Posts Tagged ‘iphone’

Smartphone Multitasking Fail

When Apple announced that it was going to offer multitasking (some time ago) I was a bit nervous about the experience. I was not sure I was a fan of the idea because I’ve seen others try it and fail miserably. I’m not sure about Android, but I know that I’ve used Blackberries and Windows Mobile phones that try to multitask (and can, I suppose) but it degrades the experience dramatically. What I’ve seen on iOS 4.0.x has been better than those of old, but certainly not idea. However, my bad experience came to a head today.

I have an iPhone 3GS and have noticed it’s been considerably faster at doing some things (which is good!), but after a while it slows down. Last week I did the upgrade to iOS 4.1 and noticed the phone was noticeably faster and have watched it slow to a crawl until today when I couldn’t stand it (after the fact, it might’ve just been the reboot that caused the speedup). Turns out, I just needed to kill some apps. Okay, easy enough to fix this time. I just killed off the apps I didn’t need running all the time, and voila! things are back to normal. But.. therein lies my problem.

You see, I really don’t want to have to deal with that crap. I want my phone to receive/place calls, texts, emails, and occasionally (okay, I might be addicted) play a game or two. Navigation, browsing, using Facebook and playing music is cool too, I suppose. But, the thing is, I don’t want to go into some manager every day or so and kill off apps so my phone doesn’t get dog-slow. We’ve gotten used to having to do things like that on our PCs that we don’t even think twice about doing it on our phones. But I say this is wrong. I don’t need another thing in my life that needs manual intervention and management to stay running properly. I don’t do those things at the same time on the phone’s small screen anyway. Heck, I can barely multitask on a 30-inch monitor.

This is not to say that there’s anything inherently wrong with multitasking on phones. It’s all cool. I’m just fed up with what seems to be the status quo.

How about Android users out there? I’ve only heard second-hand that it’s a pretty similar experience. Doing some searching/surfing around the webs suggests it’s similar, but no one rags on it too badly (after all, that’s what Android was touting before it came to the iPhone!).

Okay, done with the rant.

P.S. In spite of fear of coming off as a huge fanboy, was Steve Jobs right all along when they didn’t do multitasking from the beginning and only wrong by introducing it in its current state? :)

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Filed under Rants : Comments (1) : Sep 14th, 2010

Who’s More Closed Than Apple and Adobe? AT&T

There’s been a significant amount of chatter lately around the Adobe v Apple we’re-more-open-than-thou pissing match, but AT&T has proved once again that vendor lock-in and control in the software industry is nowhere near as bad as the cell phone industry (heck, Verizon will even disable GPS devices in phones to make sure users have to pay for their navigation service).

AT&T has done so by announcing it is nearly doubling its early termination fees on smartphones and netbook data plans. This announcement has some seriously unfortunate timing after rumors of an iPhone able to run on the Verizon network emerged once again and seem to have been validated by AT&T’s rate hikes. As if the fee hikes weren’t enough, AT&T also seems to have taken a really idiotic stance on how it will keep its customers as well.

The money quote from the Wall Street Journal from this last week is that “about 80% of AT&T’s customers are on family-talk plans or business-discount plans, which are very ‘sticky.’” That’s it? That’s the reason AT&T isn’t scared? Because it’s a big pain to switch away? Because I’d have to switch more than one phone at once and that would be annoying? How about: “We’re not scared because we have better coverage and our customers know it” or “We’re not scared because our network is faster” or even “We’re not scared because our customer service is the best”? Instead, we get: “We’re not scared because it’s way too freakin’ expensive to switch.”

Why doesn’t AT&T list any of those reasons as the primary reason? Well, I think the answer is obvious. I work about 2 miles from the Apple headquarters, where you would think coverage on the iPhone with its exclusive provider would be top-notch, if nowhere else. But, alas, I drop calls and don’t get audio on calls all the time. This just doesn’t happen with my Verizon phone (I have an iPhone from work and a Verizon phone for personal use).

All right, now that the rant is over, when I imagine AT&T execs making this decision, all I can think of is:

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Filed under Rants : Comments (0) : May 23rd, 2010

Who’s Laughing Now? Windows Mobile to Copy iPhone?

Ballmer’s famous reaction to the iPhone seems all the more funnier now, looking back. According to claims, Microsoft is planning some changes for Windows Mobile 7:

  1. No multitasking
  2. Use a push notification for updates
  3. Use the iPod Touch ZuneHD interface
  4. Force apps to be installed via the iTunes App Store Windows Marketplace

While these changes aren’t confirmed yet, even if one or two of those changes are true, they scream jealousy. Why these changes? Microsoft needs to be able to compete with Apple on speed, battery life, and stability. While I am certainly not in any inner-circles close to this, I’m sure Microsoft is finding that people want stability, responsiveness, and good battery life in their cell phones. I know that responsiveness and stability are top on my list (I haven’t been overly happy with a phone with the exception of my BlackBerry ((no AT&T coverage in my area))  for some time now over those very things).

Whether Microsoft wants it or not, the world is slowly drifting away from do-it-all devices that have to be setup by power users. The world wants phones that they can turn on, install apps, and start using without having to worry about one application slowing down the phone or having too many open causing the phone to crash.

But not to worry, to those now doubting Microsoft, they thought of all of these radical changes all on their own..

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Filed under News, Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Feb 9th, 2010

Google Adds Push Mail to Sync for iPhone, Windows Mobile

In a blog post from the Google Enterprise Apps team, Google has announced that syncing iPhones and Windows Mobile phones with Gmail via ActiveSync now allows users to sync mail as a push account. Until now, users had to use ActiveSync (or Google Sync as Google likes to call it on the server-side) for calendars and contacts and exclude mail from syncing. Then the user had to setup their Gmail account as a separate IMAP account on the iPhone/Win Mo to get their email. It appears that push email is available to both the Enterprise and free personal account customers.

As far as I’m aware, we still have no word on whether Gmail will support some of the more advanced features of ActiveSync the way that Exchange (and now Zimbra 6.0) can. So far, Exchange competitor Zimbra can do things like initiate wipes to mobile devices, lock devices when an incorrect password is entered, and pause (and resume) syncing to the device.

Gmail has differentiated itself from the market, however, as being the only free email provider (that I’ve heard of) that offers push mail, contacts, and calendars via ActiveSync (or other similar way to your choice of device). Others (like Hotmail) aren’t even offering IMAP access to external mail clients to free customers.

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Filed under News : Comments (0) : Sep 22nd, 2009

The $10 Free App

I don’t think it’s fair to talk about my Snow Leopard experience this weekend without talking about the hosing I took from the iTunes App Store this weekend. A coworker of mine and Digg both told me about the new Facebook app for the iPhone. My wife uses Facebook incessantly and I thought that she would be excited about it, but she never said a word. When I asked her about it she checked for updates on her iPod Touch and it said there were none.

Not one to give up easily, I checked the article that was posted on Digg and found out that others had had problems with their devices finding the update and the recommendation was to remove and reinstall to get the new version. So.. we quickly removed the old Facebook app and went to install the new one. Sadly, we were disappointed (more like she was mad and I was in trouble..) to find out that it required the iPhone 3.0 upgrade (her iPod was a gen 2 without the upgrade). Since the iTunes App Store is so closed and wont’ allow to get the older version, Facebook 3.0 did end up being the $10 free app for us..

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Filed under Tech Trends : Comments (0) : Sep 1st, 2009

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