Tech Talk » Phones

iPhone 3.0 arrives and impresses

Philip — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:26:34 +0000

I’ve been silent for the last week and enjoying my newest toy – the iPhone 3.0 upgrade which dropped last week. I’m very impressed with the release and with the incremental steps that Apple has delivered to all of us customers. In the meantime, I’ve been one-up’d at work by many co-workers who have upgraded to the iPhone 3Gs handsets with video, improved cameras, and more speed (yes, just a wee bit jealous).

I am really enjoying many of the improvements in 3.0, including landscape mode for several applications – including mail and messages. A blogger I follow tweeted this article from CNet which details how to enable tethering on the iPhone… Draw your own conclusions as to its legality, but its one of the features I want most on the iPhone and AT&T is not allowing it at this time.

I’m also enjoying push notifications as of today for Beejive IM – an excellent pay-for IM client for all your different accounts. I installed that app this morning and I’ve had it running at work. Noteworthy features include Facebook chat, a really smooth chat switching method when you’re having mutliple conversations, and push notifications, of course. The service/software keeps you signed into your accounts even after disconnecting and will forward any received messages or statuses to your phone via a push notification which displays on your home screen. This is Apple’s work-around to background processes on the phone, which, they say, kills battery life.

iPhone 3.0 also grants the ability to subscribe to CalDAV calendars and integrate those. I have a friend who needs this setup, so I should be trying that soon. I use MobileMe, personally, for my family and our calendars and it works great – but to give enterprise customers who have invested in OS X Server the ability to leverage iCal Server is a great feature, in my opinion.

And speaking of my MobileMe subscription, a new feature has been added there – Find my iPhone – a locator service and the ability to display a message on-screen and have the phone play a tone. For those of us who lose things, its a nice feature when you’re looking for your phone while its stuck in the couch. At least one person has already used the service to successfully reclaim a stolen iPhone… That story is a very good read.

Another problem for the T-Mobile G1

Philip — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 19:34:16 +0000

The much hyped T-Mobile G1 handset will hit the market next month, but its in my eyes, it has a major obstacle to overcome – the overwhelming lack of a 3G network to operate on. Many site AT&T’s 3G coverage (or lack) as a weakness with the iPhone 3G models, but T-Mobile’s 3G network coverage is abysmal. It looks like parts of Texas, New England, Atlanta and spots of California are the only lucky 3G coverage in T-Mobile’s network from examining their coverage map.

What makes matters worse is the fact that AT&T and T-Mobile, our nation’s only GSM network operators, aren’t on compatible 3G frequencies, so phones from one network can’t even roam onto the other provider’s network. While this might be nice for the network’s “customer loyalty”, its horrible for customer choice. It means monopoly for handsets and shackles for users. Lack of choice is never a good thing in any market. I hope that we will see this change, but incompatible networks has long been the de-facto operating stance for American phone providers.

For clarity sake, T-Mobile lists the following cities (look how many are Coming Soon) with 3G coverage (source):

Atlanta
Austin
Birmingham – Coming Soon
Boston
Chicago
Dallas
Denver – Coming Soon
Detroit – Coming Soon
Houston
Kansas City – Coming Soon
Las Vegas
Los Angeles
Memphis – Coming Soon
Miami
Minneapolis
New York
Orlando
PhiladelphiaPhoenix
Portland
Sacramento – Coming Soon
San Diego
San Francisco
Seattle
Tampa – Coming Soon

T-Mobile intro’s the G1 and its not the iPhone killer expected

Philip — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:31:46 +0000

Saw a lot of media coverage about T-Mobile’s introduction of the G1 handset. I’ve watched several demos and I’m not really sure what I think of the handset yet. Its certainly not got the wow factor that I had after seeing the introduction of the iPhone. Maybe the missing piece was the Steve’s reality distortion field.

The software looks compelling in the demos that I have seen, but lacks the polish of the iPhone. Google has done a good job creating a platform, though I’ve seen some outstanding UI concepts that are not integrated into this particular handset. What seems to be lacking is the cohesiveness that makes the iPhone great. The UI looks a little disjointed with the main menu which scrolls in and then the ability to dock widgets and app icons on the “desktop.” I really don’t know what else to call it – home screen maybe.

Surprisingly, the capacity of the G1 is very minimal – sitting at only 1Gb of storage. That is a major limiting factor, but reflects the fact that the G1 isn’t an all-in-one, convergence device. Its just a smart phone with internet. That is the iPhone’s biggest competative advantage, but then I don’t think we’re seeing Google squaring off the device against Apple. Apple has turned out to be a great partner which showcases many of Google’s online products within the iPhone, so the G1 isn’t going head to head with the iPod capabilities of the iPhone for sure.

AppleInsider has a great piece about the differences and goes much more into depth comparing the devices – worth a read for sure…