Category Archives: AT&T

The future of Apple computing isn’t all led by Apple

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There’s a great video up on Macworld’s site of a conversation between four highly knowledgeable Mac pundits about the “future of the Mac.” The participants were Daringfireball’s John Gruber and Tidbits’ Adam Engst along with Jason Snell and Dan Moren from Macworld. The discussion was interesting and worth the 48 minutes or so of my time, but I was struck by one kind of shocking oversight or blind spot demonstrated by all four panelists. In looking to the future of the Mac, there was hardly any mention of any products, services or software besides Apple’s. I think Dropbox may have been the only non-Apple company mentioned in a forward-looking way.

That’s a real shame because while Apple has led the personal computing revolution for pretty much the last decade, whether it be via Mac OS X, the iMac, the MacBook, the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad etc, there have been plenty of important developments from others and plenty of misfires from Apple. And Apple is far too smart to ignore what others are doing well. The future of the Mac will most likely involve a fruitful and innovative mash-up of the best ideas both from within and without Apple.

Start, at the top, with Google. Clearly the future of the Mac is going to be more cloud-based. Apple has built a huge and mysterious server farm in North Carolina, principal purpose TBA. The newest MacBook Airs are also clearly intended to be more cloud-connected. But Apple is not a pioneer in cloud services — the opposite in fact. There’s no Apple cloud video or music services yet and its MobileMe offering is so overpriced and lacking as to be a joke to even many of the Mac faithful like me.

I’ve been a paying MobileMe subscriber for many, many years. In the beginning, I used web hosting, web-based email, web bookmarks list, syncing of data across multiple Macs and even paid for extra space to use for cloud backup and file sharing. In the past few years, though, competitors have surpassed MobileMe in nearly every area and I find the only thing I really need it for anymore is automatic syncing of my Mac address book. Gmail is the best web mail, Firefox syncs my bookmarks, Dropbox and Mozy do cloud-based file storage and backup and Bluehost and WordPress do my web sites. If Google improved its Contacts service, which needs a HUGE amount of improvement, I might not rely on MobileMe for anything anymore at all.

A second area of focus for future computing developments will come from cloud-based entertainment. For a while, Apple seemed to be almost purposely ignoring the potential. The second-gen Apple TV finally seems to be a recognition that streaming video is the best option for many scenarios but Netflix, Amazon, Xbox, Tivo and others have been here for a while. Streaming music from Spotify, Rhapsody, Napster and others also beats iTunes in some ways. I love the model popularized by services like Amazon’s Kindle and its online video store, where the company maintains all your content in the cloud for download to your various devices whenever and where ever you want. And it’s galactically simpler than maintaining an iTunes server in your home. Don’t even get me started on the mess Apple made of our various iTunes libraries with the iTunes Plus upgrade program. Blech!

In the Amazon model, if I want to read a new book on my Kindle on the train to work, I buy it and download it there. Later in bed, I have my iPad and I download it there. A few weeks later, I need to quote a passage at work so I fire up the Kindle for Mac program and access it there. I wish iTunes worked the same way for all the zillions of dollars I have spent on movies, TV shows, music and, now, apps.

Finally, not all hardware innovation arises out of Cupertino’s labs. As I blogged about yesterday, I think the new Motorola Atrix 4G smartphone is the first step towards a promising converged computing future. The Atrix has a speedy dual core processor, up to 48 GB of storage and fourth-generation mobile connectivity (I know, I know, AT&T’s 4th gen network is kind of bogus, but roll with me). Its HDMI port is capable of outputting high-definition video. A notebook shell dock turns the Atrix into a laptop and a media dock and wireless remote connect it to a TV.

(Update 2/3/11 – oops, Motorola seems to be way overpricing the laptop dock)

Once upon a time, laptops were so underpowered and expensive relative to desktop computers, few people could really function with just a laptop. But Moore’s law and all that has brought us such ultra-powerful laptops that it’s now the norm. Personally, I rely on my 13″ MacBook Pro Mac PowerBook as my sole machine (with external storage and the fantabulous Apple LED Cinema Display as my dock at home). In a few more years, with super-powered smart phones, proliferating docking options and cloud-based storage and services, the Atrix model will predominate. Peter Rojas’s great proposal to standardize docking interfaces also makes a lot of sense in this future.

