When we attended a talk about social networks a few months back, we knew younger users were more prominent on networks like Facebook, but just how much they relied on these networks didn’t occur to us. For example, when it came to internet communication, Generation X built their social contacts around e-mail, while today’s internet youth have effectively replaced e-mail with Facebook. That alone is an interesting discussion topic, for while social networks are often used by older users to retain contact with certain acquaintances, younger users have a much lower threshold for friending someone online. In other words, anyone who is worth even e-mailing is added as a friend, whether or not that person is connected to one of your existing real-world networks.

While the generational shift is noteworthy, we decided to look into how our own forms of online communication have changed.

Ten years ago.

Looking back at how we used the internet 10 years ago, we see a reliance on very different communication networks than today. These are the networks we used on a daily basis a decade ago:

• E-Mail
• ICQ
• AOL Instant Messenger (AIM)
• IRC
• Fora

As we said earlier, e-mail was the great mainstay of our generation’s online communications center. Pretty much all intimate conversation with family was done via e-mail, and yet it also served for simple exchanges with people we didn’t have an intimate relationship with. Subscriptions to various mailing lists also served for prolonged discussions between many individuals, making e-mail the ultimate tool for talking to people we discovered elsewhere. In retrospect, perhaps that was e-mail’s greatest weakness: no way to discover new people to correspond with.

The trinity of real-time communication for us was ICQ/AIM/IRC. ICQ came first, and we kept it around for years if only because there were a few luddites we corresponded with who refused to pick up AIM. And as for AIM, well, everyone else had it because everyone else had America Online (AOL). In a lot of ways, AIM was yesteryears’s Facebook, in that it was a cluttered mess of contacts and ad hoc status updates via away messages. Whereas we were more likely to simply set ourself as “Away” in ICQ, AIM was our creative outlet for silly haiku status messages, quotes, and emo rants. We kept AIM around for longer than we should have because it was easier to integrate with iChat and iSight than to start a contact list from scratch, but it was also the most convenient form of communication. In college, for instance, we’d regularly check our AIM messages after getting out of bed, much as we imagine kids do today with their Facebook walls.

The third point of our chat-utility trinity was IRC, and pretty typically, we had it running alongside ICQ and AIM all the time. While we were able to group AIM contacts into categories, a good chunk of our online contacts were more readily available via IRC, and it was easier to contact them there than further clog up our AIM contacts list. More importantly, IRC is a more natural discovery tool, because whoever enters a chat is now within contact distance.¹ AIM was like e-mail in that you had to get someone’s username beforehand, as searching by true name didn’t work. So confusing were people’s usernames that guessing didn’t work either, as like domain names, every good one was taken.

With a dedicated, hacked iOpener running Windows 98 and Trillian, it was easy to keep our comms system up and out of the way, in much the manner an iPhone or iPad works today. If someone needed to reach us and we were home, either of these three methods worked. For deeper discussion, we other tools.

We’ll mention Usenet even though our use of it had already waned ten years ago. Prior to that, we spent a lot more time on various newsgroups, which were ultimately ruined by spam and inactivity. Web-based fora would replace Usenet for most purposes, and we ended up maintaining a presence on several online fora just as we previous inhabited a handful of newsgroups before. By “mainted a presence” we mean that we were active participants and regularly scanned for new threads and discussion topics. In a way, an online forum was more than just a place to seek specific information, but a place to regularly hangout. It was time-consuming to say the least, and the return-on-investment was probably a lot less than the other networks we used. But it worked.

A different picture today.

There’s only one network we heavily relied on 10 years ago that we still use on a daily basis today. These are the networks that, on a daily basis, we use today:

• E-Mail
• SMS / Messages
• Twitter

There’s no way to shirk e-mail. We might argue that it’s become more of a backup communication system for us, but in reality, a lot of our communication is still reliant on this utterly insecure protocol. Looking back, we’re surprised that e-mail encryption never really took off, and that the protocol has remained so simple.

