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:

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.

This tank was in the lobby of our hotel.

When you walked up to the tank, they'd stare at you. Freaky.

One of many awesome cathedrals I took pictures of.

Yet another cathedral

This was the only cathedral I could take an interior shot of and it was beautiful.

Another cathedral.

Cathedral

This was the desk in my hotel room.

Not even close to a comfortable bed.

Under the comforter. There were two of these, but I only used one.

This is a typical toilet paper dispenser in most public places.

This is the sheet that comes out of the toilet paper dispenser.

I thought the life:) service provider was cool.

The staff kept giving beer to my co-worker sitting next to me, so I had to document the evidence. The bowl of red stuff is a common soup in Kiev (Borscht) and the bowl of white stuff is sour cream.

We had a huge surprise birthday party and this table was empty when we arrived. This was taken near the end of the night.

This sticker was on my bathroom garbage can. It was so awesome I had to take a picture.

This huge picture of Steve Vai was on a window just outside the hotel.

This other picture of Vai was on another window of the same building.

This is a hologram of a cat. There was a whole museum of these holograms, but I thought this was the cutest.

I took this picture solely because a drink on the menu was called the Orgazmo.

Everyone needs HP Sauce! Though... "The Original"? Does this mean there's more HP Sauce in the world?

It was a good trip. I have no idea if I’ll be going back next year, but if I do, I’m sure I’ll find more stuff to take pictures of.

For 9 months I debated between Symbian phones, Windows Mobile phones, the Blackberry line (specifically the as-of-yet-released Bold) and finally the iPhone. I pared it down to the BlackBerry or the iPhone, so the obsessing process began.

When the iPhone was first released in 2007, I was stuck in a contract on Sprint that still had a year left, so I watched the iPhone launch from afar. I spent the next year (until last week) watching the iPhone as well as the Blackberry line, seeing what was happening and trying to make an informed decision. Who knew it would be one of the toughest decisions I’d ever have to make when trying to decide what cellphone to buy.

In that year period, I watched Apple tweak the iPhone 2G, release the iPhone 3G, release several software updates and watched RIM do nothing with the BlackBerry Bold except announce that it was coming. As of this writing, the Bold is rumored to be out on 10-2-08, but nothing official has come down the pike.

I watched countless YouTube videos and read countless videos on both phones, read a number of forums on Crackberry.com, Howard Forums, plus the usual tech sites like Engadget and Gizmodo, trying to make the right choice.

Both phones will do exactly what I need it to do, but the way that both phones go about it are completely different, so I had to figure out which one was going to be the best for me.

In the end, the deciding factor for me was bringing home an iPod Touch for a weekend and testing it out. My wife and I sat on the couch and passed it back and forth for hours, just playing with the different features, learning how to type on the glass screen and surfing the internet, trying to figure out if the phone was for us, or just a fad that’d grow old faster.

We decided that night to get iPhones and then the wait began until September 9th, 2008: iPhone 3G day.

I had ordered 2 16gb iPhone 3G’s from the AT&T store on a suggestion from the AT&T rep. He said that although they had them in stock (this was a week before we could actually use them), they were the “hot thing” and they might not be in stock when we came back, so I ordered 2 of them on my credit card and they were waiting for us the night we went in to sign our new 2 year contracts.

The rep powered them on and got the SIM cards ready, but warned us that it’d take awhile for the number porting process to fully take place, plus there was an AT&T network problem that was causing phones to not work for a bit. His suggestion was to power the phone on every 30 minutes until it worked and about 2 hours later, our phones were connecting to AT&T’s network and we could place calls, but could not receive them, thanks to Sprint taking their sweet time. This would continue on for a full 24 hours and then, after a phone call to AT&T’s porting department, we were 100% ready to go.

Hardware

The iPhone 3G itself is a gorgeous piece of technology, with only one visible button on the front (the “Home” button), 2 on the left side (volume up/down toggle and silent switch) and one on the top, a Sleep/lock button. The bottom has the Apple proprietary jack and the top has the flush headphone jack. This was a nice change from the iPhone 2G, where the headphone jack was recessed, causing users that had L-plug headphones to buy an adapter to use their headphones with the iPhone.

