•Inconsistent colors usage. In Messages, it’s black on black. In Mail, and even here in Word (where I wrote a majority of this post), it’s white on white and I hate it. Give people the option to switch!

•Text messages roll off the screen instead of word wrapping so I can read the entire message; not just 40 characters. Text messages also don’t auto-update as they come in; it looks like there’s a 30 second timer on each one, but since you can’t read the whole thing anyway, it really doesn’t matter. The top ribbon doesn’t update or go away in the Message app itself either, so I’ll have long read the string of messages, yet the top ribbon is still showing past messages.

•In numbers and symbols, a space doesn’t return to the keyboard. That means there’s an extra tap every time I need to punctuate, which slows me down, and is completely unnecessary. In English, punctuation doesn’t start any sentence, so this is completely odd.

•I can’t close an app from the Fast Task Switch area. I had to find out from a friend that a double tab on the arrow button closes an app. That’s so not intuitive it’s ridiculous. Take a page from Apple’s book, like you do on the Start screen: If I’m in the Fast Task Switch area and hold down on a page, bring up a close button.

•I can’t resume an open app by clicking on it from the Start page. They always completely reset.

•I’d like a battery percentage meter next to the battery icon. It’s visible in the Battery menu in Settings; why not in plain view where it’s most important? Apple can’t have a patent on that… can they?

•I’d like the option to keep the top ribbon (where the signal strength, wifi and battery icons are at) always visible. Right now it fades and you have to tap up there to bring it back… before it fades again.

•I’d like the option to always keep the 3 capacitive buttons on. All WP phones have them, so give me that option. In the dark it’s a pain to navigate my phone.

•In the browser, give me a software back button. It’s not intuitive to have the arrow hardware button be back.

•Wallpaper. Give me wallpaper for behind the Start screen; not just the Lock screen.

•FOLDERS FOR APPS! It just makes sense.

•Calendar: Give me a Week view and make your Month view zoomable, or have the wasted space at the bottom of the Month view where the info for that day is. It’s useless in its current form.

•You can’t view media you sync to your phone while the phone is plugged in or the Zune software is open. Why not? What if I want to check and make sure the sync worked correctly before I disconnect or shut down?

I’m sure there will be more issues (and pros!) as I play with the phone for the next few days, but by looking at my two lists side by side, the negatives outweigh the positives. The question is if the negatives outweigh the positives enough to return the phone and stick with iOS.

So far, I’m pleased.

I mailed my dad last night and told him I bought one and he sent me a mail tonight, asking me to explain why I did that and what the phone does for me. After the break, I’ll list what I mailed to him.

First off, I’m coming from an iPhone 4 and not from a 4S, so the speed of both phones, from a hardware perspective, is about the same (edit: that’s not true. The iPhone 4 has around an 800mhz chip and the Lumia 900 has a single core 1.4 ghz chip). From a software perspective, it’s night and day. In my one day of testing, the WP is way faster than the iPhone was. WP screams because the OS was created to run on lower spec machines. MS actually laid down the law to all handset makers and enforced strict hardware requirements. They did this because the last version of Windows (6.5) was absolutely terrible from a performance perspective. That’s because MS let anyone put 6.5 on anything and it ran like crap. They learned their lesson. Android is going through those pains right now, because you can put that OS on any phone and it can potentially perform quite terribly. It’s “fragmented”. Not so on Windows Phone. It’s fast and fluid, which is nice.

Secondly, apps. That’s probably the biggest “negative” of Windows Phone if you read the internet, but just because you have a ton of apps, doesn’t mean they’re any better or make the lesser store worse. I found either the exact same app from iPhone on Windows Phone, or an alternate that in some cases is better than an iPhone version. I’ve been quite pleased with the apps I’ve been testing out in the last day. Numbers don’t mean better. I’ve got Google News Reader, Spotify for streaming music, Facebook, Twitter, Weather, Netflix, Office built in, plus this weekend I’ll be researching the other productivity and multimedia apps I’m interested in. I actually made a list of all the apps on my iPhone and compared to WP offerings. Only a handful of apps aren’t on WP, and they’re all media apps that I rarely used anyway. I was pleased.

I’m not really a cameraphone guy,so I don’t care so much if it’s not amazing. As long as it can take pics, I’m good. The iPhone 4 has a 5mp camera and the 900 has an 8mp camera. Truth be told I haven’t even launched the camera app yet. That’s not a huge concern at the moment. It’s easy as hell to share pics on this phone compared to the iPhone though. THAT is exciting. To send a picture via e-mail or text message on the iPhone is a chore and I can’t believe in 5 years since iPhones have been out they haven’t made it as easy as it is on Windows Phone, or any other phone OS, for that matter. That includes BlackBerry and Android.

I’ve had WAY better battery performance so far with the 900 than the 4, but I’ve only had it 27 hours. When I got it last night at 8pm I had around 30% battery life. I didn’t put it on the charger until it was down to 9% at 8am this morning. I took it off the charger around 11 and it’s still above 80% full. I’ll have more info on that after the weekend, but I’m pleased, and that’s with the fast internet this thing has (HSPA) compared to the 4 (3G). (Update: The phone’s battery life is still really good and Nokia updated the phone today to address the data connectivity issues and potentially battery life as well, so it could get even better.)