And just as a final aside on the Macworld panel, I think the future of desktop computing will not be the iOS “every app in full screen” model, which the panel seemed to think was a real possibility. Lots of research has been done showing people are more productive using larger screens and multiple screens to keep more of their work in front of their eyes. Right now, I have MarsEdit open to write this post, two browser windows for finding links and background material and a Skitch window for grabbing screenshots. If I had to hit control-tab or something every time I wanted to remember what i had just read or to see the web page I needed to reference in this blog post, I think I’d go batty.

I found it a little condescending the way the panel seemed to assume the most important or most common user of the future would be the your-65-year-old-mom type. In fact, if anything, I think younger generations are more comfortable with all things computer-y, even the wild and crazy practices of having multiple windows open on-screen and having files stored in a “documents” folder.

NB This essay was inspired in part by that kitschy, trashy 1990s television show Time Trax. You remember, the one with the future cop who traveled back to 1993 with a super-computer-powered credit card.

Your thoughts, arguments and corrections, as always, welcomed in the comments.

Just when I got off AT&T, Motorola’s Atrix 4G tries to lure me back

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(Update 2/3/11 — oops, Motorola seems to be way overpricing the laptop dock)

Just when I thought I was out… they pull me back in
-Michael Corleone, The Godfather III

A couple of weeks ago, I ended a long and tortuous tenure as an AT&T mobile phone customer in the Boston area. First on a Blackberry and later on an iPhone GS, I experienced all the dropped calls, loss of Internet connectivity, slow downloads and generally poor service you have no doubt read about endlessly.

With the iPhone on Verizon coming up soon and the post-warranty death of my iPhone 3GS, I decided to take a flyer on Google’s Nexus S Android phone on T-Mobile. And it’s been an incredible breath of fresh air, both because T-Mobile’s network is so much better and cheaper than AT&T’s around the places where I go as well as the benefits of Android over iOS (when I look at the home screen of my phone, all sorts of useful information is either immediately in view or one drag away).

I bought the unlocked, no-contract version of the Nexus S and I signed up for one of T-Mobile’s handy and cheap “Even More Plus” plans which can be canceled without penalty at any time to give me flexibility for the arrival of the iPhone 5 later this year. If I had been dissatisfied with the Nexus S or, down the road, fallen in love with the iPhone 5, I could cancel the plan and sell the phone on eBay easy as pie. And that still may happen.

But since I concocted the plan, a new phone has been introduced that seems like THE phone to have, one that is leading the way to the future of both mobile and fixed computing. I’m talking, or rather frothing at the mouth, about the Motorola Atrix 4G, of course.

This is the phone which, with the help of a handy, dandy converter dock, can turn into a laptop. With a cutting edge dual-core processor and up to 48 GB of storage, plus the built in fourth-generation data connection, it’s got the potential power to be both your smart phone and your main travel computer.

Now, obviously, there are a bunch of caveats here. I say “potential” because the Atrix has yet to be fully reviewed by the gadget-gazing reporters and analysts we trust on these matters. It’s always possible that the real-world version of the Atrix won’t be as speedy and spiffy as it appears to be in this video, for example. Perhaps the battery life will be atrocious or there will be some annoying limits on apps or accessing files or who knows.

And then there’s gosh-darn, dagnabit, super-annoying matter of Mototola’s exclusive partner carrier on the Atrix: AT&T. Nooooooooo…

What it’s really like to switch to the Nexus S Android phone from an iPhone

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My just-out-of-warranty iPhone 3GS has been acting a little wonky for a couple of months now but last week it started randomly turning itself off and then it wasn’t charging anymore. Given that I’ve been trying to wait out my AT&T contract and switch to a Verizon iPhone sometime next year, the choice of Apple/AT&T sanctioned replacement or repair options were unappealing. So I decided to buy an unlocked Samsung Nexus S, aka the Google phone. Though it’s made to work on T-Mobile’s network, it also works with AT&T, albeit without access to the faster 3G broadband speed. Popped my SIM card out of the iPhone and into the Nexus, hit the “on” switch, logged in with my Google account and there I was — one of the few, the proud, the iPhone/Android switchers.