The back of the iPhone 3G is black (or white if you so choose that model) and made of plastic. This is so the various cell signals inside the phone (3G, GPS, Wifi and BlueTooth) can get through the phone easier. The iPhone 2G had a metal back and a small plastic area at the bottom of the phone where the antenna was housed. This caused many issues for users, so the plastic backing on the iPhone 3G was well received, although some users worry that the plastic backing won’t stand up to drops and scratches like the iPhone 2G. While this may be a problem for some users, the first thing I did was purchase a case, specifically the SwitchEasy “CapsuleRebel” case for $30. Since there is no insurance available for the iPhone 3G, I was going to protect the phone as much as humanly possible.

Screen

The iPhone 3G is outfitted with a glass 3.5 inch touch-based screen with a 480×320 resolution. You can watch movies and TV shows with relative ease on it, as well as view album covers on the whole screen when in iPod mode, or when using music applications such as Pandora.

While the screen is a fingerprint magnet, I have found that I prefer it “naked” as opposed to having a screen on it. This is for several reasons. 1, they’re a pain in the butt to put on perfectly. 2, there’s always lint or dust that gets trapped underneath the screen and that bugs me more than a few fingerprints do and 3, I didn’t want to risk losing any sensitivity with the touchscreen. Since the screen is made of glass, it can put up with a lot of abuse, within limits, and still function perfectly fine.

A lot of people are split on “hardware keyboards”, like the BlackBerry, versus a “software keyboard”, like the iPhone has. This is one of those things that I believe needs to be experienced for more than a 10 minute demo at the Apple Store. At first, I was worried about this very fact as well, but liking the concept that the keyboard is only onscreen when it needs to be and not just wasting valuable space when I want to do other things, like view a website, look at an e-mail or just interface with the phone in general.

After spending a day with the iPhone, I have to say that it’s not as bad as people think. I’m still getting used to the phone and for some reason my right thumb is always one letter off to the right, but the cool thing about the software keyboard is that when you tap on a letter, a bigger version of that letter pops up to notify you which button you’re trying to press. If you keep your finger on the screen and slide it around, you’ll move from letter to letter. When you arrive at the letter you want, simple lift your finger off the screen and that letter will be typed out.

When starting to type a word, Apple has included an intelligent spellchecker that tries to help you spell out the word automatically, so you don’t have to type out the whole word. When the word appears that you want to use, press the spacebar to accept it. If it’s not the word you want, you can click X on the word bubble and it’ll keep the word you typed. Eventually if you do this enough, the software “learns” the words you want to type and typing should become easier. You can also press the spacebar twice and it’ll automatically add a period and a space for your next sentence. Very handy.

You can also enable Caps Lock in the Keyboard options menu and then activate it by quickly pressing the Shift key twice. It’ll turn blue to notify you that it’s enabled. To exit Caps Lock, simply tap Shift again.

Software

I’m sure most of the people that read this site are already familiar with how to interface with the iPhone. To use the iPhone, simply tap on any icon to launch that program and then use your finger to interface with the application. If you want to exit the app you’re in and return to the main screen, just click the button at the bottom of the phone. That immediately exits the app and returns you home. If you’re in an e-mail, note or on a Safari website and click the Home button, when you return to that specific app it will remember where you were at and you can continue from there.

It is true that you cannot multitask on the iPhone like you can on the BlackBerry, but I have found this to be a non-issue. Considering that I came from a plain flip-phone before the iPhone, I can do worlds more now than ever before.

If I had one complaint, it’s that you can’t use Instant Messaging services in the background (when running another application), but Apple is working on this technology, so I’m hoping that sooner rather than later, this problem will be addressed.

One of the newer updates to the iPhone, as of the 2.0 software update, is the ability to have Exchange mail support in the e-mail client. This means that any business that has Microsoft Exchange e-mail support can have that mailbox synced with the iPhone.

