Great essay. I completely agree that Apple’s attention to detail and ruthless exclusion of that which it doesn’t feel is up to its standards are reasons that their products resonate so well with consumers. Android is good, and as the article points out, getting better. It just hasn’t gotten that detail right to the point where I’m ready to switch. Also good is the point that phone makers aren’t particularly good at software and that hurts their phones, even with Android.
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I’ve mentioned Clik Elite’s bags here a few times, and I keep coming back to them even though I haven’t yet found one I truly love. The reason for that is that they’re targeting people like me who enjoy active sports like mountain biking and want to take their photography gear along to capture their adventures, but it’s hard to fit my fairly niche requirements precisely. I’ve purchased the Compact Sport, the Small Rangefinder Chestpack and Medium Nature in the past, although I sold the Compact Sport after determining that it was a bit too small for my needs. They’ve since introduced a size that’s supposed to be a bit bigger than the Compact Sport and yet not the behemoth the Medium Nature is: the Probody Sport. I’ll probably order one of those and try it, as it seems to be perfect for what I’m interested in for biking.
Another kind of bag I’ve been looking for is one which I can use as a carry-everywhere bag. I want something that, I hate to say it, is a techno-weenie man purse. I want to have a pocket that can accommodate my iPad and MiFi and some camera gear. When I started keeping an eye out for such a thing, I had my Panasonic GF-1 in mind, so it could be pretty compact. Then I came across a Clik Elite bag I hadn’t seen before: the Traveler. I seemed to be right up my alley, although it appeared to be potentially big enough to carry be Nikon D700 (without the MB-D10 extension) and a standard lens, so I ordered one.
The Traveler gives a good first impression. It’s smaller than I pictured in my mind, which is a nice surprise, since I’m used to getting a bag that’s bigger and heavier than I expect. That said, it’s just a tiny, tiny bit too small in some ways and a little too big in others. The first thing I tried was putting my iPad in the front pocket. It fits…barely, without the DODOcase I’ve been using; I can live with that. The small pocket on the front is clearly built with an iPhone in mind…perfect. The front flap covers the iPad pocket as well as some smaller pockets for a pen, business cards and other miscellany. These pockets can accommodate the MiFi, although not perfectly. Again, close enough.
The real question is: How well does it suit my desire to carry camera equipment? The answer, once again, is it’ll do what I want, but not perfectly. The D700 fits, but it’s tall enough to make it hard to close the zipper, and I’m a bit worried that the top might be pushing a little hard on the iPad. Not enough to worry a lot about, but if I smacked the bag, the eyepiece of the camera might provide enough of a lever against the iPad to cause concern. Since I’m considering this as my everyday bag, it’s the biggest problem I have with the bag.
As I said, I initially had the GF-1 in mind for this bag, although being able to carry the Nikon would be great. The inside compartment of the bag is sort of too big for just the GF-1, so I don’t consider it optimal for that purpose either, sadly. I normally use a LowePro SlingShot 200 AW as my grab-and-go bag; here’s the Traveler next to it for comparison.
I don’t have a bottom-line on the bag yet. I’ll play with it a bit more and carry it for a day to decide if I’m going to keep it. I’m also planning on heading to a local shop to try out a quite different bag: a ThinkTank Retrospective 10. It’s a traditional camera bag, but might be a good candidate for a daily bag too.
Looks pretty good. That’s more bad news for Flip/Cisco.
AT&T just announced a near doubling of its Early Termination Fee for canceling your contract. It takes effect for all contracts entered into starting June 1. I guess they’re trying to lock in people who buy the likely-upcoming fourth-generation iPhone for those two years. If the rumored Verizon iPhone comes out, or Android phones get too attractive, they want their pound of flesh.
I love the title of the letter: “An Open Letter to our Valued Customers”.
For customers who enter into new two-year service agreements in connection with the purchase of our more advanced, higher end devices, including netbooks and smartphones, the ETF will increase to $325, and be reduced by $10 for each month that you remain with us as a customer during the balance of your two-year service agreement. After that, the ETF will no longer apply.
The Google TV announcement has some really interesting stuff in it. I enjoyed the Engadget demo of the Logitech box with Google TV. One feature that seemed particularly interesting:
> When we got to Logitech’s demo space, we expected to see a keyboard and mouse. To our surprise, the Logitech product manager pulled out a Nexus One and iPhone. He explained that the companion box has all the technology of Logitech’s $400 Harmony 900 remote and extends it to your handset over WiFi.
