Techization

A high school friend was visiting over my finals week and we always have the same discussion each time we see each other, “When are you going to get a new phone, my god!”

If you need a reference, see the photo below…

The screen is now protected by cellophane and the ink on the pads have all rubbed off.  How old do you think this phone is?  1999?  2002?  If you guessed either, you’d be wrong.  The phone was new in late 2003.  That’s only 7 years ago.  Now that is really not that long ago, however in tech years that like 7 decades.  Compare that phone to my iPhone 3G…

Technology has come leaps and bounds in a very short amount of time.  Just imagine how phones will look and how they will function in another 5 or 7 years?  You think that iPhone 3GS is cool now, just wait a few more years!

I have to give my friend credit.  7 years with the same device!  Now that is one impressive feat.  My technology heart flutters and begins to fail after 14 or 16 months with the same device.  Could you live with your iPhone or Droid for the next 7 years?

2009 is coming to a close and the web went through radical transformation and progression as it always does.  Lots of buzz words we’re thrown around like cloud computing, real-time, geo-locate and streaming video. These changes have been occurring under our noses for the past 12 months and their evolution will continue.  Let’s first examine the issue of real-time.

Twitter and Facebook dueled for social supremacy in 2009 with Facebook the obvious front-runner.  Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, stole some special sauce from Twitter by adding some more real-time interactivity with content and user status updates.  Users at first bucked at this change but is now becoming socially accepted among users.

Twitter had changes of its own by re-working their re-tweet system and adding server stability to their infrastructure.  Twitter often crippled as breaking news occurred around the world.

Twitter wasn’t the only big real-time dog hitting the interwebs hard in 2009.  Services like Brightkite, Foursquare and Latitude really took off as users need for ‘real-time geo awareness’ increased.  The ability to track your friends every movement and make stalking easier than ever before really is becoming more accepted in our society.  Perhaps the largest use of geo-location services is finding restaurants using services like Yelp.

Augmented realities are really taking off and will continue to do so in 2010.  Many iPhone applications are taking advantage of extremely accurate cell-phone GPS and built-in accelerometer technology, your phone not only knows where you are, but where your looking.  As you move down the street reviews and content pops up about restaurant reviews, in-store sales, lunch specials etc.

If there is one sure bet in 2010 it has to be mobile phone technology.  Mobile platforms are the future of personal computing and mobile technology will continue to advance into 2010 and well beyond.

Watching what has been happening to AT&T has been like watching a mob beat a dead horse, only the horse never cared in the first place. Sporadic outages nationwide, voicemail being delayed weeks and no support for MMS or tethering…still!  AT&T’s brand is driven through the mud on Twitter on an hourly basis.  The disturbing part to me is they just don’t care.  Take 5 minutes and check out the hashtag #attfail on Twitter.  All the negative tweets, explicit blog posts and constant complaints really isn’t making a dent.   That begs the question, why not?

AT&T really isn’t too concerned because they are raking in cash by the truck loads off their exclusive contract with Apple.  Between increasing text message costs (that you must have on the iPhone) and those annoying voicemail instructions with an ever increasing customer base, they are sitting pretty.  How pretty?

AT&T said itself the exclusive contract won’t last forever.  Do they plan on doing damage control for their brand once people don’t care because they can get the iPhone elsewhere?  It doesn’t make sense!  Maybe they will just wave a shiny new toy in our face to keep us happy for awhile. $99 8gb iPhone 3GS anyone?

I guess AT&T is happy getting fat and rich for the time being and letting their brand be bashed into oblivion.  Here is a tip AT&T, making the upgrade  to the new 3GS after you ripped so many customers is not going to help you, your network still sucks and that is the real problem. Customers often will forget their mistreatment if you wave a new shiny toy in front of them and run a few commercials.  This customer however, will not!

