How Not to Build a Cellphone

Jamie found an NYT story about a new t-mobile Shadow phone which starts off by talking about how Apple is changing the phone game by wrestling power from the carriers, and then discussing what could be a reasonable piece of hardware. And then how it is wrecked by software. The phone has wait screens, a task manager, odd error messages etc. Makes for an amusing read.

Comments

everything you need to know:

[yagu]

Everything you need to know starts in paragraph eighteen:

Unfortunately, after they did such a great job designing the hardware, T-Mobile's chief executive and his ex-Apple designer punted on the software. They equipped this phone with Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6. As it turns out, that decision is just as much an impediment to the Shadow's greatness as AT&T exclusivity is to the iPhone.

And, this isn't even Microsoft's fault! It's T-Mobile's CEO who had the hubris to think he could design this thing just like Jobs. Not.

I think the article actually goes a little easy on the critique of the hardware. I doesn't break any ground. It has too many or too few buttons. The middle ground they took with the Blackberry licensed keyboard was just plain wrong. This phone is just a mess. Apple kinda pulled this feat off, designing a do-everything phone (I kinda disagree, btw), and now everybody else thinks they can do it too. They even think it's the right thing to do (it's not).

But, what were they thinking going with MS Mobile? Wth? Sheeesh... it even comes with a Task Monitor? Yeah, I'm gonna help my Dad with his new phone... "Bring up the Task Monitor... now click on the Processes tab. Now click on the CPU column twice. What's eating up the most CPU? ... That's the central processing unit.... ummm... Okay, now highlight the one eating up all the CPU and click the "End Process" button.... " Not.

Another place the article "gets it wrong" trying to be kind in his critique:

Now, there are certainly advantages to having Microsoft inside your phone. For example, this phone can open and edit (but not create) Microsoft Office documents.

Wrong! That's not an advantage, that's insane. At least, I can't remember the last time I was looking at my cellphone thinking, "Damn, I wish right now I could open up a Word document!", not even if one was attached to an e-mail.

I'm still waiting for the phone that sounds and works like a phone.

Bit of trivia, speaking of phones... Know what the little graphic on the Sprint logo stands for? Didn't think so. It represents a stop-motion pin dropping. Remember when Sprint's commercials were about phone call sound quality and how it was so good you could hear a pin drop? Didn't think so. Please, oh, please, let me hear the pin drop again!

Re:everything you need to know:

[Fluffy Bunnies]

Wrong! That's not an advantage, that's insane. At least, I can't remember the last time I was looking at my cellphone thinking, "Damn, I wish right now I could open up a Word document!", not even if one was attached to an e-mail.

I wrote parts of my BA thesis (including the whole conclusion) on a Nokia N95 (with a portable bluetooth keyboard). So, what TFA article said is wrong, not because it's insane to edit .docs on a cellphone, but because it implies you need a Microsoft OS for that. There are times when you need to write stuff on the go, and I don't have a suitable laptop for that.

Re:everything you need to know:

[ToasterMonkey]

For example, this phone can open and edit (but not create) Microsoft Office documents. Wrong! That's not an advantage, that's insane. At least, I can't remember the last time I was looking at my cellphone thinking, "Damn, I wish right now I could open up a Word document!", not even if one was attached to an e-mail. I sort of agree with you. Editing office docs on a phone is just bad for your blood pressure. Opening them on the other hand is sometimes a necessary evil. If you have a company issued smartphone, the reasoning is that you'll be able to more promptly answer emails. Quite often, I've gotten "Take a look at this, tell me what you think. (X.doc, Y.xls attached) emails, and every now and then it's time sensitive and I'm not at a PC. I'm not sure I can picture a scenario where I'd need to edit (but not create!?) an office file on my phone. It's just an unreasonable expectation for someone outside the office to unexpectedly receive, edit and return an office document. View it, write back an email saying "Correct X, Y, and Z."

I could see mobile spreadsheets being useful somewhat. I mean "mobile spreadsheet" too, not a PC spreadsheet crammed into a phone. Taking a document designed for printing and/or viewing on a PC and squeezing it into a 2-3" phone with a micro sized input device breaks the whole WYSIWYG philosophy that modern office software is based upon.

There is no need for palm sized word processing, unless your country's standard business letter is about half the size of a US postcard. Spreadsheets are versatile enough to be useful, but not being able to create them (you're forced to view PC designed spreadsheets??) doesn't really give you mobile-spreadsheet capabilities.

Yaaargh, Microsoft's mobile "PC" platform is so backwards. Taking concepts that don't even make sense on desktops anymore and ruining phones with them too.

Re:everything you need to know:

[tftp]

Of course you could have made yourself a favor and bought a cheap second hand laptop (or a new desktop even) for a couple hundred dollars. A thesis sounds like a project where you'd want proper tools before you start. Doing the work on a PDA-sized phone is not reasonable.

Re:everything you need to know:

[m2943]

And, this isn't even Microsoft's fault!

According to the article, it is:

Unfortunately, after they did such a great job designing the hardware, T-Mobile's chief executive and his ex-Apple designer punted on the software. They equipped this phone with Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6. As it turns out, that decision is just as much an impediment to the Shadow's greatness as AT&T exclusivity is to the iPhone.

(The 20 key hardware is the same used by Blackberry and Sony, by the way, and generally works pretty well... certainly a lot better than T9.)

But, what were they thinking going with MS Mobile?

For the US market, what choice did they have? Apple, PalmOS, and Blackberry can't be licensed, Symbian is likely expensive and nearly as messy as Windows Mobile. And they didn't have the time and resources to do their own Linux-based system. So, for a smartphone like that, Windows Mobile is the obvious choice for companies like HTC and T-Mobile right now. You can't fault them for that.

With Android, of course, they do... let's hope that T-Mobile is smart and makes that choice. HTC (the maker of the Shadow) is already on board with Android...

Re:everything you need to know:

[TheRaven64]

I wrote a couple of articles this summer sitting on a bench in the park with my Nokia 770 and a ThinkOutside bluetooth keyboard[1]. Sure, I could have taken my MacBook Pro, but it doesn't fit in my pocket, and is massively overpowered for running Vim (EMACS, on the other hand, would probably struggle...)

I didn't write my thesis on the device, although I did write parts of a couple of papers. It's great for killing dead time. I can get some work done in the pub while waiting for other people to arrive, which gives me more time for being sociable.

[1] One of the few devices I've used recently which are truly beautifully engineered.

Re:everything you need to know:

[arivanov]

Neither.

It is a HTC phone. This says it all.

Regardless what they are given as requirements they will produce garbageware. It took 1 year and nearly 200 minor revisions of the O2 XDA code load for it to stop crashing. Even after that it was a piece of garbageware. Their recent Blackberry ripoff (Escalibur) when released crashed left right and center several times a day just by being connected to the network. And so on.

None the less, they continue to produce phones for operators for a simple reason - They do exactly what the operator tells them as far as look and feel. It is a classic case of outsourcing in its worst form - a company which will respond to any query with "yes". From there on its actual product quality does not matter.

Re:everything you need to know:

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Wrong! That's not an advantage, that's insane. At least, I can't remember the last time I was looking at my cellphone thinking, "Damn, I wish right now I could open up a Word document!", not even if one was attached to an e-mail.

Dude, that's sarcasm.

Re:everything you need to know:

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you dense? Try using a sheet of paper and a pencil.

Re:everything you need to know:

[MythMoth]

I'm still waiting for the phone that sounds and works like a phone.

Will this do?

Re:everything you need to know:

[gad_zuki!]

The task monitor in wm just shows you what apps are running. Theres no image names or cpu meters. Its actually pretty handy.

Dunno, everyone here is so in love with the iphone it makes me wonder if they have ever used wm before. I have a treo700wx that is a like the mcgyver of phones. evdo, nice browser, plays youtube videos, does skype for internation calling over EVDO, etc. The last two wouldnt exist if MS took the the "lock it down" Apple approach. I bought this 700wx used for 200 dollars ftw.

Oh well, while the peanut gallery writhes in more MS bashing and are saving up their pennies for an overpriced completely closed anti-DIY phone, Ive got my treo.

I cant speak about this thing from t-mobile, but a good wm implementation is a nice thing. Then again this is slashdot. DIE BILL GATES SPAWN.. There that should count for a +1 informative.

Re:everything you need to know:

[edxwelch]

> what choice did they have?
Umm, openMoko, Symbian, Linux?
You discount Symbian and Linux so quickly.
While Symbian isn't great, it's not as bad as MS mobile (you don't get those riduclous error messages and unnecesary confirmation prompts for instance.)
As regards price, if you don't spend on software then the software on your phone is going to suck. That's all what the artical is about... the software sucks because they didn't want to spend money or effort on it

Re:everything you need to know:

[DMoylan]

> Symbian is likely expensive

have to object to that.

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/6203_204_million_Symbian_OS_handset.php

The average royalty per handset is now $4.80 (down from $5.20 last year following license fee reduction doesn't sound that expensive.

> nearly as messy

now this is personal opinion but you couldn't pay me to use windows mobile. i've seen every iteration in devices my boss buys and they all have problems that make them completely unusable. battery life, crashes, sync problems.

while symbian could be improved i have no problems using it every day since a nokia 3650 -> nokia n70 -> e61 -> e61i. the current phone e61i is used every day to

* take screenshots when away from my desk to look up errors when i get a chance.
* take pictures of a4 documents so i no longer need to locate a working photocopier for personal records.
* working on long emails that i get 2-3 times a year from a correspondent. 200k+ documents been worked on when on the bus amongst others.
* gmail application allows me to check email with or without wifi. bloody fantastic! i could get push email but i find the concept as annoying as sms.
* video spectacular crashes so that i can email them to the supplier who claims that what i'm reporting is impossible.
* notepad been used for every password username that comes my way. personal code used to encrypt the information before somebody points out that the builtin has none. mind you i know a symbian user who added a python wiki to his phone with encryption so could use that in the future if i really wanted.
* qreader for reading ebooks.
* web browser for when i need to check stuff out and about. i'm on a pay as you go contract so have to pay for every byte but sometimes a few k from google will give all the answers.
* spreadsheets for personal accounts.
* nokia maps for navigation
* still trying to learn python on the little bugger. i'll get there. i'll get there.
* planning on helping http://www.openstreetmap.org/ map out dublin by linking on a bt gps. will have to see how that goes.
* plugs in as a usb device to a pc or mac so have used it as a thumb drive when necessary.

for me the killer app is taking notes. was at a software conference at the start of the year. loads of people taking notes on laptops over 3 days. and hunting for power supplies at the end of every talk. the e61 (was before the e61i) was slower to type on but the battery lasted the 3 days with top ups from a battery powered charger at night. much more convenient.

if it were that messy i could get none of the above done. it does depend on what you use your phone for though.

Re:everything you need to know:

[Anonymous Coward]

The last two wouldnt exist if MS took the the "lock it down" Apple approach. It's only "locked down" because the SDK isn't released yet. God damn, you're a tool.

Keep your Treo, a "good WM implementation" will always be a horrible phone.

--
Thank you for thinking before posting.

Re:everything you need to know:

[ozmanjusri]

a good wm implementation is a nice thing

So are most imaginary things.

Re:everything you need to know:

[m2943]

While Symbian isn't great, it's not as bad as MS mobile [...] As regards price, if you don't spend on software then the software on your phone is going to suck

You and I may have that opinion, but the fact is that the US market is largely split between Windows Mobile, Palm, Blackberry, and iPhone. US consumers seem to go for smart phones that suck, so it's low risk to ship another one with one of those OSes. And the only one T-Mobile can license is Windows Mobile.

Umm, openMoko, Symbian, Linux? You discount Symbian and Linux so quickly. While Symbian isn't great, it's not as bad as MS mobile

While we may share the opinion that these are better systems than Windows Mobile, where is the actual evidence? If T-Mobile were going to pick one of those, they'd have had to spend a lot of money on marketing, software development, and support in the US market.

Motorola, of course, is shipping a lot of Linux handsets, but notice that they haven't even started building a developer community around it; they are using Linux for dumb phones right now.

Android is hopefully changing all that and making Linux a much easier choice: both the buzz and the design of Android help with marketing and building a developer community.

Re:everything you need to know:

[m2943]

while symbian could be improved i have no problems using it every day since a nokia 3650 -> nokia n70 -> e61 -> e61i. the current phone e61i is used every day to

Yes, Nokia makes good hardware and passable software. However, Nokia has a decade of experience building, customizing, shipping, and supporting Symbian phones; T-Mobile has none, but they do have a lot of experience with Windows Mobile.

T-Mobile isn't thinking about this as making the best phone, they are thinking about this as making a better phone for the Windows Mobile market segment, which is probably a big money maker for them already, and from that point of view, they made a reasonable choice.

Re:everything you need to know:

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a good article that counterpoints Pogue's review. http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=679
It questions some of Pogue's experiences.

Re:everything you need to know:

[Fluffy Bunnies]

I already have a decent laptop that I wrote most of the thesis on (and had to use to edit the formatting on the parts I wrote on the phone). It's heavy as hell and has a battery life of roughly half an hour, so it's not much good for working while commuting, between/during classes, at the library, etc. Something like the Eee PC might work for that, but it's still not available where I live, and I don't see how it would be significantly better than my N95/BT keyboard combo (for my purposes).

Re:everything you need to know:

[Jesus_666]

I'm still waiting for the phone that sounds and works like a phone.

Nokia 1110i? Seriously, if they put Bluetooth in there the 1110i would be the perfect device for people who want nothing but a mobile telephone with SMS functionality. Unfortunately, the Bluetooth option would probably cost more than the entire 1110i.

Re:everything you need to know:

[engwar]

Um, saying "NOT" at the end of a sentence was funny for about a month somewhere around 1992.

Time to drop it.

Re:everything you need to know:

[edxwelch]

The Marketing cost does not have anything to do with the OS behind the phone - the user will not even know what the OS is.

Re:everything you need to know:

[MMInterface]

Wrong! That's not an advantage, that's insane. At least, I can't remember the last time I was looking at my cellphone thinking, "Damn, I wish right now I could open up a Word document!", not even if one was attached to an e-mail.

Its an advantage for people who use that feature. Obviously you aren't one of those people but to make a blanket statement like that almost amounts to saying that your habits and preferences are everyone elses. Yes I do use the feature and I appreciate it because it keeps me from having to carry a laptop at all times, especially on the train. Its especially good when your trying to look busy. Where I live people put a lot of effort into pretending to look busy when they aren't. Reading old text messages and pretend you just got them gets boring after a while.

Re:everything you need to know:

[Anonymous Coward]

People who buy smart phones pay a lot of attention to the platform. Selling a Symbian phone in the US is hard, and T-Mobile has no experience with it.

No Design Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

"A locking feature, which prevents the buttons from being pushed accidentally in a purse or pocket, is nice. But it should be optional. And one button press should suffice to unlock it; two in sequence is just annoying."

I was actually taking this article to heart until I read this paragraph, then I realised the author has probably never had any real mobile OS design experience. There are a lot of things wrong with WM6, but I'd like to see an article written by someone with a little more consideration for mobile design necessities.

Re:No Design Experience

[caffeinemessiah]

then I realised the author has probably never had any real mobile OS design experience.

You don't need mobile OS design experience to figure out that a phone has a terrible user interface. While I agree that his comment on a two-button unlock sequence is uncalled for (why have a lock function that unlocks with a single, accidental keypress?), but other than that I think all his gripes are perfectly justified because they deal with the end-user experience.

Re:No Design Experience

[badasscat]

What "necessity" is there to require two button presses? This sounds like pre-iPhone thinking. Not that I'm a huge fan of the iPhone, but one thing it has done is forced people to rethink both what's practical and what's "necessary" in a phone.

I had a Siemens candy-bar style phone about 5 years ago that only required one button press to unlock. I mention that it was a candy bar because that means its buttons were unprotected, and I walked around with it in my pocket. Never once did I unlock it by mistake. All it takes is a combination of the right resistance on the buttons and requiring a certain length of a button press (1-2 seconds) in order to successfully unlock it.

People have a tendency to get tunnel vision, and to get locked in to a certain way of thinking (no pun intended) just because "that's the way it's done". This is probably why, after 5 earlier iterations, Windows Mobile still requires going into a menu to hit "delete" on a text message. The one thing I will give Steve Jobs credit for is looking at things like this and saying "why does it have to be done this way?" If there's no good answer, he throws everything out and starts over.

That kind of questioning needs to be done at every level of every single product design. You can't just continuously carry things over from iteration to iteration without any justification as to why.

Re:No Design Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

Well my experience with one-key keylockis pretty bad. Often they are "press this button for a lenght of time". But that did not only my thumb but also my doorkeys in the pocket with the mobile. ...and do not get me started on when the mobile was a bit worn and it sometimes had problems thinking I had held the button for the appropriate time. But then again if you can buy a new mobile every year then that is not an issue.

Try SonyEricssons or Nokias solution to the lock/unlocking of the keys and you will soon understand why it is superior. Things are not necessary more complicated becouse they require one more button push (I still think my mother has not find out how to lock/unlock her Siemens cordless home phone, but her SonyEricsson mobile was never a problem).

Re:No Design Experience

[DingerX]

Yes, I had a siemens candy-bar phone with a one-press unlock. In the eight months it lasted before its power circuit broke, I recall numerous instances of arriving at work (after walking for 30 minutes) to find the boss expecting me, as he'd already been talking to my pants.

Steve Jobs didn't do diddly here. The basic design principle is: If you have a mechanical sliding lock, cool. Otherwise, you have to use buttons, and if you use buttons, use more than one. Because a "phone lock" that regularly unlocks in a situation where uncommanded forces are applied to the keyboard is no lock, but a nuisance.

Re:No Design Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

While I agree that his comment on a two-button unlock sequence is uncalled for (why have a lock function that unlocks with a single, accidental keypress?), Uhh.... maybe the device could unlock when the keyboard is slid out?

Re:No Design Experience

[jandrese]

Two button presses have a very good reason for existing. A single button is not sufficient when you're trying to protect against accidental presses. Even if you don't have a problem with it personally it is a problem. Making the buttons difficult to press is a terrible solution too, since it means wearing your fingers out to solve the accidental press problem.

Personally, I find the two button press option to be a pretty good solution in the case where your only controls are buttons. The op mentions how Apple came up with a new method to solve it, but apparently fails to realize that Apple was forced to come up with something like that on account of having only a single button on the phone. Frankly, the button press and finger motion on the iPhone seems like more effort than the two button press the op is complaining about. The article's author is dead wrong about two button presses being too many however, but I agree with him on pretty much all of his other points.

Re:No Design Experience

[TheRaven64]

My last phone had the single-button unlock thing. Great, until I heard a noise coming from my pocket and discovered that it had unlocked itself and dialled 999 (that's 911 for any Americans). I was very glad my next phone required two button presses to unlock.

Re:No Design Experience

[funkatron]

I'm not sure if there's a law about it or something but every phone I've had lets you call 999 without unlocking it. I think the idea is that you don't have to mess with the phone too much when you need it.

Re:No Design Experience

[phoenix_rizzen]

My original cell phone, a Panasonic TX-220, had a single-keypress lock function. However, it required holding down the lock key for 2 seconds to enable or disable (with an auto-enable after 10 seconds feature). Never had it accidentally lock or unlock on me, and I found it to be a lot more usable than the "top-left button, then bottom-left button" process to un/lock my current phone.

