Leaked Photos… Should we or Shouldn’t we?

That is the question asked by Charlie from Nokia.

We think it’s great that folks are dying to see our devices. Can you imagine if there was a leak and no one cared? Ugh.

Obviously, we’d like to ask folks to do less peddling in our trade secrets. It puts folks at risk and screws things up for the Nokia and for other companies, too. I think really that there are only a small number of folks who really go too far in trying to procure leaked material. But if we cut down on our enthusiasm for leaked materials, then the thrill of being the one to post about it will be reduced.

Matt Miller chimes in on the subject as a result. Matt is a stand up guy that I have had the pleasure to be friends with for many years now and I admire his outlooks on the online world.

Should I be posting links to device rumors here on this blog? That is something I’ll definitely be giving more thought to the next time I hear of a device rumor. It is tough not to report the news when it is out all over the place, then again I will never post on a device someone may happen to send me if it is not allowed by the manufacturer/carrier (there goes any chance of someone sneaking me something, huh?). While your page views may skyrocket if you post images on an unannounced product, the long term impact may not be worth it. I think posting thorough detailed reviews of products when they are announced is a better strategy and my page views for my product reviews back this up so I’ll stick with providing you with more detailed information rather than speculation.

Running Aximsite and iPaqHQ in their last years of those devices lives, I had the chance to blow some big stories. (mainly on Aximsite) I chose to keep to myself on everything shared with me unofficially. I was under NDA for some aspects, but some things I was free. Most of what I learned, eventually came to light. Some of the leads were dead though. So, here is my take on the subject…

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A new problem at The Planet - My Apologies

I write this as I am 15 minutes into a “more than 20 minute” hold queue for support at the Planet. By now, I am sure all of you have heard about their snafu that took us down for more than 72 hours.

Update - 9:30am - I think it’s fixed again. 

In the process of getting out of this 72 hour outage that we experienced due to the Planet’s explosion and their rushed support, several tickets were opened. I asked that they all be merged. They weren’t. Well, as you know from my post on chrisleckness.com and mobilitysite.com we were finally fixed at 11:30pm CST Tuesday. Everything was lightning fast again and I was happy finally.

Last night, I decided to take a few hours of AFK time. Since I do this as a hobby, I work all day and come home to maintain the sites, etc. It wasn’t until 11pm or so that I noticed an update on one of the “other” tickets on my account. This update wasn’t closing it or merging it. It had been 28 hours since this particular ticket was touched and all of a sudden, it has activity…

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A Stranger in a Strange Land: a Windows Mobile guy meets iPhone

My brother, the cinematographer, is a MAC kinda guy. So, naturally he packs an iPhone of which he is very proud. While visiting me last week he was showing off the virtues of his iPhone with a bit of a smug air and a tinge of superiority.

He quickly established that the iPhone makes phone calls, surfs the Web, does email and SMS, takes pictures (but has no flash), and it does it all on a really cool, high-resolution, finger-friendly touch screen.

Perhaps a little reluctantly, he let me try it. The first thing I had to check out was the finger-friendly interface. Sure enough, you just touch any icon on the home screen, and the tapped application appears. I suppose this would seem cool to a cellphone user, but not too impressive to an old Pocket PC packer.

Within the application, you can use your finger to scroll around, but you can’t use the keyboard or a joystick 5-way button because they don’t exist. You can even zoom in or out on a screen or photo by pinching your fingers together or spreading them apart—very cool.

This is all well and good until you get to a Web page that has many hyperlinks such as the results of a Google search. Try to expand, contract, or scroll the screen, and the slightest touch invokes the hyperlink and drives you nuts.

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Windows Live Messenger Not Included?

Jack posted the other day about Windows Live becoming available for download. Well, I got a question about this. What does this mean?

This software does not include Windows Live Messenger. Please inquire with your mobile operator about messenger access.

Huh? What the heck… Why on earth would our mobile operator have anything to do with what programs we run as long as we pay for a data plan? That just seem pretty wrong if you ask me. It’s my data plan to use how I wish, right? What do you think?