I won’t lie… price was part of my decision. It’s only $99 (most smartphones start at $199 like the 4S and the 4 before it), but for the next week, due to a software bug that affects *some* 900′s (Update: and now fixed), Nokia is giving everyone $100 for their troubles, basically making it a free phone. That was too good of a deal to pass up, especially since I already had my eye on WP, and on this exact phone. Truth be told, I want the white version, so in 2 weeks (around 4/22), I may be taking this black one back and swapping it for white. I’ve wanted a white phone for over 4 years and the 900′s white design is absolutely amazing. I can’t wait. This 2 week test is to see if I like WP enough to want the phone for 2 years.

It’s interesting… the iPhone is more a “fun” phone and the WP phone is more the “productive” phone. I actually don’t pick up my phone every 30 seconds like I did with the iPhone to see what’s new. The information I need is pushed to me when I need it and I really like that. One of my closest friends pre-ordered one and got it last Friday and explained that exact fact to me, but I didn’t get it until now. I don’t pull my phone out just to look at it anymore; it’s a productivity tool. I use it when I need it.

I also got a Windows Phone for the Windows integration experience. It fully supports Exchange, which we use at work. It has Office built in, so I can create or read Word docs on the fly. I can upload them to the cloud (MS calls it SkyDrive and gives you 25gb free) and I can access them from any PC by logging into Hotmail.

I absolutely LOVE the Live Tiles. They’re just neat. Seeing the Weather, or Facebook, or Twitter or my Google Reader app update every 30 minutes with new information is just cool. That’s a big beef I have with iOS right now. Most of the icons are static, except the Calendar date. Give the icons life!

I have a bunch of small issues with the phone (for instance, I really want to set a background wallpaper for the Start screen; not just the lock screen), but they can easily be fixed in an update and those issues don’t outweigh what I DO like about the phone. I also still have 29 days to decide if I want to keep it and if I decide to return it, I’m only out $35. I had an Android phone for under 17 hours… I couldn’t wait to take it back. So far, at this time, I have no intention of taking my WP phone back. It’s a sexy piece of hardware and the OS ain’t bad either. I have posted an article about those issues here.

What do I want to do with it? (Dad’s last question was what I want to do with the phone) Honestly? I want something new, fresh and different. The iPhone, Android and BlackBerry experiences are exactly the same – a bunch of static icons that you click and launch an app. You have pages you can fill up with apps (or folders of apps) and it’s just boring. Windows Phone gives me the ability to have a new experience in a great package that runs fantastic and has great battery life at an affordable price. Those are all wins in my book.

Case in point: I have an iPhone 4 and I’ve made no secret that I want a new phone (plus my contract is up, which help the issue) but which should I get? New Android phones are released like clockwork almost once a month, but average about every 90 days. Luckily, I have no interest in Android after testing the latest Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket for under 24 hours before racing it back to the store. Maybe I’ll post about that some other time.

Lately I’ve been watching Windows Phone 7 because it’s doing something completely unique from iPhone, which I find very intriguing. I’ve had my eye on the HTC Titan 2 or the Nokia Lumia 900 and am leaning towards the Lumia 900. Neither of these phones are out yet, but they’re “coming soon”. The current rumor was that at least one of those phones would come out today (March 18th), but that didn’t happen. The latest rumor for the 900 is that it’ll be out before the end of April and there’s no date yet for the Titan 2. I’m OK with that, because I don’t NEED a new phone, but I WANT a new phone like nothing else.

Meet my new shiny “thing”.

Here’s where things get tricky: Windows Phone “Apollo”. It’s the next OS upgrade to WP7 that’s supposedly coming out this Fall… rumored around Christmas. This update is supposed to have a bunch of really cool features (including multi-core processors and multiple resolutions in the next generation phones), but no one knows (yet everyone is asking) if the current generation of WP7 phones will be upgradable to the Apollo software (obviously the hardware will involve a full upgrade).

So! Do I buy one of the new WP phones when they come out in the next month and cross my fingers that they’ll be upgradable to Apollo, or do I wait until June for possible news (or this Fall once Apollo is released) and see which handsets support it?

The obvious answer is to wait until June/Fall and see what happens (that’s what my wife says to do), but the tech geek in me thinks that waiting that long is inconceivable and I should get the 900 the second it comes out. In white, of course. My next phone WILL be white.

It’s because of issues like this that I simultaneously love and hate technology.

Apple: Though still king of the hill when it comes to smartphone hardware and software design (based on the fact that the iPhone 4S is currently selling out everywhere and has a 1-2 week waiting period), I’m not liking the all glass design and the OS itself is getting stale. This is probably because I’ve had 2 iPhones back to back (the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 4), but overall, the OS itself hasn’t had any major upgrades since it’s introduction in 2007. I don’t see this changing any time soon, mainly because of the fact that iOS prints money for Apple.

I’d like to be clear that it’s not a bad OS by any means, it’s just not for me anymore. What keeps me on iOS is that it’s currently the best of the best, but there are definitely other OS’s nipping at Apple’s heels.

