Still, the war gets even more interesting and in theory, the war has not even started yet.  The next year will be reeeaallly interesting.

from full-time work at the company.

Yes, I’m sure you have have all heard about AT&T’s new product, the 3G microcell.  This device will connected your iphone to your home network giving you voice and data.  Now, if I lived outside of a normal population area, outside of the ‘claimed’ service network, I could see the justification for such a service.  But if you are in the heart of the city, like San Francisco, and whole area’s are ‘cell purgatory’, then this is just insult onto injury. From the sites I’ve seen so far, everyone is screaming bloody murder on this one. Another AT&T public relations FAIL.

To be fair AT&T are not the only ones: … Sprint charges $20 a month for its AiRave femtocell and Verizon charges $250 for its Network Extender box. T-Mobile charges $10 a month for its @Home service, which uses Wi-Fi instead of a cellular connection, but does the same thing. … (Gizmoto)

As for me I’m still under contract, so I’m just going to wait it out and move to another service.  Its a shame too because the iphone is still the best smart phone out there so far. (iTunes not withstanding).

The Android however, has no such issue.  So I can click on a link from say newsSnacker.com , read the article and then come back to newSnacker and not have to wait for a refresh.  However, the way I normally use the web, is click on a number of links, then go back and read them as time allows.  This is especially useful if you in a weak connection area (as I am in SF) or plan to ride the underground (BART) where there is no connection. With the iPhone, when I open a link, and then go back to the original page, it will try to refresh that page, regardless if I have a connection or not, so I can only really have 1 page open at a time.  FAIL.

Is this enough to make me switch phones?  Well, its getting close. I had a few comments on my original post on 3.0 dropping calls that 3.1 did not improve matters. I will most likely get a month of T-Mobile and live with Android and see if I miss the iPhone.

As for page rendering.  I think they both do a good job.  I have not updated my HTC to see what flash is like, but I will look into it soon and report back.

Check it here.

Oh its on!  Check this post from TC..

“The tablet will rock a 5-inch 800×480 screen that plays back 720p content natively. And lest we forget, the Archos 5 Internet Tablet (that’s what they’re calling it on the AppsLib site) will have an HDMI out and comes with natively embedded OpenGL libraries.”

I’m going to follow this up…

Based on the last known rumors, we have a coming Apple tablet that will basically be an oversized iPhone with more horsepower and memory. 10″ is the last I heard.

Now, on the other side. Check this out from Gizmodo.

“Remember that iPhone-like Android MID that everyone went crazy about yesterday? It looks like someone may have tracked it down. Manufactured by SMiT, the device is called the MID-560. And it’s got decent specs.

That’s a 5-inch touchscreen with an impressive 800 x 480 resolution. And internally, an 533/667MHZ ARM 11-based Samsung 6410 chip should run the device as quickly as any smartphone with codec support including AAC, OGG, DivX, XviD, and H.264.  Storage stays light by maxing at 8GB, but a miniSD card slot offers lots of expansion. Wi-Fi and GPS are standard.”

S0, lets say someone builds a 10″ Android tablet and we have the beginnings of our first battle!

With Apples current price point of under $700, a super strong following and an app store on steroids, the Apple Tablet will grab most of the market share… At first.   When the Android tablet comes out, it will not be ‘A’ tablet, there will be many of them, varying in size and capability. Some will have lots of RAM, ports and perhaps 4G; others will focus on trying to get under the $400 mark by creating a device that only does the basics.  So in the first days of the war I will guess Apple will catch most of the market, but as more and more Android devices and apps come online, there will be a shift to detente as each discovers its market nitch.

{update, seems the rumor is Apple will have 2 versions; 6″and 10″ and the 6′ is under $700.  If that is true, the war is already over. IF, and I say if, the 6″ is <$700, then the 10″ will be <$1000 and that is a FAIL. But again, rumor control}

However, this will not last long as first offensive maneuver will be the tablet that fully supports VNC and physical keyboard/mouse combo’s either through wire, bluetooth or some other method. A second assault will be the device that can support pen (non dedicated) and handwriting conversion.  Where the battle will go from there?  Anyone’s guess.

If I had to choose a side, I think I would go with Android in the long run. However, like any war, the battle you thought you were going to fight will change at first engagement.  Unless Apple is under $400.  My thoughts on that here.

The problem is simple, lack of capability vs. price.  As noted by Piper Jaffray (senior analyst Gene Munster) and other posts via techmeme;

• Be similar to an iPod touch, only larger, capable of running most of the 70,000 applications on the iPhone App Store plus a new category of apps designed for the bigger screen.
• Will be used primarily for Web surfing, e-mail, and digital media, competing with netbooks without being a netbook.
• Will be priced between an iPhone and a MacBook — between $500 and $700.
• Is likely to include a 3G cellular modem and could be subsidized by a carrier — either AT&T (T) or Verizon (VZ).

Ok,  so I’m can already get a netbook for less then $500, and its only a matter of time before the crunchpad comes out, which if I understand correctly, will have a thin linux OS.