There have been plenty of reviews of the hardware and software (the Nexus S is the first phone with the “Gingerbread” 2.3 upgrade of Android), so I’m going to concentrate on the switching experience for any slightly dissatisfied iPhone users out there. I’ll start by describing a few of the cooler features on the main home screen that appears every time you turn on the phone. The home screen is far more customizable than the iPhone’s opening screen. Here’s what mine looks like after about 48 hours of tweaking:

The first big difference I noticed was the notification system in Android 2.3 which is light years better than what’s available on the iPhone. All notices appear as tiny icons across the top, left side of the screen (#1 above). But simply drag your finger down and a page of all the notices unscrolls before your eyes. The notices are only moderately detailed but tap on one and you’re taken straight to the related app — read an email, check a Facebook comment, an SMS text message or whatever. Or just ignore the icons and let them pile up. Contrast this with the iPhone’s in-your-face pop-up boxes that have to be dealt with immediately and one at a time.

The second major difference is the broader range of items than can live on the home screen (or any of the side screens). Instead of just holding apps, in Android the home screen can contain widgets, shortcuts, contacts and even mini-macros. Above, the #2 is pointing to the contact for my lovely wife. If you tap the icon, a little menu pops up offering to start a call, text message or email to her. Very handy! The #3 is pointing to a widget for Google Voice showing messages and texts in my in box. I can scroll through and read the first few words of each message (Google Voice transcribes all my voicemails) without leaving the home screen. Click on a message to jump to the full app. At #4, I’ve inserted a shortcut to a music playlist. On an iPhone, I’d have to tap the iPod icon, tap playlists, scroll to my fave and select it. Here, I just hit the shortcut and it starts playing.

The big Google search box at #5 is more than just a typical web search field. Besides earching for things on the web or on the phone, you can start typing something you want to do (“Send email to Oren”). And you don’t even have to type. Hit the microphone icon and Google’s amazing voice recognition software kicks in. You can ask for directions home, dictate an email or call up some music to start playing. Truly amazing.

What’s not to like? I have certainly come to appreciate the iPhone’s simplicity of buttons, or should I say button. The Nexus S has no physical, permanent buttons on its face. But it has four unchangeable virtual buttons at the bottom of the screen as soon as you turn it on, seen in #6 above, which are back, menu, search and home. The problem is that the availability of four buttons has quickly become a crutch for app writers, even Google’s own. Instead of thinking of the most elegant, obvious and simple on-screen controls for an app, too often developers stuff a bunch of options onto the buttons. Further, because every app writer can interpret the uses of the buttons as they see fit, there’s an annoying lack of consistency from app to app.The same problem seems to have proliferated into the Nexus S’s settings app which has way, way too many settings buried in a multitude of categories and sub-categories. Luckily, there are some great control widgets you can place on the home screen or a side screen to get easy and fast access to key settings like turning wifi on and off.

I’ll do a separate post on Android apps I’ve discovered so far versus the iOS apps I was using on my iPhone, but one key discovery recommended by Oren, my brother-in-law and Android pioneer, was the doubleTwist program, which acts as a command center and syncing platform on your computer much like iTunes. I am bummed that some absolute basics like LinkedIn and Instapaper don’t have native Android apps yet. Angry Birds and Paper Toss are there, though — go time wasters!

There’s a robust debate going about the breadth and quality of Android apps versus iOS apps (for example, John Gruber’s pro-iPhone and Fred Wilson’s pro-Android) and I’ll need a lot more time to develop my views. I’m also discovering that getting legal commercial video content on Android is a huge pain and millions of eons behind what you can buy or rent on iTunes.

Overall, though, I’m quite happy with the switch so far. But I’ve barely begun to scratch the surface of the Nexus S and I’m sure there are some great and not-so-great experiences ahead. Stay tuned.

Verizon’s stingy 4G Internet pricing and other downers of the week

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I had a really busy week at work and I’m just catching up on some of the tech news of the week. None of the stories are positive developments for we the denizens of Internet nation, sadly.

Headline A that caught my attention was Verizon Wireless announcing pricing for its new super-fast, fourth-generation mobile broadband service. I’ve long been a customer of Verizon’s current 3G service, which is more dependable and widespread than the service I get either from AT&T (with my iPhone) or Sprint (with an Overdrive). But for 4G, Verizon has decided to go with data limits that make the service’s super-fast speeds practically useless. They are going to charge $50 a month for 5 gigabytes of data or $80 for 10 gigabytes. As a headline from PC Magazine noted, you can blow through your month’s data allocation in 32 minutes!

