iPhone 5

The first thing to knock off is going to have to be the iPhone 5.  Having just been released I'd have to join the general observation in that it's a resounding bundle of 'Blah'.  Slightly bigger screen, slightly higher resolution, another row of icons, thinner chassis and an aluminium back. Also a processor that is apparently twice as fast as the 4S.

No real redesign as far as looks goes, and a different dock socket (they will be releasing an adaptor for the old socket...). Looks like Apple have 

again failed on the innovation front. They simply can't keep rehashing the same thing over and over and expect to stay competitive in the mobile market. Although there will be a big number of these things getting shifted on release (September 21st) I can see a large number of Apple fans looking to move on to greener and more innovative pastures. With the likes of HTC, Motorola, Nokia and Samsung putting out new and exciting devices and daring to be a bit different, Apple is looking more and more like a one trick pony. Albeit a one trick pony with excellent aesthetic designers and a great (and wealthy) legal department.

Simply put, Apple have not delivered anything in the iPhone 5 that resets the industry expectations, that raises the bar for what a mobile device should look like or how it should perform both in speed and functionality. You have a slightly larger 4Gs... and that's it.

Interestingly they also announced a new iPod touch with which they seem to be attempting to move on the OS based camera device (like the Samsung one I mentioned earlier) but still using the very small lens and mobile form factor. It's a nice to have device but you know I still prefer my Classic iPod with a click wheel... why? Because I can keep my entire music collection on it without having to pair it down to 64GB, it has better battery life and I can use it without needing iTunes.

Need a reason to not buy the iPhone 5?

With the new dock connector Apple have done away with both the video out, analogue audio out and iPod out which means that even with the adapter they won't work with your current i-implementations or devices. So with the adapter your nice Bose speakers won't work, your car connector won't work and your radio connector won't work. Pretty much the only t

hing that will work is the charging.

To add insult to injury, not only will you have to buy all new accessories, but you don't get USB3 with it so you're still stuck with slow transfer speeds. From an environmental perspective Apple have done a great disservice also in that they're wilfully adding to landfill by making you throw away all your old chargers and dock speakers. They are effectively forcing their customers into purchasing an entirely new set of devices because the adaptor is functionally useless for anything other than charging - functionally useless at $39 - thank you Apple.

Why they couldn't just make it micro USB like all other mobile phone makers is clear - Apple consumers are seen as wallets with legs and are treated as such. Personally I wouldn't buy the iPhone 5 on principal alone. Not only are Apple anticompetitive and anti consumer but they are also ecologically irresponsible.

EDIT: 

 Interesting, it looks like Apple have been quick to respond to the adaptor issue and will be distributing the iP5 with a free adaptor. The adaptor will also apparently contain a chip that will convert digital audio to analog for the old 30 pin devices to work with. I guess I will have to retract my mini rant... partially... video is still out of the equation and any extended functionality means extra adaptors. I guess in a round about way they deserve a little kudos...

Second EDIT:Uh no... I was too quick to praise Apple. They've now said that it was a mistake on their shop site... free stuff from Apple. Don't be silly!

Windows 7 Phone? Succeed or Fail?

The Windows 7 Phone is on it's way to the wild and it's raising a really interesting question - will Microsoft succeed or fail with it? There are two perspectives on it - one from the tech geek and one from the every day Joe Bloggs user.

Honestly I think that MS have gone down the correct path with this device. It has an extremely smooth and simplified UI. Now this doesn't seem like the ideal solution for us. We can't hack it, mod it, change it to be individual. But this was the beauty of the Apple OS. It was clean, basic and ultimately utilitarian. The every day user just wants their phone to work, no faffing, limited set up and instant gratification.

Microsoft have something of a 'Tech stigma' bought about by years of dealing with mediocre products and half assed approaches to support and updates. Even among the techy, MS have somewhat redeemed their image with Windows 7 - which I personally believe is the superior desktop OS out there - even more so (dare I say it) than OSX. MS have the advantage now of seeing who the market leaders are, what their devices are capable of and ultimately what the end user wants. Undeniably the iPhone has been the final word with smart phones in the past 3-4 years especially when it comes to UI and hardware design. It is stunningly simple and, up until the OS 4.0 roll out which broke anything below the 3Gs) slick as you like!