Can you copyright a color? "T-Mobile Magenta"?

In the midst of the April Fool fun, the fast and furious announcements from CTIA, the re-awarding of Jack Cook and I as Microsoft MVP (something is different about this though, check this thread later for an explanation), and the Windows Mobile 6.1 excitement… You might have missed something kind of interesting. Engadget Mobile has been showing Magenta all day… Why? Check the logo below and it will give you a 1st hint…

Notice the pink (magenta) background? Now look at the logo. :)

So last week Deutsche Telekom, owners of the global T-Mobile brand, sent Engadget a late birthday present: a hand-delivered letter direct from their German legal department requesting the prompt discontinuation of the use of the color magenta on Engadget Mobile. Yep, seriously.

This post over at Engadget Mobile yesterday explains it all, but apparently T-Mobile isn’t too happy with Engadget’s use of the color magenta in their logo. Like someone is going to confuse Engadget Mobile with T-Mobile… Give me a break. Too funny.

I didn’t have time to wash Mobilitysite in Magenta in support of Engadget, but maybe the post will suffice letting everyone know about this silly take down request.

Are Software Developers Leaving Handango?!

Well, I am no software developer, but I left Handango as the provider of software sales through our cobranded store based on some shenanigans they pulled back in 2006. It may have been a hasty move, but it was a move I felt comfortable with. I didn’t like the direction this company was going.

Well, I got a tip from a friend to a post on Smartphone Thoughts that clearly shows that Handango is still moving in the wrong direction. What do you think?

From: Bruce Wayne
Sent: March 27, 2008 11:00 AM
To: ‘Lucius Fox’
Subject: Handango Direction
Importance: High
Hi Lucius,
I am writing to let you know that I and many other developers are not very happy with the direction Handango is taking these days in terms of the increased revenue share (now at 50%). As a result of these changes SOTI is now at a crossroad and seriously considering switching off HCE and moving to another company to process sales. Developers are talking to each other, and there is now a growing consortium of developers looking to dump HCE, I do not think this is the direction that Handango wants to go in. I hope you guys see the light before it is too late.

We have been using Mobihand to power our store for the last year and I have been quite pleased with their performance. How do they treat their developers?

MobiTV Trying to Take Down Howard Forums

OK everyone, I have to let you all know about some stinky stuff going on online. Fellow Mobius Member, Howard Chui, who runs Howard Forums is getting threatened by MobiTV. This company has contacted Howard’s hosting provider and is trying to get Howard Forums shut down.

Digg this URL to help Howard - Digg - MobiTV to Hofo: Take down

It seems that a user of Howard Forums has discoved a URL within the MobiTV website that allows you free content or something like that. That’s not important. What is important is Howard’s rights. Providing a link to a publicly accessible web URL is no crime. If a company doesn’t secure their site from users getting to things, they need to address their own security concerns rather than scouring the net and wasting dollars on lawyers, etc. This is basicly the same thing as me discovering that channel 943 on sattelite is messed up and I can get free pay per view and sharing the channel info with friends via phone. Right?

I know some of you have Windows Mobile 6 on the Dell Axim popping into your heads right now. How can I support Howard, but not have the conviction to support this illegle Windows Mobile 6 version? I realize it seems similar, but it’s really not. I will say that we have been revisiting allowing discussion of WM6 ROMs, but nothing has been agreed upon yet.

Back to Howard Forums… Howard has refused to remove these links and now MobiTV is trying to get their webhost to shut them down. This almost happened to me with Dell 4 years ago and I know that this pressure sucks badly. Help get the word out by digging this story for Howard. Thanks everyone.

Read more at HowardForums…

What is the Future of Mobile Communications?

I can’t predict that, nor can anyone really. We can take guesses and look at market trends to get an idea, but hey, you never know.