When we got our first smartphone, we played around with an AIM client, but it never maintained our attention. If we sign on to AIM today, it’s a fluke, and IRC is just a fond memory now.² If it weren’t for a very different computer schedule today, we might still use IRC, but it’s a time investment we can no longer regularly afford. The closest thing we have to our old comms trinity is SMS/Messages and Twitter, which serve as reasonable real-time ways to get ahold of us. Arguably, we could get rid of SMS/Messages and use Twitter excusively, but because we have several contacts who don’t maintain a Twitter account, we still field text messages from our less computer-savvy acquaintances.³ In reality, SMS/Messages isn’t exactly a feature we use every single day, but since we technically check for SMS notifications on our mobile devices daily, we’re “using” the protocol.

Since we started our Twitter account, we’ve only used it more and more, and have in many ways reduced the need for e-mail because of it. For example, we’ve found more success in tweeting a company Twitter account with a quick question than waiting for an e-mail response, and messaging a friend is just as simple. The 140-character limit can be annoying, but it also serves to make our messages more concise. The fact that Twitter has direct messaging makes the service very flexible, and the only thing that could make the service substantially better is being able to direct messages to specific lists in addition to publically.

We’re not active on any given web forum anymore, and we rarely lurk on a regular basis even. That said, the online forum is still a go-go place for niche topics, which is somewhat unfortunate as we feel it’s an outdated way to communicate and share ideas.⁴

What’s funny is that with the deluge of social networks available today, we find ourselves torn between what to use, and wishing we could go back to simpler times. But as the above illustrates, our online social life was no less complex back then, but rather more consistent; we’d hunker down on a social network for a lot longer than today, without the concern for privacy that networks like Facebook give us.⁵ And, while we had several networks ringing us in the past, tools like Trillian consolidated them nicely, so it felt like a simpler system. Tools like ifttt help consolidate the networks we use today, but the best form of consolidation in a lot of cases is simply abstinence from unecessary network proliferation in our lives.

Why don’t we use ________?

There was a brief period of time where we’d check Facebook and G+ on a daily basis, but we’ve found our use of these networks has waned. The reasons for this are several, but a major culprit is inconsistent depth to discussions. We may find a very interesting discussion thread one day, but it may not be for another week or two until we find another, and what’s in-between is a bunch of useless text walls that we could care little about. It’s not that the same thing doesn’t happen on Twitter, but at least with a 140-character limit, it’s easier to sift through the chafe, and more often than not, we find something on Twitter worth sending over to Readability for deeper consideration at a later time. Facebook is all about keeping you on Facebook, which only comes across as desperate, and Google’s social app seems very underdeveloped on the iOS side.

While we try to cull our Facebook friends list every couple months, we haven’t yet pulled the trigger on dropping the account entirely. That’s something we’ll hopefully do soon, as we feel it’s the biggest timesink with the least return of the networks we occasionally check in on. While Facebook has a way to restrict messages to only certain groups of friends, we find their mobile implementation is lacking, and the company philosophy not in tune to our own. Facebook is still where a lot of family acquaintances lurk, but the funny thing about Facebook is that people want to be your friend but yet spend no real time actually pursuing conversation with you. We’d sooner replace Facebook entirely with Path for family contacts, assuming others are willing to make the switch; Path’s only downside is that no one is using it, even though the app looks great, works great, and is perfect for communicating with family.

We still believe G+ has a lot of potential, because the Circles implementation feels more natural than Facebook’s lists. The problem with G+ for us is entirely their mobile apps, and the inability to consistently view the desktop version of G+ on the iPad. If Google improves the product in the coming months, we might see our use of this network grow again, but in the meantime it continues to decline.

We’d be interested in hearing how your own online communications have changed over the last decade. Is our experience typical, or have your channels increased in number rather than decreased? Tweet us and let us know.

Similar Posts:

• Twitter’s simplicity outweighs Facebook’s complexity. – A day doesn’t go by when we log into Facebook and don’t get frustrated with its user-interface. Argu…
• No one uses Twitter. – Over the past couple weeks, it’s been impossible to avoid talk about [Twitter](http://www.twitter.co…
• Internet friends are not real. – It is a sad state of affairs when the heading of this post offends readers, but I maintain that MC L…

“So it’s come to this” I thought as I held down the white iPhone’s power button. A frustrating task because it took time, and any time not spent doing what I wanted was time wasted. I only had the bastard for a few days when all of a sudden its data feed died, going out while I I clamored to log in to Evernote before the moment to grab a picture passed before the moment to grab a picture passed. The 3G indicator was still on, but the cursed phone just sat there, miniature hamsters spinning away to no avail.