Love it.
This is pretty cool looking. If it weren’t for my deep-seated hatred of Sprint (having been a recipient of their “customer service”), I might consider something like this.
An iPhone app that one can use to mark where AT&T service is crappy? Oh, I'm going to get some use out of this app.
I hate AT&T.
That might be an odd way to start a post about a cell phone that’s not on the AT&T network, but it’s at the heart of why I now have a Motorola Droid, on the Verizon network, in my possession. As people who know me already know, I’ve had every version of iPhone, currently the 32GB 3GS model, and am a huge fan of it. I’m also a Mac user and Apple TV owner, with a sizable investment in the iTunes way of managing media. I wouldn’t consider switching to another phone, except that I can’t use my iPhone as a phone most of my day. That’s right, my new office is an AT&T black hole. No signal at all.
Let’s face it: the killer app of any phone is being able to make and receive calls. Hence, the Droid.
The Droid is the first phone I’ve used that could even make me consider moving away from my iPhone. I picked the Droid up on release day, last Friday, and have used it all weekend. This post will be about my initial impressions from that period, and I’m sure there will be more coming over the next week as I try and decide if I can live with it well enough to have it replace my iPhone permanently.
The Hardware
Motorola makes the hardware itself. The initial impression it gives is that it’s solid. It’s a bit heavy, and I perceive it to be bigger and heavier than the iPhone until I hold them side-by-side and realize that while it is bigger and heavier, it’s insignificantly so.
While it’s well-built, it lacks the certain jewel-like quality I feel the iPhone has. The iPhone has few, well-placed buttons and almost imperceptible seams. The Droid, with its removable battery, more numerous buttons, sharper edges and corners, and dual branding on the front (both Motorola and Verizon get billing on the front of the device, with Verizon and Google on the back), misses the high bar set by the iPhone. That said, it’s tasteful as other cell phones go, and is at worst inoffensive.
The Screen
I’ll leave the specs to sites that handle those things better than I could, but note some highlights. The screen is of much higher resolution and pixel density than the iPhone, and it’s gorgeous to look at. Going back to the iPhone after a day of the Droid makes one realize how jaggy that screen is. If you want to stay in love with your iPhone’s screen, don’t use a Droid for long.
It’s a touch screen, and as far as its performance goes, it’s fine. The iPhone seems more responsive to touches and gestures, but I’m not sure what part of the Droid is to blame. In any case, the Droid is not terribly far behind.
Micro-USB & Docks
Instead of a proprietary connector like Apple’s, the Droid is equipped with a micro-USB connector on its left side. It’s used for both charging and connecting to a computer. There are two docks available; I was only able to get ahold of the one for the car, which I perceive to be the more important. The other, for the home, turns the Droid into a capable alarm clock. The Droid, when put into a dock, goes into a dock-specific mode, with an interface that makes sense for that context. The car dock triggers a car mode which has large buttons and easy access to voice control and navigation options. More on that last bit later.
Battery
The battery that comes with the Droid, which is user-replaceable, lasts about a day with moderate call usage, fairly heavy other usage and all radios (Bluetooth, 3G, GPS) active. Good enough, but I definitely need a car charger to top it up for heavy-use days.
Camera
The camera is a 5MP model with a dedicated button to take pics with. It’s autofocus, but without the iPhone’s neat ability to pick a subject to focus and expose for. It’s serviceable enough, but even though it’s of higher resolution than the 3GS’s camera, I don’t perceive it to be better in the few times I’ve used it. In fact, perhaps it’s not as good—more use required to tell.
Slide-Out Physical Keyboard
The cool kids call the Droid a “slider”—it has a physical keyboard that slides out like a drawer from the screen. Bottom line: it works, but I don’t see the need. The software keyboard works better for me, so I never use the slider. In fact, I’d prefer a model that saved the weight and complexity the keyboard must add to the device.
The Keys
The Droid has two physical buttons and 4 permanent “soft” buttons. The physical ones include one on the top right corner, in the same place as the iPhone’s, which wakes the Droid up or puts it to sleep. A long press provides a menu of power-related options. The other is a dedicated camera button on the bottom right, which fits under the finger when holding the phone horizontally to take a picture.