I’m slightly surprised by the news, since my 4G-capable Sprint Overdrive costs $59.99 a month for unlimited 4G downloads (though it carries a 5 gigabyte cap when it defaults down to 3G speeds). Supposedly one part of the appeal of mobile 4G networks was relief from overcrowding that hampered 3G networks and required all these onerous bandwidth caps in the first place.

Of course, the Journal’s spin was more upbeat, as they noted that the new 5 gigabyte cap was priced $10 a month less than the old Verizon 3G plans with the same data limits. But since the whole point of getting on a faster 4G plan is to download more, to me, the fact that the cap is the same is a killer. It reminds me of that line from the movie You’ve Got Mail that the purpose of a VCR is to record TV when you leave the house but the whole point of leaving the house is to skip out on watching TV. The reason to get a 4G connection is to download more data but the reason for Verizon’s stingy cap is to prevent you from downloading more.

Things became clearer when the paper explained some of the thinking behind the pricing.

Verizon Wireless is able to offer the five-gigabyte plan at a lower rate than its 3G plan because it costs less to deliver that wireless traffic on 4G, Chief Technology Officer Tony Melone said. But he expects most people to sign up for the high-capacity $80 plan because the higher speeds will lead to more usage.

I don’t know if they’re serious but the market for people who are willing to pay $80 a month for mobile Internet service can probably fit in the front pocket of Tinkerbell’s blouse. I mean, really. The fact that 4G is fast enough to replace wired home broadband connections for many people — like those millions sold by Verizon — might explain some of the pricing strategy.

Another downer this week came from broadband provider Level 3. The company just grabbed the contract to send Netflix customers streamed movies and TV shows. But Comcast, which is now the largest retail broadband provider, is demanding some mega-payments to allow Level 3 to send Netflix streams to Netflix customers who use Comcast.

The debate quickly descends into some pretty technical historical details of the connections among different kinds of Internet and broadband service providers. But suffice it to say that if Comcast can price Level 3′s Netflix customers away from NetFlix, they’ve gone a long way to protect their lucrative cable television franchise. Hmm, sensing a theme yet?

The back and forth prompted law professor Susan Crawford to cut through the crap and get to the point with some painfully pointy rhetorical questions.

The takeaway from today: No market forces are constraining Comcast – or any of the other major cable distributors, none of which compete with each other. How will consumers and innovation be protected from their machinations? The FCC is currently facing two defining moments in US telecommunications policy, and it’s unclear what the Commission is going to do in either case. Will the FCC act to relabel high-speed Internet transmission services, reversing the radical Bush-era deregulatory turn? Will the FCC block the Comcast/NBCU merger? Can we expect that anything will happen (at all) to ensure that local monopoly control over communications transport isn’t leveraged into adjacent markets for devices and content?

What will the legacy of the FCC be, as the looming cable monopoly stops looming and starts muscling levers into place?

Finally, whatever you think about Wikileaks and its controversial founder Julian Assange, the way big Internet companies have reacted scares some free speech and civil rights advocates. Dan Gillmor, writing for Slate, warns that online, the censors are scoring big wins. Internet hosting and address companies booted Wikileaks out so quickly and so cavalierly that Gillmor worries for the future when we all depend more and more on information stored in the “cloud.”

The WikiLeaks affair is highlighting the Internet’s soft underbelly: the intermediaries on which we all rely to store our information and make it available. We are learning, to our dismay, that we cannot trust them. Combine that with increasing government intervention, we’re also learning that the Internet is somewhat easier to censor than we’d assumed.

This should worry anyone who believes that we’re going to move our data and online lives into the fabled “cloud” — the diffused online array of hardware and services where, proponents say, we can do our online work, play and commerce without the need for storing data on our own personal computers. Trusting the cloud is becoming an act of faith, and it’s time to question that faith.

And that’s it for GravitationalPull dot net today. Hopefully, cheerier postings ahead.

True report: AT&T just doubled mobile data prices

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(Updated 6/3) As I’m sure you’ve read all over today, AT&T announced major changes to its wireless data plans. But, I think because AT&T’s iPhone plan differed from other plans it offered, the reporting of these changes has been a little wacky. AT&T may have eliminated its “unlimited” data plan for the iPhone but it did not have unlimited plans for other devices. Those with non-iPhone devices and phones faced a cap of 5 gigabytes a month, similar to limits imposed by Sprint and Verizon on virtually all of their customers.