The rumors about the iPhone 5 having an all aluminum back and a bigger 4″ screen are interesting, but it’s not all about the hardware – the software counts for a lot, too – so I’ll be waiting to see what OS6 has to offer, especially compared to what Android and Windows Phone have to offer and how those OS’s are being updated with meaningful updates quite often.

Android: I still view the Android OS as the little brother to iOS that’s desperately trying to copy its older brother, but just barely keeps missing the mark. Don’t get me wrong, the widgets are cool and the Google specific phones (usually untouched by carriers, just like the iPhone) are sexy, but why would I get an Android phone when an iPhone does the job better? If I was on Verizon, I might think differently, as there are a ton of hardware options, but I’m on AT&T and cannot switch providers, so Android still remains on the low end of the “want” spectrum for me.

BlackBerry: RIM has had its share of ups and downs since the iPhone came out and after the recent outages and the concern that I’m still not certain that RIM understands exactly what their customers want out of their phones, the BlackBerry went from my second option to dead last. The Torch is a cool idea (marrying a touchscreen with a slide up keyboard), but the buttons are too small and I can’t type worth a damn on them. I’ve always been tempted by the Bold series (and the new 9900 is their best QWERTY phone yet), but the current software issues, plus the smaller touchscreen, really leave me unsatisfied. BBX is going to be launched in the summer of 2012, but their first phone is an all touchscreen model and I’m not exactly in the market for another touchscreen phone – I want one with a hardware keyboard for typing out large mails and quick texts. Imagine me trying to type this out on a 4″ touchscreen. HAH! With a hardware keyboard? Possibly.

The OS itself is still plagued with issues that I’m not a fan of: you still cannot run apps from the memory card, there’s minimal memory for onboard apps and the App Store is dead last in terms of developer support. I also have a huge problem with all data going through RIM’s servers. I’d LOVE to see RIM make a BlackBerry that didn’t go through their servers, but that will never, ever happen. That functionality is what keeps RIM in business, especially with government and large businesses and for people that like the BlackBerry Messenger app, which is exactly like iMessage for iOS, except for BB phones.. The data is 100% secure, but it comes at a pricey cost when their servers go down for 3 straight days and your smartphone is now a dumbphone. If I couldn’t access my e-mail for 3 days on my phone, I’d be PISSED. That was the straw that broke my possible allegiance to RIM, but my hand may be forced if I can’t find any other phone manufacturer that makes a good hardware keyboard, which leads me to the last OS maker: Windows Phone 7.

I wasn’t a fan of the first generation of hardware or software, and I wanted to give them time to roll out copy and paste, multitasking and more polish to the OS itself. With the recent Mango software release and the Nokia partnership, plus quality second generation hardware from Samsung and HTC starting to roll out, I’m really eyeballing WP7 as my next phone choice.

I’ve heard that the way the phone handles e-mail is amazing and I’m a HUGE fan of the Live Tiles that update in real-time as stuff is updated. That’s a great way to see new information at a glance and no other OS maker is doing it quite like it. While I’m not sold on the tile design (I still think the OS looks like a kid made it in 5 minutes in MS Paint), it is unique and that’s compelling to me. I have several friends with WP phones and I have yet to hear any major complaints, plus the OS will continue to get better. In theory, so will its competitors, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens come June of 2012 when Apple unveils OS6 and the “real” iPhone 5.

Nokia has finally released their first generation of phones under their close partnership with Microsoft and while they’re getting rave reviews, I’m waiting for a Nokia with a physical keyboard. If I’m going to switch away from arguably the best smartphone in the world (iPhone 4/4S), it’s going to be because I want a phone with a physical keyboard, but not a BlackBerry or an Android, all for the reasons above.

Earlier this year, Nokia made a gorgeous Symbian phone called the E7. If they can re-create the E7 with Windows Phone 7 standards, I’m game. That’s basically what I’m waiting for.

What if they don’t make another phone with a hardware keyboard? My options at that point are quite limited. I’d hate to get a BlackBerry and be unhappy with it and I do NOT want to carry two phones with me. Dell made a short-lived Windows Phone 7 line called the Venue, which just recently received the Mango update, but the keyboard reviews are about as iffy as the BlackBerry Torch keyboard, so that’s right out the window.

Lucky for me, I don’t have to decide today, but the world of cellphones leaves a lot to think about until I do make my choice.

http://crackberry.com/blackberry-services-down-again-emea-region

See, kids: this is what happens when you let another company get between you and your internet. It’s one thing to be under your cell provider’s wing, but it’s another to ALSO be under RIM’s guard.

I really want to believe, but there are so many clusterfuck things going on around RIM and the BlackBerry OS that I think sticking with the iPhone, which does indeed “just work”, is the best idea.

It’s like someone’s trying to tell me something. Or not. But still, it feels that way!

As I was browsing crackberry.com today, I learned that RIM hasn’t updated the Theme Studio program yet so people can make custom themes for OS7 handsets.Wait… let me get this straight: RIM is considering OS7 their flagship OS, the best and last of the bunch for about 3 months before the first QNX device ships, and yet they STILL haven’t released the Theme Studio program yet? The new handsets have been out for almost 60 days… I consider that ridiculous.