The power button is fine, but the Droid’s beveled top and the nearby headphone jack make it ever-so-slightly hard to find by feel, unlike the iPhone, where it falls right under the finger and is distinct from the otherwise smooth case. I would prefer that the camera button not exist.
The soft keys, as I call them, are at the very bottom of the touch screen, and are imprinted with icons. They only work when the phone is active, and can’t wake it from sleep. There is no front-facing button like the iPhone’s with which to wake the Droid, forcing one to use the top button. A minor quibble, but a noticeable difference for me. It’s a “small thing” that one uses constantly; the iPhone gets this just right and the Droid slightly misses.
The buttons include a back button, like a web browser’s; an option button which is context-sensitive, typically summoning an on-screen menu; a home button which returns one to the main screen from within any app; and a search button, which can always be used to search the phone or the web.
Notification Light
There’s a small LED on the front upper-right corner that can be set to flash when you’ve missed a call, have voicemail, email, or many other items. It pretty much flashes when some event you want to know about has happened while the phone is inactive. This is a nice feature that I wish the iPhone had; you can glance at the device to see if you missed anything.
Software
The built-in Google apps are almost all wonderful, as are the Google-created optional ones.
The Killer Apps
Google Voice
I’ll go into detail about Google Voice in another post, but the Android app of the same name is a Google-written app that provides an on-device interface to the voice and messaging features of that online service. As an appetite-whetter for my future post on the topic, this could be a killer app for the Android phones, since Apple has not allowed a similar app on the iPhone.
Google Maps with Navigation
The Droid uses Google Maps with turn-by-turn navigation to provide the functionality of a stand-alone personal navigation device such as one by TomTom or Garmin. This free, preinstalled app, gets maps and traffic data from the Droid’s internet connection and uses the speaker to provide audible directions to a destination. A session can be initiated by the user asking for directions vocally, which works surprisingly well. Approaching arrival, the Droid uses Google Street View to show a picture of the destination. The app is wonderful, and I predict will deal an enormous blow to the personal navigation device market. This alone is a reason to buy the Droid.
When connected to the car dock mentioned earlier, a user interface appropriate to being used at arm’s length is presented, with navigation and voice command prominent on-screen. The navigation app also prevents the Droid from sleeping when navigating. Listening to music or podcasts happens in tandem with navigation when desired, and the navigation commands appropriately override the music, albeit temporarily.
Other Supplied Applications
There are two mail apps. One that handles Gmail, and one that handles everything else. The Gmail app feels very much like Gmail in the browser, collecting threads into conversations and labeling them based on your account’s rules. The other one works with Exchange, POP or IMAP mail, and provides a more traditional mail experience. It features a combined view of all mailboxes—something I’ve long wanted on the iPhone. Overall, I’d say that mail is handled better on Droid than on iPhone.
Calendar
Like mail, there are two calendar apps. One is called “Corporate Calendar”, and handles Exchange calendars. The other handles all others, including Google’s own calendar service. Unlike mail, I find this distinction annoying, and also think that the interface of both apps (very similar) is well-behind the calendar on the iPhone. The iPhone’s not only looks better, but allows one to see personal and work schedules together if one chooses.
Browser
Generally, the WebKit-based browser on the Droid is good, but again falls behind the iPhone’s implementation. The Droid’s browser lacks multitouch zooming, although to be fair, I typically tap-to-zoom more frequently on the iPhone browser. Still, it’s an option that is frequently handy and is missing on the Droid. The zooming animation is far jerkier and less satisfying than on the iPhone. It’s another small thing that makes me aware I’m having a slightly less well-designed experience.
The rendering of pages on the Droid is also well-behind the iPhone’s. Many pages render somewhat oddly, but still legibly.
Contacts
The contacts app is a shining star on the Droid, and is a great example of what can happen when an app is extensible and open. The contacts app syncs with Google’s contacts service and also pulls in appropriate data from other installed apps (with your permission). For instance, the Facebook app (installed by default on the Droid) allows one to add information about Facebook contacts to the appropriate contact card on the device, if desired. You can add all Facebook contacts, but the option I was impressed with was one that allowed me to augment only the contacts I already had on my device with additional information from their Facebook profiles. Consequently, many contacts on my phone now have pictures, birthday and other information I didn’t previously have for them. Very, very nice.