When you have the iPhone locked and hit either the Home or Sleep button, you can see if you have any missed calls or text messages. You cannot, however, see if you have any e-mails waiting for you, even just by number. The only way to see if you have any mail waiting for you is to unlock the phone and check the screen yourself. This is probably my biggest negative to the phone. I keep my iPhone in my home office when I sleep at night and I check it in the morning. Since there’s no status light on the front of the phone to notify me if I missed anything, I have to wake the phone and check manually, but since I can’t just tap a button and view the screen to see everything I might have missed, it’s a bit of a pain to unlock the phone just to check to see if I have any e-mails waiting. I saw a patent recently filed by Apple that may fix this problem, but as of right now, there’s nothing announced.

iTunes and the iPhone

To interface with the iPhone, you must use iTunes. As of this review, the latest version is iTunes 8, which you must use if you want to download and install the 2.1 update that was released on September 12th.

When you plug the iPhone (via the included proprietary sync cable) into your PC, it will automatically launch iTunes. You will see the iPhone in the middle of the left pane under Devices. At the top of the right pane is access to all the information about your iPhone that you need to know:

Summary: What version of the software you have, as well as some options for when the iPhone is plugged into your phone.

Info: Sync options for MobileMe, Contacts, Calendars, Mail Accounts, Web Browser and some extra advanced options.

Ringtones: Sync options for all the ringtones on your PC, or only specific ones.

Music: When you have playlists that you want to sync, you must sync them from this menu. You can choose to sync everything or just playlists from this menu as well. This is a bit different than how I used to sync my wife’s iPod, but I like the way it works now. All checkmarked playlists are synced to the iPhone and anything not checked is not synced. This threw me off at first, because I did one at a time and the iPhone would only have the last playlist synced, but once I had the ones I wanted checkmarked, they all appeared on the iPhone just fine.

Photos: Similar to Ringtones, you can sync all your photos or only selected ones via this tab.

Podcasts: Your podcast syncing options are listed here.

Video: This tab allows you to set sync options for your Rented Movies, TV Shows and Movies.

Applications: Similar to Podcasts, Photos and Ringtones, you can set how your Applications are synced: All of them or specific ones.

There are alternate options to sync the iPhone if you don’t want to use iTunes, such as WinAmp and MediaMonkey, but I prefer to use the iPhone since it helps control all facets of my iPhone in one place.

Applications

There are 18 icons on the phone by default and only a few that I really don’t care for or use on a regular basis. Stocks and Clock haven’t ever been used on this phone, but I’m sure there are other people that use those all the time, so I just moved them to a second “page” and never touch them. You can have up to 9 pages of icons, so there’s plenty of room for everyone to put their favorite (and not so favorite icons) wherever they want.

One of the features of the iPhone that I do like, at least with Applications that you can download and install, is uninstall them directly from the page the icon is on. When you hold any icon down for several seconds, all the icons start to wiggle. This feature allows you to move icons into the bottom “dashboard” (icons that are always onscreen regardless of what page you’re on), as well as move icons to other pages and in any order on the page you’re on. While the icons are wiggling, you’ll notice that the icons that are programs you downloaded from AppStore have a red X in the top right corner. Clicking on that icon will allow you to uninstall the program from the iPhone.

Something I wish for in a future software update: The ability to uninstall programs that are on the iPhone by default. If I know for a fact that I’ll never use the Stock application, I’d love the ability to be able to either delete the program from the iPhone (with the option to reinstall it via iTunes), or Hide the icon like you can do on a BlackBerry. That way, even though the program is still on the phone, it’s not visible and I can install other icons that I will use, but still access it if I wanted to by un-hiding the icons. Not a dealbreaker by any means, but a nice feature to think about in the future.

Speaking of 3rd party applications, you can only download and install these via a program called AppStore. AppStore allows you to purchase and download applications directly to the iPhone. You can do this over WIFI or 3G.

When you launch AppStore, you have 5 buttons along the bottom of the phone: Featured, Categories, Top 25, Search and Updates. Updates will tell you when you have an update to any installed apps on your iPhone, but you have to run AppStore to use this feature – it will not fetch the data for you.

To download an app from AppStore, all you have to do is tap on the name of the app you want, then follow the prompts. It’s that simple.

You can also download apps via iTunes if you want. Some people have said that it works better for backup purposes if you use iTunes rather than the AppStore app on the iPhone, but I haven’t really found a difference either way. Your mileage may vary.

