Charles’ blog

Mobileme

Over the past two weeks, I’ve done things that are out of character.  I’ve paid for mobile apps, played mobile games, and most notably promote Apple product to my friends who looked on in disbelief.  I’ve been married to Nokia/Symbian for the past 5 years and recently switched over to the iPhone. 

After two weeks with the iPhone, I can clearly see why Apple has taken huge chunks in the smartphone world.  I’m not making the bold statement that the iPhone is perfect but I am going to say that the iPhone is the closet you’ll get to a perfect smartphone.  Major annoyance is not being able to multi-task or run apps in the back…something the boys at Symbian learned how to do years ago.  Minor annoyance is not being able to simply send a picture message or mms.  Now this leads me to the point of the article: Mobileme services integration in the iPhone.

Without a doubt Ovi went head to head with every Web 2.0 initiative out there from image sharing, mobile gaming, wireless PIM synch, mail, etc.  On an individual basis, these items are pretty good but together they stink!  On my trusty N82, it took me a whole day to get Ovi to synch my contacts OTA…worse yet, the process was so painful that it took me another 2 hours going over my contacts and restoring contacts it deleted. 

Now comes my new 32gb iPhone with a 3 month trial of Mobileme.  I gave in reluctantly because a buddy of mine(complete apple geek) convinced me to try out.  As a PC user, I had to skeptical of the advantages because I’m still rocking Vista and quite happy with thanks to 4gb of ram of course.  Once registered, within seconds mobileme was synching with my iphone….impressive.  Even more impressive is that is created a mobileme account on the iphone which is integrated in my contacts.  I can access work contacts synched through Outlook as well personal contacts now managed through mobileme. 

In an article I wrote for S60blogs, I speculated on the success of the N97 launch believing that Nokia would deliver on their flagship device.  Sadly they did not and it’s not because of the hardware, it simply did not have a polished service bundled from Nokia.   A paid service like mobileme is something Nokia could have delivered with the N97 through Ovi.  Instead, Ovi is fragmented and only now has attention being paid on integrated services Ovi has to offer.  The iPhone and mobileme offers a single sign-on to all your services from iDisk storage, app store, mail account, etc. 

If you’ve ever read anything of mine, I can assure it doesn’t begin with me praising Apple products from a personal perspective.  I have come to appreciate all things Mac simply for those too artistic to be bothered with non-application driven aspects of their world. 

Fast forward to Monday morning, 3 days after I picked up my 32gb Iphone 3Gs.  I can honestly say that after playing with the device all weekend, downloading apps and games, shooting videos, and navigating around town with the improved gps with compass support; I can sum it all up in one word….Awesome.  Summation with only two instead?  “Freakin  Awesome”

Here's my quick impression:

1.       “s” = speed.  Everything takes advantages of the new speed from games to apps you will notice the difference the regular 3G.

2.       UI: Coming from Nokia’s Symbian OS, you’ll have to navigate deep into the menu system to access files, launch apps, or tweak settings.

3.       No stylus: Plain and simple why carry around an input device when your fingers can manage everything you need.

4.       Capacitive touch screen: If you’re still making comparisons on whether capacitive or resistive is the way to go, wait for Nokia’s next flagship device.

5.       Browser: Hands down the best integrated mobile browser I’ve ever experienced.  It renders heavy scripted pages with aplomb.

My most anticipated device of 2009 revealed specs that should have been worthy of the N96 launched last year to a very luke warm reception.  S60 optimization or over-clocking an old single processing chip to 434 Mhz does not a flagship compute Nokia.  This device is expected to record and encode near DVD quality videos, run whatever Ovi games throws at it as well as deliver the enhanced experience of the new S60v5 platform.  

Strike two: On May 4^th, I pre-ordered the Nokia N97, a proper replacement for my mighty N82.  Exception being the lack of the sweet xenon flash the N82 sports.  June 12^th, I received an email confirming the shipment of my N97 then comes waiting and waiting till I called NokiaUSA to find out where my phone just to have them tell me that my order was cancelled because they could not verify my address.  B.S. …why didn’t anyone call me about that issue then?

Strike two:   DOA arrival of the second order I placed.  This was the first I have ever received an equipment that came dead in the box.  Thanks to the vendor’s customer service, I was able to get an RMA quickly and subsequently, my money back.  This alone was not enough to deter me from my N97 from wanting the N97 until competition arrived.

Strike Three: iPhone 3G s.

Before I go further, I have to state a few facts:

-          I’m a former Nokia employee and consider my experience working at Nokia one of the greatest professional experience in my life.

