The PhoneBoy Blog » software

Path: Social Networking Gone Micro

PhoneBoy — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:23:08 +0000

Every once in a while, a new app comes along that provides a fresh approach to something. For me, Path is doing this for Social Networking. Instead of encouraging to share with as many as possible, it’s encouraging me to share more to fewer people.

According to Path’s website, path is a smart journal that helps you share life with the ones you love. It actually began its life about a year ago as a photo sharing service similar to Instagram with one major limitation: you can only share with a limited number of people. This started out as 50 but was increased to 150. Compare 150 friends with Facebook’s limit of 5000 or Twitter’s unlimited.

From a feature standpoint, there is nothing new in Path. It’s an Android and iPhone app where you can share your thoughts, photos, where you’re at, who you’re with, and what you’re listening to. Rather than being called a status update, though, it’s called a moment. Aside from sharing to your friends in Path, you can also share individual moments with your Twitter or Facebook friends and check-in on Foursquare. You can also be completely private, if you prefer, and show a moment to absolutely no one.

One unique feature I haven’t seen on any app so far is the ability to do an “awake/sleep” post. It automatically posts an “awake” or “sleep” message with time, location (specific to neighborood.city), temperature, and if you’re waking up, how long you slept. It’s a nice touch.

Finding friends is pretty simple. You can use your address book, your Facebook contacts, friends of friends, or just a regular search box. Select whom you want to share your path with. If they confirm you as a friend, you will be able to access each other’s path and your activities will appear in each other’s timeline.

The timeline view is well done. Scrolling is quick and easy. You can see how many people saw a particular moment (and who). You can react to a moment with one of five emoticons: happy, laugh, surprise, sad, or love. You can post a comment of your own. You can see when people become friends with one another.

The iPhone and Android applications are nearly identical, though the Android version is missing a couple features: the ability to share on posts on Twitter and utilize Instragram-like photo filters. Edit: Version 2.0.2 of Path on Android adds support for sharing posts on Twitter.

As I said, none of this is new. Many social media applications do all of these things. Arguably, these things can be done better on existing, well-established platforms.

This isn’t about features, though. It’s about the experience. The experience reminds me of something I used long ago on my Nokia S60 phones–Jaiku. Jaiku had at least some of these features and was tied to a Nokia S60 handset. As far as a social networks go, it had a very intimate feel.

Path definitely has that same intimate feel. By keeping the service phone-only and not providing the ability to share other things like web pages, or allowing you to import content from other services, you really only see moments that people make a conscious effort to share on the service. This keeps the noise relatively low. The upper limit on the number of friend forces you to be a little more choosy about whom you want to be friends with.

I really like Path. It’s clearly not for everyone as you have to have an iPhone or Android device to even use the service. That said, it provides me a new, fun way to share my life with others and be a part of other people’s lives. I wish there was an iPad version of the app, but that’s my only serious complaint. You can download it from the respective App Stores for Android and iOS:

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
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My Thoughts on iOS 5

PhoneBoy — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 06:40:28 +0000

I figured I’d let some of the hoopla die down a bit before I offered my thoughts on Apple’s latest iteration of their mobile OS: iOS 5. It was officially released to the world on 12 October 2011 via iTunes, though the so-called “Golden Master” was released to developers (and consequently on Bittorrent) a week before.

The bottom line: if you have an unjailbroken iPhone 3GS or later: you should definitely upgrade. If you’ve dipped your toes in the jailbreak waters or, worse yet, used Ultrasn0w to unlock, you should likely avoid it unless you research very carefully.

I haven’t done a full analysis of the new features, but I can tell you what I’ve noticed. Note this is on an iPhone 3GS and an iPad 2. Your mileage may vary.

Notifications

Honestly, this was seriously broken before iOS 5. Popups are not an effective way of handling things. Especially for all applications. Now most notifications live in a tray that you pull down from the top, very similar to how it works in Android. You can configure what apps will show there and in what order. I like it better than how Android does it, though, because I get more information to boot and can easily clear individual application notifications. You can also configure which applications use the more traditional popup notifications versus the ones that live in the notification tray.

The Lock Screen

In addition to the notification tray, missed call and text notifications appear on your lock screen. There’s also a “camera” button that I’ve seen appear as well so you can activate the camera without unlocking. That said, I cannot get this to appear consistently on the lock screen.

The Camera App

The camera app has been improved with auto-focus and auto-exposure lock. You can also do minor photo editing: cropping, red-eye removal, an “auto-enhance” mode, and photo rotation. Not nearly as full featured as, say, Camera+ (which is still a great app) but good enough for me to revert back to the standard Camera app for most of my day-to-day use.

iCloud

Finally it is now possible to own and activate an iPhone, iPod Touch, or an iPad without a computer. This is due, in large part, to iCloud. Applications, their data, contacts, calendars, and device photos can be stored and/or retrieved “from the cloud.” You can even do firmware updates from the cloud as well.

Of course, with multiple iOS devices, I quickly ran into the “free” 5GB data limit. You can buy more, of course, or you can choose not to backup application data for some applications like I did. Or you can choose not to use iCloud at all.

iMessage

While I’ve tried to use things like TextPlus and Google Voice, they both leave something to be desired: they don’t “just work.” Neither will do text messages to international numbers unless those people sign up for the service.

iMessage just works. I just try and send a text as normal from the Messages app. If the person is using an iOS 5 device (and it can tell either by email address or phone number that I’ve already got configured for the user), it automatically is sent over iMessage, which is faster and cheaper than a conventional SMS. I can send text or pictures. It’s totally transparent to me other than the fact the text bubbles are in blue rather than green.

This is Apple’s answer to Blackberry Messenger except this just works without exchanging anything you don’t already have. I used it with a number of people–in some cases, not deliberately as I had no idea they used iOS 5 devices. It just worked as advertised. It’s hard to beat that.

Newsstand

I like the idea behind newsstand–put all your electronic periodicals in one place–but until applications are updated for it, your newsstand will look kind of empty. Mine only has the Wired app in it. It would be nice if I could also put, say, Instapaper or Flipboard in it, but alas, I cannot. I also cannot move the Newsstand icon into a folder. Very irritating.

Twitter Integration

Something else that came as part of iOS 5: Integration with Twitter. You can not only tweet pictures from the photos and camera app, but other Twitter apps can make use of your Twitter credentials stored in iOS as well. You can also update your contact pictures with information from Twitter.

The only annoying part is you need to have Twitter’s official app installed to use these features. I personally don’t use that app. I prefer Tweetbots, instead.

Summary

I know there’s a lot more features to iOS. I’m only scratching the surface, but these are the things I’ve used so far. What are your favorite iOS 5 features?

Comments

4 November 2011, Angela M writes: iCloud is by far my favourite :D

Check Point: R75.20, SecurityPower, and New Appliances

PhoneBoy — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:11:28 +0000

By now I’m sure you’ve seen, heard, or read Check Point’s official announcements made at NASDAQ this morning. This is by no means a regurgitation of the official press releases, but it is my own personal take on what was announced. If you want to see the announcement for yourself, check out the recording!

(Just to be clear, I work for Check Point and these are my own thoughts.)

Check Point R75.20

This release (press release, download) brings a number of new features. One of the most anticipated ones is the ability to inspect outgoing SSL traffic. Not just for Application Control, where it is most needed given the proliferation of sites requiring SSL, but in all the various software blades we support. And its included as part of the relevant software blades license (i.e. it’s not a separate charge).

SSL inspection is done by essentially doing a “man in the middle” on the traffic. The gateway dynamically generates a certificate for the destination website, which is presented to the client when they connect. This allows the Security Gateway to see the traffic “in the clear” and make the relevant security decisions. The connection is encrypted as it leaves the gateway with SSL. Since SSL inspection is more intensive than inspecting HTTP traffic, and potentially creates potential regulatory issues by its use, you will have granular controls as to when this feature is invoked.

Another new feature in R75.20 is a completely revamped URL Filtering blade. While Check Point is still selling this as a separate product, it is actually integrated with Application Control. Applications and URL Filtering categories are given equal billing in the now combined Application Control and URL Filtering rulebase. You can do user-level URL filtering (with Identity Awareness) and can take advantage of our UserCheck technology to inform users of the policies. We can also handle HTTPS websites and custom categories. The categories themselves have also been substantially updated.

