Mobile: Loopt lets you know your friends' locations
Steven Levy in this week's Newsweek: Hey, I Know Where U R. Loopt lets you use a cell phone to share locations. Excerpt:
What kinds of things happen when you share locations with 40 or 50 people?
It's amazing how often you're near someone and don't know about it—not in the same restaurant, but three restaurants down. It's such a common occurrence that some nights. rather than just go home at 11, I'll drive somewhere because I know I'll find people I can meet up with.
Maybe your significant other would wonder why you're hiding.
For that very reason, there's a feature in Loopt where you can set your location to appear to the world that you're somewhere different than you actually are. If you want it to appear that you're at the library while you are really somewhere else, you could do that.You could lie?
For your privacy. This feature came out of a conversation with the National Network to End Domestic Violence. They were saying if a battered wife turned off the feature, the abusive husband would think something's wrong, so people need the ability to look like they're somewhere that they are not.
May 2, 2008 at 10:40 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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Social networking and mobile entertainment
NY Times: Lights. Camera. Cellphone Action. Excerpt:
Nokia in particular is trying to turn itself into an entertainment-friendly company, much the way Steven P. Jobs has changed Apple’s image with the iPod and iPhone.
Nokia, based in Finland, said it surveyed 9,000 consumers last year and concluded that by 2012 one out of every four consumers will create, edit or share entertainment with friends, instead of getting it from traditional media outlets like television or movie studios.
And that, Nokia executives said, led them to seek out a movie director willing to dabble in mobile video.
“This is not a marketing gimmick,” said Craig Coffey, Nokia’s vice president for North American marketing and a former PepsiCo executive. “The notion of social networking and entertainment is real.” ...
April 24, 2008 at 12:42 PM in Mobile, Social networks | Permalink
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MaxRoam: Travel global, pay local
I'm traveling to Israel this week as part of a social media delegation. Among the million and one things I had to do to prepare was get a local cell phone service that won't bankrupt me.
Andy Abramson, who knows about these things, says the usual roaming charges you'll pay your usual carrier (in my case, AT&T International) would be extremely high. So he made available to our team (through Cathy Brooks) a handful of MaxRoam SIM chips. (I love the name, reminds me of Max Headroom.)
The process was surprisingly fast and unpainful: It took me 15 minutes to swap out and activate the new SIM on my Nokia N95.
I don't know how they do it, but I'm guessing VOIP is involved. The deal is, you can "Travel Global, Pay Local, and your callers pay local too" when they phone you. MAXroam's tagline is: "the SIM that doesn’t know you’re traveling."
Because I'll be traveling a lot this year, I'll be curious whether this could realistically replace my standard AT&T Mobile account. And I'll be curious to see what texting charges apply.
How to activate your SIM
After buying the SIM card packet, here are the steps:
1. Go to MaxRoam.com and click on the Activate SIM link.
2. Enter your info into the registration fields, including the SIM card number, which is printed in impossibly small text on the SIM card itself.
3. Open the email confirmation.
4. Log in with your assigned username and password to https://www.maxroam.com/MyAccount/
5. If this is the first time you’ve registered, you get to
choose a country and view a list of phone numbers you can choose from (don’t
expect to memorize it -- it’ll be 11 digits long).
6. Insert the SIM into your cell phone (it’s tucked inside beneath the battery; don’t mistake it for the memory chip).
That's it!
Just turned the phone on and I'm now connected, with a new number, through TMobile. (Says it "auto-registered on a local network.) It's a prepaid account. I'll have to see how this works in reality, since I have only 5 Euros ($7.80) on my account right now. (I won't be using it that much.) The literature says you'll save up to 70 percent on calls from your mobile while you travel abroad. You can add up to 50 numbers to your SIM from 42 countries. I'm impressed by the infrastructure needed to pull this off!
Making calls
For outgoing calls, the literature says:
- Always dial the full international number exlcuding 00 or +.
- Even if you're making a local call, use the country code + area code + local number.
- Wait 5-10 seconds and your phone will ring. Answer this.
- Wait and you'll be connected.
- If yoiu want to end a call and place another one immediately, don't press END but enter ** and follow the instructions.
How to activate your SIM
Andy Abramson just showed me how to forward calls on my regular US number to my new MaxRoam number. On the Nokia N95, you do follow this directory tree:
Tools
Settings
Phone
Call divert
Voice calls
All voice calls
Activate
Then enter your MaxRoam number. A call to your cell number should ring wherever you're traveling, and you'll be connected at the local rate.
