Steve’s Tech Journal

Well, it does for me anyway.    A month back I wrote that I was trialing both the iphone and the g1 (aka google phone) side by side, as a candidate replacement to my blackberry.  

Bottom line:  I’ll be carrying the g1.   The iPhone is a beautiful device, but with my usage the battery runs out in ¾ of a day, and I just can’t type efficiently on the soft keyboard.     But, as a consolation prize, I will be buying and using an iTouch to complement my g1 for tunes, videos and when wifi is likely to be available (Andy’s ahead of me here and I wholeheartedly agree with his comments).

Those with short attention spans can move on.  Here are some of my detailed observations:

1.       Mail – the G1 likes to integrate with gmail if you want push email.   It lets you label, star, and archive messages from the mobile device, same as online gmail.  Now, for corporate use you have to switch your domain to google, $50 per user per year.    I’m in a position to do this and a main driver for my experiment was to see if I can eliminate Exchange and the entailed Microsoft bloatware.    I’ve been using the gmail interface with Chrome as a brower, it’s fast, smart, and searches are instantaneous.  I really like it.   The iphone will integrate with Exchange for push email, but you can’t use Apple’s mobile me unless you can do business as user@me.com.   I don’t want to do that, and I want Exchange out of my life.   Winner: G1

2.       Keyboard – I just can’t be efficient on the iPhone.     Even if I let it triangulate on the word I mean.  Even if I slide my finger to the right letter after a bad first try.  Even with the tricks to get the punctuation done quickly.    (I’ve watched all the apple videos and spent time practicing).  Sure it’s useable to a certain degree.   But if I have a 5 minute window while waiting for the kids in which to write a 6 paragraph work email, it doesn’t cut it.   The G1 keyboard, on the other hand, is great.  For awhile I kept trying to use the blackberry tricks, like press and hold a letter to capitalize it.  But then I got used to the fact that it’s a full keyboard unlike the blackberry.  No hunting to find the at sign.   Period and comma where you expect them.   It’s fast.   Winner:  G1

3.       Battery – They are well-trained at the ATT store and clearly they know this is an issue.  The rep took my phone and disabled wifi for me and turned the screen setting way down before I even held my new iPhone in my hand.   Even so, my battery was dead by 3pm every day.   I learned to keep the USB charger cable attached to my laptop and plug in the iPhone in every chance I got.   That kinda worked, but you know I’d leave the phone on the desk while walking down the hall and miss a call.  The battery life simply isn’t adequate.  This is a deal killer for me and I think would be for most professionals, there’s no point to an otherwise great communication device if it’s out of juice when you need it.    The g1 makes it about a day and half for me, or two days of light use.  Winner:  G1

4.       Touch screen and accelerometer.  The iPhone is beautiful to use.  Switches move like switches and make the right sounds.   The accelerometer automatically changes screen orientation, and pops the screen on if you take the phone from your ear to enter a DTMF digit.   It behaves exactly as you would expect and hope for (with one minor nit, you can’t change screen orientation in the mail app for some unknown reason).    The g1 is not as mature, take the phone from your ear and you have to unlock the now dark screen by hitting the menu button.   Change orientation of the device, it doesn’t change the screen.     Winner:  iPhone

5.       Contacts – Both work, both sync to their online version (gmail for g1, or exchange or mobile me for the iPhone).   You can call, email, sms from a contact with both.   You can have photos for both.   Finding a contact is about equally easy.    The iPhone gets a small edge for aesthetics.   Winner: it’s a draw.

6.       Calendar – The iphone has the edge here, in the that the online google calendar isn’t the best.   But, the calendar does work fine on the mobile device, and I may look into using sunbird as a cal client for gmail.    Winner:  iPhone (this category is my compromise)

7.       Browser.    The apple pinch and spread is nice, as is the auto flip of screen orientation.  With the G1, if you want to zoom in or out on a web page, touch the page and find the zoom + or – icons.   Both keep multiple pages open for you (e.g. tabs).    Both 3g networks seemed about the same speed in downloading and rendering pages (that is to say, both are slower than I’d really like).     Winner:   Draw

8.       Media – I loaded all of my itunes into the iPhone.   It looks slick, sounds great.   I played some videos.  I could buy almost anything from itunes and get it over 3g (well, if it didn’t drain my battery that is).    I didn’t experiment as much with the g1, I’m not looking for a mobile entertainment device.  But I’m sure it’s not as well done as the iPhone.   So the iPhone would win this category, but … Winner:  Don’t Care

