a blackberry device and say you'd like a blackberry internet add-on. That plan is only $19.99, and will work the same as the full internet- all ports open and everything.
This is perfectly legitimate, because T-mobile allows you to switch your sim card into as many phones as you want whenever you want. If they say "I see you're using an MDA/SDA", you could just respond with "I also have a blackberry and I'd like to be able to use it sometimes". They can't argue with that!

What is "Smartphone Edition" anyway?

2006-10-17T07:10:00.000-07:00

...or "Why would I want a watered-down hack of an Operating System?"

I hear alot of people complain that Windows Mobile "Smartphone Edition" is not the real Windows Mobile that you'd find on a Pocket PC. This has created a lot of angry consumers who feel that they are tricked when they buy new devices such as the Motorola Q, HTC Tornado (T-mobile SDA, Cingular 2125), and the T-mobile DASH, which are all advertised as being Windows Mobile, yet are missing the telltale signs of a PDA such as a touchscreen and common office applications.
Some of these critics claim that this can not be considered Windows Mobile at all, and that it is an inferior product that bears name recognition.

These people are very misinformed.

The first thing I'd like to point out is that the "Smartphone Edition" of Windows Mobile is not just closely related to the Pocket PC edition, but they are in actuality one and the same thing: A PDA-tailored port of the Windows CE 5 OS .

What many people don't understand is that Windows CE is designed to be a completely adaptable modular operating system, not just for PDAs, so that all sorts of devices can run the same software. The plan was that everything from Digital Cameras to Car Stereos to Video Game systems would all run Windows CE, and common applications could be easily developed for them all.
In fact, one of the motives for the original Windows CE was for television set-top boxes (similiar to the web-tv concept that never caught on), and if anyone recalls the Sega Dreamcast game console system, it shipped with a version of Windows CE built-in so that you could manage saved game files, use it to browse the web, play Windows Media, ...even write your own software and games for it.
I've even seen the popular Windows Mobile divx player TCMP actually being used in a Dreamcast to display a divx movie on a TV screen!

So, if they're all Windows CE, what does the name Windows Mobile mean?
This is a difficult question to answer since some people make the mistake of using the two names interchangeably.
Since Win CE can adapt and appear in so many different forms, Microsoft started giving the custom tailored incarnations of it their own names. The most popular incarnation was the one that they gave a PDA-oriented interface to, including modules such as full duplex sound, connectivity, synchronization, icon-driven GUI, and touch-screen support. They called this version "Pocket PC", since it was designed for portable computing needs. Then, around 2003, it became apparent that the PDA comes in various forms, from tablets to handhelds to cellular phones, and the term Pocket PC could be deemed too device specific for a PDA-oriented OS. So, it was renamed to "Windows Mobile 2003", which has a few spin-off versions that support various forms of input interface including touch screen, t9 keypad, joystick, and keyboard.

However, the major difference between the Windows Mobile versions stops after the display and input differences. Under the hood, its all the same thing. This means that software written for Pocket PC Edition will actually run if copied over to the Smartphone Edition!
The problems arise when the developer assumes that someone is using a Pocket PC with a touchscreen, for example an application that requires you to tap portions of the screen. This is very frustrating if you can not actually tap anything!
There are work-arounds, but that's not the point of this entry. I'll get to that another time.
The point here is to illustrate that the Smartphone Edition of Windows Mobile is not "inferior" in any way to the PPC version. It only seems that way because it is marketed differently, for example Microsoft left out included versions of Word and Excel. The reason for this has been said to be because of the numeric keypad entry, claiming that "these devices are better for reading data than entering it". Therefore, many smartphones come with simple document reading software that will easily open Word, Excel and even powerpoint and Adobe PDF documents, but not edit them.
If you want to enter data on your T9 keypad (like I do), there are 3rd party applications available for spreadsheets and word processing. But I understand why MS left them out... most people wouldn't use them.
Some say that it may also be some sort of marketing reason... if the smartphone had office support, and clearly did all the same things, they wouldn't be able to charge so much more for a Pocket PC phone.
Whatever the case may be, this smartphone user has not been fooled by the first impression, and I am now very happy with my non-Pocket PC device!

Why I like the Smartphone Platform, Part II

2006-09-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

...or why I like the SDA better than the MDA. Part two.

Ok, in part one I described the difference between two leading HTC phones that have been released under T-Mobile's name here in the states: The MDA (a pocket PC phone) and the SDA (Windows Mobile Smartphone).
There are many variations of these phones from different companies and providers (Cingular has them as the Cingular 8125 and 2125, respectively), but since I'm T-Mobile fan myself, I'm going to refer to them as such.

