I’m on the plane and on my way!

I’ve decided to dedicate myself to the Apple iPhone/iPod Touch. I think there’s a place for me in this market, so I’m headed to the Big Nerd Ranch for some serious training! Tomorrow, I’m off for 7 Days to learn all I can about this device, and become more familiar with it than any other device I’ve owned to date. I’ll write about how the bootcamp and my time goes.

Tomorrow, I’m off to Atlanta!

Hmm, that title is ripe for some horrible comments… But seriously, It’s been almost 4 weeks now, so is it perfect? Does it live up to my exacting standards?

Almost. It’s probably the best smartphone I’ve owned to date. But with that comes some drawbacks for me (you know I had to find something). My only real peeve is having to completely surrender the way I do things with my pocket devices to the way that Apple wants me to use it, but that’s really what Apple is all about isn’t it? It’s there way or the high way.

My negatives really aren’t around the phone itself, but more the software/os. Apple really locks you down to one machine. They’re world is revolves around you owning one machine to do everything, and that’s it. As soon as you cross this boundry to say a mixed environment or mulitple machines, it all goes to hell. Handling the syncing of applications and all data on my iPhone is enough example of this. I like plugging in my device to multiple machines, my PC, my iMac at home, and my Macbook Pro. But trying to keep things sync’d properly without accidentally wiping my data off my phone can be challenging. I’ve already lost my songs, playlists and apps on more than one occasion now, because iTunes decided that hey, I’m supposed to sync, and hey this computer doesn’t have these songs, so I’ll just wipe them off the iPhone.

The problem here could just be that I’m just not well educated on the nuances of managing iPhone (iPod Touch too) data on multiple machines. But I was really annoyed that I couldn’t get my playlists of my iPod Touch to my iPhone…

The other area of annoyance is the lack of customization with the sounds on your phone. I like that I could taylor my own sounds on my WinMo Phone, but I’m sort of stuck with what Apple has given me for SMS sounds and email sounds. Luckily they let you make your own ringtones… Once again, this is minor, but I had to point it out.

If Apple can make it easier to manage with multiple machines (or if someone can show me a good way to do this and still manage to keep my sync’d data), and let me change all the system sounds, I would consider this perfect (until I find the next thing that bugs me).

It’s now been a little over a week since I picked up the new iPhone 3GS for me and my wife. Having been a Windows Mobile user for so long, I must say using the iPhone is such a breath of fresh air. The experience using this device is lightyears ahead of any device I’ve used to date. Only the Palm Pre would be close. My wife is loving it because it’s such a capable phone, and she’s enjoying the Internet in her pocket. I’ve been impressed with how well it works as a phone; all I can say in summary so far is this phone just works. I’m enjoying the ability to really browse the Internet and write my blog from this device with so little effort. Using the on screen keyboard isn’t as fast as a query keyboard but Apple did a nice job making it very tolerable with it’s spelling and word recognition that makes corrections as I type. Next for my upcoming cpmmentary; configuring my Blueant V1, review of the camera, and my future endeavors in iPhone development.

Well, I finally gave in and did it! I couldn’t stand to use my Xperia anymore. After struggling with Windows Mobile for 8 months and having tried the Palm Pre, I decided the time was right to get an iPhone. Having used my iPod Touch heavily over the last 8 months also helped finalize my decision. I’m not fond of being chained down to a carrier, but there isn’t a whole lot of choices, to get into this device. I’m also not really down grading anything either, since I’m leaving T-mobile for AT&T, which has better coverage in Rochester. I’m actually writing this blog entry on my iPhone while waiting for my fish fry at Palmer’s foods. I guess I’ll be writing about my experiences from this perspective now. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop following other smartphone developments. We’ll see how this device truely works out for me.

Durning dinner the other night, I had a good discussion about smartphones with some co-workers. After which, we decided to go see what the buzz about the Palm Pre was about. We had at our disposal, my Xperia X1 and an Ipod Touch, but no Palm Pre. We’ve all seen and heard the buzz about it on the internet; rather hard not to. So we located the nearest Sprint store after dinner and rushed over to go see it. We wanted to see for ourselves if this device lived up to the hype and criticism we’ve seen online.

We found a Sprint store in a nearby mall. We rushed in and found the Palm Pre display. We had all heard the comments on the build quality, so we had to see and feel it. Our conclusion? Yes, sadly, for as nice a device as this is, it feels like a toy. I think some of my son’s toy phones are made of better stuff. the front of it is a shiny plastic, and the back is a sort of rubberized plastic, obviously for a non-slip surface. It smaller than the Ipod Touch, and the screen is smaller, but the screen has nice resolution. The flip up keyboard was usable, but it did feel cramp. The only metal on the case was the back panel that showed when sliding the keyboard out (probably used for the antenna), and the little button nub that’s on the bottom front of the unit. Sadly, this looks to be where Palm cut costs for the phone. Being all black did make it seem rather dull in comparison to the iPhone, and my Xperia, whose build quality is exceptional.