“Fuck you” I silently cursed, waiting a moment before I pressed the power button again to complete the reboot cycle. But it didn’t work as its wont to fail. A third press, this time longer, and the phone woke from its slumber. A full thirty seconds before it sprang back to life, but spring back it did with its data stream intact. I shrugged. “What causes such a strange 3G outage?” I wondered, as if my phone were a patient and I were its confused doctor.

I thought about how every phone I’ve owned has required reboots and shut-downs and airplane-mode cycles to fix various issues and stability problems. They’re like Windows PCs in the 90s, requiring a dozen reboots a week to keep the wheels greased and moving smoothly. As phones became more complicated and smart, so did the need to reboot them rise accordingly. That is, until the iPhone, when there was a noticeable drop in the frequency of such reboots. And now, my iPhone runs days, if not weeks, without needing to sleep, clamoring on with only the occasional hiccup.

“The value of a mobile device is inversely proportional to the frequency of its required reboots”, I concluded. One may wonder why such reboots are necessary at all, and why radio issues and platform stability can’t be addressed in a way that doesn’t force the user to lose a minute of their time on a boot sequence. And I wonder this too, but right now I’m busy capturing a scene into Evernote.

Similar Posts:

• Free Sidekick games. – While I’ve checked out the catalog of available games for the Sidekick series of cellular phones, I’…
• Cell phone gaming. – While clowns like the guys behind the NGage tried their hand at mobile gaming via cell phones, the i…
• How to jailbreak and unlock a 2G iPhone (2.0). – The iPhone Dev Team, a group of hackers who have made it their mission to jailbreak and unlock iPhon…

The iPhone 4 is indeed a great phone, and Shawn Blanc summarizes how he uses the phone quite nicely over at his blog. In contrast, here’s our take.

Unlike Shawn, we were a gadget-junky for phones for much longer. We started on the original Sprint cell phone back when they only had a single model, then moved to a much smaller model before switching from Sprint to T-Mobile. On our new provider, we picked up a Sony Ericsson T610, which we kept for quite awhile before getting a Sidekick 3. Our last phone on T-Mobile was the original iPhone, which we used until the 3GS was released, prompting our move to AT&T. After the release of the iPhone 4, we upgraded again. Since at least 2004, we’ve also carried a Nextel and a several models of Blackberry phones for work, so we’re certainly well acquainted with what’s out there.¹

We’ll echo Shawn’s comment about the iPhone 4 being our best phone to date. To be fair, it’s not the phone we used the most², or even the smartphone we used the most.³ But it’s the most feature-rich phone, and not just on paper. That is to say, it has the most features that we use:

• We also carry the iPhone 4 case-free for the most part. Typically, we slide it into a microcloth baggy, but we stopped using Apple’s bumper awhile ago. We dropped the phone a couple times, and there’s a small dent in one order, but otherwise the phone has proven its durability. Cases and bumpers really take away from the phone’s aesthetics, and the size is too perfect to alter with a clunky enclosure. By far, this is the most beautiful mobile device has ever shipped, and if the renderings of the iPhone 5 out there are accurate, we think the iPhone 4 will hold onto this title for another year.

• We disagree that the battery life is great. Maybe for stand-by use, but not if you’re actively using the phone. That’s not to say that the iPhone 4′s battery is worse than the competition, because we don’t believe that’s true but merely that the state of batteries in the modern mobile space simply isn’t that great. When we’re using the internet, or the GPS, for a couple hours, the battery life really takes a hit, so on days we’re traveling that the phone gets real use, it’s dead before the day ends. Thank god for car chargers. But Shawn is correct in saying that on a typical day, the iPhone doesn’t need a charge until we hit the sack,

• The camera is indeed great. It’s the only one we typically use, and we’re more likely to ignore our more expensive Lumix when we travel just because of how easy it is to snap pictures with the iPhone. Plus, we love our novelty photo apps like Hipstamatic. The iPhone camera is the perfect compromise of portability and quality, and if the iPhone 5′s camera is another major improvement, then that alone practically justifies an upgrade. Thanks in part to the flash, the iPhone 4 is the first phone that we religiously use as a camera. Before this, we didn’t bother much with phone cameras on account of the resulting picture quality.