What I do want to know is what direction are we going towards in convergence. It seemed that we were going towards integration of phone, PDA, and media player functions. This has been done, many are happy with this mix. We have cameras on most phones these days, but these cameras are bad for the most part. Lately, I have seen an increase in phones with killer cameras. Are we moving towards leaving the camera at home time?

I have the Nokia N95, I don’t use it, but that has nothing to do with the phone. It’s a superb phone, has killer add ons, and a wonderful camera. One of the best cameras that I have used on a phone. Recently I caught an article featuring a phone that looked like a camera 1st and phone 2nd.

So, what do we want. A camera/phone integration with a great camera? I don’t. I want a decent camera, or leave it off. It’s nice to have a “decent” one to catch that impulse snapshot, but I prefer toting around a big camera when I want to take great pictures.

What I do want, is something I have envisioned for a while. I want a phone that is more of a handsfree device. A phone that doubles as my Laptop, PDA, media player, and yes… a decent camera. The size could be about the size of an HTC Advantage. Instead of holding it up to my head, Throw it in the backpack and use a great quality Bluetooth headset.

So, which way do you think we are heading and which way do you want to see us move towards? What is the “put everything else down” integration you are after?

Gizmodo: What were they thinking?

I would have loved to have had the time and finances to have attended CES 2008 (one child in college and twins to start college next year have put some restrictions on the budget). I did what I could and covered press releases.

I wasn’t aware of the following until this morning when I read my friend Judie Lipsett’s post on Gear Diary titled  Total and Utter Crap: Gizmodo’s Stupid CES Prank on Motorola and Us Bloggers

In a post titled “Confessions: The Meanest Thing Gizmodo Did at CES“, Brian Lam - Editor of Gizmodo- basically bragged about committing corporate sabotage.

and

This was not just a stupid high school prank that had been perpetrated on a faceless victim. This was sabotage that had been done to companies with massive financial investments in their CES appearances. The potential for lost sales, loss of good will, and loss of face was huge.

 

To find out that this was a deliberate stunt pulled by a group of delegates from the #2 tech blog in the world…I have nothing but a complete loss of respect. What Gizmodo did was simply wrong and quite frankly, in my opinion immoral.

I agree 100% with Judie. I am appalled by their actions and see no humor in what they did. If I hadn’t already quit following their RSS feed because of questionable content months ago, this stunt would have made me unsubscribe.

Check out Judie’s full article here

Tivo is Low Tech?

We have two Tivos in our home.  Actually, the one attached to our big screen TV is an actual Tivo.  The other one is a Direct TV DVR.  The Tivo only has one cable going into it, so I can’t record one show while watching another. 

While I was watching an important football game (yes, dear, they’re all important!), our signal went out due to inclement weather.  This was the New England v. New York Giants game, and as you know, if the Pats won the game they would be 16-0.  I had to see it!  The game was on NBC.  So I called Direct TV and a customer service rep asked how he could help me.  I told him I wanted a credit for the entire day because of the outage.  Now, I rarely call them.  We pay over $100/mo b/c we have like every channel.  So I just figured he’d give me the credit and that would be that.  I’d still be pissed off that I missed a large chunk of the game, but this small credit would pacify me.

So he tells me that since I pay $5/mo for local channels, he can credit me $5/30 days, or seventeen cents.  I was a bit incredulous.  I said, “Seventeen cents!  I want a credit for the entire day.  I pay alot of money and I expect service.”  He wouldn’t budge and wouldn’t let me speak to his manager.  I was steaming mad.  My wife overheard this and told me to hang up, which I did, though I didn’t know what she had in mind.  I really wanted to drop Direct TV at this point.

My wife tells me that anytime she gets a moron like that, she hangs up and tries again.  She always gets someone better the second time.  So I let her handle the situation; after all, she’s an insurance claims agent and is used to doing stuff like this.  Alright, actually, she’s just better at this than I am!  She calls Direct TV and sure enough, she gets a very friendly person who quickly credits the day (about $3.33 - hey it’s the principle!) and then asks how else she can help us.  That’s when my wife mentions that we only have one input on our Tivo.  She says that we’ve been a great customer and offers to upgrade us for $100, but she’ll credit our account $10/mo for 10 months - so it’s free! 