I want to like RIM and the Blackberry ecosystem and I want to play with one to see if I could see myself with one in addition to my iPhone (it’s the hardware keyboard – I’ll admit it). However it feels like they keep taking 2 steps forward and one back and I don’t know that I can spend $600+ for that kind of experience, especially since the iPhone 5 is right around the corner when my contract is up next July.

http://us.blackberry.com/smartphones/blackberrytorch.jsp

However, it uses BlackBerry 7, which, while it’s the latest and greatest version of the OS they’ve ever made, it’s going to be EXTINCT in less than 4 months when the first QNX BlackBerry drops before year’s end, lovingly dubbed the “Colt”.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/16/blackberry-colt-to-launch-before-end-of-2011/

Here’s the first kicker – IT IS A 100% TOUCHSCREEN PHONE!

Here’s the second kicker – all OS7 phones won’t get the QNX engine upgrade, even though the Colt will be a single core CPU driven machine. Originally RIM was saying that QNX would only work on dual core smartphones, which made sense, but now they’re rushing the Colt out by the end of the year effectively eating their own words and forcing upgrades just ’cause. I realize that’s business and all, but for early adopters that eat, breathe and sleep BlackBerry (like the awesome Kevin at CrackBerry.com), that’s just retarded.

For a company like RIM, who knows that their userbase absolutely loves the keyboard, to release a new smartphone with a new OS, without a hardware keyboard, BOGGLES MY MIND, especially since (and don’t tell my wife this) I was briefly considering thinking about maybe checking out the new BlackBerry next year. However, now that they’ve removed the hardware keyboard (really the only reason why I’d get a BB anyway) from their flagship upcoming product, I’ll just sit back and let them do whatever they’re going to do and take my time. No use buying the 9810 and being pissed that it’s already at “end of life” when it was just launched last week in Canada and this Sunday in the U.S.

Should I thank RIM for saving me $200+ bucks?

First off and most important (to me, but I can only assume to everyone) is battery life. The 11 inch Air gets 5 hours of battery life max. By comparison, my 13″ Macbook Pro gets about 10 and the iPad gets 10. If you were to up to a 13″ Air, your battery life would go up to 7 hours, but if you’re going to up to a 13″ Air, why not spend a few hundred more and get a MBP with stronger features that will last longer? I considered my MBP purchase something I’d have for at LEAST 5 years and even after that point, when I inevitably upgrade, it’ll still be a rock solid internet and movie machine… which goes into…

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.

iPhone 4.0 (mostly found at Gizmodo):

Multitasking: The ability to run more than one 3rd party app at once. For example, run Pandora while on IM and reading your e-mail. Spectacular. Most people with an iPhone, including myself, are clamoring for this feature. Since Apple are kings at usability and making things easier, I can’t wait to see this for myself. Most other smartphones (BlackBerry, Android, WebOS, Windows Mobile) have had this feature for ever. Apple is late to the party because they want to get it just right so it’s easy and seamless for the user.

App folders: Sort your apps into folders. Sadly, I don’t think you can delete any of the Apple apps that you don’t want (I’ve opened Stocks once and don’t care), but now you can tuck them all away into a folder that takes only one icon space and never look at them again.

Mail: Unified in-box (I like keeping my mail accounts separate, but it’s the choice that’s awesome), multiple Exchange accounts, threaded messages and more.

Custom backgrounds: Yay for my own wallpaper and not just plain black! Every other smartphone has had this forever; Apple is late to the party and I have a feeling the only reason they’re adding it here is because the iPad has it and the two OS’s are near identical… for now.

Game Center: Matchmaking in games, from your phone. Coming this Fall, apparently.

iAds: Ads built into apps so you don’t have to leave an app to get some ad goodness. (FYI, I don’t consider this a positive feature.)

All of the above, and more, are on Gizmodo’s full breakdown of the new OS, which you can find here, with pretty pictures to boot!

It is expected that Apple will unveil a few other tricks up its sleeve with regards to other OS features at WWDC on Jun 7th when they officially unveil the new iPhone hardware. These rumors include:

• Video Chat, making use of the rumored front facing camera with the fantastically rumored 960×640 (though some are now saying 480×720) resolution, that will record in 720P resolution. The latest news from devs with the Beta SDK are that this feature might be WiFi only.
• MobileMe will have a free version (MacDailyNews has an unconfirmed rumor)
• integrated Facebook
• streaming media via iTunes

I can post rumors all day long about what the next iPhone OS might have, but it’s pointless. Apple’s security is pretty locked down and getting anything early is next to  impossible. We’ll know more on June 7th.

Android “Froyo”, version 2.2 (mostly found at Android Central):

• Speed (2 to 4x faster than 2.1)
• App data backup
• Improved Enterprise / Exchange Support
• Push services – “Android Intent”
• Tethering / Mobile Hotspot
• Much faster browsing experience – V8 in browser
• New functionality in browser- Camera, orientation, geolocation
• Support for Adobe Flash and Adobe Air
• Search the Android Marketplace directly from Quick Search
• The ability to install applications on the SD card automatically
• One-button update or automatic update for apps
• The ability to purchase music from Android Marketplace
• The ability to stream your own music from your desktop

There’s a nice video walkthrough of the new features at Android Central here.