• The retina display is indeed awesome. We notice it more often when we have a few minutes to spare somewhere and load up iBooks. Compared to reading on the iPad, the iPhone 4 reading experience is simply beautiful. We were so-so on the idea of upgrading our iPad 2 if the only major improvement was a retina display, but now we’re not so sure.

Will we upgrade to the iPhone 5? If money were no object, then certainly yes. But better camera aside, we’re not so sure just yet, because as great as the iPhone 4 is, a chunk of our iOS use has been taken up by the iPad, so whereas pre-iPad the iPhone received an enormous amount of use, a lot of the stuff we used our iPhone for in the past is no longer a function of our phone.

Similar Posts:

• Why we probably won’t get an iPad 2. – We say “probably” because if Target doesn’t have a line at 17:00 today, we may be tempted to stop in…
• AT&T screwed up our iPhone upgrade eligibility. – While we may not think that the 4G iPhone is an enormous upgrade, it’s all about the cameras, and th…
• Retina graphics and file-sizes. – Retina-optimized graphics are awesome, we all pretty much agree. But there comes a trade-off with su…

When Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore claimed Apple would release a second iPhone model, we considered it just another random claim. After all, people have been saying for years that Apple would release an iPhone variant model, be it smaller than the original, or otherwise watered down. John Gruber weighed in on the claim and considers it a matter of fact; to Gruber, a second iPhone is just a matter of time.

Examine the history of the iPod to see how this will play out. They’ll press technologically at the high end, and they’ll expand into the mid-range market with lower priced models. Why not now?

The difference with the iPod is that all the iPod models did the same thing: they played mp3s. Some had larger storage options than others (just as the iPhone already does), but functionally they were all equal. The biggest difference between them, and still today, is storage, which comes down to a matter of form factor choice, not features. The only reason the iPod Shuffle lacks features (a visual screen) is because the form factor takes precedence. Just look at the iPod lineup today. The choice boils down to how much music you want at your fingertips, and how small you need your music player to be. The only exception here is the iPod Touch, which is the exception because it’s a phone-less iPhone; if storage costs weren’t an issue, then the Touch would replace the iPod Classic without consideration.

Taking the iPhone along a road similar to the iPod is problematic because the success of the iPhone isn’t in the core phone software. That is to say, the iPhone, unlike the iPod, is not a one-trick pony. It does a lot of things well, whereas the iPod did one primary thing well: play mp3s. This means the iPhone experience can’t be replicated by watering the device down and selling it for cheap, because customers will still want the iPhone experience, which means downloading, and using, all the same apps that other iPhone users have. That means the hardware needs to stay pretty much the same in every iPhone sold, which means the form factor can’t be tweaked too much.

Cellular telephone carriers have had success in selling older iPhone models for cheaper prices, this much is true. That’s because the features these devices offered weren’t too far different from the features available in the latest iPhone. So long as Apple rolls out the next iOS version and doesn’t abandon last year’s iPhones, everyone gets to play with the latest apps, even if there’s slight degradation in performance.¹ So Apple could just keep up production of last year’s iPhone when a new version comes out, and use that as a lower-cost alternative. But beyond that, there’s not much Apple can do to offer a next-gen, low-cost iPhone without cutting too many experiential features. Nixing things like the camera, gyroscope, or GPS would detract from the iPhone experience, and Apple wants to maintain consistency of user experience as much as possible across their lineup, which is why the only alternative versions of the iPhone we’ve seen to date have been storage or carrier based.

Moving to a smaller form factor doesn’t make much of a difference either; Apple would still need to cram all the latest technology into a smaller package, with maybe the only fair trade-off being storage. But that likely wouldn’t make up for the cut in price, and graphically, the device would have to fit at least the original iPhone’s resolution into a smaller screen. Not to mention, who’s complaining that the iPhone is too big? It made sense for Apple to offer smaller (and lighter) iPods for those wanting to take their tunes into the gym or on the trail, but the iPhone is a different beast.²

Maybe Apple will brand a totally different phone as an iPhone lite, but why would it sacrifice the very things that make the iPhone awesome just to sell a phone that’s cheaper? If carriers can sell the iPhone 3GS for $50 with a two-year contract, then Apple can figure out a way to keep up production of older iPhones models for another year or two just to make sales to those who still can’t afford a new iPhone. But for the time being, don’t expect “lite”, “mini”, or “nano”-like branding for a future iPhone variant.