Don't dismiss a single-key lock process because you can't think of a way to make it work. :) It's been done before, it's been done well, and lots of us really miss it.

Re:No Design Experience

[Ardeaem]

I was actually taking this article to heart until I read this paragraph, then I realised the author has probably never had any real mobile OS design experience. There are a lot of things wrong with WM6, but I'd like to see an article written by someone with a little more consideration for mobile design necessities. Your post says everything that is wrong with modern interface design. Designers should design things to be used by people without design experience. If you need design experience to evaluate a product, you haven't designed the interface right. The ultimate (and only) judge of a good interface is whether the target audience finds it a successful interface. The target audience is rarely people with mobile interface design.

Re:No Design Experience

[dfghjk]

"Windows Mobile still requires going into a menu to hit "delete" on a text message. The one thing I will give Steve Jobs credit for is looking at things like this and saying "why does it have to be done this way?""

Yeah, Steve's solution was to not allow the deleting of text messages at all.

Re:No Design Experience

[Tony Hoyle]

iphone won't... so there's clearly no law.

Re:No Design Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

"I mention that it was a candy bar because that means its buttons were unprotected, and I walked around with it in my pocket. Never once did I unlock it by mistake."

Ok, this is slashdot and all which may explain the obvious idiocy of the above statement - namely half the human race does not walk around with stuff in their pockets. They use purses. They are called Women ;)

Re:No Design Experience

[Tony Hoyle]

Pity apple didn't follow through on this... the SMS app is a trainwreck.

Open SMS app. Greeted with a *blank screen* with a button on the top left marked 'edit' (edit what? why is this button even there let alone enabled?), and a strange modified square thing in the top right, that may or may not be some kind of logo.

I've given the iphone to people to see if they worked it out. They didn't. Even took me a day or two to get used to it. Still not sure WTF the square thing is supposed to really mean (other than 'New message' but why didn't they just say that?)

Re:No Design Experience

[ozmanjusri]

My Sony-Ericsson M600i has a single-key unlock which works the same way. It's a non-protruding button on the side, and has never woken up while in my pocket, unlike some of my two-button-push WinCE phones. Of course, they'd often switch on randomly anyway, but that's another story.

Re:No Design Experience

[Yer Mum]

It has to be done that way because if you have a phone with a one-button unlock floating around in a handbag it can unlock. It can even happen with a two-button unlock which is why Nokias allow an auto-relock after a certain amount of inactive time (e.g. a minute).

I assume Nokia's product design team have done this questioning (pockets vs handbags) which is why the auto-relock feature appeared about five years ago and hasn't disappeared since.

In the same vein

[mike260]

Joel Spolsky does an entertaining job of ripping another phone with poorly-designed software to pieces here.

Re:In the same vein

[Reaperducer]

I just read that, and everyone else should, too. It sums up the last five years of cell phone technology frustrations and why it was so easy for Apple to eat everyone else's lunch.

As I stated elsewhere, people shouldn't be mad at Apple for the iPhone. They should be mad at Nokia, Ericsson, and Motorola for feeding us such crap all these years. With 30+ years of experience, it shouldn't have been so easy for Apple's phone to be so much better.

Re:In the same vein

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be mad at the cell phone manufacturers. If you look at the phones available in Europe and Japan you'll realize that the cell phone manufacturers are completely capable of making great, functional cell phones.

The problem is that the US cell phone carriers refuse to allow them to sell them with those features here. Why? Because they'd rather charge extra and force all the features to be unlocked, on at a time, for $4/month.

Want to play music? That's $6/month on Sprint, according to that article. Watch movies on the phone? $5/month.

Access to GPS maps? I think I remember seeing a Sprint ad that listed that for $4/month.

Want e-mail? $10/month.

Want text messages? $10/month for the first 100, plus $0.15/message for each one sent or received past that.

If you've ever compared the Windows install users get through big computer companies like Dell and HP with the standard Windows install Microsoft provides you'll see the same thing. The reason cell phones in the US suck is because the carriers force their crapware onto them to try and suck as many fees from their users as they can.

Unfortunately, unlike Windows, you can't uninstall the crapware, you're stuck with it.

Right, "wrestling power"

[Shihar]

...talking about how Apple is changing the phone game by wrestling power from the carriers... Right. Apple has certainly wrestled control away from the carriers. Now, instead of just paying the carrier blood money and selling our soul for two years, we get to pay both Apple AND the carrier... and still sell our soul away for two years. Maybe Nokia can compete with Apple by coming out with a phone where I need to sign a 5 year soul sucking deal with the hell (like AT&T, but more pleasant), have the phone chomp on my balls while it is in my pocket, eat my first born child, and get a direct hookup to my bank account from where it funnels money into everyone's pocket but my own.

Come on Google, buy the damn spectrum, open it up, and lets say fuck you to the ass pounding consumers are getting in the US cellular market.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[darjen]

Right. Apple has certainly wrestled control away from the carriers. Now, instead of just paying the carrier blood money and selling our soul for two years, we get to pay both Apple AND the carrier...

Haha, that was my exact response to that statement as well. Actually, I think there's a better chance of Nokia ending this madness than anyone. Their N800/N810 holds some great promise. I really wanted to like the N800 but it just wouldn't connect to the wifi at work. It's not exactly a phone, but I will be keeping a close eye on those devices. I would love to use one as a skype phone (and dump AT&T completely) if the wifi connectivity gets better. The N810 really does look like a great product, and it's completely open.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[NMerriam]

Right. Apple has certainly wrestled control away from the carriers. Now, instead of just paying the carrier blood money and selling our soul for two years, we get to pay both Apple AND the carrier... and still sell our soul away for two years.

Apple gained design control over the device, not contractual control. Your contract with the carrier has nothing to do with Apple (except to the degree that Apple could and should just sell the phones unlocked, but that doesn't solve the problems of cell phone contracts).

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[sowth]

If you want to get google involved, you shouldn't ask them to "buy" a buch of spectrum and open it up. You should ask them to bri...oops...I mean "entice" (is that what the telecom companies call it today) the FCC to do their jobs and define standards with which the general public can fairly share the radio as the FCC should. Wasn't that their original stated purpose? I doubt it was to allow communications and entertainment companies to control how the spectrum is use, which more or less seems to be what they are doing today.

If the FCC really was working for the public, wouldn't we have much more bandwidth for WiFi and on freqs which have longer range? Instead of having to share a small band nobody wants where microwave ovens interfere. We got screwed.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[recoiledsnake]

I just can't believe people still take Apple's side on this. The phone is not really open, you can't make your own ringtones from MP3s. You can't see the filesystem. Both of which you can even do with a MS WM phone. All iPhone got is Visual Voicemail from the carrier's side.

I am just going to repost what in a post below.

Lets do the math on Apple "wresting power" from the carriers. Carriers typically discount the phone from the retail unlocked price. For example, a HTC Mogul(a 3G phone with a ton of features) has a retail unlocked price of around $550. Sprint sells it for $300 with a 2 year contract. In fact, many companies deeply discount phones to such an extent that you can get $50 BACK with some phones(check on Amazon or Wirefly). The phone manufacturer makes a fixed profit and moves on.

But what did Apple do with the iPhone? It charges a hefty premium(note how they were able to drop $200 off the phone in just 2 months) and makes a nice profit with the price($400 now or whatever) and then makes about $450 MORE over two years from the $60 a month that AT&T charges the consumer who takes up the 2 yr contract. The user gets a nice phone, visual voicemail etc. in return, at a VERY HIGH premium.

After a ton of iPhone articles and about a hundered +5 insightful comments on Slashdot about how Apple will "change the game" and make it better for consumers, that is the bottomline. This is the real reason why Apple hates unlockers and not just because of exclusivity contract with AT&T. For every unlocker they potentially lose close to $400.

Apple did change the game of carriers ripping off customers and ushered in the golden era of carriers AND phone companies raping consumers. All this right under the noses of otherwise wise and intelligent people who seem to have been taken in by the "RDF.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[Poorcku]

sorry, i got no mod points. But here is an unofficial +1 Insightful from me.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[NMerriam]

I just can't believe people still take Apple's side on this.

Apple side on what? We were talking about them having design authority over the device. Whether or not it's a good deal for you financially or ideologically is completely meaningless to the issue being discussed.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[mr_matticus]

Okay. Here's the honest question then: the iPhone rate plans are priced below what comparable plans were before the launch (and in many cases, what other smartphone plans are even now). $59 a month with unlimited data and the REAL Internet. How are you getting "raped" (and why must everyone use such absurd and vulgar imagery to describe *voluntary* business transactions)?

Frankly, who cares where the money goes? If the price is reasonable for the service (I think cell phone service is a ripoff on the whole, but if you look relatively), what difference does it make whether Apple gets a portion of that in the long term?

If getting more money encourages phone makers to make better phones and it doesn't raise the service price, I'm all for it (it's not like AT&T was going to slash rates but then chose not to because of their deal with Apple). Further, if the phone makers have an incentive to develop new technology and push better hardware, then it helps bring the networks into a position to improve their infrastructure. Look at visual voicemail. We've been waiting years for just that feature. A real web browser on a phone and connectivity everywhere there's service. It's fair to say that both of those are fairly monumental accomplishments in the US cellular market.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[Shihar]

Apple gained design control over the device, not contractual control. Your contract with the carrier has nothing to do with Apple (except to the degree that Apple could and should just sell the phones unlocked, but that doesn't solve the problems of cell phone contracts). Really? So when Apple takes a cut from your monthly fee to the carrier, that isn't contract control? Take your face out of the Kool-Aid bowl for a few seconds to think and breath.

Look, if people want to buy an iPhone and sign a contract to AT&T, and pay a gross amount of money in the deal, more power to them. People buy all sorts of shit that I don't want on a regular basis and I am sure I buy stuff that other people think is stupid. All of that said, don't go on with the silliness that some how Apple is doing the world a favor "wrestling power" from the carriers. If Apple had offered up an open phone and not tied it to carriers, I might have agreed. As it stands though, Apple "wrestling power" from the carriers resulted in a single concession from the carriers; "visual voice mail". Outside of that, Apple's new deal with the carriers just means that the consumer eats a bigger bill and is still stuck with the same lousy contract terms that he has always had. Apple has hardly done the world a favor by "wrestling power" from the carriers.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[Tony Hoyle]

I'd go further than that - Apple have *increased* the hold of the carriers.

In Europe no carrier would have dared release a phone that could not be unlocked, due to the regulations covering it. Apple did.. It's a clear attempt to bring the US style 'shaft me up the arse' mobile phone model to Europe.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[MrCrassic]

Okay. Here's the honest question then: the iPhone rate plans are priced below what comparable plans were before the launch (and in many cases, what other smartphone plans are even now). $59 a month with unlimited data and the REAL Internet. How are you getting "raped" (and why must everyone use such absurd and vulgar imagery to describe *voluntary* business transactions)?

I think this statement is flat-out incorrect. Even on this article (as well as my personal confirmation), it has been stated that T-Mobile offers a perfectly useable $20/month internet plan with EDGE/GPRS and potentially 3G when it gets rolled out sometime this or next year. It even allows tethering, which AT&T charges an extra $10/month on their currently LOWEST internet plan ($44.99/mo). T-Mobile's plan also includes the use of HotSpots at any location, which can be infintely helpful at Starbucks or airports or whatever. FWIW, I appended an UNLIMITED text message bundle and STILL pay less than I did when I was with Cingular (hint: you don't really feel their 3G speeds anyway).

As far as the iPhone is concerned, it's a purely amazing device, but a little too basic for my tastes. With a Treo 750, I can FEEL efficient, whereas with an iPhone, I don't (even though most of its functions have really cute transititons and useability). Not even having Terminal/SSH/whatever can save that.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[mr_matticus]

I think this statement is flat-out incorrect. Even on this article (as well as my personal confirmation), it has been stated that T-Mobile offers a perfectly useable $20/month internet plan with EDGE/GPRS and potentially 3G when it gets rolled out sometime this or next year. Why are you talking about T-Mobile? The iPhone is an AT&T device. The rate plans are better with the iPhone than with the smartphone plans before it, and the features are better too.

You seem to be talking about what's available at other providers, though I'm not sure why. It does go to show, however, that there's no "premium" being charged for Apple's cut. If the customer were getting ripped off, one would think Apple's "blood money" would come from higher, inflated rates. That is not the case, and so GP's post is a baseless rant.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[Anonymous Coward]

Insightful? more like Uninformed!

Sprint's unlimited internet plan for this phone in my area is $40 a month. Apple/ATT unlimited $20 a month (which was negotiated by apple as
a group rate (ATT charges $40 for unlimited internet with another phone). And so over the course of your 2 year sprint contract you will pay an
extra $480 to sprint, to get your deal.

This is how apple is wrestling the power from the carriers. Apple can say to ATT, you will offer $20 dollars a month unlimited internet or were going
to take all the iphones elsewhere. That is how you get a lower rate then ATT usually charges.

Numerical illiterate's, go get this sprint phone. If you know how to add, add up the total numbers. But in the end you are paying more to get a
worse phone that only other numerically illiterate people are going to think is a good deal.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[jsz0]

You can use mp3/aac ringtones on the iPhone. I am doing it right now.

You can see the file system in a variety of ways including good ole LS, a simple file manager called Finder, SFTP, or now you can simply mount the device directly.

As you know, they gave consumers back $100. Not sure why you're quoting the $200 figure as proof of a rip off when I'm sure you know it's not entirely true.

The $60 a month you pay AT&T is very competitive with other carriers. I don't really care what percent goes to Apple.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[Aceticon]

Those of us that are not Slaves to Hype and a Misinformed Sense of Fashion actually find the visions of thousands bending over, taking it hard and saying "Thank you Steve" entertaining and are quietly applauding from the sidelines.

Having personally met (and worked with) one of the most rabid, religious-like, aggressive and illogical Apple fanatics on the face of the planet, i derive a sick pleasure of seeing any and all Apple fan-boys jumping down the cliff like nice little lemmings all the while chanting praises to the Almighty Steve Jobs.

Sorry for that.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple is selling a premium phone. It's ridiculous to try to compare the iphone to the "no-features" phones on which you can get $50 back from the carrier.

Look at Nokia or Sony's phones that have comparable features and memory to the iPhone and you're looking at 800-900+ unlocked. And worst of all, the software is still nowhere near the level of Apple's.

The remarkable part was that Apple was able to get Cingular to change their network to support visual voicemail. They also sold their phone essentially unlocked despite being subsidized. And with a large market share and large balls, they may be able to get the same concessions from other carriers. Imagine iPhone on Verizon, where you can actually send pictures and listen to music without being forced to use Verizon's screwed up "VZWARE" version of all that software.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[Julian352]

I'm not sure where you are getting your internet rate from Sprint, but looking at their website i can see the Vision Pack offered for $15 with the cheapest plan. That means the whole deal with unlimited internet is $35. Pretty long distance from $60 charged by ATT.
Obviously upgrading the Sprint plan to 450 minutes raises the price to about $55, but that also gives you 7pm unlimited nights and weekends. (I couldn't find ATT's time for N&W, but I haven't heard anyone with ATT saying they got early nights)

T-mobile designe something ? Not

[S3D]

It's not designed by T-mobile of cause (if it was sarcasm on the part of TFA, it was too veilded IMO) It was designed by HTC. It is in fact HTC Juno. As the HTC is a part of Google led Open Handset Alliance may be their next phones would fare better.

Re:T-mobile designe something ? Not

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't possible to reflash the Juno with the soon-to-be-released Google software?

Article in a nutshell...

[diesel66]

Windows Mobile 6 == teh sux

This message brought to you by: Article in a Nutshell (TM)

How is this news? It's just WM6.

[Anonymous Coward]

Windows Mobile 6 behaves like... Windows Mobile 6, not OS X. Shocking.

Windows Mobile Classic

[MLopat]

In all fairness, his comments assume that all Windows Mobile 6 editions are created equally which isn't the case. On this phone, we're looking at Windows Mobile Classic, which is a phone only implementation (without touch screen/stylus interface). While I for one don't have the patience (and nor does the author of the article) to click through menu after menu on a cell phone, I have moved to an interface that I find pleasing to use -- Windows Mobile 6 Professional. Being able to directly interact with the screen on the phone is the same as adding a mouse to your desktop PC. Imagine if the author was given a copy of Windows XP and only a keyboard to navigate... can you imagine the complaints? So as sexy as he perceives the hardware to be, clearly it needs additional functionality to be the powerhouse that he's looking for.

Looking forward to him eating his words when he reviews the HP iPaq 910 with Windows Mobile 6 Professional.

Re:Windows Mobile Classic

[NMerriam]

He's not assuming anything about other versions of the software. He's saying the software on this phone sucks, which you seem to agree with. If MS released a version of XP without mouse support...that would suck, too. The existence of another version would not in any way invalidate the suckiness of the mouseless version. If the software is only good for touchscreen devices (which I would disagree with, it still sucks even on touchscreen devices), then it sounds like MS's big mistake was licensing it for use on non-touchscreen devices.

Why would he "eat his words" about a device he's never written about?

Re:Windows Mobile Classic

[grossvogel]

I've heard this before.

The problem with a particular piece of M$ software is always the same:
If you'd paid more to get the (Latest | Professional) version, it would work properly.

Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[Entropius]

I've never found one that's well-designed. They may exist, but I've never had or seen one.

What I want:

1) The ability to turn the volume up or down in a wider scale than they give us. If I can't hear someone with the volume at max (usually when they're on a landline), the scale needs to go higher. My phone goes up to five; it should go up to eleven. It's a device whose principal function is the capture and transmission of sound, yet it has ONE thing you can control about the sound: inbound sound volume, in a limited range. This is ridiculous. This is stuff that could be included essentially for free, since it's all software that doesn't take much processing power. For instance, it'd be nice to have some sort of intelligent parametric EQ. Sometimes you get someone on the other end with a sucky headset and it'd be nice to be able to fix it yourself or have the phone do it for you.

2) The phone to tell me what the hell it's doing signal-wise. I've been standing on top of a mountain and looking over a canyon at a cell tower (~2 miles distant) and have no signal. Sometimes calls get dropped even though I have four "bars" of signal. Is it a SNR problem? The phone trying to do a tower swap and failing? Who the fuck knows? Give me frickin' iwconfig, please. It's like the Windows boot sequence. Either it works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, who knows what went wrong. But Windows at least has Safe Mode...

3) A phone that doesn't fucking break. My old phone had a keypad that kept going bad. My new phone now thinks that there's a headset plugged into it when there's not. Sometimes it thinks I don't have a SIM card in it.

4) I hesitate to suggest this since they seem incapable of getting even simple things right, but replace SIM cards with SD cards (they're effectively a commodity now, $20 for 2GB). Poof, instant long-play pocket audio recorder!

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[FataL187]

I had 2 blackberry's and a palm treo before I settled on the Motorola Ming A1200. It runs linux (yes I am a *nix fanboy), I can view info on the cell tower I am on, including SNR and location, ect. I can run a ton of software, emulators, ect. It also has a touchscreen interface and it's not something everyone else on the block has.