Our next task was to download all our Tivo content to a DVD or VHS.  My wife works out daily to the FitTV workouts.  Here’s where the craziness began.  I wanted to download the programs to my computer, but in order to do that you must hook up the Tivo to your network.  To do that you must connect a network adapter.  I don’t have one and I’m not going to buy one to use it for just a few days.  Besides, doing it this way is very slow, especially if you do it wirelessly. 

Next, I tried to record to my VCR, which is not my preferred solution.  To do this I had to take apart my surround sound system to access the rear of my equipment.  That was a major pain.  The instructions said to connect the red, yellow and white composite connections from the Tivo Out to the VCR in.  I did it and it didn’t work.  Aaaargh!  I had spent a couple hours already, researching this and taking my system apart.  This sucks.  I then came to realize I had to change the input that the VCR was recording from to Line In.  That did the trick.  So check this out.  You actually have to play the program so the VCR can record it.  My wife has 13 thirty minute episodes - 6.5 hours of TV.  And I have a crappy Saturday.

Come on Tivo, there has to be a better way!

Back to the Future

I think of an operating system as the ground, or earth, that the computer relies on.  It is the base, the rock, the framework, and it must be a solid foundation to support all the components that will spring forth from it.

With that in mind, I ask, have we progressed in the 25 years that I’ve been using computers?

The first computer I ever used was the Apple IIe.  It had no hard drive, so we had to put a 5.25″ disk into the disk drive to run it.  It used a command line interface, and didn’t have much software.  But BASIC was all we needed to make magic happen.  At the time it didn’t seem very capable, but we were amazed by the possibilities.  I used to make schematic diagrams of my programs at home, and I couldn’t wait to enter them into the computer and watch the results pop up in color.  It truly thrilled me.  I couldn’t wait for the next best thing, surely it would be even better.

And it was.  In 1984 my girlfriend’s dad bought a Macintosh.  It sported a GUI in black and white.  It had a recycle bin, cool fonts, and could create incredible looking documents, like the resumes I used to make. 

That was high tech.  Now computers had become useful for business.  I knew one day I would get my own computer.  And I couldn’t wait.  Actually, I did wait.  For quite awhile.

Then in 1992 I got an IBM XT.  It flew.  The 6 mHz proc had a turbo button that would kick it all the way up to 8 mHz.  I actually wore driving gloves and a seat belt to use it.  Surely I jest. 

I remember getting my first spreadsheet program and trying to use it with the XT.  I would enter all my data, and somewhere on the sheet I’d put a formula in and press enter.  It would take 20 seconds to calculate.  I also remember buying the Jeopardy Game.  Ok, the graphics weren’t too hot, but it was a fun game.  Unfortunately, this was not a usable computer.  This was my first warning sign that “progress” was not always progressive.

A couple years later Radio Shack had a sale on computers.  They offered 0% financing for 12 months.  I needed a computer for my business, so I plunked down my $1700, and took home a 486!  Woohoo!  That was a huge upgrade for me.  It had a 14.4 modem, and 4 MB of memory.  But I wanted to use Microsoft Office which had a minimum Ram requirement of 8 MB.  So I went to CDW and bought 4 MB more.  For $200.  Two hundred dollars.  By the way, Office came on 7 3″ floppy disks.  Imagine how lean it was that the whole thing could fit on 7 1.44MB disks, or about 10 MB.  Now you need a DVD to contain the monster.

My 486 served me well for several years.  Eventually I upgraded the modem to a blazing 28.8 model, signed up with AOL, and discovered the Internet - or at least AOL online. 

I’m fast forwarding now to 1998.  Windows 98.  Yup.  We make fun of it now, but computers running 98 didn’t need tons of memory or speed.  And they ran tons of software.  It really wasn’t a bad OS.  And my Pentium II computer had something that I only dreamed of.  A cd burner.  I couldn’t believe I could actually create my own frickin’ cds!  That surely rocked. 

