Smart Phones

iPhone 3GS First Thoughts

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I got my iPhone 3GS on Friday. I was eager to get it when they announced it, but when it arrived I didn’t even want to rush home to take a look. I usually can’t wait to play with new electronic gizmo’s. Either I now have luke warm feeligns about it or I am getting older. I hope I just have low expectations of the new device. In any event I have had the device for a few days and I have early impressions since I can be opinionated about my gadgets.

One major reason to upgrade for me was the doubled capacity that I get with the 32gig unit. I would have gotten a 64gig one if they offered it. I wanted 32gigs last year when I bought my 3G. Ironically since I purged many videos from my 3G before upgrading I don’t even need the entire 16gigs I had. I know that in a few weeks I will use up the new space I have but right now it is weird seeing all that free space in the bar graph when I sync the phone.

I haven’t done that much to notice the speed improvements. Every once in a while I think it might be a bit zippier, but nothing major just yet. The camera is a great improvement, but still didn’t do so hot for me in low light when I was out on Friday. Video was nice, and I used it a few times with Zachary on Sunday but to be honest I am not going to praise that since a phone of iPhone’s class should have had that function already.

I have to say I am not a fan of the cut and paste function. I know I want it when I need it, and it is another one of those things that should have been around for some time, but I have problems with Apple’s actual implementation of cut and past. I have selected text to cut and paste while scrolling through items i was reading. It is actually very annoying. The amount of times that has happened vs actually using the cut and paste function is making that feature more of a detriment to me than a bonus.

The compass function was neat, but i haven’t really had a chance to use it. One downside I did notice was when I brought up google maps when I got out of the Lincoln tunnel on Sunday the Google Map app started spinning around and I had a semi-transparent warning box telling me that the compass couldn’t work and i needed to get away from interference. This wasn’t good since i couldn’t see where i was (approximately) on the map, where the old version on the 3G would at least just give me a blue circle that showed my margin of error. With the map spinning around and the warning box I couldn’t really estimate my location. Hopefully this was a fluke but I am not so sure I saw the last of that message especially in Manhattan.

So far you might conclude I don’t like the new phone. That is not true. It is a great piece of equipment. In my opinion it has unfortunately it has yet to live up to the cost I paid for it. What will improve my opinion is seeing all the new software that utilizes the push technology in the 3.0 software. I know I could have gotten that with my old 3G, but this new functionality on top of the new hardware was the reason for me to upgrade. For now I have to wait since it seems the hardware is a bit ahead of the software written to utilize it. Once a true push IM client comes out, and other nifty new apps such as the Zip Car app and the Tom Tom GPS app then the new phone will start paying for itself. I am also waiting for a push version of Facebook, and a twitter client (Tweetie I hope since I like it and paid for a copy). It is still a great media device that I take with me everywhere. That hasn’t changed, but for an incremental upgrade it has a bit to go before it becomes worth the upgrade.

For now the new iPhone 3GS is just like my iPhone 3G. I love it, it is probably the best phone I ever had, but I would love to get rid of it if I could. What I mean by that is it is a fantastic device but Apple is still too restrictive on the OS, and I would love for someone to come out with something that truly rivals it (Android, and S60 are nice but not there yet by far and I have tried both). Till then I await updated software for my 3GS!

iPhone 3GS Conundrum

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When the iPhone 3GS was announced I was very interested. It solved many but not all of the issues I have with my 3G. When I found out I could pre-order one and have it delivered to me on the day it comes out I went and ordered one from Apple. I was slightly aggravated after my order went in to read that they estimated my order would ship on the 19th (the day it comes out) and not arrive on that date as the original statement said. This was about an hour after they announced the phone so I wasn’t too worried about it being sold out, but I was a bit miffed by the delay.