A little off topic but very important!  David Pogue, a columnist for the NY Times has been leading a ground swell against wireless providers who put on those ridiculous voicemail instructions (To page this person, press 3.  Please leave your message and hang up when finished).  Those 15 seconds are earning wireless companies millions of dollars at their customers expense.  Please read his blog here and contact your provider!

Before I dived into the iPhone pool, I was a customer of Cellular One here in Wisconsin. I was a very happy customer.  Good coverage within the state, $49.99 got me unlimited everything and I never had any mishaps with my billing.  Cellular One was bought out by AT&T and then re-sold to Trilogy Partners.  During the time that AT&T owned Cellular One, I had to re-sign which then put me under an AT&T contract, not by choice.  In my area, AT&T has good overall geographic coverage.  Sprint is a joke here though Verizon may be a contender in coverage now.  My only gripe is CDMA, really Verizon?  CDMA is great for rural areas which we have plenty of, but GSM is the system of the future and CDMA is a dinosaur.

The list of why AT&T is the worst cellular provider in the history of telecommunications is long.  We won’t even begin to list the reasons.  However yet another failure has occurred this month that left many of their customers extremely upset.

If your an AT&T customer I suggest reading this article from TechCrunch and really consider jumping ship from AT&T as soon as you can.

I have spent the last week in the Chicago metro area.  From the northwest suburbs of Schaumburg and Elk Grove Village to Grant Park on the Lake Michigan shoreline downtown.  This urban immersion has provided some valuable lessons.

• iPhone battery life is kind of bad!

Living in the isolated and desolate state known as Wisconsin, it is not often my iPhone use is ‘heavy’.  I know most places I go so I don’t use battery-sucking GPS Google maps, I know the good places to eat so no need for Yelp. No long commutes to listen to my iPod.  I thought my iPhone battery life was ‘okay’ but certainly could be better.  I would plug it in nightly with 30%-40% of battery life remaining after light to moderate use.  Being in Chicago I had to consciously think, ‘do I really need to look this up or should I save my battery?’  Leaving for downtown in late morning my battery would dead by 6 or 7 p.m.  Between Twitter, Google Maps (w/ GPS), Yelp! (to eat), Photos (snap, snap!) and iPod (1 hr commute in downtown via train), my battery was taking a real pounding.

• The AT&T network really does suck!

You’ve read all the grumblings from other metros, New York, San Fran, L.A. and Miami.  AT&T’s network is terrible.  Do we need to rehash the SXSW incident where all the tech geeks converging caused the AT&T network to crash with the convention in town?  I think not.  I use the SpeedTest.net app on my iPhone to measure bandwidth.  I only got one good result of 2.3 mbps down and 280 kbps up.  That was in the fringe suburbs of the metro though.  When downtown I was getting varying results between 250kbps-700kbps down and 40kbps-170kbps up.  Needless to say I wasn’t very impressed.  Yes the speed varied with the time of day, but overall I was unimpressed with the networks ability to handle the data. That is a teaser for my next point!

• Digital spread is thick in metropolitan areas.

I had a realization moment while riding the Metra train back to Elk Grove Village this afternoon during rush hour.  I was crammed like sardines with business professionals commuting home from work.  Everyone around me had ear phones in and either an iPhone or MP3 player in their hands.  With about 50-60 people in my car, well over 75% were holding a portable media device.  The other 25% were reading the paper, book or using their laptop.  During down time, consumers of digital media simply ‘graze’ news, tweets, music, podcasts etc. as they cruise their way to home or work.  Many companies want to know how to reach a large mass on social media platforms like Twitter.  The truth is because so much information fly’s through our networks, we can’t take it all in.  If you tried, you’d burn out before you knew what hit you.  Many are ‘grazing’.  During proper times they digest what is active in their network at that time and simply turn it off when they need to.  I would argue some of the best times to reach those in your network is commute times and lunch.  However, peak times to reach your network varies with your networks ‘lifestyle’.

