Bob’s Blog

My current contract with AT&T is up in early September, so I’ve started researching what’s out there now in preparation for purchasing a new phone, as I don’t want to go to AT&T on the day I can upgrade and look like a tool, asking a bunch of questions that I know the store rep is tired of hearing. On top of that, I don’t want to be surrounded by reps that think they know what’s best for me; I want to walk into the store and buy it without any hassles.

So, with that said, the  3 smartphone Operating Systems I’m interested in that are on the market today are Blackberry, iPhone and Android. I’m going to list out the new features for each. I’m not convinced this will help me make a decision, but it’ll be nice to have all this information in one place and maybe it’ll help you.

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Apple has already unveiled iPhone OS4.0 software and a few weeks ago, RIM/Blackberry announced Blackberry 6 (to mild fanfare, everyone seems to agree) and tomorrow, the Google I/O conference begins, which is where Google will be unveiling Android 2.2 (“Froyo”). Exciting times!

Since I’m right in the middle of a heated debate with myself to figure out which phone I’m going to get next, I’m going to do the unthinkable and make a huge post (most likely this weekend after everything is announced) detailing all 3 new and improved OS features, most likely pulled from all the usual tech blog sites, but at least it’ll all be in one place and I’ll be doing all the fingerwork so you don’t have to.

Tomorrow morning at 10am PST, Apple will unveil OS4 for the next iPhone.

At 11:01am PST, depending on how that announcement goes, I’ll either be waiting patiently for the new iPhone G4 (HD, if you believe the rumors), or I’ll be purchasing a Nexus One from Google’s website and give Apple the finger.

Grab some popcorn! This should be good!

It looks like AT&T is locking down the next Android phone coming to the network… the Dell Aero.

http://tinyurl.com/y8rya57

What this means is that if you wanted to install a program outside of the Android Marketplace, you cannot. This also means that AT&T has the option to add extra programs, or remove them, if they want to.

From BGR:

As a result of this decision, the Aero will not have the “With Google” branding that graces many of the Android phones currently on the market. If Google is not the centerpiece of the services on the phone, AT&T may be free to swap out Yahoo for Google and put its custom bloatware software on the Aero as it did on the BACKFLIP.

Yet another reason I’m thinking about getting the Nexus One… but I’m still going to wait to see what Apple does with the iPhone G4 and if AT&T does indeed get the HTC Desire, which is the spiritual successor to the N1.

It looks like Sprint is hitting the Android market hard with the HTC Evo sometime this year. Because of this, I have no choice but to hold off on getting the Nexus One or the HTC Desire. I just know that HTC is going to fix the issues that plagued the Nexus One on a future phone not on Sprint. They already fixed the sensitivity issues that plague the Nexus One on the Evo, so now it’s just a matter of time for HTC to make a 4.3″, full touchscreen Evo on AT&T. Desire 2, anyone? I desire that too as well.

Android Central has the full Evo scoop:

http://www.androidcentral.com/full-hands-sprint-evo-4g

I start to sound like a broken record when I say “Sorry, I haven’t updated in forever”, but, sorry, I haven’t updated in forever.

I’ve decided to have this specific blog be about tech over random BS in my life for the people that actually care to read about it. Those BS things I post via Twitter, which you can see in the handy dandy streaming plugin section on the right.

I’ve decided to do a huge brain dump on e-paper about the current thing I’m obsessed about, which is nothing out of the ordinary, and was one of the huge things I posted about on this very site almost 2 years ago, at this time: Upgrading my cell phone.

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I can’t seem to find a damned WordPress based music player, so I’m just going to post it here and you can check it out however you wish.

Paradigm

I got an e-mail from my spam filter that I had a comment to a post on my blog here and I remembered that I haven’t posted in forever and a day. Sorry.

The last time I updated was in March about getting a netbook. A LOT has changed since then. The long and the short of it is I had emergency surgery on my intestines, had a bunch removed, and decided that I want a Mac, so I bought a 13″ MacBook Pro and I absolutely love it. It’s got everything I wanted and more. Yes, it was expensive and some would say overpriced, but for what it can do and for hopefully how long I’ll have it, it was worth every penny.