About a day or two later I received an email from apple telling me they are sorry for the mix up but I would in fact receive the new phone on the 19th like they originally said. The odd thing is that my order status page still says ships on the 19th. What is also concerning is that on my status page it says “custom configuration”. That makes no sense since it is a phone. It comes in one option. When I click on details it says the custom configuration is “With AT&T Rate Plan-Upgrade”. Not sure what upgrade it means. The plan on the order is the exact plan I currently have. Now I could simply ignore all these facts and wait for the phone Friday since I have a nice reassuring email from Apple, but I wont because I have dealt with enough computer systems like this. When something smells fishy it tends to be fishy. Other anecdotal evidence that I wont be happy on Friday is reading that others who are supposed to receive their order on Friday already have received tracking information.

Now waiting the weekend isn’t the end of the world, and I don’t need the phone first thing Friday. On the other hand I want it Friday and I only ordered it online because I was told that is when I would get it. If I knew I would have to wait I wouldn’t have ordered it online. I would have gone to the 5th Ave Apple Store and wait like I did last year. If they are shipping units to people I assumed the purchase process this year would be allot easier. Unfortunately the conundrum is that I can’t cancel my existing order and goto the store to buy it on Friday. I now have to wait and see what apple system is right? Will the phone arrive on Friday or simply ship out on Friday?

On the plus side it is only a phone and either way life will go on. It would be cool to have a new toy (productivity tool) to play with this weekend. Let the waiting commence.

Trip To NJ Thursday

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Today is the normal day that I have scheduled myself to goto our NJ office to spend time with the majority of my team. Now that the office they are in has been renovated they are all back in the office instead of working remotely part of the time. It isn’t practicle to have them come to NYC anymore so I goto NJ. The trip is not the most fun I have had getting to work, but it is still better than the trip I had to take to goto Kingston when I was at Partsearch. That was a crazy day.

In order to make it to NJ I do need to get up 2 hours earlier than I normally would. And the commute is long. In the morning it is about an hour and a half depending on traffic. Going home it is over 2 hours door to door. I almost didn’t make it today. The 7 train stopped running due to a mechanical problem with a train, so it stopped at 5th ave station. I had to walk to Port Authority to catch my bus. That typically would be fine, it is only a few avenues but I was on a tight schedule and if I missed the bus I was aiming for it would mess the whole day up. The whole situation aggravated me since I missed catching an earlier 7 train by 2 seconds (literally the doors closed in my face) and that train would have gotten me to Time Square since it was in front of the one that I was on that got stuck at 5th ave. But I digress. I was able to make it to the bus with minutes to spare.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. The day however was full of excitement. We had an issue during the day that kinda messed up my meeting schedule, but issues and emergencies kinda trump typical scheduled stuff. With the excitement out of the way I had a semi normal afternoon before running out to catch the bus going home. The past few return trips from NJ have been bad since I have gotten dropped of on the street far away from Port Authority. It seems if you get a bus stuck on the line into the terminal it can take an hour to go from the 30’s on 10th to the terminal. Thankfully this bus got out of the tunnel via a different exit and it only took like 20 minutes to go 2 blocks (yeah this is why I don’t like bus’s) to the terminal. I was home in around 2 hours 10 minutes door to door. Not great, but not horrible. I stayed in after that because I was just tired. Thankfully tomorrow is a work from home day.

I will say that my issues with the iPhone as a phone aside, I would probably go crazy without it on the bus. I am able to listen to music, watch some podcast’s, read the news on the internet, or just watch my location slowly move on google maps. It helps pass the time!

iPhone 3G Reset

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My afternoon today was thrown for a bit of a loop when I tried to go out today and tried to play some music on my iPod. There wasn’t any. That was odd since I always have about 8gigs of music on it. I then went to sync it up again with my Macbook. That is when things got interesting. I kept getting an error saying the phone couldn’t sync and I had to reset it. I figured a quick reset and I should be good to go. Well that didn’t work either. I reset the phone and then it kept giving me an error. I couldn’t sync it, or boot it up. An Apple KB article said to reboot the computer so I did that. After about 3 more tries the phone reset and started restoring.