The only gripe I have is that it doesn't have WiFi but it does have Edge through a software hack so the internet is useable. Plus it is reasonably priced compared to the others in it's league at $245.00 with no contract.

If your looking for a good smart phone I highly recommend it to anyone.

-Fatal

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[crowbarsarefornerdyg]

I use a Boost Mobile i730. It does everything you're talking about, to be perfectly honest. I can hear 99% of the calls I send or receive, I have a "trace mode" I can use to sort of debug a connection, and it just works. I've only ever munged one Nextel / Boost phone in my life, and that's when I dropped it into the damn storm drain I was walking past. LOL. I know Nextel service sucks (mainly because it's now Sprint/Nextel), but other than the "cage" I have to work in sometimes, I even get signal inside the metal building I work in. And after I install my cell phone range expander, it should work even in the cage.

Sure, it's not an iPhone or some other similar piece of garbage, but what's the difference? I have a calculator, datebook and contact list. I have custom made ringtones and applications. It uses J2ME, so I can bang out my own code if I choose. The only downside to the phone is it will only work on the Nextel system. The newer ones, I have been lead to believe, can be made to work on any network, with the exception of the Direct Connect. Hell, the i930(?) uses a version of Windows Mobile now. The only reason I haven't messed with it is I have to get new software to do any of the hacking I do on the older Nextels.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[Bearhouse]

I hear you. Still, my Blackberry Pearl works for me...

But, like so-called other 'smart' phones, (windows mobile, nokia, palm), you're stil limited in how 'deep' you're alowed to go in accessing the firm/hardware. I suspect this is deliberate, to stop people from bricking the device, and thus being unable to make (emergency) calls, just because they were trying to add the latest 'turn the volume up to 11 freeware widget by team warezlol!!!!' bit of shitware.

The answer to your prayers may finally come with the much-lauded, (and awaited, and awaited...) Linux/FOSS phones. Then you'll be able to fuck up your boot sequence all you want.

As a final thought, if these things ever do get released, how long before we have rootkits & black botnets on our mobiles? If you're not on an unlimited data plan, could get expensive quickly, let alone the security implications as they rip all your personal data off your phone. Let's not forget that mobile phones are being trialed as methods of payment, too...

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[NMerriam]

1) The ability to turn the volume up or down in a wider scale than they give us.

God, yes. Every other audio device I own has a scale from "only dogs can hear it" up to "you're going to go deaf if you listen at this volume". There is no, NO reason this should not be the case on cell phones. Sure, it'll eat up battery a little faster if you crank it up all the time, but no worse than any of the other million battery-draining features you know for a FACT that 95% of the phone's users will never use. And listening to phone calls is the ONE feature you can be sure 95% of the customers WILL be using.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, fuck smartphones. We want real phones that just work. Voice, text. No bells and no whistles. Monochrome is very good. Long battery life. Indestructible design. Light & small. Very snappy response. Open source software on it so we can fix any bugs ourselves and design the interface so that it's our phone...

No money can buy this it seems... Fucking idiots designing phones.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[owlstead]

"4) I hesitate to suggest this since they seem incapable of getting even simple things right, but replace SIM cards with SD cards (they're effectively a commodity now, $20 for 2GB). Poof, instant long-play pocket audio recorder!"

I do completely agree, but only if you substitute SIM cards by Micro-SD or something like that. SIM cards are common practice within the industry; you cannot just replace that by flash (imagine your phone breaking, you have enough experience with that it seems). Furthermore, they also act as a secure key store. Copying of SIM cards to gain access to your account is not something you want to see happening.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[Ullteppe]

4) I hesitate to suggest this since they seem incapable of getting even simple things right, but replace SIM cards with SD cards (they're effectively a commodity now, $20 for 2GB). Poof, instant long-play pocket audio recorder!

No, the SIM card is a Subscriber Identity Module, which is the device that ties your phone to your subscription and phone number. It is NOT a storage device (the fact that you can store contact numbers and SMSes nonwithstanding). You do not want to replace the SIM with an SD card. You want to have both. It would kind of suck to lose your phone number if you swap out SD cards.

And, this is already here. Any half decent new phone over here (Europe) lets you put in a micro-SD card. You can use an adaptor to use this in a device that supports full-size SD cards.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[zlogic]

I hesitate to suggest this since they seem incapable of getting even simple things right, but replace SIM cards with SD cards (they're effectively a commodity now, $20 for 2GB). Poof, instant long-play pocket audio recorder! SIM cards are more than simply memory. They store a bunch of encryption keys; but the keys are NOT transferred into the phone and a lot of encryption is done on the SIM card, so technically it's a very simple processor. It's done so that someone doesn't steal your phone, clone the SIM card, assign any PIN they like and get "free" calls as well as a "free" phone.
Oh, and most modern phones (except really cheap ones) have an SD, miniSD or microSD slot.

The ability to turn the volume up or down in a wider scale than they give us. Most phones have a speakerphone mode that makes it really loud; turn it on but turn down the volume, this way it'll be louder than normal but not deafening.

The phone to tell me what the hell it's doing signal-wise. It may be anything, including the carrier. For example here in Russia most prepaid contracts (having a $5-$10 monthly ARPU) have a much lower priority and their calls are dropped or rejected if network load exceeding limits; they are also switched into half-duplex mode when bandwidth is needed for something more important. I think that "bars" are lowered if the signal is too noisy.

A phone that doesn't fucking break. My Siemens phone got chewed by a dog, its screen (the protective glass, not the display itself) now has a hole in it (because of the dog), the battery is dead because of awful handling (but still lasts a day or two), I opened it twice just to look inside and it was dropped a million times. Everything (except the battery) works perfectly! My new phone is a Sony Ericsson and I've never had any problems with it yet.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[crowbarsarefornerdyg]

Why the hell did this get modded "Flamebait"? I was making an observation, not trying to start a flame war. Someone is using "Flamebait" in place of "Disagree", apparently.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

it seems someone stopped giving steve jobs a blowjob long enough to mod this flamebait

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[MonoSynth]

God, yes. Every other audio device I own has a scale from "only dogs can hear it" up to "you're going to go deaf if you listen at this volume". There is no, NO reason this should not be the case on cell phones. Yes, there *is* a reason and you just said it. People will put it too loud, get deaf, and sue the phone company.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[bigstrat2003]

I doubt it. If no one has sued a speaker manufacturer yet for having their speakers up so loud, I somehow can't believe that someone is going to get a phone manufacturer for the same thing... especially when you have to turn the volume up yourself. If I get McDonald's coffee which burns the hair off my head because it's so hot, I might be able to sue them successfully. There's no way I'd be able to pull the same thing off if I heated it that hot myself.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[bigstrat2003]

You must be new here.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[DECS]

Actually France sued the iPod and forced Apple to release an iPod firmware version that limited the volume. I refuse to believe Americans haven't sued over similar "OMG I listed to volumes that were too loud and now I want money."

Rise of the iTunes Killers Myth After years of looking foolish for parading out model after model of embarrassing junk as the next iPod Killer, the seas of punditry have given up on finding an iPod Killer, and have instead sought to identify an iTunes Killer.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[Deliveranc3]

Poof 1-3 and no bill either... :)

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[bigstrat2003]

While I thank you for informing me that I was in error, I now have to go mourn, because there's officially no hope left for the world. Seriously, "I turned it up too loud" is the most ridiculous cause for a lawsuit ever.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[muonzoo]

1) The ability to turn the volume up or down in a wider scale than they give us.
Indeed. A personal frustration for a long time.
2) The phone to tell me what the hell it's doing signal-wise.

I had a phone that could do this. The older Nokia series phones had a secret test mode that was easy to enable. On this you could see the towers/cells being tracked and the SNR/SL for each. Would fit the bill nicely. See below.

3) A phone that doesn't fucking break.

Again, the (photo) Nokia 8890 that I had was a masterpiece of design -- solid, simple, reliable. It was easily 90% of all that I wanted in a phone and I have yet to see a phone that can live up to this simple, solid design.

replace SIM cards with SD cards

Problem is that they serve entirely different purposes. The SIM/UICC card is taking place in the network authorization and authentication. It contains a secret key for which the network has a public key and is the cornerstone of how you sign into the network. It is also 'practically' impossible to clone - by design, to ensure subscriber access control. Although the look the same they serve entirely different purposes. I agree that an SD card would be very nice though (in addition).

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[Anonymous Coward]

Both SD and Micro-SD cards have hardware-reserved memory for DRM. Add a little bit of software, and you get security as good as a SIM card, but with much more storage and flexibility.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[tighr]

I disagree. A previous phone of mine, a Samsung I believe, had a warning when you set the volume at its maximum level in the profile. It forced you to accept the volume level before being able to save the setting. And it was still too quiet!

I think one of the other drawbacks of having low volume is that often I'll find myself in a loud area, such as at work (manufacturing environment) or even a bar or sporting event, where the ambient noise is too loud and there is no way to "step outside" and get a quieter environment. I would appreciate being able to hear the sounds coming directly into my ear.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[complete loony]

With a microphone and speaker so close together, without some serious noise canceling processing going on, there is a limit to how much you can amplify any signal before you start getting ear splitting feedback.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[ZombieRoboNinja]

1. The reason the max volume is limited isn't JUST software. The little speaker they've got in there has a limited top end as well. Pump too strong a signal into the speaker and it'll break, or at the very least top out and sound distorted.

2. What the hell are you going to do if you DO have access to that info? Go Gordon Freeman and jam a crowbar in the cell tower to optimize your signal? It sucks that calls get dropped, but having more info about why wouldn't help you much. (P.S.: That cell tower you're staring at might not be for the network you're using.)

3. Find me the piece of consumer electronics that DOESN'T have people complaining on the internet about its reliability and we'll talk. Personally, I've never had a cell phone break.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[roman_mir]

I used to have one like that 10 years ago with Clearnet in Canada, it was a brick of some sort. It didn't break after being thrown, dropped, even dipped in water. It had a nice scroll wheel on the side (like modern RIMs do.) It was nice and heavy and hard to lose.

Of-course we could build phones that are sturdy and simple and that just work and with modern tech, they could have battery lives of weeks, if we used the same form factor as those bricks had.

In the search of a good phone (just phone) I tried many things, I use Motorola L2 now, it's nowhere near perfect, but it is closer to what I want (if you get one, be careful, do not drop it, it has glass, not plastic covering the LCD. The glass broke easily and I didn't replace it with anything, it's OK like this too.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[ioshhdflwuegfh]

I dunno, but from what you wrote I gather that you have an illusion that cell phones are made for people to have conversations.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[Entropius]

1. I know the speaker has a limited top end, but when the incoming signal is weak, I'd like to be able to boost it so I can hear it. I don't want more volume; I want control over the volume so I can hear weak calls.

2. Maybe figure out how I can fix it? If the problem is "confused by multipath problems", I know I can go to the other side of the building and fix it. If the problem is "I'm trying to use this TMobile tower with crappy signal rather than the Cingular tower with good signal", then I can change that. If the problem is "weak signal, period" I know to go closer to town and get away from hills.

Again, think about iwconfig. Useful, isn't it, even if you can't go jam a crowbar in the router, you still can figure out what the problem is.

3. http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1033 . (Panasonic digital cameras). There are very few "This camera is a piece of shit!" posts, and a lot of "Oh shit, I dropped my camera onto concrete... wait, it still works? Cool!" To date I remember exactly one story of one of the things breaking with no good reason.

Mystifying

[StarKruzr]

I'm still waiting for the phone that sounds and works like a phone.

Why does everyone say this as if it doesn't exist?

I suspect it is because they want their posts to sound as though they possess some real down-home 'Murrican wisdom. Jesus. How many counterexamples do I have to find? All of these are "phones that look and act like phones."

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Wrong! That's not an advantage, that's insane. At least, I can't remember the last time I was looking at my cellphone thinking, "Damn, I wish right now I could open up a Word document!", not even if one was attached to an e-mail.

Yesterday, when I got an email from my advisor. Thankfully, I had my iPhone at the ready and it was quite capable of opening the document. I was able to answer her question immediately and it made me look like I was really on top of things. I guess that makes me "insane."

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Because they want a good quality camera, phone, PDA, laptop, etc. not a all-in-one gadget with a mediocre everything?

Re:Mystifying

[EvilIdler]

Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop? You can't fit great optics in the size of a typical mobile phone, so the camera is a toy.
If the phone has wi-fi and a decent SSH client, I won't mind any PDA-ness. But I don't
ever feel the lack of a laptop, anyway, and just use the phone to be reachable :)

Re:Mystifying

[Torvaun]

For me, the camera is a flashlight. Just set the flash to Always On, go into camera mode, and there it is. I could care less about taking pictures.

Re:Mystifying

[Beltonius]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Because they want a good quality camera, phone, PDA, laptop, etc. not a all-in-one gadget with a mediocre everything?

Precisely. My phone is my link to the outside world (calls, text and tethering via bluetooth) but I take my pictures with my camera, keep track of appointments and contacts with my PDA (along with using it for GPS) and surf the web etc etc etc with my Thinkpad. My laptop can and will always provide a better internet experience than a device with a weaker processor, less storage space and a ~3" screen. Simple physics inhibit a great-quality set of optics in a reasonably sized phone, and stupid carrier lock-downs prevent most phones from really doing anything that useful. I also have a watch with a built in compass (helps when using my PDA to navigate around cities on foot).

Re:Mystifying

[dotgain]

I could care less about taking pictures.

So, why don't you then?

Re:Mystifying

[rickb928]

Well, I do that. On my BlackBerry 7105t. Which is an old phone now in marketing terms.

Heck, I went out and got Google Maps, and an SSH client. People look at me like I'm clever when I drill down and tell them their house is the third light down, not the second. My co-workers aren't in awe any more when I reboot my web server, they are in awe when I can run a macro and suck up the latest patches. And keep them up to date on World Series score. And this is just a BlackBerry.

As soon as I begin wishing for a camera, I remember though, having all your devices in one leads to the inevitable 'all your devices are broken to you' scenario . I like being able to replace my phone, and then replace my camera, and not having to replace both.

ack.

Oh yea, and I open Word docs just fine. Even Excel and PDFs. Take THAT, Windows Mobile!

Re:Mystifying

[RattFink]

You can't fit great optics in the size of a typical mobile phone, so the camera is a toy.

So what? Quality is actually not all that important to the vast majority of the population as you make it out to be. The optics used in cell phone cameras are certainly a lot better then disposable cameras cheap plastic optics yet those cameras were extremely popular before, cameras on cell phones and the price of digital cameras bottomed out. They certainly aren't "professional" quality but very few cameras are.

Re:Mystifying

[AoT]

because he doesn't care enough to make the effort.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?"

Are you saying that you like the pictures that the iPhone takes?

Re:Mystifying

[DeadDecoy]

Ya but for every one of you, there are ten non-technical people for whom the phone/pda/camera/laptop/mp3 player/blender/sink is good enough. For some people the utility of having a swiss-army-phone outweighs that of having a specialized device because they don't care about quality, just something that gets the job done.

Re:Mystifying

[Beltonius]

Oh, certainly. I'm not saying that I don't understand why someone wants their phone to do literally everything. It just bothers me that the minority of the populace that do want higher-quality electronics are basically being marginalized. Noone really makes PDA's anymore, except for HP, and their's are worse in every way than the ones Dell used to put out. Palm hasn't updated their line in upwards of a year and the only devices I've seen running WM6.0 have been smart-phones.

Re:Mystifying

[sowth]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Because the vast majority of the time, in the best case, you end up with a device which is a mediocre camera, a mediocre phone, a mediocre PDA, and a mediocre laptop.

In fact, most of the time you get a really expensive device with a crappy camera which takes poor quality pictures and you have to select through several menus, so it takes longer to take a picture than even my crappy kodak C300 I got for christmas, which takes several seconds to start up from off to on. You get a crappy phone which works, but ends up being suboptimal for a phone. You get a crappy PDA, which is not only locked down so you can't run your own programs, but ends up being suboptimal for a PDA, especially if it only has a numberpad for input. Inputing alphabetic chars into the numberpad works, but you have to admit it is a pain in the ass. You get a "laptop", but again, your choice of software is locked down, and are you really going to call such a small device a "laptop"??? Usually the difference between a PDA and laptop is that the laptop comes with a full size screen and full size keyboard, the PDA a small screen and either a tiny keyboard or touch screen for input. Any reasonably small sized phone cannot be considered a laptop. Maybe if you could open it up and a bigger screen and keyboard fold out, but I don't see this happening on anything within a resonable price range. Maybe a pen and ink display may make it happen. How would you fit a fold out lcd into such a small space?

I would like to see a device which functions as a camera, phone, PDA, and laptop, and does all of them well. However, I doubt I will ever see one...within the next ten years anyway...

Re:Mystifying

[winwar]

"The optics used in cell phone cameras are certainly a lot better then disposable cameras cheap plastic optics yet those cameras were extremely popular before..."

Sorry, but the disposable cameras take better pictures than cell phones.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, so the cheap disposable cameras has worse quality then the mobile? Then I guess nearly all the pictures from my last open air festival are bad. But then again: on the one taken with the disposable camera you at least can se that there is something on the stage.
Oh, yeah. There are some photos taken during daytime with a good light source (the sun). But the rest of the pictures from my mobile? Forget to see what they are supposed to show you, and it does not get better if you use the flash... And still my mobile is the one of those who had the better quality compared to my friends.

Re:Mystifying

[pjt33]

Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

No. I have no desire whatsoever to carry around a camera or a laptop. I carry around a phone (Nokia 3310 - a real "phone only" phone) and a PDA, and wouldn't want to trade them in for a single device. The only advantage I can see is that I would have a spare pocket, but when I weigh that against the disadvantages of being unable to speak on the phone and skim through my calendar at the same time, running down the battery on the combined device faster than on either of my current devices, and being vulnerable to a single accident, I come down on the side of standalones.

Re:Mystifying

[gforce811]

I could care less about taking pictures. Just a slight point here, but this phrase is so completely botched all the time, that I had to say something. I think what you meant to say was, "I couldn't care less about taking pictures." As in, your level of caring for taking pictures is so low already, that it could not get any lower. I think that is what confused the author of the other reply to your post. Either that, or he/she was just being cynical. Of course, maybe I am too.

Cheers. Oh, and if I'm wrong, please tell me so I may correct myself in the future.

Re:Mystifying

[TheRaven64]

You can't fit great optics in the size of a typical mobile phone, so the camera is a toy. Depends on what you mean by 'great.' I have a few friends who take photography very seriously. They use SLRs that cost a lot more than my phone and one develops his own film (the rest have gone digital). For them, a camera phone is clearly the wrong tool for the job. I, on the other hand, just want something that can take a few snaps. The camera on my phone produces good quality pictures in daylight, as long as there isn't much motion, and I can blow them up to the size of my monitor without seeing any artefacts. Sure, a dedicated camera would give better quality. I actually own a better camera, but I stopped buying film for it because I never took it with me anywhere. In contrast, my phone is always in my pocket.

So, is a phone camera just a toy? Well, yes, but for me (and a lot of other people) a stand-alone camera is also a toy. I don't take pictures for a living, just for fun.

Re:Mystifying

[TheRaven64]

Because the vast majority of the time, in the best case, you end up with a device which is a mediocre camera, a mediocre phone, a mediocre PDA, and a mediocre laptop. Most of the time, if you don't go for a converged device, you end up with a mediocre camera, a mediocre phone and a mediocre PDA and you have to carry three mediocre devices around with you.

