Informationoverlord

A few months ago, I decided to leave the world of Apple and my lovely iPhone 3G and see what life was like on the Google Android side of the street, with the HTC Desire. I liked it from the off but did have some minor gripes and annoyances that some of the apps I liked best on the iPhone didn’t have Android versions. But that passed.

I am now over the iPhone. This weekend I decided to let my girlfriend have my 3G and in the process my love for the HTC Desire grew and grew and here is why.

Setting up my old iPhone 3G for my girlfriend to use.

1) Reset phone and wipe all content.
2) Download and install iTunes and girlfriends netbook – she doesn’t need to listen to music on her netbook, she doesn’t want to listen to music on her netbook, but now has a pointless piece of software taking up space on it)
3) Put girlfriend’s SIM in iPhone
4) Connect iPhone to Netbook
5) Enter unlock code for SIM
6) Unconnect iPhone
7) Re-Connect iPhone
Software updates
9) Wait for phone authorisation
10) Phone starts syncing
11) iTunes informs me that software upgrade (4.0) available. Would I like to install.
12) Phone Authorised
13) Download and install 4.0
14) Restart iPhone
15) Unlock SIM
16) Unconnect iPhone
17) Re-Connect iPhone
18) Unlock SIM
19) Wait for phone authorisation
20) Software updates
21) Sync iPhone
22)Phone authorised
23) Set up email
24) Try to remember the work around to set up Google Calendars to sync (use MS Exchange)
25) Download some apps.
26) Turn off needless sounds, set preferences.
27) Finish.

All in all this took around 2hours from start to finish. It was a huge pain in the arse, and serves no purpose other than to try and make sure you can’t do anything without Apple’s say so. I know it has been said before, but WHY do I need to do all this to use a PHONE.

I suddenly found that whilst going through the process of setting things up for my girlfriend that, whilst I had been telling people that I had no regrets moving from the iPhone to the HTC Desire because it was a better Phone, I now genuinely not only believed it but meant it too. Trying to solve the calendar problem was a case in point. I was in Calendars but there was no way to access the calendar settings from where I was on the iPhone. To do that I have to exit the application, click the Settings icon and go through there. On the Desire I hit menu from the application and I get access to the settings and various other things. (Yes, I can access them in the same way as I could on the iPhone too, but unlike the iPhone I can access them when I’m IN any app, right there and then).

I also really like having a couple of REAL buttons on my phone. The optical tracker thing on the Desire is really not needed and totally pointless, but the Menu, Home and back/search buttons are great.

I still think the iPhone is a WONDERFUL thing. I loved having one, I will probably have on again at some point in the future, but at the moment I don’t see a compelling reason to have one – especially not an iPhone 4. Hold the iPhone 4 in your hand and then hold any previous iPhone or the Desire in your hand, and I’ll tell you which will feel better, more natural and more comfortable – and it wont be the iPhone 4. The squaring up of the iPhone 4 looks good, but doesn’t feel good. Even from a software stand point, if you have the 3GS, you can get all the advantages of the new iPhone 4 without the downsides – Unless you want FaceTime, so you can have face-to-face video calls. If you do, you’re weird, but, hey. (I don’t really do this v often on my PC/Mac, so I don’t see need to do so on my phone).

But don’t I still have app envy?

The apps are better on the iPhone people keep telling me. There’s more and they’re better. Now, there are indeed some better apps on the iPhone and some that are still ONLY on the iPhone, but it’s not a one way street, and whilst I would still say that the Facebook and Twitter apps for the iPhone are still better than their Android counterparts, if I look to YouTube (The HTC has flash support. Yes Apple the world maybe moving the HTML5 but in the meantime most video is still using flash, and I own my phone now not 2-5 years from now), LastFM, Spotify and others then Android wins hands down. For lots of other things there is little or no difference. [I do miss the official Guardian app though – Android unofficial app is ok, but not the same]

Making Calls: Both less than dazzling on that front I’d say, and the generic Google Phone is better than the HTC’d version for that due to good noise cancellation – so Android wins at least, if neither phone actually does.

Now, all is not rosey. The Desire does get a little hot under the collar. Not unusual for a smart phone these days but it gets hotter than it should do. The metallic brown paint job is also starting to get scratched – despite the phone living in an HTC pouch. This is fine, but it is likely to look the worse for ware after 18 months, whereas my iPhone 3G, even after 2 years still looks brand new.