This is the problem with one converged device. I almost can’t go anywhere without it. It is my phone (only one except Skype until I get my blackberry from work). It is also my music player, and PDA. I am sunk if it doesn’t work. Today was a perfect example of that. 3 hours later I am back and semi running with the phone. My only lingering issue that I know of is my icon’s are all in the wrong order. I am more concerned with the fact that I don’t know if this will happen again, and I have no backup plan. I guess that is my operations mindset going. I always need a “plan B”. I am thinking about that, but for now I am just happy things turned out as well as they did. It could have been allot worse!

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Apps That Should Be Written To Be Put On My iPhone 3G

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I know the iPhone App Store is only a few weeks old but I really would like to see some apps that I am used to on the palm. I don't miss the Palm OS, but some of the apps I had on my Treo's were very helpful or fun.

SSH Client – someone wrote a Telnet client, but lets face it if you are a decent network or systems person you really want SSH and not telnet. Or both!

FTP Client – Probably wouldn't use it that much, but a cheap or free client would be a nice to have.

Quicken or an expense program that will export inputed data into a format that Quicken will read. Am I the only one that uses Quicken that wants this? They make a Palm and Windows Mobile version!

Call Recording – This was a must have for me on all my recent phones. Until you have it, you don't realize how much you need to record calls. Especially when dealing with vendors, support people, etc. Had it on my Palm Treo's and my Nokia E61i. I actually didn't use the Treo 750 because it couldn't record calls. Not having this function was a trade off I made when getting the iPhone, but I would hope someone would write a program to do this!

Skype – probably too much to ask for since you can't use VOIP applications via the 3G network, but Skype would be nice!!!

There is probably more, but for now that is all that I can come up with.

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Apps Found on My iPhone 3G

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I have been using my iPhone 3G for a few weeks now. So far I am a fan! There are still a few things it cannot do (call recording!) but overall it is a great phone. I have downloaded a ton of free and paid apps. Some of my favorites installed on my phone now are:

GrandDialer – Basically an app that will do GrandCentral's click to dial. I haven't used it that much yet, but so far it is really cool.

Weather Bug – because I like to know the weather.

iTrans NYC – fantastic NYC subway maps, plus transit alerts

Facebook – because I got addicted to it back in May!

iDrink – You never know when you need the ingrediants to make a fantastic drink

GoContact – send contacts details quickly. It is amazing how often I need to do this

Loopt – Location based stuff is just fun. I just wish anyone I know used it

aSubnet & Instant Byte – Subnet calculator. I also have some unit converter software specifically for technology. Very helpful. I am waiting for an SSH client, and a cheap FTP program (the only one out there is $10).

iNetwork Test – runs a test of my wireless connection and keeps track of results and the locations they were taken. Very cool.

Mobile News & NY Times – my fix of the news.

1Password – website password management on my iphone. I love this on my Mac and it works great on my phone.

SplashID – I had this on my Palm for ages, and the concept is the same. My password library with me anywhere i go, but in a nice secured format.

Remote – iTunes / Apple TV remote that just works.

PwGen – random password generator. I have a program like this on my Mac, but a portable one is cool. In my job creating passwords happens all the time!

BigTipper – I hate calculating tips, this makes life easy.

Flashlight – It is just cool!

and More…

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I Cannot Stand The Blackberry Pearl

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I cannot stand the Blackberry Pearl! I know it is a really small phone, and it is a Blackberry but it drives me crazy. The only reason to have a Blackberry is to use it for email. I think all other functions of it are sub-par as smart phones go, so to have an email device without a full keyboard is driving me up the wall. My office gave me a brand new Verizon Wireless Pearl when I started and I tolerated the horrible keyboard since it was the nicest phone they had. The last straw was about two weeks ago when I was writing my boss and the dam predictive text or whatever you call it could not type out LAN, nor could I cancel out of the options it was giving me.