Yes, I still miss my Psion Series 3.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Maybe some people don't want convergence. I'm sure I'm not the only one here that just wants a cellphone that works well. I don't need a camera, mp3 player, web browser, and PDA all rolled into one sleek package. All I need is a mobile phone that has crystal clear voice quality and doesn't drop calls. Cheap would be nice. Bluetooth would be nice too, but only for a wireless headset. Who here really takes serious pictures with their cellphone and/or uses their phone as their primary mp3 player?

Re:Mystifying

[Grey_14]

Most of those 'non-technical' people I've met don't know how the heck to get pictures off their phone, and wouldn't know where to start using a phone as a PDA, I'll admit I know at least one person who uses the mp3 player in his phone, but there are tons more who just use their ipod or whatever else.

Re:Mystifying

[mattsgotredhair]

ummmm... do you have an iPhone? I do, and I've first hand taken plenty of pictures that I like. I don't understand why everyone is hatinnnn

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

"Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?"

Heck, no. But if the convergence device *sucks* at being 3 out of 4 of those (or, heaven forbid, 4/4), it's the kind of "convergence" most people don't want. So far, all the phones I've seen have been 2 out of 4 devices at best. The iPhone had a chance of reaching a genuine 3 if Apple hadn't clamped down on 3rd-party development (which affects the PDA/laptop uses, mostly). Hopefully the February SDK release will allow it to become a genuine 3/4, but even in the most optimistic future the camera will still suck, and it will need a fold-up keyboard to make it efficient when filling a laptop-like role.

Anyway, yes, you're right this is what many people want, but they don't want convergence to equate to so much compromise that it isn't worth it.

Re:Mystifying

[p!ngu]

"I couldn't care less" --> literal.
"I could care less" --> sarcasm, or abbreviated form of "I could care less (but I don't know how)"

Re:Mystifying

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Sort of. I always have the phone. If it did limited PDA stuff, like email and calendar, that'd be okay, but it had better be a good phone and always available. I have 2 cameras - a casio that works great for quick photos and a DSLR for serious stuff when I want to engage in geekitude. Laptops stay in the car or the hotel on vacation.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

I could care less about taking pictures.

So you do care about taking pictures to some degree?

Re:Mystifying

[gforce811]

My mistake. Thank you.

Re:Mystifying

[Ullteppe]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

A phone can never replace a proper camera, as you will never get the same quality and that really matters to anybody who cares about pictures. I can barely tolerate the quality I get out of my Sony camera, and it is pretty much the smallest available camera out there. It is still bigger than most cellphones. Optics take up space. If I know there will be something worth photographing, I bring my DSLR.

PDA: I'll agree with you on this one. I never found stand-alone PDAs useful. Too little storage space, too little screen, pretty much too little anything to stand a chance of replacing a laptop. And, these days a smartphone can pretty much do anything a PDA can.

Laptop: Essential. Ever tried modifying a document on a smartphone? Hah, I'll rather have my nails pulled out slowly with red-hot pliers, thanks. Even viewing a PDF document is an excersise in futility with the small screens. On the other hand, a laptop is too big and cumbersome (even if I carry a 12") to serve well as a portable game console or an MP3 player, so I carry a PSP and an iPod classic as well.

Convergence is pretty much twarted by two forces: the laws of physics and user interface concerns (ease-of-use, boot time, screen size, entry method etc.)

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, personally have a nice camera, and a nice laptop, but i don't carry them around all the time, nor would i want to. It's nice to have a device that does the simple things on the go. So why can't you have the nice big items and use them when you need them, and have a mediocre all-in-one gadget for your on the go stuff? I doubt companies are really trying to replace your nice digital SLR and laptop with an all-in-one that fits in your pocket.

Re:Mystifying

[CrackedButter]

I am a photographer and I use SLR's and develop my own film, I like the crappy effect of the camera phone but to each his own I guess.

Re:Mystifying

[TBerben]

Because, if I have everything I need in one 'iGadget' and the 'iGadget' breaks, I don't have anything left. Now, if my camera malfunctions, I still have my phone and mp3-player in working order

Re:Mystifying

[lattyware]

I think PDAs are being replaced by UMPCs - Things like the Asus EEEPC will offer far better performance (along with other advantages like the bigger screen), for about double the size of a PDA - not to mention the same, if not cheaper, price.

Re:Mystifying

[thePsychologist]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

No. I don't want to carry any of that stuff, except a phone. I want my phone to make phone calls and have only hardware for making phone calls with a long-lasting battery. This makes it as small as possible. This is also the philosophy behind Unix small utilities that do their job very well.

Re:Mystifying

[nEoN nOoDlE]

most of the time a mediocre gadget will do fine for the situation. Such as in a car accident when you need to take pictures of the damage but didn't bring your awesome $1000 digital SLR. Or you want to check your e-mail on an airplane trip, but don't want to take your laptop out of the case and then pay another 15 - 20 bucks so you could have wireless access at the terminal. I feel sorry for whoever is taking important family photos with a camera phone, but convergence is an overall good thing.

Re:Mystifying

[icebrain]

Most of the time, I use my camera to take a picture of an interesting book or other item that I see on the shelf, but can't afford to buy at the time (or I want to research it more). I don't trust my memory, so my camera phone does it for me. I've also used it to take pictures of class notes that I've missed (the resolution is good enough for that).

I'd use the mp3 player on it, too, but I've been too cheap to buy headphones for it yet.

Re:Mystifying

[tknd]

I'm not against convergence. But I am against voice/sound quality of phones today being absolute crap compared to what our technology is capable of. Why do cell phones still sound like crap even if I pay $600 or more for a phone?

Re:Mystifying

[RealGrouchy]

Convergence is fine as an option, but there has to be a reasonable selection of non-converged options, too.

How would you like it if you went into a camera store and there were only two or three cameras that didn't have phones built into them?

- RG>

Re:Mystifying

[bigstrat2003]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop? I'm not against convergence, per se. I merely don't want any of those other features, since they add cost but no value for me. As things are, I can get a phone which does what I want it to: make calls. If the day ever comes when it becomes difficult or impossible to find a phone which does phone calls, and not a whole lot else, then I'll be pissed. Until then, I have nothing against convergence, I just want no part of it.

Re:Mystifying

[DECS]

Because the mobile network you're paying $1000 a year to use is only designed to provide minimal voice quality. Perhaps you should blame the provider, not the iPhone.

Of course, that's far less sensationalist and fashionable to complain about than whining that Apple delivered the future of mobile phones at a consumer price.

The Great Google gPhone Myth
Pundits have seized upon rumors of a new mobile phone product from Google as their golden ticket for bashing the iPhone. The "gPhone" is the perfect foil for fear-based rumormongers because it's a secret Google han't said much about publicly. That lets the wags blow it out of proportion and stretch it into an iPhone Killer. They're wrong, here's why.

Re:Mystifying

[DECS]

Isn't that the role of a market based economy to figure out? If consumers want basic phones, they'll buy them. If they want the ability to watch movies and take photos, they buy that.

Are you suggesting the government should decree what phones should be made available to the people? Perhaps a committee of experts could set standards of acceptable products.

Incidentally, the reason camera stores don't sell phones is also related to supply and demand.

Steve Jobs Ends iPhone SDK Panic Apple officially announced plans to release a software development kit for the iPhone and iPod Touch in February. That pulls the rug from under the harping wags who have tried to conflate Apple's security efforts with the persecution of third party developers.

Re:Mystifying

[bennomatic]

or maybe: "I could care less, if I took the time to think about it."

Re:Mystifying

[Jay L]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a submarine, a rhubarb, a helium balloon, and a platypus? Do you even know how HARD it is to find a rhubarb in an emergency? It's only convenient if you have it with you - which means it HAS to be built in.

Re:Mystifying

[ceoyoyo]

No they're not. This is a cell phone that looks and works like a phone.

Re:Mystifying

[cs]

Well, up to a point. I'm seriously considering an iPhone in order to have to carry just one device. It's a decent phone with a working voicemail interface. It's a UNIX box and wifi hub in my pocket. It's an IMAP client. So it's a mediocre camera; _any_ camera is mediocre at some point. With a 3rd party app to cover shopping lists and some kind of nice simple to-do list it'll be a fine PDA for me. It can be used as a bearable terminal when I really need one and have nothing (versus my palm, which it too painful to type on and too narrow).

When I want to use it as a UNIX box I can ssh to it, using a real keyboard and monitor on a desktop.

What do I wish it had? Support for a bluetooth keyboard; I do _not_ want it to have a physical keyboard but it would be nice to wirelessly attach one. GPS would be nice. 3G would be nice (if my local telcos didn't charge such stupid rates for data traffic); we don't have EDGE here - it's GSM (no IP traffic) or 3G.

Re:Mystifying

[bahwi]

Thank you!!! Hell, I'd be glad to have a phone that didn't act or look like a phone. Just text and email(yes, i know it exists, but I can't have it, work doesn't let you give up voice communication).

Crappy Camera == Gives almost no weight, great for car accidents and hilarious at the moment shots
Email == Firkin' Email, means I don't have to stop at home. My friend had to go home every 2 hrs to check his email wherever we were so he appeared to be on top of things. All the while I just answered emails and texts and had no problems.
Putty! -- Yeah, they have it for windows mobile. You have to be a unix geek I guess, and it's a pain to use, but it means you don't have to leave the bar to fix the server. :)

But yes, I'm over it, "I wish they had phones that were phones" when so many people have them. And thank you for posting the counter examples.

To each their own, if you don't want a PDA/Smartphone, you don't have to get one, you can get a phone phone.

Re:Mystifying

[glitch23]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Who needs all 4 of those devices at the same time? For that matter, if you have the phone and laptop why would you need the PDA? I've never *needed* more than 1 of those at a time but I do carry around a phone when I have a laptop. I don't own a PDA and when I get a camera it's going to be one that gives me a lot more than one embedded in a phone. Did you ever stop to think why digital cameras don't include a phone? There is a good reason. It's STUPID. If you are important enough (or the job is) to *need* all those you probably need some quality and flexibility and having all 4, or even 2 of them, in the same device hardly guarantees you either.

Yesterday, when I got an email from my advisor. Thankfully, I had my iPhone at the ready and it was quite capable of opening the document. I was able to answer her question immediately and it made me look like I was really on top of things. I guess that makes me "insane."

Being on top of things means you wouldn't even have to open the document because you would have everything in your head and have no need to look it up. W/o the iPhone you simply could have told your advisor that you can provide the answer as soon as you get back to your office. Since you still had to look it up all you did was show that you had quick access to it. Not much different than just letting her wait until you had traditional (computer) access to the document. We are creating a culture that wants everything instantly. Whatever happened to patience?

Re:Mystifying

[RattFink]

Sorry, but the disposable cameras take better pictures than cell phones.

I never said they didn't, but it's not because of their optics. Even the cheapest film will blow away a 1-2 megapixel camera. The point is that people were happy with the absolute lowest quality of camera because it was good enough and was convent. Cell phones fall under the same umbrella.

Re:Mystifying

[Reaperducer]

You can't fit great optics in the size of a typical mobile phone, so the camera is a toy.

It's not a toy. You're a snob.

There are cameraphones out there that take 5MP pictures with Carl Zeiss lenses. Those specs were state of the art for DSLRs only a handful of years ago. You need to update yourself on what's out there these days.

Re:Mystifying

[Reaperducer]

Because the mobile network you're paying $1000 a year to use is only designed to provide minimal voice quality. Perhaps you should blame the provider, not the iPhone.

While I agree with you about the carrier stuff, my wife and I have both been VERY surprised by the voice quality of the iPhone. Hers replaced an LG KE820. Mine replaced a SonyEricsson M600i. The iPhone quality is noticably better. Significantly better than the other two. We've been very pleased.

Re:Mystifying

[1u3hr]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Because I just want to cary around a phone. Because I would rather not pay for the other features and have them making the phone heavier, more expensive, more complex and fragile and shorter battery life. Because I don't have or want a PDA, and when I need a laptop, I want a full size keyboard and screen. I only want a camera when I'm on vacation.

If soemeone wants a screwdriver, don't force them to buy a Swiss Army knife.

Re:Mystifying

[Kyle_Katarn-(ISF)]

Well, I don't know about you, but "double size of a PDA" is far too big for me. I'm still using my Palm E2. Why? Because it fits rather nicely in my shirt pocket. Lots of the new PDAs I've looked at need a carry strap to be able to use while standing. If that's what you want, fine. But I want something smaller and lighter. Something that doesn't make my shirt pocket sag to my belt.

Oh, and on the "Just a cell phone" phone, I've had an LG VX3200 for more than 3 years now. It doesn't have a camera, web browser, email, games, etc. It has a phone, an alarm clock, and a calculator. That's it. It's a tri-mode phone (CDMA800/1900,AMPS) so it works anywhere. I have an extendable aftermarket antenna, and it gets reception just about anywhere. And I live in a very rural area. I'm on my third battery, so that should tell you good things about it's durability (And bad things about LG's batteries...). All in all a good phone that is just that: A good phone.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

And on top of that, if the battery goes flat in one of those all-in-one devices, you don't have any of those functions usable. With separate devices if my phone's battery is flat I can still take photos, make/refer to notes on the PDA, edit documents on the laptop, etc. Or if I use up all my camera battery taking photos all day, I can still make and receive phone calls.

Re:Mystifying

[Watts Martin]

I think PDAs are being replaced by UMPCs - Things like the Asus EEEPC will offer far better performance (along with other advantages like the bigger screen), for about double the size of a PDA - not to mention the same, if not cheaper, price. Ask the Newton team how that size is working out for them.

Seriously, one thing Palm got really, really right when they first hit market was an obsessive focus on the form factor. There will undoubtedly be a market for the UMPC, but that market will not consist of people who want to be able to slip the device into their shirt pocket, and that market is really important for broad adoption.

Re:Mystifying

[torkus]

See...i'm a pack rat. The kind of 'oh,i might need this let me bring it' person that always has a backpack with him.

For me, I always have my blackberry. Almost always I have my backpack with digicam, laptop, 1.8" external HDD, couple USB thumb drives, USB to mini5 cable, memory card adapter for my digicam, and SecureID token. I used to have my ipod nano with me too but my blackberry does that job now.

Now, I *could* just carry the blackberry. It can do almost anything i can do with the rest of the stuff. The problem is a matter of quality and user interface.

I only just started using camera phones. Now that i have 2MP and somewhat reasonable quality...it's good for "informational" pics. Like...'here's the price sticker from store x' while i drive to store y to compare. I'm still goign to cary my digicam.

The same applies to almost everything else. A jack-of-all-trades is the master of none. My BB is a decent phone, decent rolodex, decent email/calendar/etc., poor camera, functional MP3 player. If i had to take one thing and hit the road in an emergency (ok, i'd grab my backpack that has my stuff but i digress) i'd take the BB and survive.

When you can give me something hand-held, pocketable, with a substantial battery life (meaning 2+ days if you're calling it a cell phone) that can do an equal job to my bag of tricks i will happily leave the backpack home. Technology is moving in that direction but there are several generations of products to go though before the integration-level products are good enough to meet my demands.

We're getting there, I no longer need to purchase the largest hard drive or fastest CPU to make my day-to-day tasks and entertainment as good as i care about. I don't need a 12MP digital camera to take good pictures. I don't need a 120GB ipod.

Maybe in 5 years i'll have my universal device and a laptop for a full interface (until someoen designs a portable interface that's equally good to the keyboard and 13-19" screen). For now I'm keeping my backpack.

Re:Mystifying

[Achromatic1978]

I have a digital SLR and lenses, accessories that are insured for $20,000+ (and I consider myself to not have a whole lot). My cellphone has a 5mp camera in it, and it's far nicer than anything I've seen out of a cellphone, and better than many of my friends digital compacts.

Re:Mystifying

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Because they want a good quality camera, phone, PDA, laptop, etc. not a all-in-one gadget with a mediocre everything?"

a.) A phone with all that doesn't prevent them from buying a camera, pda, laptop, etc.

b.) If all you have is your phone... and let's be serious, nobody's going everywhere carrying a phone, pda, laptop, camera, video camera, psp, etc.... then a cell phone picture is infinitely better than a 0 x 0 picture. A slow net connection on a small screen is better than a 0kbps connection on a non-existent laptop. 320 by 240 heavily compressed video is better than 0 x 0 video at 0 kbps. And so on. If the phone doesn't suit you, hey, that's fine, no problemo. It makes sense not to buy it. But multiplying the value of a phone by 0 because dedicated hardware that costs a great deal more is better...? No, that's not a sensical decision. That hardware's only useful when you have it with you.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

How

Motorola Razr2 V9 (AT&T)
"HSDPA support plus a 2-megapixel camera, a music player"

NOT "just a phone".

many

LG VX8350 (Verizon Wireless)
"external music player controls, and a microSD card slot. Its robust feature set includes a megapixel camera, EV-DO support, stereo Bluetooth, and more."

NOT "just a phone".

Etc, etc.

Re:Mystifying

[Buran]

A true SLR lens will beat even the best small lens any day just because of the physics of lenses. While the N95 Zeiss lens is pretty good and does take good pictures, you'll still get a far-better image with an SLR with a 5-megapixel sensor (or, like me, if you have a 10-megapixel SLR set on "medium size" because you don't need the full 10 mp for what you do with your images).

I'm sure that in 10 years, the N95-type camera will be far more common on cell phones than it is today. But small lenses just can't beat large ones, and those small sensors will always have more noise than a large sensor will. It's not a fault of the designers but a "fault" of physics.

Re:Mystifying

[fractoid]

You can't fit great optics in the size of a typical mobile phone, so the camera is a toy. False dichotomy, sorry. The camera in my phone has tiny optics, matched to a 2MP CCD, and creates noticeably worse images than my 5MP standalone camera. However, my phone is always on me, has very low form factor, and 99% of the time the images I can take with it are just as useful as if I'd taken my much bulkier camera with me as well. I wouldn't publish them in a magazine, say, but for looking through weekend snaps on my computer, my phone is just as good and, as it's always on me, is a clear winner in terms of practicality.

Re:Mystifying

[Doctor Memory]

Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop? No. All I want is a goddamn phone. I carry a pen and a small notebook for jotting down notes (which I can do it without having to interrupt the call to enter something on the phone), and I don't need a camera or a laptop. Actually, I just bought a Bluetooth headset, because I hate trying to hold my skinny little phone against my ear with my shoulder while I write. I do use my phone's calendar feature sometimes, but I certainly wouldn't miss it if I switched to a phone that didn't have one.

I also enjoy listening to my iPod while I mow the lawn. I don't want my music interrupted by some stupid ringtone, and I'm sure as hell not going to shut down the mower and stand out there in the middle of the lawn talking on my phone. I just want to leave the phone in the house and listen to some tunes while I mindlessly push the mower around. I don't need to be converged on every minute of every day.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to post about the "woe is me, when can I get a cell that MAKES CALLS" transparent sentiment but you beat me to it.
It's not cute anymore. They've been around since cell phones have existed.

Re:Mystifying

[Onan]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

No, I generally don't. Which is why "convergence" is such an atrocious idea: it means that I have to carry around all those things when I want to just be carrying a phone.

