Reed’s Blog

For the past couple months I’ve had a prepaid Motorola phone with service provided by Tracfone. I like not having a contract with huge early termination fees. Previously my phone broke during a contract and I had to pay a lot of money to buy a phone because it was not bundled with a two year contract.

However now I think I’m going to switch back to having what I basically call a “fancyfone”, lol. I want a phone that has a lot of advanced features. I have my Nokia N800 Internet Tablet which fills some of the gap of not having an advanced cell phone, however that only has 802.11 (Wifi) and can use the internet on a fancyfone using Bluetooth wireless. But I don’t have a fancyfone so my N800 only gets internet from Wifi. I miss having the (almost) anywhere cell phone internet via EVDO or EDGE. I had EVDO on the first generation Motorola Q a while back and it was really nice to not require a hotspot to check email or surf the web. My Q ran windows mobile 5 - horrible - beyond belief. Text would lag, appearing on the screen say, 10 seconds after I finished typing a sentence the text was still typing itself on the screen. Extremely annoying. Windows Mobile also is windows only for browsing files on my device, syncing contacts and installing some programs. Yes, I could buy the $40 Missing Sync program that makes Windows Mobile talk to Mac and I could do some hack to get Linux support but I shouldn’t have to. Microsoft should make their software allow a computer to connect to it and browse the file system as if it’s a flash drive. So I’ve decided to steer clear of the Windows Mobile shipwreck and look at other devices and OS’s.

I’ve been thinking about getting a Palm or Blackberry device. Which (tell me otherwise?) requires a contract with a major wireless carrier. My top picks right now are the BlackBerry 8820 and Palm Centro. I plan to use it more for personal than business type proposes.

I am very much avoiding the Apple iPhone for reasons I discussed previously.

When they ship Nokia’s Internet Tablets (n770, n800, n810) have instant messaging. However they can only communicate on Google Talk and other Jabber (XMPP) networks. You cannot chat with buddies that use AIM, Yahoo!, MSN or other more popular IM networks. The current solution is to install the port of Pidgin for Maemo. However it does not integrate as well with the Maemo environment as the built in Google Talk client.

There is now a solution!! Maemoapps.com explains how to get on almost all the IM networks available on Pidgin using the built in Maemo chat client. Steps are as follows:

1. Enable Red Pill mode see here for instructions.
2. Install this on your N800/N810.
3. Run the RTCom update installer in the Extras menu.
4. Control Panel–>Accounts and add your AIM/MSN/Yahoo! or other IM account.
5. Go back into Blue Pill mode for using your tablet normally.

This also installs a program to view saved chat logs.

Please note that this addresses the iPhone without “jail-breaking” or hacking it.  Which I feel should not be necessary for many of the features I list here.

Cannot install programs
Surely any decent electronics device will let you install programs.  Computers can.  Blackberry devices can.  Treo devices can.  You can easily install programs on Windows Mobile.  However I need look no further than Nokia’s N series specificity the Maemo platform to see mobile software at its best.

No Adobe Flash
Adobe Flash the technology behind most games on the internet.  It is also necessary to watch most videos online.  Other devices such as Nokia’s Internet Tablets have flash.  Windows Mobile has Flash.  iPhone has no Adobe Flash player.

No User Accessible File-system
On other devices you can browse the file system of you device.  I should be able to go through and select files to open or email to people or edit.  It is currently not possible to view a list of files on an iPhone and perform basic tasks (copy, delete, edit, open).

No Removable Storage
This is a less important detail however still a feature the iPhone is lacking.  Most mobile phones have some sort of memory card slot.  Nokia’s N800 has TWO SD card slots and the N810 has one.

No Bluetooth file transfer
The iPhone currently cannot transfer files using Bluetooth wireless technology.  It is very convenient to exchange virtual business cards aka vCards.  Bluetooth can also be used to transfer photos from one device to another without having to carry cables.

No Instant Messaging
You can’t go on AIM / MSN / Yahoo! / Google Talk with the Apple iPhone.  This is a seriously lacking because many cheap phones can go on AIM.  Yes I am aware you can use Meebo for iPhone but it has no sound and is not an iPhone feature.

Non User Replaceable Battery
ALL rechargeable batteries eventually lose their ability to recharge.  It should be simple for someone to buy a new battery and just pop it in their device rather than having to buy a whole new device.  The iPhone’s rechargeable battery is sealed inside without a hatch or easy way to replace it.  I guess Apple would rather have it look pretty without a latch on the back because they assume they will sell another phone when someones battery dies.  Consider the finical and environmental impacts of this design decision.