April 8, 2008 at 03:59 PM in Consumer, Israel, Mobile | Permalink
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Your guide to the mobile Web
Mark Glaser at PBS's MedisShift: Your guide to the mobile Web.
Mark looks at how the promise of the mobile web has often outstripped reality, with the problem of closed networks, inconsistent standards and differing URLs for special mobile sites. Most U.S. consumers have had bad experiences with the mobile web, and are not willing to pay high data rates for access. However, the introduction of the iPhone has changed the way people view the Internet on phones, giving them a bigger screen and simple two-finger touch to zoom in on web pages. Plus, the push for open networks by Google, Verizon, AT&T and others might bring a future with more innovation and cell phones that work on multiple carriers.
Says former Palm exec and tech consultant Michael Mace: "The mobile phone industry is notorious for trying to create 'walled gardens,' tightly controlled collections of content and services for which they charge substantial fees. They tend to put obstacles in the way of open, unlimited access to the Internet, and are much slower to enable new services than web companies are... That attitude...is incredibly uncomfortable to most Silicon Valley companies. They are used to selling directly to end users, and don't want to work through anyone else. They want the operators to be neutral providers of all products and services, enabling customers to make their own product decisions. That's the way the wired Internet works, and Silicon Valley wants the same thing in wireless."
March 23, 2008 at 11:24 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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iPhone users break all records for Web media access
Steve Safran at Media 2.0 Intel: iPhone users break all records for Web media access.
Owners of iPhones are redefining what it means to use the mobile web. And we have to pay attention because there is a giant opportunity for local media if we act quickly.
M:Metrics has conducted the first survey of iPhone users, and it's an eye-opener. iPhone users hold in their hands a true web device - and that's exactly how they use it.
In January, the study found, 85 percent of iPhone users accessed news and information via their phone. The market average is 13 percent. Even Smartphone users like those who own Blackberries only clock in at about 58 percent.
Asked "Have you accessed web search?" (via your mobile phone), 59% of iPhone users said yes, 37 percent of Smartphone users did so as well but only 6 percent of the rest of the market does.
"Have you watched mobile TV/video?" iPhone owners: 31 percent. Smartphone: 14 percent. Market average: 6 percent.
And there's this: 50 percent of iPhone owners accessed a social network site or blog. The market average in this category is 4 percent. The social web meets the mobile web head on.
Let's face it - the hype was right. This thing really is a game-changer. ...
March 20, 2008 at 12:00 AM in Media, Mobile | Permalink
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Digital convergence comes at a price
Right on, Larry Magid! (whom I've met a couple of times at the usual tech conferences).
In the San Jose Mercury News: Inconvenient flaws of digital convergence. Excerpt:
The good news about the Apple-Lionsgate announcement is that it will finally be possible to buy a commercial DVD and watch it on something other than a TV set or a PC. But, typical of Apple, the only non-personal computer hardware it will support is, of course, from Apple. I have nothing against iPods, iPhones and Apple TV devices but would like to be able to choose whatever hardware I want, thank you very much.
No, thank you, Larry. The libertarian corporations-can-go-no-wrong types who write tech reviews just don't get this. It's patently anti-consumer. More Magid:
The problem here isn't so much Apple, but the studios' insistence that any copies made of DVDs be embedded with digital rights management (DRM) encryption to limit what users can do with their content. I know the argument - if you remove DRM, you open the floodgates to pirates. But guess what? The floodgates are already open.
While DRM makes it inconvenient, if not impossible, for most honest PC and Mac users to back up their DVDs or make copies to watch on other devices, it does nothing to stop professional thieves. Just take a trip to China or many other countries to see how easy it is to buy bootleg copies of commercial DVDs on the street. And when it comes to Internet distribution, there are tools out there that make it possible for pirates to remove encryption, which is why people who have the skills and the desire to download bootleg copies of videos have no trouble doing so.
Personally, I've never ripped a commercial DVD but I've spoken with people who do it routinely and then share those copies via the Internet or college networks. But just because I haven't ripped a DVD doesn't mean I don't want to. I'm writing this column from a hotel room in Washington, D.C., where - if I ever get some time - I plan to watch a DVD on my laptop. I would have preferred copying that DVD to my laptop's hard drive or my portable media player to watch at my leisure but the industry makes that too difficult. In fact, the only way to do it is to obtain software that, according to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is illegal to produce and distribute (though it does exist).
Hulu, Fancast and services that bring movies and TV programs to PCs are certainly laudable, but even they have some serious limitations. To begin with, it's not convenient to watch that streamed content on a TV set. Also, services like these strike me as revenge against TiVo and other personal video recorders. Those of us who have such devices have become accustomed to skipping commercials but, as far as I know, you can't do that with these streaming Internet services.