Re:Mystifying

[sohp]

I had my iPhone at the ready and it was quite capable of opening the document. I was able to answer her question immediately and it made me look like I was really on top of things. I guess that makes me "insane." Well, not necessarily insane, but, when is the last time you took a vacation?

As for convergence, I'm against half-baked cheapo versions of things that I depend on. Phones should let me talk to people without crappy signals and dropped calls. PDAs should be easy to get appointments, addresses, notes, and reminders into and out of as quickly and easily as paper. A camera should take nice photographs, not 320x240 pixelated postage stamps. A laptop should be able to run all the apps I'd run on my desktop machine, though I'll allow reduced performance in exchange for portability. As of today, and for oh, I'll stick my neck out and say for another decade, no all-in-one device can manage all that adequately.

Re:Mystifying

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Stop pushing your shitty blog on Slashdot. You're clearly an Apple apologist (seriously - read the article about how much we "don't need" third party apps on the iPhone).

Something like 30% of iPhone owners have unlocked their iPhones. Apple is releasing an SDK. Clearly Apple thinks it's a shortcoming, as do many of their customers. Saying that it's not makes you look like the Apple fanboy that you are.

Re:Mystifying

[ta bu shi da yu]

Let me get this straight: you are concerned that you need to recharge your multifunction device. Most of these devices last for days! Are you really saying that you can't recharge the darn thing overnight?

Re:Mystifying

[ultimate_fish]

It's not about quality, I can walk the streets with my HTC PDA phone that offers all my contacts/e-mails/calendar/simple browser/audio recorder/document reader & a crap camera. If I want to take pictures, I'll use my dSLR, want a laptop... I'll take my laptop. Want to record high quality sound, I'll take a Zoom H4 (or similar). I couldn't imagine trying to carry all this stuff around all the time... It's just a tool at the end of the day. Have to agree about Windows Mobile though. It's awful.

Re:Mystifying

[Lord Artemis]

Even if it sucks, are you telling me you carry around a big, bulky camera to take the one picture a week that you decide you want to take randomly?

Of course you don't. If you have the phone though, you can at least get the picture, though. The LG VX8300, as an example (also not nearly a smartphone), can take pretty nice 1024x768 images assuming the area is well-lit. Yes, obviously my big SLR would take a much nicer picture. But without the phone I wouldn't have the picture at all.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

Must be horrible, what with people forcing you to buy stuff you don't want. How do you cope?

Re:Mystifying

[vought]

You can't fit great optics in the size of a typical mobile phone Smaller lenses can actually be sharper and have fewer aberrations than their larger counterparts with fewer elements. The physical size of a lens has nothing to do with "great optics" or cost - otherwise a Canon 300/2.8 would be a lot cheaper.

See also: microsocopes, film scanners.

You can absolutely fit 'great optics' in a cell phone - and as cameraphone sensors get smaller and smaller and density increases, doing so will be more important. Paying for 'great optics' at the giveaway prices everyone has gotten used to for phones is the problem.

Re:Mystifying

[Jesus_666]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

I want a phone that is rugged. Nokia 6210 rugged. A drop from 1m height should ot faze the thing, being put into the washing machine shoud not faze the thing. Mobiles are expensive already; I don't want to buy more than necessary.

Also, the thing needs to be reliable. Do-it-all smartphones come with complex software - I mean, Windows? What the hell is Windows doing on a mobile? Java? I don't need any features besides taking/making phone call and receiving/sending SMS (except perhaps aupport of a Bluetooth headset). Those features can easily be supported with a small, testable, robust firmware instead of trying to get perfect stability out of the NT kernel. It's not entirely uncommon t hear people talk about having to reboot their mobile. I think there should be only three reasons to turn off a mobile: The battery is nearly empty, you want to replate the battery/SIM card or you're in a no-mobile location. Software failure is not accepatble, under no circumstances.

I see mobile phones as rather simple appliances. Simple appliances don't crash.

Re:Mystifying

[Aceticon]

All your 8 examples have digital cameras - which is just about the most worthless feature you can put on a mobile phone (hands up anybody that uses their mobile phone camera to take their vacation shots with).

In addition to that, most have all kinds of crummy needless features (yeah, i really need that SD card interface 'cause i can never find enough space to store the ... err ... pics i take with the camera ...)

If you want to find a phone that behaves like a phone, find a mobile phone with NO camera.

Re:Mystifying

[vivtho]

My personal experience with portable multi-function devices is that the more the functions you use, the faster the battery drains out. I use my Nokia 7710 for virtually everything. My only gripe is that the battery lasts for just four hours of extended ebook reading, which is fine for commutes, but sucks for any long distance trips.
Personally, I'm waiting for a PDA/Phone with a large eInk screen that can run for days between charges.

Re:Mystifying

[vivtho]

This is exactly why I find cameraphones useful even though the quality of pictures taken by them usually sucks. The camera is meant for taking quick snapshots in situations when you either don't have a better camera around, or the photo just doesn't justify taking a photo with a 'proper' camera.

For example, if I'm in an unfamiliar mall and am searching for a particular store, the first thing I do is take a photo of the map of the mall near the enterance. Or if I see some cool electronics that I like but want to research on the net before buying it, I just take an image of the fact sheet/price tag for reference later. It sure beats the hell out of pulling out a full-size (or even mini-sized camera), or a notepad or even typing the information into your cellphone as a Draft SMS.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

and as was stated earlier: then buy the "just phone" (tm) and stop the whining "there isn't one" or "I don't want that one".

Re:Mystifying

[ioshhdflwuegfh]

Yesterday, when I got an email from my advisor. Thankfully, I had my iPhone at the ready and it was quite capable of opening the document. I was able to answer her question immediately and it made me look like I was really on top of things. I guess that makes me "insane." But then, what's wrong with having the full size keyboard to answer bosses e-mails? It might even improve the quality of the reply.

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously. The mere fact that he thought about it long enough to make mention of it indicates that he cares at least somewhat. It would be a lie to state that he "couldn't care less."

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

"it made me look like I was really on top of things" - no, it made you look like you have no life!

This is so sad how all those small gadgets that give us freedom to move around have actually become the biggest and heaviest ball and chain in human history.
The 40+ h work week can now last for 80h and you dont even notice.
Free man in a free and developed country works now more hours per year than a slave in the old Rome!
If your pay tax (income, fed, state, sales, vat etc. what ever you have there) you probably work almost 6 months out of the year just to pay all those taxes! :)

Re:Mystifying

[Yunzil]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

No, but then, I don't have, need, or want a PDA or a laptop, and I already have a camera, which despite being 6 years old now is still better than most or all of the cell phone cameras. And I had to get a phone without a camera (a difficult task these days) because it's not allowed at my workplace.

Re:Mystifying

[PastaLover]

Personally I think the problem with most phones is that they botch the usable phone part to begin with. I don't need a camera, addressbook and a selection of crappy games on my phone, but if you put them in you should make them not get into the way of using a phone. On my current phone I find I can run some java based games of at least moderate complexity quite well. But all that memory is going to waste for storing messages, opening my inbox is dog slow, sending an SMS takes about 7 menus to flip through (seriously!). Manufacturers don't seem able to get the basic functions right, so I wish they didn't actually bother with the rest.

Of course, knowing a little bit about how the phone manufacturing works it is quite unlikely that a pared down phone from most manufacturers would actually work, as it contains the exact same OS with the exact same usability problems as all the other phones. Even I've managed to sort of kind of want to buy an iPhone since it just seems to do everything so much better than all the competition in the market space. Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, I'm looking at you.

Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like we didn't already know that the iPhone is garbage.

MOD up.

[SPQR_Julian]

If I had mod points, I would totally use them on this.

I have the same problem with #1. I have a hearing impairment, and while sometimes I can hear fine, some people speak softly or I'm in a noisy area and it would be great to turn it up louder.

Re:MOD up.

[ocdemonseed]

I have to agree with this as well. Being someone who is also hearing impared I find the lack of volume controll to be very disappointing. I have used the registry hack which gets me by, but I really feel like the cellular company and mobile phone developers are ignoring the fact that hearing impared people do exist and sometimes have a need for the technologies that the mobile smartphones have to offer. I work in the IT world and I use it very heavily to stay on top on e-mails and emergency support calls. One other thing I have to add is the lack of battery life. My phone, which is a AT&T 8525, gets only about 6 hours of active use. So on a very busy work day my phone is just about dead before the day has even come to an end. I think that the mobile phone manufacturers should focus on decreasing power consumption so that you can at least depend on the phone to operate within a 8 - 10 hour timespan. I would find this to be adequate. OCDemonSeed

Re:How is this news? It's just WM6.

[wfolta]

The news is that measuring a device's "goodness" based on feature checklists only works as long as actual design sucks. When someone comes along and DESIGNS things to be elegant, it's a better product, even if it doesn't have all the boxes checked. And that's exactly how the iPod has kicked the butts of the iPod-killer-of-the-month for years now.

The meta-news is that Apple's competitors still do not understand this. Which is good for my stock investment.

How exactly?

[E IS mC(Square)]

Apple kinda pulled this feat off, designing a do-everything phone

How exactly? Just because ita Apple?
Or by locking up the phone?
By making sure you have to use a desktop to even activate it by using a music management software?
By no OTA updates?
By bricking it with firmware updates?
By having no real keyboard?

HOW EXACTLY?

Re:How exactly?

[DECS]

Like a moth to the flame, I am attracted to your flamboyant sparks.

Yes, the iPhone's design does relate a lot to being from Apple.

But no, Apple didn't "lock the phone," it opened up a standards-based web API that is in many respects better than anything on existing smartphones. The iPhone is also only 4 months old, and Apple has promised additional access in an SDK later this winter. Saying Apple locked the phone for development is ignorant. Saying Apple locked the phone to a single provider ignores the reality that all US phones are locked to one of two network technologies that inherently limits which provider you can chose.

Home activation through iTunes is a lot more consumer friendly than forcing the user to go to a phone store and wait for some dude to poke around on it for an hour, or deal with an online bait and switch as I suffered when I bought a Palm Treo from Amazon using Sprint, and ended up getting cheated out of promised rebates from Amazon while Sprint unilaterally changed my contract and then insisted the contract I'd originally bought wasn't something they offered any more.

No OTA updates for what, your calendar? Email updates OTA, and you can listen to audio and watch real video OTA, without paying and ARM AND LEG for Windows Media based rip-off video from Verizon/Sprint/AT&T garbage services.

Apple didn't brick phones; it warned users that if they modified their baseband or device firmware, that installing additional updates might be a problem. That is ALWAYS the case any time you hack at firmware.

What is a "real keyboard," a chicklet panel that slides out, making the phone an inch and a half thick, or a micro keypad that requires typing with your thumbnail? I've used a variety of "real" keyboards on mobiles, and have to say I'm typing much faster on the iPhone. I'd like arrow keys and a way to copy and paste text around, but the keyboard is fast, simple and very usable, and also gives me a very large screen I can use to play online games, watch movies, or browse the web. Those are all things a tiny screen paired with tiny keys can't do well.

What You Expected, What You Got: RoughlyDrafted Fact Checking
Ten Myths of Mac OS X Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

Re:How exactly?

[torkus]

There are a lot of bad phones out there. The iphone is...cute. It's good as a gadget or toy. It's certainly not a "bad" phone. It's good in many situations. It's not good in many others.

Re: locking to networks. The whole practice is horrible. They'll come out with 5 versions of one phone for the different networks. Bah. Yes, there are several cell bands out there. Guess what, quad-band phones are fairly common. I can take my TMO phone and ROAM almost anywhere in the world. Getting on the network is not the problem.

Re: OTA calendar, contacts. Critical for any business use. Not so much for personal use. Audio and video OTA...cute gimmic and another lovely result of copyright/DRM hell we live in. I'll pass on youtube OTA honestly.

Re: Bricking. Who says they didn't do it intentionally? Who says they did? Guess what, you don't know. I DO know though that they could have designed an open phone. I DO know they could have designed the phone to be unlockable and still work (like almost every other phone).

Re: real keyboard. Go trial the blackberry curve. They keys are small, yes. But it's very usable as a keyboard. The phone is NOT an inch and a half thick by any means. I can guarantee you i type faster on my BB curve than you do on the iphone. I'd bet the fast majority of people would be the same. The trick is many people type very little on the iphone. I type a lot on my blackberry.

My "tiny" screen (~2/3 of iphone) and "tiny" keyboard (oh wait, where's yours?) suit a purpose. Other phones can substitute for an iphone. An iphone can't substitute for all other phones.

Re:How exactly?

[Onan]

Re: Bricking. Who says they didn't do it intentionally? Who says they did? Guess what, you don't know.

Given that you're the one making (laughably stupid) accusations, the burden of proof is on you, not him.

Re:How exactly?

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Wow, you are SO into the RDF.

• T-Mobile reps at direct (corporate) stores can activate a phone in about 4 minutes.
• I can type 40WPM on a "real" mobile keyboard. I have yet to see anyone break 20WPM on the iPhone.
• Apple did lock the phone. That's why you can't use it on anything but AT&T and why you can't load your own software.
• You can't claim that my unlocked HTC Excalibur is "locked" because it doesn't work with other technologies. Locking refers to artificial limitations imposed on the phone, not to real technological limitations.
• My email, tasks, contacts, and calendar sync with Exchange automatically the air. My calendar is a particularly large deal, because it means that I get reminders for meetings without having to sync with my desktop.
• Javascript/HTML apps don't come close to native apps. If you need someone to tell you why, get your head checked.

So, please, stop telling us how you rationalize the iPhone's shortcomings. We don't care that all of the things it's missing don't matter to you. We care what matters to us, and for many of us that rules the iPhone right out.

Re:How exactly?

[revscat]

A few questions.

1) Do you think that what separates you is your immunity to groupthink?
2) Is there a single right answer to the question of buying or not buying Apple stuff?
3) Do you believe that the answer to the previous question will be obvious to anyone intelligent?

"wresting power from the carriers"?

[Thaelon]

I fail to see how "wresting power from the carriers" is a bad thing. They do evil things with it. Two year contracts with "early termination fees". Phones locked into their service. Phones with software or hardware they've deliberately crippled (Verizon I'm looking at you). Phones that have had a nice GUI replaced with their branded crap. Charging absurd prices for downloads. Padding HTTP headers with data so you use more of their outrageously overpriced data plans. I could go on and on. But if you ask me, the more power the phones wrest from the carriers, the better off we'll be.

Re:"wresting power from the carriers"?

[recoiledsnake]

Uhh what? Lets do the math on Apple "wresting power" from the carriers. Carriers typically discount the phone from the retail unlocked price. For example, a HTC Mogul(a 3G phone with a ton of features) has a retail unlocked price of around $550. Sprint sells it for $300 with a 2 year contract. In fact, many companies deeply discount phones to such an extent that you can get $50 BACK with some phones(check on Amazon or Wirefly). The phone manufacturer makes a fixed profit and moves on.

But what did Apple do with the iPhone? It charges a hefty premium(note how they were able to drop $200 off the phone in just 2 months) and makes a nice profit with the price($400 now or whatever) and then makes about $450 MORE over two years from the $60 a month that AT&T charges the consumer who takes up the 2 yr contract. The user gets a nice phone, visual voicemail etc. in return, at a VERY HIGH premium.

After a ton of iPhone articles and about a hundered +5 insightful comments on Slashdot about how Apple will "change the game" and make it better for consumers, that is the bottomline. This is the real reason why Apple hates unlockers and not just because of exclusivity contract with AT&T. For every unlocker they potentially lose close to $400.

Apple did change the game of carriers ripping off customers and ushered in the golden era of carriers AND phone companies raping consumers. All this right under the noses of otherwise wise and intelligent people who seem to have been taken in by the "RDF. Apple did change the game of just the

Re:"wresting power from the carriers"?

[Thaelon]

Pure FUD.

Sure they give you a discount on a phone. But over the life of the contract you end up paying them a MINIMUM of about $1,200. You can bet your ass they're not losing money over it. I once saw an add for a "FREE Blackberry!" where, if you looked at the terms and contract would actually cost you $2,160 over the life of the 2 year contact. Minimum!

And what does this article, or my post have to do with Apple? I never once mentioned apple. If you don't like what Apple did with the iPhone, DON'T BUY AN IPHONE.

Re:"wresting power from the carriers"?

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how "wresting power from the carriers" is a bad thing. They do evil things with it. Two year contracts with "early termination fees". Phones locked into their service. Phones with software or hardware they've deliberately crippled

Thank God Apple has wrested power from the carriers and replaced all that with, uh, a phone that's locked into a two-year contract with a single provider, and has a lovely OS that they've deliberately crippled (e.g. no third-party software allowed).

Wresting power from the carriers, in and of itself, is an entirely neutral thing. The measure of what's good or bad is how much power they give to the users. And Apple has never been about empowering users. "Take it or leave it" is not empowerment.

Re:"wresting power from the carriers"?

[orgelspieler]

Yeah, but they're "wrestling power from the carriers" not wresting it. That's totally different!!

Re:"wresting power from the carriers"?

[Anonymous Coward]

And what does this article, or my post have to do with Apple? I never once mentioned apple.

Your post is a response to the article, and the second fucking word of the article is "iPhone", as part of the paragraph that introduces the concept of wresting power away from the carriers -- the concept your post is entirely based around -- as something Apple has done.

I don't think there's a single person in the world (apart from your good self) who would draw any conclusion other than that your post had something to do with Apple.

How not to icon the cellphone.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Whats up with that ancient brick like thing with an antenna sticking out being used as an icon for cellphones in slashdot. Jeez can't they get a more recent pic? If not iPhone at least something from the stone age like razr or a clamshell? They are still using that fossil from Jurassic!

Re:How not to icon the cellphone.

[ptbarnett]

Whats up with that ancient brick like thing with an antenna sticking out being used as an icon for cellphones in slashdot.

Hey, that looks just like my first cellphone!

Oh, wait.....

Re:How not to icon the cellphone.

[corychristison]

Easy fix for you:

1. Go to preferences
2. Click on the Homepage tab in preferences
3. Scroll down a tiny bit and check "No Icons"
4. ...
5. Profit!

:-)

Not Classic - It's WM Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Classic is touch, but no phone, Touch and phone is WM Pro. No touch and phone is WM Standard.

Classic is your regular PDA, albeit with a 624 MHz Marvel 310 processor, 128 MB of RAM, 320 MB or more of flash, CF and SDHC, 4" 480x640 ...

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/handheld/PC/1/storefronts/FB041AA%2523ABA

Pro is usually constrained (carriers, you know)

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/handheld/Phone/1/storefronts/FA990AA%2523ABA

is small one (610). There is a larger one (910) not currently listed there.

Re:Not Classic - It's WM Standard

[FataL187]

I personally think this Motorola Ming A1200 (Unlocked) is the best smart phone out right now. Except the the lack of WiFi, but it runs linux so that makes up for that!
-FataL

Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[Da_Biz]

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.

I wholeheartedly agree: I received a low-end HP PDA years ago for Christmas. Windows Mobile worked so poorly that I didn't even bother to get the thing replaced on warranty when it broke within two months (battery couldn't hold a charge to save its life).

