I’m often very critical of Apple devices, mostly due to their closed approach to the software ecosystem. But say what you will about Apple and their business practices, there have always been two significant upsides to buying their products:

1. Attention to detail – Apple is famous for taking their time to fully test everything before release

2. Support – Even after your model has been replaced, Apple never makes you feel like your product is obsolete. They are famous for still offering software updates and support instead of pressuring you to purchase the next model (unlike certain other companies).

While I have never considered an iPhone for my main phone, I will admit those were two things that always impressed me, and perhaps even made me jealous. Their original iPhone couldn’t copy/paste, send MMS, multitask, or heck even allow 3rd party applications at first… but for all the things that it did not do, the things it DID do were done with elegance and style. Back then, my Symbian and Windows Mobile phones ran circles around the iPhone in both features and power (and in some ways they still do), but lacked the instant response and super smooth scrolling Apple seemed to have perfected on their first try. And when they updated the software to introduce the App store and more features, even the older models got the update. Meanwhile, I found myself scouring XDA-developers.com for the latest ported software of Windows Mobile, since HTC had decided not to offer updates to last year’s hardware.

It was a compromise I was willing to make since I found Apple’s platform too limiting, but boy did I wish Nokia or HTC/Microsoft spent that time on attention to detail. With the release of iOS4, however, it seems that Apple is trying to make me feel better.
First, we had the reports of problems with the iPhone 4 and the supposed “faulty antenna”. Honestly, I think that’s kind of silly. Sure, many phones have faults, I remember the HTC Wizard and Tornado on T-mobile would sometimes get stuck in “Searching…” if you slipped into a roaming agreement area until you reset. On my wife’s Samsung phone, if she tries to initiate a call while someone calls her, the phone will lock up and not allow her to pick up or ignore until the caller stops ringing (very annoying when we get disconnected and try to call each other back at the same time).
Honestly, I think Apple’s whole antenna fiasco really wouldn’t be a big deal except that Apple is being held to a higher standard. Heck, even Senator Chuck Schumer wrote an open letter to Apple demanding they address the issue. Really, I’m not kidding about this one. Its absolutely ridiculous. Like Apple owes everyone an apology.

Funny how lots of phones have little quirks or issues, yet no one makes such a big stink about it. But everyone expects the iPhone not to have those. Why? They’re not created by celestial beings or anything. They are consumer electronics, same as everything else.

Then there was the version of iOS4 for the iPhone 3G… This is my favorite! If you own an iPhone 3G and haven’t tried this yet, DON’T!
Not only did they leave out the goodies of iOS4 such as multitasking, its also much more demanding of the hardware and can slow your phone down to a crawl. I’m talking about the kind of crawling that iPhone users make fun of other phones for having.
Does anyone remember that first iPhone ad on TV? Everything moved so silky smooth, we all thought it was just a dramatization for TV. Well, we found a video someone made of the original commercial being remade with an iPhone 3G running iOS4.
Lets just say the “new” commercial had to be extended past the 28 seconds of the original in order to perform all the tasks.


Sometimes my phone lags like that when running too much at once. Thankfully not often, but it can totally happen. Yet, Apple fans poke fun of other devices for it. Well, look what we have here. Apparently Apple feels that this is acceptable, otherwise they wouldn’t have released it, right?

My point here is that Apple is not some “magical” company that only makes perfect products and controls their ecosystem for the sake of the user experience. Some of their hardware is flawed, and some of their software decisions could use some more quality control.
But make no mistake, I’m not saying Apple is bad for either of these things. I’m saying they are just like every other phone choice out there. Contrary to popular belief, Apple does not make products “for the good of mankind” or anything like that. They’re in this to make money, just like everyone else. They have to try only hard enough for people to trust in their brand name, then they can cut corners a little here and there.

Just like everyone else…

Justin just sent me an image he snapped of a billboard for the Panasonic Lumix line of cameras (click it to see full size).

The billboard reads “If it has a ringtone, it’s not a camera“. A clever advertisement, I must admit. However I wonder if it may also have a more interesting message with it: Are camera manufacturers feeling threatened by modern cellular phones?

When camera phones were introduced, this was unheard of- the image sensor was more of a novelty than anything else. Even today, cheaper phones traditionally use sub-par optics and sensors resulting in washed out color and poor image quality. Generally people dismiss blurry low-light shots as “camera phone pics”. However modern high-end phones are blurring that distinction (no pun intended), with 8+ Mpix sensors and using brand name lenses and optics such as Carl Zeiss.

In fact, Sony claims to employ the same camera bits of their Powershot line of cameras into their higher-end Sony Ericsson phones, making one wonder if there is really any difference at all in image quality.