What bothers me most about these services is that you have to have a live Internet connection to watch the programs. You can stream but you can't download. That's fine when I'm at home but it didn't do me any good last week when I spent five hours bored out of my mind on a cross-country flight.
This is exactly what I predicted in Darknet: A streaming media paradigm is one where we're once again consigned to the role of passive consumers — exactly what Hollywood wants.
March 17, 2008 at 11:46 PM in Computing, Gadgets, Mobile, Television, Video, Web/Tech | Permalink
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The texting generation gap
The New York Times on cell phones, teens, parents and new ways of communicating.
March 9, 2008 at 09:20 PM in Mobile, Youth culture | Permalink
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GPS evolves into a social tool
InfoWorld: GPS about finding friends, not your route. Location-based services are evolving into a social tool as providers maneuver to take advantage of the increasing number of mobile phones shipping with integrated GPS.
Location-based services appeared here, there, and everywhere at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, as service providers maneuvered to take advantage of the increasing number of mobile phones shipping with integrated GPS (Global Positioning System) modules. Many of the services put the emphasis on finding your friends, not finding your way, as GPS evolves into more of a social tool. ...
February 16, 2008 at 12:03 AM in Mobile, Social networks | Permalink
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Mobile and education
Here's a 3-minute video interview I conducted with Joaquin Alvarado, director of the Institute for Next Generation Internet at San Francisco State University, on mobile technology and education, following a conference organized by the Aspen Institute on mobile technology and civic engagement.
Watch MPEG-4 video | Ourmedia page
Flash version on Internet Archive
Flash version on Blip.tv
February 13, 2008 at 05:36 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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Mobile phone, not PC, bridges digital gap
Op-ed by IBM fellow Mark Dean in the San Jose Mercury News: Mobile phone, not PC, bridges digital gap.
February 10, 2008 at 09:01 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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YouTube expands mobile video service
Associated Press: YouTube expands mobile video service.
SAN FRANCISCO — YouTube is expanding its mobile service to include virtually all of the videos available on its Web site, hoping to widen its sway on pop culture.
Beginning Thursday, most people equipped with the latest generation of mobile phones will be able to peruse tens of millions of YouTube videos. YouTube first began showing videos on phones in 2006, but only a few thousand clips had been available until now.
Besides opening up its vast video library available on so-called "smart" phones, YouTube also is providing mobile access to many of the same features that have become staples of its Web site. The additional mobile features include the ability to rate videos and share clips with friends.
More than 100 million devices worldwide should be able to access the expanded mobile service, YouTube estimated. The handsets must have streaming capability and have a 3G operator. ...
January 25, 2008 at 11:54 PM in Mobile, Video | Permalink
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Iowa caucuses blanketed by Twitter, blogs, video
Mark Glaser at PBS's MediaShift: Iowa Caucuses Blanketed by Twitter, Blogs, Video. Excerpt:
Welcome to the new media world order, Ed [Rollins]. Everyone can and will blog something newsworthy you might say even in the seeming privacy of a restaurant conversation with your wife. It’s not necessarily a good thing, it’s just a new reality when everyone can snap a photo or take video of you with their cell phones or quickly write up a blog post on a laptop or tap out a text message broadcast over Twitter. If enough people pick that up, the news will spread quickly enough and you’ll be red-faced on Fox News.
eWeek.com: Tech-Savvy Gen Xers Boost Obama Win. Excerpt:
The surge in Obama voters was largely attributable to his Iowa ground troops -- young volunteers armed with cell phones, wireless Web connections and warm coats who out-organized the veteran Clinton campaign in turning out their respective voters. Obama was the first candidate to introduce text messaging as a campaign tool, and the campaign was a launch partner on Facebook's F8 platform.
January 4, 2008 at 02:41 PM in Current Affairs, Mobile, Politics | Permalink
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Utility in Google’s Mobile Maps
Dan Gillmor: Utility in Google’s Mobile Maps.
In Phoenix last week we used Google’s Mobile Maps on the Nokia N95 for a variety of tasks, and found the application to be a huge value. The software looks for the nearest mobile tower (or GPS location if you’ve turned on the GPS function), and when you search for a type of business — we were looking, for example, for a fabric store — you get the nearest ones.
This is the closest thing to a killer app for the mobile that I’ve found yet. News organizations are way, way behind the curve in meeting yet another local need.
December 30, 2007 at 11:01 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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The 7 biggest mobile content stories of 2007
Fiercemobilecontent offers the 7 biggest mobile content stories of 2007, beginning with the iPhone.
