tech ronin

Upgrade to the 3G iPhone? Pros and Cons

I think I will upgrade. Here's what I'm thinking:

Cons:
• $30/month data plan instead of current $20/month
• No free SMS messages, so add $5 more per mo for that
• I already have a perfectly good iPhone that still works
• I only use EDGE 10% of the time now. 3G replaces EDGE.
• I don't know how good 3G coverage will be in my area.
• 3G drains battery life at twice the speed
• What if a 32gb iPhone 2 is released in September?

Pros:
• 3G speeds may mean I use my iPhone more when away from wi-fi
• 3G speeds mean when there's no wi-fi, the experience is better
• GPS will make burgeoning location based services better
• Better reception
• You sound better to the people you are calling
• Much better audio from the speakers (according to Steve)
• Looks a little better with the new design
• The expensive data plan is about like other 3G plans
• I get the subsidized price after only 1 year on my previous plan
• 3G lets you receive calls while surfing the Net!
• Get to see what it's like to have the best 3G phone on the planet

Update: Good stuff you should read - hands on reviews out July 9:
Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal
Edward Baig, USA Today
David Pogue, New York Times

3G iPhone with GPS, MobileMe Analysis

More News:

0. Reception is noticeably better according to Gizmodo hands-on.

.5 "3G data on the maps and browser were only slightly slower than WiFi" - Gizmodo.

1. $30/month: for he AT&T 3G data plan. Keep in mind, 3G will cost you an extra $10/month. 1 year is $120. 2 years is $240. Also, I hear you don't get any free SMS messages (currently I get 200 free/mo.) I'll pay just because there will be times when I'm stuck away from wi-fi and want to get stuff done with relative speed.

2. $45/month for unlimited 3G data for business - assume that is for Exchange support

3. iPhone 3G is a tiny bit bigger 115.5 x 62.1 x 12.3 mm vs 115 x 61 x 11.6 mm. But it is "thinner feeling" according to Gizmodo.

4. iPhone 3G is ever so slightly lighter. 4.7 oz. or 133 grams vs 135 grams for 1st gen iPhone.

5. You have to sign a new 2 year contract to get these great prices. So that puts you at 3 more years if you bought on iPhone day 1. That means it will cost you about $175 to break a 2 year contract and then you pay another $300 if you want the cool 16 gb model.

6. Improved battery life. Sort of. You get 10 instead of 8 hours of 2G talk time and 5 hours of 3G talk time. Not sure why 3G matters when you are talking on the phone -- maybe it is operating in the background.

The Keynote finished up a couple hours ago. We now know that Apple will deliver the 3G iPhone on July 11th. It will sell for $199 for the 8 gb model and $299 for the 16 gb model. At that price, of course, I will buy one. I was prepared to spend $600 if I had to.

3G iPhone. First thing, Apple is delivering a cheap iPhone and it has 3G plus GPS. I wasn't expecting so much for so little. He is aggressively competing against smartphones: Nokia, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Treo. It is clear that Apple considers the success of the iPhone as the centerpiece of its business.

MobileMe. I'm very happy about the MobileMe announcement. DotMac is dead. Long live MobileMe. Same price $99 a year, but a lot more value. Now you get 20 gigs of storage instead of 10. That's pretty good certainly that will store some of my most important files plus backup my iPhone if I need it to.

"Think of MobileMe as 'Exchange for the rest of us,' Now users who are not part of an enterprise that runs Exchange can get the same push email, push calendars and push contacts that the big guys get." - Steve Jobs

More to follow. This article is a work in progress. I should have much more in the next few minutes. I'm going to watch the keynote and explore Apple's website.

MacBook + iPod touch for $995 = Awesome

Whoa! Any non-starving student in the market for a computer, would be a fool to pass up this deal. There could be a lot of new students all of a sudden. ;-)

Apple is making a bold competitive move just as the PC is at its weakest. To put it another way, Steve is going for the throat.

This bargain offer is a way for Apple to dabble in low cost computers without hurting the status of their brand. I'm checking out what it takes to qualify as a student ASAP.

The low-end MacBook has only one gig of RAM which is fine for normal casual computer use. However, if you are a heavy user especially of graphics, video or web browser with lots of apps running and tabs open, 1 gig isn't enough.

Other World Computing can fix you up with 4 gigs (a pair of 2 gb modules) for $95. You'll need to handle installation yourself or pay about $25 to your local third party Mac shop to have them install it for you.

Expect Apple to sell a boatload of MacBooks and help their installed base of iPod touches to boot.

Upcoming Mini iPhone + iPod touch option

One of the more credible iPhone rumors of late is that of a smaller, thinner plastic-covered iPhone with a 2.8" screen. I don't pretend to fore-knowledge about Apple's plans, but if this smaller iPhone happens, I would welcome it.