Android has been the result of a backlash against Apples aggressive and money-centric marketing strategy. 'Everyone wants Apple product so we'll screw them for every bit of cash we can and whilst we're at it we'll take the service providers as well'. Basically if you treat someone like crap for long enough then eventually they'll wake up to it and look somewhere else. Google with the Android OS has provided this outlet. Lets be honest about the Android operating system. It works, on the right hardware it's actually pretty slick. In it's basic form it's not terribly pretty and again, if we're being honest, this is where Google excels - they take and idea and get it out there as quickly as possible in a working and usable form. Design gurus they are not. It has been left with the likes of HTC to work on the GUI and make it attractive and far more functional. There have been other iterations out there not the least being Sony Ericssons X10 - but as we all well know the more these things are modified the slower they are to be updated.

So I believe that Microsoft could actually be onto something with the Windows 7 Phone. It is designed to appeal to the average joe user that 'just wants it to work'.

This brings me to where I think it could fail. Microsoft's strong points have never been making something funky or design-centric unless you take the XBOX into account (however I think that XBOX is a brand solely aimed at a youth market). For them it has always been the enterprise potential of their products and this is reflected in their earnings. The vast percentage of Microsofts profits come from it's desktop and server side operating systems and tools. Their one major entertainment success has been in XBOX and that largely has been down to having the right 3rd party developers on-board and some cunning price points on the console.

So clearly MS has the Enterprise side of things down pat, but every recent foray into the mobile entertainment market has been met with at best indifference and at worst scorn. Zune - failed, Windows Mobile (outside of enterprise) - failed with a current 5% market share, Kin smart phones - failed, tablet PCs - failed, Web-TV - failed, MSN Music - Failed. The problem with the majority of these things is that there was a better and more functional offering out there. Whether it was Tivo, iPod, iPhone and more recently the iPad, there has always been something more desirable and ultimately more functional for the every day user. Where this could fail is not in that it's a Microsoft product, not that the operating system is lacking, and not in the pricing but in it's desirability. When presented with a selection of phone and mobile operating systems, will the average joe go for a stock looking touch phone with a slightly flashy OS? That's the hard question with an even harder answer in my opinion. The possible saving grace? Android has proven that people are ready for something different and the risk to Android? Windows 7 Phone may just be that bit more polished, that little more pretty and have the right element of 'it just works'.

Holy Android Flash Batman!

Quoted from Apple... "I've got that sinking feeling" (ok I'm joking but the following is a massive kick in the teeth for the iPhone)

Source: InternetNews.com

Google has a new ally in its battle for smartphone dominance: Adobe.

The companies today revealed that that Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) has made its Flash technology compatible with the Android smartphone operating system developed by the Google-backed Open Handset Alliance. As a result, the enhancement may give devices like T-Mobile's G1 smartphone and other Android-based phones access to a key feature that's lacking from the industry's darling, the Apple iPhone.

Andy Rubin, Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) director of mobile platforms, and Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch announced the effort today at Adobe MAX, the company's developer conference. The two presented a demo of Flash 10 running on a G1, which is manufactured by HTC.

Other than a price drop on the mobile contracts to get the G1 adding the option of adding Flash to Android (including the G1) is going to get these handsets moving out the door quickly.

There is quite a bit of argument as to who is competing against who. Is Googles Android in competition with the Apple iPhone or are they in competition with the likes of Symbian and Windows Mobile (Microsoft).

To answer the question I think we need to look at why we are differentiating Apples iPhone from other smart phones. In my opinion the reason is that when the handset first was presented to the public is was not as the classic 'smart phone', such as the Blackberry and the MDA Vario, but as an everyday device for everyone that happened to have a very slick UI (user interface) and an extraordinary web browsing experience. Since the 2.0 OS update on the iPhone Apple have been working to change this and have integrated a massive list of enterprise capability such as push email and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and I believe that we should no longer be differentiating the iPhone from Windows Mobile or Symbian Devices.