Now, on to the reason I'm writing this...
It may be hard to understand at first, but I realize now that I prefer the Smartphone to the Pocket PC.
Why, after coming from years of touch-screen pocket PCs would I give it up?

Well, it started off as just an experiment... I had heard that these two devices, despite their looks, where almost indentical internally. So, I wondered, could a device that ditches the PocketPC's defining characteristic- namely, the touchscreen- still do the exact same task?
So, I bought one with the intention of reviewing it, playing with it and then selling it.
After carrying it around for a few weeks, I learned something that amazed me.
I hate touchscreens.

That's right, I don't like 'em.

As far as I'm concerned, a phone or a PDA is supposed to be a casual-use device. This means that I want to be able to pull it out on a whim and do something on it while also doing something else.
It never even occured to me that a touchscreen actually makes it HARDER to use as a casual-use device! You often need two hands to operate it properly, not to mention it requires you to look at the screen to make sure you're tapping the right point. This kind of involving user interface, while it looks cool and gimmicky to passerbys, actual adds very little function to the device. What it does do is make it difficult to use in situations such as conversing with someone else, while driving (without being really unsafe), or even while going out for a jog.

I've personally had many situations where it will suddenly occur to me that I need to remember to do something. Since this is the purpose of a PDA, I'll stop what I'm doing, take out my pocket pc, remove the stylus and start tapping away.
If I'm sitting down in a chair in front of my desk, this is just fine. However, if I'm standing in the middle of the supermarket aisle, this looks kind of akward.

Windows Mobile Smartphone is designed really well, contrary to what the smartphone haters out there would believe. The layout takes a bit of getting used to especially coming from a Pocket PC, but its similar enough that you recognize familiar features and menus, and once you get the hang of it, it really makes so much sense.

Everything is menu driven, with the help of the joystick/directional pad for navigation.
For example, instead of clicking on the icon you want from the start menu, you move from icon to icon with the joystick until the one you want is highlighted. Now, before you dismiss this as archaic and rediculous in comparison to a simple tap on the screen, allow me to explain the benefits of this method.
The icons are arranged in a 3x3 grid, giving you the ability to view 9 icons at a time. This is very similar to the layout of a phone's numeric keypad. So, instead of pushing the joystick until you get the right one, you can also hit the corresponding number on your phone and it will "click" that icon. The result is that if you already know where the icons exist, you can jump to things fairly quickly. For example, to change my homescreen, I know that "settings" is in the 9 position, and inside there, homescreen is option number 4. So, all I have to do is hit start-9-4 and I'm presented with my homescreen settings. This is actually faster and easier than click, look, click, look, click!

In general, I find that I can easily do things that I wasn't able to do "on the fly" with my Pocket PCs. This is especially useful in the car since I use my Windows Mobile devices as my GPS navigator along with a Bluetooth GPS receiver. You also don't have to be as careful as you do with a Pocket PC- I can put my Smartphone in my pocket without being concerned that I'm going to accidentally have unwanted screen-taps from the fabric of my pants, or that my baby will drop it and crack the delicate touch-panel (something that's happened before).

I feel that Windows Mobile is much more functional now than I ever felt before, because now it truly can be used casually!
Now, that doesn't answer my original question: Can you really do all the same things that a Pocket PC can?

The answer is YES! I don't feel like I've given up anything at all. Now, its true that Microsoft decided to make Smartphone edition less functional by leaving out some of the useful apps that Pocket PC edition has, such as Word and Excel. Why they did this? I'm assuming because of some sort of marketing gimmick- the Pocket PC phone is marketed as a PDA first with some phone functionality whereas the Smartphone is marketed as a Phone first with some PDA functionality.
However, the core OS is the same, which means that you can run the same software. Its really just an issue of installing applications to take the place of the missing MS ones!
I've already installed WordPad, a freeware word processor, as well as Ptab which is a spreadsheet application compatible with Excel. There's also Clearvue which came bundled with my device that displays all the common file types such as Powerpoint and Adobe PDF (it also lets you view Word and Excel files, but not edit them. That's why I installed those other apps as well).

"Aha, but what about applications that are written for the Pocket PC that NEED a touchscreen to operate?"
I was concerned about this as well. Programs like Skype for Pocket PC can be installed on a Smartphone, but you can't even sign in because it expects you to be able to tap to navigate the program. Well, thankfully there aren't too many programs like this that don't already have a Smartphone version using menus (its very easy for a developer to add Smartphone support to an existing Pocket PC app), but for the few that do, I found a solution:
SPHelper.
SPHelper is a little application that simulates a touch screen. What it does is actually place a mouse-pointer on the screen that you can navigate using the joystick! All you have to do is run this little app before the program that needs touch-input, and then use your joystick as a make-shift trackball (if you've ever used an old IBM Thinkpad, this will feel very familiar)!