The biggest features that really get me going are the ability to stream your own music from your desktop and the ability to purchase music (and hopefully apps) from a browser and it’ll automatically sync to  your phone. That means you don’t have to tether your phone to your PC via USB to put media on it. That’s brilliant, if it comes to fruition when Froyo is officially released.

I’m also excited about the notifications tray (I HATE the way it works in the iPhone currently) and widgets. I frickin’ love the concept of widgets. Sadly for me, AT&T doesn’t have the best reputation with Android yet and I don’t want a Google Nexus One for several reasons, including the touchscreen issues, it’s going to be 8 months old by the time my contract is up and the fact that it’s $530.

Via Daring Fireball, I found a fantastic write-up from Justin Williams, who is a very experienced Mac and iPhone developer. He blogged about his journey from an iPhone to Android to see how it works on the other side of the fence. It’s a well written article that I highly suggest you read if you’re curious about Android at all. He makes some great points that I can’t stop thinking about.

While digging up the main link to Justin’s site, it turns out that the reason there’s no bounce scrolling (the small bounce you see when you reach the top or bottom of any scrollable window on an iPhone) in Android like there is in iPhone is because Apple patented this back in 2007. In Justin’s wonderful words: “Just another unfortunate use of software patents to compete.” This REALLY makes me angry, but is it enough to ditch the iPhone and switch to Android? I’m not sure.

Another nice feature of Android handsets (really, every other platform than iPhone) is a LED notification light that tells you if you missed a call, mail or message while away. I absolutely love this feature, but since iPhone doesn’t have it, I’m missing out. Yet again, is that enough to ditch the iPhone and switch to Android? I’m not sure.

Part of me wants to switch to Android and see how it works, but the iPhone is the first smartphone I’ve ever owned and to be honest, it’s been a great experience. This phone will spoil any smartphone user, especially a new one.

Blackberry 6 (mostly found at Crackberry.com):

• Crisp, more immersive visuals, including new graphics, animations and transitions
• New WebKit browser; it’s high-fidelity and very efficient, for fast, rich browsing with support for multiple sessions (i.e. tabbed browsing)
  
• Multi-touch support (e.g. pinch to zoom) while browsing, viewing photos, etc.
  
• Graphical, context-sensitive menu pop-ups
  
• Redesigned core apps, plus a new media player UI
  
• New Home Screen experience; multiple views based on content type (All, Favorites, Downloads, Media, etc.), universal search
  
• New app for integrating RSS and social networking feeds

There’s a full breakdown available here.

Sadly, BB6 leaves me the least inspired to jump ship from my iPhone, especially after compiling this blog together. I’m sure RIM kept the same basic design due to security reasons or whathaveyou, but I’m not digging the design, colors or… well, any of it. On top of that, when using a BB, you must go through their servers and they seem to go down a lot. Even though the BB is a serious messaging and e-mailing powerhouse, I’m just not digging it.

So, there you have it. The world will know all about iPhone 4 on June 7, Android’s Froyo has already been announced and is rumored to come out in “early June” and Blackberry 6 is rumored to be released in the June/July timeframe.

At the end of the day, if you’re shopping for a smartphone, you’re in a good place. All of these OS makers are fighting for your money and the single way they’ll do this is by out-featuring the other. Review them all, go to a store and mess with one and pick the one that’s right for you.

Last but not least, a list of the sites I obsess over frequently visit that have the news I could post here:

Boy Genius Report. I don’t know where his ninjas are, but he gets consistent rock solid information. It’s THE place to go for rumors that probably aren’t rumors.

Gizmodo. My second favorite tech site. They were the first tech site to get their hands on the iPhone 4 hardware.

Engadget. My third favorite tech site, but they usually get stuff that Gizmodo misses, or if I want another take on similar articles, I’ll check them out.

Android Central, Android and Me and Phandroid. All three of those sites are great for all things Android.

Crackberry. THE site for Blackberry rumors and news. Seriously… don’t bother going anywhere else if you want Blackberry news. Crackberry Kevin is awesome.

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.

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!

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.

Android Central has the full Evo scoop:

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

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.

The last time I did this, I had a Samsung “Blade” phone from Sprint and I was going to move to a smartphone to be able to get e-mail and text with ease and have a good time on my phone. Back then, it was between the iPhone 3G and the Blackberry Bold. I obsessed for 9 months, much to the chagrin of my wife, but in the end it benefitted both of us, because I got us both iPhones and she’s extremely happy and content with her iPhone.

Me… not so much anymore.

Don’t get me wrong… I was originally absolutely amazed with the iPhone and what it could do, but at the same time, I slowly started to peel back the face of the phone and, much like an alien in V, I didn’t like what I was seeing.

I’m a tech geek. I build my own computers because I like to know EXACTLY what’s inside and how to fix it. I use Windows7 because I can install nearly any program on it I want to and have full control over every aspect of it. I can go to Fry’s and swap out anything within an hour, or just build a new one from scratch. I like that ability. With the iPhone, I can’t do any of that. The proprietary aspect of the phone kills me.