I plan to continue my combo iPhone + iPod touch approach. Here's why. I use my iPod touch about 80% and my iPhone 25%. The extra 5% is the overlap when I want to keep my place on one device while looking something up on the other.

iPod touch. I'm in a wi-fi hotspot about 90% of the time. Since the iPod touch surfs as well as the iPhone when wi-fi is available (and is thinner and lighter), I use it. I spare my iPhone battery and avoid missing calls which get routed directly to voicemail when I'm accessing the web from my iPhone.

iPhone. I use my iPhone for EDGE-based net access when wi-fi isn't available. I use it to take casual photos. I use it as a phone. And I use it to listen to podcasts while walking alone.  I also prefer it for listening to podcasts or music in my car because it switches so seamlessly between hands-free calls and content.

In this 2-device division of labor, I could see myself using a smaller, more elegant iPhone with 2.8" screen. The iPod touch needs as much screen as it can get. I will find a way to carry a larger iPod touch or iPod tablet if one becomes available since the screen real estate is so valuable.

Apple wants us to carry 2 Apple handhelds. My experience of using the iPhone and iPod touch together makes me look forward to fitting enthusiastically into their plans.

Added my Twitter feed here in the side bar

Hi folks. I just added my Twitter feed (the feed will always show my latest 5 posts) to the sidebar near the top of my page. For the most part, these are my 1-liner ideas as they occur to me. Some of ideas the I post on twitter may later appear in a blog post where I have plenty of room to do them justice.

One of the things that stops me from doing some blog posts is that the idea is either too short or too involved. Now I have a place to put my quick insights, opinions and finds.

Lately, I've been surfing the social web. These are the sites that take advantage of exciting social web and web 2.0 concepts like friends, groups, ratings and comments. The top one at the moment is Twitter. I like following the thoughts of smart and interesting people who are interested in some of the same things I am.

If you are going to use Twitter as an information source, all you need to do is find people whose thoughts and discoveries you want to follow. A good way to do that is to use TweetScan or Summize to find people who are engaged with some of the things you are.

If you just bought an iPhone, you'll probably want to search for the word iPhone. That sort of thing.

Oh, you'll want to get yourself a free Twitter account, of course.

The second thing you can do with a Twitter account is to post your own thoughts and discoveries in 140 character blurbs. You can include URLs by typing or pasting them in.

You'll want a Twitter client if you get more serious about it just because then you have a more powerful tool at your disposal. I'm using and enjoying Twhirl on my Mac these days.

As far as what to post, the rule that unless you are only trying to communicate with close friends, don't post about the mundane things you are doing, is a good one. If you are going to watch or finished watching a movie and can add some interesting comment about it that's good. You can really post whatever you want. Maybe just type something in for now.

Later on, if you enjoy writing to an audience, you'll be thinking of them when you write and that will guide what to post. If you use Twitter professionally or want to build up your blog readership, this could start feeling like work. That's OK in those contexts, but otherwise, have fun with what you want to do and if something seems like a good share, share it.

This really wasn't meant to be an introduction to Twitter, but I wanted to explain what the Twitter posts are doing on my blog page and while writing, thought of a few tips for those of you who are interested in what Twitter is all about.

iPhone/iPod touch: THE platform of the next decade?

Apple today introduced a glimpse of iPhone 2.0 to be shipping in late June. They showed lots of enterprise features. They are going for the enterprise which is appropriate to compete with the BlackBerry and because the US consumer market is going to be slower than molasses for a while.

Apple showed vertical market software with early non-shipping versions of SalesForce.com and Epocrates. Both looked sensational. I am counting on my md to be sporting an iPhone when I have my checkup in August.

And the fun part, of course, is iPhone games. Glimpses of Super Monkey Ball, Spore and other fun titles look fantastic. Fun but more waiting.

Steve's perfectionism was in evidence. This is an incredibly complete and well-thought-out SDK effort. Steve mentioned we might be living with it for 20 years. But that perfectionism will cost us a few more months of waiting.

It is clear that Apple is making a play for what they feel is the next computing platform of note. The mobile computer.

I was pleased hear reference to wi-fi as being a part of 2.0 because if they introduce 3G around this same time, we get wi-fi AND 3G, not 3G OR wi-fi. I'm ready to pony up for such a combo device.

Also, questions about VOIP were raised and Steve said Apple is OK with VOIP over wi-fi but not over the cellular network. I can live with that for now.

I'm Using MegaPhone to edit iPod touch and iPhone Notes on my Mac

MegaPhone used to be iPhoneDrive. MegaPhone 1.5, from Ecamm Network, finally lets you edit notes. There is a large caveat which is that it seems to need to reboot your iPhone or touch every time you edit an individual note. That's pretty inconvenient should you need to edit lots of notes. Each time you edit a note, prepare to wait 30 seconds or so while your device reboots.