Similar Posts:

• No seven-inch iPad on the horizon. – The rumour bandwagon is loose, talking about an upcoming 7″ iOS tablet device. Steven Sande at TUAW …
• European law aims to propagate the iPhone culture. – After Apple’s lawyers presumably spent many nights awake looking for looholes, they finally gave in …
• iPhone firmware 1.1.3 useless, just like 1.1.2. – According to PhoneDifferent, version 1.1.3 of the iPhone firmware is soon to be released, and as wit…

The iPhone case frenzy has officially become retarded, thanks to entries like Snow Peak’s new titanium cover. Not only does it come in at $120, but it degrades cellular reception.

But it’s the desire to encase every gadget in plastic or metal that has us really confused, and it’s a bandwagon we found ourselves on after we replaced our 2G iPhone with a 3GS. Previously, we never seriously thought about getting a case for any of our devices, from prior cell phones to notebook computers. We did at some time use cell phone holsters, but never a full case. Why add unnecessary bulk to a device that’s already not too comfortable in a front pocket?

Apple’s changed their iPhone design to make cases less important, but people don’t seem to get this. From Gizmodo’s report on the aforementioned Snow Peak cover:

The cover slides on the back and is designed to protect the glassy exterior from scratches, dents and dings.

The whole point of the glassy exterior of the iPhone, outside of an aesthetic design note, is that glass doesn’t dent or ding. So really, what these cases do is protect the glass from scratching ¹, which while possible, is much less likely than if the exterior were made of plastic or metal. Really, the only areas of the iPhone 4 that can get dinged or dented are the antenna and plastic around the edge of the device. Apple’s so confident that typical use-induced abrasions are a non-factor with the iPhone 4 that their official “case”, the iPhone bumper, adds minimal bulk by merely elevating the glass exterior a small amount from any surface the iPhone is set down on. Arguably, the bumper does more to combat people’s antennagate conspiracies than serve as actual protection for the device, because the latter isn’t much of a concern. Who’s setting their iPhone down on sharp, jaggy surfaces, anyway?

We didn’t buy a case for our iPhone 4. We did get the free bumper, and did use it for a short while. Ultimately, we took it off because the bumper made docking the iPhone more difficult in our car, and ultimately we remembered what we did with our iPhone 2G: keep the phone in a microfiber pouch. It’s a pouch we scavenged from an old pair of Oakley sunglasses, and the pouch keeps the iPhone mostly smudge-free. When that cleaning doesn’t happen automatically, at least we have a microfiber cloth on-hand for dealing with that, and it’s also useful when we’re out and about with our sunglasses that also tend to get dirty. The best part is that this adds even less bulk than the bumper, and it’s far more useful.

Similar Posts:

• On our iPhone 4. – The iPhone 4 is indeed a great phone, and [Shawn Blanc summarizes](http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sh…
• iPhones are not being bricked. – It wasn’t that long ago that real “tech words” never entered Average Joe’s vernacular. These days, t…
• Apple and Cingular are an unholy marriage. – When two companies get together for exclusivity agreements, it takes freedom out of the consumer’s h…

The Washington Post reports that the government is adopting high tech devices faster than in the past, but is missing a key element to the equation: security. That’s not to say that there isn’t always a security concern when it comes to newer technology, but the devices we’re talking about are wireless in nature, and that’s where things get messy. It’s one thing to go from Windows to OS X, or even the Blackberry to the iPhone, but when we’re dealing with government policies that restrict use of wireless devices for classified work, then you can forget about seeing government Operators using an iPad to take notes during interviews, or snapping pictures of a bad guy with a government-issued iPhone. These are both examples of how the government could be more efficient in terms of how it gets the job done, and how much money could be saved long-term by consolidating devices and materials, but ultimately, examples with little real-world merit.