So what do you guys think? Are camera phones really replacing digital cameras in real-world use? Or will there always be a place in your heart for standalone cameras?

I suppose it could be considered kind of ironic that Justin took the picture using his iPhone 3GS.

Wired reports that DC Comics is joining the (legal) digital comics revolution, and teaming with Comixology to bring their comics to iPad and even PSP. Comixology also powers Marvel’s iPhone/iPad app.

DC’s initial foray into digital comics, while big news, is very conservative, with a smattering of “about 100 titles,” according to Jim Lee. Then again, the percentage of Marvel comics available in their own app is hardly huge. Still, DC’s very late to this game, with Marvel already having an established relationship with Apple and the iPad.

What’s interesting about the future of digital comics is how iPad-centric it looks. There’s a ton of people who want digital comics (as any torrent search would tell you, assuming you’re naughty), and the digital experience is a heck of a lot better on a tablet than on a desktop (and yes, Comixology does have a desktop reader last I checked, so I’m not just talking illegal downloads) and let’s be honest – when you talk tablets to a general member of the public, you mean the iPad. It’s huge. If I were a developer, I would absolutely focused on that. Except…

One of my big beefs (with not just the iPad, but products like the Nook and the Sony e-reader line) is how content is becoming chained to devices. Buy a copy of “The Dark Knight Returns” for my an iPad, and then want to read it on a desktop? You can’t. Want to switch from the iPad to one of Dell’s upcoming Streak tablets (or to a future Windows Mobile or WebOS device), and want to take your content with you? Again, you can’t… not without buying the same content again.

It’s a problem with a lot of devices these days, with differing devices, formats and providers.

On the topic of formats: Even on the iPad, one has multiple comic readers to chose from, each with a different batch of content. None of those apps can open the other apps format. Imagine if Microsoft never made a plugin for WordPerfect, and the only way to open a WordPerfect file in Word was to buy WordPerfect, in addition to already paying for Word, and vice versa. It’d be madness. Sony’s lame attempts at their own digital music format failed for this very reason.

I’m intriguer by Digital Longbox’s product, especially with their sub-account focus, openness to indie creators, and the idea that your comics can live on your device or in the cloud, and be accessed by their client on multiple devices… but that still leaves someone switching from another provider without their old content. Still, I’ll be watching them (and hopefully at NY Comic Con for their product launch)

I absolutely think tablets are the future of digital comics, and that digital comics are the future of monthly “pamphlet style” comics (practically a loss-leader for collections sold at bookstores by now). I like that creators don’t have to deal with minimum orders, and that it gives smaller companies a level field with the big boys. I love that non-superhero stories get a big chance to shine with these.

I just don’t like how it’s shaping up to be a platform/provider issue.

I’ll admit something- Ever since Google announced turn by turn navigation with voice and recognition, I wondered if/when the feature will reach other smartphones. After all, Google traditionally released new mapping features for their Android OS first (think street view, lattitude, etc), and eventually trickled it down to other platforms. I have navigation apps on my phones, but none seemed as smooth as the cloud-based Google nav.

Until now.
Microsoft has been working on some new Bing! Mobile betas, which as I mentioned last time, was and aesthetic improvement, but took out all routing features (which is the ONE reason I liked it).

Well, now MS has graced us with a new beta. And this time, they not only put navigation back in, but they added voice prompts, and a text-to-speech (TTS) engine! Add that to the new UI which is far more polished than even Windows Mobile itself, and the end result is an extremely pleasant user experience that not only rivals Google Nav, but may in fact surpass it (having only used Google Navigator a handful of times, I can’t say for certain if I feel that way or not. I DO know that Google maps sometimes takes me on a route that I don’t care for, plus Engadget’s trial had them trying to turn down one-way streets the wrong way- something that has never happened to me in Bing).

One thing is for certain- I am no longer waiting for Google Navigator. Microsoft has shown that they are not yet ready to completely abandon their legacy Windows Mobile platform, and that’s very good news.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Gizmodo recently got their hands on a leaked 4th generation iPhone prototype that was mistakenly left in a bar.

According to the Gizmodo’s telling of the story, the person that found the phone realized it might be something important, and tried to return it to Apple.
However the customer service representatives who spoke to him took it for a hoax- obviously, the folks answering phones at a company with as much secrecy as Apple aren’t privy to confidential information such as a missing prototype (or even what the prototype would look like should he describe it).
Assuming it was a chinese knockoff or hoax, they turned him away.