We all liked the phone’s OS, but someone had to show us how to close applications, because it wasn’t obvious right away that you had to flick the application windows up off the screen to close them. It was obvious that the phone could run multiple things at once, since not knowing how to close apps, I had quite a number running. The web browsing experience was exactly the same as the iPod Touch (which I’m guessing is the same as the iPhone). Internet access speeds seemed adequate, but the device didn’t play YouTube videos as well as an iPhone (which I later tested at an Apple store in the mall). YouTube playback was not smooth, and paused often, this may have been the fault of Sprint’s network, and not the device. In general though, my feeling is that the iPhone is still better in regard to the overall experience, even though only one app can run a time, things just seemed snappier.

So, since I’m in the market to replace my Xperia, will the Palm win me over? No, I don’t think so, maybe in another generation or two, but right now, the iPhone is still the better device for what I’m looking for.

My Archos 7 arrived back in the mail yesterday. It was both a happy and sad occasion. I was happy to get it back, but sadly, something was amiss!

The Archos looked like mine, but apparently, without warning, Archos deleted everything off of it. Now, I don’t know if this is common practice for them, or if something indeed was wrong with the unit (not just the battery). It appears I will never know, since there was no correspondence to inform me…

What bothers me the most, is that I could do nothing to back up the device before sending it off back to them. For those that may not have followed my previous posts about this, the Archos 7 does not work without the battery in, which was impossible to resolve for me since, I only had one battery, and there was no way it was going to fit back into the unit.  So over 100gb worth of music videos got disposed of.

So, in the end, I’m happy to get it back, but sad that all my data is gone. Now, I’m left pondering the reliability of the device, wondering if it’s worth trying to load it up again with all the stuff I had before, just to possible relive this scenario 6 months from now. I guess we’ll see.

I’ve decided to start a new column on my blog, “Rant of the Week”, which I get to grumble and whine about a topic that annoys me. It’s my way of venting my frustrations… To start things off, I’m going to talk about a post at  WMExperts about Sony Ericsson debuting a new Xperia X2 in an event in Singapore this week. I’ve not been following WinMo phones too much ever since my Xperia X1 fell from favor in my time using it, but I had to comment on this. 

I shouldn’t be surprised, since it’ll be a year this November when the X1 was released. I’m not sure if I should be happy that they are continuing their line or just plain mad that they seemed to have done nothing with their X1… What bugs me about the whole thing is that nobody inside the United States seems to even know what an Xperia is? It was (and probably still is) one of the most powerful WinMo phones to ever launch, and yet, Sony didn’t even bother to get anyone interested in carrying the thing here. In the UK, it seemed they couldn’t give them away fast enough (carriers were offering them free! with a Nintendo Wii!) … But here, I had to shell out $800, and I got blank stares from anyone in any carrier office when I asked them if they were going to carry it! 

I guess I’m just fed up with the whole angle that Microsoft’s Mobile OS has taken, where it’s just the PC model made smaller, and the performance feels like living in a shack layered on top of a landfill. The specs of the new iPhone 3GS are only now as powerful as the X1, but yet, my old iPod Touch feels and works better than the X1. My final grievance is I’m just tired of following around a phone OS that has no one excited about and has no clear direction of it’s offerings… So, Apple, here I come, see you on Friday!

Well, earlier this week Archos finally got my player. They had me send the entire thing back, which I guess is ok, since I can’t use the device anyway (recall in my earlier post that the Archos 7 is nothing but a brick without a battery attached). Hopefully they’ll get it back to me soon. Sadly I’ve lost quite a bit of confidence in their product now, which probably marks the last Archos I ever buy. It’s a shame, the Archos 7 is a nice media player, it had great battery life, but I just can’t get over the battery bulge, and the fact that without the battery, it just doesn’t work! Will Archos be making Archos 7 batteries forever? What happens 6 months from now? Will my battery bulge again? Archos doesn’t even sell the battery online, so if it happens again out of warranty then what? Charge me a ton of cash for an out-of-warranty battery repair later? Everything else I own works without their battery, I just plug it in… Archos made a poor choice in this design. Maybe I’m being to harsh on them, but I just don’t like living with this liability.

It took a while, but I finally got an approved RMA. Unfortunately, I’m not sure if they want me to send the whole thing back or just the battery. I wrote back to them to find out.