The PhoneBoy Blog » apple

Living Mobile and the Post-PC Era

PhoneBoy — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 00:10:37 +0000

I’m just going to come right out and say it: most of my personal computing is done on a mobile device. A mobile device being a tablet or a phone either with WiFi or some kind of mobile Internet connection. This is despite being surrounded by more conventional laptop and desktop computers. Note this does not count my work-related use of computers, which, unfortunately, is still tied to a more conventional laptop.

It’s hard to know when the tipping point happened for me. Likely when I started getting more capable smartphones from Nokia, whom employed me at the time. Surely I had experienced the various Communicator-style devices (I had a 9210, a 9300, and a 9500). However, the two most pivotal devices for me: The Nokia E70 and the Nokia N95, which is the middle of 2006. I still have (and occasionally even use) the Nokia N95, even though by today’s standards, it’s only marginally more functional than a featurephone.

Of course in those days, Smartphones were not entirely accesible to the masses. Sure, they were obtainable in the sense you could go to any operator and buy one. But then what? Most people had no clue how to use them. Why else do you think the US operators had no problem selling unlimited data packages? Because no one was really using them (except for a few of us).

Then something changed: the iPhone came on the scene. While the first iteration of the iPhone OS (now called iOS) was arguably less functional than smartphones of the day, it quickly became the smartphone that everyone in the developed world wanted. It raised the bar for what the user experience should be on a phone.

Then Google-backed Android came on the scene and, after a few iterations, became a credible alternative to the iPhone. Microsoft, being a bit late to the party, completely redoes their mobile operating system. Nokia’s Symbian, the long-time leader in the smarphone space, could not keep up with the level of innovation Google and Apple were cranking out and, eventually, Nokia announced their plans to sunset the operating system and go with Windows Mobile. RIM, maker of the Blackberry handsets, have also struggled to keep pace and have stagnated.

It’s pretty clear to most industry observers (and even lay-people) that Android and iOS are the dominant phone operating systems. But it’s more than that: it’s now mobile computing. The same popular smartphone operating systems are now available in a different form factor device: tablets. And, as a number of industry analysts are saying, tablets are the new personal computers.

Apple led the way again here by introducing the iPad, using the same OS used on the insanely popular iPhone. A number of other hardware manufacturers have tried (and failed) to duplicate the success that Apple has had with the iPad using Android. The only manufacturer having any success is Amazon, who introduced the Kindle Fire at the end of 2011. Even their numbers are anemic compared to what Apple sells, but they have something the other tablet makers don’t have: a thriving ecosystem on which to use the device. Remember, Amazon sells all kinds of digital goods in much the same way Apple sells them through iTunes and the App Store.

Why do people prefer to use mobile devices rather than traditional computers? For me, it’s always been: because the device is always with me and connects me to what matters most. Even if it’s not a full experience, it’s often good enough.

For other people, it’s that these mobile devices are easier to use than traditional PCs. This is partially due to the easier-to-use touch interfaces on the current generation smartphones and tablets. There is also less for the average person to “screw up” as well, making for a less intimidating experience.

For another class of people, it’s because they can’t afford the PC and everything it takes to make it operate. This is certainly true in less affluent nations, such as Nigeria.

I had an interesting conversation over Twitter with Yomi Adegboye AKA Mister Mobility (he’s well worth following at @Mister_Mobility). It confirmed this hypothesis. Of course, during the 10 years I worked at Nokia, I took every opportunity to read up on everything Nokia was doing, including how they were developing phones for places like India and Africa. My hypothesis was already well informed.

In these less affluent nations, many people don’t even have electricity. Or if they do, it is supplied by a generator of some sort. Wired phone service may or may not exist (if it does, it is surely expensive for voice service, much less data service). The infrastructure needed to operate a PC may be entirely out of reach.

Meanwhile, while even a basic mobile phone is out of reach for some, that, a SIM card, and an occasional source of power is all one needs to compute and stay connected. For these folks, their mobile phone is their only computing device. Not because they prefer it, but because that’s what they are able to obtain.

There is no doubt in my mind that computing is going mobile. Will more traditional computers go away? While I expect my children won’t even need to own a traditional computer when they are young adults, the traditional computer will likely never go away entirely.

There is always going to be a need for bigger screens and more horsepower than you can pack into a device that lives in your pocket. Especially by people who generate large amounts of content. Will that be the norm for the average person, however? No.

Comments

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The iPad 2–What I’ve Been Missing

PhoneBoy — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 00:25:07 +0000

As implied by my review of the Hammerhead case for iPad 2, I am now the proud owner of an iPad. Yes, I successfully resisted the siren call of Steve Jobs long enough. However, a funny thing happened: I spent a few days on the road with Kellman and saw how he used his. That pretty much sold me on the utility of the iPad.

Kellman did a number of really cool things:

Had ubiquitous connectivity thanks to the built-in 3G modem. This isn’t so much of a concern for me when I travel in the US, but when I travel outside the US, it’s very much an issue. The iPad 2 is unlocked so I can easily swap in a SIM card from a different operator. I can also easily sign up for a prepaid data package right from my iPad (though I haven’t tried this yet).
Did a presentation from his iPad. You can get a cable for your iPad that allows you hook up to a VGA projector, use Keynote to give the presentation, and control the presentation with an iPhone! No laptop required!
Accessed a number of computers remotely using LogMeIn Ignition. While this is a rather pricey app at $29.99, it gives you the ability to control any number of PCs or Macs from your iPad using the well-known LogMeIn service without any additional charges. I recently tried this out with my computers and it works well.
Flipboard. I had heard about it, but until I actually saw how it worked with my own eyes, I didn’t really get it. Now I do. It integrates Twitter, Facebook, and a number of news/information sources from the web and presents it in a magazine-based format that is very compelling.