Bottom line:
I love my Smartphone, and I've sold all my Pocket PCs.
I don't even miss the touchscreen, and I don't plan on ever going back!

Why I love the SmartPhone...

2006-09-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

...or, why I think the SDA is better than the MDA.
(Part 1)

I've been accused of being a mobile computing junkie. My collection of handheld devices that I've owned at some point dates all the way back to the Psion II from the mid-80's. Yet, they all shared the same problem: a portable computing device is only as good as it is convenient to carry.
The latest-and-greatest full-featured devices are generally larger than their cheaper and older versions (compare any Palm Treo with the Palm V), and were actually rather uncomfortable to carry around. I found myself taking it out and putting it down whenever possible, which led to it never being there when I needed it on a whim. How functional can such a device be?

Enter the convergence devices: The PDA/Cell Phone combo.
We're all familiar with the Palm Treos, and the handful of Pocket PC phones that have been released lately. This should have been a perfect option for me... I always have my phone with me, so why not have one device which I can keep track of?
The problem is that once you add the phone components to a PDA, you end up with an abnormally large unit that just makes my problem even worse. I tried a few, and I was generally unhappy with the results- they seemed to be part phone, part PDA, but not entirely good enough at either.
So I just accepted my fate and tried to just find the smallest PDA and smallest phone I could and carry them in separate pockets.
(To those that are interested, my research led me to the Ipaq 4150 as a PDA, and the Nokia 6230 as a phone).

That is, until my searching brought me upon the latest smartphone offerings from a Japanese company called HTC.
HTC doesn't actually sell any of their devices directly, but rather designs devices and then sells them to other companies for manufacturing.
Last year, T-mobile released 2 current HTC devices under their own brand name, as the MDA and the SDA.

The MDA, based on the HTC "Wizard" is a sidekick-style device, or in other words, it has a large screen that conceals a fold-away QWERTY keybard.
When closed, this device resembles the classic pocket-PC portrait orientation device. Since it is a true Pocket PC, it has a touch screen and runs the Pocket PC Phone Edition of Windows Mobile 5.
This phone really does everything:

200Mhz omap CPU, overclockable
Mini-SD expansion slot
QVGA (240x320 pixels) resolution
WiFi
Bluetooth
Quad Band GSM (world phone, can be used pretty much all over the world)
Class 10 EDGE (while not quite 3G speeds, this is the fastest EDGE access possible, and it does perform quite well, in excess of 200kpbs even outside of major cities).

Now, the MDA is still quite a bit bigger than my Ipaq was, so while it was very tempting to try it out, I just couldn't justify using one on a regular basis. As a phone, its grossly over-sized. I mean, its better than holding up a blackberry to your head, but it still doesn't have the ease of use and form function of a regular phone. Not to mention the SIZE. Sometimes two seperate devices are better than one huge one bulging off your belt or pocket.

The SDA, based on the HTC Tornado, is a totally different beast.
Running the latest Smartphone platform, this device is designed to be "a Phone first, and a PDA second".
That means that while it shares almost all of the specs of the MDA, the focus on the design is to be used as a phone. This means no QWERTY keyboard, and a lack of touchscreen.
But here's the kicker... its much smaller than the MDA, but its still running Windows Mobile 5. So, what's the difference between the two devices? Let's look at the specs:

200Mhz omap CPU, overclockable
Mini-SD expansion slot
QVGA (240x320 pixels) resolution
WiFi
Bluetooth
Quad Band GSM
Class 10 EDGE

Look familiar? Yup! Its the EXACT SAME SPECS as the MDA in half the size!

So, obviously I was intrigued, but the question was could you really do all the same things on the smartphone as you could on the Pocket PC phone?
I know the core OS is the same, but the device seems to be radically different, and the lack of touch screen made me doubt the functionality of any input. How annoying would it be to have to navigate a menu with the joystick instead of clicking on the touch screen?
Still, the idea was a good one, and I decided to try it out.

What were the results? Well, the name of this entry betrays my answer... but you'll have to wait for part 2 to read my explanation.

For now, lets just say I learned a lot of things from this experience that I never realized before...

First post. Ever.

2006-07-06T19:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'll admit it.
I never thought I'd be one to write a blog.

I never kept a diary, kept a penpal, or even enjoyed writing when I went through school. I liked to talk, and I liked to explain, but no one could ever accuse me of liking to write.
Times change I suppose.

I'm constantly being asked for my opinion on this or that technology, and inevitably find myself repeating something over and over to different people. I've written articles about some of this stuff, but I doubt anyone I know has ever read them. It is my hope to cover enough topics on this blog that eventually when someone approaches me, I'll be able to say "oh, I already spoke about that on my blog". That'd be nice.

Let's see where this goes...