December 28, 2007 at 04:56 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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Back from the Aspen roundtable
Back home after spending a day and a half at the Aspen Institute's roundtable on Mobile Media and Civic Engagement in San Francisco, where 29 thoughtful people exchanged ideas on how to use mobile devices to help citizens make a difference in their communities and in social causes. Was pleased to see two of the people I suggested -- Derrick Oien and Leslie Rule -- participating and was happy to meet super-smart reps from Nokia, Adobe, AT&T and a number of civic-minded mobile organizations. Also finally had a chance to meet Steve Chen, CTO and co-founder of YouTube (at the right above).
The participants came up with a number of recommendations that will be coming out in book form. The folks here are doers, not just talkers. I like that.
Here are some photos I shot. And I conducted three or four short video interviews while there, so hope to post those soon.
December 12, 2007 at 11:16 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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Nokia's place in the marketplace
Interesting article in the NY Times about Nokia's place in the U.S. marketplace. A couple of interesting factoids:
- Although it is the largest handset maker in the world — with 39 percent of the global market of 1.1 billion phones — Nokia has languished in the American market. ... It was a leader there but lost ground after failing to match popular products like Motorola’s Razr phone. Its market share, 28 percent five years ago, is now barely 10 percent.
- Apple has shipped 1.4 million iPhones since June, less than half as many shipped than Nokia’s high-end phone, the N95.
That's the phone that I love.
December 9, 2007 at 09:10 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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Nokia and Chinese youth culture
Here's an example of social networking for China's Western consumer-obsessed youths. I'm part of Nokia's bloggers program and use cell phones from its N-Series, so I found this of interest:
Nokia has launched a new social networking site, www.cool.nseries.com, touting it as China's first online meeting point for the brand's core twentysomething demographic, who are invited to post, discuss and argue about what's cool or not.
December 1, 2007 at 12:04 AM in International, Mobile | Permalink
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Google adds a GPS touch to some cell phones
Saul Hansell in his NY Times blog: Google today is adding a feature for some smartphones that don’t have built in GPS but can read the unique identifying number of the cell tower they are connected to. By using this information, Google can display a map of the general area they are in.
November 29, 2007 at 12:04 AM in Mobile | Permalink
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Mobile Web: Are we there yet?
NY Times: Mobile Web: So Close Yet So Far.
Industry watchers think that having started, the mobile Web will inexorably open over the next five years, solving many current problems. ...
“People talk about the mobile Web, and it’s just assumed that it’ll be a replica of the desktop experience,” Mr. Eagle said. “But they’re fundamentally different devices.” He says he thinks that the basic Web experience for most of the world’s three billion cellphones will never involve trying to thumb-type Web addresses or squint at e-mail messages. Instead, he says, it will be voice-driven. “People want to use their phone as a phone,” he says.
For now, widespread use of the mobile Web remains both far off and inevitable.
November 25, 2007 at 11:32 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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The mobile Web
Sunday NY Times: Web Surfers Can Take the Internet Along for the Ride.
November 10, 2007 at 07:04 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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Looking for a 3G modem for my MacBook Pro
This is new territory for me. I'm thinking of buying a high-speed 3G modem to attach to my MacBook Pro for those numerous occasions when I'm Internet-less -- at a conference with shitty wi-fi, at a cafe that offers only Boingo (paid wi-fi), at my house when my Comcast Internet connection is down.
I did some quick research last night and the only device I found that's compatible with a MacBook Pro and connects into AT&T (my current carrier) is the Sierra Wireless AirCard 875U USB modem. It retails for $319, though I could get it for $150 because of an employee discount in the family. Then there's the two year contract for $40/month for access to AT&T's 3G network, available here in the SF East Bay and here and there on the road.
(Kevin C. Tofel of jkOnTheRun has a quick look at the AirCard 875U working with a MacBook Pro.)
Does this sound like a good option?
Later: There's a fuller discussion at Small Dog Electronics.
November 9, 2007 at 03:38 PM in Computing, Mobile | Permalink
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Google alliance may stop wireless firms' gouging of users
Dean Takahashi in today's San Jose Mercury News: Google alliance may stop wireless firms' gouging of users.
If Google's alliance breaks open the barriers that the balkanized wireless carriers have built around cell phones, then consumers will get the choices they don't have today, but deserve.
Today, the wireless carriers and handset makers are gouging consumers with closed networks that limit the phones you can use and the features you can access - although certainly not the price you pay. It's like having a computer but not being able to choose your Internet service provider. Or not being able to choose which Internet browser you can use.