Currently in these early days of Android it is in the same place that the iPhone was at initial release. It has no enterprise application but it holds the potential and as such it's difficult to make a 'smartphone' comparison with Windows Mobile and Symbian devices but easier against the iPhone as the majority of its users are everyday consumers.

Of course there will never be a case of Google holding their hands up and saying "yep we're directly competing against Apple on this one" for two reasons. The first is simply that they are attempting to change the mobile device landscape (no specific target) with a very different and open minded approach to development and the second is that Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google) is on Apples board of directors.

The addition of flash is a fairly major differentiation against the iPhone as Apples current Terms of Agreement for developers expressly forbids the use of Flash type technology on the iPhone hardware.

Source: WIRED Mag

"An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise," reads clause 3.3.2 of the iPhone SDK agreement, which was recently published on WikiLeaks. "No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."

This can be fairly quickly changed but I don't see this happening any time soon, more likely Apple will develop a type of secure 'Flash player' to enable the use of specific websites and apps. Whether this will eventuate or whether it will be the best solution only time will tell. As for the other breeds of smartphones out there I think we will see them following suit sooner rather than later.

T-mobile G1 – The first of the Google Android Phones. Part 4

Web Browsing

My experiences with mobile web browsing have come in several forms, the obligatory laptop, the stripped down mobile and the seriously slick iPod Touch/iPhone. Of all of them so far my favorite has to be Apples implementation. It's simple, fast and instantly intuitive. In my personal opinion this is the standard that Android and the G1 was competing with. Has it succeeded? Lets take a look.

The first thing you notice is that the web pages are generally presented in the manner that you expect from PC browsing or from the iPhone browser with the exceptions of sites that offer a stripped down version like Google.co.uk


Hitting the menu button will open the browser options. Go to URL, Search, Bookmarks, Window, Refresh and under More: Close Page, Forward, History, Downloads, Page Info, Bookmark Page, Share Page, Zoom and Settings.

Under Settings there are a myriad of options including popup blocking, Turn off image loading, Enable/Disable Javascrip, Open new windows in the background and the ones you come to expect from a browser like cookie management and cache clearing.


As with the Apple browser you navigate around the page by dragging a finger. When you interact with the screen the Zoom buttons automatically come up and clicking on them will produce the expected result. It's this function that I find a little clumsy when compared to the multi touch of the Apple devices and after having used them I still find myself pining a little for the naturally intuitive fingers out, fingers in process of zooming.

There is a second way of working your way around a web page and that is by clicking on the cross arrows in the bottom right of the screen. This maximizes the web page so that you can see almost all of it and provides you with a magnifying square which can be dragged around the page and then released when you are satisfied that this is what you want to view.


The Android browser also has a version of tabbed browsing that is accessed via the Window option. This opens a screen that displays the pages that you currently have open.


When the phone is flipped onto it's side and opened it will give you the option to add another page. I think since the last update There is now the same option when the orientation is vertical.

You can change the orientation of the browser without opening the phone by going into the Menu then the More submenu and selecting 'Flip Orientation'. This is a clumsy and counter intuitive method of using the browser interface especially considering that the phone has a fully functional accelerometer. Hopefully this will be addressed in later OS updates.

The browser has some great functionality however it does need some streamlining. The G1 touchscreen interface does lend itself to a fairly pleasant browsing experience as does the keyboard. Small things like the screen orientation responding to the accelerometer and perhaps a different way of zooming the screen would make the experience a little more intuitive.

T-mobile G1 – The first of the Google Android Phones. Part 3

I'll start off first with the basic Android phone functionality.

The phones interface is predominantly touch screen with any text input or search functions using the keyboard. There are two ways to select an option or 'click' that is a short click or a long click. The long click either allows you to move an icon for repositioning or brings up a contextual menu. Long clicking on the Home screen backdrop opens up a menu with the options to add an application, shortcut, widget or to change your wallpaper.

As I mentioned in Part 2 sliding the screen open re-orients the screen sideways. This is fairly logical but I have found many times that I would like to have been able to tilt the phone without opening the keyboard. The G1 hardware has the full gamut of accelerometers the same as the Apple iPod and as such this functionality may well be enabled in a later update.

Making a phone call.