Under the new plan, which applies to the iPhone and all other AT&T phones, the maximum offering is 2 gigabytes for $25 a month with $10 charged for each extra gigabyte of data. Compared to the typical 5 GB offering, the price would be $25 plus $30 or $55 a month. iPad customers really get the shaft, as they were getting 5 GB per month for $30 and now that much data is $55.

The other option is $15 for 200 megabytes with $15 charged for each additional 200 MB. I checked my iPhone data usage over the past six months and darn it if the average wasn’t 221 MB. Right back to $30 a month. Hmm.

Among other implication for heavy data users or people with both an iPhone and an iPad, the strategy of Internet smarty Rex Hammock to pair a mobile wifi hot spot like Sprint’s Overdrive with other portable devices looks a little smarter.

One of the few sharp analysis pieces I read on today’s move was Dan Frommer’s observation: AT&T Just Put A Bullet In Mobile TV. I suspect that the future of mobile broadband-delivered video will be a return to the wireless carrier’s anti-innovation, walled garden strategy. Verizon already offers its V-CAST 10-channel/$15 a month service. AT&T’s less advanced (or maybe just less publicized) service called Mobile TV costs $10/month for a smattering of shows from seven networks.

Just a couple of week ago, the Federal Communications Commission in its annual assessment of wireless phone industry reported a decline in competition due to consolidation. Now we can test the accuracy of that verdict. Will Verizon and Sprint cut back 5 GB plans to 2 GB? Let’s hope not.

Addendum: Speaking the night before the price hike was announced, Apple CEO Steve Jobs cryptically said he expected the problem of congestion on AT&T’s wireless network would get worse before it got better. Maybe he was implying that the new 2 GB limit will only last until AT&T gets its network in order. Fourth generation wireless broadband is already available in some places from Sprint and coming “real soon now” from AT&T and Verizon. Hopefully, data allowances will rise again.

UPDATE: Uber Mac blogger John Gruber offers his own analysis and he is particularly peeved about the new $20 charge for tethering (which lets you use your iPhone as a 3G modem for your laptop). The extra 20 bucks doesn’t come with any extra data — you’re still stuck using up the same 2 gigabytes.

There’s a small blind spot in Gruber’s analysis of the Hammock Mifi/iPad strategy, however. With a 3G iPad, you’re stuck with AT&T’s generally horrific network. With a Mifi, you can get online via Verizon. So the trade-off of longer login time and shorter battery life may be more than offset for many folks who can’t rely on AT&T’s network.

Best way to sync Mac and Google contacts? There isn’t one

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Photo on 2009-11-15 at 00.58 #2It’s kind of a disaster when your two most critical IT vendors won’t play nice. And it’s happening right now to me with Apple and Google feuding over iPhone apps. Google had an iPhone app for managing its fabulous Google Voice service but Apple nixed it (or didn’t approve it, or whatever). Now I have to maintain two completely separate and parallel sets of contact phone numbers and email addresses and I’m not happy about it.

Here’s how I got in this mess. One, I started relying on Google Voice for its amazing portable, follow-me phone number trick plus insanely great transcribed and emailed voicemails. And two, I started using an iPhone for its heady mix of iPodness, mobile telephony and Internet access on the go.

So what’s the big deal? I have a huge set of contacts (including phone numbers and email addresses) on my Mac in Apple’s Address Book program. It’s great because I can keep the listings in total sync between and betwixt  a couple of Macs (using MobileMe) and my iPhone (using iTunes). Changes made in any of those places replicate to all the other places. Sweet.

But, when I’m placing and receiving calls using Google Voice (typically at my desk  using a Mac) I have no simple way to access those phone numbers and email addresses in Apple’s Address Book program. Google Voice only works directly with Google’s online-only contacts listing (which seems to be an offshoot of Gmail). And Google Voice obviously can’t access my Address Book listings when a call comes in and it’s trying to ID the caller for me.

Then when I’m out on my iPhone, I’m not even sure where or how to find my Google contact phone numbers at all. There’s no contacts bit in the otherwise great Google Mobile app and the contacts list I can reach from within the Mail app’s Gmail section only includes email addresses, not phone numbers.

