Archive | January 2009
January 25, 2009  

TMobile G1

With all of this talk about the iPhone and the Palm Pre I often wonder how the G1 and future Android phones will stack up. I’ve had limited interactions with the G1, but I’ve read lots of conflicting reviews. It’s nice to see a review from someone with the kind of holistic understanding of mobile phones that Jonathan Greene has.

Read Jonathan’s review over at atmaspheric endeavors. Pay close attention to his positive comments about the browser and his negative comments about the battery.

January 23, 2009  

Palm Pre FAQ

Gizmodo has an up-to-date Palm Pre FAQ.

Meanwhile:
PreCentral.net has rapid fire coverage specific to the device.
PrePoint is adding historical context, comparing the new OS to ACCESS and pointing to some of the things we DON’T know about the Pre.
Pre Community is discussing both the business and technical aspects of the Pre.
PalmPreView dug up more hints from the past about the Pre.
I expect that the official Palm Developer Blog will ramp up coverage quickly, too.

palmpre

January 10, 2009  

Palm Pre

I watched the Palm Pre CES announcement. WOW.

http://www.palm.com/us/products/phones/pre/palm-pre-ces.html

I’m blown away. I read the blog posts, but even they did not prepare me for the complete package. Watch that video ASAP.

I still think Apple could win this war, but Palm is definitely showing up for the fight. Before the Palm Pre announcement I would have ranked the smartphone operating systems as Apple, RIM, Nokia, Microsoft. Now I think it’s Apple, Palm (Web OS), RIM, Nokia, Microsoft. And if everything shown in that video pans out and Apple doesn’t repsond in a major way, the ranking will move to Palm (Web OS), Apple, RIM, Nokia, Microsoft.

It makes you think. Are the other players sitting on some next gen tech, too? Will we see something earth shattering from Microsoft soon? One thing is for sure. This year, last and next are going to be historic for the phone industry.

Here are some of my observations (crossposted on Twitter) while watching the Palm Pre announcement:

  • The Palm Pre would not have happened if the iPhone hadn’t happened first. But, Apple needs to respond ASAP.
  • Developers Developers Developers Developers. Developers Developers Developers Developers. CSS, JS, Ajax, HTML.
  • If you browse to one of your Outlook contacts, their Facebook contact info will appear, too, if you are connected there.
  • If you are on a call and you place the phone on the inductive charger, the call moves to speakerphone.
  • Typing while no app is in the foreground starts a device-wide search for content or apps that match your text entry.
  • Conversations are in one pane even if they move from IM to SMS to IM.
  • PalmPilot: Centralize todo, calendar, documents, etc. Treo: Combine MP3 player, camera, PDA, Phone. Pre: Unify your online personas.
  • Web Browser Instances are treated, each, as currently running apps. They are each in the carousel with email, etc.
  • Task switching is baked in. Currently running apps appear in a carousel and can be discarded by swiping them up.
  • The application launcher appears, translucently, over the current foreground app. Like glass.
  • The CPU (TI OMAP 3430) has horsepower and Palm is the first to use it in a phone.
January 8, 2009  

iPhone Twitter App Comparison Chart

Here is a report card / eye chart I put together to compare the 5 leading iPhone Twitter clients. Enjoy! Please leave a comment if I’ve made a mistake in any of the rows. Click on the thumbnail to open the full comparison chart.

My current favorite is Tweetie. TwitterFon is the best free option (and the only open source option). Twittelator is the only app with sub group support.

iPhone Twitter App Comparison Chart

UPDATE 1/16/2009: Updated the chart to include the latest version of each app.

UPDATE 1/18/2009: Reading a tweet by Steve Birney, I realize I need to add offline functionality to the chart. [DONE]

UPDATE: 1/19/2009: Note to self – add Dave Winer’s link format to the list of features.

UPDATE: 1/21/2009: Added several new rows, corrected some inaccuracies.

January 4, 2009  

One More Thing…

I have one additional wish list item for Macworld 2009: the iPhone needs a better application launcher. Paging through screens to find the app you are looking for is inefficient and can be frustrating.

« Older Posts