So, our lucky finder took the next logical step… tell the media.
Gizmodo offered to pay $5k for exclusive rights to review it (and help the finder return it), and went on to throughly examine, photograph and report on the alleged new iPhone. They admit, the prototype seemed pretty legit, however they had their doubts. That is, until Apple sent an official letter from their legal team and asked for their lost device back.

The Gizmodo editors gladly complied, “happy to see it returned to its rightful owner” according to a published email sent back to Apple’s legal department.

Well, that ends the story. Apple got their device back, Gizmodo got an exclusive scoop, and some lucky guy got $5k for sharing it after trying to return it to its rightful owner. They all lived happily ever after, right??
Wrong.

The story continues, and gets considerably uglier from here. Apparently, Apple is furious about what happened, and things are just getting started. Around dinner time last Friday, Gizmodo editor Jason Chen found his home being raided by the police, who were issued a warrant break in and confiscate his computers. On top of all that, Wired.com reports that the original finder of the phone (who has remained anonymous as of yet) may be under investigation as well.

And as if that isn’t enough, I’m sure that Gray Powell (the Apple engineer who apparently lost the prototype in the first place) is in a world of pain right now. Its no secret that Apple is very protective about its devices, often aggressively so. Does anyone remember Sun Danyong, the Foxconn employee who committed suicide after accidentally losing one of Apple’s prototypes in China last July? Yeah. They tend to not just let things go.

The silly thing about all this is that the original finder of the phone actually TRIED to return it! Even Gizmodo sent it back, very politely, without even a hesitation once it was confirmed to be an Apple product. As far as I can tell, they did nothing wrong! If anything, the original finder should be commended to trying to return a valuable product, when so many people might just pawned it off on ebay!
Apple may be upset, but they appear to be taking it out on the wrong people!!

The uglier side of Apple has managed to stay below the radar mostly, but it seems people are taking notice this time. Even the Daily show had something to say about it:

File this under “Wait, what?”: HTC, makers of such awesome phones as the Incredible, Hero, HD2, and Touch Pro2, will now be paying a company that owns one OS they use, for the rights to use another OS that the first company has no claim on. This kinda seems like paying taxes in Virginia for a house in New Jersey, because both have suburbs.

Whatever legal wrangling happened behind the scenes, this likely has something to do with Apple suing HTC over patents. My not-a-lawyer guess would be that by having licensed patents from a company with prior art, HTC is building a defense against Apple’s claims. Indeed, it does seem like most of Apple’s IP infringement claims are for items that were implemented in Windows Mobile (and Palm OS, even), way before iPhone OS existed.

If it’s something along those lines, it’s a win-win for both of them. HTC gets some protection, and MS gets some money for nothing (and their checks for free). If it’s not, then I honestly got nothin’.

Unless you?ve been completely avoiding. the topic, we?re sure you?re aware that Palm has had a heck of a. month. An Earnings Report that was not so much lackluster as it was depressing, Buyout rumors, Radio Shack EOLing the Pre & Pixi, and trickled rumors about the upcoming rumored ?C40? device on Sprint.

To combat all of the above, Palm CEO
Jon Rubinstein has been  very high profile as of late. Yesterday,
in an interview with Marketwatch , there?s this bit:

?As for licensing webOS, Rubinstein
called the idea ‘an interesting concept’ and said Palm may be willing to do so, if the ‘right strategic partner came along with the right kind of business model’”.

Those of us with long memories may
recall that once upon a time this *was* Palm?s business model. While
Palm themselves made the Palm Pilot line, you could also get a Visor
from Handspring, TGRPro or Handera330 from Handera, Clie from Sony, and more others (including the lamented Tapwave Zodiac).

Interestingly enough, some of the most innovative options for the PalmOS came not from Palm, but from these third parties. TGR was the first company to ship a device with an integrated ?slider? keyboard, virtual graffiti area, landscape mode, SD and CF support, and maybe even some others I can?t recall. Handspring?s Springboard accessories added a ton
of functions, like GPS and even a phone (both the GSM Visorphone and the CDMA Sprint model). This would eventually lead to the Treo, which became a Palm device when Palm bought Handspring. It?s fairly easy to argue that without the Treo, Palm might not even exist today. Sony added tons of high-end features. The fact that you could get devices with all these options and not be tied to one particular hardware vendor was a huge deal back in the day. I honestly think it?s one of the appeals of Android or Windows Mobile ? One can buy a device from Samsung, Motorola or HTC based on what they like on a physical level, but then still have access to all the apps you?re used to and a basic experience that?s generally the same across the board.