Unlike with previous versions of URL Filtering, where the entire URL filtering database was stored locally on the Security Gateway, the new engine makes use of the cloud. Commonly accessed URLs and their categories are stored in a local cache on the gateway. Over 99% of your web traffic should be met by the local cache on your gateway. When someone accesses a URL not in the local cache, the URL Filtering database in the cloud is consulted, with the result being stored in the local cache for future use.

The Data Loss Prevention (DLP) blade also gets a substantial update in R75.20. HTTP performance is substantially improved in this release and you also gain the ability to examine HTTPS traffic as well. A large number of additional “out of the box” datatypes are now included. We also integrate with an internal Microsoft Exchange server so DLP can be performed on internal email as well as email leaving the organization.

SecurityPower

A common complaint I’ve heard from Check Point customers over the years is that the performance numbers we quote for our appliances don’t reflect what performance you’ll get in the real world with real world traffic patterns. This is because performance numbers have been historically quoted for a single firewall rule (any any any accept) with the most optimal traffic pattern (1500 byte UDP packets). To be fair, this has been the standard industry practice for some time now. Every vendor of network equipment performs tests like this.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a good indicator of how an appliance will perform under real world conditions. With that in mind, Check Point has developed a new testing methodology for its appliances using a real rulebase (100 rules) with real-world traffic patterns (both based on industry standards and actual patterns seen at Check Point customer installations). This rulebase and traffic pattern exercises all of the various features and functionalities available in our Security Gateway. Based on those tests, Check Point has rated each appliance with a SecurityPower Unit rating (SPU).

One could call the SPU an arbitrary metric. What it gives you is a relatively simple way to compare appliances and the relative security load they can handle. More importantly, an SPU can be generated for a given set of requirements (required blades, throughput, number of connections, and so on). You can then compare that against the available appliances to ensure you choose the right security appliance for the right security task.

Check Point has developed a tool that does exactly this. It will be available shortly. Personally, I think this is a big deal.

New Appliances

Two new appliances are being launched today for the data center: the 21400 (press release, product page) and the 61000 (press release, product page). These appliances are aimed squarely at the data center, where tens or even hundreds of ~~megabits~~ gigabits per second of throughput are needed!

The 21400 is a powerful 2U platform that features massive port density (up to 37 1000-base-T ports, 36 1000-base-F SFP ports, or 12 10GBase-F SFP+ ports), 50 GB of firewall throughput, 21GB of IPS throughput, hot-swappable redundant power supplies and disk drives, and an optional Lights-out Management card. Everything you’d expect from a carrier-grade chassis. The appliance runs both R71 and R75 with SecurePlatform.

The 61000 series, on the other hand, is a monster appliance! It’s a 14U (DC) or 15U (AC) bladed chassis that, when fully loaded, will support 200GB of firewall throughput today and, with future hardware and software enhancements, will support over 1TB of throughput in the future! Aside from all of the various connectivity and redundancy options, the appliance acts as a single platform that, when new hardware blades are added, automatically configures itself to distribute the load between the blades! The platform currently runs a 64bit version of SecurePlatform based on R75.

Both appliances, which are referred to as Data Center Appliances, are available now on the Check Point pricelist.

Comments

2 August 2011, Most Important Announcement of the Year [2011] - Page 6 - CPShared Forums writes: [...] y'all are interested in my personal take on our announcement: http://phoneboy.com/4175/check-point...new-appliances __________________ http://phoneboy.com Email: my CPShared username @ gmail.com Unless otherwise [...]
2 August 2011, RStewart writes: Towards the end, I think you mean tens to hundreds of *gigabits*. Hundreds of megabits of throughput is easy. ;-)
2 August 2011, EF writes: Did you notice that they changed --AGAIN-- the price for software blades? The URL Filtering blade is now $1,500/$3,000/$4,500 depending on the appliance or container size, instead of a plain $1,500 per gateway.

Why I Still Love the Nokia E71

PhoneBoy — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:38:41 +0000

From When a Smartphone Is Too Much for Travel – NYTimes.com:

With the rise of the iPhone and the Blackberry, it’s hard to imagine hitting the road without a phone that can’t download music, serve up maps or send and receive e-mail. But sometimes a body just needs to make a few calls from the road. Sometimes a body needs a featureless phone.

Or you can use an older Symbian device like the Nokia E71 and get the best of both worlds–the ability to make calls, long battery life and some Smartphone niceties like maps and social networking.

Some of the annoyances of Symbian phones of this vintage, namely the incessant prompts to connect, are actually a benefit. When I’m traveling and using one of my roaming SIMs (e.g. Truphone, Maxroam), I can certainly use data, but even at their lower rates, I don’t want to use very much data. Just enough to, say, update my Twitter feed.

Using Opera Mini on a late-model Symbian device like the Nokia E71, which compresses web pages by up to 90% by routing requests through Opera’s servers, you can do that and more without breaking the bank.

My Take on the Nokia E6 and Symbian Anna

PhoneBoy — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 22:31:22 +0000

Two handsets arrived at Casa de PhoneBoy recently: a Nokia E7 with Symbian^3 and a Nokia E6 with Symbian Anna. In my last post, I reviewed the Nokia E7. This time around, I’m reviewing the Nokia E6. Unlike the E7, which I’ll get to keep, the E6, which went back to WOMWorld.

This will be another long post, so go get your coffee and settle in for a nice read. If you haven’t already, I would encourage you to read my previous post on Symbian^3 and the Nokia E7 as a lot of that also applies here as well.

The Hardware

There are two basic form factors of phones I’ve really liked over the years from Nokia: The Communicator-style, which the Nokia E7 is most like, and the Blackberry-style device, which Nokia began doing with the Nokia E61 and, in my opinion, perfected with the Nokia E71. The Nokia E6 is the next evolution in that line and, at least in terms of the external hardware, they nailed it.

The first part: the keyboard. I really liked typing on the E71 keyboard and find it similarly easy to thumb type on the E6. The phone also has a four-way directional pad with a center button to select items, the standard send and end buttons, and the home/calendar/mail/contacts buttons.

You might have noticed that I didn’t mention the standard left and right select buttons. That’s because they don’t exist on this device: the 640×480 screen (which is physically smaller but has more pixels than the Nokia E7 screen) is now touch-enabled. While multitouch is supported in the places you’d expect, the physically small screen makes it difficult to perform these operations. It also makes the screen challenging to read if your eyesight is not the best.

The phone also has a MicroUSB (which can be used for charging and USB On-The-Go), a MicroSD card slot, a 3.5mm headset jack, volume control, a voice command activation button, the screen lock lever, a place to plug in your standard Nokia 2mm power charger, and a 1500 mAh removable battery. As for the radios, like the E7, the E6 is GSM-based and also has pentaband 3G, WiFi and Bluetooth.

Symbian Anna

Having spent a week with the Nokia E7 helped gear me up for the Nokia E6 with its updated Symbian Anna OS. The icons certainly look different. The problems I noticed with lag with Symbian^3 on the E7 seem to be largely non-existant on the E6. Given the processor on the E6 and E7 is the same, it has to be as a result of using Symbian Anna. Being able to use both hardware keys and touch in most places was largely intuitive. I did notice that a couple of particularly problematic applications on the E7, particularly the WordPress app, work beautifully on the E6.

Since the Nokia E6 has an always-exposed hardware keyboard, and thus does not need to provide an on-screen one, I don’t know if there will be improvements in the on-screen keyboard. I hope it implements one similar to the one that is implemented in Gravity, which itself is similar to the one that exists on iOS and Android.

The most noticeably different thing on Symbian Anna: The web browser. I had forgotten about this, although I had read various reviews of the Nokia E6 and it was most certainly mentioned. The first clue was that the browser had a URL bar up at the top rather than at the bottom. You can type in something in the URL bar and request that it be “searched” for rather than go to a particular URL. It also seems to do a better job at rendering pages, though I will admit I didn’t test that many pages. It should be noted this new browser will actually be backported to a number of older Nokia devices, including the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic I still have.

Something I missed when I talked about Symbian^3 but also exists on Symbian Anna: you can change the default applications for browsing the web, playing music, playing videos, and viewing images. For those who like the non-default choices for the web browser (especially), this is a nice bonus.