Given the above, the fact I already had a significant investment in the Apple universe (having purchased an iPhone 3GS two years ago and an iPod Touch for the family last year), and the fact that none of the Android tablets I looked at were nearly as compelling, including the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is was the closest, I pulled the trigger and bought one. It wasn’t cheap, that’s for sure, especially since I opted for the 64gb version with 3G.

Once I got it home, and given my recent experiences with the Nokia E6 and Nokia E7, I began to understand why people really love the iPad. The software is one aspect, of course. Then again, as an iPhone/iPod Touch owner, I already knew this. What made it more compelling was, quite honestly, the larger screen.

It’s not just to see the content better, though I certainly found that to be one reason to like the iPad. The screen size also enables one to utilize a touch interface either. This point was driven home to me when I was evaluating the Nokia E6 with its small but touch-enabled screen. Having the real estate to actually perform the various touch actions is very important. The iPad has that. In spades.

The other obvious benefit to having a large screen is you can have an even larger battery. 10 hours is quite a lot of battery life. While I haven’t been able to get anywhere near running the battery down, it certainly will last a normal day. Considering I frequently fly to Israel, which takes me almost 24 hours, having a gadget that can last the entire journey without having access to a power plug is certainly desirable. I’m putting this to the test as I type this.

The iPad 2 has both a front-facing and rear-facing camera. The camera quality is nothing to write home about, of course, though I can find uses for this. I have smartphones to capture higher-quality pictures, anyway.

In any case, I am very happy with my iPad purchase. I wish more of the apps I had previously purchased previously were iPad enabled. I had to spend some money to buy iPad-enabled versions of many of the apps I was actively using, which is far preferable to using iPhone apps in the emulation mode.

Comments

11 July 2011, Kyle writes: Good idea to see how a device can be used in the real world but could you have been equally swayed if your buddy was doing cool tricks on an android tablet instead?
11 July 2011, PhoneBoy writes: The bottom line is that Android, at least in the tablet space, has not proven itself yet. I did see a Galaxy Tab 10.1 up close and personal. The hardware was excellent, in some ways better than the iPad 2. The applications, at least the ones I saw, were also pretty good. There wasn't enough of them, or at least enough of the right ones. Also, the Galaxy Tab 10.1 did not have an integrated 3G modem. While it's not something I will use that much traveling domestically, it is something I plan to use when traveling Internationally.
12 July 2011, Ed writes: After I posted previously on your phone entry, I purchased the Galaxy Tab 10.1 the day it came out. I thought it was great to see it the same size and weight as the iPad2, and Live wallpapers are neat for a bit, and of course the messaging is excellent. I really struggled on Apps. iPad has an excellent refined interface, with plenty to choose from. Android (Honeycomb) has a good interface, but awful at app selection. Some of the Apps that came up were in Chinese, or incredibly cheesy, making the experience very ho-hum. Not to mention that when Android hangs a bit, or the screen doesn't come up properly, my instant reaction is that it's cheap, and not in the same class as the iPad. I've had a few issues on iPad, but the slick clean interface is the best. My stance is that right now, iPad is the best, and one google figures out how to pull everything together on one platform, one OS - then the real competition starts.
12 July 2011, PhoneBoy writes: The Android ecosystem is not tablet-friendly yet. This is the conclusion I came to. I have no doubt they will catch up like they did (mostly) on phones but it will take time.

Cases, Cases

PhoneBoy — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 18:12:17 +0000

I received a MacBook sleeve and a iPhone 4 keyboard to review. They are both essentially cases. Let me explain.

The MacBook sleeve, in this case, is a 17″ SeeThru Satin case made by Speck that GearZap sent me. It’s black and covers my mid-2009 era MacBook Pro quite nicely. It feels good, is “see thru” in the sense that the glowing Apple shows through on the top and the blinking power light. I haven’t battle-tested it with a trip anywhere, but I suspect it will hold up quite nicely.

Meanwhile, I also got a TypeTop Swivel Mini Keyboard for iPhone4 from Mobile Fun. The tiny keyboard, about as thin as an iPod Touch and as big around as an iPhone 4, comes in a case that can carry both the iPhone and the keyboard together. The case can swivel around so that it looks almost like a mini laptop!

Unfortunately, I still don’t have an iPhone 4, so I cannot try this case as was intended. However, I can say the keyboard paired nicely with my iPhone 3GS. The lack of instructions on how to pair the keyboard was annoying, but it didn’t take long to figure out. Just a little tiny button at the top of the keyboard by the blue light.

Even without the case, the keyboard, which can be easily removed from the case, is small enough that it could easily go in my travel bag. It charges with an included MicroUSB cable.

Introducing iPad 2: NSFW Parody

PhoneBoy — Fri, 04 Mar 2011 18:13:53 +0000

WPvideo 1.10

Direct link to video

Comments

13 March 2011, Bob writes: Pretty funny!

Power PC Ubuntu Mini (Formerly Mac Mini)

PhoneBoy — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 08:17:35 +0000

I finally made my old Power PC-based Mac Mini useful. I installed the latest fUbuntu release on it, which even though the makers of Ubuntu don’t officially support, works reasonably well.

Of course, you get a lot less “non free” software since Power PC on Linux is even more of a bastard stepchild than Linux on Intel. I also have to give up Google Chrome/Chromium since it only runs on Intel or ARM hardware.

Even so Ubuntu seems a lot more snappy than OS X Tiger seemed to be.

Apple Now a Top 5 Phone Manufacturer!