Now, that being said, if the price point is under $400, OR its has way more graphics power for video, then we may have a different story here. In fact, if it was say $500, and I could watch video and play graphic rich games AND good battery life, then I would buy it.  If I basically have my iphone (assuming they will have a more open SDK; which means richer apps or a least a subset of Apple apps I can run) with a way larger screen, and USB (or bluetooth) import for a keyboard, then I can see it. So far, the rumor mill says it will not be that powerful. However, if the crunchPad runs linux AND android apps.. Well, then we have a different story again.

As for now, I will continue to love having my TC1100 (which I paid $350 for) as my tablet.

TC1100’s rule!!!

‘But’, you say, ‘we have a rating system’!  Yes we do, and I’ve been asking for this for a long time, and I think it has made things better.. well a little better. The ranking system is still messed up.   From TechCrunch..

‘When you go to submit your app through iTunes Connect, one of the steps takes you to a ratings matrix that you must fill out. This contains 10 questions listed under “Apple Content Descriptions”. …’

You fill out ten questions and based on how you answer it, you get a rating from 4+ to 17+ to ‘No rating’. (The numbers refer to the users age).   But its not that simple.  Follow this link to TC and read the full article.  Its a bit long, but I think MG Siegler did a good job talking about the process.

How iPhone App Store Ratings Work. Hint: They Don’t.

I do have hope however. I think Apple is slowly getting this sorted out mostly because of all the public pressure.  As long as we keep the pressure up, it will continue to improve ….  I hope.

I want a bloody keyboard for my smart phone.   There are many thing about the iphone that really pisses me off, but so far, only android comes close to the experience.  I was excited about the palm pre till I tried the keyboard.. too small.  The G1, the keyboard is useless. (FAIL in the design dept.)  So my last hope?  The Nokia N97.  Now its not a full smart phone OS like the iphone, android or WebOS, but I heard they were going to tweak symbian AND I heard the camera was great.  Well, from what I’ve read, it was nothing more then a tweek although the video and web browsers are both up to modern speed. If taking pics are your main concern, the you will like this phone.

But back to the keyboard, most people complain about the spacing of the N97 or the very poor press feedback, or the tilt of the phone vs. the keyboard.

Please!!  Somebody!!  Build a nice, solid keyboard for the iphone!  Use blue tooth to talk if required. It just cannot be all that hard to build something that snaps on. Take a look at what many 3rd party battery extended products do.

For now, I guess I will get the new iphone3GS and simply accept another 2 years of ATT. Sigh..

First the plus sides.  The device feels good in my hand and the UI makes sense.  As I played with it, the OS seemed to keep up well enough.  The phone did get a bit warm, but that could have been because I was pushing it.

However, its the keyboard I want.  And it just did not feel good. If I typed slowly, I could get it to work well enough, but that is what I do on the iPhone now.  I need a keyboard where I can type faster and longer then currently.  Also, the screen is smaller then the iphone. For some people, a smaller phone may be important, but I’m not one of those people.

So now it comes down to two. Either the G1 or the new iPhone(S) ‘and remember, the ‘S’ is for speed! ‘  whatever..

{update}  I gave the G1’s keyboard another try.  FAIL!  I forgot how much I did not like the G1’s keyboard because of poor spacing, key size and the fact the keys are recessed.  Ug.

I’m not going to go over everything, you can find that anywhere.. I’m instead going to look at a few things that I think are really interesting…

HTML5 support!  Why is this so important?  HTML5 is like having flash lite without the plug-in!  (I still wish I had flash though).  But take a look at some of these demos..

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/02/mozilla-demos-impressive-firefox-31-features-at-scale.ars

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/google_goes_html5_demoes_expermental_gmail.php

http://htmlfive.appspot.com/

As a developer, this opens up all kinds of possibilities to create a rich experience without having to code in CoCo and go through the app store.  As 3.0 gets out there, and dev’s feel that there are enough users to make it worth it, you will see more ‘web’ based applications on the iphone then ever. From the rumor mill, you will be able to access GPS, camera and accelerometers from the web app. Again, RUMOR!!

Video.  What did I say way back?? Apple has been holding video back because they want to keep it in their back pockets; either to partner and sell a video app or use it to sell the next version of the iphone. Well, today we know it was the second option. But I have to say, from what little I saw, they did a great job! I’m quite impressed with how rich the support for shooting and editing video is on the iphone; VGA at 30 fps, auto focus/white balance/auto exposure, in app scrolling, editing in the camera roll, share via MMS.. Its enough to make me think about getting the new iphone and deal with ATT for another 2 years.

Find my iPhone.  I have not lost my iPhone yet (knock on wood) but its something I fear.  I once misplaced my treo650 while in Portland and freaked. Fortuently, someone turned it in and I got it back 2 weeks later, so now I’m way more careful about my phone because of all the personal data in there. Well, not only can you ping your phone and get it to ring (and perhaps send back GPS location, but you can remote wipe it!  This is great… IF you have mobileMe.  Which I do not. And do not want! So its a tough call for me.

Other side notes if interst…

Shake to undo.  Kinda cute actually.

Tethering but not with ATT.  Ok, really?  So WHY would I stay with ATT?  Since I’m jailbroken, and its looks like jailbreak for 3.0 on the 3G (NOT the 3G(s) as the new phone is called) is stable, I may not worry about it. But I’m near the end of my contract, so we’ll see if I’m willing to go two more years without a keyboard on my phone.