When I first heard about this, I almost thought it was a joke.  ASCAP, a music performing rights organization now wants to tap more money out of your pocket for ringtones.  Songwriters and artists already receive a royalty when you purchase a musical ringtone, now that want ANOTHER tax on top of that. ASCAP claims that even if you legally purchased a ringtone for your cell phone you could still be infringing copyright’s because you didn’t pay what’s known as a ‘performance tax’.

ASCAP is claiming that every time your ringtone goes off, that song being played in public is considered a ‘public performance’ and therefore they should get a kickback for it.  Yes, you heard that right.  I guess I better keep my windows rolled up when I’m blaring AC/DC in my car and I better not play music off my laptop in the lounge at school because i’d be putting on a ‘public performance’.

ASCAP’s arguments are down right outlandish and I highly doubt they’ll win this fight in court with wireless giant AT&T.  ASCAP is also claiming that not only is the mobile customer with the ringtone liable, but so is the wireless provider who’s network makes the mobile phone ring.

Ringtones funnel hundreds of millions of fresh profit into the music industry each year, hip-hop artists’ like Soulja Boy focus their entire songwriting and career around selling ringtones because they have a high return.  Album sales don’t make the same amount of cash for the artist as a ringtone. For the last five years ringtones have been the crutch to the industry as they work on new business models to survive.  ASCAP has even gone as far as saying that “AT&T has gone much further in copyright infringement than Napster ever did.”  No, you are not in the twilight zone, this really is happening.

Leave it to the recording industry to poke a hole in their temporary life raft and tick everyone off in the process calling major corporations and millions of wireless customers criminals.  Instead of trying to suck money off their customers with additional taxes and suing their own consumers, maybe they should spend their time figuring out new business models for their industry to stay alive in the digital age.

Do you think a ringtone is a ‘public performance’ and should artists receive a royalty for it?  Let me know what you think by commenting below!

So much attention is given to new media and websites like YouTube, Hulu and Ustream.  Nielsen, the leading ratings company, released a report putting things back in perspective.  The numbers of mobile video viewers has risen, time spent watching videos online has jumped, but television still overwhelmingly dominates as the medium of choice.

2008

116 Million Internet video viewers averaging 2 hours per month.

9 Million mobile phone subscribers (viewing hours not rated)

2009

131 Million Internet video viewers averaging 3 hours per month

13 Million mobile phone subscribers averaging 3.5 hours per month

Each statistic is quite a substantial upward trend.  Many logical factors can explain the increases.  Video capable mobile devices like the Blackberry Storm and iPhone are becoming more widespread.  I’ve personally noticed this trend first hand.  Being the tech geek I am, in high school (2000-2004) I was one of very few kids who toted a ‘smart phone’.  Most of my friends had your typical Motorola flip phone or Nokia candy bar.  Now it seems all my friends and younger kids I know own Blackberry’s, iPhone’s and Sidekicks.  This shift towards mobile convergence devices is being fed by the Internet and affinity to social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Internet viewing hours will continue to rise as President Obama pushes for nationwide broadband access and Hulu and YouTube continue to get more mainstream press.  A perfect example is the Discovery Channel show ‘Mythbusters’.  Earlier this year they had a ‘YouTube’ episode with user-generated content and myths.  Take a look at this graph about YouTube’s hit count comparing April 2008 vs. April 2009.

264,710,806 in 2008… up to 440,273,651 in 2009.  That’s nearly double the amount of hits in a year.

All these statistics are fine and good, but now lets unveil the ‘big momma’ in video viewing.

Television still overwhelmingly dominates as the medium of choice.  Respondents report viewing over 153 hours of video on the television each month.

I can stream movies on Hulu via my laptop and watch YouTube on my iPhone.  However, neither option beats watching a Blu-Ray movie on my 46″ 1080p television!  Comfort still beats convenience, at least right now.