The phone has four different menus in the calling option. The first is the dialer that can be accessed directly via the icon on the home page or indirectly by using the keyboard to start typing in a name of the contact you wish to dial.

The second is a historical method using the call log which works in the expected manner. The Third is via the Contacts list and the fourth through the favorites list.

The first of my gripes with the calling system is an inability to assign fast dials to the numbers. Holding down the 1 button will fast dial your voicemail so clearly the capability is there however at this early stage there is no facility for assigning your contacts to a number. Developers have created a nice little app called Anycut that among other things allows you to place fast dials onto your Home screen but it would be nice if there wasn't the need for a work around.

The Contacts list is in my opinion fairly well constructed. You can drag up and down to browse through the list of names, if you need to move a bit more rapidly you can use a tab on the right hand side that then displays the alpha fields as you move through them.

Clicking on a contact will then take you into the contact details and from there you can choose to Call them by either clicking on the phone number listed or hitting the dial button. From the same screen you can call any alternative numbers, email, SMS or see their online status of things like Google Talk, MSN or Yahoo Chat.

Long clicking on a contact (i.e. hold your finger on it) will bring up a menu giving you similar options as are available by clicking in but also allows you to delete them and add them to your favorites list. This is another issue that I have with the first version of this software, if you add a contact to your favorites list they are no longer in your normal contacts list. I find this frustrating as really you end up using one or the other - you shouldn't have to search through both.

The call quality on the G1 is excellent as is the reception of the handset and I'm hoping that the open nature of Android will lend itself to applications like Skype being added as it's permanently connected to the Internet.

SMS is also very straight forward and is as simple as either hitting reply to a message or going into your contacts and selecting SMS. The keyboard makes the whole process fairly painless.

Calendar

The calendar that comes with the phone is surprisingly good especially since I use the Google Calendar as does my fiancé. It automatically synchronises with both mine and hers and gives me a very good visual breakdown of busy times and daily events across the top. Creating a new appointment is as simple as holding your finger down on the day and time you wish to use and it then asks you if you'd like to add a new event, full day appointment or if you would like to view your full day/week/month agenda.

E-mail

Android comes with two packaged e-mail clients. One is the expected Gmail client and this works seamlessly with your online account. The front end is exactly the same as the one that you may have seen on the Apple iPhone, simple and intuitive. Having he G1s slide out keyboard and trackball make editing a pleasure.




The second is a generic client that you can add any online account details to and it will then integrate it into your phones alerts and functionality. I personally don't have any use for this as I use Gmail almost exclusively but for those with MSN Mail, Yahoo or another 3rd party mail shouldn't have any problems will adding this to your phone as long as there is POP3 or IMAP access. The phone will recognise which one you have set as your primary account and all e-mails will be sent from this address. You can set up as many accounts on the phone as you like. As for Enterprise access I don't believe there is sufficient security on the phone itself for this use. Again I imagine this is something that would be addressed at a later stage and as Google are aiming for their products to be used in an Enterprise situation it's not beyond the realms of possibility.

In Part 4 I will go over the Web Browser

T-Mobile G1 - The first of the Google Android Phones. Part 2

After being left disappointed by the hardware of the G1 we get onto the really interesting part; the Android OS.

So what is Google Android?

Quoted from Wikipedia: Android is a software platform and operating system for mobile devices, based on the Linux kernel, developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance.^[2]managed code in the Java language, controlling the phone via Google-developed Java libraries,^[3]. Applications written in C and other languages can be compiled to ARM native code and run, but this development path isn't officially supported by Google.

The intention of Google Android is to produce an open source operating system that is able to be installed on any mobile hardware and subsequently be developed for by anyone using the free developers kit from Google. There are some fairly obvious restrictions that have been put in place when it comes to what the developers can access. Specifically the end users personal data and contacts. From the Android Docs:

Security Architecture

A central design point of the Android security architecture is that no application, by default, has permission to perform any operations that would adversely impact other applications, the operating system, or the user. This includes reading or writing the user's private data (such as contacts or e-mails), reading or writing another application's files, performing network access, keeping the device awake, etc.

An application's process is a secure sandbox. It can't disrupt other applications, except by explicitly declaring the permissions it needs for additional capabilities not provided by the basic sandbox. These permissions it requests can be handled by the operating in various ways, typically by automatically allowing or disallowing based on certificates or by prompting the user. The permissions required by an application are declared statically in that application, so they can be known up-front at install time and will not change after that.

This is the core to many peoples misgivings for the OS and hopefully their intention holds in the end product. We have already seen that the initial release has a major security hole in that it executes every typed command as Super User meaning that with a couple of key presses any user can inadvertently brick their phone. Not the best way to endear peoples trust in you looking after your personal data.

All the technical information aside lets get down to the T-Mobile G1 implementation of Android.
When you turn the phone on you are presented with the expected G1/T-Mobile splash screen and then a nice little pulsing Android Logo. After that you're presented with a locked status screen.

When you press the MENU button you are presented with one of the first cool innovations on the G1. Instead of a numeric or password based security lock Android uses a user defined pattern that you then repeat to unlock the phone. The share number of variations of the patterns is pretty mind boggling. After 5 attempts it starts giving you time outs before finally requiring you to enter a PUK code to unlock the phone. I'm not looking forward to my first drunken night out trying to unlock this sucker!

We're in! The front screen is actually one of three panels that can be accessed by a sideways sweep of a finger. Each screen can be customised with folders, widgets and shortcuts to anything from fast dials to web pages and applications. These can be organised by holding your finger down on the icons or widget and dragging them around or down to the tab at the bottom of the screen which becomes a rubbish bin. The wallpapers extend across the three panels rather than repeat which makes the wallpapers of a higher resolution than the phones 320x480 to 640x480.

There are two 'blinds' on the home screen. Across the top there is a notification blind that displays any conversations, text messages, emails and download/install status for any apps that you install from the Market. This is accessed by dragging the panel down with a finger.

On the bottom there is the Application Blind that is pulled up in the same manner as the Notification Blind. It can also be extended by tapping on the tab. This tab contains all applications including any that you have installed. They are organised in an alphabetical manner and once you have installed a few apps this becomes quite cluttered. I think that in future versions of the OS they should think about being able to change the organisation of this blind to allow defining of folders and/or arranging by relevance or use. The icons are a bit small and do not allow for a rapid recognition so you do end up searching a bit. Any of these applications can be dragged up onto the home screens by holding your finger on them, the blind will automatically close, then you can place the icon where you like. When there are more icons than can fit on one page of the blind you can scroll up and down by using a finger and dragging as you would intuitively expect.

When the phone is opened sideways the screen automatically rotates to the side and the Application Blind is accessed by a sideways drag or a tap. I would've expected the contents of the Apps Blind to then be accessed by a side scrolling motion but you still scroll up and down. Personally I find this a little counter intuitive however until someone else uses it to confirm it may well just be me.


I will go into the applications and settings in Part 3.

Back on the Android T-mobile G1

Browsing through the online WIRED magazine I came across an article on the G1 phone and Android - brief but it does echo my initial sentiments on the state of the OS and the hardware.

From: WIRED Magazine
On Android:- "Google's Android OS for the T-Mobile G1 is pretty freaking on-point for a first-gen software release. Sure, it has bugs — web pages don't automatically resize and the zoom feature blows — but it's also remarkably polished, bristling with nifty tricks."

On the HTC G1:- "The keys are useful, but their physical location is a problem that ties into the most noticeable G1 bugaboo: its size. This is a big annoyance for us — nearly a half-inch thick — and its problematic girth is made worse by an annoying button bank."

I would say that T-Mobile have pulled off a pretty solid coup in the mobile world if they can remain the soul provider of Android phones for an extended period of time. Android is an infinitely more applicable OS than the, albeit flashy and well laid out, Apple iPhone has to offer. I have a hacked/Jail Broken iPod touch and I love it however I dislike the feel that I am being pressured into conforming to what Steve Jobs believes my user experience should be. Android comes from the opposite direction and is an 'enabling' OS that allows the user to define their mobile experience. I believe that as it develops Android will only get more applicable and more user oriented. I think Mr Jobs would do well to consider this sooner rather than later.