-          I’ve owned a tremendous amount of Nokia devices…currently I have an N82, 5800 XpressMusic, E62, and an N95-1.

-          Have contributed on several blogs in support of S60 platform and most notably Nokia devices itself.  Most recently, my blogs can be found on S60blogs.com

-          I have an above average technically aptitude and a pc user.

While trying to find another retailer to place an order for the N97, reviews of the N97 started pouring in…coincidentally reviews of the iPhone 3G s started trickling in as well.  Till this point, I’ve never held an iPhone let alone entertain the idea of owning one.  With Nokia not delivering on a few critical points, the iPhone is now a serious contender.

Here’s what the iPhone offers over the N97

-          Faster processor (3Gs 600mhz/256mb vs N97’s 434mhz/128mb)

-          Nokia sports an older single ARM11 cpu without a gpu

-          iPhone packs a newer cpu capable of running at 833mhz..read about it here

-          Faster 3G radio (7.2 vs. 3.6mbps) …you can argue about 3G speed all you want but AT&T has begun 7.2 mbps upgrade in the US. 

-          iTunes/App store integration and selection is miles from what the Ovi store is going to achieve in the near future.

Here’s what I will be missing:

-          Multi-tasking

-          MMS (AT&T will have a solution this summer).

-          5 mp camera and flash

I feel that my money here in the US should go to a device that’s capable, comes with services, and supported locally here.  This is because no matter how the N97 launches in the US, it’ll always appear as a foreign device.  Mostly because Nokia historically has snubbed the US market; from little to no updates on existing devices, terrible customer services and device repair process. 

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I could have an N97 in my hands this morning for a scalding price of $759 including shipping as I had oredered from Nokiausa.com.   Instead I choose to cancel and place the order below from Dell USA instead.  Great deal IMO but at what cost since I cannot take deliver till end of June. 

Patience is a virtue and one that aims to save me $154...the 2gb card was part of the promotion from Dell....11 bucks to save 150 sounds about right to me.

Quantity	Item Number	Description	Unit Price
1	A2825324	N97 Mobile Phone - Black Pre-Order	$594.99
1	A1370733	2 GB Micro SD Memory Card	$11.99

This is one cool video.  I'm proud to say that I have owned majority of those devices starting in 1997 when I bought my first mobile.

I bought a Nokia N810 about 6 weeks ago and sadly it did not change my life.  BUT, it has made it more interesting. Why would I consider  buying one when I'm already carrying my work laptop and the current king of mobiles, the Nokia N95 plus.....a back up mobile, an unlocked Nokia N75.
To be fair, the laptop belongs to my company so I rarely conduct personal business on it and no matter how much I love my N95, the screen size, lack of qwerty keyboard, and a few minor things prevents me from making it a true road warrior...BUT it is a perfect road warrior companion. 
Here's my normal travel scenario:
I usually surf with my laptop at the airport using our vpn system to access public hotspots.  But since it's vpn, I can only check work safe items....so no sexy youtube videos and etc.  N95 with it's screen size and browser which is quite awesome is only used in an emergency situations. 
 Now with my  N810, I full browser and  and awesome screen.  I've always partnered my  N810 with Boingo service  for less than 8 bucks a month, I have internet access almost every hotel I stay in as well as thousands of public areas.  Since, the purchase, I have also started to explore and understand the world of community application development driven by Linus which powers my little tablet.  I use my tablet so much now that is sits next to my laptop accessing the web through wifi or bluetooth dongled to my N95.

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Everyday, there's something new to learn about this little device.  Over the past couple of weeks, I've come to discover a few things I love about this gadget.

• The strength of the wifi connection is amazing.  Coupled with a nice connection manager, it keeps you connected.
• Boingo service is awesome and intergrates neatly into connection manager.
• The browser has full flash support so I rarely come across a site I cannot access.  It also plays youtube videos in the browser as well as connects and play nice with music site, Pandora.
• I dumped skype in favor of gismo5 as my VoIP service of choice.  Although I like skype and have used it for years Gizmo can do video calls and skpe cannot as of yet. If you've never experienced a video call, it's something to behold especially calling my friends and family while abroad.
  
• I can access my home desktop through a vnc client or windows' remote desktop access.

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With that and more, it's easy to justify carrying the tablet.  When I travel for leisure now, I carry just two devices; My N95 and N810.  The N95 has a 4gb memory while the tablet has a built in 2gb and I've added an 8gb card making it an impressive multimedia device. 