PhoneBoy — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 13:10:41 +0000

From Communities Dominate Brands: Apple Q3 Results, major milestones reached by iPhone… and Apple the Computer Maker too:

Apple has now crashed into the Top 5 of global handset makers! It was just a year ago that Apple entered the top 10 handset makers, as the second of the ‘pure smartphone makers’ to enter the chart where obviously the cheaper dumbphones would dominate due to their volumes of sales. But now Apple has leapfrogged RIM, and it depends essentially on ZTE performance, on whether Apple is 4th or 5th, and whether the last of the top 5 is ZTE or RIM. But Apple is definitely now one of the world’s 5 largest mobile phone manufacturers. This is an astonishing achievement considering that they only make smartphones, that the unsubsidised price of the iPhone is about 5 times more than the average of all phones sold worldwide, and most of all, that Apple has managed this with only one new phone model released per year! (imagine how much more market success Apple would have, if the decided to expand their product line and introduce say a lower cost ’iPhone Nano’ model and release two new phones per year..)

Tomi Ahonen’s analysis is, as usual, spot on. Just yesterday I was talking to someone about how Apple was, despite being a “top 10″ manufacturer of mobile phones, was making substantially more profit on smartphones than any other manufacturer.

Now I know they’re in the top 5 globally, and I suspect it’s only a matter of time before they hit the top 3. That has to be scary to my friends at Nokia, who are still the top manufacturer by a long shot, but are slowly but surely continuing to lose ground to Apple.

Apple Can Kill Your Phone Remotely?

PhoneBoy — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 18:42:25 +0000

There’s been a lot of discussion today about the “new iPhone” that was discovered because some git left it in a Redwood City, California bar. (Un)fortunately, it made it’s way to the folks at Gizmodo and it’s now a topic of discussion all over the Internet. Given how much Apple likes to control the information about their products, I can’t see them intentionally “leaking” the device prior to the official announcement.

There is some benefit to this “leak” in that it cranks up the hype machine to 12. However, this allows a lot of potentially mis-information to be propagated–unchecked by Apple. In general, though, mobile phone manufacturers do not like their products leaked before they are ready for one simple reason: it gives the competition a head start in responding. At least that was the corporate line given to us at Nokia when I worked there

The one piece of information that nobody is mentioning in their coverage is, I think, the most scary. According to the Gizmodo piece, Apple was reportedly able to kill the leaked prototype device remotely. While I can see why such a feature would be beneficial (and maybe Nokia will take the opportunity to copy that feature “with pride”), it raises all sorts of questions: Can Apple remotely kill any iDevice it chooses, not just prototypes? Is the data on the phone recoverable? How “hackable” is this mechanism (i.e. can someone discover this mechanism and hack it for their own purposes)?

As usual, enquiring minds want to know.

Update #1: Numerous people have pointed out both that Apple can remotely disable applications as well as the Remote Wipe functionality that can be activated when a device synchronizes through a Microsoft Exchange server. What I’m talking about is the possibility that Apple can, without a connection to an Exchange server, issue a remote wipe to a device. It’s possible that with this prototype device, this did happen through ActiveSync. The thought that Apple could reach into my device and either disable applications or Remote Wipe the device without my knowledge or consent does not sit well with me.

Update #2: And yes, MobileMe does this remote wipe thing as well. So clearly Apple has the capability to do this. It still makes me nervous that a device I’ve purchased could be wiped at the touch of a button by the company who sold me the product.

So, Which Apple Employee Is Getting Fired For Losing The New iPhone In A Bar? (businessinsider.com)
This Is Apple’s New 4G iPhone… (9to5mac.com)
Gizmodo Gets Hands On New 4G iPhone (wired.com)
This Is Apple’s Next iPhone (Gizmodo) (techmeme.com)
Here’s Apple’s Next iPhone (businessinsider.com)
This Is Apple’s Next iPhone (apple.slashdot.org)
Apple’s next iPhone – Revealed at Gizmodo (chromewalker.com)

Comments

19 April 2010, Juergen writes: Mind you, for a phone that may be used for commercial email (and a phone in this league would be the usual gizmo of management-level execs...), the fact that a remote kill-switch has been MISSING for such a long time is the real story. Blackberry has had this for ages, IIRC Microsoft is working their way towards it - if you want to sell a smartphone to corporate customers, you MUST have a remote kill feature.
19 April 2010, Michael Graves writes: I'm told from some folks (developers) who should know that Apple can kill any given app on your handset remotely. If that's true then it makes perfect sense that they can also remotely cripple the handset.
19 April 2010, PhoneBoy writes: Actually remote wipe has been there for a while (if you use Exchange). That's different than "brick the phone," which makes it completely unusable.
20 April 2010, Vic | Brochures Printing Online writes: You made a good point and yes I agree, having this issue in mind, Apple should answer these concerns (like how hackable a unit can be?. Definitely this will be concern of its future and present owners. Apple should release a press release regarding this topic and end this asap.
23 April 2010, tom writes: perhaps they could remotely remove a jailbreak without having to update through itunes. if apple were to start doing this i would certainly be a deal breaker for me. i would not be able to live with my iphone if it were not jailbroken.
27 April 2010, Bob writes: I am not sure I understand the issue you are raising. This iPhone was an Apple owned device and Apple was the the subscriber. It wasn't a personal phone. I don't think anyone knows if Apple did it directly or called AT&T to do it. It's a feature that a company can disable a corporate phone that was lost. I don't see a problem here.
28 April 2010, PhoneBoy writes: My concern, Bob, is that Apple could potentially do this for any device they make. Perhaps this device wasn't on Apple's Exchange server and Apple used some "secret" method for remote wiping the device--a secret method that they could use on production iPhones or some 1337 h4x0r could come across by mistake and start randomly wiping people's iPhones.

iPhone 4.0 beta 1 is a One Way Ticket

PhoneBoy — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 06:20:57 +0000

Be warned that if you try and do the iPhone 4.0 beta 1 update I did a couple days ago, you may find your iPhone cannot be downgraded to 3.1.3 again. This is because the new beta includes a baseband update, which makes downgrading not possible difficult.