I already miss the 'antiquated' Palm OS that ran on my Treo. The article was nice enough to bring up a couple of my favorite reasons as to why...

First of all, a cellphone should not display a "wait" cursor. Ever. And definitely not almost every time you change screens, as on the Shadow.

One of my favorites: I run a nearly stock version of WM6 on my HTC Mogul phone, with the only additions being the free version of Epocrates and an SPB Diary application. My phone has a more-than-adequate CPU, yet still lags while switching screens.

Do I need to "wipe and load" my phone to make it run faster? Sheesh.

A cellphone should not have a Task Manager. You should never have to worry about quitting programs because you've used up too much memory.

Amen! I also love how the phone has a knack for running out of memory right when an important call comes in. There's nothing more frustrating than a ringing phone that won't show me the phone screen and where the buttons suddenly don't work.

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[julesh]

Amen! I also love how the phone has a knack for running out of memory right when an important call comes in. There's nothing more frustrating than a ringing phone that won't show me the phone screen and where the buttons suddenly don't work.

This is one of the brilliant things about PalmOS: you can write a program that will run on it _without using any memory at runtime_. Because it can run programs straight off flash, without having to load them into RAM.

OK, so PalmOS has/had a lot of problems, but why are mobile operating systems still being developed that treat their flash devices as if they were just a disk...?

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed, WM6 on a mobile phone (or possibly anything else) sounds like a terrible idea. One comment, though: I went to the mall and took a look at an iPhone with my gf and tried testing out the virtual keyboard input. We first looked around the interface to find something that would let us type. When I tapped my first menu to bring it up in search of a text input field, I waited, waited, looked at my girlfriend, she shrugged, I looked back at the iPhone, I said "maybe it crashed," she said "probably," we turned it over to look for a reset button, and then it opened the menu. We figured it must have just woken up from a sleep mode or something, so we tried another menu and again waited, waited, decided it was broken, and then this time it opened in only about 5 seconds instead of the 20 second load of the first menu. I went to the other demo iPhone in the store and went through the same two menus with the same effect. Maybe this AT&T store had somehow screwed up their iPhones, or maybe all iPhones share the sluggish speed of the Mac OS. Either way, it was quite a turn-off. Maybe you could tell me which it is, though.

Oh, one more thing. The obvious way to select text in a text field is to swipe your finger across it. Since the typing occurs in a different part of the screen, your fingers won't accidentally do this while inputting text, so it makes perfect sense. I tried it once I eventually got to a text field (I found the text messaging interface after a few minutes failing to get the notepad thingy to respond in any way) and it didn't work. Was this iPhone just fucked or can you really not select text by touching it?

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[Da_Biz]

why are mobile operating systems still being developed that treat their flash devices as if they were just a disk...?

In fairness, it may be because Flash memory has a (relatively) finite number of write cycles. Of course, I might be willing to compromise on this since there have been days I had to reboot my phone 2-3 times.

While the Palm OS certainly had some shortcomings, at least the Treo hw/sw worked pretty well as a phone :-)

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[Reaperducer]

A cellphone should not have a Task Manager. You should never have to worry about quitting programs because you've used up too much memory.

Amen! I also love how the phone has a knack for running out of memory right when an important call comes in. There's nothing more frustrating than a ringing phone that won't show me the phone screen and where the buttons suddenly don't work.

WM6 has this feature, too? Geez. I thought it was just SonyEricsson/Symbian that had the craptastic feature of dropping incoming phone calls if you have too many programs open. It's only worse when you're watching a movie and the phone starts to ring, but gets paralyzed somewhere in the screen switch so all you can do is sit there and listen to it ring, but not actually answer the thing.

No, SonyEricsson. You had three chances to get it right. Never again. I've gone from paying $400 for crappy phones that don't work from SE and Nokia to paying $400 for excellent phones that always work from Apple. The handset companies did this to themselves.

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[Da_Biz]

WM6 has this feature, too? Geez. I thought it was just SonyEricsson/Symbian that had the craptastic feature of dropping incoming phone calls if you have too many programs open.

Glad to hear that we all get the share in the pain! I only wish that certain critical features (e.g., Phone app, task manager, etc.) would have much higher "kernel priority".

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[howlingmadhowie]

this is weird. i've got a motorola a780 running an old linux kernel (2.4.20) with some half-proprietary software stack on top of it. some of the software sucks really bad (real player, need i say more? oh okay, there is no way of changing some of the default sounds. the alarm clock is particularly grating) and the UI design won't win any prizes either. as well as this, the hardware is badly designed (the wires to the inbuilt gps receiver keep breaking) and the gprs control software is also broken (if you lose and then regain reception, you can't turn gprs on or off. instead you have to reboot the phone). as well as this, it sometimes switches itself off or freezes for no apparent reason, and i really don't know if this is a hardware or a software problem.

the good news: you can install a shell on it and you can telnet in from outside over bluetooth or usb. it has never dropped a call. the (poor quality) camera allows video recording as large as the space you have on your sd-card. and that's about it.

so all in all, i'm really looking forward to android.

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[splutty]

Running a program from flash is purely read cycles, so this should not be a problem or even an issue.

You can use flash as common memory which has an acceptable read speed for the low-speed CPUs that are generally in phones. I personally thought this was brilliant. (Remember that your old BIOS tended to run directly from an EPROM/EEPROM)

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[Thumper_SVX]

Well, stock WM6 contains a lot of crud. The problem is the carrier's implementations of WM6 that really suck. Even HTC puts a bunch of crud in the system that makes it craptastic in a hurry.

I have an HTC TyTN. It's actually a Cingular 8525 as that was the lowest cost variant I could buy unlocked at the time... and it's been great. Of course, it doesn't run Cingular's (or AT&T's) craptastic WM6 variant with all their crud installed. I ran the WM5 that came with it for all of two months, then got tired of constantly rebooting my phone, dealing with the same memory issues that you have and so forth... then I downloaded a "cooked" WM6 from xda-developers.com and installed. Since then, my problems all vanished. The ROM I downloaded is referred to as the "vanilla" cooked WM6 ROM. It freed up local storage, sped up my system and made it an incredibly reliable platform.

Is it without flaws? No, but neither is my best friend's iPhone... and his is as vanilla a they come... no hacks or cracks. However, I can honestly say that today my problems are hardware related, not software. I have the dreaded "white screen" so common to the TyTN... which is fixed by turning the screen off and pressing on a few areas of the case. I hate doing it, but it works. Software-wise I only have issues with how long the Pictures and Videos app takes to thumbnail all the pictures on my micro-SD card (I wish it would just store the damn thumbnails instead of generating them every time). Other than that, no more memory issues, no more problems.

No, this isn't a good solution; to be honest I almost hate the fact that I had to get so down and dirty geeky with the device before I could make it truly usable. However, the problem I don't ascribe to WM6... I ascribe the problems I had to Cingular (now AT&T) putting too much crap on the device and making the OS extremely unstable.

And FYI, I'm not a Microsoft apologist either. I hate Windows (although it pays my bills)... my choice of personal machine is a Macbook Pro which has only seen Windows Vista once in a virtual machine for about an hour before I got tired of it running my CPU hot. I think WM6 can be a decent platform without the crud that third parties fill it with.

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[ymgve]

This is one of the brilliant things about PalmOS: you can write a program that will run on it _without using any memory at runtime_. Because it can run programs straight off flash, without having to load them into RAM.

It will still use RAM. What about stack and heap memory? Maybe it's not loading the program into RAM, just allocating work memory?

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[julesh]

It will still use RAM. What about stack and heap memory? Maybe it's not loading the program into RAM, just allocating work memory?

Both are a fixed size, and it will terminate existing applications to start a new one, so it is always possible to start a new application.

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[Da_Biz]

I'm very intrigued by the idea of running that cooked ROM you referred to--is there a link on the xda-dev site to it?

Thanks for the thoughtful advice! I'm using this phone with Sprint, but I think it's a case of same monkeys, different trees.

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[Thumper_SVX]

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=295444 was the link I used. Be aware this is specifically for the GSM Hermes... the CDMA version (can't remember the name) will need a different ROM I believe. Search around on the site and you should find it.

HTH.

apple may be changing the power-structure

[LukeCrawford]

of the cellphone market- but they certainly are not giving more power to the consumers. Look at how much we (USians) pay for txt messages. Insane, especially as the carriers can always de-prioritize the txt data and send it whenever there is a lull in voice traffic; nobody will notice even 10 seconds of lag on a txt, and 100 seconds of lag is acceptable; on a voice call, 500ms lag is nigh unusable. It seems that if one had a proper packet prioritization scheme, the bandwidth for txt messages should be free. do you know of any cellphone provider that will give you a discount OR a month-to-month contract if I bring my own (or pay full price for) an unlocked phone? I don't mind paying a lot for a good phone, but I am annoyed by provider lock-in- and most providers don't offer discounts on the phones I would want anyhow. While I'm asking for ponies, is there any provider that sells you unlimited data and txts and then pre-paid (or otherwise minimal) voice minutes? my cellphone is largely used as a pager (sms txts from an automated system that watches 60,000 servers- once I got 1500 pages in a single day) and as a data device (I have a 9300, and am connected via ssh all day)

Re:apple may be changing the power-structure

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that 160 character limit to a text message? That's because they are sent at the end of the data packet that the cell phone sends to roam from tower to tower. It costs the cell company exactly zero, since the phone is going to send the packets anyways.

Re:apple may be changing the power-structure

[LukeCrawford]

Nice! heh. I remember in the earthquake a few weeks ago (I'm in Sunnyvale) I couldn't make any calls, (the network was clogged by people calling to see if others were okay) but I could send txt messages just fine.

Re:apple may be changing the power-structure

[fuzznutz]

While I'm asking for ponies, is there any provider that sells you unlimited data and txts and then pre-paid (or otherwise minimal) voice minutes?

Get a prepaid Tracfone. Incoming text messages are free. Outgoing messages are only .3 minutes of airtime. If you don't use many voice minutes (20 minutes or so) each month, you can get your cost down to less then $7 per month.

What an idiot reviewer...

[Xenious]

I have an iPhone, I also have a windows mobile 6 smartphone. I use one as a wifi ipod and the other as my communications tool. Why? Cause the iphone doesn't sync up with my corporate exchange server and push email to me from it. It's just a tool and as much as I love my iphone I have to use the other to get the functionality of the tool I need. For what its worth I think WM6 is pretty decent and I can work without a laptop and have access to my corporate address list, email, contacts, office documents anywhere I've got reception. not bad.

Where the t-mob shadow really sucks is the half azz keyboard. ;)

Re:What an idiot reviewer...

[Anonymous Coward]

Which one you use to make phone calls?

Re:What an idiot reviewer...

[futuresheep]

I've been using Synchronica to sync our OWA server with my iphone, and itunes to sync my contacts and calendar. It works pretty well. There's no push, so I get up to 15 minute delay on my email, but it does the job.

Re:What an idiot reviewer...

[jsz0]

I'm sorry you are suffering because your company has locked you into a highly proprietary e-mail system. I use IMAP with my iPhone -- woks fantastic.

Ex-Apple

[psychicsword]

There must be a reason why he is an Ex-Apple designer. Maybe it is because he designed shitty software.

Re:Ex-Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it is because he designed shitty software. Nah, Microsoft software doesn't need to designed shitty. It just comes that way out of the box.

The GIMP Phone.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The phone has wait screens, a task manager, odd error messages etc. Makes for an amusing read."

At least you don't access it through a command-line, has a name that sounds like a cripple, or RTFM is a requirement just to dial.

Comment on the keyboard lock

[Anonymous Coward]

Never ever seen any phone where to turn the lock off you only pressed one key, its always been two
If it was one the thing would come unlock in a purse/pocket/bag etc

I live in the UK, where looking at the crap phones you yanks have is most amusing

Re:Comment on the keyboard lock

[ledow]

Err... the early Philips (C12/Savvy) phones ALL had this - they were the first real phone that BT (back then Cellnet -> BTCellnet-> O2) released when mobiles started taking off. Trying to dial 999 or 112 was given as the reason - pressing 1 or 9 would undo the key-lock.

And yes, it was incredibly dumb. And more than once I nearly dialled random 4-5 digit numbers because it had activated in my pocket. It wasn't the only model to suffer from it, though. And I shouldn't think many modern phones emulate this "feature".

Motorola Ming A1200

[ion]

The Motorola Ming A1200 is interresting, but where's the keyboard?

Re:Motorola Ming A1200

[FataL187]

It has a virtual keyboard similar to the I-Phone. The stats on it and a few review can be seen here.
Motorola Ming A1200 (Unlocked)
-FataL

Why Is 'Not' Not Funny Anymore?

[TechnicolourSquirrel]

That whole 'Not.' thing isn't considered a cool way to end a sentence anymore by most people. It seems to have gone the way of 'Psyche.' I kinda wish it hadn't, because I like it, but I don't make these decisions. I don't know who does, but there it is.

Re:Why Is 'Not' Not Funny Anymore?

[fractoid]

I think it's because Borat showed everyone it was totally funny not.

Re:How is this news? It's just WM6.

[Goaway]

The iPhone does not behave like OS X, either. The iPhone behaves like the iPhone, because Apple actually put in the effort to design the phone as a single thing, not as a box that runs an OS.

How about another opinion?

[gurulegend]

Matthew Miller from ZDNet's The Mobile Gadgeteer: http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=679

This is basically a blow-by-blow refutation of Pogue's article. Enjoy.

HTC Juno

[m2943]

The device is called the "HTC Juno", related to the "HTC Vox". I doubt it was "designed by" a T-Mobile executive, although he probably had some input.

In any case, the problem with those phones is the Windows Mobile software; since HTC is part of the Open Handset Alliance, hopefully, all that great hardware will be liberated soon and run with easy-to-use Google services.

can /. change the cell phon icon please

[andrzejl]

I mean this one:
http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topiccellphone.gif

Re: obBoost

[djdavetrouble]

Where you at ?

Buh?

[ilikejam]

"A cellphone should auto-format phone numbers with parentheses and hyphens when you enter them in the address book. When the cursor is in a number box, like ZIP code, the keyboard should automatically start typing numbers. The owner should not have to press the alternate-symbols key."
I, for one, don't want hyphens or parentheses in my phone numbers, and my zip code starts with a G, so I wouldn't want my keyboard to type numbers in my zip code field.

"A locking feature, which prevents the buttons from being pushed accidentally in a purse or pocket, is nice. But it should be optional. And one button press should suffice to unlock it; two in sequence is just annoying."
Sort of defeats the purpose of locking the keyboard if it can be unlocked with an accidental keypress.

"...looking stunning in your hand..."
Uhh, what? Are phones in the US really that ugly that this plain-at-best handset is judged stunning?

TFA written by Apple Fanboy

[Yahma]

To summarize the article:

T-Mobile has great hardware on their hands. But this phone could have been so much more... if... and only if...
They had used apple's Iphone software... and since the software wasn't designed by Apple, but instead by big bad microsoft, it sucks!

Personally, I am getting sick of the argument that everything that Apple does is the work of God. While I admit, the Iphone introduced some better concepts in UI, it still has no SDK, is locked, and will be bricked by apple if you try to unlock it. It is a closed platform that is strongly controlled by the almighty Apple.

Had Apple released the Shadow with Windows Mobile, the author of this article would have found some way to justify Apples actions.

Re:TFA written by Apple Fanboy

[Anonymous Coward]

MOD Parent Up! Parent poster make some interesting observations and then is modded down because he is not blindly Pro-Apple.

Re: obBoost

[crowbarsarefornerdyg]

LMAO. I only use Boost because it's actually cheaper than a Nextel account, and all the people I do business with have Nextel. Why not use Direct Connect for a buck all day instead of spending more money calling them cell to cell? And the i730 is more hackable than any other cell phone that I've used.

Me, Too!

[zippthorne]

I used to be in the "I just want a phone that's a phone" camp. Then the prepaid phones came out that are small, just a phone, and hella inexpensive. Finally, exactly what I wanted came around. So I paid too much to get a cool convergence phone with a camera and and mp3 player and cable to connect my computer to the internet and a chintzy gps (actually, the gps isn't half bad. Not good enough for hiking, but more than adequate for "the turn's just a little farther, we haven't missed it" type stuff). Turns out I've been a hypocrite the whole time.

I'd still whine if the small, fairly robust, inexpensive, no frills, prepaid phones didn't exist, though.

David Pogue and his Interests.

[Poorcku]

I don't even bother to read Pogue's reviews since the hard drive recovery service review he did and was discovered it was paid for.

Pogue's review is wrong on so many counts it isn't even funny. From methodology, description and so on. People interested in communication technology should read websites that specialize in this kind of things like gsmarena.com, mobile-review.com and see how a review should be done. For example he compares it with the Iphone on a regular basis, though they are not in the same category, or still not because Apple won't release a SDK untill february.

A real review of a phone should be made like this (for you iphone lovers), or a Nokia N81 review, and i will shut up now and not comment on Pogue again in my life. :)

Re:David Pogue and his Interests.

[Jeremy Erwin]

Pogue's review is wrong on so many counts it isn't even funny.

This isn't a goddamned comedy club. We don't reward people for being funny. We reward people for being Insightful and Informative. So don't be shy about posting a methodological review of Pogue's reviews. Don't skimp on the details. And, please, if you have a conflict of interest, please inform us in the body of your reply.

Re:David Pogue and his Interests.

[Zelos]

Unless there have been major changes in the UI since WM5, his review is probably pretty accurate. WM5 is truly horrible to use as a phone in my experience.

I've generally found mobile-review.com's reviews to be very poor. Apart from anything else they're often written in very strange English, like they've been auto-translated or something.

Re:David Pogue and his Interests.

[Poorcku]

We don't reward people for being funny

I think that on /. people are quite easily rewarded for being funny. I think you are being an asshat, and a major one at that. Pogue's mistakes have been already pointed out in this wonderful evening, and i think better than i could do it. Please read, there are plenty of +5 interesting and + 5 insightful comments here regarding that. And as for my conflict of interests, i didn't receive 2700 USD for a review like he did.

Re:David Pogue and his Interests.

[Poorcku]

that is because they are from Russia. And just because it is not Oxford english, their reviews still better the ones from Pogue.

Journalists should not be designers

[TheCodeFoundry]

FTA: "A locking feature, which prevents the buttons from being pushed accidentally in a purse or pocket, is nice. But it should be optional. And one button press should suffice to unlock it; two in sequence is just annoying."

I'm failing to see how one button to unlock the phone would be any different than an accidental button push in a purse or pocket. Most cellphones I have ever used have unlocked by pressing a "menu" button and then the asterisk button. How is that difficult or annoying? Have we really gotten to the point where one extra button press is beyond acceptance?

On the other hand, FTA: "A cellphone should auto-format phone numbers with parentheses and hyphens when you enter them in the address book. When the cursor is in a number box, like ZIP code, the keyboard should automatically start typing numbers. The owner should not have to press the alternate-symbols key."

I can't agree more with this statement. I have the same problem on my Motorola Q . The design choices are nearly laughable. There are many inputs in the phone where the edit box will only take a numeric input. And yet, the phone design (specifically, the OS) forces me to press the Alt button to allow me to enter numbers.