Because of the barriers, we're behind other places such as Europe and Japan in the adoption of Internet-enabled cell phone services. It's also why we can buy a cool phone such as the iPhone but can't get it on the service of our choosing. It's why e-mail-capable smart-phones are affordable for executives, but not for the folks who work for them. It's time to knock down those barriers.
Google knew it wasn't powerful enough to change these industry dynamics with just a single Google-branded gPhone. Thus, it is banking on the collective power of an "open source" movement ...
Well said.
Mercury News: Not one gPhone, but 'a thousand.' Google to give away software for cell phone firms to build on.
November 6, 2007 at 10:53 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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Cellphone jamming: illegal but sometimes cool
NY Times: Devices Enforce Cellular Silence, Sweet but Illegal.
SAN FRANCISCO — One afternoon in early September, an architect boarded his commuter train and became a cellphone vigilante. He sat down next to a 20-something woman who he said was “blabbing away” into her phone.
“She was using the word ‘like’ all the time. She sounded like a Valley Girl,” said the architect, Andrew, who declined to give his last name because what he did next was illegal.
Andrew reached into his shirt pocket and pushed a button on a black device the size of a cigarette pack. It sent out a powerful radio signal that cut off the chatterer’s cellphone transmission — and any others in a 30-foot radius.
Froogle lists a few of these: the Portable Mobile Signal Jammer (pictured above, for $150), the Advanced Mobile Phone Signal Jammer, and the XT6000 Cell Phone Jammer, which cannot be sold to "U.S. civilians."
“She kept talking into her phone for about 30 seconds before she realized there was no one listening on the other end,” he said. His reaction when he first discovered he could wield such power? “Oh, holy moly! Deliverance.”
As cellphone use has skyrocketed, making it hard to avoid hearing half a conversation in many public places, a small but growing band of rebels is turning to a blunt countermeasure: the cellphone jammer, a gadget that renders nearby mobile devices impotent.
The technology is not new, but overseas exporters of jammers say demand is rising and they are sending hundreds of them a month into the United States — prompting scrutiny from federal regulators and new concern last week from the cellphone industry. The buyers include owners of cafes and hair salons, hoteliers, public speakers, theater operators, bus drivers and, increasingly, commuters on public transportation.
The development is creating a battle for control of the airspace within earshot. And the damage is collateral. Insensitive talkers impose their racket on the defenseless, while jammers punish not just the offender, but also more discreet chatterers.
“If anything characterizes the 21st century, it’s our inability to restrain ourselves for the benefit of other people,” said James Katz, director of the Center for Mobile Communication Studies at Rutgers University. “The cellphone talker thinks his rights go above that of people around him, and the jammer thinks his are the more important rights.”
The jamming technology works by sending out a radio signal so powerful that phones are overwhelmed and cannot communicate with cell towers. The range varies from several feet to several yards, and the devices cost from $50 to several hundred dollars. Larger models can be left on to create a no-call zone....
November 3, 2007 at 08:44 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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iJailBreak allows third-party apps on iPod Touch
I'm sitting here in Toronto next to Dan Gillmor (and about to head home). But I keep hearing about interesting things that I'm tempted to blog:
• Macworld: iJailBreak allows third-party apps on iPod Touch.
A 13-year-old coder that goes by the name AriX has released an application called iJailBreak that allows users to install third-party applications on the iPod touch.
• Meantime, Apple will have to sell an unlocked version of the iPhone in France (meaning, users won't be forced to buy a service plan for AT&T). Says Dan: "Soon you'll be able to mail-order an unlocked iPhone from France."
Also sitting next to Jill Hunter Pellettieri, managing editor of Slate, who told me about their new video site: Slatetv.com. Not bad, check it out.
October 19, 2007 at 10:31 AM in Media, Mobile | Permalink
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Free calls to landlines and mobiles
From mobile operator Truphone: Now until December 31, mobile calls are free to landlines in 40 countries and free to mobile phones in
the USA, Canada and elsewhere. Can't beat that.
October 13, 2007 at 01:02 AM in Mobile | Permalink
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Open up mobile networks
Vindu Goel at the San Jose Mercury News: Open up mobile networks. Excerpt:
The Web's open technical standards also let developers create thousands of applications that make our lives easier or more fun: Facebook, iTunes, Skype, Google Earth, Digg, Hotmail.
Unfortunately, that openness doesn't extend to cellular telephone networks, which are increasingly becoming a gateway to e-mail and the Web itself.
As NARAL Pro-Choice America discovered last week, mobile phone companies operate their networks under their own rules. They can allow - or exclude - whatever they want. ...