When you select a contact, you can see a list of available actions for that contact, based on the capabilities you have installed on the Droid. Online status, Facebook status, etc. are also listed. It’s very well-designed and I hope that Apple decides to incorporate similar hooks on the iPhone. This is a big win for the Droid, and it’s hard to explain how pervasive this kind of thing is on this device.
Gtalk
Support for Google’s instant messaging platform is built-in, and works very well. Taking advantage of the architecture that allows tasks to run in the background of the application in use, Gtalk on the Droid allows one to remain online even when the phone isn’t active. Incoming messages can notify the user in a myriad of customizable ways. Chatting is as-expected, and once activated the contact lists across the device shows the Gtalk status for that person.
Music
The music player is pedestrian but functional. It’s another spot where the Droid, in stock form, falls behind the iPhone. You can put music on the Droid by connecting it to a computer and dragging music to the device as though it were any other USB mass storage device, such as a hard drive. The music app plays music and has basic functionality, but the overall experience is not nearly as elegant as the iPod app on the iPhone. There is also no out-of-the-box software to supplant iTunes as a hub to get content onto the Droid. I’ve been playing with Doubletwist, which is a Mac app that acts somewhat like iTunes and provides some synchronization with content from a Mac. I’ll post more on that later.
The Market and Add-On Apps
The Android Market is an analog to the iTunes App Store, which provides a marketplace to acquire free and paid applications to enhance the Droid. I’ll highlight a few that I’ve downloaded and used.
Google Listen
Another first-party app, this one is focused on podcasts. It does a far better job than Apple’s iPod app on the iPhone does of managing and acquiring podcasts. It supports subscriptions to podcast feeds, sorts incoming podcasts into a “listen queue” for consumption, and allows pre-downloading of content on both WiFi and 3G connections, with 3G as a configurable option. Listen runs a task in the background to get new content without user intervention. It can also start an arbitrary podcast with or without a subscription to the feed and download and buffer it on-the-fly if necessary to support on-demand listening. As a heavy podcast consumer, I find this app to be wonderful.
Twitroid
This app for interacting with Twitter is functional, but not elegant. Coming from both Tweetie 2 and Twitterific on the iPhone, this is a somewhat bitter pill. There are many Twitter clients available for the Droid, and perhaps another would be better, but Twitroid seems to be the community favorite.
Google Sky
An astronomy app that uses the accelerometer and compass in the Droid to display the stars, planets and associated data on screen. It’s a lot of fun, and very well-executed.
The pre-installed Facebook application is similar to the iPhone version. It works well, and has the added big benefit mentioned earlier of integrating with the Droid’s system-wide contact service, providing contact info and Facebook status to the device.
The Network
As mentioned, my main original motivator for acquiring the Droid was the lack of AT&T signal in my office. Somewhat ironically, which Verizon has strong reception in my office, it’s weak at home. That leads to decreased call quality while in my house, but some signal is better than no signal, so Verizon wins there. 3G speeds have been excellent—certainly faster than the AT&T-provided service on the iPhone 3GS.
Android
I’ve been writing about the Droid as though it were a device unto itself, when in reality much of what makes the Droid special comes from its operating system: Google’s Android OS. I’ll write more about Android separately, but suffice it to say that the applications and marketplace are there because of the Droid’s use of the Android OS.
What’s Missing (For Me)
There are a couple of iPhone-specific apps that are ingrained in my daily life now that I am sorely missing on the Droid.
Omnifocus
Omnifocus is a GTD app for the iPhone that acts in tandem with an app of the same name on the Mac. I use both to capture things I need to get done, and they’re both an important part of my GTD system. I lived without an iPhone app for this for a long time, so I know I can live without it, but it’s a definite big step backwards. Omnigroup, the makers of these apps, is a Mac shop, so it’s enormously unlikely there will ever be a port to Android.
1Password
1Password is a password manager, which makes it simple to have secure passwords for sites, all protected in one virtual lockbox on your computer. Of course, it’s impossible to remember those secure passwords without 1Password at my fingertips, and the 1Password app on the iPhone provided a way to always have them with me. Again, it’s unlikely they’ll port this app, and it’s a loss for me.
More to Come
As I said, I’m committed to using the Droid exclusively for at least a week; I have thirty days to evaluate it under Verizon’s return policy. I’ll be posting more all week.
But my interest remains, as ever, in the quality of the apps, not the quantity. Let’s say that when the dust starts to settle in this market, Android winds up with far fewer total apps than iPhone OS, but they’re of generally higher quality. That would make Android the Mac to the iPhone’s Windows. I would switch to that platform.