Meanwhile, I decided to take the opportunity to do a fresh install (i.e. not restore from my backup) and install a small subset of apps. I still find that MobileRSS Pro and Colloquy still crash on this version, but I am finding the battery life a bit better and it’s generally pretty stable. I even discovered the ability to turn off Simple Passcode! Actually, it was there before, but for whatever reason, it did not work properly. Now it does.

In any case, unless you can live with the possibility that you can’t reliably undo the iPhone 4.0 beta 1 upgrade, I would not recommend upgrading. I’d wait for the final release this summer.

Update: I was able to get the iPhone back to it’s previous 3.1.3 glory by following this tutorial from funkyspacemonkey.com on how to downgrade. The process was not too difficult to follow, but the restore process took a while–long enough that I had to pull out the SIM card and put it in a different phone so I could leave with a phone!

Early Jailbreak Software For iPhone 4.0 Beta Is Available (cultofmac.com)
Jailbreak for iPhone OS 4.0 Beta 1 Available (macstories.net)
iPhone baseband 05.12 unlock video spotted (ubergizmo.com)
iPhone OS 4.0 SDK ready for download (tuaw.com)
Why did Apple drop the original iPhone and iPod from 4.0 support? (9to5mac.com)

Is There Any Benefit To Going iPhone 4.0 Before It’s Released?

PhoneBoy — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 01:13:55 +0000

After seeing all the cool new goodness in the iPhone OS 4.0 that’s due to be released this summer, I decided I wanted to try it. Short of paying $100 to be in Apple’s developer’s program, there are ways to get your phone’s UDID attached to a developer so you can try out officially released beta firmware. I did it through My iPhone Activation. It was a fairly quick and painless process to get into the program.

Getting your iPhone to 4.0 is a less than pleasant process. The My iPhone Activation folks document the steps you’ll take but the process: namely the restore process, is slow. In fact, I had to restart it a few times. It was also taking so long to install apps and copy content that I left it overnight to finish. It did crash during one application install, too.

Now my iPhone is running the 4.0 beta 1 code. What benefits do you really get from this? Is the pain of upgrading worth it?

Multitasking

One of the biggest features in the iPhone 4.0 is a feature that I’ve had on my Nokia smartphones forever: the ability to run multiple third party applications simultaneously. Even in this release, Apple still doesn’t allow full-on multitasking, but they do provide ways for applications to do certain tasks in the background–namely play music, handle VoIP calls, or use the GPS. They also support a task switcher (double-click on the home button), allowing you to switch between recently launched applications.

Along with a sort of “suspend and restore” for applications (when you switch out of an application, it “suspends” and then when you switch back it “restores” to the previous state), you get a lot of the benefits of multitasking without a lot of the overhead associated with it. I give Apple points for extreme cleverness, but–and herein lies the rub–the applications needs to be specifically written to support this.

Today, the only apps that properly support the multitasking and “suspend and restore” type functionality are the built-in native apps. No third party apps support this. This means you really don’t get any benefit from this feature. Even without multitasking, the task switcher is still nice because it provides a convenient way to relaunch recently launched applications.

Bluetooth Keyboard

There are times when I want to do some heavy-duty text input but don’t want to drag around a full computer to do it. A bluetooth keyboard would be a nice compromise for those situations. Unfortunately, Apple did not previously permit Bluetooth Keyboards to be used with the iPhone.

Until now. This was a feature mentioned for the iPad, so it makes sense that iPhone 4.0 has this as well. Once I figured out how to get my Think Outside Keyboard into pairing mode, I was able to use it with the iPhone. When you’re paired with the Bluetooth Keyboard, the onscreen keyboard does not come up when you touch on the screen in a text area.

This feature alone almost makes it worth the trouble. Almost.

Other Miscellaneous Things

Some other things I’ve noticed include:

App Folders: Haven’t used this yet, but I can see how I would use this to reduce the visual clutter in my home screens.
Disable Cellular Data ( In Settings > General > Network): Nice feature if you’re not on an unlimited plan
Wallpapers: You can actually set a wallpaper for your home screen and not just your lock screen. They can be the same image or different images.
Backups: For whatever reason, backups are disabled when you try and sync your iPhone. Just be aware of that.
Stability: I haven’t noticed any serious stability issues, but I’ve had audio stutter a little on playback of MP3s.
Battery Life: I’ve had an inordinate number of phone calls over the past 24 hours, so getting a general sense of battery life has been difficult. My general sense is the battery life is worse, but I’ll have to confirm that over the weekend.
Can create playlists in the iPod App: Nuff said.
New Mail app: I only have one mailbox, and it’s GMail over IMAP. I haven’t seen any difference in the app so far, though it was one of the major things they supposedly updated in this release.

Conclusion

Since the ecosystem necessary to support all the new features isn’t there yet (i.e. the apps), the only thing you get by upgrading is some minor usability enhancements and a slightly less refined user experience in some areas (i.e. other areas where they have made some minor changes but haven’t tied down the user experience). I would argue that for most people, you’re better off waiting until iPhone 4.0 is released rather than going through the pain of upgrading. What do you think?

iPhone OS 4 Hands-On Video (AAPL) (businessinsider.com)
iPhone 4.0, iAd and Other Big News From Cupertino (domainmacher.com)
Summary: Apple showcases iPhone 4.0 features (macworld.com)
What iPhone OS 4.0 means for the iPad (macworld.com)
Apple Announces Availability of Multitasking in iPhone 4.0 (thenextweb.com)

Comments

11 April 2010, tom writes: looking through the features i now have a very clear image of my dream mobile device from apple. here goes: an ipod touch(or could be called an iPad nano) with the same built in 3G data option that will be offered on the iPad. i want pay $30/month preapid no commitment for mobile data on a device that fits neatly in my pocket. i could than either chose to use skype or another voip app or just carry a seperate very simple cell phone for voice/texting. of course it would also be sweet if we could see some pocket sized devices on other mobile platforms(android, webos, etc.) sold with built in wifi and as needed prepaid 3G data but no voice/text service.
11 April 2010, PhoneBoy writes: The $30/mo prepaid data-only option has been something I've wanted for a long time. Having that option on an iPhone-like device would be awesome!
14 April 2010, Jeff writes: What exactly did you have to do to pair your keyboard with your iPhone? Is there a special driver necessary or does it just work? I'm SO pumped to finally be able to do this.
14 April 2010, PhoneBoy writes: No special drivers needed, it just recognized the keyboard as discoverable device. Getting the device paired was a challenge, but not because of the iPhone OS ;)
14 April 2010, iPhone 4.0 beta 1 is a One Way Ticket « The PhoneBoy Blog writes: [...] warned that if you try and do the iPhone 4.0 beta 1 update I did a couple days ago, you may find your iPhone cannot be downgraded to 3.1.3 again. This is because the new beta [...]

Will the iPad Change Anything?

PhoneBoy — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:30:09 +0000

Just before I was giving my presentation at Sales Kick Off yesterday, Apple began unveiling their new iPad. A few people in the audience were looking at the emerging details on their iPhones. I took a quick scan of my Twitter stream later on. It was a topic of discussion throughout the day. I eventually read a small amount of the coverage.

The general complaints I saw on Twitter were related to the lack of a camera or the fact that it had data service only through AT&T. What I see is the biggest failing of the device, quite honestly, is the same downside as for the iPhone: the fact that the device is tied to iTunes.

The iTunes app itself is a bloated, monolithic application that does far too many things. Aside from that, it means you cannot manage content on the device from more than one Mac or PC. I suspect this “limitation” has something to do with how Apple implements DRM, but even Apple has to realize that people own (or use) more than one computer these days and should figure out a way to handle this more gracefully–at least with non-DRMed content.

With this in mind, Apple has clearly created a device that is not a replacement for your primary computer. It’s a big iPod Touch. That’s great for consuming certain kinds of content, but given the limitations of iPhone OS, it won’t be replacing my laptop in my bag anytime soon.

Perhaps the next iPhone OS will remove some of them. Maybe it will add Bluetooth keyboard support, multitasking, and the ability to manage content from more than one computer. Maybe it will do a better job managing battery life or remove the stupid limitations about downloading larger than 10mb files over 3G.

Will the iPad change the world? We don’t have the whole story yet. The rest of it will come when they announce the next iPhone OS, presumably before the iPad actually ships. Then we’ll know the true capabilities of the iPad and just how game changing things will be.

Meanwhile, Apple has ramped up the hype machine by announcing the iPad prior to shipping. The fanboys will continue to drool over the hardware. The rumors will continue to spread until the iPad ships.

Me? I’m happy with my iPhone. It’s already changed my world. Will the iPad change my world? Maybe, but I’m happy to wait and let the true story unfold.

iPad lifts off to much iHype (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
iPad Specs Price and Features (mwd.com)
Can Apple Live Up To The Hype? (timelliott.us)
Are Apple’s iPad Shortcomings Real or Perceived? (chris.pirillo.com)
Apple iPad: Everything You Need to Know (everyjoe.com)
A close look at Apple iPad (taragana.com)
5 Reasons to Wait for iPad 2.0 (readwriteweb.com)

Comments

28 January 2010, Lonnie writes: "I’m happy to wait and let the true story unfold. " Sage advice.
28 January 2010, Marc Abrams writes: I don't entirely agree with iTunes = 1 PC or 1 Mac. In my house, we setup Home Sharing and it works amazingly well. My son has a Windows 7 netbook and my wife has a Windows Vista laptop, and I have a MacBook Pro and we easily share music and movies between them. I could see the iPad docking with my MacBook Pro and pulling my son's Thelonious Monk songs from his netbook. I've been thinking about the role the iPad plays with a corporate user. I make a LOT of presentations and use the current version of Keynote. I want to try the iPad version before making a decision, but if it works the way it looks like in the videos, and saves me time in making and editing all these presentations, that will be my killer app for the iPad. marc.
1 February 2010, kenvernon writes: For the millions of iPhone and iTouch users, the iPad UX will allow a seamless user transition to a middle road device that allows them to consume content quickly and easily. Where Apple takes the iPad from here is the really interesting question. With a major OS upgrade, the iPad could easily become a laptop replacement for many and a valuable tool for content consumption for others. As you, I am happy to wait and see.
4 February 2010, Philippine Outsourcing writes: My first impressions of the device are largely positive. Apple has once again built a product that looks good and feels great in the hand, and the familiar user interface, borrowed from the iPhone and iPod touch, is perfectly suited to the bigger screen. The iPad whizzes along, opening applications, re-sizing web pages, and zooming in and out of maps almost instantaneously. It's a great, fun gaming platform, and it's lovely to view full-size web pages while browsing the internet. Developers, no doubt, are already rubbing their hands with glee about the apps and services they could tailor specifically for this device. - Jaime
15 February 2010, Mike Rogers writes: I think the iPad changes things quite a bit. It continues the shift from multi-purpose PCs/Macs which are advanced content creation tools. The very first PDA, the palm was so successful because it was focused on 4 tasks, Address Book, Calendar, To-Dos and Notes. The iPad represents the next step in that. Simple, purpose built machines.
18 February 2010, Faith | Postcard Printing writes: Same way here, IPhone had a huge change in my life. Almost everything is a click away from me and it is a big thing for any online marketer like me. I'm not that interested with the new Apple product, the IPad thing but I am waiting for its review to see what difference would it make to IPhones. We'll see. LOL.

