Tag Archives: windows mobile

The Second Coming of the Jesus Phone – 7/11/2008 – 3G iPhone

With the summer here, all your big and essential technology shows are abound. You have the Computex show out in Taiwan being the big one for computer hardware and E3 for the gaming folks. However, if you’re an Apple fanatic, WWDC is the most noteworthy to you. This year has been no slouch either. If you are a big phone fanatic like yours-truly, then obviously you know that this year’s WWDC has the second revision on Apple’s new “killer handheld”, the 3G iPhone.

iPhone Announcement

For some, this is the boat that a number of frustrated Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Nokia S60 users have been waiting for. The inclusion of 3G cellular baseband chips, A-GPS functionality, and a few more things are just a few of the things that many iPhone naysayers and bashers had picked on the first iteration iPhone. This announcement has not shaken down some of the other competitors just yet, as far as I know. I have not seen any price breaks from manufacturers like HTC et al from the WWDC announcement, but then again, it may not matter to them because they may have a pocket ace up their sleeve thay may not be known to the masses yet. (The Touch Diamond is rather prohibitive at $700+ at the moment, eh? – Zero)

iPhone Profile Shots

Notice this time that there’s a curvature to the back of the iPhone, much like a Palm Treo. The device comes in two colors, black and white. The colors signify the device’s storage capacity: black being an 8GB and white being 16GB. This also signifies a change in how the device is built. The aluminum back of the first iPhone is a thing of the past, the back of the 3G iPhone is plastic. Some fans on the web have speculated the curvature and plastic back are more to accomodate the fun new additions of circuitry inside the phone.

The new iPhone boasts that it will be using the new 2.0 software improving the user experience with features such as a customizable Home Screen, the App Store, a Map App that can use BOTH A-GPS and cell tower and/or wi-fi hotspots to triangulate data. For those enterprising corporate users who are jonesing for a tricked out phone but were sadly disappointed in the lack of support for Microsoft Exchange server for their jobs, the new rendition of the iPhone has added support for syncing up to Microsoft Exchange servers. Early or late first generation iPhone owners can still get in on the some of these features with the new iPhone 2.0 software update, so they are not quite left out in the cold.

If you want to behold more of the features about the iPhone, check out the Official Apple iPhone page (Link)! Need more visual porn? Check out the new iPhone gallery link here.

What about the pricing information? How bad will AT&T rape me for service?” are probably the next questions for curious 3G iPhone buyers seeing to get their hands one one and possibly escape their old provider. Let’s break into the leaked confidential bulletin posted up by Boy Genius Report and find out, shall we?

Before we pick through the plans… Let me make this one point from the confidential bulletin loud and clear for you curious readers: In America, there is no way to buy the 3G iPhone without committing to AT&T and GoPhone customers are not permitted to buy them for GoPhone use either. I repeat, you cannot just buy an iPhone without a plan even in the Apple Stores. In other countries, you may be able to purchase an unlocked iPhone due to anti-competition agreements, but not much information is known on that. The caveat for the American market is that due to this closer partnership between AT&T and Apple is that now AT&T can finally subsidize the iPhone to an entry price of $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model. A very gutsy move as this puts the iPhone right at the same price points as AT&T’s corporate communicator market. HTC, Pantech, Palm, and RIM Blackberry devices be damned, AT&T basically created an internal smartphone war within their ranks! This has me curious as to how RIM, Palm,and HTC will play their cards in America, but that’s another discussion… 😉 for later this week.

Let’s go over the major points quoted from the Boy Genius Report post:

  • iPhone 3G will be activated at point of sale when the device is purchased in store.
  • Return period has been changed from 14 days to 30 days
  • $199 and $299 pricing is for new activations or qualified upgrades with a 2-year agreement
  • 2G iPhone data rate plans will remain available for 2G device suntil further notice
  • The new iPhone 3G data plan is $30/month and includes unlimited data and visual voicemail
  • There is not a no commitment price. This means you can’t just walk in and bang $500 on your credit card and walk out.
  • If you are an existing iPhone customer in good standing, you will be able to extend your contract for two years when the iPhone 3G launches and get the ill-na-na $199/$299 price point. Doesn’t matter when you bought an iPhone either.
  • AT&T and Apple stores “unbrick” the iPhone 3G at time of purchase, but for some reason if that doesn’t happen, you’ll be required to use iTunes at home.
  • Pre-paid and Pick Your Plan will not be allowed on iPhone 3G
  • Device purchase limit remains at (3) per customer in AT&T stores.
  • Launch day will mirror last year’s launch. This includes extended store hours, crowd controls, etc. Security will be provided to stores requesting armed police or guards.
  • AT&T is working with Apple to roll out GPS-enabled applications.