If you read photography sites, you couldn't miss Chase Jarvis' announcment of his The Best Camera trifecta of iPhone app, book and community site. The long and the short of it is that Jarvis has been shooting pics with his iPhone for several months, taking some great shots along the way, making the point that if the iPhone's camera is the one you've got, there's no excuse to miss a shot. He's now got his own iPhone app for taking photos and the community site to back the app up. His upcoming book is filled with his own iPhone shots.
Personally, I think all that is great, and Chase's blog is certainly great reading and plenty inspiring. What I did find kind of offensive is that he's apparently trademarked (or perhaps just applied for a trademark for) the line "the best camera is the one that's with you."
This line has certainly seen a resurgence of use lately (hell, I used it a few posts back), and while that resurgence might be due in part to Chase Jarvis, the line itself has been around awhile--certainly before I'd ever heard of him, anyway. And even if it was something he coined, it just feels wrong when you see it spelled out with the TM right after it. Hopefully the community slaps his hand a bit, he backs off and enjoys the otherwise positive buzz that the apps and his book seem to be otherwise receiving.
It seems like everyone has harped on Apple about the lack of MMS support in the iPhone since its inception. Now that the iPhone can do it, everyone's bitching about AT&T holding it up.
My $0.02: I absolutely could not care less about MMS. If AT&T is spending any resource on this at all that could instead be used instead to give better basic phone coverage (let alone 3G coverage), I'd be pissed to hear it. I just don't want anyone's pictures directed at my phone that badly. Got a good pic? Great. Email it to me or put it on Flickr or something.
I was recently listening to episode 1025 of Buzz Out Loud, in which they were discussing AT&T's recent revelation that their current customer churn rate is the lowest in that carrier's history despite recent loud complaints about the low quality of their service. That discussion pointed out that such disparity between the public conversation about AT&T's lack of quality (dropped calls, slow network performance, no coverage in areas in major cities, missing key features due to the network) and the metrics that company inevitably uses to decide what its priorities are can only lead them to believe that their current course is a good one.
Personally, I've been relatively happy with AT&T. At least I've been as happy as one gets with a cell phone carrier, which I've determined is like being happy with a parasitic organism in your body: if you have to have one, you want the least malignant one you can get. Their customer service has been fine when I needed to use it and the service generally works when I need it to.
However, 3G service is worse than non-existent in my home. How can it be worse? Well, there's enough that I get the smallest possible amount of 3G signal in parts of the house, so it causes the phone to toggle from the 3G network to the older one constantly. It's been this way for over a year. The net effect is that I frequently miss calls if my phone is in 3G mode, and the battery runs down very quickly. Consequently, I leave my shiny new iPhone 3GS with its 3G capabilities turned off unless I'm out-and-about and using the network capabilities a lot.
I should point out that I don't live in the boonies, either. I'm in San Jose, a respectable technology center, and only a 5-minute drive from an Apple Store or downtown San Jose. Heck, I can easily walk to either. And it's not isolated to just my place. There are many, many spots where this happens. Nor is it my phone: I've had 2 iPhone 3Gs and 1 iPhone 3GS, and it's the same on all of them. I can also confirm reports that there are places in downtown San Francisco that simply have no reception at all. Completely unacceptable.
Let's make no mistake: the thing that ensures I stay with AT&T is the iPhone.
My point? If the conclusion AT&T arrives at when studying its great customer retention numbers is that its current level of service is acceptable to its users, it would do well to recognize that there are those of us who love our iPhones, and AT&T is just the baggage that we have to put up with to have one. (Yes, there are ways to get the iPhone on other networks, such as T-Mobile locally, but that's even worse than AT&T, in my experience.) If we get the chance to move to Verizon, whose network coverage is much, much better than AT&T's, I think AT&T will be shocked the next time it reviews those same customer retention metrics.
AT&T, this good deal you have with Apple over the iPhone has given you a huge boost in this market. Ignore these metrics that might tell you that you're doing the right thing in letting network capacity lag the competition. Instead, invest all you can in making your network better than the competition and when your exclusivity over the iPhone ends, we might just stay with you. But continue to allow your network quality to lag behind what the subscribers want and deny them access to the features they should have (MMS, tethering) and I bet you'll witness an exodus of customers the moment a better alternative presents itself.
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