Archive for June, 2009

iPhone or Storm – A Not So Surprising Answer

June 17, 2009

A friend of mine wrote to me this week asking my thoughts on the Storm vs. the iPhone. This reminds me of cold calls from business school. No matter what the case, class or situation, the answer was always the same – “it depends.”

If you have been reading this blog, you will know that I have a Storm. But you might also pick up a love for the iPhone. As a true consultant, I made a list of the features of each and made my selection. This method should work for just about any phone so feel free to insert any phone you are considering. Everyone’s feature list will be slightly different, but here are some major categories to consider:

The Network – While all of the phones are cool, at the end of the day the device is a interesting brick without network coverage. All of the major networks (AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon) will have decent coverage in some parts of the country. The question is how are they where you live. In the Washington, DC area, and most of the north east United States, VZW will have the best coverage. However, the true test is how is the coverage where you will use it most such as your office, home and commute between the two? If you don’t get great coverage in one of the areas but still want a cool phone, check into Femtocells. (Read my post Femtocells – Your Own Cell Tower) VZW has released theirs and I know that AT&T was working on one.

In addition to coverage, you need to think about what network most of your friends, families and co-workers use? Having the free mobile-to-mobile minutes doubles my minutes of use (MOUs) each month. This is not only important for you, but also for the people calling you.

Features – The next major area to consider are features. Make a list of all things that are really important to you. If synchronizing to your iTunes library is important, that may swing you to a iPhone or Palm Pre. If multitasking is important (being able to switch between editing an email, calendar entry, and that hot new application is important…) then you may want to move towards the Blackberry. If your organization uses the Blackberry Enterprise Server, then your choice is made for you. Are you a Mac user at home or the office – advantage iPhone…

Applications – Are there any applications that are only available on one platform vs. the other? Then your decision may also be made for you if you think that it is an important application.

You will notice that I didn’t list price here. For any smart phone platform, you will be paying a little up front but the kicker is the monthly service contract…

So as you can see, there are many factors that will push you to one side or the other. I strongly advise taking advantage of the carrier’s 30 day trial period before porting your number. This will allow you to try out the features of the platform and the coverage areas. All you will be responsible for will be the usage during the trial period. And also strongly consider getting the insurance. I never purchased the insurance until I found my new PDA (list price without subsidy $600) dropped into the toilet by Not Me and I Didn’t Do It, two frequent visitors to any house with kids…

Tags:, , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

The Accessory You Didn’t Know You Needed

June 10, 2009

About a month ago I purchased my first bike in about twenty years. (Ok, I had one but never rode it…) I’ve really enjoyed riding my bike along the Potomac to Mount Vernon, George Washington’s estate, or in the other direction past Memorial Bridge. It is a much more interesting cardio workout than sitting in the YMCA.

While on my rides, I have taken to listening to Slacker on my Storm. Not having any kind of arm band for my Storm, I put it in my pocket and rode off into the sunset hoping that it would not fall out on the way. That is until I Googled Blackberry Storm Bike Mount and found The Mount Guys.

I love the name because it tells you exactly what they are and what they do. They sell mounts for all sorts of equipment such as phones, iPods, satellite radios, etc. for cars, boats, motorcycles and bikes. I ordered two mounts for my Storm, one for my bike and one for the car that fits into the cup holder. I opted not to get the mount that attaches to the vent, although may think about that for my CRV that doesn’t have a dashboard mounted cup holder.

The mounts arrived within a few days and installation was simple. For the bike, the mount fits on the handle bar and the blackberry fits snugly within the mount. I have used it on several trips and find that it is very convenient for skipping songs and I could even answer calls while on the bike. I don’t know if I would actually dial while riding but certainly could initiate voice dialing if necessary.

This is the best accessory that I have purchased yet for a phone. It appears sturdy and has only one flaw that I can find, it only allows you to use your phone in portrait mode, not landscape. My suspicion is that have a standard mount that isn’t adapted to the touch screen and that a rugged version that would allow landscape rotation would add a few dollars to the cost. As it is, the version I purchased was only $17. There was a more expensive version created by RAM that sold for $38 that was marine grade and may work in landscape mode, but I don’t think I need that level for my bicycle. Motorcycle owners may consider the more expensive model.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Storm Upgrade – Day Two

June 3, 2009

I need to make a correction on my post from yesterday. Originally I had said there was no OTA download of the upgrade for the Storm. You can, in fact, download the OS upgrade over the air by selecting Wireless Upgrades from Options > Advanced Options. I would, however, have appreciated a text message that would have guided me through this option. My guess is that VZW will send one out in about a week after most people have already upgraded…

I did this yesterday with my wife’s Storm with good success. There were a few responses early on that you must answer, but once going, the upgrade works fine on its own. It took less than 30 minutes for the entire download, backup, upgrade and then restore of data.

After two days with the upgrade on my own Storm I am very pleased. The OS seems to be much more stable and also speedier. The Internet browsing is also much faster. A few new features I have found so far including a full keyboard option in portrait mode is now available from the menu. 

One of the best new features, however, is the ability to slide the cursor back and forth to select the right insertion point when editing text. A box (that is originally annoying) that looks like a faint transparent button surrounds the cursor. Simply sliding that “button” back and forth moves the location of the cursor.