I suppose we – as consumers – are now getting lucky. When I got my iPhone there wasn’t really any genuine match for it. Now, there are several things that can match it for some things, beat it for others, and trail behind it for other things. But it is no longer an unchallenged champion. For the moment I think the HTC Desire is at least as good as if not possibly better than the iPhone. In 13 months when I need a new phone will I get another HTC? Maybe. I may get an iPhone4S. I may get a Samsung, or something entirely different again. It is an exciting time to be owning a phone/smart phone.

As of yesterday afternoon I ceased to be an 02 iPhone customer and became a fully fledged T-Mobile HTC Desire customer, when my old phone number was ported over. Up until that point – for the previous few days – I had been enjoying playing with the Desire on T-mobile on the number that came with the phone whilst continuing to use my iPhone as my main phone. Fun and nice way of getting up to speed. So on receiving my first text on the desire yesterday I was happy and ready to really start putting the phone through its paces. This feeling lasted around 5 minutes, until I noticed that the phone seemed not to be able to connect to the internet or find a 3g connection.

I figured just a glitch. By 6 hours later and having tried various things detailed below, I figured the glitch was more than that.

Ever since my number was ported my phone’s ability to get any 3G connection has vanished.

I checked my settings: Menue – Settings – Wireless & Networks … Mobile Network (use phone for data connection when Wi-Fi is unavailable) … box ticked [check]; Mobile Networks (set up for roaming, networks, APNs…) …Data Roaming … box ticked [check] ; Network Operators – T-mobile showing [check]; Network mode …GSM/WCDMA auto selected [check]. Phone finding a WCDMA (3g) connection?? – not if its and my life depended on it.

Turned off phone – took out SIM, datacard, battery – replaced all and restarted. No difference.

I phoned 150 from my phone to get help and choose the right number to hear about set up issues etc. If I have a problem with picture messaging or Internet all I needed to do, I was told, was text ‘fix me’ to 34963. So I did. I got an almost immediate reply ‘We’re sorry but the service you requested is not available at the moment. Please try later or go to www.t-mobile.co.uk/fixme to configure your phone online.

And so off I went. Start ‘troubleshooter’

First pick your phone … oh. Ok, so the Desire’s not on there. Click I can’t find my phone listed. “We don’t appear to have your phone in the list, but if you give us your make and model details we’ll look to include it in the next release of our tool.” Ok, so your most high profile new phone release in god knows when and you don’t bother to sort out proper support for it before you launch it. Brilliant. I love the way you run your business, T-mobile. I then get a box to enter my phone model and my message. I wasn’t overly praising of their operation.

Oh, and that’s it, they don’t then suggest anything else at this point such as calling them again or visiting one of their shops to perhaps solve the problem – nada.

To say that I am already less than impressed with T-Mobile is a rather large understatement. The problem I am having may turn out to be phone based rather that T-Mobile based but T-Mobile are not making it very easy for me to find out. I now need to find a T-mobile shop, and see if anyone in a shop can help me before turning to HTC, which the delightful Jaffne has recently written about in equally glowing terms.

I see the Newspaper Publishers Association (NPA) has started moaning to the BBC Trust (and plans to also moan to the DCMS) about the Beeb’s plans to launch phone apps for its news and sport content later this year. The reason? It would “damage the nascent market” for news apps.

Really? I’m not buying that as an argument.

I used buying to describe this as I suspect that is the real reason for the NPA’s objection. Whilst the Newspapers look to erect pay walls for their content they don’t want the Beeb coming in and offering theirs for free on yet another platform. They’re already the elephant in the room as far as charging for online news goes as it is. If the apps and or content are remaining free then i don’t see what the argument is. Money can be the only reason.

I look at the BBC site daily from my iPhone. I don’t need an app, although one that improved the experience would certainly be nice to have, I don’t deny. However, I also look daily at content from my Guardian and Daily Telegraph apps (I ditched the Independent’s one because it is such a crap app that it was a waste of time to use - and I say this as someone who actually buys the Indy every week day in good old fashioned hard copy).

It is not an either or option for me (as least not until I’m being asked to pay for access) and nor is it likely to be for most other people - unless they already don’t engage it the news, and for them the absense of a BBC news app wont make them any more likely to start using the Telegraph app or the Daily Mail app.