Early last week I had our telecom person switch me to an Blackberry 8800 that my predecessor had. That phone is huge, and kind of sucks but it has a full keyboard. I will use it until we can figure out why we cannot get the iPhone or any other Wireless Active Sync device to connect to our Exchange 2003 server.

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iPhone Attempt Number Three

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I freely admit that I went out and bought an iPhone on the second day they came out last year. I also admit that I bad mouthed getting one, but got one in hopes that my assessment was wrong. It turned out that I was right. I couldn’t use the original iPhone. It was too limited in what it could do, and had too many quirks. Last year the line wasn’t so bad on the second day, and it moved quick. I think Jayson and I were done with the line in like 30-40 minutes tops.

This year was a totally different story. I wanted the new phone. On paper it had almost everything I am looking for in a phone, and the lines were huge and slow. So far my assessment has been good. The two issues I have with the phone is the touch keyboard is small, and I make key errors allot. Hopefully i will get better over time. The other issue is like all smart phones with installed software, it is buggy. I have had two apps reboot the phone already. This isn’t really Apples fault, but lets hope the iPhone doesn’t turn into the Palm OS Treo’s that require me to reboot them on at least a daily basis.

This is my 3rd iPhone. I did buy two of the originals and returned them. The second attempt was me trying to see if I was too critical of the first one I had. Turned out at the time I wasn’t too critical. I couldn’t use the original version of this hardware. Of course I had major issues with the first version of the Treo as well, and then ended up having many versions of the later models.

Now reading this you will rightfully think that I harp allot on certain technology gear like a mobile phone. My mobile is my only phone. It is with me almost all the time, and is always on. It is my link to everyone. It contains all my contacts, schedule, notes, etc. it also keeps me sane with games or reading when I have down time while out and about. This is not unlike many people. The issue is that I wont put up with sub par stuff. So when I read that on paper this new phone will be able to solve most of my issues, I want one.

iPhone 3G Unboxing - 1 iPhone 3G Unboxing - 2 iPhone 3G Unboxing - 3 iPhone 3G Unboxing - 4 iPhone 3G Unboxing - 5 iPhone 3G Unboxing - 7

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The Nokia N95 Experiment

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OK, so the idea of me getting a Nokia N95 turned into a bad idea. As much as I think it, in this day and age I need a phone with easy text imput. That means a keyboard, or maybe a touch keyboard (aka iPhone). The concept of a blackberry pearl or even just T9 text input from a Nokia N95 just doesn't cut it. As much as the N95 was a great phone in every other way I need the ability to input data quickly.

And you guessed it, that means I returned my N95 last Friday. I am stuck with the limitations of my Nokia E61i until the iPhone 3g comes out. Hopefully that will be an improvement over the original. If that is a failure I can either try my luck with the Nokia E71, the 61i replacement, or wait a really long time for Palm to get their act together and come out with their new OS.

Until July 11, I will try and figure out how to keep managing my tasks on the E61i.

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Nokia N95, vs iPhone 3G

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Since I wrote my post about getting the Nokia N95, I thought of a few things that get me wanting a new iPhone, and some that make me think the N95 is a better option than the iPhone.

Features that my new Nokia N95 does now or last year when it came out that the iPhone will do in July are: GPS, 3G data speeds, Wifi, 8gigs of music or videos, & sync’s to my Mac seamlessly.

Cool features that the N95 does that the iPhone doesnt are things like built in internet radio, regular radio (via headset), 5mp camera, & basically any S60 application can be installed on it. Oh, yes Apple being able to write software without any restrictions is a good thing, no matter how crash proof you want to make the platform. There has to be a better middle ground than what Apple does.

To be fair the iPhone does the following things that will probably get me to switch when it comes out. It will have a keyboard (well touch keyboard still counts), awesome email client, & mobile me.

There are probably more features that fall into all three categories but that is a summary of what I care about.

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