Has anyone else found any good features they like? Please let me know.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Confused Consumers at the App Store

June 3, 2009

FierceMobile seems to be on a kick these last few days indicating that consumers will be confused by all of the applications available to them. Sue Marek went suggested that carriers set up their application stores and keep their policy of only carrying applications that they have tested and approve of themselves. (Click here to read the story.) 

While there is certainly some rationale behind this thought, with 25,000 applications for the iPhone, who can tell what is good and what is garbage at first blush? However, I am a firm believer that there are very few business models and channels that are truly new – just variations of something we have seen before. This allows for us to learn from history (or other market places) and apply those lessons here. 

First, lets look at the history of mobile applications. Carriers have proven in the past that they do not have the resources or processes to foster a vibrant application ecosystem. Before the iPhone, how many mobile phone subscribers actually downloaded an application to their phone? Why? There were no really good applications to download and the price points were out of alignment to the value provided. Because of restrictive carrier policies, there was no good way to modify application pricing plans without a lot of new contracts and negotiations.

We can also look at other industries to see how they have tackled comparing products on-line before purchase. If we look at shareware, applications written by independent developers. Pricing models are either free, ask for donations to the project, or pay money for an unlock code that will unlock the application after a trial period. Hmmm, sound familiar… There, users provide ratings for applications and users can easily search for applications and sort based on user reviews and number of downloads. Good applications quickly rise to the top. I buy a lot of items from Amazon.com precisely because of the user reviews.

Sue does point out that carriers typically have the more recognized brands in the mobile space. Subscribers necessarily have the relationship with carriers and they can provide clarity for consumers on certain applications. Certainly any application that itself can access your billing or demographic information from the carrier records should be approved by the carrier. I think there is also a place for sponsored applications just as consumer products pay slotting fees in retail stores. However, they should not restrict applications as they do now.

I do agree with Andrew Seybold’s suggestion that application developers provide free trials of their software to consumers. This will help encourage trial, and if they have developed a good application, spur purchase. Applications that allow trial on a PC such as mPowerPlayer are even better and should be common for all mobile application stores.

Over time, application stores that allow for easier searching and user reviews will rise to the top and others will go away. Just like on the Internet, Amazon rules and no one remembers Buy.com…

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

A New Mac vs. PC Commercial

June 2, 2009

I can see it now, the new Mac vs. PC commercial need a makeover. The new commercials will be the iPhone vs. the Berry. I’m not sure who will replace John Hodgman as the PC, but I think dipping into the Daily Show well again and selecting Aasif Mandvi would be a great choice.

The commercials would be largely scripted the same. The capable, but frumpy Blackberry would talk about the features it wished it had and the iPhone will be surprised that these features are not standard on all phones. Casts of other characters could play popular applications available for the iPhone and not available on the Berry. That could even be the name of the Blackberry character, “Berry.” Of course just like the PC commercials, the Berry would crash periodically and need to be rebooted by yanking the battery. 

These commercials, of course, are largely consumer focused, but isn’t that the point? Apple will get adoption at the grass roots level and then corporations will have to figure out how to support these phones with limited security and application management solutions. But at the end of the day, what CIO is going to tell the CEO that he can’t use the coolest phone on the block? Even the Secret Service had to bow to the wishes of President Obama to allow him to carry a PDA. (Of course, he is using a specially modified Blackberry with enhanced security software installed.)

While Blackberry still rules with about double the market share over the iPhone, their dominance is on shaky ground. A few extra features and and additional carriers and Apple can make a serious run at the dominant slot for corporate communications. Security, centralized management and true multi-tasking are key for corporations to adopt the iPhone. But these are things that can be added within a year. Now that Apple has mind-share, and the consumer market waiting for each iteration, RIM had better watch out.

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

New BlackBerry OS – Will it solve the problems?

June 2, 2009

I updated my Storm yesterday with the new version of the BlackBerry OS. This takes me from 4.7.0.75 to 4.7.0.148. While I like my Storm, there were definitely a few problems that power users were experiencing. Some of the big concerns were periodically would not ring for inbound calls, would periodically require a reboot to speed things up, and on very rare occasions, the phone would crash.

To be fair, I run a number of different applications on my Storm including Google Sync and Salesforce that always run in the background. In addition to those programs, I’m a frequent user of VZ Navigator and Slacker (both of which also released major upgrades that dramatically improve performance). 

The upgrade process is smooth, although it does require connecting to a PC with BB Desktop Manager running. I believe the iPhone does all OS upgrades over the air (OTA) which is much easier. The upgrade process is relatively smooth. It starts with conducting a full back up of your Blackberry and then the upgrade. This adds time but I suppose is much better than losing all of your data if the phone bricks in the middle… Most of the data came back OK. For some reason, the calendar (that I sync with Google) didn’t get reloaded and it lost all of my user data for programs such as Google and Slacker.

Out of the box, things appear to be running a bit smoother. The new versions of Slacker and VZ Navigator have much better performance, although the latter still has some additional cleanup work to do on its interface. If you have a Storm, please let me know how your upgrade process is going and if you experience any issues.

Tags:, , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.