One of the first things I noticed as a definite step to progress is the in-store activation. I had read a few accounts online about some people having trouble with doing the activation at home due to the servers timing out and having to activate their phones a few days after purchasing an iPhone. This ensures that end users will have a working phone on purchase instead of angry users griping that their new toy is useless until the server can activate their device.

The purchase of an iPhone will require an iPhone data plan. The unlimited personal plan starts at $30 with any qualifying voice plan, however if you need to link with corporate e-mail accounts… you’ll need to front $45 per month for the enterprise data plan. My assumption is that a “qualifying” voice plan is a plan that is priced at least $39.99 and has 600 anytime minutes. As far as the press release from AT&T goes, there’s no mention if the unlimited iPhone data plans will include any text messaging… but that could change come July 11, 2008. As far as AT&T’s texting plans go, that could range from $14.99 – $19.99. So about $30 (estimated) for the lowest qualifying voice plan, $30 for the unlimited personal e-mail, web and visual voicemail package, and then $15 for the texting plan. A rough grand total of $75 before miscellaneous taxes and service charges would be due on the billing date; possibly around $80 – $82 after those charges. That’s decently competitive to an individual corporate user with a smartphone or Blackberry configured in the same manner. This combined with the subsidized price of the iPhone actually gives AT&T some leg room to fight. If they combine texting with different tiering of iPhone data packages, like the unlimited personal data plan being able to also get unlimited texting for a total of $80 before taxes, this may give providers like T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon more incentive to step up to the plate and really be creative.

Tune in tomorrow when I’ll play Devil’s Advocate and spin my thoughts from the anti-iPhone camp from the eyes of the T-Mobile/Sprint/Verizon/HTC/Palm/RIM side of things. This will actually be a 3-part series of things. The floor is now open to any pro-iPhone comments. If you have hate or bones to pick with the iPhone, save your energy for tomorrow.

Mobile Phone Crossroads, We Meet Again.

Call me odd or a phone maniac… but I love mobile phones. Ever since engineers found ways to pack a wallop of technologies into a small shell, it’s no wonder why people are almost replacing their laptops with these devices. Though I will admit that in the early days, the devices were not the prettiest looking shells or operating systems.

I had my taste of smart phone ownership with a Motorola MPx220 and I can say it was quite possibly one of the most horrid examples of a “smart phone” ever to be experienced. The lack of being able to free up RAM from killing applications and Motorola’s poor expertise back then with Windows Mobile were the things that just made for a poor quality device. At the time, Windows Mobile 2003 was just terribly limited with growth and freedom. It had me desiring more out of a more “intelligent” phone.

I would eventually step into a T-Mobile MDA (Windows Mobile 2005) which I would unlock myself to use on Cingular/AT&T. Windows Mobile 5 was leaps and bounds ahead of the game, but there were “limitations” with this device as well. By default, the device is alright though it could use significantly better things to improve its usefulness. The only problem to increase the device’s productivity? Well, two issues:

  1. Productivity suites cost money. The best of the suites that I got to try on my friend’s device were the SPB Software programs. These programs re-skin the Today screen of a Pocket PC device to display information in a more intuitive manner. But to get a good suite for a Windows Mobile 6 device that does not have HTC’s touchFLO interface on it, you’d have to spend almost $100 for a great set-up of the SPB Mobile Shell ($29.99), Pocket Plus ($29.99), Diary ($19.99), and Phone Suite ($19.99). Granted, this argument can be nulled out with any HTC device that has the HTC touchFLO interface which does the same as those programs, but is built into the phone at no cost to the end user.
  2. Additional RAM is required from running these instances of productivity suites. Back when I had my MDA and had a “tricked out” Today screen, my phone was not running at its best… So I had to remedy that with overclocking the processor from its stock speed of 195 mHz to a 220 mHz. The only thing was the crippling the device was the limited amount of RAM. I dare to say that on devices like the T-Mobile Wing or HTC Herald, running productivity suites would just diminish the device from being a “great” Pocket PC. For devices like the AT&T 8525/HTC TyTN, AT&T Tilt/HTC Kaiser (or TyTN2), or the HTC Athena, this may have minimal impact and nulls that argument. (Any owners of these devices, feel free to correct me.)

Why did I give up the MDA? A vital function for any phone I own is that is must be able to be a reliable alarm clock for me. After a few occasions where the MDA would lock up from RAM issues, I had let it go. I would try Nokia’s Symbian S60 smartphone interface and lack of touch made the experience feel so disconnected, though the phone features were dead on reliable. Palm’s tired out Garnet OS would make for a great experience, but with limitations on using the phone properly with T-Mobile would have me seeking to trade out the phone for something more along the lines of a Sony Ericsson device.

I love my P990i, don’t get me wrong. Quite possibly one of the best phones I have EVER owned and I do stand by that statement. It’s a dead reliable phone and even has a touch screen interface with a keyboard. Sony Ericsson has made me a fan for life and I will continue to recommend their devices to people seeking a fun alternative to bland domestic phones while trying to avoid high prices world phone imports. I have played with the P1i and it just feels like it has lost its sense of identity from the lack of a keypad flip. The failing of the P-series currently is the devices have a memory leak after awhile and reclaiming the RAM can only do so much before the phone needs a reboot. Something that reminded me of my old MDA when the memory leak was so bad that the device needed a reboot. It was a shame that Sony Ericsson’s delay of the P990i’s release only made it a device that was just too late to make a big splash in the ocean of smart phones and PDA phones.

This leads me to a debate of what I should consider stepping into later on. With my site up and having my own mail server, getting push e-mail will be a service that I will definitely be considering. Web use is more an optional thing, but would not hurt which makes wi-fi a great option to look for. GPS is a nice thing to have as I have had moments where I thought to myself “Why don’t I have GPS?” Productivity is a big thing as it would make a “smart phone” pointless if it is not productive. So what options does that leave me?

I know some of my open source friends would say “Why not Open Moko?” My response is just I don’t have much time to be mucking with my phone’s innards. With the eve of Google’s Android and the Open Moko team not making a fast enough push to make it a viable platform, it has left me a bit sour on considering it. I don’t much like Android either as it seems to push a guise of “open source” but with an influence of “Google is your new god” somewhat makes me a little uneasy like it is a false sense of freedom. (My buddy JJNova has shown me some things that even make me a bit distrustful of Google as well.)

BlackBerry devices currently are a bit limited on features depending on which path you follow. T-Mobile USA is getting a BlackBerry Pearl update with wi-fi in February after their Suncom merger, but it will lack GPS. Then there’s the case of the Blackberry Curves for T-Mobile and AT&T. T-Mobile’s version has wi-fi, but lacks GPS. AT&T’s is the opposite with having GPS and lacking wi-fi. While Research in Motion (RiM) has said the FCC is limiting what they can and cannot put into their devices… They supposedly have a new device in the works. If the new device can combine wi-fi and GPS, RiM may just win me over. Now, if they can make their net browsing just as good as their mail system… it may be serious heat for the Windows Mobile crowd.

Windows Mobile would return me to a device I am “familiar” with. The only issue is that syncing in Linux with Windows Mobile is a rather difficult matter to resolve. To be with a device of this caliber, I’d have to muck about just to make a back-up of my contacts on a Windows XP machine. So a sacrifice of freedom all in the name of smartly backing up my phone book… An odd sacrifice if anything. Going BlackBerry still runs into this issue as well, so it is “lose-lose” to a sense.

If anyone wants to throw some insight to help me with my future decision, it would be much appreciated.