9.       Carrier – it’s trite to dislike ATT policies, but nonetheless I do.  My views on net freedom are well documented in this blog so I’ll move on.  I’m not sure what exactly TMobile’s position is on this, probably no better but since they’re a smaller player in the US they’re not so ambitious about making the internet a pay-per-view walled garden experience.    Price is about the same on both carriers.   International roaming charges suck on both carriers (nasty for those like me that go to Canada from time to time).    I could, should, and probably will do some more analysis here, but for now … Winner:   Draw

10.   Apps – well, we all know about the large number of iphone apps, it’s gone mainstream.  Now, I’ve been quite happy with what I’ve found at the google app store, including an ssh terminal emulator, some device monitoring stuff, shazaam, etc..   I have noticed that most of what I downloaded for the g1 is free, whereas most apps that I was interested in cost money on the iphone.   I’m not so sure that this is a good thing.  I mean, who doesn’t like free, but a development community has to earn money somehow in order to thrive and grow.   Winner: not sure

11.   Navigation app – it’s fun to watch the blue dot move on the iPhone, and the real-time traffic that colors roads based upon delays is killer.    G1 can only update your position if you hit the location icon, and has no traffic capability.  Winner:  iPhone

12.   Alarm clock:   the dang G1 can’t wake itself up from power down.   Go ahead, set an alarm, just don’t turn the phone off because you will not be awakened.   I used to be able to use my blackberry as my alarm clock while travelling, so this is a compromise for travelling.  (Please fix this google).  The iPhone doesn’t have this problem.  Winner:  iPhone.

13.   OS and platform – don’t know how much I’ll play around as a developer, but the fact that Android is open source and Linux-based is a huge plus in my book.   I think we’ll see a lot of leverage for the platform given the easy portability of the enormous body of open source software to the Android  - translating into short development times for interesting applications.  Winner: G1

OK, that’s my analysis.  I’m acting on it, my ATT iPhone has been returned and the account cancelled.    The corporate gmail account is up in test mode and should be live before we see the end of 2008.     The pain will be uploading old email, syncing calendars, etc., but this is a good time of year to get that done.  

Happy New Year!

-          Steve

Technorati Tags: iPhone, g1, android, iPhone vs. G1, G1 vs. iPhone

I abide by the wisdom that competition fosters greater innovation, honing and improving approaches and efficiencies in just about any domain.    It’s one of the things that moves mankind forward, and has led to the incredible productivity gains of the internet age.

But at times standards races, or de-facto standards races, can be a downright pain.    Take VHS vs. Betamax — unless you were wealthy and bought both you had to pick one of the two, and then too bad if the movie you wanted only came out on the other side, and what’s worse, you watched your investment in Betamax media become worthless if you guessed wrong.

That’s where I feel I am right now with the iPhone vs.  Android.    The good news is that technology has come far enough that I think I can finally ditch the whole Microsoft email tool-chain that used to be necessary to use a blackberry, which was the only way to get reliable on-the-go email, contact, calendar access in the earlier part of this decade.    

I’ve got a g1, I’ve been testing it with a personal gmail account, and it works well.  It’s got a good email client with push email from gmail,  and contact and calendar synchronization work well over the airwaves.    I haven’t found the equivalent of the MS Outlook “task” objects, but I’m only occasionally good at entering todo information so I can live without it.    There seems to be a decent and growing set of apps, including things like ssh clients, rss readers (integrated to google reader — bloglines your days are numbered), camera, txt messaging, google maps with gps.   The browser is good and reasonably fast, and you can use iphone.facebook.com (since the ill will felt by facebook to google has thus far prevented a native facebook app).   The g1 feels solid and I can type reasonably well on the slide out physical keyboard.  T-mobile has good coverage (for me) and a reasonably priced plan whereby for $80 I can get enough voice and unlimited data and up to 400 sms/mms messages a month.    And, a whole bunch of vendors signed onto the platform so we’ll be seeing interesting new and better devices over the next 18 months.

This all makes for an unequivocal win from my current Microsoft / blackberry platform that I’ve been using: it costs significantly less on a recurring monthly basis, covers all my current bases, and provides significant additional capability.  