Re:Journalists should not be designers

[C0vardeAn0nim0]

On the other hand, FTA: "A cellphone should auto-format phone numbers with parentheses and hyphens when you enter them in the address book. When the cursor is in a number box, like ZIP code, the keyboard should automatically start typing numbers. The owner should not have to press the alternate-symbols key."

I can't agree more with this statement. I have the same problem on my Motorola Q . The design choices are nearly laughable. There are many inputs in the phone where the edit box will only take a numeric input. And yet, the phone design (specifically, the OS) forces me to press the Alt button to allow me to enter numbers.

i disagree. in this globalised world, a business oriented phone like this must have the ability to store phone numbers and ZIP codes in international formats, which means the ZIP code must accept letters too. also, auto formatting phone numbers with parenthesis, what if you have a brasilian number ? our numbers are formated as (xx) yyyy-zzzz. two digits for area code and 8 for the number. some countries have only one digit for area code, it varies wildly.

Re:Journalists should not be designers

[SagSaw]

in this globalised world, a business oriented phone like this must have the ability to store phone numbers and ZIP codes in international formats, which means the ZIP code must accept letters too. also, auto formatting phone numbers with parenthesis, what if you have a brasilian number ? our numbers are formated as (xx) yyyy-zzzz. two digits for area code and 8 for the number. some countries have only one digit for area code, it varies wildly.

Yes, but the U.S. version of the phone should always recognize NXXNXXXXXX as a NANP (North-American Numbering Plan) number a format accordingly. Any number beginning with 011 (or whatever the carrier uses for international access) can be formatted differently. Bonus points if the software automatically formats in the preferred format for the country-code.

Seems picky

[ACMENEWSLLC]

I have the SDA which as Windows Mobile 5.0. I like the phone. This new unit looks like the logical next step. Sure, it takes several mores to get to through all the start menus - but I can assign shortcuts to them. And I have a nifty last accessed menu at the top, so things I use a lot are easier to get to.

I, too, would like someone to give this a better review.

WM6 is at fault

[otter42]

Sounds more like an indictment of Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6 than the phone itself. And I understand completely. I've got a Glowfiish [sic] phone from Eten and it's a catastrophe. The phone itself is cool to the max, but WM6 is so bulky, ugly, impossible to use, ill-conceived,... well, I think you get the point. No Windows Media smart phone will ever be worth a dang. There is far too much to redo in order to save WM. They'd have to completely start over.

Ever phone from now on is going to call itself the iPhone killer, but you know as long as they're using Windows, they'll be pigs in a poke. Can't wait for the Openmoko and Android platforms to come to market.

Re:WM6 is at fault

[reidconti]

WM is indeed useless. Refute all of Pogue's points all you want, but the fact of the matter is the task manager and UI lag make WM devices unusable as a cell phone. Your phone should NEVER hang, ignore incoming calls, or any of that BS. I simply don't see how anyone can make a positive review of one of these devices.

Foward your email to Gmail

[edremy]

It's what my boss does with his iPhone. It works even if it's a bit clunky.

I had hopes for the shadow too, ditto the blackjack. Some of the other directors at work talked me into a AT&T 8525 and despite all the hype it sucks too. It's a freaking brick, especially with the extended life battery , a lousy phone that you can't dial by feel and a crappy web browser.

Is it too much to ask for a phone that I can fit in a front pants pocket, dial by feel with hard buttons and that can also sync to Outlook? My personal Katana is a great phone- if I could just get email on it I'd ditch the brick.

Now that's an ugly phone!

[Lachlan Hunt]

When I read this in the article:

The resulting phone is beautiful. Its aspirations to Appleness are evident immediately: there's the nearly buttonless façade, the huge black expanse of screen, the iPod-like control dial that both spins through lists and clicks at the four compass points...

It made me seriously question whether the photo shown along side was actually the phone they were talking about. That thing is seriously the ugliest phone I've seen in a long time and reminds me of something from the late '90s. Seriously, how could anyone possibly look at that phone and think it's even remotely inspired by the iPhone/iPod?!

"A buttonless facade"??? What the? There are 7 buttons plus the wheel on the front, plus another 20 with the keyboard pulled out. Maybe I just don't understand what "buttonless" means these days".

Nokia

[LilGuy]

I'll never understand what the makers of my Nokia were smoking when they put it together. The phone has a lot of nice features like a tip calculator, conversions, etc, but the main screen does not have a clock unless it's on the screensaver, but if you press a button while it's on the screensaver clock, the clock disappears and the unit lights up. By the time the clock comes back, the screen is dark again. So in order to check the time I have to unlock the phone, and hold the time button which is a very loud voice telling you the time. It's embarrassing.

Re:Nokia

[Poorcku]

what model do you have?

Re:Nokia

[LilGuy]

Its the 1600 model. One of those Net10 pay as you go phones.

Tried Nokia N800?

[Explo]

While N800 (or its recent successor, N810) isn't really called a PDA, I've found it a nice generic tool for browsing, reading emails, making some notes, listening music and other moderately lightweight tasks. While there isn't a default calendar application, I think some are available separately (I have very few meetings etc. myself, so I don't really need a calendar personally). With WLAN and Bluetooth connectivity, I can access net pretty much anywhere and the 800x480 screen is pretty good for most uses.

On the downside it could use a bit longer active use-time (~4h of continuous usage in worst case), but I suppose that's the price of a large high-quality color screen.

WM6

[DavidD_CA]

I'm running WM6 Professional on an HTC TyTnII (aka AT&T Tilt). I have to say that the OS is pretty great. It's not perfect, and it's not anywhere near as sexy as the iPhone. That being said, it does some very amazing things that have made me more productive, connected, and entertained.

It crashes every now and then, and sometimes the GPS locks up, but a simple reboot has always fixed it. I suspect part of the problem is some of the crap AT&T loaded on top of the OS after Microsoft and HTC was done with it.

But even with the occasional crash, and an underpowered processor, I wouldn't dump WM6 for anything else available today. Being able to talk to my Exchange server, to tether to my laptop, to open Office documents, and have all the apps talk to each other (ie: Live Search can access my Contacts and pull up maps with the GPS), is a wonderful thing.

Re:WM6

[SirJorgelOfBorgel]

I have to agree. I've been using Windows Mobile on the PocketPC for several phones now, it may not be perfect, but it's very nice. The TyTN II ofcourse at this time being the creme de la creme in WM phones (if the battery life was longer, there was a decent DDRaw driver and it had a VGA screen, I'd say the phone itself was perfect) I've seen the iPhone, I've played with it, and honestly, I don't see what the fuss is about. It's not a phone for serious business, it's a toy. A WM device gives you office productivity when you're mobile. As one of the founders of a tech start-up I can honestly say I could not do without it. Syncing all my outlook things with the phone, accessibility to my mail everywhere, tethering, GPS, GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA, full QWERTY keyboard, if needed open office documents on the go, and when I want it is almost trivial to develop my own applications for it. I almost feel sorry to say this, but the only thing that comes even close to WM is Symbian. Symbian is a bit faster and energy efficient, but it just doesn't offer the same level of applications and compatibility. To :parent:, I've not had a lock-up on my Kaiser in a long time. Don't run Batti, tweak with KaiserTweak (shameless plug) and if you're feeling adventurous, go to xda-developers.com , get the HTC rom and throw away all your AT&T muck. (Chainfire @ XDA-Dev)

Re:WM6

[Reaperducer]

I'm running WM6 Professional on an HTC TyTnII

Wow. I never thought I'd see a phone named after a town in Wales.

Re:WM6

[Thumper_SVX]

Seconded on the switching out of the ROM. I did that on my HTC TyTN (original) and never looked back. The so-called "Vanilla cooked WM6 ROM" did away with the crap, and did away with my problems that I'd had with the device (bar the hardware issues I still have). It gave the device a new lease of life and has actually become an extremely productive device for me.

It's a Pogue Review of Non-Apple Kit

[meehawl]

It's a Pogue review of something that's not made by Apple so of *course* it's going to say it's shit.

Re:It's a Pogue Review of Non-Apple Kit

[DECS]

Which doesn't mean its not shit, of course.

Also, NYT's Pogue and WSJ's Mossberg are both bending backwards in their attempts to look "fair," making limp complaints about Apple and trying to give garbage credit for not being on fire. Pogue reviewed the Palm Centro and danced with it like it was something other than the cheap piece of recycled shit it is, dressed up in childish candy reminiscent of the toilet seat iBooks from a half decade ago.

No review can make Windows Mobile look like less of a failure than it is. Microsoft didn't bother to use WinCE in the Xbox or in the UMPC, the very handheld PC application WinCE was supposed to be designed expressly for. Windows Mobile is simply an attempt to recycle failure, and it deserves to die. Google's Android just vacuumed away its remaining oxygen.

The Spectacular Failure of WinCE and Windows Mobile

Re:It's a Pogue Review of Non-Apple Kit

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

Your link is every bit as much crap as Pogue. It's written by a Mac fanboy trying to crap on MS because Windows Mobile devices are trouncing the iPhone. Note that the same site has articles like "More Absurd iPhone Myths: Third Party Software Panic", which tells us how much we don't need to be able to load third party apps on our devices.

Talk about the Jobs Reality Distortion Field: every time there's a shortcoming in an Apple product, the Apple fanboys leap in to tell us how it somehow doesn't matter.

Don't get me wrong: WinMo has some serious usability issues. It's slow (not unusably slow, but it's most definitely slower than the iPhone or Palm Devices), buggy (my Dash sometimes takes a 5-minute "timeout" from working with the cell network, although some of this may be T-Mobile), and hard for a lot of people to use.

But let's be frank here. There are a lot of slow, buggy phones out there. Symbian is notorious for this. And at least WinMo phones don't lock and reboot frequently like Palm OS devices. Even many Linux smartphones have problems. My Linux-based Nokia 770 is piss slow, and it kernel panics from time to time.

Now, WinMo isn't going to kill Symbian, and it's not going to kill Linux. But a lot of the phones that run Linux don't expose that to the user. Many Motorola phones run Linux, but you can't load apps on them using anything but Java.

As for your comment about UMPCs and the XBOX not running CE: both have PC class x86 processors. It doesn't make sense to run an embedded OS designed primarily for ARM systems on them. UMPCs are actual Windows-based PCs, not embedded devices. And, FYI, HTC makes a UMPC that runs both CE and full Windows (it runs vastly longer on batteries in CE mode, because it uses a lower-power ARM CPU rather than the x86).

No, WinMo is doing exactly what MS wanted it to do. It's not intended for mass-market phones, at least not yet. It's intended as a BlackBerry competitor, and in that it's doing quite well. People comparing WinMo to Symbian or Linux miss the point.

Re:It's a Pogue Review of Non-Apple Kit

[Anonymous Coward]

Never even try to argue with Roughlydrafted, he will crush you with his Apple Zeal. When you meet crazy people on the street carrying signs and placards explaining in great detail how the Clintons are in fact Lizard people from Venus here to suck our souls through the UN, don't even start reading the pamphlets. They will initially make a crazy kind of sense and suck you in because, let's face it, the Zealots have a lot of time to work on this monomaniacal garbage while you are out enjoying life. You'll waste precious minutes of your life working through the impressively crafted nonsense. Same thing with Roughlydrafted, just ignore it and eventually it will go away and like a crazy street bum, go bother someone else.

My Comments to his Suggestions

[DavidD_CA]

When you're finished looking at a text message, you should not have to open a menu to find the Delete command. When you're on a phone call, you should not have to open a menu to find the Speakerphone command. When you take a picture, you should not have to open a menu to find Send and Delete. WM6 allows you to hold down "D" for a second and the message deletes.

A cellphone should not have a Task Manager. You should never have to worry about quitting programs because you've used up too much memory. I see the Task Manager as a way to swap between different apps. I can look at Live Maps, then switch to my email, look something up, copy and paste it back into Live Maps, answer a call, and switch back to the map, etc. The Task Manager allows me to do this quickly.

A cellphone should auto-format phone numbers with parentheses and hyphens when you enter them in the address book. Mine seems to do that just fine, though I normally add my photos via Outlook and sync. Perhaps he is adding them to the SIM card which may not support that?

If the phone has a navigation wheel, the big, clickable center button should always mean "O.K." Always. It should never do nothing, even when there's an O.K. label over one of the tiny softkeys. This is most definitely a choice of TMobile, since they designed the hardware. My WM6 device (HTC TyTn II) has a scroll wheel which clicks in, selecting whatever I've selected. There's also two OK buttons on the device (side and front) which click OK.

When you're assigning a contact to one of the five "My Faves" slots, a T-Mobile calling plan that gives you unlimited calls to your five favorite numbers, three confirmation screens is two too many. That's T-Mobile's software, not WM6. The HTC homescreen program allows me to set my seven favorites with two clicks each.

If it takes four presses on the More button just to see everything in the Start menu -- and you provide no direct way to get to the first page from the last -- you need to redesign. This is as simple as rearranging your Start Menu shortcuts in the Windows directory. You can do this from the device or when ActiveSync'd. I agree that it should come "cleaner" from the manufacturer, but that's T-Mobile's fault.

A locking feature, which prevents the buttons from being pushed accidentally in a purse or pocket, is nice. But it should be optional. And one button press should suffice to unlock it; two in sequence is just annoying. This is all configurable in the control panel. On my TyTn II, I tap the power button to lock, and tap it again to unlock. I hold it down to shut down the phone.

I think this person needs to understand what the difference is between WM6 and a company that has jacked it up. WM6 is not perfect, but the issues he's blasted here are either because of TMobile's implementation, or his lack of knowledge of the features of the OS.

Re:My Comments to his Suggestions

[GarfBond]

I can go out and buy an iPhone, Nokia, or whatever, or I can buy this. Why should I care whether it's a WM6 problem or a t-mob problem? It should be usable out of the box.

Re:My Comments to his Suggestions

[hublan]

I think this person needs to understand what the difference is between WM6 and a company that has jacked it up. WM6 is not perfect, but the issues he's blasted here are either because of TMobile's implementation, or his lack of knowledge of the features of the OS. Two things. First, it's a cell phone. Why should I have to know anything about an OS? It should just work. Intuitively, quickly and without driving one mad. Secondly, how is it that a multi-billion dollar corporation can't get anything right even at sixth major revision, whereas Apple somehow magically brought fourth a phone that just works, on their first try? Windows Mobile is garbage because it tries to faithfully keep elements of the Windows Desktop OS which make absolutely no sense on a cell phone.

Re:My Comments to his Suggestions

[DavidD_CA]

I don't disagree with you there. Go buy a TyTn II. :)

Re:My Comments to his Suggestions

[DavidD_CA]

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. WM6 is very much a stable and full-featured OS, and on other hardware it works great.

But when a hardware manufacturer mucks around with it, which is what's happened in this article, the blame has to go to the OEM and not the operating system.

To take all of the flaws of the OEM's implementation and say that WM6 is the fault is just bad journalism.

Re:My Comments to his Suggestions

[Manuscript Replica]

Exactly, in the eyes of the user it's a worthless distinction. If it sucks, it sucks, no one cares whose fault it is.

Re:My Comments to his Suggestions

[Negadecimal]

Why should I care whether it's a WM6 problem or a t-mob problem?

Because the article is more about what's wrong with the OS than the phone itself: "As it turns out, that [WM6] decision is just as much an impediment to the Shadow's greatness as AT&T exclusivity is to the iPhone."

The article is an OS review; why shouldn't the parent comment on WM6?

Nokia 1100

[Dr_Barnowl]

This phone has a flashlight, a single bright white LED in the top of the casing.

It's the epitomy of minimalism, but it's the only phone I've seen with this sensible feature. Not a xenon tube that needs a battery guzzling capacitor to charge for each shot, either.

Re:Nokia 1100

[Torvaun]

My LG does this too.

Re:Nokia 1100

[paving-slab]

As does my Sharp.

Apple Copied LG, Which Copied Samsung

[meehawl]

how could anyone possibly look at that phone and think it's even remotely inspired by the iPhone/iPod?!

Agreed, Nokia's phones are usually based on the Nokia "look" more than anything else. But there is a whole new wave of big-screen phones emerging based on trends coming out of Korea. The first one of these was a few mutant Samsungs, which begat the LG Prada, which Apple then lifted for its own phone design. Compare and contrast.

Re:Apple Copied LG, Which Copied Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow... the iPhone looks like a Prada because they both have black and shiny parts, a big screen, and shaped like an iPod?

If I say "black, wide screen iPod with one button" WTF image pops into YOUR head?

Re:Apple Copied LG, Which Copied Samsung

[Anonymous Coward]

The iPod copied the Archos mp3 player design, back in 2000/2001. This was different from the Nomad, which copied the Compaq PJB from 1998/1999. Ironically, the Nomad/PJB look more like the PSP/iPod Touch look around today.

How I Delete

[meehawl]

This is probably why, after 5 earlier iterations, Windows Mobile still requires going into a menu to hit "delete" on a text message.

I have a WM6 phone. Here's how I delete:

1) See text message that needs nuking.
2) Push finger on text message for ~.3 seconds.
3) Action menu pops up.
4) Select delete.
5) Done in less than a second.

Now, I guess I *could* alter the UI to have an "X" button on each message that I could push (and hold, to prevent errors) to delete. But that seems like a waste of screen estate to me. I remove all the individual tab X buttons in Firefox.

I suppose could use a swiping routine ala Apple. Then again, I disabled all the gesture detection in my trackpad, and didn't like Opera's gestural interface when it appeared a few years ago. Too much potential for error - I have busy fingers!

Sprint just released a new PALM phone

[gelfling]

Just as Palm is crashing into the flaming volcano at Mach 3. Oh it's cheap enough and dumb yokels who want a PDA phone for $100 ($300-$200) but it's Palm. Not only is the company almost out of business but it's out of business because Palm OS is junk that can not multitask. For the $50 you can get a Moto-Q or a Blackberry.

AHHHH!!!!!!!!

[NickCatal]

Geesh... All I want is a freaking phone that allows me to play music and videos (podcasts), install 3rd party apps, has 3G connectivity & wifi, has gmail and push-email support, syncs with an ical feed, has an IM client that works with all the major networks, allows me to teather my laptop via bluetooth to the phone, has A2DP, and a web browser that renders like a web browser should (WITH FLASH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.) Make your own MP3/AAC ringtones. Oh, and it needs to be on more than one carrier.

And it needs to be, most importantly, a GOOD PHONE. With GOOD RECEPTION, SOUND QUALITY, AND DIALING SHOULD BE SUPER-SIMPLE!!

Photo and video opportunities so that you could upload to Youtube/Flickr/Facebook would be cool too, but I'm OK without having that.

How fucking hard is it to roll that out???? Seriously, how fucking hard?

Re:AHHHH!!!!!!!!

[MacDork]

With the exception of syncing with iCals directly, and comprehensive flash support, the Nokia N95 does all of that. Adobe's Flash Lite 2.x app is pre-installed, and you can sync your calanders with iSync. I'm not aware of online syncing, though it may exist. Not a feature I'd use much personally. Anyway, pretty darned close to what you want. The Nokia antenna is legendary. I've never been able to get a signal indoors at work before I purchased my N95. It does the Youtube/Flickr bit out of box. If you want facebook, you'll need to install Shozu. Installing Shozu will give you the additional benefit of geotagging with the built in GPS. The web browser is even built on the open source Safari code base. Nokia has a podcast app. The headphone jack is also A/V out, so get some video glasses to go with it. Get a folding bluetooth keyboard and it might only leave your pocket for those 5 megapixel snapshots. It syncs your Mac address book and calendars nicely with iSync. It's pretty much the most awesome phone available on the market. It'll set you back about 700 bucks though.