I don’t really have much going on right now, but anything I do update on I usually put on LJ or Twitter first. You can see my Twitter feed on the right side of the main page, so you’ll always know what I’m up to… if you care.

I was testing Windows 7 again today and it really is a lot like Vista, which means if you dislike the UI of Vista, you’re probably going to dislike Win7. I was very mad at first that the Quick Launch taskbar was removed (I use mine all the time; I have 30 programs on mine right now), but you can add it back in, though it’s a pain in the ass:

http://mintywhite.com/tech/windows-7/windows-seven-7-restore-quick-launch-toolbar/

I know that MS wants to make Win7 as minimalistic as possible, but did they really have to remove the Quick Launch OPTION from the Toolbar options? Now it’s a power user command.

I really wonder what it’d take for me to become a Mac convert on days like this.

I have been debating, for quite some time now, about making “the switch” to OSX from Windows. This isn’t because of OSX at its core, believe it or not… it’s because of the hardware. The MacBook line of laptops are, in a word, gorgeous.

However, they’re costly. It’d cost me roughly $1600 to upgrade to the 13″ MacBook with a Windows license.

That’s a lot of frickin’ money for just an all-aluminum chassis of awesomeness.

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My favorite band, Live, has put together a music video contest that I just had to enter. They filmed a bunch of footage back in July when they were filming their DVD release and they posted it on the internet for us to edit our own video together.

Here’s my take on it:

I added my ZuneCard to my homepage, under my Twitter feed, because I thought it was kinda cool. I had to change to a new WordPress theme in order for all the content to look right, but I like this theme better than the old one anyway.

Best SNL Video to date.

I don’t update this nearly as much as I update my blog on LiveJournal, but I wanted to post the snow pics that I’ve got there and on Flickr, because I can.

The black car is actually on a cement island in the middle of the street.

The cement island seems to be "the place" to park cars. I'm guessing so they don't have to drive up the two hills to get to the parking lot.

Snowing.

Icicles on my kitchen window.

Anyway, I update my LiveJournal page way more often, but I’ve provided a link to it and I also have my Twitter updater piped to here, so you can always know what’s going on.

I went on a business trip to Kiev, Ukraine, a few weeks ago and tried to document the more interesting things that I found as I was being shuttled from meeting to meeting for 3 straight days. I have no idea which cathedral is which – I thought they were gorgeous pieces of architecture and wanted to document as many as I could without getting in trouble. Cameras weren’t allowed inside a lot of them, so that’s why there’s more outside pics than inside ones.

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I’d like to preface this by saying that I am not an Apple fanboy. I don’t own a Mac (I have a homemade PC with Vista on it) and I’ve never owned an iPod (I have a Zune and before that, a Dell DJ), so the concept of buying an Apple cell phone is a bit odd for me. However, I don’t have any allegiance to any specific cellphone makers – I just want the best cell phone for me.

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My WordPress blog has some serious power behind it! I’d almost consider changing my website around so that the blog points straight to givnin.com, but I do enjoy having a main page where I can post whatever the hell I want, plus keep this blog page with everything else! I guess this isn’t so bad after all.

Even though he doesn’t know it, Paul’s website at screwtheman has seriously made me open my eyes to the powers of the internets. Thanks Paul!

This is a test to see how the embed coding works for videos… and an excuse to post a Live video on my site.

It’s been awhile since I’ve updated my blog on this site (15 July, apparently) and I wanted to find a better design for the page to include my Twitter feed, plus just freshen the design up a bit. I also found a kickass bookmark that links me straight to a blog update page, so I don’t have to manually go to the site, log in and do all that BS – this is one click goodness. I can also add photos, quotes and videos. Watch out, YouTube!

I love the internets.

Part of this I posted to my Live Journal blog and I’m starting with that here:

“I just got back from the mall in Bellevue, WA to check out the iPhone 3G. There was a line at the Apple store, but none at the AT&T store; I’m assuming that’s because they were sold out. The AT&T store did have two display units, so my wife and I got to play with them side by side.

The plastic back is nice; it does fit great in your hand. The tapered sides help with that a lot. I also like the metal buttons over the plastic ones of the previous iPhone.

Other than that, however, that’s where the love stops. We both still find it hard as hell to type on the touchscreen, I have to press icons on the home screen multiple times to activate apps and my other big issue: when you’re in Safari and turn the phone sideways to switch to landscape mode, it takes either several seconds to switch or you have to turn it back to portrait, then try turning it back to landscape again. That annoys the heck out of me. I was hoping that the second motion sensor would have helped that, but I guess not. I was also thinking this issue might have been addressed if the processor was actually running at its full capacity (620mhz), but the OS seems to run exactly like the iPhone 2G, which means it’s probably running at the same 412mhz speed as the iPhone 2G.

The iPhone is a gorgeous looking phone, and AppStore has a ton of potential, but I think our money is on the Bold.”

On top of that, a LOT of the apps that are available through AppStore are stupid and pointless and I’d never use them. The ones that are somewhat good are either available for the Berry, or are available via bookmark through a website. Basically, right now, the AppStore isn’t worth a hill of beans, but it’s got HUGE potential.

Then there’s the other things.

Non-replaceable battery. The iPhone has about a 5 hour talk time… a LOT less on 3G when surfing the internets, using GPS, using the iPod side for audio or video… it KILLS the battery. Since you can’t just pop in a new battery like the Berry, you’ve gotta either live by a wall socket, have a car charger or just not use the nice goodies when you’re out and about and what’s the point of having a phone (I really want to say toy) and not be able to use all its features without being afraid of it dying on you? At least if my Berry dies, I can pop the battery out and put a new one in. Sure, it’s like $30 extra, but that’s peace of mind that just can’t be beat.

The iPhone doesn’t do MMS, so if you snap the cutest pic of the kids and want to send it to Kristian, you have to e-mail it. I’m sorry, but just about every low-end phone has MMS capabilities now. On top of that, the iPhone still has no zoom and no flash. The Berry Bold has the same 2mp camera, but it’s got 5x digital zoom, a flash and MMS, so you CAN take a pic and send it to whomever you want.

The status light is a huge deal for me. I don’t sleep with my phone near me; it stays in my computer room. When I’m drumming, it rests on a speaker head. When I wake up and come into my room, all I have to do is look at my phone from across the room and if the light is red, I’ve got a message and I need to check my phone. If there’s no light, then I’m fine – nothing to worry about. With the iPhone, there is no status light, so I’d have to mess with it every time I want to check for new messages. I’ve gotten used to that feature and love it and honestly, can’t live without it.

I already said it, but the touchscreen is VERY hard to get used to and I’d like to think I can handle most computer stuff pretty good. Typing on a flat glass surface does nothing for me and I really think that the swiping, pinching and scrolling would get old really fast, but that’s just me. The Berry has a keyboard that’s set up like a real keyboard, making my orientation period really small. I like that. You already have a qwerty on your Blackjack, so there’d be no orientation time with you. You’d be banging out texts and e-mails with the best of them!

The Bold is a texting, e-mailing machine. Period. Yes, it can play audio and video, but it’s mainly a great phone with e-mail and texting the priorities for business people and people that want to be in contact with other people. The iPhone is a multimedia machine that’s trying to be a texting and e-mailing machine, mainly for corporate use to try and finagle marketshare from RIM and I really don’t see it happening any time soon.

Every Berry on the market has an internal IM program called Blackberry Messenger. With it, any Berry can contact any other Berry, on any other network – free. It’s a free service for being on RIM’s servers. That’s BRILLIANT. I can IM anyone with a Berry for free… save minutes and get to the point, fast. Michelle will have one, James has one already and I have a few other friends with Berry’s and we can all IM for free. That’s just awesome.

I’m ranting now, so I’ll stop there, but there’s more. Bottom line: The iPhone is a pretty, cutting edge phone. I want a kickass, rock-stable phone that I can e-mail and text to my heart’s desire and the Berry fits that perfectly.

With that said, it seems that a new kink has been introduced. Boy Genius reported that the OS is still buggy as hell (battery pulls 10 times a day? Eff that!) and that the screen is plastic, as is the silver trim, and as a result, the thing apparently scratches by just looking at it.

On the Crackberry forum, RUMOR HAS IT that RIM has upgraded the plastic screen to a glass screen, but I’ll probably still end up getting a screen cover and body gel thing to protect it, but it’s still a concern to me.

56 days and counting.