But … should I pick VHS?     I’ve not yet brought an iPhone into the house to play with — it’s one more 2 year commit to another carrier to do so.   But, there’s 8.5 million of these things sold — it’s mainstream.   It fully integrates up a Mac toolchain that not only includes personal productivity apps, but also includes world-leading media integration for photos, music, videos, etc.    Pal Manuel has his photos organized in iPhoto, and can show anywhere anytime on screens ranging from his iPod to his iPhone to his 50″ plasma with appleTv.  You see new apps advertised everyday — truphone, zagat, all sorts of twitter apps, and even adds on TV for things like the app whereby you shake the phone to get restaurant suggestions.    Since in part my decision is a family decision, the iPhone has some significant extras for the budding teenagers in the house.   All with the Applely know-how to make things intuitive and easy for the non-geek.   There’s some drawbacks though.    I’ve tried to type on the touch screen, and my fingers are a bit big — so it will be a slowdown for me.   And, there’s the Apple lock-in.   Yes, everything’s integrated, but there’s tight DRM on it all and you have to pay and pay — google has a more open approach that is aligned with my philosophy and in the long run will create a richer and better platform.

Ahh well, it will be settled by Christmas (unless I really over-agonize here).  I’ll keep you posted.

Technorati Tags: iPhone, Android, iPhone vs. Android

New speedtest

Comcast has received some bad press in the last few months, from disrupting large transfers with RST packets, to putting bandwidth caps in place.   And I decry those things.

But I do have a soft spot in my heart for them — in 2005 they cabled my street, a low density area in a rural town, and ran a 700 foot buried run to my house.   They did this in spite of a town cable commission that repeatedly negotiated deals without requiring 100% coverage — i.e. it was Comcast’s own volition and business judgement and they were working 3 days on my cable run alone.   It was a relief to shut down my expensive slow T1 service and move to cable broadband.

And then on Monday I got this email that they’ve upgraded my premium internet plan, to as much as 20Mb.    The actual speedtest only shows 12, but it’s still at least 50% over where I was.  And upstream’s looking better at 1.5.   Of course the proper way to count this is downstream is 0.012 Gbps, and upstream a low 0.001.    But it’s some progress and it came as a nice surprise early Christmas present.   Thank you Comcast!

Comcast Email annoucement

Technorati Tags: Comcast speed

It used to be that I would struggle with the month of March — there was VON in San Jose, and a week later David Isenberg’s excellent Freedom to Connect unconference in Silver Spring.   But, not being a professional conference goer, I would either skip one or the other, or else attend both and really watch my productivity suffer as well as travelling more than I prefer in a short period

Well, VON is gone and I mourn its passing; but at least it meant the month of March was a bit easier schedule-wise.   But no more.   eComm has come and taken the March slot (although earlier in the month).  And it looks like they’re expanding the conference to 3 full days.   I just don’t know if I can do both, although I’m sure that many of my colleagues can and will.

For the record, here’s the links:

• eComm 2009  – March 3 - 5
• Freedom to Connect (aka F2C) — March 30 & 31

As I’m sure you all know, there’s a very important vote coming up tomorrow.  The FCC is moving ahead with a full vote on the unused airwaves between broadcast TV channels.    Friend Rick Whitt, now Google’s Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, has a nice post from last week that summarizes the white space issue.  Om wrote about white space here, David Isenberg is in favor of white space broadband but says it doesn’t go far enough.

This gist is that with the move to HD broadcast, the gaps between TV signals can be re-purposed to wireless broadband.   The frequency spectrum is ideal, and can propagate long distances and penetrate buildings.  Engineering tests conducted by the FCC have shown that this is viable, and that it doesn’t interfere with the broadcast signals.

Rick writes:

The enormous promise of white spaces is simply too great to get bogged down now in politics. We’re less than two weeks away from a vote that could transform the way we connect to the Internet

There was an last digit effort by assorted anti-internet lobbyists to delay the effort, but that appears to have failed and the vote will go forward tomorrow.   Keep your fingers crossed, an important future freedom is at stake.  You can help by signing the Free The Airwaves petition.  I did.

Technorati Tags: white space, fcc

I’ve been spending some time playing with mobile technology in the last few weeks, and will write some more comprehensive notes here when I get a chance.   But here’s the gist:

1.  I was in Italy on vacation, and used a Nokia N95 with the 3G carrier Tre (3).   I used to carry a first gen Tre phone when we lived there, and it was fun to see how far they’ve come (and how far behind we are in the US).
2. I used Fring with Skype on the N95, and it worked really well for contacting friends and family back in the US.  Very cost effective and it worked great over 3G and wifi.
3. My friends all were using the Nokia E71 smartphones.  Very slick device and Nokia has made huge progress.

And then I went out yesterday and picked up the google phone from Tmobile, the g1.   So far I’m just playing with it, but I like the form factor, keyboard and screen.  I’ll see if I can rearrange my productivity tools to make a full switch, but that’s going to take some work since I have a lot (too much), Microsoft in my life.

Technorati Tags: Nokia, Fring, Tre, G1