It’s because devices like the iPhone and iPad, whose AppStore libraries are enormous and already aid thousands of people with work tasks already, make use of programs that haven’t passed scrutiny by government security experts. And even if the apps somehow did pass such scrutiny, the fact that these devices are capable of transmitting data wirelessly means that they’re already banned from use in classified contexts, and why they can’t even enter a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) where highly classified information is typically handled and kept. That’s why government computers held in a SCIF lack wifi capabilities, and when procured, must have respective hardware removed before going online. And naturally, they can never connect to an open network, for fear of their contents being transmitted to unintended recipients.

And it’s not just wifi that’s the problem, either. Pretty much any device that’s able to record audio, take pictures, or even tether to a desktop to exchange information is a no-go in a SCIF. Which doesn’t leave many devices for consideration outside the staple pad-and-paper.

So for iOS devices, or similar smart phones and tablets, to be used by Shady Land’s most sensitive Operators, several things would need to happen, all of which are highly unlikely:

1. Variants of devices would need to be manufactured that do not include hardware like cameras, microphones, wifi transmitters, etc.
2. An infrastructure would need to be put in place to push approved apps to all such variant devices.
3. Some mechanism would need to be put in place to transfer information between the device and a classified computer, so as to download information from the device to SCIF-housed computers.

Mind you, current-gen devices could be used by Operators that don’t need to enter a SCIF. The only obstacle in this scenario is the determination by some individual that every app utilized by an Operator is without major security concern, such that information gathered by the Operator is not clandestinely exfiltrated from the device wirelessly.

While the Washington Post paints a pretty picture of the government picking up their pace when it comes to high-tech, the reality is a little different, with bureaucratic obstacles in place, and legitimate security concerns slowing down adaptation considerably. The press is quick to point out that the President himself uses an iPad, but it wasn’t long ago that he was required to get a secure Blackberry in order to conduct business. In reality, the iPad he’s using is not intended for use with any classified information, and is likely more of a personal toy than it is a workhorse for national security matters. It’s a shame that such devices can’t be used in classified situations yet, but hopefully someone’s exploring a way for us to get there.

Similar Posts:

• Who to trust less: governments, or corporations? – When someone residing in Europe pointed out to us how distraught they were that online companies lik…
• The iPod Touch is a baby iPad. – One of the common quips about the iPad is that it’s nothing more than a “large iPod Touch.” It’s a s…
• Old computers in Shady Land. – There are better technologies for businesses these days than relying on desktop PCs and Microsoft Wi…

Catching up on weekend news reveals quite a number of blog posts concerning the proposed AT&T/T-Mobile merger, with arguments being made both for and against. But why does anyone care if the merger happens? We’re not saying that the merger would necessarily be good for the industry, but we’re far from saying it’d be bad, either.

We love T-Mobile. We were loyal customers for years, and when T-Mobile didn’t offer the iPhone in 2007, we stayed with them anyway. When jailbreak/unlocking tools were available, we picked up an iPhone and ran it on T-Mobile with much satisfaction. We held out this way playing the jailbreak cat-and-mouse game up until the iPhone 3GS was released, when we finally decided that EDGE was too slow for us and that a better camera and GPS were enough to sway the boat in AT&T’s favor. In all respects though, other than the speed improvements, our switch to AT&T meant more dropped calls and a slightly larger service area (noticeable to us on a practical level), but by far the greatest effect on us was that T-Mobile effectively became a non-factor in the wireless game.

They’re still a non-factor; they don’t offer the iPhone. Without going into a pro or anti bend regarding Android, let’s just come to terms with the fact that the iPhone is the pre-emptive mobile device and has been for almost four years; for those of you who love your Android devices, more power to you, but you have a second-fiddle device (and that’s not a bad thing: it’s just a fact that the iPhone offers more apps and is at least perceived as a friendlier device for mass-consumption).

Right now, Verizon is the bigger wireless beast between it and AT&T. With a T-Mobile merger behind it, AT&T swaps places with Verizon. Big deal. At the end of the day, it doesn’t change the fact that AT&T and Verizon are still the largest wireless monsters in the country, with lowly Sprint still sitting at the number three table wishing they could eat with the big boys. T-Mobile subscribers, meanwhile, get the iPhone. They get access to a larger network and the shining star of mobile devices. Let them have their cake without pissing about whether AT&T grabs another 10% market share or not.

