iPhone: Not a Great Phone
Yes, it took me forever to finally make the leap to an iPhone but, now that I’ve been up and running with my iPhone for a few weeks, and I’ve got to say that I’m a little underwhelmed. Switching from a Blackberry has been interesting on two fronts.
First, I can totally see why Apple has announced a push strategy that goes along with the Me.com announcement — having to wait for your e-mail to download very much blows when you’re used to just looking down and seeing e-mail on your Blackberry instantly. I’m excited about the Me.com upgrade, since I already pay an arm-and-a-leg for my less-than-useful Mac.com account, but ONLY if the service will transparently allow me to send e-mail from my other accounts — I need it to work like Gmail in the respect that it seems that e-mail is coming from my jacksonfreepress.com account even if I’m using Apple Mail. If not, then it’s straight-up no dice on Me.com, because I can’t answer my work mail using an @me.com address.
Second, my main complaint about the iPhone might just be the carrier — AT&T is simply not as good as Alltel, my previous carrier, in this area. I’ve gone back to the days of hunting around in the room for a signal — something that I haven’t had to think about for years using my Alltel phones, whether regular clamshells or Blackberrys. Ms. D’s Treo is the same way — signal problems are very rare.
Since I’ve gone to the slick, swanky iPhone, I’ve had a LOT of trouble making actual phone calls. In my house, the signal only works well closer to a front window; in our office suite, I’ve found a better signal in the sales cubicles than in my own office. That just ain’t right.
Solution? I’m concerned that I’ll need to quickly make the decision to move to something else — back to Alltel, ideally, with, perhaps a Treo 755p. That’s not my greatest desire, since I like synching contacts and addresses with my iPhone — as a diehard Mac user, even in business, the iPhone excels on that front. Or, I could sit around and wait for AT&T to improve in my area, or I can hold on and hope that the 3G iPhone is better on actually being a phone.
We shall see!
Blackberry 7250 as Tethered Modem
Something extraordinary happened yesterday — I called tech support and actually got help that was more helpful than I was able to find through Google reading messageboards and whatnot. The end result was that my Blackberry 7250, which I was trying to use as a tethered modem for the HP laptop that I’ve been using to write my book, actually started working as a tethered modem for the HP laptop. Amazing!
The speed isn’t great — when it connects it reports about 115kbps, but I’m not sure I believe it. Actually I haven’t tried to download anything, so that might be accurate, but if so then the Blackbery suffers from some latency problems even when compared to a dial-up modem. (There are at least two “speeds” to consider when it comes to Internet connections, and the one we talk about isn’t really speed, but rather bandwidth. The larger the “pipe” in terms of bandwidth, the more data can get through it at once. But if a connection has issues with latency in terms of sending and receiving small bits of information, that can affect the perceived “speed” of basic browsing as well.)
Anyway, the point was to get any sort of connection out of it at all — and we did. The trick was actually to go into a buried network setting on the phone and reset one of the usernames for a network connection…I’ll tell you how, but I don’t actually remember. (You go to the phone screen, dial a crazy # code phone number and then delete one of the usernames. The Blackberry resets in a mode that is compatible with the network for modem mode.)
The other bit that was funny…due to some sort of litigation, the support guy (Eli) was not actually allowed to walk me through the setup procedure for creating the Internet connection over the Blackberry. He said it was an issue with RIM, the company that makes the Blackberry, and that his only option was to e-mail me the instructions. When he did, I noticed that the instructions were different from those posted on RIM’s Blackberry website…oddly, both worked, but the e-mail instructions seem to make for a slightly faster connection.
I was also told that here in Jackson, Mississippi we don’t yet have EVDO support (higher speed “broadband” over the data network) on the Alltel network, but it’s due in Q1 2007, which will also mean getting an EVDO compatible phone such as the Blackberry 7130e. I’m looking forward to it.
Meanwhile, kudos to Alltel support. I was pleasantly surprised. Here’s hoping my $45 Blackberry data plan will also be useful for something approaching broadband surfing on my laptop in the very near future.
Product Placement 101 and the Sidekick III
We watched “The Devil Wears Prada” a few nights ago (another Hollywood video pickup at the behest of Ms. D. because I’d failed to get it into my NetFlix queue in time for the weekend) and I couldn’t help but notice that our heroine, throughout the story, is carrying what looks to be a Sidekick III. I, of course, immediately upon seeing the film decided that it’d been too long since I’d obsessed over the possiblity of trading in my Blackberry and proceeded to spend ACTUAL TIME this weekend looking again the T-Mobile pricing plans for the Sidekick III, including the rather appealing prepaid plan (appealing if only because that seems like the easiest way to get rid of it after a few months).
I KNOW that the Sidekick III is too heavy. I feel fairly strongly that it isn’t really Mac-friendly enough, although I haven’t played with the online tools scheduling tools much. I know it’s a toy.
I got a chance to evaluate a Sidekick II a year or so ago when I was working on a book (I think it was the Leo Laporte Mac Gadget Guide) and enjoyed playing with it. I used to tell people that the coolest thing about it’s always-on access for AIM messaging was the fact that I could literally tell if co-workers at the JFP were at their desks by glancing at my Sidekick to see if their messaging was up and running. It also let me “peek in” over their shoulders and drop a quick message from home or lunch or the post office if I had something to mention to them.
Of course, a Treo or Blackberry or pretty much anything could probably do that. The camera is nice but not completely necessary and seeing as how my PRIMARY requirement of any smartphone is that it fits comfortable in the front pocket of my chinos — not weighing the pocket down unnecessary and not fitting into a Bat-holster, since I refuse to wear a utlity belt so as not to reveal my secret identity — then it’s utterly fatuous that I’m looking at the Sidekick III at all.
So what’ the verdict? Prepaid Sim cards are running about $40 on eBay with the phones themselves hovering around $250. The service is $1 a day flat for all online services and $0.15 per call prepaid. There’s something I love about the straightforward pricing. Or, maybe a Sidekick II…cheaper at around $100 on eBay…
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