Of course, it would be disingenuous
to omit that the licensing may have led to one of Palm?s major missteps
? spinning off the OS Division. While this would have been a smart
move back when all the above companies were licensing, the spin off hit around the same time that the only licensees left were basically
Sony for some high-end devices and Alphasmart (who are somehow still
around). Add that to the stagnation of Palm OS5, the failed retail stores,
the cost of buying back PalmSource, the wasted dev time and money on
the Folio, some really puzzling marketing decisions for the Pre
and you kind of see how Palm went from being synonymous with PDAs and Smartphones to garnering a reaction of ?Oh, are they still around??.

Licensing Palm OS gave Palm the ability to see what people were seeking in terms of hardware while letting others take the lion?s share of the fiscal risk. It?s certainly a better option than selling to another company that may just ditch the phone and sit on the patents, or selling to someone who decides to keep the Pre?s (problematic for some) hardware and sticking another OS on it (which is, in this blogger?s opinion, missing the whole point).

Licensing was a good idea when they were on top and an even better idea now that they?re playing catchup in a martketspace they once helped define.

This’ll teach me to go to bed at night – turns out the delightfully spec’ed Dell Lightning (the first Windows7 phone I can honestly say I’d like to try on a day-to-day basis) is just the tip of a very cool iceberg.

Next up, there’s the Thunder (Anyone else seeing a theme here? Too bad Blackberry already snatched “Storm”). It’s a GSM Android 2.1 device with a custom UI called “Stage” (which includes Facebook integration, apparently). There’s no slide-down portrait keyboard like on the Lightning, but there is allegedly full Flash support including a Hulu player. Now that’s a heck of a selling point. There’s also an 8 MP camera, as opposed to the Lightning’s 5 MP.

Wait, we’re not done yet! Dell has more Android sets to leak out. There’s the “Flash” (It’ll save every one of us!), with a smaller 3.5 screen than the Lightning or Thunder’s 4.1, more “Stage UI” goodness and probably most interesting to the techs out there, a Qualcomm MSM7230. This is Qualcomm’s “snapdragon” class device, and I can’t wait to see how this thing handles the demands of an “always on” OS like Android. Of the devices leaked so far, this seems more like the “fashionable” device. Unless you count…

…the Dell Smoke. With only a 2.8 QVGA screen, a dedicated hardware keyboard, Dell’s leaked documents indicate this is going to be more “corporate” targeted, but if this thing is a “suit and tie” phone, it’s a designer suit and tie. Simply stunning to look at.

The final phone leaked is the US version of the Areo. It’s got a comparatively anemic processor, and not a ton that catches my eye. Yes, it’s got handwriting recognition and a “special” capacitive stylus… but surely I’m not the only one who far prefers a stylus free device? Yes, there’ll be a Webkit browser and some kind of Flash support, but I can’t say I have any interest in this, knowing that the Lighting, Thunder, and Smoke are coming down the pipe. The Areo does have the advantage of launching first, so expect people who don’t follow tech blogs to plunk down a pretty penny, and then later be upset that they used up their upgrade.

While I’m done with phones, that’s not all Dell has slated (sorry for the pun). They’ve given more info on their “Streak” tablet. It’s now launching with Android 2.1 and still coming “this summer” but the big deal is what it’s being compared to, which is the Dell “Looking Glass”. I fell in love with the name right away. While at the surface the LG is just a “blown up” 7” Streak (Dell – there’s no excuse for putting a mere 800×480 resolution on this thing, or an anemic 1.3 megapixel camera!). Crack it open and you’ll find a Tegra2 chip inside. Throw in the fact that it has actual expandable RAM and you have the first Android tablet I’m interested in trying out.

Those are the devices – and you can get more details at Engadget – and now here’s the commentary: Dell is a powerhouse brand, with tons of presence in every segment of the computer market. The one notable exception has been handhelds. There was a time when the Dell Axim was a great device line – I had an X5 and it was one of the first “pocketable” PocketPCs. Sure, you needed a big pocket, but it was pocketable. However, that line faded into obscurity, and they’ve had a small hole in their lineup since. With this sudden spate of phones and tablets, running multiple OSes and targeted at multiple market segments, Dell seems ready to make a serious attempt at the one area where Apple and “upstarts” like HTC and others are firmly entrenched. Nothing here screams “iPhone/iPad killer!”, but on paper they certainly seem like viable alternatives to it, and they certainly have the market presence to leverage these devices. I look forward to seeing how this plays out.

Two words: Holy Hell.

Dell is apparently coming out with a Windows Mobile 7 Portrait slider. Features include compass, accelerometer, full flash support, 1GHz snapdragon…

As a huge fan of portrait hard keyboard smartphones, I’d love to check that out.