I have always maintained that the AppStore feature is the most unique feature ever put on a phone and it’s one of the iPhone’s biggest selling points: The ability to download any app you want, at any time. This worked fantastic for iTunes and now it’s extended to AppStore.

So far the only 3 apps I’ve downloaded are Pandora, Twitteriffic and AirShare. When I loaded the AppStore for this review, AppStore automatically notified me that I had 2 updates and I downloaded them both with no issues, so now all my apps are completely up to date.

With the iPhone, you can purchase and download music directly to the iPhone over WIFI only. When you launch iTunes, there are four icons at the bottom: Features, Top Tens, Search and Downloads. Similar to AppStore, when you find a song you want, simply tap on the song and follow the prompts. Getting music on the iPhone is a very easy process and “just works”, similar to the AppStore apps.

One feature of the iTunes app on the iPhone that I really like is if you tap on any song, you can listen to a 30 second snippet of it before deciding if you want to purchase it or not, just like you can do on the PC version of iTunes. Once you have made up your mind and want to purchase the song on your phone, simply click on the button on the right and follow the prompts. When you sync your iPhone with iTunes, iTunes will automatically back up the song to your computer. Very handy.

Battery

One of my biggest debates between the iPhone and the BlackBerry (as well as just about every other smartphone out there) is that the iPhone does not have a removable battery. Apple claims that the iPhone’s battery can handle around 400 charges and will still keep around 80% of its original battery life. That’s fine and dandy, but what about after 400 charges? After a year and a half or 2 years, the battery will start to lose its charge and I’ll have to worry about the possibility of getting a replacement battery. Since it’s not user replaceable, you have to send it in to Apple to have it replaced… for an $80 charge. On top of that, they wipe your phone, so you’ll have to restore it when you get the phone back, approximately a week later.

Looking closely on the bottom of the iPhone 3G, there are two visible screws, so I’m assuming that taking the battery out won’t be as hard as it was on the iPhone 2G, but if you do this, you obviously void the iPhone’s warranty. If you could have this repair done at the Genius Bar in an Apple store, that would be quite the relief, but as far as I’m aware as of this review, that’s not possible: you must send your phone in to Apple to have the battery replaced.

My actual battery life isn’t as good as most other smartphones on the market are. I get approximately 24 to 30 hours between charges. There is a handy Usage option in the Settings of the iPhone, so you can see how much you’ve used the phone since its last charge, but that’s also heartbreaking to see in print how little use it takes before the juice runs out and the phone must be recharged.

The iPhone comes with a sync cable so you can plug your phone into your PC and charge the phone, plus it comes with a handy wall socket usb adapter, so you can plug the sync cable into it, then into a wall socket and charge the phone much faster than via the PC. I’ve found that from a completely dead phone to a full charge via wall socket, it’s around 2 hours. Via PC charge, it’s around 2.5 to 3 hours. Not bad at all. I also purchased a car charger for $25, but I have yet to use it. It’s a Griffin PowerJolt SE and it also charges regular iPods as well. This charger has a light ring that glows red, amber or green, so you know its status. That’s very cool and much better than my last phone’s charger that always glowed red, regardless of its charging status.

The biggest drawback for me is not the short battery life… it’s the lack of removable battery. I hope that Apple eventually gives the iPhone one, but that does sacrifice the smooth lines of the iPhone. I’d gladly sacrifice the smooth lines to have a removable battery. I have my phone in a case, afterall… I’m not worried about the smooth back on the phone.

Final Thoughts

Since the iPhone has been announced (and subsequently released), it’s been a competitor to the BlackBerry in the business and consumer space. Since the iPhone is a consumer phone first, obviously it’s in the hands of more consumers than business professionals, but now that you can sync Exchange e-mail accounts, businesses have taken notice.

There are more things about the iPhone that I like than dislike, so I’m definitely glad I got the device. Although I do wish I had more “power user” options, overall, for Apple’s second-ever cell phone, I’m pretty happy.

My major nitpicks are the lack of a status light, non-replaceable battery and the proprietary sync plug, rather than a USB plug. Everything else I can deal with.

Here’s hoping Apple continues to make the iPhone a formidable smartphone in this very competitive cell phone market.

8 / 10

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.

I love the internets.

“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.