Worst of all, I now have to track changes in two places and hope I remember to keep changing contact numbers or emails updated on both platforms — a recipe for disaster.

In theory, there’s supposedly a way to sync Address Book contacts with Google’s contact list. The problem is it it stinks. When you plug an iPhone or iPod into your computer and iTunes comes up to start syncing, check out the Info tab. Under the Contacts section, you’ll see a check box letting you also sync contacts with Google. I’ve circled it in red below:

itunejpg

But the feature so simplistic that I’m having trouble understanding exactly how it works, which may be another of way of saying it doesn’t really work at all. It seems like if you put a check in this box, the only thing you can do is have all of your Address Book contacts synced with all of your Google Contacts (or at least all of the contacts Google lists in its “My Contacts” area). The sync doesn’t respect or even carry across any sub-groupings you’ve assigned to some contacts, even though both Address Book and Google Contacts support assigning contacts to subgroups.

And the bigger disaster comes after that first sync because Google parses some of my Mac contacts in weird ways. For example, in some Address Book contacts, I have two people listed together (say for people I want to send a holiday card). Under first name I put “Bobby & Sally” and under the last name I put “Smith.” But when these contacts got to Google the first time, Google started listing them as First name “Bobby” Middle name “& Sally” and last name “Smith.” After that, when syncing, Google always wanted to add them back into the Mac’s address book as all new (but actually duplicative) contacts. And because Address Book doesn’t support a middle name field, there’s seemingly no way out of this syncing hell.

[UPDATE: You can add custom fields to Address Book listings including middle name -- it doesn't seem to have stopped the duplication, however.].

Apple and Google need to get together and fix this mess pronto. A Google Voice App that let me access all my Google contacts’ phone numbers on my iPhone would be a big help. Dramatically improved syncing capabilities between Mac and Google contacts would be an even bigger help. How about it?

Sony Reader adds some brilliant features, 3 years late

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image-thumb192Almost three years ago, Sony unveiled the first version of its electronic book reader, dubbed, excitingly enough, the Reader. As I predicted at the time (Short-tailed Sony reader needs a much longer one), the device bombed because it was a product in search of a need.

The Reader didn’t offer enough (if any) advantages over reading books the old-fashioned way. You had to go on your computer, buy the books online, download them, link the Reader to your computer and fill it up. Sony had a tiny selection of ebooks for sale priced at about the same level as print books. And the selection was mainly best-sellers. There was no connection to the Internet or blogs or harder-to-find books. There was no search, no online access, no keyboard at all. The only “advantage” was that you could carry a book shelf’s worth of books around. So what.

Amazon’s Kindle, released a year later, got it right, by contrast. The addition of wireless made buying ebooks quick and easy, even on the go. Vastly more ebooks were for sale at low prices that could not be beat. And the ebookstore was open to new additions, uploaded by anyone who wanted to engage, allowing for a blossoming of free or 99 cent ebooks of out-of-copyright classics. The Kindle store included magazines, newspapers and offline-readable blogs. The device bundled a free wireless Internet connection for accessing a wide array of other textual online resources. And, despite what some cranky luddites say, the Kindle’s been a huge success that’s caught the attention of a lot of other companies that now want to play in the ebook market.

Today, hopefully not too late to have a major influence on the evolving ebook ecosystem, Sony has finally come up with a much better reader and a host of innovative features (tip o’ the cap for the news and generally for great ebook coverage to the Teleread blog). The new “Reader Daily Edition” has a 7″ electronic ink, touch-sensitive screen and a wireless connection that works over AT&T’s cell phone network. That’s matching or exceeding some of Kindle’s best features but I’m more excited about the innovations. You’ll be able to use your Sony Reader to borrow ebooks from thousands of libraries like the New York Public Library. You’ll be able to buy ebooks from major independent vendors like Powells.com. And, of course, as I wished for 3 years ago, you can read the million or so out-of-copyright (and permissioned) books Google has scanned into its vast databases.