Re:AHHHH!!!!!!!!

[Unmanifest]

I want to believe that if a phone had the requisite hardware and it supported JAVA, then over time all your needs could be met by the community or even yourself.

I have a Samsung u520. Not a super phone but a nice little camera phone and mp3 player. Well, the dang thing runs BREW. It has all these things I hate(celltop for one), but I can't get rid of them or even change the configuration of the menus to get them out of my way.

So I downloaded the BREW SDK, and I was actually ready to learn it just to fix my phone. But then I found out that you have to pay Qualcomm $30,000 just to "unlock" an software you write, otherwise no BREW-enabled phone will run it. So, scratch that.

I was able to hack it a little with BitPim, so that I can at least make my own ringtones, but you wouldn't believe the hoops I had to go through to do that: rename an mp3 as '.mid' and place it in one of a dozen magic directories with meaningless numeric names, then manually edit a database entry in the same directory; the directory and its contents can only be gotten to with 3rd-party hackware.

If I had the money, I would definitely pay a premium for a phone with good, well-specified hardware that was open in the sense that I could write my own software for it and/or modify the software that comes on it. I don't know if that's in the OS or what.

Also: the carriers make plenty of money just selling me the damn service. I don't like all the hidden marketing ploys.

Re:AHHHH!!!!!!!!

[Reaperducer]

All I want is a freaking phone that allows me to play music and videos (podcasts), install 3rd party apps, has 3G connectivity & wifi, has gmail and push-email support, syncs with an ical feed, has an IM client that works with all the major networks, allows me to teather my laptop via bluetooth to the phone, has A2DP, and a web browser that renders like a web browser should (WITH FLASH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.) Make your own MP3/AAC ringtones. Oh, and it needs to be on more than one carrier.

Ya want a pony with that?

Re:AHHHH!!!!!!!!

[NickCatal]

Great start, but after reading a lot of the reviews it just doesn't hit that sweet spot just yet.

We will see what happens at Macworld SF in January.

Re:AHHHH!!!!!!!!

[poot_rootbeer]

Geesh... All I want is a freaking phone that allows me to play music and videos (podcasts), install 3rd party apps, has 3G connectivity & wifi, has gmail and push-email support, syncs with an ical feed, has an IM client that works with all the major networks, allows me to teather my laptop via bluetooth to the phone, has A2DP, and a web browser that renders like a web browser should (WITH FLASH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.) Make your own MP3/AAC ringtones. Oh, and it needs to be on more than one carrier.

And it needs to be, most importantly, a GOOD PHONE. With GOOD RECEPTION, SOUND QUALITY, AND DIALING SHOULD BE SUPER-SIMPLE!!

And it should be able to dispense candy via MMS messaging, and you should be able to win prizes by using it!

Re:AHHHH!!!!!!!!

[Manuscript Replica]

How hard? Very hard, by the looks of things.

Mod parent down

[stud9920]

Stupidest ever excuse for not being able to learn english. Caring less NEVER EVER takes less effort than caring more.

Re:Mod parent down

[AoT]

It was a joke!

Chill. I don't see why people get so annoyed at idiomatic usages.

This is how.

[NDPTAL85]

By doing something that will fly over the head of a geek every day of the week.

By building a superior user interface.

*SWOOSH*

One size fits all

[Sanat]

Whenever I see a device that tries to be "Everything" I am taken back to the 60's to McNamara and his desire to have an airplane that had "commonality" and could serve as the "end all".

The F111 was designed to be both a fighter and a bomber. It was too heavy to land on carriers and could not carry the required equipment and payloads required by the Navy... did not even have gatlin guns on it for a while, and it was too small to carry a large payload and the range was too short to be an effective bomber.

So is the T-mobile a F111 or can these problems be worked out?

This is a time for the designer to eat his/her pride and make it work... if that is possible. It wasn't possible with the F111 and the T-mobile remains to be seen.

Re:One size fits all

[ioshhdflwuegfh]

So is the T-mobile a F111 or can these problems be worked out? That's a lovely analogy. You Sir you have broken off from venerable car analogies and entered the next level!

Re:One size fits all

[steveo777]

Seriously, you're either carrying a slow candy bar phone, or a not so slow brick. I've had the opportunity to use most smartphones and I must say that none of them is going to be what anyone wants. At least for now. Anything running Windows Mobile is going to be slow and clunky, despite the features being very nice. I opted for the Samsung Blackjack. The only reason being that it is cheaper and thinner than the HTC's. I don't like the Blackberry interfaces. Especially the 20 key layout like on TFA's mentioned phone. I loved the iPhone, but for the price I expected 3G data access and wouldn't pay the premium without that. I probably will get the iPhone when Apple includes 3G, and when I see some more support for 3rd party apps.

I'm thinking in the next four years we'll have more 'acceptable' smart phones. But so is everyone else.

Mod GP up, Mod parent down

[Fifty Points]

Your statement is false. If I care less about my car, I will spend less effort maintaining it. If I care more about my car, I will spend more effort making sure it's working right. I have reasoning power to work this out in advance, therefore caring less takes less effort.

Re:Mod GP up, Mod parent down

[stud9920]

Oops. I should take care of proofreading (more effort) before posting. I meant "Caring less NEVER EVER takes more effort than caring more."

What kind of error message?

[UnknowingFool]

The phone has wait screens, a task manager, odd error messages etc.

What kind of error messages?

You are making a phone call to Gates, Bill. Confirm or deny?

This is exaclty why Android will amount to nothing

[billr]

Because it still allow the stupid carriers to control what is on their stupid phones and phones will continue to suck and suck hard in the US.

Absolute stupidity.

What is this guy babbling about?

[PPH]

From TFA:

how Apple is changing the phone game by wrestling power from the carriers

Since when does 'wrestling power from the carriers' get me stuck with AT&T service for my iPhone?

Re:What is this guy babbling about?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when does 'wrestling power from the carriers' get me stuck with AT&T service for my iPhone?

The difference is that AT&T isn't locking you out of using your phone however you like, Apple is. Isn't that so much better?

iPhone Features

[andersh]

Now, I don't have an iPhone, but even I know that you CAN edit MP3s and use them as ringtones VERY easily just not officially. And there are a LOT of applications that do this now.

And you CAN in fact view the filesystem on an iPhone easily - just have a look here

I have Windows Mobile phones and they are not that good. I'm not in the market for an iPhone either. I love my Symbian phones though. But I will say this for the iPhone, it's not about the hardware - it's how you use it.

Give me a break about how your WM phone already does more than the iPhone. Or how it has a better camera and 3G. Take touchscreens, they are not new, but they work better on the iPhone. And that's because the software is much, much more user friendly than what Microsoft makes. That's why I would consider an iPhone, but never again Windows Mobile.

Why should Apple have allowed free use of MP3-ringtones? They should not. The music is a licensed piece of property that belongs to the artist. If you want to edit and reuse it, make sure it's fair use and in accordance with the terms of use. For Apple it's crucial to stay legal and not mess with the music industry I guess. Don't expect them to forget it.

Web access?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Is exchange that bad to use through the Web interface? Does it work on Safari?

If not, is there some other system you could be using? Our corporate email is done through Gmail, and we seem happy with it.

What a steaming pile..

[rickb928]

Many of Pogue's complaints are interesting:

- Complains about the SureType keyboard, it gets words wrong and is tough with names.

- Menus for a lot of what should be simple stuff.

- Takes a two-key combination to unlock. (ok, let me bust in here, a single-key unlock isn;t a keyboard lock function. It isn't. It's just not useful, cause it doesn't lock the keyboard against an accidental keypress. In other words, a single-key unlock doesn't work. Ok, dumass author? Thank me later.

- Something about memory usage and watching how many programs you run.

Before I go any further, I own a BlackBerry 7105t, and all of the above complaints plague my Berry. And I betcha Pogue kinda tolerated that model.

No, the 7105t doesn't run Windows, and I bet Pogue thinks this is one of the few phones that suffers from memory leaks. Well, since the latest OS upgrade, mine will eat memory when loading web pages such as from Infoworld and a few other common sites that have to run ads before they show you content. How nice. If I choose the right link, I get one put through Skweezer, which helps. Some sites end with an hourglass that persists even after I close the browser. How nice.

Pogue is complaining about some of the better and common features of BlackBerries.

Nice try, but you are wrong, you ink-stained wretch. The Shadow will probably lose points for Windows shortcomings, but SureType, menus, and a two-key unlock are not significant problems.

I'm guessing he didn't get a free one to swag out to someone he wanted to impress.

rick

Re:What a steaming pile..

[pogueNYT]

>I'm guessing he didn't get a free one to swag out to someone he wanted to impress.

Dude. You can disagree with the article.

(Although trust me: 2 button presses to unlock a phone WITH NO EXPOSED KEYS AT ALL is totally unnecessary.)

But your last line is a smear.

There's no free swag involved in my job. Every piece of hardware I review--EVERY ONE--goes back to the manufacturer. I'm not even allowed to accept invitations to ride the electronics companies' blimps, go on their Tokyo junkets, accept their Broadway tickets, sit in their U.S. Open loges, etc.

--Pogue

Re:What a steaming pile..

[rickb928]

Then I apologize. Unwarranted, though it's hard to find a columnist that just gives it as they see it. I wonder how many others are bought and paid for. It happens, I hear.

I still disagree. But I didn't really comment expecting a response to the substantive points. And certainly not any reponse to the unfortunately smeary stuff. Mibad.

And I still think you dissed most everything my old BlackBerry is. Did you ever look at a 7105t? Whatcha think of it? Crap, I should just Google it.

And I wouldn't begrudge you tickets to the Open. Loge seats? Send me some? Please? I'll be nice. (Oh dear, now I see how wrong swag is...)

oh, my captcha word... 'frigid'. Yeah.

OK, here

[StarKruzr]

Please tell me why anyone should want a PDA that does not include a cellphone.

The phone essentially "completes" the PDA functions. PDAs have contact lists, WiFi, email, and a host of other central-contact-database-organized functions which a phone module naturally complements.

You don't "suffer" from the inclusion of the phone. So why complain about it?

Re:OK, here

[Beltonius]

Because phones are tied to specific vendors/networks. These same vendors often restrict the software and hardware capabilities of their phones to encourage you to buy more services from them.

Re:OK, here

[tgrigsby]

You hit it right on the head. Phone companies trying to limit what can be installed on the phone are the gating the issue in merging PDAs with phones. Oh, and the parent message forgot cameras -- I'm shopping around for a fully functional PDA+phone+camera with USB, Bluetooth, and SD slot that runs WinCE. I'm not looking for a full computer -- I have a laptop when I want to get real work done -- and it needs to be highly portable.

Convergence is what I'm counting on.

Re:OK, here

[Carnildo]

Please tell me why anyone should want a PDA that does not include a cellphone.

A form factor that makes a phone comfortable to hold for half an hour does not allow for a large, easy-to-read screen. I'd get hand cramps trying to hold my PDA up to my ear, and I'd get eyestrain trying to read an e-book on the screen of a cell phone.

As does my old AT&T 8525.

[StarKruzr]

n/t

Do I like the pictures?

[StarKruzr]

Yes?

I like the pictures I take with my friend's Canon Digital Rebel much better, but that's unsurprising (I would hope). I also prefer not to carry a DSLR around with me -- and many times don't want to be bothered carrying a point-and-shoot around either.

Me.

[StarKruzr]

Who here really takes serious pictures with their cellphone and/or uses their phone as their primary mp3 player?

And from the comments here, I'm not alone, either.

Also, why do they need to be "serious" pictures?

I've got my philosophy...

[StarKruzr]

What philosophy, pray tell, is behind emacs, which, you know, no one uses.

Re:I've got my philosophy...

[dwarfking]

Maybe it is the philosophy that emacs is just a LISP interpreter with buffer-targeted key input capability? Like a shell or PERL or other interpreters, you feed it new scripts to interpret. So it does one thing, interpret LISP. Just because what you can do with the LISP scripts is nearly infinite, doesn't mean emacs doesn't fall into the do one thing UNIX utility camp.

Well...

[StarKruzr]

... for a change I don't disagree with you, Dan. :p

Is it just me, or has call quality on *ALL* mobile carriers in the US been going *down* in recent years rather than up as you'd expect it to?

Also, out of curiosity, did you jailbreak yours? I was going to wait until February until I got to the point that I just couldn't resist the allure of (fast) IM and Terminal (not to mention the NES emulator).

It's a GSM spec which the iPhone doesn't follow

[Yer Mum]

Reference here.

I have one and like it

[lorax]

Unlocking the phone is easy, the two buttons are right next to each other. Furthermore, if two keypresses are too many, just slide the phone open, that unlocks it (and answers the phone if it is ringing). It is small and comfortable to hold and is reasonably light.

They predictive typing works suprisingly well, it is even supposed to keep track of what you have typed in the past to help it in the future, and if it gets it wrong, it shows you options and you can use the scroll wheel to pick the right one, no need to do the multi-tap tango. This is one area where it does much better than I expected.

One of the main reasons for me getting this phone was the wifi, so I could surf at home/work without needing a data plan. It is pretty good, auto-connecting when I open the phone. There is also no need to go to the start menu for common functions such as checking email or text messages, or even opening the web browser. The web browser itself does a poor job on many sites (such as slashdot) I think it is the css though and not technically the browser. Scrolling down is also a bit slow.

I have only briefly tried out the camera and video, but saving a picture isn't as intuitive as I would like, and after you take a video, you have to update your library before it shows up in media player. I don't have the my-faves (no friends, don't need it), The keypad does type in numbers when you are over a number field (if the phone knows it is a number field) Most of the two-button combos (like menu-1 to delete a text message) are pretty easy to do without thinking after you have used the phone for a couple of hours. You can get the speaker phone by pushing the green talk key, no menu needed.

There are some things I don't like about the phone. Even at highest volume it is hard to hear people talk (speaker phone is plenty loud, it just when you are holding it to your ear. It should auto format phone numbers (particularly since the - isn't on the keyboard, you have to select it from the symbol screen). Scrolling the web browser is too slow. It doesn't have a standard round jack for the headphone/mic

Re:I have one and like it

[lethalp1mpslapper]

I have one as well, going on my second week with it. I like it a lot. Still trying to get used to it though (previous phone was a Treo 650). I think the biggest thing people are missing with this phone is the NEO interface http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsmobile/archive/2007/11/01/shadow-homescreen.aspx that is exclusive to this phone. This interface actually hides most of the Windows Mobile interface from the average user.

What?

[StarKruzr]

How does the presence of extra features DETRACT from the phone's performance as a phone?

So what?

[StarKruzr]

So what? You shut the other bits off. Problem solved.

Re:So what?

[Onan]

Shutting them off doesn't make them physically disappear.

Phones should be somewhere on the order of a sixth the size of those currently for sale in the US, with no decrease in battery life.

In fact, phones used to be; Japan was rife with thumb-sized phones in the 1990s, before they succumbed to the siren song of features, and started making these behemoths.

Again:

[StarKruzr]

Please explain why the inclusion of the camera makes the phone part of the device "worse." It adds a negligible amount of volume and mass to it.

Also, cell phone cameras are useful for recording random things that don't really warrant carrying a "real" camera around.

Nothing!

[StarKruzr]

Nothing at all, and I agree. That said, I've gotten used to and pretty fast with the virtual keyboard. Standard conventions like arrow keys would be nice, though.

Nice try :)

[StarKruzr]

Okay. So what about the myriad of LISP scripts that are packaged WITH and part of emacs? Guess those don't count?

Re:Nice try :)

[dwarfking]

Uh, that was my point. The question was related to the single use philosophy of UNIX utilities. I pointed out emacs is a single use utility: it interprets LISP scripts. Just because there are hundreds of LISP scripts provided doesn't negate the contention that emacs is still just a LISP interpreter. So yeah it was a nice try, and specifically to the point of the original comment.

Mobile Gadgeteer Response

[ShieGie]

I saw a great point by point response to this NYT article on ZDNet http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=679 (favorite part is that most of it was written on the shadow). Honestly the NYT article feels like the author desperately wants to find flaws in the phone and will follow faulty logic to get there. Things like "two button presses to unlock is too many" make no sense, if it was one button press you'd be unlocking it accidentally all the time. Two button presses is the minimum to actually be effective as a phone lock. I read a lot of reviews (including both the NYT article and ZDNET response) and finally picked the shadow up Saturday. So far I love it. Just enough smartphone features to be convenient without overwhelming. Lack of 3G is kind of a bummer, but not a big deal. I'm not surfing the net constantly, just getting directions occasionally.

Ridiculous

[StarKruzr]

A SIXTH of the size? That is DEFINITELY down past the size of ergonomic usefulness. There is only so much size reduction you can have before usability starts to go down the toilet.

"Hand cramps?"

[StarKruzr]

Why do I not have this problem with my iPhone, or with my old AT&T 8525?

Swiss Army

[White Yeti]

Yup. Here's the man with no Swiss Army Knife:

3-blade folding knife - right front pocket
cork screw - right front pocket (corked)
can/bottle opener - left front pocket
philips screwdriver - right rear pocket
slotted screwdriver - right rear pocket
wire stripper - in mouth
reamer - right front pocket
key ring - clipped to belt
tweezers - right front pocket
toothpick - in teeth (aka wire stripper)
scissors - left rear pocket
hook - stuck through hat
hook discorger (for fishing) - left front pocket
fish scaler - right rear pocket
woodsaw - clipped to belt
metalsaw - clipped to belt
ruler - (flexible) inside hatband
manicure set (clippers, nailfile) - left front pocket
metalfile - in left boot
jack knife - in right boot
chisel - right rear pocket
pliers - left rear pocket
wirecutter - left rear pocket
wirecrimper - left rear pocket
magnifying glass - clipped to belt?
pen - clipped to shirt cuff or collar
pin - stuck through hat
sewing eye - uh, through hat

That man has trouble walking, and reaches for his pockets very slowly.

Future of mobile phones?

[jotaeleemeese]

Sorry matey, that should contemplate the little inconvenience of connecting the damn thing at an affordable price.

And thanks to Apple's deal with AT&T it is not like one would have an option to chose a good carrier, is it?

The word fanboy is coming to my fingertips as I type, I don't know why ...

Don't insult our intelligence.

[jotaeleemeese]

European intelligence that is.

What you say would be great if it applied to the European and Asian markets, but in Europe forcing you to sign with one carrier goes from distasteful to illegal depending on the locality.

Apple didn't need to do that, but that just shows what the flawed business model is (even if they succeed, this would send costumer choice back 10 years or more).

What need do we have to state the obvious?

[jotaeleemeese]

Apple got design authority over the device?

Really Batman?

Who would have guessed that one....

Oh poor Appple, fighting the music industry.

[jotaeleemeese]

They should help Nokia, Sony-Ericcson (Sony, does that ring an music industry bells for you?) fix their phones that allow our bloody unfair use of their sacred IP, for which we have already paid.

Us, bunch of thieves, have no bloody shame, wanting to use music we have paid for already.