    I've posted a few blogs here about my car.  It's a decent '07 Mustang GT with 5 miles on the odometer when I bought it back in October of 2006.  I traded in my '03 Mazda mx-5 with 78K on the odo for the new mustang.  At that time, the little miata, yes a miata with forced induction, re calibrated shift points, upgraded exhaust from the cat back, yes that little beast can run circles around most cars and not to mention it's a rear wheel drive machine.  I enjoyed the car so much that I had to trade it in cause I nearly destroyed it.  The car took premium fuel because of the mods and averaged a decent 23 mpg in Atlanta traffic.  On the highway it averaged no more than 28 mpg but because I loved the sound the little exhaust would make, I usually got around 26.  Left stock, it would have topped over 30.

Advancing now to present day reality, I now drive the mustang...stock....no additional power needed.  The car is a complete beast, it's got 300 horses backed with 320 lbs ft of torque carrying 3480 lbs.  That's around 11.5:1weight to power ratio.  The miata was pushing 150 horses with 125 lb ft of torque carrying a 2387lb curb weight. The weight to power ration on that car was 16.8 LB / HP and it can hit 60 in 7.1 sec. and I've taken it to 127 mph.  Granted the mustang can hit 60 in 5 seconds flat and I've taken mine to 147....incidentally that's the where you hit the engine governor.  I think the car can hit 165+ on the stock form.  The down side of the car besides having a sloppy suspension setup to really exploit the car in the corners and the obvious point of this whole blog is that after a day of enthusiastic driving, the car is producing a constant 14 MPG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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This breaks my heart cause I love this car and when I bought it, oil prices were at $66 a barrel and I was paying $2.50 a gallon.  This past weekend, I paid $3.75 a gallon!!  With a 16.5 gallon tank, my average fill up is now running $57 versus $38 dollars.  That's a tremendous increase and my car returning a hideous 14.5 mpg, I can barely average 220 miles of driving on a FULL TANK!!!  My car was giving me an economy similar to what you find in one of these:

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In this particular photo, the occupants included all but a beautiful blonde simply driving in to the office.  A Caddy Escalade ESV averages between 12/19 mpg.
Not only does this put a serious dent in my wallet, it more so depresses me each time I start the car up because I know the guy pushing a mazdaspeed 3 wants to race and I know I can eat him but damn it, it's fun doing so at 14 mpg in an economy approaching the $4 a gallon mark.  That leads to this:

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So I've gone into serious mode and have completely adjusted my driving habit.  Since I don't know how to drive an automatic, I get to gain in some advance driving techniques you can employ while driving a stick.  Here's what I've done:

• Give up entirely on becoming speed racer!  This in my opinion is the worst thing you can do for your fuel economy and the trade off is better economy and less wear and tear on the car.
• I've removed all excess weight in the car, including documentation manuals from work therefore decreasing the weight the car is carrying.
• I've adjusted my shift pattern and now shift roughly 1000 RPMs earlier and sometimes given traffic conditions, I'm usually in 5th gear before 45 mph.  This practice means shifting more...or less depending on acceleration or braking.  My ca has so much torque that I can cruise in fifth gear with enough power to move.
• I now coast in neutral more often.  In Atlanta traffic, coasting helps maintain m target 1500 rpms in stop and go traffic for efficiency. 
  
• On the highway, I do not exceed 75 mph. 
  
• I've adjusted my commute time to leave earlier and avoid the major stop and go part of the commute and leave earlier or later. 
  
• Probably, the most difficult is passing on performance upgrades that I wanted.  All they'll do is give me more go forward push and little to improve the solid axle rear.  The car is very fast as it is so no upgrades maybe a handling package.

The result of all this is that I can now say that I average an impressive 22 mpg in combined highway.city driving last week.  In the morning commute, I averaged an impressive 24 mpg!

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Next car purchase, bring on the direct injected V6 or even a turbo 4.

13/04/2008

I love Nokia and not because they sign my paycheck but because the reason they INDEED ink my checks every two weeks is that I do not want anyone else....at the moment to ink my checks.  That leads me to the N810 Internet Tablet.  All I can say is wow, what a device!!  What a perfect companion to my N95. 

I now consider myself an expert on the S60 platform and for me to start playing with linux as a newb and yet to curse the machine is a feat on itself.  I'm not a programer so I cannot modify the OS like most power user but I would like to point out my pros and cons so far.

Pros.

Flexible OS

Applications, thy name is survival

Screen

WEB 2.0 your pocket

Great GPS

Cons.

Maemo OS is not easy to learn or manipulate like on S60

Nokia cannot not include enough documentation to save most people. Life Saver 

The is a very neat video showing the unstoppable force which is walmart.  Starts in Arkansas and then the whole world.  But on a different note, with a growth rate such as that, it's now easy to see how they grew so rapidly.  Read