Something else I missed: apparently both Symbian^3 and Symbian Anna both detect WiFi hotspots and automatically bring up the home page. I missed this because, at least in my testing in Canada with the Nokia E7, this didn’t happen, but it did happen at my local Starbucks. Nice touch!

Since the SIM slot on the Nokia E6 is not externally accessible while the phone is on, I won’t know if they addressed the issue I raised about changing the SIM card while the phone is on in Symbian^3 is addressed in Symbian Anna or not (yet).

Home Screen and Widgets

Symbian Anna has a customizable home screen, like Symbian^3 and Symbian^1. Unlike on the E7, where each of the three screens have 6 customizable rectangular widgets, the Nokia E6 has three customizable widgets on each of its four screens with a non-customizable section along the left that shows up on all the screens. This section includes the clock, active profile, and notifications (e.g. for missed called, text messages).

The selection of widgets available on Symbian Anna is not significantly different than it is on Symbian^3. Because it doesn’t make sense to hold the device in landscape mode (except to take photos), there is no landscape mode for the widgets, either.

The Camera and Photos

The Nokia E6 includes an 8MP camera and a dual LED flash. While there is no dedicated camera button, the camera can be snapped with the select button in the middle of the 4-way navigation button. Unfortunately, the camera is not any better than the E7 in terms of taking macro shots.

One other thing I noticed on the Nokia E6 with Symbian Anna was that, by default, the camera application now geotags photos. This is also present in the E7 in Symbian^3, but it was disabled by default. Fortunately, the way I found out about this was the camera application told me this was the default when I first loaded the application. The dialog box provided a link to the settings page where this could be disabled, which of course I did right away. Personally, I’d prefer the feature be opt-in rather than opt-out (with a dialog telling you to turn it on if you’d like), but that’s just a personal preference.

Nokia Accounts, Ovi Store

My major complaints with the Ovi Store, and, well, any of the apps that require a Nokia account is that they seem to randomly “forget” I’ve authenticated with them. This happened on Symbian^3 and on Symbian Anna. This is either poorly thought out user experience or some sort of bug.

A Symbian phone should be associated with a Nokia account in much the same way that iOS and Android phones are associated with an iTunes and Google account respectively. The phone should ask for this information once. All applications that require this information should be able to use it with a one-time “ask for permission” (e.g. “can app X use your Nokia account information”).

The one exception to this rule: when doing a chargeable action (e.g. buying something from the Ovi Store). In this case, asking for the password for confirmation makes sense.

Other Included Applications

While, of course, you can buy applications via Ovi Store or get them via third parties, the Nokia E6 includes a number of applications “out of the box.”

If you’ve used a number of Nokia devices over the years, one included application you’ve likely used is the one that allows you to easily copy data between Nokia phones. It’s called Phone Switch and it’s been around since S60 3rd Edition. It uses Bluetooth to send the data between the phones, which works for things like text messages and call logs, but not so well for images and sounds. That said, it’s better than anything I’ve seen for any other platform.

Mapping and Navigation has always been a strong point on higher-end Nokia phones. The ability to download maps and use the mapping features when the phone is effectively offline is vital, especially when the phone is used in places where data is either unavailable or prohibitively expensive. When I first looked at the Nokia E7, I didn’t spend too much time using the mapping. I spent a little more time with the Nokia E6. I was able to easily download maps for offline use–directly from the handset. I could easily see the difference in size downloading the vector-based maps versus the bitmapped based solutions I’ve seen in the past with OpenStreetMap-based applications.

Some other out-of-the-box applications include QuickOffice (the ability to work with Microsoft Office documents), Adobe Reader LE (to read the ubiquitous PDF files) and JoikuSpot (which turns your Nokia phone into a WiFi hotspot). QuickOffice and Adobe Reader LE are “lighter” or even somewhat older versions of their pay cousins, and you are given a special price to “upgrade” to the more recent versions.

The included JoikuSpot is the full version, though it does have one significant limitation: it cannot operate in infrastructure mode, but only in ad-hoc mode. What this means is that’s it’s not a true access point, so not only will some devices (notably Nintendo’s various game consoles) simply not connect, you cannot use WPA as an encryption method. It also has impact on battery life, though Joiku has spent three years optimizing the battery usage as much as possible.

Music and Podcasts

There are no substantial changes from Symbian^3 in this regard. That said, I’m going to re-iterate my complaint about how Nokia even requires music libraries to be refreshed. They don’t make it easy to allow for apps like Podcatcher to automatically update the Music Library, either. Per this thread, applications signed with the Ovi Store certificate or a self-signed one do not allow for this functionality.

The “Phone” Features

While I myself don’t make a ton of calls, I seem to have issues with this phone when making calls from home. I have had a lot of dropped calls while using the Nokia E6–moreso than with my other phones. The phone seems to spend most of its time on 3.5G, which at my house, varies in signal widely. I tend to blame AT&T for this rather than the phone, but one cannot be 100% certain. I’ll have to do some comparisons with the Nokia E7 at some point, since when I was using the E7, I was in Canada and purposefully not making a lot of calls due to the cost of doing so.

Syncing With The Mac

I didn’t have any problems syncing the Nokia E7 with my Mac. The E6, on the other hand, was not recognized by Nokia Multimedia Transfer nor was there an iSync plugin when I initially set up the device. Since then, an iSync plugin for the E6 came out.

MicroUSB Charging

I have to say, I love the idea of devices supporting MicroUSB charging. Considering that I am a regular traveler, I hate taking extra chargers and cables if I don’t have to. Every bit of space helps.

Unfortunately, there is a serious issue in both Symbian^3 and Symbian Anna. While I can’t consistently reproduce this, I have noticed that USB charging doesn’t always work on the Nokia E6 and the Nokia E7 when the device is powered on and I plug in something other than the supplied mains charger. The end result: even though the device is plugged in and is recognized by the computer (i.e. I can use Ovi Suite or Nokia Multimedia Transfer), the device isn’t charging.

If I turn off the phone and plug the same MicroUSB cable in from the same computer, it will charge. If I power up the phone again and plug in the cable, it may (or may not) also start charging. Clearly there’s some sort of software issue here, or maybe there is some issue with my systems. Nokia Care seems to think whatever computer I am hooked up to isn’t putting out enough juice. It’s hard to say, but it is annoying that I have to double check to ensure my device is actually charging.

Did Nokia “Fix” Symbian in Anna?

Clearly Nokia did “fix” Symbian. There’s new bugfixes tweaks and whatnot. In terms of keeping the Symbian faithful faithful, I think it adds some nice features that bring Symbian near the iPhone or Android in terms of usability and functionality, though Apple is still the king of this. Its likely not enough to win new converts to Symbian, though, as Apple and Google continue to iterate on their respective platforms.

That said, I don’t think Symbian is as broken as everyone thinks it is. While usability is arguably better in iOS and Android and a wider variety of applications are available, at the end of the day, I do not need most of those applications on a regular basis. In fact, there are only two “third party” applications I use on a regular basis: Gravity and Podcatcher. I occasionally use Skype, JoikuSpot, QuickOffice, Adobe Reader, and Internet Radio (an audio streaming app), but only occasionally. There are a couple of missing apps that I require only occasionally (namely Evernote, TripIt, textPlus, Boingo, and any sort of application for Plurk). That can be mitigated somewhat by carrying multiple devices, which I do anyway.

The biggest issue isn’t with Symbian, it’s Nokia itself. Having worked for Nokia and seen some of their concepts, I think their vision for mobility is spot-on. Unfortunately, the execution of that vision is problematic, with many high-profile stumbles with flagship products.

Nokia also doesn’t seem to react to changes in the overall market in a timely manner. It took Nokia at least two years to introduce a credible alternative to the Motorola Razr, which came out in July of 2004. Likewise, when Apple introduced the iPhone in June of 2007, It took two years for Nokia to come out with a touch-based phone that, while a nice phone in its own right (the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic), was an inferior experience to the iPhone.

Had Nokia shipped Symbian Anna in 2009 (or even by this time last year), I think their fortunes would be very different. Instead of talking about how Nokia is going to launch Windows Phone 7 devices, people would be talking about how Nokia is going to evolve Symbian and MeeGo. Nokia seems to be following the market rather than leading it.