Down time in public places, it happens to us everyday.  The tech savvy geek in us tells us to grab for our iPhone to tweet, compose an e-mail or instant message friends.  It is this reason that many of our significant others hate the iPhone with every breath in their body.  What use to be casual conversation and cute stories is now mute silence and clicks on a soft keyboard.  I’m guilty as charged.  My significant other and I composed this ‘iEtiquette’ for iPhone users.

1. –  While at eating a meal in public, leave your iPhone in your pocket on silent until the check arrives.  He or she will be greatly appreciative as meals are a prime time to make small talk and talk about how each other feels.

1. –  When driving in the car, refuse the urge to have an ear bud in or be synced into your cars audio system with your latest Audible book or podcast blaring.  Not only will it save your significant other a boredom inspired headache, but also allow them to converse with you.  Time in the vehicle is often another ‘hot time’ to communicate in our busy lives.

1. – Birthdays and Anniversaries.  These days come with more anticipation and expectations than others.  Though we all hate going off the grid, we must POWER DOWN the iPhone on days like these.  Do you really want to risk it?  I know I don’t!

1. –  Post physical endeavors are very much a ‘no iPhone zone’.  After letting your inner excitement and ‘O’ face come out, the last thing you want to do is grab for your iPhone and start twittering.  We have decided a ’1 hour’ time frame would be reasonable before grabbing for your phone again.  P.S. – Turn off the ringer and tweet notifications while engaged in physical activities with him or her!  That is merely a side tip!

Live by these folks, don’t make the mistakes that I did.  Don’t let my personal anguish and and heartache go down the drain for nothing.  If you practice the steps above, I’m sure it will make your relationship much less stressful!

As many are awaiting the highly hyped Palm Pre, information leaked out about a new ‘mini-pre’ code-named ‘Pixie’.  The Pixie is said to be a smaller and substantially cheaper version of the Pre that will debut shortly after its big brother this summer.

The Washington Post is reporting the Pixie will be a candy bar-style phone and use the same WebOS as the Palm Pre.  Palm is hoping to undercut the entire smartphone market by offering this new handset for $99.

Engadget managed to obtain this leaked photo of the new Palm EOS. (codename: Pixie)  One thing that smells fishy about this story is the speed at which it is progressing/leaking.  I would say it is a organized leak campaign by Palm to stir up some press as we approach on the new iPhone launch coming in June.  Engadget also managed to obtain leaked specs about the Palm EOS:

• Dimensions: 10.6×55x111mm
• Weight: 100 grams
• 2.63?, 320×400 capacitive touch screen
• 4GB of internal memory
• Tentative price of $349 before rebates. Our sources are indicating that the target price point is $99 after all is said and done.
• 2MP camera, fixed focus, with flash
• Bluetooth 2.1 w/ A2DP and EDR, USB 2.0 via micro USB
• 1150mAh battery, removable
• SMS, MMS, built-in IM client
• A-GPS
• WAV, MP3, AAC, AAC+ ringtones, MPEG4, H.264, H.263 video playback.

Not all things are shiny and beautiful at Palm though in recent weeks.  Ashok Kumar, an analyst with Collins Stewart has made public that Palm is experiencing multiple hardware and software issues with the Pre leading to drastically reduced production orders from Palm.  Some analysts believe Palm will stockpile the handsets in their inventory to heighten the sense of demand in the marketplace.  Stockpiling for this reason really gets under my skin.  Sony doing this with their PlayStation consoles has nearly pushed me to Microsoft and their Xbox system, but that’s for another blog!

Reports swirling the Internet indicate that the Palm Pre costs $170 to produce.  This poses some major problems for Palm.  Bottom line is the Palm Pre must come in at $200 or less once launched.  Sprint is the only carrier to jump on board the Pre train and their network problems will not lure any AT&T customers over to their customer base.  However, the Palm EOS may feed the need for AT&T customers as the EOS looks like it will end up with AT&T.

If the Pre ends up being more than $200, it never had a chance from inception.

Does what the Palm Pre have to offer be enough for you to switch to Sprint?  What would it take for your to switch carriers?