Editing notes and pasting content from your Mac does work and that's the main thing for now. One interesting little extra. As soon as you are done editing notes or adding them by dragging or by using the copy to iPod (or iPhone) command, you can eject your iPhone or touch and you've got your new and newly edited notes with you.

The content you paste in will retain its font, color and style information. This means you can see color and different fonts and such in your iPhone or iPod touch notes.

You can copy PDF, RTF, RTFD and Word documents in as individual notes. Graphics will not make it over, RTFD and PDFs convert to RTF minus any graphics. I'm good with that. Graphics would be nice but that's not essential.

Thanks Ecamm!

AT&T's free wi-fi at Starbucks is a Game Changer

Wow, this is huge and especially benefits Apple with its lead in the wi-fi-based mobile space. Steve got AT&T to support free wi-fi. How great. AT&T DSL customers get unlimited free wi-fi at Starbucks.

If you have a Starbucks debit card, you get 2 free hours a day. No more having to pay $20 or more a month to get free wi-fi at Starbucks. Keep in mind that Starbucks is the king of coffee. If they give out free wi-fi, doesn't that mean that all the other coffee places will need to provide free wi-fi to compete? The answer is yes.

If everyone was paying Verizon for 3G access (which is slower than wi-fi by the way), no one would need free wi-fi unless they were carrying a laptop which most people don't do.

This totally supports the iPod touch and significantly increases the value of its free wi-fi access. Remember that Apple kept mentioning the iPod touch as a wi-fi mobile device at their quarterly finance conference. Now we know why.

I've been saying all along that we need more free wi-fi. This is the best news ever on that front. The enemy of wi-fi is the cellular carrier. To get the biggest US cell carrier to give away wi-fi is huge.

This move also really helps the current iPhone which has wi-fi but not 3G. I've always wondered why people were so much in a big hurry about 3G on the iPhone because (1) I thought AT&T would charge more than $20/month for a 3G data plan - try $30 or $40 and (2) there is a good chance Apple would drop wi-fi capability once the iPhone is 3G.

Wi-fi is the populous choice. It allows the technology makers like Apple, cell phone makers like Nokia and little-guy-makers to freely create what they want and helps their strength vis-a-vis the carrier. All mobile phone makers get leverage with the carrier to the extent they can use wi-fi in place of cellular.

All along the carriers have been restricting trade in a monopolistic fashion (2-year contracts for example) and have been suppressing the expression of the mobile phone makers. Here's Steve rescuing the industry again if they could only admit it. He deserves some kudos.

Among others, Matt Hamblen at Computerworld has the full story.

Sunset iPhone/iPod touch RPG rocks

Wow! Those of you who have been waiting for an RPG shooter rejoice. This is a free, fun little web-base demonstration that will tide me over for a bit. Navigate to the Sunset game with your iPhone or iPod touch to play it. Made by Donald Hays.

On level 2. Took me a couple minutes to figure game play. Go to the site and start. Remember to save.

Can Twitter Replace IM on the iPod touch?

Ever since I got my iPod touch during the holidays, I've been websurfing and tweetsurfing to learn about it. By the way, tweetsurfing is done by using Terraminds' free twitter search engine. At least, that's what I have been using quite happily.

One common complaint about the stock iPod touch is that it doesn't have an IM client built in. The iPhone also doesn't have an IM client but at least it has SMS as a substitute.

I have an iPhone and an iPod touch and I carry both around with me whenever I leave the house and most times in the house. So, I always have the SMS client of the iPhone. But, I also have twitter which I check regularly.

Maybe twitter can serve as a more generic, web-based way to stay in touch (no pun intended). I do think if you have an iPod touch, some kind of web-based IM or Twitter client would be essential. Of course, since everyone has a cell phone and a lot of people use SMS on whatever cell phone they have, I guess my iPod touch pals are covered there.

Now that you can make a webclip button for your favorite twitter client, you are set there.

One last issue is connectivity. Unfortunately the touch doesn't have Bluetooth so you can't get connectivity from your cell phone. That sucks and of course is almost certainly due to the demands of AT&T to keep the that sort of functionality for the iPhone only. Of course, too the iPhone's Bluetooth is crippled.

All this leads me to mention my hopes that somehow we can (1) be freed from the cellular provider obstruction of free wireless access or (2) we can get a lot more wi-fi hotspots out there. I have to believe the cell providers have killed the wi-fi proliferation that we used to see.

Finally, I can't get a decent AT&T signal in my new condo in Tiburon. Why oh why can't I talk on the phone using wi-fi in my house? I am very encouraged to see that T-Mobile is offering just that now with some phones like the BlackBerry Curve.

Update Jan 31: I am using wi-fi to make any calls outside my local calling area when I can with Skype. To clarify, I want the wi-fi in my iPhone to be able to use wi-fi to fill in when my EDGE voice quality drops. I believe that is what T-Mobile is starting to offer.