October 4, 2007 at 12:47 AM in Mobile | Permalink
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Making phone calls in Europe
Chris Pirillo, just back from Germany, on U.S. citizens making phone calls in Europe.
September 21, 2007 at 10:30 PM in Consumer, Mobile | Permalink
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Truphone: Make Internet calls on your Nokia moble
Got a coolio T-shirt from Truphone, courtesy of some friends (available at Cafepress.com/truphone). The site enables Internet telephone calls on Nokia mobile phones. I'll be checking it out.
September 19, 2007 at 01:39 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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Nokia E90’s potential for journalism
Dan Gillmor raves about the Nokia E90 Communicator: Nokia E90’s Enormous Potential in Journalism.
It’s almost precisely what the Apple iPhone is not: a device designed with serious work in mind, where the keypad(s) are the data-entry systems and where multimedia creation carries a higher value than playback. ...
This device, not yet officially on sale in the U.S., has game-changing potential for journalism. If I ran a newsroom and could talk the money folks into it, I’d hand out E90s to some of my journalists and Web developers. I’d tell them to experiment like crazy, and to watch what other people are doing with these and other powerful mobile systems. I suspect they’d do some amazing things.
I haven't seen the device yet (though intend to). Offhand, though, this seems like a device more suited to journalists in new media operations and to business people rather than to most citizen journalists in the field, who are more likely to use lightweight camera phones and mobile video cams you can fit into your pocket.
September 4, 2007 at 09:41 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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Gadget maker or service provider? Firms start to overlap
NY Times: Gadget Maker or Service Provider? Firms Start to Overlap.
Nokia used to be just a cellphone maker. Google used to be just an Internet company.
Now Nokia wants to be an Internet company and Google, according to rampant speculation among bloggers and technology analysts, may be about to enter the mobile phone fray. ...
September 3, 2007 at 03:33 PM in Gadgets, Mobile | Permalink
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A new Web feature to make document printing mobile
John Markoff in the NY Times: Hewlett Introduces a Web Feature to Make Document Printing Mobile.
Hoping to alleviate a frustration of mobile computing, Hewlett-Packard has quietly introduced a free service designed to make it possible to print documents on any printer almost anywhere in the world. Cloudprint, which was developed over a period of several months by a small group of H.P. Labs researchers, makes it possible to share, store and print documents using a mobile phone. ...
August 19, 2007 at 09:40 PM in Mobile | Permalink
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iPhone reality check - some shortcomings
Shelly Palmer loves his iPhone. Really and truly. And I don't want to throw cold water on the device, which looks pretty awesome; I'll no doubt be getting iPhone v. 2.0.
Having said that, for anyone on the fence about buying one, you should know about some of its current limitations. Shelly spells them out in iPhone Reality/Sanity Check — my iWish list. Excerpt:
What you are about to read is not an indictment of the iPhone platform, the concept or its design. I truly love the device. It’s just not very useful as a phone, PDA or business tool.
Right now, I’m forwarding all of my Verizon calls to my iPhone. I didn’t have the guts to port the number over without a few weeks of iPhoning under my belt. This turned out to be a very good idea.
AT&T Phone Service — What I didn’t know beforehand was that AT&T offers “anytime” minutes as in, “Anytime you can get a signal.” As a Verizon customer, I am spoiled. My Verizon Blackberry 7130e works practically everywhere and it almost never drops a call. Conversely, I have yet to end an iPhone call with “good bye.” All of my iPhone calls have ended with, “Hello! … Hello!” Using AT&T cellphone network is like going back in time 10 years. This is a serious problem. If you are thinking about using the iPhone as a phone, forget it. (Cities of travel with my iPhone: New York City and surrounding metro, central Connecticut, eastern Long Island and Atlanta, GA)
AT&T Edge Network — Actually, it is nowhere near as bad as everyone says it is. But, when you compare the iPhone’s operation in a WiFi environment to its performance on the EDGE network, you think the device is broken. In a year or two when they introduce a new iPhone that’s truly 3G, everyone will be much, much happier.
The Speaker Phone — This is actually my second iPhone. I visited the Genius Bar at Apple’s Fifth Avenue store and exchanged my first one because I was sure that the speaker in my iPhone was defective. As you can imagine, the people at Apple bent over backwards to help me and replaced my iPhone without any problem at all. Sadly, the second device was exactly like the first. The speaker is useless. For all practical purposes, there is no speaker, or speaker-phone capability in the iPhone. It is unusable. If you’re used to putting your Blackberry in the middle of a table during a business call so your colleagues around the table can participate, this is not the phone for you.