The NPA and its members - like those in commercial radio and TV - should spend less time moaning insesently about the BBC (yes, sometimes it does step over the line) and more time working on offering compelling alternatives. I sometime think if it didn’t already exist the likes of the NPA would have to create the BBC just to give themselves someone to moan about.

And so it came to pass that Google decided it wanted to be Friendfeed. Yes, the Gman has rolled out its attempt to get in on some Twitter/Friendfiend/Facebook Lifestreaming action. Are you excited? No, neither is anyone else really. We remember that Google bought Jaiku a few years back, sat on it, did nothing and then stopped supporting it and left it essentially to die. In case you don’t know, Jaiku was the first real challenger to Twitter – and, get this, it was BETTER. No, really, it was. When Google bought it I was one of a number of people who thought that they were going to wipe the floor with Twitter with it. Back then they could have done it, Twitter was still mostly free of celebs and indeed anyone other than web2.0 obsessive’s, but they did nothing.

Then last year Google’s Eric Smidt called Twitter a ‘Poor Man’s Email System’ as opposed one presumed to Google Wave which is a ‘er, sorry but no one is really sure what the hell this is actually for yet system’

The Good

If you already have a Google account and a Gmail account you’re probably going to be tempted to play with Buzz because it’s there, especially if a few of your Gmail friends also take the plunge. It seems to pick up comments made on shared items in Google Reader, which is good. (Not sure whether it does the same on non-google stuff such as Flickr photos though).

Problems

You need a gmail account / google profile to use it. Are any of my friend who are happy with their Yahoo, Hotmail/Live accounts going to switch to Gmail for this? No, they’re not. They have their email and they have Facebook, they don’t need Google Buzz, just like most of them didn’t need Yahoo Buzz when Yahoo tried to do the same trick last year.

It routes everything through your Gmail inbox and doesn’t ask you if you want it there or not. Guess what? I don’t. Thankfully google has already attached the lable ‘buzz’ to things so if you create a filter for content ‘label:buzz’ then all you need to do is look at your buzz icon to see if there are any updates. Much better, but this should be a default option Google.

It needs to support more services if it wants to be a lifestreaming hub.

Seemless

Google is really good at this … oh hang on, no, sorry, I meant awful at this. Let’s take google profiles – can you find yours? I use iGoogle/Gmail all the time and you get a selection of other Google products listed in the top left hand corner as well as a ‘more’ drop down. Is ‘profile’ anywhere to be seen? No. Why not? If my profile is so important, why is this not a fixed link in ANY google product I’m in?

There doesn’t seem to be an iGadget yet for iGoogle. Again, where’s the integration.

What it is really about

Mobile and advertising. Yes, it is really about getting you to login on the move and tell your friends (and Google) where you are. At last Google Latitude may have a purpose. This also pitches Buzz into Foursquare’s back yard. This location info will in turn be attractive to advertisers.

Does it Fly

Yes and No. As with Yahoo’s attempt last year, if you live your life in the email client then there is a good chance that you might find yourself using Buzz, even if you are only using it as a lifestreaming service. Are people, even Google geeks, going to abandon Twitter or Facebook for it, no. Could Google conceivably get them to use buzz to interact with those services – especially for status updates – absolutely.

Ofcom has published copies of 3G coverage maps for each of the UK’s 5 national 3G licence holders – 02, Vodafone,T-Mobile, Orange, and H3G.

It makes for a very entertaining read for such a short doc. Ofcom can’t state enough that you really shouldn’t rely on these maps for anything, all but saying they are worthless.

“coverage maps are based on theoretical predictions”

“The shaded areas on the maps indicate areas where customers have the possibility of making and receiving a call outside over a 3G network (but with no guarantee of being able to do so).”

” they are not suitable for assessing the quality or depth of coverage within the indicated areas”

” the data used to generate the maps was not collected for the purpose of examining detailed mobile coverage therefore the availability or quality of mobile services cannot be assumed from these maps”

And just in case you have not got the picture yet …

The maps are provided without any representation or endorsement made and without warranty of any kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security and accuracy.

Ofcom also point people to the mobile operators own websites saying that all operators produce their own coverage indicators which are likely to provide more reliable guidance to network availability in any given area.