Sony is also stepping away somewhat from locking content to its line of devices. Sure, Sony’s ebooks will still be locked down with proprietary digital rights management, or DRM, software but at least Sony has switched to Adobe’s somewhat (arguably) more broadly used DRM instead of keeping its own. That means that ebooks bought for the Sony Reader will — we hope — be readable on any other program or device that also licenses the Adobe software. There’s been some confusion, fostered by a misleading New York Times story, that the Sony is selling “open” or unrestricted books. That’s not the case but this is still a big step in the right direction. If Sony got out of the ebook business altogether, other Adobe-licensed reader devices could still access the ebooks (again — we think/hope).

For a while it seemed like Sony was becoming irrelevent in the ebook market, what with the rapid advances from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google, Apple iPhone app store participants and so on. Now Sony has shown it’s still in the hunt. Of course, we’ll have to wait and hear from users and reviewers whether all these features work as advertised and if there are any hidden gotchas (the library feature says you must have a card from each particular library, it sounds like). But for now, it’s a bright, shiny day for ebook fans. We can only wait to see what moves Amazon and Barnes & Noble make to react.

Prior coverage:

Yes, Virginia, the Barnes & Noble ebookstore is a Good Thing (7/22/2009)

Amazon Kindle competitor EReader slashes ebook prices (7/5/2009)

Apple gives stage to overpriced ebook developer Scrollmotion (6/9/2009)

Sony ereader seeking wide open wireless (10/3/2008)

Apple will not slay Amazon’s Kindle, not even close (8/20/2008)

Too many black boxes, too many power cords

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powercd-1

Heading off for the holiday weekend, I grabbed a bunch of gadgets and junk to stuff in my bag. Amazon Kindle reader – check. Multiple iPods and headphones for the kids – check. Blackberry – check. New Verizon Mifi to test in the boonies – check. Macbook Pro – check. Canon camera – check. They joined the usual assortment of odds and ends that live in my Crumpler Bag of Considerable Embarrassment (actual name) full time.

Of course, with all those gadgets come the required power cords. What a mess. At least the totally awesome  yet horribly named Belkin “Mini Surge Protector with USB” allowed me to forgo most of the bulkier plug-in cords since it can power any gadget using just a USB cord connection. For example, instead of carrying an iPod wall charger, I can just plug in an iPod syncing cable to the Belkin’s powered USB port.

By Monday, the Mifi was out of juice so it was time for a charge. But what’s this? The Mifi can’t use the standard mini-USB to USB connector that works for Blackberries and a few of my other gadgets. It actually has a micro-USB port. What the hey? It’s just like the mini-USB port only — wait for it — smaller. I couldn’t find that cord in the bag so the Internet connection ended early. On such a beautiful day by the shore, no great loss. But can’t the world standardize a bit more? The Kindle and iPods all have their own weird charger connections. I guess it’s too much to hope for everyone to get on the same page to benefit the consumer.

Unpacking it all today, I noticed there’s been a proliferation of little black boxes in my bag of late. Starting from the top left side in the picture below (click through for a bigger photo):

  • a Sony digital recorder
  • a Miquelrius paper notebook
  • a Sandisk Cruzer memory stick sitting on top of the still wicked cool Kensington portable battery pack (mini-USB to power up/any regular USB to power out)
  • a crazy-useful miniature Atech compact flash to USB port reader
  • Sandisk’s handy MobileMate that reads seven kinds of memory cards and goes into a USB port sitting on top of the aforementioned Mifi
  • (Now on the bottom row) An iPod Touch
  • a Blackberry
  • the Belkin power strip
  • the Sprint Novatel cellular modem, soon to be gone

toomny-1

And what did I find smooshed way down in a corner pocket? Why the Mifi’s micro-USB to USB adapter of course. Next time I’ll have to look harder.

For some further good advice about what to carry, Dan Frakes has been writing a fabulous series of columns at MacWorld. The other day he had some good advice on cable selection and Friday he reviewed some miniature gadgets you might want to carry.

Making the transition to a Blackberry Curve

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card-1-2Well, the two-year handcuffs on my Verizon-locked Treo 700p smartphone finally came off and it was time to reevaluate. The biggest downside to the Treo was its miniscule battery life, though its bulky weight was another serious bummer. My company pays for the phone so my replacement choices were fairly limited. Since my wife appears to have substantially greater smartphone satisifaction with her Blackberry than I had with my Treo, that’s the option I was looking for.