Email Threads — The email application in the iPhone integrates perfectly with Apple Mail, Gmail and a bunch of other email applications. Only one minor problem — the device does not support email threading. If you like single-threaded communication, you’re in luck. If you are trying to do business with three-dozen contacts on any given day, you are going to be very, very unhappy.
No Search — I don’t mean limited search, I mean “no” search capability. If you are a Mac user and you rely on Spotlight the way many Mac users do, you are going to be amazed to realize that you cannot search email, contacts or anything else on the device. No localized search, no global search — no search. This is really a serious problem for business users. Try to find an email from yesterday or a name from a very big contact list — the experience is not sub-optimal, it is unacceptable, even personal use.
Highlighting Text/Cut/Paste — Nope! Get used to hitting the backspace area of the touch screen (there are no keys) multiple times. This is a huge pain. You don’t realize how much you rely on simple word processing tools until they are gone.
Not Flash Compatible – Yes, you can get a fantastic HTML experience on the iPhone. It’s really fun to get HTML emails and browse the web. Some Java applications work, Flash applications don’t. (Apple says that the mini-Safari browser will be Flash compatible in a future software upgrade.) This is really important.
Email Attachments — Some popular file formats work, most do not. Ouch!
Battery Life — Don’t ask. Check your email once per hour and take five phone calls during the business day and you’ll be lucky to have enough battery-life left to call home and tell them that you’re going to be late. The battery is not user serviceable and is rumored to be built to take approximately 300 charges. This is unsubstantiated, but the battery life is so awful in the iPhone, you are willing to believe anything people tell you about it. Sanity check: I played a :45 second video five times over the course of an hour, demonstrated the web browser three times and took one five minute phone call and used 50% of my battery by noon today. I’m not sure exactly what to do about this.
Quicktime Files – Apple Quicktime is, well … from Apple. Older .mov files need to be converted to play in the iPhone. This will more than double the size of your iTunes video library. You will need to keep both formats. To make videos iPhone compatible, highlight the video you want to convert, go to the Advanced tab in iTunes and select “Convert Selection for iPod.” Then rename the .m4v file, with a .mov extension and make sure to “Keep” the .mov extension when asked, otherwise the converted file won’t play in your iPhone. I have to assume that they are going to fix this very soon.
Heat — The iPhone runs very hot. It is actually uncomfortable to hold the handset to your ear in the summertime. I assume that it will be a pleasure in the winter.
Headset — The supplied stereo headset has a microphone so you can use it (instead of a battery-draining Bluetooth headset) to make and receive calls. It is simply an awful piece of technology. The sound is terrible and the microphone has to be held close to your mouth or you can’t be heard. Ugh! ...
In conclusion, I think the iPhone is the great-great-grand-father of the future of personal media devices. I’m looking forward to a software upgrade that will solve some of the issues listed above. However, some of the physical and network issues cannot be solved with a software upgrade, they are simply limitations of the technology Apple chose to incorporate into the device.
Should you buy one? If you want to be the coolest kid on your block, sure. If you are happy with AT&T/Cingular as a wireless provider, sure. If you are willing to carry an additional cell phone to make important calls, sure. If you are seeking knowledge about the future of personal communications and want to “see for yourself,” sure. Otherwise, I’d wait for at least one, if not two, generations. iLove my iPhone. I truly do. It’s just not suitable for the purpose for which it was designed.
Meantime, in the Monday NY Times: A team of computer security consultants say they have found a flaw in Apple’s wildly popular iPhone that allows them to take control of the device.
Update: Dean Takahashi in Monday's San Jose Mercury News: 10 ways to improve the iPhone.
July 22, 2007 at 11:19 PM in Gadgets, Mobile | Permalink
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The reality of monopoly power in the mobile space
Sunday NY Times: When Mobile Phones Aren’t Truly Mobile.
Wireless carriers in the United States are spiritual descendants of dear Ma Bell: they view total control over customers as their inherited birthright.
The younger generation — Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile and the namesake child AT&T — would make their hallowed matriarch proud. They do everything they can to keep power firmly in their own hands. It is entirely at the carriers’ discretion to permit, or disable, the features that a factory loads into the newest phones. They also decide which software can be installed and how it may be used. Many wireless subscribers have ruefully become acquainted with gotcha clauses in their contracts.
In most European and Asian countries, a customer can switch carriers in a few seconds by removing a smart card from a cellphone and inserting a different one from a new provider. In the United States, wireless carriers have deliberately hobbled their phones to make flight to a competitor difficult, if not impossible.