Having looked on the operators’ sites it looks like Ofcom’s maps are fairly spot on. It is true you need to go to your mobile operator’s site to drill down to place/postcode coverage, but Ofcom’s maps do seem fairly accurate at showing how piss poor 3G coverage still is in the UK – especially if you haven’t decided to live in a city, or England actually. Frankly if you live in most parts of Scotland or Wales, the good news is you don’t need a 3G phone! And as for a 3G iPhone … on 02? hahahahaha.

Vodafone
02
Orange
T-Mobile
3

Google has announced that it is pulling the plug on Jaiku - the once very promising Twitter competitor. Or, at least, it is stopping developing it as an ‘official google service’ - along with doing the same or killing off: Google Catalog Search, Google Notebook, Dodgeball and the Google Mashup Editor. (although some of these will all still have some Google input as a 20% project by Googlers). With Jaiku, Google plans to release it into the Open Source community. According to the announcement the new open source Jaiku Engine project will appear on Google Code under the Apache License 2.0. According to Google this move will allow organizations, groups and individuals to be able to “roll-their-own microblogging services and deploy them on Google App Engine”. [The new Jaiku Engine will include support for OAuth] So, Jaiku will now live or die down to whether there is enough community interest to work on it an improve the service.

I must admit to being surprised by this announcement. I was interested and excited when Google bought Jaiku back in October 2007, whilst it was still an invitation only service (it still is). At the time I thought they had bought the best product on the market (and I have said since that I still think it is better) I had always though that the plan for Jaiku was to either exploit the mobile market - and add it as a key component of Android or to make it part of their Google Apps suite and target businesses and use behind the firewall. So, is this Google admitting that it backed the wrong horse and SHOULD have bought Twitter? - perhaps it still will? Or is this Google realising there is no way to make any money on Microblogging, and it is better off not even trying?

Steve Rubel thinks that Google has not finished here and that the development cull may continue. He suggests Google Reader could be next for the development kill off? I’m not sure I am buying that one, although I can certainly see it becoming less of a priority.

So, what will an open source Jaiku rise from the ashes? People are not exactly falling over themselves to desert Twitter for identi.ca, so unless the market is the enterprise market, I would not hold my breath.

My Jaiku timeline.

If you use Google Reader as you main RSS reader (and I do) and also have an iPhone (I do) then the chances are there will be times when you want to read your feeds via your phone. Google steps in and provides an handy mobile version of Google Reader, that has been tweeked to work better on the iPhone. Cool. Only, I prefer the Newsgator mobile RSS reader - Net News Wire. This was a problem until Byline, the gReader iPhone app Google should have made.

What you get is a clean slick UI, which on launch starts to download the first 25 new items in each folder you have set up in Reader to you phone (handy for browsing offline if you let it complete the task. You can also choose the archive option, which will download all the pages you feeds need to once again allow you to read offline) You can read then read the feed - either 25 items at a time in your ‘new’ folder, or on a folder by folder basis. The app lets you star items, add notes to items, email the items to a friend and open the items in Safari. It is quick, slick, and by far the best feed reading app I have used on the iPhone.

I have to say, whilst I enjoy playing with new iPhone apps, aside from Twitter and Facebook related ones, this is the only one I use every day. It is not free - £2.99 (maybe £1.99 would be a better price) - but for me it is worth it; although if you’re not a slave to google than the Newsgator option is the way to go. It offers the best combination of desktop, web and mobile RSS reading (with complete sync) using Feeddemon (the only serious desktop option), and the web and mobile versions of Newsgator - which are both very good in my opinion.

I’m not telling you something you do not already know here. The Fact that Google has been developing its Android platform for so-called gPhones, was the only proof needed to tell you where the web’s biggest company sees the future. It is not the only one. Apple of course has demonstrated with the iphone that people do like the idea of the internet in their pocket.

So, with Apple and Google already moving ahead, all eyes have turned to Microsoft. The already product a mobile platform of their own, but they know it is one that faces serious competition from an open source Android, and the re-launched and re-focussed Symbian (now owned by Nokia). So, it comes as no surprise that Microsoft is now being mentioned as a possible buyer for Blackberry maker, RIM. It would certainly be a good move for the Redmond giant, and one they could probably finance, but only if it has given up on Yahoo!.