Notice a trend?  With the exception of the XT, computers were progressing nicely. 

2002 was a great year.  I decided to build my own computer.  I picked out the best components I could find.  I had a blazing Athlon proc, an LCD screen, Windows 2000, a super fast cd burner, tons of ram (528 MB), and put it all into my high tech mobo.  It cost me $900 for everything.  Half the price of my Radio Shack computer and 100 times more potent.  This computer is still lightning fast.  It is also the end of the line for progress.

With an expanding family we needed more computers.  So I bought a Windows XP laptop in ‘03.  The lappy cost me a serious $1600, but Windows XP was supposed to be a tremendous improvement over 2000.   So why did they need SP2?  That laptop is now run by my kids, but they complain about the speed.  It’s a dog.  It’s so freakin’ slow that it’s painful to watch.  I just upgraded the Ram from 256 Mb to 1 GB, but I fear that XP is so bloated that it can’t get out of its own way.  Remember the analogy I made at the beginning of this post?  While 2000 is like a rock solid foundation upon which lie all my components, XP is molasses.  Have you ever jogged on the beach?  Jog a couple miles and that’s Win XP.  I have to restart it fairly often to clear out all the gunk.  Meanwhile, the last time I restarted my 2000 was, uhm, uh, I can’t remember.  It’s been several weeks, if not months, since I restarted it.  2000 rules.

So 6 months ago I bought another lappy.  Three kids and a wife on two computers doesn’t work.  This Inspiron 1505 has Windows Vista and a dual processor.  Two processors!  It also had 1 GB of Ram.  This, I thought, would fly.  And fly it did, like a penguin.  I upgraded the Ram to 2 GB, b u t   i t ‘ s  s t i l l  t o o  d a r n  s l o w .  Not only is it slow, it needs to be restarted every two hours of use, otherwise it begins to crawl.  Then, to add to the misery, stuff just stops working.  Like Internet Explorer will just shut down and then restart itself.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve spent an hour or two writing a post only to lose it to a random shutdown.

This computer plays music, movies, surfs, creates movies and does tons of other stuff.  But it needs 2 GB of Ram, two processors, and many many Gigs of storage just for the bloated OS.  And with all this processing power you still get instability.  I ask, how can this be?  Since windows appeared 12 years ago with Windows 95, haven’t we gotten to the point where we are just adding cool new features?  Is it that hard to test these new features before they come out?  They’re incremental, not revolutionary for cripes sake.  It’s not like we are rewriting history.  The base code has been there all this time.  I am not complaining about hackers and trojans and stuff like that.  I just feel that the OS itself should be a rock, like 2000. 

So have we really progressed?  I’ll tell you one thing, my Apple IIe didn’t have random shutdowns.  And it was pretty quick, too.  If I try to play a UTube video on my Vista ultra super powerful lappy, it stops every 15 secs because it can’t download and process the video quickly enough.  But my Win2k eats ‘em up and begs for more. 

I think I’m going to put Win2k on both of my laptops.  And the lord may strike me down for what I’m about to say, but I might get me an Apple for my next computer.

I know it sounds crazy, but

2007 10 Biggest Failures in Tech

2007 has been a year of many changes, additions, new products and even failed products.  Every day the rumor mill grinds out promises of greatness, but very few promises are kept.  Those products that actually do see the light of day are posted on thousands of blogs, dissected, disseminated and digested for a public willing to trade dollars for delivery of a better life. 

Ladies and gents, I have swept the landscape of 2007 and I bring you the Biggest Tech Failures of the year - in no particular order.

After the break…

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The Mobile Gadgeteer Debunks Pogue

Today I made a post about a heavily biased review slam of the T-Mobile Shadow based purely on his dislike for Windows Mobile 6 and the way it works. I shared how I didn’t have the time to really post in depth to debunk some of his rants, but someone saw the post… My friend Matt Miller, the Mobile Gadgeteer. Matt makes some really good points and I have to agree on the fact that Windows Mobile not being perfect. Let’s face it, no OS really is.