It meant switching to AT&T Wireless but I was able to select a fairly modern Blackberry Curve 8310 with a snappy red case. The Curve includes a camera with flash, a robust Bluetooth implementation and the ability to take MicroSD memory cards. It’s also pretty much half the thickness and weight of my old Treo and it works just as well with my office-sanctioned Outlook email account. I’m still getting used to the many new key combinations and short cuts — mentally, it’s much worse than, say, going from Mac to Windows, as I occasionally do.

But – wow – battery life is insanely great. I didn’t have to recharge the Blackberry for over three days. A welcome change from the crummy Treo battery that didn’t even last through a whole day sometimes.

I was also nervous about wireless signal coverage here in the Boston suburbs. Some years ago when I last had an AT&T phone, coverage was spotty and considerably worse than Verizon’s. Happily, I can say that the situation has changed. At least out here west of Beantown, AT&T has improved its wireless coverage to at least reach parity with Verizon in real world usage. Even 3G data coverage is excellent.

One downside is Mac compatibility. Though there’s some software called PocketMac for Blackberry which you can download from the RIMM web site, it’s god awful. Palm compatibility wasn’t great either but better than this.

More reports to come but so far, I’m liking the switch.

Android, iPhone and the push for a real mobile Internet

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Logo for Google's android mobile operating systemPlenty of “news” today about the mobile Internet, prompted by this Wall Street Journal piece on Google’s Android mobile phone operating system.  The Journal’s story is chock full of details of the internal struggles of Android developers and carriers that may support Android phone. While Google had said phones running Android would be available in the “second half” of 2008, now it looks the first phone will be available in the fourth quarter. Seems like a lot of sound and fury signifying not much.

There’s also a nice profile of Android lead dude Andy Rubin in the July issue of Wired magazine (not yet online – blech). Aside from a few goofy factual errors (Cut and paste among different mobile apps has been available on Palm for ages and probably on Windows Mobile, too), the Rubin story gets much closer to the important big picture underlying a lot of the coverage of Android and other mobile platforms like the iPhone.

The bigger story, the meta-story, if you will, remains the same as it has been since the Internet first went mobile. The carriers want to keep everything locked down with all profits flowing their way. That’s why mobile music sales remain in a quagmire — gotta give the carriers their cut and protect $2.99 sales of ring tones. It’s about as un-Internet a business model as you can get. Thus, with Android, you have handset makers not wanting to anger carriers and carriers delaying things to “customize” Android for their particular networks. Dana Blankenhorn has it right in his blog post this morning: “These problems would not exist if the government simply set standards for hardware and opened up the spectrum to competition.”

The two biggest carriers, AT&T and Verizon, say they aren’t supporting Android as of yet. I can’t figure out how that squares with their prior claims that they had opened their networks to any compatible phone. In December, AT&T was telling anyone who’d listen that you could use “any handset on our network you want…We don’t prohibit it, or even police it.” Verizon used a bit more legalize but declared that customers would get the option to use “wireless devices, software and applications not offered by the company.” Said devices would have to abide by a “minimum technical standard” and pass tests at Verizon’s own testing lab.

But Google has a long-term plan that may route around all this nonsense and foot dragging. The company convinced the Federal Communications Commission to impose open access requirements on the new swath of spectrum auctioned last year in the 700 Mhz frequency range. Ultimately, Verizon bought the license. Assuming regulators stick to their guns, Android devices should gain free rein once the 700 Mhz offering comes online in a couple of years.

Too much of the coverage, however, pits Google’s efforts against Apple’s iPhone. In the real world, both are moving the industry in the right direction. From an Internet user’s point of view, they are complementary not contradictory. Just as with the iTunes music store, Steve Jobs got incredible concessions from the cellular powers that be to improve the situation for ordinary consumers. It’s not perfect, not by a long shot (I still can’t get over that the iPhone’s bluetooth implementation is more crippled and limited than the one in my Verizon Treo). But it’s progress that will grow more powerful as the iPhone becomes more and more popular.

In a sense, this struggle is much the same as the battle over broadband when cable and telephone companies first started rolling out high-speed connections back in the 1990s. There was the distinct possibility that the owners of those fat pipes were going to mess with content, filter web sites or restrict usage. After millions of dollars spent by all sides lobbying, the industry chose to go down a (mostly) open path. Let’s hope mobile can go the same way. The emergence of the next Facebook, eBay and Google depend on it.