Those of you crying that this is bad for innovation: T-Mobile lost that game when it had to rely on Windows Mobile and Android devices. These wireless providers aren’t creating devices themselves, anyway. They just make deals with manufacturers and occasionally throw their own branding on new gadgets. The innovation in this space is handled by Apple, Google, Microsoft, RIM, et al. All these telecoms are doing is providing a network for devices to run on. The innovation the telecoms control is in speed, availability, and pricing, and T-Mobile’s already fallen behind on the first two. If they can gain those and somehow influence AT&T in the third, it’s a win for everyone involved.

Similar Posts:

• Choosing AT&T for the new iPad. – When we pre-ordered the new iPad last week, we opted to stick with AT&T for data coverage, despite o…
• Non-AT&T iPhone not likely until a 4G roll-out. – A lot of people dislike AT&T. Granted, that number pales in comparison to the number of people who _…
• Why the 3G iPhone will be “meh” for unlockers. – Why the 3G iPhone will be “meh” for unlockers. 2008-05-18 07:00 ![](http://beastwith.in/wp-content/u…

While we may not think that the 4G iPhone is an enormous upgrade, it’s all about the cameras, and that’s specifically the area we’re hooked on. So for some 5 megapixel camera love (plus flash and HD video recording), the new iPhone has us interested. We bought the 3GS upon release, so we should be eligible for the discounted upgrade, but… we’re not.

We pre-ordered our iPhone 3GS to replace our 2G iPhone on T-Mobile, activating it on day one of 3GS availability. About half a year later, we converted our plan to a family plan, and then added a line for our girlfriend. There was also some hooplah about converting the plan to be region-free, since we both ported numbers from different area codes. During all this reshuffling, her phone somehow became the “primary” number on the account, which was inconsequential until today.

When we checked to see if our phone was eligible for the discounted upgrade, we were told it wasn’t, and that we would have to wait until February. The second line we added, however, even though activated half a year later, was already eligible, even though the reverse should be true. Apparently, AT&T can’t fix this in the system, because even if they switch the original phone back to be the primary, that switch alone causes a three-month penalty for future upgrades. So because AT&T didn’t set things up the way initially requested (presumably because it was easier for the salesperson who set up our second phone), I now can’t upgrade at the lowest cost possible. Why AT&T can’t simply swap upgrade eligibility between phones remains a mystery, considering that both phones are on the same plan, billed to the same person.

For us, this is a major complaint against AT&T, especially since the customer sales representative we spoke to today had major attitude when we politely addressed the issue and the reason for our dissatisfaction. This from a company we’ve defended from daily onslaught by other iPhone users. Thanks, AT&T. You have one more year from us, and then you better hope you’re still the only US iPhone carrier.

Similar Posts:

• Replace an iPhone using different-line upgrade eligibility. – It’s upsetting that AT&T wasn’t clearer on this before we decided to rant, especially since their ow…
• On our iPhone 4. – The iPhone 4 is indeed a great phone, and [Shawn Blanc summarizes](http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/sh…
• Third-party iPhone HDR apps doomed? – With the most recent iOS update (4.1), Apple released high-dynamic range (HDR) functionality for the…

One of the common quips about the iPad is that it’s nothing more than a “large iPod Touch.” It’s a statement the naysayers are fond of making, along with those who lash out at anything made by Apple as though Microsoft were still the only developer putting out a useful, solid operation system anymore; it’s not 1999, people.

We’ve now had an iPad since Friday, the day the 3G iPads were released, and we’re quite happy with it as a replacement for our now-sold 17″ Macbook Pro. We’ve fielded numerous questions, but the most common is, “Why would someone want an iPad?” And that’s a loaded question, because it comes with a pre-established bias. But let’s answer it anyway: “Maybe you don’t. Not everyone would.”

That answer isn’t side-stepping the argument, either. The reality is, if you’re already happy with an existing portable computer, or you don’t need a portable computer in the first place, then the iPad isn’t for you, just as a roadster isn’t the ideal car for a family of four. If you’re in the market for a portable computer, however, and what you need it to do is the same thing 99% of computer users need a computer for, then the iPad fits the bill splendidly. It’s a fantastic entertainment and news device, is great for writing, and the distribution system for apps makes the iPad a headache-free device which you won’t need to reformat every six months because something’s broken.