To be fair, one thing Nokia has always been good at–better than anyone else, in fact–is commoditizing high-end smartphone-like features and pushing them downmarket in lower-end phones. This has happened with cameras, music players, web browsers, even mapping! They can design features that work in environments where data is either not available or simply too expensive. Considering the low end of the market is where the volume is, and not everyone can afford high-end smartphones, Nokia has a real advantage here over their rivals.

The Final Verdict

I really like the Nokia E6 for many reasons, but I have to give the edge to the Nokia E7 for one reason: the screen. A touch interface really only works well on a bigger screen. Even though the E6 has higher resolution (640×480 versus 640×360), the E7 screen is physically bigger and much easier for me to read as well as use the touch interface on. The E7 will be that much better once it receives the update to Symbian Anna in August.

At the moment, I’ve switched back to using a Nokia handset as my primary phone–specifically the Nokia E7. It’s been two years since that’s been the case. That said, it need not be an either-or decision. You can have Symbian, Android, and iOS devices. They don’t necessarily have to be phones.

Comments

6 July 2011, The Nokia E6 and Symbian Anna | WOMWorld/Nokia writes: [...] its camera, its features or even if you wanted to know more about its syncing with a mac, you can read the full post and give us your [...]
6 July 2011, First impressions of the Nokia E6; my T-Mobile SIM is staying in it most of the time | Nokia Experts writes: [...] The PhoneBoy Blog (Dameon D. Welch-Abernathy) [...]
8 July 2011, The iPad 2–What I’ve Been Missing « The PhoneBoy Blog writes: [...] 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 [...]

My Take on the Nokia E7 and Symbian^3

PhoneBoy — Sun, 26 Jun 2011 05:05:39 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve had the opportunity to use a new Nokia handset. The last one I got right before the Nokia business unit I worked for was sold to Check Point in April 2009 was a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic (Nokia’s first touch handset after the iPhone came out). Even until very recently, despite owing both an iPhone and a Nexus One, I would still carry a Nokia E71 when traveling outside the US as it met my basic needs well.

Through some horsetrading, which included giving up my beloved my Nokia E71, I managed to get a brand new Nokia E7. It arrived at my house the day before I was spending 5 days in Canada, as did a Nokia E6 I got from WOMWorld Nokia for review. Since the E7 arrived first, and it’s also running Symbian^3 versus the newer Symbian Anna on the E6, I decided to road test the E7 so I can see the differences between the two later on.

In any case, this is a long review. I spent a week using the Nokia E7 and used it for, well, a lot of things. Including writing this review in QuickOffice. Go grab a coffee and settle in as I deconstruct the Nokia E7.

The Hardware

One thing I generally like about Nokia phones is the hardware. The E7 doesn’t disappoint with a nice, big, bright capacitive touch screen and a hardware keyboard that, when you push correctly on the left hand side of the handset, appears underneath the screen. The screen itself tilts up to a comfortable viewing angle.

The hardware keyboard is a 4 row chicklet-style keyboard but the keys are comfortably spaced and provide solid feedback when pressed. It has arrow keys, a reasonably sized spacebar in the middle of the keyboard, and shift, control, modifier key, and a symbol key that brings up a touchscreen to input characters not otherwise available on the hardware keyboard. My experience so far is that I rarely have to use this symbol keyboard–a testament to the fact Nokia has chosen what is on their keyboards wisely.

The phone also has a physical home button at the bottom, a screen lock/unlock switch on the left, a rocker switch for volume, a dedicated camera button, a SIM tray, 3.5mm headphone jack, a MicroUSB port that can be used both for charging and hooking other USB devices to using something called USB To Go, and an HDMI port. Notably absent is the standard Nokia 2mm charging port, which doesn’t bother me, the lack of any ability to add storage via MicroUSB (the device has 16GB of internal storage), and a non-removable battery.

Inside, the phone has WiFi, Bluetooth, GSM and WCDMA radios. The phone has all five bands where 3G are used worldwide, including both AT&T and T-Mobile in the US! This isn’t unique to the E7: several of Nokia’s high-end phones are pentaband, which increases your potential carrier choices worldwide without having to sacrifice 3G!

Symbian^3

While S60 and Symbian has remained somewhat consistent over the years, every new iteration has brought changes. Trying to figure out how each phone reacts in a given situation requires some experimentation and hunting to try and figure out where the option to adjust a particular behavior has gone. As I said before, the newest Nokia I had used until recently was the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, which runs S60 5th Edition. I haven’t seen a Symbian^1 device up close and personal, so I had at least two generations of changes to cope with on the E7.

The first thing I struggled with was basic application network connectivity. It didn’t take me long to define the various WiFi access points in my house and add them to the Internet “destination” on my device. I did not want the phone using Celluar Data since Truphone charges quite a bit for that. You can configure each access method within a given destination to prompt before use. You can also configure the phone to simply not use Cellular data at all depending on whether you are in your home country or roaming. Flexible, albeit a little clunky to configure.

On the plus side, applications seem to utilize whatever connection is currently connected much more easily than with previous Symbian iterations I’ve used, including the random hotspots I run across in an airport or elsewhere. Unnecessary prompts are minimized, which is a huge plus in terms of usability.

The next struggle I had, strangely enough, was the home button. It works similar to the Symbian key of old–you push it, it brings up the familiar grid of applications, which hasn’t changed too much, aside from the organization and included apps. The phone includes, among other things, Ovi Maps, Quickoffice, an over-the-air software updater, a web browser, and more.

When you hold down the home key, it brings up a visual representation of running applications that you can swipe through, switch to by touching the image of the running app, or kill by touching the X to kill. Very nice improvement.

The problems I had with the home key really weren’t problems with the home key, per se, but using the home key is the first place I noticed this: lag. Lag is defined as a very delayed response to touch screen or hardware key presses. I notice it throughout the OS in both built-in and third party apps. It was especially noticeable and annoying in QuickOffice.

I remember it took about four iterations of the E71 firmware to eliminate this. I’m currently using 14.002 (PR 1.1) and am not sure how many releases have been issued on the E7. I sincerely hope this is something Symbian Anna fixes because, quite frankly, it’s been a continual problem with Nokia’s Symbian handsets over the years and it’s inexcusable.

While the phone has a hardware keyboard, you can also use an on-screen keyboard either in portrait mode (using a T9-style keyboard) or a four-row QWERTY in landscape mode. If I’m going to type in landscape mode, I might as well use the hardware keyboard, but at least it’s an option if that’s how you roll.

A word about the SIM tray: if you change the SIM card with the phone on, the phone will reboot. Given that you are shown a message to that effect, this is clearly by design. C’mon, Nokia, if Apple can figure out how to implement this, surely you can.

Overall, the OS seems to take advantage of touch where it has to. I haven’t run into anything that I thought was a weird choice so far. The phone seems to understand and utilize multitouch, the long touch (e.g. To bring up a menu) and scrolling with your finger works much better than it did with the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic. It’s still not quite as refined as iOS or Android in terms of usability but it is a nice step up from S60 5th Edition.

Home Screen and Widgets

Like Android, Symbian^3 provides a customizable home screen. It takes a different approach than Android where the screen is made up of a series of widgets rather than being a mix of applications and application icons. Each of the 3 home screens can have 6 widgets on it. A widget is rectangular and can provide certain kinds of information (e.g. Weather, email inbox) or provide 4 application shortcuts.

The upshot of this: the home screen functions both in portrait and landscape mode. When you rotate your phone, so does the widgets (which neither iOS or Android does). The only niggle: you can’t control the layouts independently of each other. If you get the widgets right in one orientation, they may not be the way you want in the other.

Ovi Store

Nokia does not get enough credit for their application store, as in a few ways, it rivals the App Store for iOS or Android Market. Any app that you’ve purchased or downloaded from the Ovi Store shows up in the My Stuff category and can easily be downloaded again to a new device, assuming the app is compatible with your new device. If the application is not compatible with your device, it won’t be shown either in My Stuff or searchable in Ovi Store. Considering the number of handsets Nokia supports with Ovi Store, this is a very nice touch. It supports both direct credit card and (where available) operator billing.

Unfortunately, Ovi Store is not entirely flawless. Some applications have issues downloading correctly (notably WordPress). I also saw different applications available or not because of my Truphone SIM and being in Canada. Instead of listing prices in USD, it was listening them in EUR. I assume once I am back in the US, it will switch back. It also seems to occasionally “forget” I am logged into Ovi Store (despite marking Remember me on this device). I also noticed some issues displaying long lists of applications in the Ovi Store.