If you, the long-suffering subscriber, decide that you have had enough and wish to try your luck with another company, you’re free to pay your early-termination fee and go. But you most likely will have to abandon the phone you’ve already paid for, even when the technology is shared by the two carriers. (Sprint, for example, whose network is based on the CDMA standard, forbids the use of CDMA-based cellphones obtained from Verizon.) The odds are better than even that your cellphone is either locked by your incumbent carrier or forbidden for use on the network by your new one.
In the days when cellphones were inexpensive and could perform only one or two functions, they could be treated as disposable. When smart phones like the Palm Treo arrived, however, the cellphones became too pricey to abandon lightly when switching companies. Now the iPhone is here — if you’re willing to pony up $500 or $600. AT&T has received an exclusive contract from Apple, so iPhone buyers have no alternative carrier. But the lack of choices rankles and is drawing more scrutiny than ever. ...
July 22, 2007 at 12:02 AM in Mobile | Permalink
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Nokia's N95: The cure for iPhone envy
Suffering from iPhone lust? While the media have been abuzz over Steve Jobs' so-called Jesus phone, Nokia has recently released a fabulous gizmo that's actually a much better phone.
It's the Nokia N95.
As a member of the Nokia bloggers program, I've had fun over the past year testing out the latest cool toys that the Finnish company has dangled in the U.S. marketplace. Liked the N91 and N70. Found the N73 and N80 handy. Loved the N93 and N90. But I adore the N95, which sets a new standard for gotta-have-it mobile eye candy and rockin' features, even if its interface still needs work.
In the Silicon Valley circles I run in these days, I've begun spotting the N95 with increasing frequency. Dan Gillmor has one. So do videobloggers Andrew Baron of Rocketboom in New York and Steve Garfield of Boston.
I decided to pass on the iPhone because the N95 and my MacBook Pro meet my mobile wireless needs (for now), so I can't do a true side-by-side comparison. But here is how their features stack up:
Phone features
Nokia N95: You have a full choice of carriers, and the N95 supports 3G, which is a huge advantage over AT&T's Edge. The device is smaller and lighter than an iPhone (4.2 oz. to the iPhone's 4.8 oz.) and conveniently slips into a shirt pocket.
iPhone: You're locked into AT&T and its pokey Edge service for two years, a poor experience for downloading multimedia files. And it takes four to six steps to place a simple phone call.
Multimedia
Nokia N95: The N95 is helping to usher in an age of citizen media, with video captured in MPEG-4 at a big, fat 640 x 480 pixels. These videos look good! Here's my interview (taped indoors) with attorney Colette Vogele, done on an N95. It also takes good photos, especially outdoors, in 5 megapixels up to 2592 x 1944 pixels.
iPhone: You can watch video on its luscious 3.5-inch screen in glorious H.264 MPEG-4. But you can't shoot video. You can, however, take pictures with its 2-megapixel camera.
Other features
Nokia N95: The N95 plays music decently with a headset, though I'll admit I haven't spent time trying to figure out how to transfer my mp3s onto the device. Web browsing is something I frankly don't do on a cellphone screen. The gadget also sports an alarm clock, a mapping service and other nice little extras. The N95 also supports texting, instant messaging, visual radio and even video telephony. You can slip a big microSD memory card (not included) into the memory slot, and its battery won't need servicing after a year. Finally, the N95 has GPS (tied to the mapping service, covering most of the globe), though I haven't spent time trying to figure out how to use it.
iPhone: Web browsing on a decent-size screen is, to me, the iPhone's killer app. Being able to call up an entire web page and zoom in on the story you want with a flick of the finger is nothing less than a revolutionary advance. Naturally, the iPhone doubles as an iPod and lets you play mp3s and AAC music files. The iPhone has texting but no instant messaging.
Coolness factor
Nokia N95: The N95 has a cool factor all its own, with a pleasant little jolt that signals the phone is ready to use. Awesome glowing blue buttons. Wonderful form factor: generous-size screen that slips open to expose the numeric keypad for dialing.
iPhone: Steve Jobs is God in a mock turtleneck. Can't get much cooler than that.
Price
Nokia N95: Sells for about $700 (see Froogle).
iPhone: Retails for $499 (4GB) and $599 (8GB).
JD Lasica is a former columnist for Engadget. Have you used an N95 or iPhone? Add your own observations.
July 7, 2007 at 12:05 AM in Gadgets, Mobile | Permalink
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Google buys GrandCentral
Google has acquired GrandCentral, a pretty cool service that lets users integrate all of their existing phone numbers and voice mailboxes into one account.
Announcements at TechMeme and on the Google Blog.
July 3, 2007 at 12:05 AM in Mobile, Web/Tech | Permalink
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