And for techies who need the latest and greatest, and have the disposable income to make that need a reality, then the iPad is an obvious choice over an existing sub-notebook: it’s snappier, has a great app library w/associated distribution system, has a longer battery life, and has a data connection built in.

With four days of iPad use behind us, we’re not disappointed with the device at all, and look forward to the benefits that OS 4.0 will bring later this year. One side-effect of using the iPad, however, is our changed perception of using the iPhone. Quite simply, the iPhone no longer feels as revolutionary, or as spectacular, as before. Indeed, we’re making an effort to not run iPhone apps on the iPad, because most simply don’t look great when scaled up. That’s not to say that the iPhone still isn’t the best smartphone on the market, but merely that the iPhone now feels more like a phone with cool features, and less like a backup computing device; the iPhone feels almost cluttered now, what with its dense app icon distribution on the SpringBoard, and the lack of “whitespace” in apps.

In this respect, the iPad has set for the computing industry a new standard. What early, greyscale sub-notebooks were to their later, more powerful notebook brethren, the iPod Touch is to the iPad. In other words, the iPad isn’t a big iPod Touch, in much the same way the modern Mini Cooper isn’t just a bigger version of the old Mini. Yes, there are keen visual similarities, but one was effectively a prototype for the other. In the end, the Touch is a smaller, more restricted version of the iPad, which is a more apt description if any can be made, and it pinpoints the answer to the aforementioned question as to why one would want an iPad: early iPod adopters didn’t ask why they should pick up an iPod instead of one of the many non-Apple mp3 players on the market. Rather, the reason was obvious: the iPod was better, not because it offered much more functionality, but because it was highly polished. Those who didn’t see this would end up buying an iPod a year or three later. Same with the iPad: if you don’t get it now, just wait a couple years when the early-adopters have made the reasoning all to clear.

Similar Posts:

• iPad extensibility: the key is in the adapters? – While the iPad won’t sport much more than a dock connector for interfacing with other devices, that …
• No seven-inch iPad on the horizon. – The rumour bandwagon is loose, talking about an upcoming 7″ iOS tablet device. Steven Sande at TUAW …
• Point of the iTablet? Try these variants. – All this talk about the iTablet, and we’re still confused as to what the ultimate point is. Not abou…

While we brought the Joo Joo up in passing, Rob Enderle proclaimed that the former CrunchPad could crush the market for tablet computing, thereby souring Apple’s entrance into the market altogether. The only problem with his assertion is that the Apple tablet isn’t the same beast as the Joo Joo, and to say that the latter will quell consumer desire for the iTablet is like saying that Motorola’s Razr savaged the Apple iPhone.

Enderle is really comparing apples to oranges (no pun intended); all of these non-Apple products are extremely limited: the Kindle is first and foremost an eBook reader, the Razr is just a cellphone, and the Joo Joo is a web-surfing tool. For those like Enderle who still don’t get it, the Joo Joo is a one-trick pony. It’s not a media monster running iTunes, it isn’t a keyboard-less computer with the capacity to run OS X applications, and it certainly doesn’t have the potential packing of the print industry to push forward with digital distribution of magazines and newspapers.

Most consumers probably haven’t even heard of the Joo Joo and its developer, Fusion Garage. The Joo Joo will cost $500, and for what’s probably just twice that, users will be able to own an Apple-polished product that does significantly more. So even if news of the Joo Joo does trickle down to the average computer user, we’re not so sure anyone’s going to care, especially once Apple announces their own tablet (which will be an actual computer and not just a web-browser).

But what can we expect from a tech analyst with such stunning gems as this:

[It] sounds way to close to JewJew with implications that could offend a wide variety of buyers…

You’re right, Enderle, that’s what’s going to make the Joo Joo fail.

Similar Posts:

• Will MacBook evolution lead to the iTablet? – We’ve ruminated at length about the rumoured Apple tablet computer, from the iPhone “dock” that is o…
• Why buy an Apple television? – An Apple-produced television set is still in the rumour-mill, but the concept still mystifies us. Me…
• If Apple made sex toys. – Apple makes sleek, polished products, in both appearance and functionality. No surprise then that th…