Now back to Pogue’s thoughts on the Shadow. I will try to address each observation he made and add my commentary that reflects my usage of the Shadow after a full week. I am also adding a second YouTube video to go along with my first impressions article that shows you more of the user aspects of the device, such as the indicators and most recently used applications feature. BTW, I wrote 90% of this article on the train ride home on the Shadow because it was the most capable document creation device in my gear bag and I wanted to create this article while his statements were clear in my head. I did have the iPhone connected via WiFi so I could view the article as I wrote on the Shadow.

Do read on to ZDNet.com to read the rest of Matt’s article. T-Mobile Shadow sets the standard for Windows Mobile usability

For another point of view, long time iPaqHQ/Mobilitysite member, JNGold, brought our attention to a video from Chris Pirrilo. I was going to link this a few days ago, but got caught up… Thanks JNGold.
iPhone vs Windows Mobile Pocket PC for Business

No Zune 2; Pogue Crys Again

Well, just a couple tidbits…

No Zune 2 For You!
Today is a sad day. With the rumors of multiple retail chains putting the Zune 2 out on the shelves early and me being the geek that I am, I went on a mission to get myself one. I failed. I had on employee at one of the 4 places I stopped confirm that they know that they shouldn’t be out yet. The other 3 people I talked to had zero clue. Target’s Display was quite bare in anticipation. Oh well.

David Pogue Whines About Windows Mobile Again…
In his typical fashion, David Pogue hammers the T-Mobile Shadow based on his dislike for the Windows Mobile OS. I could sit here for 30 minutes debating 33-50% of his “complaints”, but rather than that (since I don’t have the time at this moment), I will let you read his “article”. Reaching for Apple, Falling Short. Does the title of this “article” give you any clues?

He has my quote of the month in this one though…

Frankly, Windows Mobile 6 is a mess. Common features require an infinitude of taps and clicks, and the ones you need most are buried in menus. Apparently the Windows Mobile 6 team learned absolutely nothing from Windows Mobile 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

Yes, I am a Windows Mobile Device MVP and I am quite biased towards Windows Mobile, but when I look at phones with other operating systems, I accept that I am unfamiliar with that OS and don’t hold my inability to navigate through the OS against the device. Speaking of other operating systems, I am trying out the Nokia N95 as my phone. The camera is awesome, that’s all I have right now.

When will I get this kind of convergence?

There are many PDAs out there with Telephony services, a camera, and other features, but they are always lacking something: like integrated GPS, VGA, or sufficient base RAM memory.

When will some company create a PDA with these features?

• Cellular (GSM & 3G) plus Data (GPRS/UMTS/Edge).
• 4″ VGA (640×480 minimum) screen.
• Faster Processor (624Mhz PXA270 or better).
• More SDRAM (128MB minimum, 256MB preferred).
• SiRFstar III GPS (AGPS would be cool).
• 3MP Camera, + 1MP front-facing Video Conference
• Wireless WiFi b & g, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR.
• SDIO or MicroSD (SDHC compatible).
• Barcode scanner & Inventory Software.

So far, the Psion Teklogix “iK�n” PDA Phone that Breley alerted us to last week is the closest match to date, but even the iK�n is lacking in a few areas, namely a 2MP camera instead of a 3MP camera, no front-facing camera for Video Conferencing, no AGPS (minor actually), no 3G capabilities, and a 3.7″ screen.  Also, it appears the Barcode scanner/imager is “optional”, so it looks like it may be an “add-on” module. 

Next closest is the E-TEN Glofiish X500+, but it too lacks a lot: 2.8″ screen, 64MB of SDRAM, no front-facing camera for Video Conferencing, and no Barcode Scanner. 

Can anyone else suggest a device that comes close to offering these same specifications.   I’ll draw the line at UMPCs because I’m still looking for a regular PocketPC.