Yahoo! and AOL are currently rumoured to be trying to thrash out a deal that will see the two companies merge. Even if this happens, I am not convinced this would even protect the combined entity being a target itself for takeover, and if you believe that the future is mobile, then you have to believe that not only will it still look attractive to the likes of Microsoft, but also to the likes of Nokia - who will want to to try and stake a claim to the desktop via their mobile platform, as there seems little doubt that Nokia now sees Microsoft and Google as its main competitors - a view argued well earlier this year by Stephen Wellman

… makes you sick of them by the end of the week.

Ars technica is reporting that someone has decide to filer a lawsuit against apple over the 3G iPhone. According to the site, Jessica Alena Smith (who hopes to be joined by others to make it a class action suit) filed the suit over the “Defective iPhone 3G,” alleging that the new iPhone’s 3G performance and reliability has been subpar, despite the claims made by Apple’s aggressive marketing campaign.

Now Apple released a ‘bug fix’ the other day - without specifying just WHAT bugs it was meant to fix - but was widely reported to by one that dealt with the issue of 3G dropping etc. I can say from a UK perspective - it didn’t do the trick. My phone still plays the ‘now you see it, now you don’t’ reception trick with 3G activated - and this is with me sat still in one place not roaming around so that it has to find the next base station to pick up a signal. Just yesterday I managed to go from almost a full 3G signal to No Service, by just moving the phone from one hand to the other, whilst sat down.

What with the joke that has been the roll out of mobile me, Apple is doing a very good job of being Microsoft.

I have now had my iPhone for just over a week, so I thought it was time to jot down a few comments on it. Do I like it / Am I in love with it? I would be lying if I said I didn’t like it a lot, but I want to start with the negatives.

Battery: If you have 3G connection active it just eats the battery life. A couple of calls and some reasonable surfing and mail checking and it is time to recharge.MMS: Text but no MMS? why? Yes, I can send an email, but that wont be of much use to my friend with an MMS capable phone.

Camera: Ok, it does at least have one, but 2mpx and no zoom function. A bit crap. It is also a bit shaky compared to the one on my Nokia  6332 making getting a clear picture a challenge.

Video Recording: Thanks for the phone but why can’t I record video with it?

Cut & Paste: Yep, still no C&P, something that would be a huge thing for the internet side of things.App Store Hype: Most of the things available are, frankly, crap.

Phone: I think it has gotten better as a phone, but making and receiving calls is still not up to the quality you get from any nokia handset. There are a number of other issues too, but I don’t want to make you thing it is all bad.

On the plus side, the phone looks great, it feels good in the hand, and whilst wider than my Nokia, is not much different than handling a blackberry. If like me, you are not a big phone call maker, but do text, email and surf a lot, this is the internet in your pocket and is capable of being a true hand held computer, if Apple lets go a bit. You just want to go on the internet at every opportunity - because you can. Suddenly, you can be there when Twitter is down, even on the move.

Text: I like that text messages between me and any other person are grouped and displayed in a conversation - a bit like iChat.

Typing: This actually works quite well. Having an iTouch probably helped but, you can quickly get to two thumb blackberry pose, and be pretty quick due to the iphone predicting what you are trying to type even when you’re mistyping, and just hitting the spacebar will insert the predicted word.

GPS: The GPS on it is a bit hit and miss. My default is not to let the phone tell apps where I am, but on occasion it can be useful for googlemaps or for an app such as urban spoon - although the latter incorrectly identified where in London I was. However, it often fails to find where you are even with 4 bar reception on 3g.

So what about the Apps? Download and tried several. RSS Reader: Newsgator do a nice rss reader app, but I am still finding that just using the mobile version of google reader is better.

Twitterrific: The big twitter app. This is pretty good. Clean interface and easy to use. BUT they seem to have chosen not to make responding to twits easy - in fact it is a pain. As a result one might again be tempted to just stick with mobile internet and just use Hahlo instead. More options, and just better.

Pownse: Like many people, I have an account but do not really use it very often, unless using ping to post to multiple platforms. Again this is very clean looking and posting and commenting are both a dream - unlike TwitterrificFacebook: I still like facebook, and still think it has the ability to be my first stop every day - a friendfeed+ if you will. It isn’t, but this app. is handy for letting you see your inbox, the latest updates from your friends, your friends list, and chat. What I do not like is that there does not seem to be any way to view a friends wall or post to that wall.