You can’t swap batteries because it adds bulk and construction issues to the phone. You MUST use iTunes to update and sync anything to the phone. You can only get apps through the App Store. You can basically do only what Apple wants you to do with it and even though there’s a huge userbase and thousands of apps for the app store, I still feel stifled and like it’s not really my phone. I’m not risking “jailbreaking” my phone to get the features I want when these features should have been on my phone in the first place.

Let ME decide what to do with my phone. Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do with it.

(I sound like Locke from LOST when I read that above line…)

Since I got the iPhone, I’ve been watching Apple, Android, RIM and Windows to see what’s out there and what I’d like to use as my next “daily driver” when I upgrade in September, if not earlier. I’m going to take a few minutes now (depending on how fast you read, but it’ll take me a LOT longer to type it all out) and talk about them all so I can get it off my chest and relax for the rest of my Sunday afternoon.

I’ll start with the OS I’m currently most excited about: Android.

Back when Android and the G1 was first released on T-Mobile, I wasn’t sure what to think about it. On paper, it sounds fantastic. It’s completely open source, so anyone can download the SDK and make apps for it. NOTHING is closed off to a developer (unlike Apple, where most of the core systems ARE cut off from devs) and that’s very alluring.

A few days ago (I believe Tuesday), Google launched the Nexus One for the AT&T network for $530 with no contract. This phone is just about exactly what I want in a phone, save for 2 things, which I’ll get into in a minute.

Nexus One

Ain’t it pretty?

One of the two things about the phone that I’m not a fan of is that it uses the stock Android OS “theme”. This is because it’s Google’s phone and HTC simply made the phone for Google. There are some hacks out there if you “root” your phone to add the new “Sense UI” theme that HTC made, which is very sexy and very cool. Their pinch to zoom on the home screen to view and jump to all any page quickly is awesome.

The other thing about the phone that I’m not a fan of is the 4 buttons above the trackball. they’re very hard to press and get them to activate. This is because only the top 25% of the button is actually usable; the rest of the button is mainly for looks. There are several YouTube videos about this if you’re interested in looking them up.

Naturally, HTC is making an upgrade to this phone that’s rumored to release on AT&T later this year (April/May) called the HTC Desire which is supposed to be an upgrade to the Nexus One in every way:

HTC Desire

…except one, which is the main reason I’m here writing this blog post, because I can’t decide if it’s a “showstopper” or not: They removed the LED notification trackball from the Nexus One and replaced it with an optical trackpad.

On one hand, it’ll be one less moving part that can break or get full of junk and unusable, plus it’s kinda small and unnecessary except scrolling through long blog posts (such as this one), which I do a lot on my iPhone. On the other hand, removing the trackball and LED notification light means that, similar to the iPhone, if you have any type of notification waiting for you (missed call, text or unread e-mail), you have no idea what’s waiting for you unless you wake up the phone. At a glance, the phone is dead. That single feature is the biggest reason I’m actually considering a Blackberry, because RIM seems to be the only cell phone maker that gets that concept. If the phone is in another room, or I’m sleeping or otherwise “away” from my phone, that little light will tell me exactly what I’m missing. More on RIM/Blackberry later.

The Desire, however, is a highly upgraded phone from the Nexus One in every other way. Is it worth it that the phone loses the LED notification or not? I’m not sure yet, thus the obsession. I could buy the Nexus One right now, but then I’d be compromising with the things I talked about above, but I’d have the LED notification. A friend has one and loves that feature. I know I will, too, but I don’t know if I can get over the touch sensitive buttons being ass.

One other thing that I’m not too happy about with the Android OS is that you can’t run apps from the MicroSD cards; only from the 512mb internal RAM. Google has said that this is being addressed, so I can only help that Android 2.2 or 2.3 will acknowledge this fact. Some aspiring programmer SHOULD be able to crack that nut. That’s why I love Android. The open source nature of the phone lends to this sort of creativity and problem solving.

All of this hinges on the fact that the Desire won’t even be out until April or May in the U.S. Right now, it’s only available in the UK, so the only real option is to either wait and see what happens or buy the Nexus One. Or both. Thus my problem.

The Android platform is only going to get better with time, so I’m definitely keeping this at the top of my short list.

Moving on to Apple.

As I said earlier, I’ve currently got an iPhone and I like it. I used to love it, but I’ve since been seeing things that I really don’t like about it that I can only hope that Apple fixes in iPhone 4, which should be announced at the end of June and be released around August~September. Until then, no one really knows what’s coming in the next version because Apple rarely leaks out new stuff before their launch events. With that said, I know what I want to see in the next iPhone OS or else I’ll most likely move to HTC and Android:

• Multitasking. I’m sorry, but people want to run more than just one app at once. You can already run Apple apps at the same time (iPod and Mail or iPod and Safari, for example), so there’s NO reason that you shouldn’t be able to run ANY app at the same time, even if it’s only one or two. That’s all I need… let me run 2 at once. Mail and Pandora. Pandora and Skype. A video game and Pandora. I don’t care if my battery dies because I tasked the hell out of it – let ME decide.
• Better battery life. I can barely get through a day with barely checking my mail and doing a bit of light browsing with it. I know this goes against my above statement, but again, it’s my choice on how to use the phone and while I realize that running more than one app at once will kill a battery, even doing the things I do now barely gets me through the day. I shouldn’t have to charge my phone every night unless I use it constantly.
• Smaller profile. The Nexus One is one slim, sexy phone. Apple knows how to make a sexy product. This point just about goes against the above “better battery life” point, but Apple has stated that they can make slim products because the battery is built into the phone, so prove it.
• I want a notification system light on the iPhone. I know this won’t happen, as it goes against Apple’s smooth design concept, but I at least want to know that I have an e-mail, text or phone call waiting to check out. Currently, if I wake the phone, I only see texts and phone calls. What about e-mails, even if it cumulates them all into “You have 5 e-mails”.  This drives me nuts and is the biggest reason I’m considering Android and, right now, the Nexus One. The trackball notification system is beautiful and I wish every smartphone had some sort of LED notification system.
• Smaller points, yet the polish is what makes the phone: Let me set my desktop background like the iPad will have. Let me set custom ringtones for e-mails and text messages. Let me see the sending progress on an e-mail when I hit Send, like a text message. Currently I have to back out of the mail to the in-box to see this. It’s only one click, but it drives me nuts.

Since there’s no real news, outside of rumors, for the new iPhone, I can’t really comment on anything concrete. All I know is what I don’t like about the iPhone and what I want to see in the new one.

Moving on to RIM and the Blackberry.

To make this short, here’s what it’s got that I love:

Status light and multitasking. You can run as many apps as you want and it’s up to you to kill them when you’re not using them. You already know my opinion on the status light feature. I’ve almost bought a Blackberry several times because of this feature alone. The hardware is also rock solid and the keyboard is a blessing and a curse.

What I don’t like:

• Apps are ass. There just aren’t that many apps for the phone and getting them is clunky and unintuitive, according to what I’ve seen and read on the internet. Good luck in finding fun 3D games on the Blackberry. I like Plants vs Zombies, dammit!
• You absolutely MUST go through RIM’s servers for e-mail. This is how push works on the Berry. It seems that the servers are down more than up, so I don’t think I can trust that to RIM like others can.
• The OS looks like it’s still stuck in 1996, but it’s a workhorse when it comes to phone and text/e-mail stuff. That’s also how the battery life is so good. The icons and system are very graphics lite. I’m sorry, but I like the icons on the Android and the iPhone. Looks DO count to some degree.

Now, with the above said, there are mock screenshots going around as to what the future holds and RIM is rumored to be working on OS6, but no one knows anything, so it’s not really worth speculating on at this time. Crackberry.com has information on that here:

http://crackberry.com/first-real-pics-upcoming-blackberry-os-6-0

OS 6.0?

RIM makes a touchscreen system (Storm) or one with buttons onscreen (Curve and Bold). Which to choose? Good question. There are multiple reports that the touch on the Storm can’t even hold a candle to the iPhone or Bold, but always having the keyboard is a blessing and a curse. Some say you can type faster (and by touch) with the keys, but then again they’re always there… you can’t watch a movie fullscreen with the Curve or Bold.

The Blackberry is on my list only because of the status light and the multitasking. The 3 apps that I use the most are on the BB as well though, so that’s good: Twitter, Facebook and Pandora. I don’t like that the app store is basically a joke though, so I don’t know that a Berry can be my daily driver.

Windows Phone 7 Series

WP7s is supposed to launch around Christmas of 2010, so there’s still a long way to go before there are review units or anything 100% concrete.

http://www.windowsphone7series.com/

Details on the phone seem to be changing every day. However, here’s what we know so far:

• No copy and paste. No wait.. not yet. Just not for launch! I think this was changed after the internet backlash after MS announced it would’t have it. News Flash: You absolutely CANNOT release a new OS that goes BACKWARDS from what you’ve had for years as a competitive advantage over all the other smartphones. Silly MS…
• No multitasking, sort of. Apparently they’re going to do some “smart” multitasking, but the jury is still out on what that fully means. I think they’re going to copy the current  iPhone model of multitasking (core apps only) and not necessarily allow any and all apps to run in the background.
• The App store model is just like Apple, which, like multitasking, is a shift from the previous WinMo phones. You can only get apps from the App Store and they have to be approved by MS before launching. Let’s hope that MS learns from Apple’s mistakes and makes sure that the app submission process is as clear as glass.
• Set hardware restrictions, just like Apple. MS has laid down exactly what the phone hardware has to have so that the experience is the same across all phones. On one hand I really like this, but on the other, the jury is still out on how that’s going to turn out. The phone models that have been shown and used at various shows in the last month leave me very uninspired. Nothing is remotely as sexy as the Nexus One, Desire or iPhone. However, this is only first generation stuff and only by two or three companies (and not ones known for sexy phones at that), so I’ll just have to wait and see. I DO like that one’s a keyboard slider, but that adds thickness to the phone and also allows for a huge breaking point. Will it last 2 years with every day use? Doubtful. That was a huge breaking point with the T-Mobile Sidekick line of phones.