Social Networking

Nokia includes a functional Twitter and Facebook application. I am not sure why it is tied to your Ovi account, but it is. In any case, much of the basic functionality is present. The only real benefit I can see in this client is that you can easily share photos to Twitter and Facebook from both the camera and photos app.

If you’re an advanced user, you will ignore the Nokia Social app and buy a copy of Gravity, if you haven’t already (I have five of them). Gravity supports Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, status.net, and Google Reader. It is the premiere Twitter app on any Smartphone platform and is the major reason I am still willing to use a Symbian-based device, despite its faults–it;s that good. On the E7, Gravity is even better with its built-in browser for links, which seems to work a little better than the browser built into Symbian^3.

The Camera and Photos

The Nokia E7 includes an 8MP camera and a dual LED flash. The camera itself is improved from the Nokia E71 but it lacks any ability to focus. Supposedly there is software that is working to improve the overall picture quality, but close-up macro shots that are in focus are impossible to get. Unfortunately this is something I use my smartphone for a lot (especially for receipts). If you forget to disable the flash on close-up shots, you’ll probably find that the flash has washed out your shot, as you can see in this shot:

For the sake of argument, here are a few other shots I took with the Nokia E7 during my recent travels:

The photo gallery app is nothing to write home about. You can look at all the photos on your phone, see specific photo albums, play a slideshow, edit photos (which launches a separate photo editing app), tag photos and organize them into photo albums. The app also supports the typical pinch to zoom made famous on the iPhone.

Music and Podcasts

Nokia’s Music Player has typically been very functional over its various iterations and includes a software equalizer with various presets. A new feature I hadn’t seen before now is the coverflow-style album browser when the phone is in landscape mode.

I have two major complaints. While the app recognizes podcasts, and has a separate section for them, it provides no on-device means for actually downloading them like the Nokia E71 did. Fortunately there is a free program called Podcatcher that you can acquire for this purpose. Why Nokia didn’t port its existing app to the E7, I don’t know.

My second complaint: the need to refresh the music library after downloading podcasts. I assume this is a problem of the Podcatcher app since the built-in app on the Nokia E71 did not suffer this problem. (Update: it turns out Nokia does provide a way for apps to update the Music Library, but it’s not allowed for apps signed by the Ovi Store certificate or a self-signed certificate per this thread). That said, even when I synced my tracks to the device with Nokia Multimedia Suite on my Mac–one of Nokia’s own apps–I still had to refresh the Music Library. Seriously, Nokia. This should just be automatic.

My third issue (not a serious complaint) with podcasts: no ability to listen at variable speed. This is a feature made famous on the iPhone, available on Android only recently via third party software, makes it easier to consume podcasts faster.

The “Phone” Features

While most of the die-hard smartphone users I know rarely use these features, they exist and for the sake of completeness, should be reviewed.

While I didn’t make a ton of phone calls while I was away, the few calls I did make were very easy to hear and I generally found myself understood. The phone benefits from a second microphone on the back that serves as input for noise cancellation. It also benefits from Nokia knowing where to place an antenna in a phone so any “grip of death” effects are minimized.

The included headphones serve well both as regular audio headphones and have a built-in microphone. The headphones I got were the WH-205s which are in-ear–my favorite kind. They also include larger earpads if your ear canals are larger than mine are.

USB On-The-Go

The phone came with a rather odd USB cable–one that plugs into the MicroUSB port on the phone and has a female USB receptacle to plug in another USB device. What you can do with this is plug in a regular mass storage device (say, a thumb drive) and it appears as another drive letter in the operating system. You can then copy files to/from it (e.g. with File Manager), save documents to it in applications, and, well, anything else you might use a thumb drive for. Reports say that Nokia introduced this feature in the N8, so it’s a relatively recent addition that will be very useful indeed!

Maps

Unlike Google and Apple, whom have to license their map data from third parties, Nokia owns Navteq, which produces high-quality mapping data. Also, unlike iOS and Android, which cannot cache map information for offline use (short of using a third party mapping tools based on OpenStreetMap data), Nokia can cache map data–remember, they own the data outright.

While OpenStreetMap can cache data, it tends to be bitmap-based, which means if you need a map for a large area or even a small one at high resolution, it means downloading a ton of data. Nokia’s maps are now vector based. This means a higher level of detail in the maps with much, much smaller downloads.

The mapping application also supports turn-by-turn navigation, traffic information, checkins with Foursquare, city guides, and much more.

The Final Verdict

As much as I like this phone–I will admit that I still have a Symbian bias–Symbian^3 needs some improvements. The lag problem simply has to be fixed. The camera is not usable in one of the situations where I would use it (i.e. for close-up pictures). While Gravity is, in fact, an excellent application, and there are a number of apps available, a couple of key applications aren’t available: Evernote (which I make heavy use of) and TripIt. There are workarounds for this, of course, but they’re not as good as having native apps.

I’m hoping that Symbian Anna will be a big improvement over Symbian^3. Fortunately, I don’t have to wait until Nokia makes Symbian Anna available to my E7 via an over-the-air update (which will happen soon). I have a Nokia E6 from WOMWorld Nokia to review, which should have Symbian Anna on it. We’ll see if that improves things.

Comments

28 June 2011, My take on the E7 and Symbian^3 | WOMWorld/Nokia writes: [...] out all you will ever need to know about the E7 and Symbian^3 in PhoneBoy’s full review [...]
2 July 2011, My Take on the Nokia E6 and Symbian Anna « The PhoneBoy Blog writes: [...] | Recent Posts | Pages « My Review of the Hidden Messenger from Timbuk2 | My Take on the Nokia E7 and Symbian^3 [...]
6 July 2011, The Nokia E6 and Symbian Anna | WOMWorld/Nokia writes: [...] his last post, PhoneBoy reviewed the Nokia E7. More recently, he reviewed the Nokia E6 and Symbian [...]

I’m Getting Two New Nokia Handsets

PhoneBoy — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 04:32:51 +0000

I didn’t think I was going to get a new Nokia handset anytime soon, but a funny thing happened. Shortly after I wrote my comparison about Android and iOS, I found out I was getting two new Nokia handsets. One is a Nokia E7 (as a “trade” for a couple of older Nokia handsets I have, so it will be mine outright) and a Nokia E6 to review from WOMWorld.

The handsets I am trading for a Nokia E7: a Nokia E71 and a Nokia E61i. The Nokia E71 was by far my favorite Nokia I’ve owned to date, but it is a few years old now, and runs S60 3rd Edition FP1. The E61i, the precursor to the E71, runs S60 3rd Edition (without FP1). As part of the trade I worked out, I had to reconfigure these devices with certain software, etc. This meant going through the devices, of course. Since I was giving away my primary go-to Nokia handset while I travel, I also decided to dust off my Nokia N95 8GB and set it up again with the necessary software.

The main issues I had with all these devices were mostly hardware limitations (CPU speed, RAM, and a non-standard headphone jack on the E71 and E61i), but everything else was mostly manageable. Major functionality worked, though web browsing was sometime difficult due to the RAM/CPU issues. There are apps for the major functionality I need on a mobile handset. Ovi Store, which had major issues back when it first launched, is now rock solid and works nearly as well (or better) as the Android Marketplace and iOS App Store (lack of apps for my handsets notwithstanding).

In any case, I realized just how much I actually liked these handsets. Nokia made–no, makes–good, solid hardware. While there is plenty to complain about in these older versions of Symbian–and believe me, I have–it gets the job done. It occurred to me that with all the handwringing that has occurred about Nokia’s choice to dump Symbian in favor of a partnership with Microsoft and Windows Phone 7, Symbian wasn’t as far back as everyone thought. There are several passages in fellow Nokia alumnus Tomi Ahonen’s recent posting declaring Nokia CEO deluded that reminded me that, from a functionality standpoint, Symbian had a lot of what Android and iOS brought to the table well before either of these operating systems were on the market. The issues, from my point of view, were underpowered hardware and usability.

In any case, I concluded that the supposed “problems” Symbian had, at least from my point of view, were fixable. I even tweeted about it:

The tweets ultimately got picked up by the folks from WOMWorld, and, well, I’ll be getting a Nokia E6 to trial shortly. While the E7 reminds me of the Nokia Communicator-style of devices, albeit with a touch screen, updated hardware, and Symbian^3, the E6 reminds me of my beloved Nokia E71 and it also runs the newest Symbian–Anna. The E7 will supposedly get Symbian Anna “in the coming months” but it will be nice to see the current evolution of Symbian and compare it with iOS and Android.

Comments

15 June 2011, Jason Harris writes: Welcome Back :)
15 June 2011, Randall "Texrat" Arnold writes: I agree with everything. ;)
16 June 2011, Ricky Cadden writes: I go back to my Nokia's periodically - been using the N8 on the weekends for a while now. Coming from Android, there are some serious limitations, but as you mentioned, it really is quite a solid experience, and the hardware can't be beat. Specifically, the camera. In fact, with a baby coming along, I'm seriously considering keeping the N8 charged up and ready for a SIM card - I trust that camera so much more than I do my G2's camera, both for quality and convenience. That being said, I disagree about Symbian. It's a capable OS, but there's no way Nokia could ever have 'fixed' it enough to be competitive in the public's eye. Look at the pathetic-ness of the updates from S60v3 FP1 to S60v5 to S^3. At least a year in between each one, and minimal updates when you compare against iOS, Android, WP, even RIM's platform updates. Nokia just doesn't have the chops to execute a proper platform update.
16 June 2011, PhoneBoy writes: Nokia's have always had good cameras, especially the N series devices. The only N series device I found problematic camera-wise was the N93 (but the video camera worked well). I'll have to wait until I see the latest generation of Symbian before I can comment on its current state. That said, Nokia can theoretically fix Symbian. The only reason it couldn't is, well, itself.

My Tipping Point Between iOS and Android

PhoneBoy — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 21:35:23 +0000

I’ve had an iPhone 3GS for nearly two years. For a while now, I’ve also had a Nexus One. I’ve mostly used the iPhone, of course, but I took a renewed interest in the Nexus One with the release of Gingerbread. I saw enough “new” and overall refinements in Gingerbread that I considered making the switch to Android as my primary device.

Then a funny thing happened to my 3GS: the battery decided to take a nosedive. My efforts to get the battery replaced made things worse instead of better. The 3GS still works, but the battery won’t last more than a few hours at best now. I have therefore had no choice but to make the switch to Android, unless I wanted to buy a new phone, which I am thinking about, but the choice is no longer as clear cut as it once was.

So, of course, now I’m looking at new handsets, both an iPhone 4 and at various Android handsets. The main problem I have is that I have very exacting standards for a handset, which are:

Handset must be GSM (this limits me to AT&T and possibly T-Mobile)
Handset must be unlocked (I violated this rule with the 3GS, and given the issues I’ve had with unlocking, the only way I would entertain an iPhone again is if I could buy it factory unlocked)
Handset must be free of operator crapware (This is easy on iPhone, I would prefer a handset that only has stock Android firmware, but I’ll settle for one without operator customizations)
Handset must be have enough “new” compared to either my iPhone 3GS and/or Nexus One to warrant purchase (e.g. difference between Nexus One and Nexus S is minimal, same for iPhone 3GS and 4).

Unfortunately, finding a handset in the US that meets all these requirements (and has a US Warranty) is proving to be difficult. The Samsung Galaxy S II looks really nice, but it’s not available in the US yet and will most likely only be available in an operator crapware-infested version unless I buy an imported one.

Setting the handset issue aside for a moment, I’d like to take a holistic look at the differences between iPhone and Android in terms of the OS and the ecosystem. As I tell people that ask me about these things, you’re not just buying a handset any longer.

The Gingerbread OS Itself

First let’s talk about some of the refinements in the OS. They seem to have removed a lot of the lagginess that I experienced in Froyo. They’ve generally made the notification bar and other things look nicer. When you scroll too far, you get this weird glowing orange effect at the edge. That’s kinda cool.

But for me, the thing that they’ve fixed is the on-screen keyboard. It’s now on-par with the iOS on-screen keyboard, but a little better because you can hold down the letters in the top row to get numbers without having to switch to the number and symbol part of the keyboard. And if you don’t like their keyboard, you can always replace it with a third party one–also a bonus.

Syncing

Being a Mac person, I’m used to the whole iTunes experience and needing that to Sync. On Android, there isn’t really a “solution” for that–especially on the Mac. Actually there is, and it’s called Missing Sync. Unlike iTunes, you can sync wirelessly–either over WiFi or Bluetooth. I can’t get WiFi to work consistently (sure that’s related to my VPN software), so I just use Bluetooth. You can also sync media (e.g. pictures, audio, and video) over USB. You have to load Missing Sync specific apps for the Calendar, but I don’t find that a huge problem.

But also, unlike iTunes, Missing Sync is far from free–$40! I have to do this this way because I am not connecting my phone to our corporate Exchange server.

With the recent addition of Google Music, the need to sync music via a USB cable goes away almost entirely. I can now stream (and store locally) music from my iTunes collection that has already been uploaded into the Google cloud. Any time I buy new tracks in iTunes on my Mac, it automatically uploads to Google’s cloud a couple minutes later.

Email and PIM

Apple’s email program is ok. On Android, I am using the Gmail app. It obviously supports more of Gmail’s feature more directly, which results in a better experience for things like deleting emails (which of course I do a lot). It also supports “undo” if I delete something accidentally. Score one for Android

Contacts and Calendar are about the same. Unfortunately, Missing Sync requires a separate calendar app to view entries synced from my Mac. On the other hand, I don’t actually use Google’s calendar, so that’s not a big deal. Something I will need to do on my Android device: join a bunch of contacts. There are some duplicates being synced to the device from different locations. I suspect it’s because there are duplicates on the computer. I will need to sort this out someday.

Twitter

I’m personally have not been happy with just about any Twitter app, with the possible exception of Gravity on my Nokia E71. On iOS, I use an app called Tweetbot, which does just about everything I want it to. The closest thing I’ve found to perfection on Android is Tweetcaster, which I have also used on iOS as well.

Facebook

The Facebook apps are very different on iOS and Android. I can see groups on iOS, I cannot on Android. I do like the photo stream that shows up in Android now. They are both a wash as far as experience goes.

Photography Apps

iPhone wins here easily. There are so many different camera apps on iOS (as well as apps that do other useful photography apps) that if you’re into that kind of thing, iOS is the way to go. Android has a few different camera/photography apps, but they are nowhere near the quality, or the level of functionality, that is available on iOS.

Games

While I am not a huge game player, every once in a while, I like to play a game. iOS definitely has more, possibly better games at least in the categories I’ve looked at. Given that there is only a few models of iOS devices versus the endless possibilities on Android, it’s much easier to make compelling games that take full advantage of the hardware.

App Stores

With Apple, you only have the one app store–the one that Apple provides. On Android, if you don’t like Google’s app store, there is always Amazon and a number of other choices, including buying from the vendor directly. This makes it more complex to restore your purchased applications if you need to wipe your device for some reason, but there is something nice about the flexibility of being able to get applications from anyone–not just ones Apple approves of selling you. Amazon’s “Free app of the day” promotion is also fantastic. Can’t tell you how many cool apps I’ve picked up that way.

Cloud Offerings

Apple’s recent announcements about iCloud are, no doubt, compelling. Document sharing between Apple devices, the iTunes Match service, among other things, would be very nice to have on an Android-type device. Google Music for Android (as is Amazon’s Cloud offering on Android) is a nice start, but it’s only for music and doesn’t give you the ability to buy music.

It’s a Push

At least for my usage, there’s enough pros and cons on both sides that I could easily be happy with either the iPhone or Android, with the right hardware of course. These days I pretty much exclusively use my Nexus One and other than the occasional game, I rarely go for my iPhone 3GS. Would an unlocked iPhone 4 change that? I’m not 100% sure of that.

That said, Apple hardware is becoming less desirable to me. The fact they have switched to MicroSIMs on the iPhone 4 is problematic since I like to use my SIM card in other phones (yes, I am aware of adapters). The current rumors say that Apple either wants to do a Software SIM or a new SIM card format that is completely different from any other SIM cards in use.

As much as I enjoy the Apple hardware, I really don’t want my phone service to be permanently tied to an iPhone, which a unique SIM card will do for better or worse. That alone may be the tipping point for me to go with Android instead.

Comments

13 June 2011, Ricky Cadden writes: I would highly recommend you check out an Android device with the HTC Sense UI overlay. I realize you want a vanilla experience, but this adds a few of the features that you counted as a loss with Android above. Camera - the new HTC Sense camera application completely replaces the stock Android one with a bevy of customization settings, both real (ISO and the like) and....'fake' (the stylized filters that iPhone users seem to adore). It's also endlessly more enjoyable to use, whereas I despise the stock Android camera app. HTC Sync - the newer HTC Sense devices, such as the HTC Inspire 4G, Sensation, and such all support HTC Sync, which is a desktop syncing application that will handle media, as well as contacts/calendar/etc. You can also use HTCsense.com to access certain features of the phone remotely, include a 'Find my phone' feature and one that lets you activate the ringer on loud, even if you left your phone on silent (useful for finding your phone in the couch cushions). The HTC Sense email app (for Exchange support) is also vastly improved over stock. Feel free to hit me up with any questions - I had the Nexus One and now carry a T-Mobile G2 with the Desire Z (HTC Sense) ROM on it and I absolutely LOVE it.
13 June 2011, PhoneBoy writes: The stock Camera app on Android is crap. I settled on Camera360, which has its own issues. Where iOS still beats Android is on panorama apps... HTC Sync doesn't do anything for my Mac, unfortunately, though I'm sure Missing Sync also works on these phones. :) I'm willing to entertain HTC devices--the Nexus One is, after all, an HTC device--but which one can I get unlocked and untouched by operator crapware? :)
13 June 2011, Ricky Cadden writes: Forgot you're on a Mac. Most of the latest HTC devices can be easily unlocked/rooted with minimal effort. Even if you don't slap a custom ROM on it, that gives you the option of unlocking it and removing any crapware with just a few clicks. This actually frees you up to pick more phones based on hardware. I LOVE my T-Mobile G2 - it comes with vanilla Android, but the Desire Z is the exact same hardware with Sense, so I just swapped the ROM - everything is fully supported, nothing fancy. The Virtuous ROMs strive to be as close to a shipping Sense ROM as possible.
13 June 2011, PhoneBoy writes: I've been debating throwing Cyanogenmod on my Nexus One, but I'm also trying to avoid playing the custom ROM game too. I don't mind rooting my device, but even that potentially presents its own issues. I also want to buy at the top end of the hardware curve to maximize the value of my investment. Especially since this stuff changes so rapidly... :)
14 June 2011, Ed Isaacs writes: Very interesting Daemon, I know that I too have been interested by the Android offering, and being in the USA at the moment and popped into a Verizon store - you wouldn't even know they sell iPhone - it's Droid everywhere. I am a Mac user as well, and am concerned as everything works well that I want right now. My breaking point is the Nokia factor. If you really look at the model that Droid has right now, it's Nokia all over but with a software license model as opposed to a device/HW model like Nokia - instead they have a bunch a vendors making the devices. The user experience is slightly different on each device from each vendor, and some have great battery life, some dont, some have upgrade-ability to new OS's - some dont, some crash - some dont. That reason alone is scaring me from looking at Droid as it reminds me of Nokia again. A saturated market of devices, and they are releasing them faster than Apple is, but if you talk with non-Apple people they state that they are pushing you to a new model every year. There is something to be said for HW control, and SW control - it is more stable, and more restricted. Having said that - I never feel restricted on my iPhone. My middle ground on this will be an Android tablet- It will get me into the droid world, no contract and a decent price. Until I see something massive that would make me want to switch, I'm looking at iPhone 5 from my 3GS.
14 June 2011, PhoneBoy writes: Valid point about Android, Ed. Other than the Nexus line of handsets done for Google, there really isn't a "standard" Android handset. The different manufacturers have their own standards on top of Android, and act differently. Like you say, it's Nokia-style fragmentation. It certainly is scary, but then again, it's selling like hotcakes--kinda like Nokias used to :) There's another area where the device fragmentation creates issues: with accessories. Apple's "one device" strategy means there's a ton of both Apple and third-party accessories that work with the iPhone. The other Android handsets don't have as many unless it happens to be a huge-selling phone. iOS has gotten good enough for most things, quite honestly. I'm sure iOS 5 will also be a huge bonus (especially in the notification department). Now that Apple sells unlocked iPhones in the US, my main problem with the iPhone is the non-standard SIM card--both now and going forward. I travel out of the country a lot. The ability to swap SIM cards matters to me quite a bit.
15 June 2011, Jason Costomiris writes: I spent a bit over a year with a Nexus One (on AT&T). Loved the phone, worked well, but it was little silly things over time that eventually drove me to an iPhone 4. Yes, I was rooted, and was running Cyanogenmod 7, so I did also enjoy some of the Gingerbread whizbang stuff, but in the end, the iPhone won me over. My wife got one a few months ago, and that, along with having spent a few months using my iPad pushed me over the edge. A big factor was phone speed vs battery life. I could enjoy a fast phone, or one that would last me a full day of business use (using SetCPU to manage that). Does your perspective change, now that you can buy an unlocked iPhone 4 direct from Apple? I'm hoping they'll carry that policy forward with the iPhone 4S, 5 or whatever they decide to call it. I really don't think that the unlocked SKUs will sell like wildfire, as people in the US generally don't recognize the value of an unlocked handset, but the option is great to have, IMHO.
15 June 2011, PhoneBoy writes: In terms of overall usability, the iPhone is going to be better, though Android is getting "close enough" for me. The fact you can now buy unlocked iPhones in the US (like you can in most every other civilized country) is a plus, but I'd rather buy at the top end of the washtub curve to maximize my financial investment. We know Apple's doing another iPhone, it's just a matter of when they will announce it. I'm also curious to see what changes they are going to make to the SIM card. Being able to easily switch SIM cards in and out is a plus, and even the current MicroSIMs in the iPhone 4 create some issues with that. This is the equation from hell. It really is.
15 June 2011, I’m Getting Two New Nokia Handsets « The PhoneBoy Blog writes: [...] | Recent Posts | Pages « | My Tipping Point Between iOS and Android [...]

ZoneAlarm’s Newest Security Solution: SocialGuard

PhoneBoy — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:57:37 +0000

From ZoneAlarm’s Newest Security Solution: SocialGuard:

SocialGuard, ZoneAlarm’s newest security solution, promises a groundbreaking new method of monitoring and preventing safety breaches on Facebook the most popular social networking site by a mile, with over 500 million users without “friending” your child and intruding on his/her social space. SocialGuard sends real-time alerts to parents via email–or the SocialGuard interface–whenever suspicious activity is detected on your child’s profile; parents can customize security settings and keywords to trigger such messages if the child is exposed to illicit or inappropriate content. SocialGuard monitors children’s Facebook accounts for threats including cyberbullying, age fraud ensures children are not befriended by adults outside of their network; friend requests, hacked accounts, and link safety flags dangerous/offensive links contained in messages.

The product, available now, can be purchased here.

Check Point, my employer, is behind this. I’ve used the betas of this product and they do precisely what they say without being a huge burden on you or your computer. The price: $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year, makes this a no-brainer if you have kids using Facebook!

See what Check Point’s Head of Consumer Business has to say about SocialGuard.

Check Point R75 Now Available

PhoneBoy — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 02:08:26 +0000

Anyone who’s following the Check Point Twitter, Facebook page, or has been peeking around in User Center has probably seen the release of R75–Check Point’s next major release. DLP, Mobile Access, Identity Awareness, and Application Control are all now available as Software Blades–modules that can be enabled as needed.

Over the past several months, as part of my normal duties at Check Point, I have talked with a number of the people involved in this release. I’ve learned about some of the technologies that went into this release, and I have to say, it’s quite amazing how it all comes together!

Take R75 out for a test drive. Even if you don’t immediately use the new features, there are some usability enhancements in the SmartConsole applications, an improved IPS engine, and, of course, AppWiki, which is a great resource to find out about applications–even if you’re not using our Application Control Software Blade!

Skype Outage: Why, And What You Should Do

PhoneBoy — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 00:46:41 +0000

As someone who works with a team remotely–and makes heavy use of Skype--I certainly noticed Skype not working properly. The reason? From Skype’s Status Page:

Earlier today, we noticed that the number of people online on Skype was falling, which wasn’t typical or expected, so we began to investigate.

Skype isn’t a network like a conventional phone or IM network – instead, it relies on millions of individual connections between computers and phones to keep things up and running. Some of these computers are what we call ‘supernodes’ – they act a bit like phone directories for Skype. If you want to talk to someone, and your Skype app can’t find them immediately (for example, because they’re connecting from a different location or from a different device) your computer or phone will first try to find a supernode to figure out how to reach them.

Under normal circumstances, there are a large number of supernodes available. Unfortunately, today, many of them were taken offline by a problem affecting some versions of Skype. As Skype relies on being able to maintain contact with supernodes, it may appear offline for some of you.

What are we doing to help? Our engineers are creating new ‘mega-supernodes’ as fast as they can, which should gradually return things to normal. This may take a few hours, and we sincerely apologise for the disruption to your conversations. Some features, like group video calling, may take longer to return to normal.

Guess what Skype supernodes are: individual computers running Skype who aren’t behind a firewall of some sort. This is what has allowed Skype to scale without too much extra cost on their part. They are using other people’s bandwidth–and computers–to provide service to their users for free. This reason alone is enough for some computer security administrators to want to ban Skype entirely.

One would assume these “mega-supernodes” that Skype are referring to are operated by Skype. This is going to substantially increase their cost basis: for the physical machines those mega-supernodes are hosted on, for the bandwidth they surely will consume, for the electricity to run them, and the administrators whom will maintain them.

As a user, these kinds of outages–yes this happened before–certainly shake my faith in Skype. I’m not a freeloader, either: I pay them for both an inbound telephone number and a calling plan. Google’s GTalk seems a bit more reliable, provides much of the same functionality, and (currently) costs me nothing.

Of course, any service can go down at any time–paid or not, whether operated by a multi-billion dollar company or by a half-a-dozen guys in a basement. My advice: always have multiple methods of communication available. Do not rely entirely on Skype, Gtalk, your mobile phone, or any other service operated by anyone else. No one is immune to acts of nature, government, or buggy software.

Comments

22 December 2010, Ted Serreyn writes: even better, it may be cause performance issues on your firewalls. Large client with lots of skype actually killed their firewall overflowing the NAT table.
23 December 2010, Sher Singh writes: Skype service is getting down day by day.Very low quality service.
23 December 2010, Outage update: 20% recovery so far; 4.8 million seen online. « Skype Journal writes: [...] Skype Outage: Why, And What You Should Do (phoneboy.com) [...]
23 December 2010, DontHateTheGeek writes: [...] Skype Outage: Why, And What You Should Do (phoneboy.com) [...]
23 December 2010, Dave Arkle writes: Ted...very interested to talk to you about this, or at least get some additional info. If you see this, could you send me an emial with links to what you're referring to, or at least more details? I experienced enterprise-wide problems yesterday, and while I was suspecting that the Skype outage was the problem, I haven't yet figured out what exactly was going on. Thanks! Dave
23 December 2010, Quachimba writes: Don't start with that. So what if a plane decided to break down each and every day? Out of the millions of flights we have everyday? You know why planes generally stay up? They have 3 back ups for almost everything. Not considering stupid ground crew Screw ups. Basically if so many are relying on you and as many of you say that technology will have it's problems. Then have 1 maybe 2 maybe 3 maybe a 100 backups. There is no excuse. In the ten years I've been with my phone and cellphone company. They have not ponce not for even a minute had an outage. And for skype to give us it's bullshit stories about supernodes? Did they not think or realise that supernodes could fail? So they should have a back up system? There is no excuse not even the one of technology. And yes you can be perfect and achieve it. People who think you can only strive for perfect but not reach it will remain the idiots and imperfect people they are.
23 December 2010, PhoneBoy writes: I've had outages with both my landlines and my mobile phones for various reasons. It happens. That doesn't excuse Skype, of course. My point is that nothing is 100% trustworthy and, if you need to be in constant contact, have a backup provider.

Should I Use This Computer?

PhoneBoy — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 22:57:36 +0000

Found at a hotel “business center” computer.

Using Firesheep is Illegal. So What?

PhoneBoy — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:12:38 +0000

From Using Firesheep is illegal in the US, UK, and most of the world:

One thing that many sites have glossed over is the inherent illegality of using Firesheep. “Go on! Try it! It’s cool!” — yes, it is shockingly cool, but if you use it on a public network you are breaking the law.

In general, the interception of any communication — digital or otherwise — is prohibited by law. Government agencies are the only exception and even then a warrant is usually required. Firesheep, by intercepting digital communication and re-routing it to your Web browser is a wiretap. Unless you’re trying to crack the local organized crime racket and you have a warrant in your pocket, you are breaking the law.

Making something illegal doesn’t mean people–especially criminals–won’t do it. Besides, one could argue that this communication is being broadcast unencrypted and can easily be sniffed passively, thus one should not have had a reasonable expectation of privacy.

The goal of this program isn’t to let people hijack each other’s web sessions anyway, it’s to clearly demonstrate the threat of using unencrypted WiFi using unencrypted protocols, which has existed since WiFi was first conceived. Unfortunately, easy-to-use programs like this are what’s needed to apply the appropriate pressure to change our protocols and practices.

Comments

8 November 2010, No Script Kiddie Left Behind – Firesheep Makes Stealing Logins Over WiFi Easy | Sword & Shield Enterprise Security, Inc. writes: [...] you’re interested in experimenting with Firesheep, Phoneboy cautions that using it may be illegal, so the usual legal precautions [...]
14 November 2010, Myka writes: Blah blah blah tell it the crows, if you leave your car wide open with the keys in the ignition dont complain that it was stolen

Unencrypted Access Needs To Die

PhoneBoy — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 22:29:51 +0000

From Why Firesheep’s Time Has Come | Steve (GRC) Gibson’s Blog:

In case you’ve been somewhere off the grid, and have somehow missed the news, Firesheep is an incredibly easy to use add-on for the Firefox web browser that, when invoked while connected to any open and unencrypted WiFi hotspot, lists every active web session being conducted by anyone sharing the hotspot, and allows a snooping user to hijack any other user’s online web session logon with a simple double-click of the mouse. The snooper, then logged on and impersonating the victim, can do anything the original logged on user/victim might do.

I’ve experimented with Firesheep on my own system. Normally, I use Google Chrome, but I installed a fresh copy of Firefox just for the occasion to try Firesheep.

Within a few moments, I was able to pick up web sessions happening from my Google Chrome browser. I was able to use both my Facebook and Twitter from Firefox without having to log into them! It did pick up my Google login, but before I hit Gmail, I had to provide authentication. Remember, this was a fresh installation of Firefox on a machine that did not previously have Firefox installed at all!

This is scary stuff. As Steve Gibson says, though, this has always been possible with unencrypted WiFi by anyone with enough 1337 5killz to pull it off. Now, it’s as simple as installing a web browser plugin.

Mobile Security Isn’t The Same on All Platforms

PhoneBoy — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 01:52:42 +0000

From an article on Cnet announcing a mobile security product:

The [product] runs on all mobile operating systems and devices. It includes antivirus, personal firewall, antispam, and remote monitoring and control services. It remotely backs up and restores data and can locate devices that are lost and stolen, as well as wipe data from stolen devices. It also can send an alert when a SIM card has been removed or replaced. For enterprise users, it protects devices accessing networks with SSL-based virtual private network.

And it makes great toast, too!

Reality check. The functionality of the above mentioned product is highly dependent on the mobile platform we’re talking about. A quick trip to the vendor’s website shows you what options are available on which platform, and it’s clearly not the same.

Mobile operating systems are designed more secure from the get-go. That doesn’t completely reduce the need for security, but it does reduce or eliminate certain classes of threats. Also, each mobile OS has their own unique restrictions on the kinds of apps that can be written. Each mobile OS has different security services that can be utilized in different ways.

In short, what you can do on iPhone and what you can do on Android are very different. Even if a vendor provides the same application on multiple platforms, it is not going to provide the same level of functionality. It simply cannot.

The author of the above-linked piece did not even attempt to articulate this critical point. If you’re looking at a mobile security solution for your enterprise, you simply have to be aware of this reality so as you don’t expect something that cannot be delivered.

Disclaimer: My employer offers a competing product: Mobile Access Software Blade. However, the above thoughts are my own.

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Path: Social Networking Gone Micro

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