What A Long, Strange Trip 2009 Has Been

PhoneBoy — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 09:42:50 +0000

The beginning of 2009 had a rocky start for me. My employment situation was up in the air thanks to my long-time employer Nokia selling off the Security Appliance Business I worked in to Check Point Software. While I had an idea that I would probably have a job with Check Point, I couldn’t really breathe a sign of relief until I had a job offer in-hand, which did not come until April.

Even before Nokia announced the Security Appliance Business was getting sold at the end of September 2008, I had maneuvered my career into a comfortable, but rather limiting position. My job was not at risk, but I also did not see a way out of it either.

In a sense, this forced employer change was exactly the kind of fresh start I needed. Even though the entire process was downright scary–change often is–I am happy with how things are going now.

Even though it took me a couple of months to get plugged into Check Point, which is typical anytime you change employers, my true mission was known to me almost immediately. There wasn’t a whole lot of discussion about it, either. I just started doing what comes naturally.

I began the process of reconnecting with a community I helped to build many years ago, but more or less walked away from to pursue other interests. I spoke at Check Point events. I established Check Point’s official presence on Twitter, Facebook, and CPUG. I engaged our customers, looking for trouble, finding it, and did my best to find solutions.

What surprised me was that so many people remember the work I did all those years ago, both inside Check Point and in the larger Check Point community. The appreciation and generosity everyone showed was quite humbling. It made the transition back into the Check Point world that much easier.

Then again, I never really left it. Even though I spent a lot of years at Nokia supporting “everything but,” there was always the occasional need for obscure bits of Check Point knowledge that only I had. I also supported various aspects of the IPSO operating system and was the go-to guy when it came to analyzing security vulnerabilities. And yes, I had my hands in the knowledge base almost the whole time I was at Nokia

Mobile Change Happens, Too

One thing that ended with my employment at Nokia was easier access to “free” mobile phones. Between our normal replacement cycles and my contacts, I was able to get a few handsets a year to play with for varying lengths of time. This means, going forward, I have to buy my own stuff. However, for the first time in a decade, I am able to own something other than a Nokia device without feeling like a traitor

So what did I do? I bought an iPhone 3GS, of course. It was a bit of a leap of faith, as I wasn’t sure how I’d like it after playing with it in the Apple Store, but now I love it! It completely changes how and when I use my mobile phone. Not that my Nokia devices didn’t have all this same functionality ages ago, but the laser-like focus Apple puts on user experience, the speed of the iPhone 3GS hardware, and the plethora of applications really showed me what a mobile device could be!

And yes, I agree that the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music–a device I received as a “parting gift” from Nokia–touched more lives than Apple’s device did. It’s no iPhone, but it’s a hell of a lot cheaper and easy to get without a contract. However, the iPhone was the mobile device that rocked my world in 2009.

Increasing Social Currency In 2010

One thing I learned in 2009 was that relationships really matter. It is a form of currency–social currency, if you will–that everyone has, regardless of their station in life.

Meanwhile, my friend Ken Camp has a great piece on transforming the world by looking in the mirror. I encourage you all to read it and really let it sink in. My way of transforming the world will be by increasing the social currency in the world–one relationship at a time.

Increasing your social currency is easy. You improve your relationships with others through your words and deeds. Conversely, as you neglect your relationship with words and deeds, your social currency decreases.

The beautiful thing about social currency is that everyone can have it in limitless amounts. When you give your social currency away, you often get it back–with interest.

Comments

7 January 2010, Mobile phones writes: I agree with you now a days mobile revolution is at its peak! number of competitors are ready to compete each other. In such conditions Nokia has made its unique place in mobile market.

Apple–Please Adopt More Customer-Friendly iPhone Policies

PhoneBoy — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:03:23 +0000

Here is some feedback I have sent to Apple regarding the latest issues related to Apple killing “Google Voice” type applications in the App Store and Apple’s statements that jailbreaking your iPhone will cause the world to end. I would encourage you all to do the same.

I’ve seen a number of news stories that says that Apple thinks people shouldn’t hack the baseband software in their iPhones because it can cause damage to the mobile phone network. If there was a simple way to unlock the iPhone people paid for without hacking the baseband, people wouldn’t be hacking the baseband. Make it dead simple like a Nokia–enter a code into the phone, boom, the device is unlocked.

People would not be as interested in jailbreaking iPhones, either, if there was some way for people to install apps that Apple does not approve of. The best app on a Nokia is something called Gravity. It is digitally signed, but frequently not by Symbian (who is owned by Nokia). Other platforms have this concept as well.

Both of these issues–and resulting bad PR–is entirely self-inflicted. Please consider changing your policies in these areas to more customer-friendly ones. Permit people to unlock their legitimately paid for iPhones and install applications of their own choosing.

Comments

30 July 2009, tom writes: the whole google voice thing really confuses me. how is an extra service that sits between you and your callers more of a 'duplication of a built in feature' than skype that actually allows the bypassing of the iphone 'calling' feature all together? i am a bit mixed about the 'jailbreaking.' on the one hand i wish i did not have to do it; on the other the hacker in me kind of like the challange and exclustivity of being a member of the 'jailbreak club.' as much as geeks and hackers love to dream of 'open devices' the reality as long as they are busy with hacks is that it does not matter since they will simply open up the closed devices. it is a bit ironic though that apple coumputer was founded by a couple homebrew computer club members who were in the bussiness of building and selling 'blue boxes' to hack the phone company before they went ligit, and is now the company with the most closed and locked down platform.
30 July 2009, Jason Harris writes: I have a jailbroken iPhone already - and immediately downloaded GV Mobile from Cydia when it was released. Great app - great extension/interface for Google Mobile.
30 July 2009, GV Mobile Moves to Cydia After Being Pushed from App Store : The New Dork Times writes: [...] Apple – Please Adopt More Customer-Friendly iPhone Policies (phoneboy.com) [...]
31 July 2009, New Comm Biz » I dislike Apple but I’m really glad they’re around writes: [...] Apple – Please Adopt More Customer-Friendly iPhone Policies (phoneboy.com) Zemanta helped me add links & pictures to this email. It can do it for you too. [...]

Rumors New iPod Touch Won’t Be Huge For Teens, VoIP

PhoneBoy — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:37:55 +0000

While I admit I like the idea of a more capable Apple iPod Touch (with a built-in mic and camera), and I agree that it will be a great mobile multimedia device, I disagree with Andy Abramson’s assertion that it will be big for VoIP.

One of the use cases Andy mentions that he think will be huge is “Pre-teens who need a phone but can’t afford a contract.” First of all, the iPod Touch is quite a pricey device for most teens, whereas your typical prepaid phone is a lot cheaper. Sure, some teens will get an iPod Touch, but unless the price goes down, not as many as Andy thinks.

Once you get past the price issue, the second, more important piece of functionality is missing from the iPod Touch: SMS. This is the killer app for teens. I know, I had one staying with me for 10 days. I know there are probably services that make that happen, and with Apple’s Push Notification Sevices, realtime SMS on an iPod Touch is doable.

Even if such a service exists, how will the teens find out? Word of mouth, I suppose. Even so, most of these services require credit cards for payments, making them non-starters again for teens.

Now, I do agree that an iPod Touch with an integrated microphone would make a compelling VoIP device. The reason I don’t think it will be big? The lack of background applications. In order to make and receive calls, you have to leave an application running in the foreground. That might work for making calls–which I could see some business travelers using–but for receiving calls? A non-starter from my point of view.

Comments

1 January 1970, The iPod Touch Blog writes:
1 January 1970, My Philly Network writes:
22 July 2009, Tsahi Levent-Levi writes: Dameon, I tend to agree with your analysis. I'd also say that teenagers get their phone contracts through their parents, and from what I've seen here in Israel (and especially from my younger sister), they usually get what they want with the monthly shouting when the bill shows up on the mail. You can add to the background applications the fact that there still is the requirement to download from the AppStore (and finding the app), which won't work for most users - it has been observed already that such Apps are usually downloaded, used and discarded within a span of a single week. Tsahi
23 July 2009, tom writes: for this to be big VOIP would have to be built in as a backround app. also it would be a very big help for this to be able to hold up to your head like a regular cell phone. i have used voip(mostly skype, but also fring and nimbuzz) on an itouch. it is really not very practical for inbound calls even after jailbreaking to enable backrounding and keeping wifi alive all the time. as for the SMS. google voice is the first non-traditional phone company to accept SMS;s to their DID's but i expect that to become normal in the near term. if apple wats this they need to put the mic and speaker in the correct locations for use like a tradional phone and build the voip in so it work exactly like the cell network connected verision. if they do that they will have a huge VOIP hit. but i do not see pre-teens so much as all sorts of people who do not really need cell phone connectivity and would be happier with the trade off of a much lower phone bill but wifi only usage.
25 July 2009, Is WiFi Becoming the Unregulated Stealth Carrier of the Future? | Voice on the Web writes: [...] Rumors New iPod Touch Won’t Be Huge For Teens, VoIP (phoneboy.com) [...]
26 July 2009, Graves On SOHO VoIP » Is The Rumored New iPod Touch A VoIP Platform? writes: [...] Damien Welsh (aka Phoneboy) also chimes in with some seemingly sound logic to challenge Andy’s assertion. [...]
27 July 2009, Voxilla writes: Things got started last week with a post by VoIP Watch ’s Andy Abramson, who waxed ecstatic over the possibilities intimated by rumored specs for the next version of Apple’s touchscreen iPod. Venerable VoIP authority and former Nokia wonk,Phoneboychimed in first, as did Michael Graves on SOHO VoIP over the weekend – with both of them coming down not quite as excited as Abrambson on the matter, though everyone seems to recognize the disruptive potential of being able to make and receive voice communications o
29 July 2009, Justin Goldberg writes: If I wanted to build a service that supports unlimited calls to another country (prepaid, probably), couldn't I just put an Asterisk pbx in each country?
29 July 2009, tom writes: Justin, take a look at this: http://www.voipuser.org/forum_topic_8289.html
29 July 2009, Justin Goldberg writes: tom, thanks for the link. That's a great forum!

How To Find Yourself on a Disconnected iPhone

PhoneBoy — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:29:22 +0000

Last week, I spent a couple days in Pacific Beach, along the coast of Washington State. For someone like myself who grew up on beaches in Hawaii and along the central coast of California, going to the ocean on Washington State is a completely different experience. Let’s just say you go there to cool off, not to bake in the sun and surf. The kids don’t care, though, they play in the sand and the water all the same.

Meanwhile, there was nothing in the way of connectivity at the beach. The house we rented advertised WiFi. Sure enough, there was a cable modem plus WiFi router in the house. But the Internet did not work. Trust me, I tried everything. Mobile phone coverage cut out after Hoquiam, which was a good 30 miles of driving from where we were.

In short, I was completely cut off from real-time connectivity. What a vacation should be. Of course, being the geek I am, I decided to explore how well the iPhone operates completely offline.

Like most Smarphones, the iPhone has an offline mode. Specifically, it’s called Airplane Mode. By turning on Airplane Mode, all radios are switched of auto automatically. You can also explicitly enable WiFi in this mode. It doesn’t ask you to confirm you want WiFi in Airplane Mode, nor does it ask you to confirm each time a WiFi connection happens. It just works, unlike Nokia phones which always ask for confirmation in offline mode.

Even of you turn off WiFi and are on Airplane Mode, apps that need data from the network will fail gracefully. The built-in mapping application tells you that it needs access to data in order to operate. A shame, but as they say “there’s an app for that.” Too bad I found out about OffMaps after my trip instead of before.

Unlike the Google Maps application built into the iPhone, which does not allow for offline use, OffMaps actually supports offline use. It uses maps from CloudMade, which are maps based off the Open Street Map project. These are a wiki-style map that use a combination of publicly available map information and user contributions. This means that maps may not exist or may not be complete for some areas, but unlike Google Maps, you can actually fix it. Programs like OSMTrack make it easier to add information to the Open Street Map project by saving GPS traces and uploading them straight to the OSM project.

The way you download offline maps for OffMaps is fairly straightforward: click the download button, select the area you’re interested in with a rectangle, and select the zoom levels you want. This allows you more granularity than what I was getting with Nokia Maps. I can select the specific cities and areas I am interested in at the resolution I care about. I can, for instance, select specific areas in the San Francisco Bay Area and not the entire state of California. Or I can get the maps for the specific areas of WA state I am visiting.

The downside to this approach is that you can only download ~150mb of data at a time through the app, WiFi or otherwise. And, of course, it can be a heck of a lot of data at some zoom levels–substantially more than with Nokia Maps. It’s also harder to do gross-levels of granularity (e.g. a state or a country) because you have to select with squares.

One other note: while you can make changes in Open Street Map, they can take more than a week to show up on OffMaps. This is because OffMaps uses the maps from CloudMade, which puts out new map renders each Friday based on map data from Wednesday (two days prior).

All in all, this is a very handy application to have on your iPhone. Worth $1.99 for sure.

Why The iPhone Doesn’t Multitask

PhoneBoy — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:11:47 +0000

I’ve had my iPhone 3GS for a few days now. It is turning out to be everything I expected. Perhaps because I did my homework before buying. I went into it with my eyes wideopen.

One thing I knew going into buying this handset was that the iPhone’s ability to multitask was mostly non-existent. The iPod function would play music in the background, Microsoft Exchange syncing would occur in the background. Built-in apps (and some third party apps) would appear to resume where they left off.

There are times where the ability to multitask would be useful. Streaming music over 3G with one app and using Trapster to look for known speed traps is one (FYI, the new release that’s compatible with 3.0 is HOT). Using something like a chat client and “some other app” is another. I’m sure you can name about a gajillion others.

We often treat our smart phones like computers. They are, in a sense, but they aren’t nearly as full powered as your desktop or laptop computer is. Consider that my personal computer is a first generation MacBook with 2 gigs of RAM and an external screen attached. Surely I can run–and see–a number of apps at once. It also has the benefit of a hard drive that allows me to use virtual memory to run more apps.

Meanwhile, the iPhone 3GS supposedly has 256mb of RAM. One of my first work laptops I had at Nokia had that much RAM. But unlike that laptop, the iPhone 3GS doesn’t have a hard drive for using virtual memory. Sure, you could use the flash memory for this purpose, but do you want to wear out the flash in your phone that much faster?

The Nokia E71 has only half the RAM of the iPhone: 128mb! Yes, it multitasks. I can tell you that phone starts bogging down when more than a couple of applications are running on it at the same time. The phone crashes or freezes and needs to be power cycled. Regularly.

While there are plenty of perfectly valid reasons to multitask, our mobile platforms today don’t have enough RAM–or CPU–for the task. Apple, having a singular focus on an excellent user experience, decided not to allow third party apps to run in the background. By focusing most of the memory and CPU on only one primary task–and a controlled set of others–Apple ensures your iPhone experience will be smooth. That isn’t to say your phone won’t crash, but it happens much less frequently.

And you know what? I think it’s a lack of multitasking is an acceptable tradeoff. My phone is more reliable. It doesn’t randomly freeze. It does what I’m asking it to do when I ask it to do it. It’s the way most people expect their phone to behave. Apple will support multitasking when our mobile platforms have a bit more memory, CPU horsepower, and, of course, better battery life.

Comments

13 July 2009, Jeremey writes: Agreed, and I don't think people have fully grasped the push notification model or the power available there.
13 July 2009, David Beckemeyer writes: I'd be okay if they never open up multiasking as a free-for-all. I'm okay with those apps that want to mutitask to require an extra fee and extra testing and certification for exactly the reasons you state. Franky, people have forgotten how to program for relibability, for pacemaker type reliability. We don' thave to. The OS recovers all our leaked memory for us when we restart the app, and computes have so much memory etc that poor practices can operate in real life without much trouble. As you note, not so on a smaller machine, where memory, CPU, and battery power consumption matter. I've written apps for Nokia that run in the background reliably for months on end, don't consume all the memory, or burn up the battery, etc. But you have to REALLY work at it and have all those things at the forefront of the design and implementation - and that's not the way most people write apps. Most people don't even know enough about the guts of the machine to know how to write that kind of code.
13 July 2009, PhoneBoy writes: You're right, David. Nobody does the work to develop apps--mobile or otherwise--that are CPU, memory, and power efficient. Heck, even the OS vendors can't get this right (yes, I'm looking at you, Microsoft and Nokia).
13 July 2009, Andy Abramson writes: Trapster and push notification would be very, very cool.
13 July 2009, PhoneBoy writes: It does today, it just only gives you new traps reported within a 30 mile radius (give or take). If it could do push based on your GPS location, that would be hot :)
14 July 2009, gerrymoth writes: Today I've been using my Nokia 5800XM to listen to podcasts, tweet on Gravity, check email using Profimail and read greader using opera mini, while caling and texting now and then, ALL at the same time with no Crashes, Shutdowns or slowdown. Yes Nokia's can multitask, with the right phone and the right apps.
14 July 2009, PhoneBoy writes: The 5800XM has other issues, too: a poor touch-screen keyboard and abysmal battery life. There's a reason I have *four* batteries for this phone. :)

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