In closing, I’m going to try my damndest to wait until September to upgrade my phone, but the Nexus One is definitely at the top of my short list, thanks to the LED trackball notification system. I’m very bummed that the Desire won’t have that, but I’m very happy that the Desire has hardware keys instead of the touch sensitive ones on the Nexus One. I’m honestly torn. I could buy the Nexus One right now and rock it by Wednesday, but I really want to wait and see what’s coming down the pike from all the above phone makers. It’s not like I couldn’t sell the Nexus One if I wanted to – it’s an unlocked phone for any user on AT&T and while I couldn’t get all $530 back, I’m sure I could at least get 80% of that back.

The long and the short of this whole post is that competition is a good thing and it’s fueling everyone to put their best foot forward. No one can be complacent anymore. Someone else can easily come along and knock you off your high horse and currently, I believe Android and HTC are doing just that to Apple and the iPhone and I couldn’t be happier. That’s why I’m pretty sure my next phone will be an Android phone. I’m just not sure which one yet. Apple will have to do a whole lot in June to convince me otherwise.

Paradigm

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.

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.

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.

I suppose I could switch to OSX and make it worth the monetary upgrade, but I play a ton of games on the PC and OSX just isn’t in the same gamespace as Windows is, so I don’t. If it wasn’t for that, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Everything that Windows has, I could do on OSX:

• E-mail (all done online via Firefox, which is available on OSX)
• Internet (see above statement)
• Music (either streaming through Firefox or iTunes, except for my Zune software, but I’d still have my home PC for that, at least for now)
• Music and Video production (Garageband and iLife apparently are good and it comes stock with OSX, plus I’d Dual Boot, so I’d still have my Windows programs)
• Word processing (OpenOffice is a free download, plus Office is available on the Mac)

The ONLY thing that OSX can’t do is games. All of the “hardcore” games I play are on PC and if I was to get a MacBook laptop, I’d use it for personal work stuff, which is all PC based. I can use BootCamp, but I’d want to format the Windows partition NTFS so I could have files over 4gb, but I could only have a 32gb partition, otherwise the FAT32 partition of OSX would have issues. On top of that, OSX can read, but not write, to NTFS without a $70 program and I’m not sure I want to bank $1600 on chance.

The nice thing is if I decide that OSX and the Mac aren’t for me, Macs have insane resale value and since I take uber good care of my stuff, I could easily sell it for $100 less than what I got it for and still be okay. I don’t exactly want to spend $100 to rent a Mac for a month, but maybe that’s what I need to decide if I want to go OSX or not. I do love my iPhone and the OS is basically a modified version of OSX.

The other reason (okay, there’ s more than one) I’ve been considering switching to Mac is because I want a lightweight, but yet solidly built laptop that’s not just a piece of plastic that’ll break in under 2 years. I have checked all the Dell, HP, Lenovo and Apple laptops and, by far, the Apple has THE BEST parts and design for laptops that I’ve seen, hands down. On top of that, the hardware inside the Dell and HP laptops just aren’t right for some of the machines for what I need.

I really want a netbook, but they don’t have good video cards in them yet. The only one that does, the Asus N10J-A2, is over $700 and I don’t see it coming down in price any time soon. On top of the high price, it’s all plastic, has no internal DVD drive and has a slow Intel CPU that won’t last more than a year for what I want it to do. Do I really want to pay $750+ for that? No. Do I want to pay $1600 for a MacBook? No, but I can justify that easier because it’ll last MUCH longer than a netbook would. If it’d last 2x longer than a netbook, then it’s already paid for itself. Then again, most standard netbooks are $400 and dropping in price every day as new tech is being released. The ION (Intel Atom CPU + Nvidia Geforce GPU that’s in the MacBook) chipset will hopefully be out this summer, but nothing has been set yet; it’s all rumor right now.

Dell sells a few 13″ models, but they all have issues:

• Inspiron 13: Intel integrated graphics. No-go for gaming.
• Studio XPS 13: Could work, but it’s plastic with leather accents… not attractive. The other problem is the only hard drive available that’s not a SSD is a 500gb SATA 5400rpm drive. Replaceable, but a pain and at an added cost. Oh, and Vista is on there by default with no way to downgrade to XP. No thank you. One Vista box in my house is enough.
• XPS M1330: SSD only. No HDD option of any speed. SSD is a no-go for me at this point until the technology gets better.

I also checked Lenovo and I don’t like the look of them. Same with HP.

I was thinking about maybe buying one off of Craigslist if the price is right, but I hesitate because you never know what you get. I know that 90% of the people on CL just want to sell stuff for money, but knowing my luck, I’ll get the 10% “other” category and get f’d. No thank you.

So where does this leave me? Well, I’m considering a 13″ MacBook for $1600 so I can run Windows. That just doesn’t sound cost effective. I want a 10″ netbook, but I have no idea when a netbook will be released with ION or a nice GPU that doesn’t cost $750.

I think I’m left with a big ol’ “meh”. I don’t want to run out and buy a $1600 MacBook, but I don’t have any ideas of what to do any time soon.

Just to throw out another kink in the decision making process, Windows 7 will be released this Summer and I’m very, very curious to see how much better it is than Vista. Maybe that will be the final straw?

Here’s my take on it: