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Round Robin: Smartphone Experts Roundtable Podcast II!

Rene Ritchie — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:16:52 +0000

[This is an official Smartphone Experts Round Robin post! Every day you reply here, you're automatically entered for a chance to win an iPhone 3G, Case-Mate Naked Case, and Motorola H9 Bluetooth Headset! Full contest rules here!]

Join us for the second of two special Smartphone Round Robin Roundtables! This week, Casey, Kevin, Rene, and Dieter discuss the final two devices in our Smartphone Round Robin: the T-Mobile G1 and the the HTC Fuze. Plus, they answer your questions live!

Music: Our Slanted Voices by DoKashiteru

Round Robin: TiPb vs. Palm Treo Pro Q&A!

Rene Ritchie — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 17:00:00 +0000

Our video preview is done, our final review is posted, but you had Palm Treo Pro questions and so we’ll try to provide some answers… After the break…

deathscaller Says: Does the Pro’s Internet speed compare to the iPhones at all?

3G is 3G, but the cpu speed and software engine can make a difference. Web browsing on the iPhone seemed much faster, which I chalk up to MobileSafari’s WebKit foundation (well known from back in it’s Linux Konquerer days for its sheer speed). Email is much lighter than web rendering, and iPhone does HTML email, where I only saw mobile email from the Treo Pro, so that’s not a fair comparison, but both were snappy (though Gmail IMAP still gives me fits on every platform)

Justin Says: I’m curious to know your thoughts on the email set up. I had a hell of a time when I used the Treo 750, and that was ultimately what drove me away.

I won’t lie: it’s fairly hideous. Then again, Windows makes you set up Exchange in Control Panel rather than Outlook, so my expectations have been trampled. I couldn’t get Exchange to work due to the failure to allow custom certificates to be accepted (on the iPhone, you can just ignore the warning). Gmail set up, but defaulted to POP, not IMAP. It did do a decent job of auto-detecting Gmail’s settings, however.

Mike M Says: How well does it do things the iPhone is lacking? Cut and paste, to dos, mms, etc. And would you even consider switching just to get these features? I know I wouldn’t, but I’m sure there are people out there who are on the fence who would like to know.

I really wanted cut and paste, but on both the Treo and Android I ended up not using it much. It was too annoying. On the iPhone, if I want to send you a webpage I’m looking at (or location, or photo, etc.) I just hit the + button, pick your address, and boom, email is sent and I’m back in on the web. Having to manually fiddle with highlighting tiny, irregular text blobs, going through menu gymnastics, manually switching apps, etc. just slowed me down and made me think it wasn’t worth it.

MMS is useless to me as I don’t have any friends or family using it either, and everyone else I just email the stuff to right off the iPhone. It’s device independent, which I prefer.

If Apple really nailed implementations of these features, I’d certainly be really happy and probably use them when I had to, but if they did it badly (no Storm jokes!) I’d be even more annoyed. So no, I wouldn’t switch.

Anthony Martinez Says: How’s that keyboard. I picked up a Palm in a store once and thought it was way too small. But then the iphone keyboard is small in portrait mode too. What are your thoughts?

Material is better than the 6xx/7xx series, but the narrow width takes that step forward back a notch.

Jeff Says: What have you missed most from the iPhone that the Pro doesn’t offer?

Without a hint of sarcasm: joy. The iPhone is just a pleasure to use. The Treo Pro was powerful but a lot of work. I didn’t enjoy the experience, even when it impressed me. User experience on the iPhone — every little detail from app flow to stretch and bounce animation effects — is just so well polished.

PRIMECHUCK Says: Does the phone stream live events

Qik style? According to WMExperts, yes it does.

Mike M Says: How close do you think palm and the iPhone are from being incomparable devices? Palm doesn’t seem to be much of a contender anymore, how long before they drop out of the competition?

I hope never. While Apple is amazing at competing with themselves (see the iPod space), everyone does better with strong alternatives pushing innovation.

Jason Says: Is the touchscreen very important to navigation/data entry/etc? Most other phones are either all keys or all touchscreens…

I’m used to using touch screen on Palm devices (insert stylus humor here), so for me it was very easy to default back to. Crackberry Kevin, by contrast, likely never went near it.

Rey Says: What’s the best and worst thing about it?

Best is that it’s a really great WinMo device with excellent hardware. Worst is that it wasn’t a Palm Treo.

Touch Me Says: The tiny 320 x 320 screen on the Treo looks like a big disadvantage compared to the iPhone’s 480 x 320. How does that affect its use? Or does not needing screen real estate for a virtual keyboard and menus make it a wash?

It felt cramped, which is amazing since the previous gen WinMo Palm had 240×240. And when the default soft keyboard popped up, not only was it tiny and stylus-compelling, it usually covered the field you were supposed to type into.

BLUELINE Says: What is of like haveing a phone with both touch and physical buttons for the ui. Do you think it is better or worse then a all touch or no touch phone?

I like having the choice, though I won’t know for sure until I’ve used a completely non-touch device like the BlackBerry Bold. However, I’m increasingly coming to believe that hard keyboards — for some types of users like myself — are a thing of the past.

Jason Says: Has palm changed anything about the Windows Mobile OS to make it their own? Sort of like the panels on the SE Xperia or the Fuze…

Not this time around, far as I could tell, though that keeps WinMo smoking fast (if heinously ugly).

Jeff Says: what was the learning curve like on the keyboard going from the iphone to the pro?

I used to have a 680, so not too bad. I did find it annoying that the hard keyboard wouldn’t change to reflect state. With the iPhone, I’ve gotten used to pressing “shift” and seeing upper case, pressing 123 and seeing numbers, etc. Especially in password fields, I was never sure what I was typing (even with the little icons on screen).

Jason Says: With the lack of a 3.5mm headphone jack, would you use the Treo Pro (or AT&T Fuze and T-Mobile G1) as much for music/videos?….I can’t imagine using the connectors

Treo Pro has the 3.5mm headphone jack, it’s the Android G1 and HTC FUZE that don’t have them, and yes it’s even more egregious than the original iPhone 2G’s wonky 3.5mm (because it needs an even more annoying adapter).

Jeff Says: How about battery life?

It was great! It lasted more than a day, however because I couldn’t get everything working, I did far, far, far less with it than I typically do with an iPhone.

KLutes Says: I am curious as to how robust the device feels as a whole in comparison. More solid less solid or about the same build quality. I see lots of cracked glass iphones on my college campus and I am curious as to how bang up prone this little gem is.

Both the iPhone 3G and the Treo Pro have had reported problems with micro-cracks in the plastic casing, but Dieter’s Treo Pro is still pristine! Build quality is superb, with a ton of fit and finish. However, it’s plastic, not glass, and was a little creaky around the battery cover. The iPhone has no removable battery, so it’s as close to a solid slab as you can get.

Bela says: Do you feel that this phone compares to the Android ?

Android is still very much a beta/technology preview, while WinMo in its current incarnation is a relic, so as the former rises and the latter falls, they could be comparable during this brief slice of time. What Android 2.0 and WinMo 7 look like is a far more important, and difficult question.

Thanks everyone for sending in your questions!

Round Robin: Smartphone Experts Roundtable Podcast!

Dieter Bohn — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 18:46:33 +0000

Join us for the first of two special Smartphone Round Robin Roundtables! This week, Casey, Kevin, Rene, Jennifer, and Dieter all come together to discuss three of the Smartphone Round Robin devices: The iPhone 3G, the Treo Pro, and the BlackBerry Bold!

Music: Our Slanted Voices by DoKashiteru

Round Robin: TiPb vs. Palm Treo Pro Video Preview!

Rene Ritchie — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:57:56 +0000

[Digg link]

I loved Palm devices and used them as my “main brain” from the Palm V all the way to the Palm 680, before transitioning to the first iPhone. But here’s the thing, I don’t feel like I left Palm — I feel like they left me. Will the Palm Treo Pro be enough to lure me back?

Fair warning: About 1 minute of this preview is done “Zero Punctuation” style (without the salty language, of course!). Apologies to Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw and everyone at the Escapist for the poor (very poor!) parody, and to our readers… er… viewers, but it had to be done!

Check it out, then head on over to Treo Central to help me get this thing working! Every day you post, you get entered to WIN one of FIVE smartphone prize packs! And you can enter each site’s contest, so don’t forget to help Dieter un-harshen his mellow with the iPhone!

Prize details after the jump…

Every day you comment here, you get one entry to win not only a supra-shiny iPhone 3G, but the Case-Mate Naked Case which allows full touch through access to the iPhone’s amazing screen. Smartphone Outlet is also kicking in the revolutionary Motorola H9 Bluetooth Headset AND a runner-up prize, $50 coupon good at any SPE store, including the new Smartphone Outlet, where you can find refurb Smartphone Accessories at very (very!) low prices.

Check out our full contest rules!

Around SPE – 9 Nov 2008

Dieter Bohn — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 05:09:08 +0000

This week’s Around SPE is sponsored by the the TiPb iPhone Accessory Store, which has long been your best source for iPhone accessories. A lot of iPhone 3G upgraders were left out in the cold when their car chargers turned out to not be compatible, but they’ve got plenty that are, not to mention plenty of headphones that are a step up compared to the standard white buds

Last week both CrackBerry.com and WMExperts found themselves on the cusp of major releases — the BlackBerry Storm, BlackBerry Bold on AT&T, the HTC Fuze on AT&T, not to mention a few others on the Windows Mobile side. So while everybody has been anticipating new devices, all of the editors at SPE are anticipating something else that will be starting on November 17th. The hint is right up there in the picture!

Read on for the full skinny on what’s been happening around SPE!

WMExperts

WMExperts made a big splash Friday afternoon with the ‘net’s first and only video of the HTC Fuze for AT&T! Be sure to check back Monday morning because we’re also cooking up a full review of this latest and greatest Windows Mobile smartphone. It looks like the Fuze release date has finally been pinned down, too.

WMExperts also tends to cover some more general industry news, so all the action at the FCC last week definitely caught our eye. Lastly, we’re more than a little proud of our writer George Ponder, who used a Treo Pro to help manage the election in his district.

CrackBerry.com

Over at CrackBerry.com, thousands of BlackBerry enthusiasts rejoiced as AT&T stayed true to their promised November 4th release date and launched the Bold. Picking election day turned out to be a smart move for AT&T and RIM, as stations like CNN played the new AT&T BlackBerry Bold commercial all day long.

The BlackBerry Storm, RIM’s first touchscreen BlackBerry, continues to build on the hype leading up to its launch. Vodafone has dropped word of a November 14th release, and the Vodafone BlackBerry Storm bus has been traveling London which has turned out a bunch of Storm preview videos. While Verizon has not given official on the availability of their Storm, the educated rumor points to the week of the 23rd.

You’ll want to keep it locked to CrackBerry.com this week. The What Would You Do for a BlackBerry Storm? Contest has come to an end and the top ten finalists have been selected. In order to win their new BlackBerry, the winners have to carry out their “To Dos” which will be published on CrackBerry.com as they come in. The first one hits on Monday!

The iPhone Blog

According to JD Power, the iPhone is absolutely destroying the Blackberry in *business* satisfaction due to it’s drop dead ease of use and killer UI, but does Apple just not “get” the Four Pillars of PIM, something Palm nailed way back in 1997? Probably not, as the latest iPhone OS 2.2 leaks focus on over-the-air podcast downloads (admittedly super sweet!) and yet more App Store tweaks.

Speaking of the App Store, turns out Opera Mini was NOT denied (but probably would be), WeightBot’s developers aren’t done innovating on the iPhone just yet, and Shazam wants a piece of Midomi in our App vs. App battle royal for music mastery. (Leave a comment and you just might win an iTunes gift certificate). Of course, if you want to win a whole slew stuff — an Ultimate iPhone Accessory Pack no less — check out the Phone Different to find out this week’s way to enter (hint: requires @theiphoneblog and rhymes with “sweet”.)

TreoCentral

Over at TreoCentral, we learned via a Barron’s article that analysts at Avian Securities and Morgan Keegan downgraded PALM due to the belief that Palm’s cash position will significantly erode ($248 million at the end of the latest quarter to $75 million over the next year) which leaves “little room for error.” The downgrade was also due to a U.S. retailer survey resulting in the belief that smartphone sales will come in below expectations for the next several quarters.

We also found out in that same Barron’s article that we might not (corrected, thanks Scott!) be seeing the Treo Pro on AT&T and the Treo 800w on Verizon in time for the holiday shopping season.

Plus we learned that Apple almost bought Palm back in the summer of 1997. Jean-Louis Gassée noted in an article over at Monday Note:

A perhaps little known fact: in the Summer of 1997, Steve Jobs called Eric Benhamou, 3Com’s CEO (the company owned Palm). “Give me the Palm and come and join my Board of Directors. Only Apple can make Palm a true consumer brand.” Nothing happened. Apple’s foray into the product segment had to wait ten more years.

Android Central

We’ve settled in over at Android Central, now that the G1 seems to be out there and getting used by a surprisingly large number of people. Just check out these download statistics for the Android Market to see what we mean, or check out some the backstory behind Android Apps.

Our favorite new app: the Android Gameboy emulator! A close 2nd favorite use for the G1 might be the newly discovered tethering method, though. Meanwhile, we’re keeping our eye on the just-discovered Android Jailbreak and security risks that have popped up.

Around SPE – 2 Nov 08

Dieter Bohn — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 23:34:13 +0000

This week’s Around SPE is sponsored by the Android Central Store, where you can find a full complement of accessories for the T-Mobile G1 including headset adapters, body skins, and screen protectors.

What’s the big news in the Smartphone world this week? It’s a mix, really. Android’s looking like a viable platform to more and more people, there are a ton of Windows Mobile devices on the way, and both CrackBerry.com and the iPhone Blog are running contests that ought to spark your interest. Read on!

Android Central

Android Central is still enamored with the G1, so we followed up our full review of Android with a look at the Android Market App Store. We’re excited to see that said App Store should soon be populated with quality games from EA, not to mention complete Exchange support for push email and PIM info.

Of course, like the rest of the Android-watching-web-world, we noticed that some folks were touting that they’d successfully unlocked a T-Mobile G1. Yeah, we did that a week earlier than anybody else did and we got AT&T’s data working just peachily as well, thanks. We’d be more bitter, but the fact that you can grab a G1 at Walmart has our head spinning so fast we ain’t got time to mope.

CrackBerry.com

CrackBerry Nation is abuzz with new BlackBerry releases. After months and months and months and months of waiting, the BlackBerry Bold will finally be available from AT&T this Tuesday! Storm fever is still going strong, with launch parties taking place and release dates getting near. You can now pre-order a Storm from Vodafone, and things are still looking on track for the Storm to be out on Verizon by Black Friday. The Pearl Flip is making its rounds too: T-Mobile is now offering it in Red (in addition to the Black model they launched with) and it’s starting to pop up in Rogers stores (in both black and pink) with November 4th availability everywhere.

Phase 1 of the The What Would You Do for a BlackBerry Storm? Contest was a huge success, with over 3,000 crazy CrackBerry addicts entering their What Would You Dos. Judging for that is going on as we speak (should be complete by Monday night).. with the top ten soon-to-be Storm winners to be contacted on Tuesday. Next step – they’ll have to carry out their To Dos on video!

And the long-waited CrackBerry Book is nearing it’s eBook launch date (print copy to follow in a couple weeks)… Featuring real life tales of BlackBerry Addiction gone too far and effective strategies to help get your use under control, this will be a must read for the BlackBerry Addict (expect your signifcant other to pick you up a copy!). Keep your eyes peeled for it to surface later this week!

The iPhone Blog

iPhone Live! — our new podcast which will alternate with Phone Different and make us all nice and weekly — is now archived and available in the iPhone blog’s usual feed. Join Dieter, Brian, Chad, and Rene, for a discussion of iPhone 2.2, GPS, Turn-by-Turn Navigation, and a Q&A from our live chat audience.

…You’ll also be interested in the beginning of our Ultimate Accessory Pack Give Away Contest!

Big week for Apps as well, as TiPb interviews PCalc’s James Thomson for a look behind the marketing and money of the App Store. New release Google Earth also goes App vs. App against veteran Earthscape, and we take a look at why Apple may have denied browser rival Opera Mini a place on the iPhone.

TreoCentral

Over at TreoCentral, we found via WMExperts about another clue telling us that the Treo Pro is on its way to Sprint. And we found out that the Treo 750 has disappeared from AT&T’s website, and you can only get it from Palm in the unlocked variety.

We read that John Hartnett, Palm’s SVP of Global Markets, is leaving the company in November for undisclosed reasons. This comes on the heels of Palm hiring Simon Lloyd as Senior Director, EMEA Marketing, to try and win some ground in the European market as Palm wants to make a comeback against the BlackBerry and iPhone in brand stakes. And speaking of markets, how about the stock market, in which Palm’s stock teetered at low records (hitting $2.70) on Tuesday.

Brian has written a review of the Celio Redfly, which makes a great mobile companion for the Palm Treo Pro. If you haven’t bought the Redfly as of this writing, you still have a chance to grab it for $199.95 in the TreoCentral Store.

WMExperts

WMExperts is buckling down for a deluge of new Windows Mobile releases in the coming weeks, although we did manage to get out of the gate early with first review of the Touch Pro on Sprint. We’re expecting the AT&T version of that device, AKA the Fuze, to arrive on Monday and for the Verizon version to be pretty much identical Sprint’s.

Mostly, though, we focused on the wider launch of Microsoft’s Live Mesh service, which is a great cloud-sync application that works on Windows, Mac, and of course, Windows Mobile. Be sure to check out our early walkthrough.

Not enough for you? Well, we did confirm the rumor that we also were the first to report, namely that the Treo Pro will hit Sprint. WM devices on Sprint also finally joined the MMS crowd and, well, there’s a mystery version of Windows Mobile that we’re waiting on as well.

Introducing ‘Around SPE’

Dieter Bohn — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:32:39 +0000

You may not realize it, but the site you’re reading right now is a part of one of the premier networks of smartphone news and review sites. We call it the ‘Smartphone Experts Network’ and if you haven’t heard, we’ve recently added a new member to our family, Android Central. That brings the number of our smartphone communities up to five sites. You can find links to these sites and to their latest stories either in the sidebar or footer of every SPE site.

I thought now would be a good time to introduce a new weekly blog post I’ll be putting up at each of our sites called ‘Around SPE,’ which will give you a very quick roundup of the biggest stories at each of our sites. Now, ‘big stories’ are just a tiny part of what we offer, as each of our sites also feature vibrant communities, engaging podcasts, and also accessory stores if you’re looking to make your smartphone a little better.

In addition to our new sister site, there’s also some other SPE Network news to share, so follow me after the break to learn more!

Let’s start with a quick note about Smartphone Experts:

Beyond the launch of Android Central, there’s also a couple other things that may interest you. First and foremost, we’re going to be launching the 2nd Annual Smartphone Round Robin on November 17th! If you’re unfamiliar with the Round Robin, here’s how it works. An editor from each of our five sites must, for one full week, give up their smartphone of choice and use a competing smartphone. During the course of that week, each editor will be publishing a review of that new smartphone from their unique perspective. It’s a great way to gain insight into how all these different smartphones work.

We have chosen our devices for this year (it was tough!) and everybody’s getting ready to give up their own favorite phones to try their hand with the others. We’re going to mix things up a bit this year with some multimedia coverage and maybe another surprise or two — so stay tuned! If you want to get caught up, you can check out all the articles from the 1st Annual Smartphone Round Robin here.

One other quick note — I’m an RSS fiend and I figure maybe some of you are too. I’ve created a Combined RSS Feed for the SPE Network that mixes all of our daily postings in a single feed. Heck — you can even Subscribe to SPE Network by Email. I’m going to go ahead can call the combined feed a “Beta” for now, there are a few kinks to work out in our system. The good news is the URL will always stay the same.

Alright, enough of that, let’s get to the news of the week!

-Dieter Bohn, Editor in Chief, Smartphone Experts

The biggest news of the past week in the entire smartphone world is — without question — the release of the T-Mobile G1. At Android Central, we’ve been covering the news from every angle. The most important angle has to be our full reviews of the device.

If you’re unfamiliar with Android, our video overview of the platform is a great primer. If you’re interested to hear how this first ever ‘Google Phone’ is from a hardware perspective, our hardware review of the T-Mobile G1 has you covered. Finally, we’ve also published a full review of Android on the G1. Grab yourself a tasty beverage and dig in. If you have any questions about the G1 or about Android in general, be sure to stop by the new Android Forums.

Over at CrackBerry.com, you’ll find there was a lot of news out of the first-ever BlackBerry Developer Conference. While the BlackBerry App Center/App Store news was big, perhaps the most exciting takeaway wasn’t made in the form of an announcement at all, but rather that RIM is becoming a much more sociable company as they focus their energy on the consumer market. Day 1 and Day 2 highlights give a good impression of what went down at DevCon.

Who are we kidding? The biggest news of the week was that Kevin has posted his full hands-on review the BlackBerry Storm!

One of the best things about Windows Mobile is the multiplicity of devices available for the platform. This week at WMExperts.com has been a pretty good example of that. We gave one of the first reviews of the Samsung Epix on the web, looked forward to the AT&T Fuze, and celebrated the official launch of the Touch Pro on Sprint.

A story that may have flew under your radar is a roundup of rumors coming from what appears to be an insider at HTC. If you’re of a more technical bent — or just want to see what sorts of crazy hacks are possible on Windows Mobile, check out Registry Edits I Have Loved.

The iPhone Blog has been focusing on how The iPhone made huge financial numbers this week for both Apple and AT&T, with almost 7 million iPhones sold — (temporarily?) eclipsing both Blackberry and Windows Mobile. Just imagine what an iPhone HD could do! At 5500 Apps and 200,000,000 downloads to date (some of which you can win right now in TiPb’s AT WORK contest!), however, questions remain as to whether or not developers for the iPhone’s market defining App Store will likewise enjoy the “long tail” of success.

Over at TreoCentral, we read that Access recently unveiled their new version of the Access Linux Platform (ALP). Although not strictly-Treo-related, it is an interesting look at what might-have-been for the Treo. Access is the company that ultimately purchased the rights of Palm’s original next generation platform, then called Cobalt, before scuttling it. It will be interesting to see if ALP picks up any traction against Android or Palm’s upcoming OS.

We also learned that Sprint is finally joining their competitors in trimming the outrageous fees they charge for early termination of cell phone service contracts. In an interview with the Associated Press this week, Sprint’s CEO, Dan Hesse, said Sprint could start lowering the fees as soon as December, pending updates to its billing software.

That’s it for this week, folks! Stay tuned for more details on the Smartphone Round Robin and be sure to say hello over at Android Central!

iPhone Jeopardy Rerun: Ballmer, Lazaridis, and Colligan Edition!

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 13:37:50 +0000

This. Is. iPhone JEOPARDY!… Judges Round!

Way back on March 14 we covered some of the bold, bodacious pontifications the CEOh-no’s of Microsoft, RIM, and Palm had made about the iPhone. Quick-on-the-buzzer as always, it’s time once again to go back to our judges and see how they did!

“Why We’re Not Worried about the iPhone” for 100

Ed Colligan:

“We’ve learned and struggled for a few years here figuring out how to make a decent phone. PC guys are not going to just figure this out. They’re not going to just walk in.”

Daily Double-Talk

Steve Ballmer:

“There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”

Final Jeopardy!

“Mike Lazaridis”:

“Talk — all I’m [hearing] is talk about [the iPhone's chances in Enterprise]. I think it’s important that we put this thing in perspective.” [...] “Apple’s design-centric approach [will] ultimately limit its appeal by sacrificing needed enterprise functionality. I think over-focus on one blinds you to the value of the other.” [...] “Apple’s approach produced devices that inevitably sacrificed advanced features for aesthetics.”

And to top it all off:

THERE’S a reason that R.I.M. is averse to the iPhone’s glass pad. “I couldn’t type on it and I still can’t type on it, and a lot of my friends can’t type on it,” says Mike Lazaridis, R.I.M.’s co-chief executive and technological visionary. “It’s hard to type on a piece of glass.”

Judges?

10 Million iPhones sold in 2008, almost 7 million in Q4 alone. More units of a single SKU moved than all RIM SKUs combined, and more than (we think!) WinMob licenses as well. 200,000,000 App Store downloads, 5500 Apps available, and now being copied by Microsoft, Google, and RIM. Form factor and touch-centricity copied by both Microsoft-OEMs and RIM (who’s also introducing a no-keyboard Blackberry Storm!). And Palm? Er… Anyone heard from Palm lately?

And the Winner Is!

None of the players today.

For the Pundit Round, be sure to check out Daring Fireball’s awesome set of links, and MacDailyNew’s Compendium of iPhone Naysayers.

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, September 6th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 17:55:21 +0000

Not evil twin to theiPhoneBlog.com Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!

This week: Zilch again. Nadda. We’re too busy getting ready to cover the no doubt universe denting news Apple will unleash at “Let’s Rock” on Tuesday. And, frankly, so is the competition. Face it, they’ve been quiet as little blue-OLED mice lately.

Blackberryboss Lazeridis is all dressed up like Leo Laporte and is already lining up in San Francisco to find out what Apple’s releasing this year… so he can release it next. Palm-Top Colligan’s not releasing anything new until Nova ships sometime in 2012, and Larry and Sergey have shifted the focus off Android and onto their new Chrome browser, which we just know they’ve been running on gLinux in-house for years but is somehow only released (in what will not doubt be perpetual Beta) for Windows.

And speaking of Windows, Steve Ballmer’s off preparing an extra-special CES-sized Monkey Boy dance (YouTube it) for his first adult Keynote since Bill Gates retired to make $10,000,000 mockumentaries with Jerry Seinfeld (Wikipedia him).

No doubt they’ll return to their usually scheduled schedules next week, and so will we!

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, August 30th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:55:30 +0000

This week: Boldly browsing (or not), AppClones, HTC’s dreaming, and Treo requiem.

The Bold and the Buggered

We can’t even make fun of this. Seriously. It harshens even our mellow. Crackberry Kevin spent days and days simply trying to get a freaking javascript enabled website to load up on his state-of-the-RIM Blackberry Bold, and basically every other Bold he could get his addicted fingers on, and word is he’s still waiting for the progress bar to hit 2%.

Yeesh, who does RIM think it is, shipping a buggy, clearly pre-release firmware on one of the most hotly anticipated handsets of the year? Apple?

Official List of Blackberry OS 4.6 Features and Enhancements

First!

Okay. Fine. Crackberry.com deserves some bragging rights over predicting the new RIM iClone… er… Touchscreen Blackberry would be called both the Thunder and the Storm. However, as any long term reader of this column (hi mom!) knows, WE were the first ones to bust out ThunderStorm and it’s inherent brando-confuso. NOT them. Us. So on behalf the the TWiSS nation:

Nailed it!

(And when Microsoft finally unveils WinVistaZuneMob for Windows Live! (Technology Preview), we’ll be right back to claim credit for that to!)

That Ain’t a Browser

While they may handle Javascript better than the Bold (and likely Flash better than the iPhone!), Crackberry claiming Nokia leads in “Mobile Bowsers” just because they’ve jammed a WAP rendering engine on 8 kazillion frighteningly insecure feature phones is like claiming Microsoft Paint is the premiere graphics package in the world just because it ships on every Windows PC since 3.1 (Take that, Photoshop!).

When it comes to the really realz browser champion of the world, if Crackberry even dreams of calling it any other way, they better wake up and apologize to the iPhone…

Putting the Carts Before the Stores

First came the iPhone, then came the iClones. Next came the App Store, so now we’re getting the Aped Stores. Kinda. Google is doing one for Android called Market (because it’s not a store, get it?), which has no production units yet, and it looks like Microsoft is doing one for Windows Mobile Se7en called SkyMarket, which has no modern SDK.

We suppose it stands to reason that, what with the App Store making developers money handset over fist, all the commodity OS makers would try to duplicate it. Would that they would spend half the time or effort, however, duplicating the innovative spirit and business prescience that drove App Store.

(And seriously, SkyMarket?! To fit in so perfectly with Xbox Marketplace and Zune Marketplace? What, we’re supposed to believe Windows Mobile Marketplace was taken? Does it tie in to SkyDrive, and leverage Mesh? Could Microsoft’s branding be anymore broken? We can’t even make fun of it anymore, because every week they come out with something funnier than we ever could… yeesh!)

Does Android Dream of Engadget Peeps?

We’ve got to give full faith and credit to HTC, they actually made manifest a handset that so totally embodies the palette and yet completely misses the spirit of the Google home page. Bravo-oh.

Given the 87 fold out slider keyboards this gPhone sports, however, why couldn’t they squeeze in a hardware button for “I’m feeling lucky”?

Xperia’ncing Delays

HTC must be super busy pumping out phones for Google, Palm, and… themselves, what with Sony being pushed back to 2009 (which can feel like decades in gadget time). We could joke that they’re waiting on WinVistaMob for Windows Live! Se7en (Technology Preview) to hit, but that’s more likely to be 2012 on the outside… What’s especially confusion is that Dieter actually used the Xperia waaaaaaay back in April and it seemed to be working fine. His thoughts on the delay?

Good luck to ya, SE, given how long you’ve been working on this since we saw it, we suspect you’re going to need it.

You Only Look Twice, Mr. Bohn

Speaking of Dieter, his mega-super-ultra-everything-plus-the-kitchen-sync-and-pipes Treo Pro review is now online, finishing the “beauty and beast” double feature that began with the 800w a month back. As we’re unlikely to see any more Treo’s out of Palm this year, and certainly nothing rocking NovaOS 2.0 (What comes after Garnet and Cobalt anyway… Kryptonite?) it’s be best to savor these. The truly masochistic among us might even want to join Malatesta for second look…

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, August 23th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 02:15:06 +0000

This week: A day late but sadly no jokes short, Boldly browsing, unboxings galore, big love from HTC, who does Rubenstein really work for, and ZOMG! a new Android beta!

b.engadget.com…

…the Blackberry specific, RIM-browser optimized version of one of the most popular tech blogs on the planet… doesn’t exist. Neither does t.engadget.com for those of you who’ve actually figured out how to load a semi-functional browser on a Treo.

Nope. Turns out one of out-going Editor-in-Chief Ryan Block’s final acts at Engadget was to set up the iPhone, and the iPhone alone, with the keys to its own special gate. We wonder why…

(Hint: Palm Treo 755p: 0.1% share. Blackberry Anything: didn’t even make the list…)

And special well wishes to Mr. Block, with thanks for all the hard work he put in at Engadget, and best wishes for whatever he chooses next. Health, happiness, and much success!

Speaking of Blackberry Browsers

Lots of brouhaha this week over some dodgy iPhone vs. Blackberry Bold browser battles. Crackberrians cried foul, saying the Bold was hamstrung by a pre-release ROM and faulty WiFi connection. The initial test was against the original, iPhone 2G, however, and subsequent tests run on the iPhone 3G still smoked the poor little Bold. Admittedly, the Bold was again a pre-release ROM, however anyone who’s ever used an iPhone 3G running 2.x knows that’s pretty much a pre-release ROM as well, every bit as buggy. So until Crackberry.com runs some of their own tests, no doubt against a specially prepared iPhone, we’re calling it fair fight, and iPhone by complete domination.

Attention Blackberry Developers

Remember RIM’s answer to Apple’s iFund? You know, the VC pool established to fund Google-class iPhone App development? Yeah, us neither. But Crackberry.com has confirmed what we’d already forgotten: Even though “Blackberry” is in the name, RIM has nothing to do with it (just like Apple really has nothing to do with the iFund, we swear), and — get this — neither does the Blackberry.

Just tell the money-bin that one day you might possibly (wink) consider thinking about maybe porting (wink wink) a future beta of your hawt new iPhone App to the Blackberry, and you’re golden. Literally.

The Hunt for Bold All Over

Congrats to Crackberry Kevin on actually finding a Blackberry Bold in stock somewhere in the harshest hinterlands of Canada. With RIM reportedly only shipping 1 or 2 units per metric googlometer, his threats of SMASH no doubt precipitated Lazaridis to pull up in front of Crackberry HQ, fresh new Bold offered atop a red velvet cushion.

Palm-Treo Games

Likewise, congrats to Dieter on getting his already over-phone’d hands on a Treo Pro. Though his story wasn’t as blog’d out as Kevin’s, it was probably every bit as Tom Clancy-worthy in its own right. And if you’re into fringe smartphone Pr0n, check out WMExperts Treo Pro vs. Everything video. They even sacrifice it to an iPhone 3G, poor little [redacted].

Speaking of [Redacteds]

Last time we asked why the Treo Pro bore little-to-no resemblance to it’s 700 series forefathers. Turns out the 700 series might not have been any of its fathers. Mamma Palm, it seems, went and dallied with HTC. Given how the 800w turned out, however, can you really blame the old girl?

The HTC Xperia’nce

Sparing us all some overly obscure Foxworthy-esque joke about the HTC Palm Treo Pro and HTC Sony Xperia getting divorced but remaining cousins (whoops, so much for sparing), we’ll just point out that the next in a long line of nouveau-chic Windows Mobile handsets that were announced ages ago but have yet to actually ship, has now been announced to still eventually actually ship. One day. In Europe.

For those who don’t remember that far back — and who can honestly blame you? — yes, this was the banana slider Sony abandoned Sybian and cozied up to Microsoft for.

What’s the UI Equivalent of a Paper Bag Over the Face?

Seems to be a third party shell or launcher. And if you’ve been afraid to take your Windows Mobile out in public looking like its been beaten with the Redmond stick, Brian heartily recommends this… er.. iPhone “inspired” full facial replacement.

Looks good to us. Now how do you fix the OS?

All Rubinstein, All the Time

Rubinstein helped Steve Jobs and Apple launch the iPod to the stratosphere, and while Jobs’ second mobile act, the iPhone, has pretty much revolutionized the industry, Rubenstein’s has… er… had somewhat less of an impact.

The man who left Apple when he wasn’t allowed to jam a tic-tactile keyboard on the elegant, full screen iPhone, is now ~~over~~running Palm (or, at least, serving as plenipotentiary most excellent to Lord Bono), canceling “several” Treo’s, and tweaking many others (though sadly not the cosmetics on the 800w…).

Why? Not to make an iPhone killah. Oh, no. That might harshen Poppa Jobs’ mellow and lead to the resurgence of Palm. No, Rubinstein simply wants to ~~kill Treo~~ make a killer Treo. Even if that honor currently belongs to HTC…

(Anyone bother to check and see if Rubinstein is really off Apple’s payroll?)

Another Beta

No, not the 4th release of Apple’s iPhone 2.1 Beta in almost as many weeks, but the first new beta build of the Android “platform” in Google knows how long. (And no, we’re not counting those secret builds given to select privileged elite developers while the common mundanes were left to wonder what “open as in beer” really meant to the folks in Mountain View).

Dubbed 0.9, this new beta, which seems prepped to give Gmail’s beta period a run for its money, may eventually set the possible stage for the OS that finally ships one day with HTC’s Dream handset (2nd cousin once removed to both the Treo Pro and Xperia for those charting smartphone genealogies at home).

And no, we’re not poking a little fun at Andorid here. Android is poking a lot of fun at all the developers and users who really, truly want something to keep Apple competitive. Let’s hope they get serious sometime that is soonish.

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, August 16th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 12:32:27 +0000

This week: All Bold all the time, spy pics, HTC gets red, and happy five-oh!

Rogers Hoses Hopeful Bold Hosers

When notoriously gouging Rogers Mobility in Canada gave its 11th hour reprieve on data rates to save its July 11th iPhone 3G investment, we all kind sorta knew it would someday, somehow, come back and bite us in our wallets. Well, it didn’t. It bit Crackberry Kevin in his instead. Rogers official price for an iPhone 3G 16GB on 3(!) year contract? $299. Rogers semi-official price for a Blackberry Bold 0GB on a 3(!) year contract? Priceless. Or dang near. $399.

No doubt news reports of a giant green Crackberry yelling “Kevin Smash!” and laying waste to Rogers HQ will follow shortly.

And good on that.

All Bold All The Time

Or at least it seems that way. Canadian pricing fiasco aside, the Bold little buggers are really taking the cake these days. Popping up everywhere. Maybe Crackberry’s right? They’re going to be huge.

Just not at HSBC…

Kickstarting the Pearl

Of course, the iPhone 3G isn’t the only handset Rogers is likely subsidizing out their vice-clenched assets. The new Pearl flipberry (nee KickStart) is going for a relatively tiny $49. They’re likely targeting the same new users that the Palm Centro has been so successful at attracting lately.

Given RIM’s brand power and compelling messaging on… er… messaging, seems like a can’t miss, doesn’t it? Especially with the ever increasing femal demo. Extraspecially if Virgin Canada keeps helping out…

Uber-Hawt New Spy Pics Leaked!

The intertubes FTW! Fresh new spy pics of still undisclosed, unreleased, unauthorized smartphone hawtness. And what do we get? Sleek, elegantly curved black form-factor, flush screen(!), brand-defining centralized button navigator with oh-so-easy to hit task buttons radiating outwards, above a killer tic-tactile keyboard combined with enterprise-class “push” technology!

Luddites to Gentoo-men, we present the:

Treo Pro! er… Blackberry Javelin… er… Treoberry Javepro???!!!

Seriously, this is a “bold” new step for Palm away from the locked-to-Treo-600 design-dearth of yore. Given Rubenstein and all the other Apple droppings they’ve picked up lately, it makes perfect sense the Pro should resemble a… Blackberry. We mean, hey, while everyone else and their OEM is lately — and lamentably — iCloning themselves to innovation-less stupors, here comes Palm stepping up the WinMob side of their Harvey Dent-esque product strategy with something at least on par with the latest/greatest from sales leader RIM.

It’s about time.

HTC Dazed and Con-Fuze’d?

Seems like AT&T might be all set to launch the artist formerly known at the HTC Touch Pro, now re-dubbed the HTC Fuze. Yeah, we had to look it up too. Turns out it’s an iClone slider…

Word to HTC marketing: While you may have had Fusion on the brain (something Palm nailed years ago with the Treo brand, and again just recently with Centro), never leave ambiguity enough in your product name to conFuze perspective buyers or they’ll just reFuze to take you seriously. No way to deFuze it now though. Thankfully, at least, Moto must have had FUZR pre-marked (or was that BeastWars?)

Diamond Already in the Red?

So WMExperts would have us believe. If he didn’t have his wee mits all over the Treo Pro, we’d suspect Bono was [Product]-izing just in time for the holidays…

Still, red being the color of Blood, and this Touch being branded as the Diamond, perhaps another word needs be taken with the marketing geniuses over at HTC…

Blackjack II vs. Q9h

Is sort of like the battle for 53rd place in the Olympics, isn’t it? At least “Atila” has a shot at making it a three-way race…

Palm Set to Unleash the Hounds

No, not of the long, long, did we say loooooong?, promised Palm OS 2.0 (?!) Nova-based handsets. Just tons of new WinMob devices. Yay?

When those of us who loved the Palm OS first saw Bill Gates hoist a 700w up on stage at CES, even with all the talk of more options and better business plays, should we have recognized it as Colligan really just opening the seventh seal of stop-gapocalyps?

Signs point to yes.

Happy Anniversary

The TreoCentral Treocast got all golden on us this week, celebrating its 50th episode. May the next 50 be just as grand, and we look forward to hearing you on episode 100…

…probably covering the possible impending future potential pre-launch of Nova (beta).

And to Mike and Dieter — the premiere duo in smartphone coverage — Congratulations mobile accomplishers!

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, August 9th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 18:55:03 +0000

This week: Pearl gets kicked, ZuneNokia cometh, Android isn’t late (again!) and… a Centro clone?!

Blackberry Developers Conference…

…Now taking registration. For anyone who still wants to code for Java Micro Edition. Seriously. All 2 of you.

And for the record, no, this isn’t a panicked attempt to re-court developers who may be considering jumping ship to the modern, Objective C, desktop class iPhone SDK, what with all the money to be made there (and the FreeRiders still waiting — and waiting — on the various LinMo initiatives).

Of course, serious Blackberry developers (aka the ones who work for RIM and thus have access to the actual APIs) are waiting on the next gen OS anyway, currently scheduled for some time after the square of the date Palm’s Nova hits divided by the root of the tangent of Android’s first handset’s delivery…

KickStarting the Pearl

When we joked that Blackberry had more code names for their KickSeaStart-tacWolfRAZR flip phone than Microsoft had Vista SKU’s, little did we know yet another — and at the same time much, much older — was about to be grafted on for release.

Yup, say hello to the… Pearl.

WTF is right. With the flip putting the actual pearl on the inside, shouldn’t this be more properly branded the “oyster shell” ?

Blackberry Curve Price Cut

Just in time for consumers to cut it from their shopping list.

Reason? Not iClony enough, what with the ThunderStorm now firmly on the horizon… er… Verizon.

Still, given that Amazon was paying people to take Blackberry’s off their hands just a short time ago, isn’t this still $199 to much?

Crackberry.com Says Show Your Blackberry How Much You Loves It

By yanking out the battery. We concur.

Crazily enough, however, they actually suggest you put it back in right quick thereafter…

It’s Not the First Sip That’s Going to Kill You…

Delicious Monster’s Wil Shipley takes on what he considers to be the poor science and worse concept behind Microsoft’s “Mojave Experiment”.

The bottom line? Try a little sip, then go watch Super Size Me.

What does this have to do with smartphones? See Diamond, HTC Touch…

ZunePhone’s Coming, and… Nokia is Coming With It?!

Probably not so much, what with Nokia being all SymbiLinMo But then again, Nokia is ditching Blackberry for Exchange as part of the Grand Plan to actually get people off of one buggy, proprietary, outage prone service (no, not MobileMe… grumblegrumble…) and into another even buggier, proprietary, distributed outage prone service. But why do all the hard core punditry ourselves when, in grand bloggy tradition, we can just quote/link to it!

Nokia is already trying to establish its own Ovi portal as a mobile music store. It needs Microsoft’s Zune Marketplace as much as it needs another Symbian virus. Not only is the Zune Marketplace a sleepy, deserted mall with no customers and scant merchandise, but it has absolutely zero traction (or attraction) in Europe or other markets where Nokia sells its phones. The Zune is only sold in the US, where Nokia has minimal uptake. Adding the Zune Marketplace to its phones would do nothing for Nokia apart from making its own store look sidelined and associating the company with another megafailure brand. Nokia already has NGage for that.

Android Isn’t Late!…

…At least when it’s compared to WinVistaMob Se7en.

Okay, so the spin is Android is still on schedule but as anyone who’s ever tried to run a simple school function by committee knows you can’t settle on themes and decorations, much less deploy a brand new OS across multiple OEMs using different form factors and semi-secret SDK revisions on the backs of already beleaguered developers without a schedule more flexible than the whichever girl wins a heap of gymnastic medals this week. It’s simple chaos theory.

And, sure, WinVistaMob Se7en isn’t technically behind schedule either, unless you consider releasing an OS in 2009(ish) that’s meant to be almost (squint and tilt head) competitive with what Apple released out-of-the-gate in 2007, as not being behind something…

Alert Custer

Motorola has just totally ripped off his strategy.

From the once mighty empire that ruled the world with the first RAZR, comes pinning their final, futile hopes on WinMob 6.6.6. And to think, Moto, people have accused you of running the company into the ground…

How To: 2 Tips to Make Windows Media Player on WM Suck Slightly Less

Yank out the battery. Oh, sorry, we covered that already under Crackberry… wait… here it is… Dieter claims there might just be a way.

Attack of the CentroClones… Er… CloneTros… Er… ?

No, we don’t mean the Blackberry Javalin (that’s more a Treo 680 clone, n’est ce pas?), we mean this poor confused little OQO G900.

Hey, we appreciate them giving the iPhone iCloning a rest, don’t get us wrong, and when Palm sold 2 million of these lowest-end smartphones, it pretty much guaranteed some uber-cheaper knock off would be spun up. But, irony of ironies… what if it’s actually more profitable than the real thing?

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, August 2nd Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 19:42:07 +0000

This week: Bold, Bull. Bull, Bold. WinMob Can’t Count to 20, and Colligan Loves the iPhone

It’s Cosmo Cramer, Cracky!

We had to suffer Krakow’s silly iPhone spewings, so it’s only fair our sister site, Crackberry.com gets the the man who pushes market o-spin-ion almost as well as RIM does email.

So, yeah, bullish on Bold. Just sell before he does.

We Who Are About to Dial Salute You!

It is BlackBerrious TicTactilous Maximus, Leader in smartphone sales, email pusher extraordinaire, loyal enabler of the one true unpaid overtime, mate to workaholic partners, child to absentee parents, and in this generation or the next it will totally pwn you.

Fair enough, then, that Crackberry.com tortured the tyrannical little handset to death in retaliation.

Well done.

Flipping the Berry, Part Deux

KickSeaStart-tacWolfRAZR exclusive video reviews continue. Watch them fast before RIM NOC’s them off!

WinMob to Sell 20M Licenses… Eventually

Sorry… we’re… reporting… near… Redmond… and… have… to… keep… ducking… to… avoid… flying… furniture…

Whew! Ballmer finally blue-screened. Anyway, seems when Microsoft said they’d infect 20M units this year, seems what they really meant was that they wouldn’t infect 20M units this year, because, well, they didn’t. Still, 20M is a HUGE number. 20x what the iPhone sold in one weekend. Though the iPhone only has one model still on the market, by one manufacturer, running on one technology (GSM), in 22 countries, mostly on exclusive carriers. And, well, while we’re admittedly mathlexic, we seem to remember there are more than 20 weekends in a year?

Maybe that’s why:

iClones Becoming iCliches

Stop it. We mean it. The first dozen or so iPhone wannabes were at least mockable. Now they’re just a mockery. We’d tell you to fire your industrial designers — if we thought for even a moment you actually employed any. Bad enough Palm’s been rereleasing the Treo 600 for what seems like 10 years now. How long do we have to put up with the iClones? Lazaridis? Colligan? Ballmer? Little help?

Bad Branding: Microsoft Advanced Studies Program

Does the tech industry have their own special version of the Razzies? They must, given how badly Microsoft keeps gunning for one. Last week we jokingly suggested Redmond would rebrand their struggling handset business as WinVistaXZuneMob Se7en Cairo Edition Phones for Windows — LIVE! And little did we know that was actually BETTER than the stuff Microsoft could spittle out on their own, at least if the new names WMExperts.com says they’re kicking around (quite literally) for Live Search!

Look upon their words ye mighty and despise:

Bing
Hook
Kumo

Too. Many. Jokes. Crashing. Server.

Statler & Waldorf Dept.

Fear not, dear listeners of our sister podcast, WMExperts has not been secretly taken over by pod-people far more concerned with film, books, weather, shower habits, or basically anything even remotely NOT having to do with Windows Mobile, it’s still firmly in control of Dieter and Malatesta — who just happen to be far more concerned with film, books, weather, shower habits, or basically anything even remotely NOT having to do with Windows Mobile.

But seriously, given the previous news items, can you blame them? We can’t.

Colligan Gets His Tech Checked!

TreoCentral.com informs us that Palm CEO Ed Colligan sat down for chat, and sure, typically we’d tear apart whatever non-sensical, factually challenged, anti-iPhone rhetoric bullet points he was fed by Ruby, Bono, et al. but turns out that — wait for it — he likes it! Okay, so he can’t figure out how to email with it (hint: try the envelope icon), but overall he has some love for the design and innovation.

Unfortunately for Palm, the market pretty much agrees with him.

Could Palm Have an Earnings Surprise in FY Q1?

No.

Treo 800w: Selling a lot or Not enough to sell?

That’s why.

Maybe they should drop the price below cost? It’s working for the Centro…

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, July 26th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:55:36 +0000

This week: ThuderStorms, iClone Double Feature, Dead Treo’s, and Open Marriages!

Crackberry Dubs the New Blackberry: ThunderStorm…

…Only 3 days after we did. Congrats, sister siters. This week we’re all about the KickSeaStart-tacWolfRAZR. We look forward to seeing it Monday!

(WinVistaXZuneMob Se7en Cairo Edition Phones for Windows — LIVE! is already dibbed by WMExperts. Sorry.)

Introducing the iClone Nano!

Dear reader Kevin sends in these spy shots from “the wilds”. Is it the long-rumored iPhone Nano? Nope, just an iClone Nano, courtesy of the usual suspects at Research in Motion. Seems like gloss black and silver trim is this years gloss black and silver trim…

If only Waterloo could iClone the interface and iTunes experience, eh?

Introducing BlackBerry Media Sync

D’oh! Well, we guess it’s technically not iClone iTunes if RIM just stoleded it outright, right?

Your Music on Your BlackBerry Smartphone. It’s That Simple. Easy to Update

Because it’s connecting to iTunes, of course. Imagine if Apple hadn’t tried to roll their own MobileMe service and just hacked their way into RIM’s NOC (Network Operations Center). Who’d have functional push then, huh? Who?

(Sorry, not having had email for two weeks makes us a little prickly…)

Speaking of Little Prickles…

Yes, we do listen. We appreciate the feedback. And we’ll redouble our efforts. Much love.

Attack of the iClones: WinMob Supplement

WMExperts is ~~masochistic~~ kind enough to show us a real life, side-by-side comparison between the iPhone 3G and the iClonic Samsung Omnia and HTC Touch Diamond, and what can we say? Good job with the screen quality there. 1 degree viewing angle must be an industry record of some kind, right?

(Actual photo at top of post. Thanks for sparing us any photoshopping this week, OEMtards!)

Enter… the ZunePhone!

May want to hold on to them tats a smidge longer there, Zune-dude. WMExperts reports (and we spin) that Microsoft is all shook up, and along with throwing chairs, Ballmer may just throw a ZunePhone our way as well…

Good luck with that. We hope it’s like totally as successful as the Zune proper. Sincerely.

TreoCentral Asks:

Will the BlackBerry KickStart be a Centro Killer?

Yes.

(Unless you hate flippies. Then no. But yes.)

The More Treo’s Change

The Treo 755p is dead. Long live the… er… ah…

When’s Nova exploding again?

And in No Other News

Analysts, which is increasingly another word for those who lost employment within an industry and now make even more money spouting even worse nonsense from without, are saying the troubled “Open” Source Android platform may be merging with the soon to be troubled “Open” Source Symbian platform.

And if you believe that, we’ve still got that second bridge left over from WWDC to sell you…

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, July 19th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:44:45 +0000

This week: Blackberry device outages, Android SDK, Palm launches Treo 700 v3

Bold Behind, ThunderStorm Downgraded

Congrats to sister-site Crackberry.com for breaking the first images of the Blackberry ThunderStorm’s soft, virtual keyboard (you know, the one RIM’s CEO can’t use and would never make). Might just be a sticker, though, as NERDFIGHT or no reports continue to say the latest iClone just don’t work yet. (But dig the UI work! Jonathan Ive must be quaking in his elegant yet understated ash black #7 boots…)

No problem, right? Because the Bold is launching any day now? Er… no so much either… Looks like it doesn’t work so well either yet. Radio code, they say. That or RIM’s desperate scramble to try and launch their iClone double punch as fast — and loose it seems — as possible.

Chill guys. Take your time. Get it right. And here’s a thought — why not innovate something of your own while you’re at it?

Asked… And Answered!

Crackberry.com asks:

How come every new big BB app is running into such teething problems!?!

And Crackberry.com responds:

RIM just updated their site with BlackBerry JDE 4.5

Ahem.

When you have scads of devices scattered across multiple outdated OS versions all based on Java Micro Edition, you have a development nightmare that makes Windows Mobile look, well… not completely horrible by comparison.

Memo to Waterloo: In addition to innovative handsets, let’s add a real OS to the list. You know, something that couldn’t run a RAZR. We hear LinMo is the rage with all the cool kids these days…

Crackbettey Brings Less Hawtness to the Blog…

And dang right, ours is better than yours.

But we could teach you to use an iPhone, L-Loh, now that Fake Steve is no longer in charge…

AT&T Crackspiracy Redux

We covered this story early in the week (and of course Crackberry.com iCloned it with a rapidity that would make RIM proud).

Way to go, tic-tactile-tards. Next time just be honest. Tell them you ran out of iPhones and you’ll order them some when Apple can find your out-of-nowhere parking-lot kiosk. Better to be embarrassed than humiliated.

Does Android Dream of Exclusive Sheep?

Huge surprise. Mega. Potential Android developers (yup, some people are still waiting for their iPhone App Store acceptance and have to keep busy somehow) are growing impatient with the lack of SDK updates coming out of Mountain View.

Only not so much. Turns out there hasn’t been a lack of updates at all — they’ve just been reserved for specialer, more privileged partners.

Non-disclosure agreements and selective access to development tools are hardly emblematic of an open ecosystem. Google has intentionally disadvantaged many developers and kept the broader Android community in the dark about the progress of the platform. Google’s failure to fulfill its commitment to openness has eroded one of the principle differentiating factors that made Android a relevant alternative to Apple’s iPhone operating system. If Google cannot change course, the lack of transparency in the development process will likely push disenfranchised developers towards other mobile platforms.

Way to embrace the spirit of “open” there, eh, Google? Not evil phase all past us now then?

Making an OS is hard, even when you have a CEO on the Apple board and the iPhone to use as a blueprint. Making an OS by committee is even harder. Making an OS by committee and expecting it to work on multiple, different handsets from OEM partners is something that probably still gives Bill Gates night sweats.

Hate to say we told you so… not.

Live Mess

At least we figure the “Mesh” thing must be a WMExperts typo, given the state-of-the-art-of-1990 GUI…

Opera… Oprah. Oprah… Opera

The browser you’ve all been waiting… and waiting… for to replace the massively outdated Pocket Internet Explitivor is finally here. If one of the many known issues isn’t a deal breaker. And if it’s available for your device. And if you don’t mind resource hogs.

Maybe they should pull a Krakow and just license LinMo and WebKit?

Palm Releases a Treo!

Stop the presses… er… posters! Palm has released a new Treo! No, we’re not joking, TreoCentral.com even has a review!

It’s the ~~700w v3~~ 800w, which sees the antenna become an intenna, and the Treo finally getting some WiFi. (Yeah, we fainted too). Screen’s still recessed, form factor’s still jurassic, the OS ain’t Palm or Nova, but hey — it’s a NEW TREO!

And in No Other News

Pop quiz: You’re Motorola and you’ve recently been all but Icah’ned apart. Through lack of vision and hubris-filled mismanagement, you’ve lost more ground than even the RAZR bump ever gave you, and now, facing the iPhone, what do you do? Beg back the designers and engineers that once made you great? Take a RSK on making something new and wonderful? Or just sue one of the poor souls who jumped ship before it broke itself open on the RKS?

The latter of course. You’re Moto, right?

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, July 12th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 01:27:03 +0000

In this week’s edition: What? Surprised we’re here? Thought we’d be taking this edition off so we could play Super Monkey Ball or Bomberman Touch, or otherwise just hide in our tasteful Cupertino estates drooling over our totally awesome new, glossy plastic backed iPhone 3Gs? We did that last time. We totally had the device before Mossberg and like 99% of the people at Apple. Totally.

We’re having a bit of weekend, is all. Maybe you heard about it? MASSIVE failures. Epic. Keep reading on to find out why its all Microsoft and RIM’s fault!

Thanks Bill! Now Who’s Running the Asylum?

Confession: Apple had to use Windows on iPhone 3G launch day. Embarrassing, of course, but due to monopolistic abuses, Microsoft has just totally wormed their way into the carriers. Do you know how distressing it is to have UK Apple Stores running VMWare Fusion because O2 can’t connect to anything but Internet Explorer? Putting ActiveSync on the iPhone is one thing — Sun Tzu told El Jobso he’d have to make some deals with the devil if he wants to break into enterprise — but IE on iMacs? It’ll take weeks of iTunes meditative podcasts to restore their sense of wonder.

And hey, Rogers up in Canada, what’s the sound of a million Canadian IE6 browsers cr@pping out? Sales Central Down?! What’s running the back end, a 386 on Windows for Workgroups? How about next time we pay our ISP bill on time, b’okay?

Of course, iPhone firmware 2.0 dropped at the same time, and since like some huge percentage of iPhone users are Windows users, so all those quirky we-had-to-make-them PC iTunes fired up trying to grab it all at once… At Infinite Loop, the OS X Leopard Data Center — which is shaped into a perfect Yin/Yang of mechanical alignment in matching aluminum and black glass trim — running the iTunes authentications services was just totally flooded in raw Microsoftian harshness. Ever seen kernal panic? Imagine that gone nuclear. Total loss of mellow. Total. Apple IT will reportedly be in intensive yoga all week.

Funny how this all happened the minute Bill Gates left the building, though, isn’t it? If he and Ballmer weren’t waiting in line over night at the Apple Store in Seattle, it would be uber-suspicious. Sure, they could have used body doubles or something, but Ballmer completely lost it waiting for his shiny new iPhone 3G to get unbricked. Chairs and sweatstains flying like that are rather unmistakable…

RIM Stealing iPhone’s Thunder?

Why not, they’ve stolen everything else, right? What better way for RIM to hypejack some press coverage on iPhone 3G launch day than to carefully plant the seeds of a NERD FIGHT! Tell Crackberry.com that the iClonic new touchscreen Blackberry Thunder may actually work, then tell the Boy Genius Report the much more believable story that the Thunder is totally hosed, step back, and laugh your apps off. After all, this is the company whose CEO just recently said touchscreens were unusable. Why not prove it with an unusable touchscreen device? Especially when Apple’s new MobileMe service is bringing the heat!

(Though, in all fairness, Apple did start the latest round with some retaliation of their own, what with copying RIM’s NOC failures, first with random .Mac outages, and then with the complete clusterfail of the MobileMe transition…)

Palm: We Want to Lose 30% More This Quarter!

After recent financial losses widely attributed to the spectacularly poor business strategy of selling the Centro entry-level, candy-bar cool smartphone for LESS than it costs Palm to make it, it seems the pressure of the iPhone 3G has sent Colligan and Co. even further over the edge. Witness TreoCentral announcing that as of now, you can get a green-keyed Centro for only $70.

Why not -$70. Pay people to take them, that’s what Amazon did with Blackberry‘s after all. Should we expect this, what, next quarter at the latest?

And in No Other News

Unbelievable as it may sound, Nokia, Samsung, and Motorola, along with Google, announced the unprecedented–

Cannot connect to the iSatire Server. An known error has occured...

D’oh! Not again!

iPhone 3G to KO Blackberry in Ultimate Smartphone Championships?

Rene Ritchie — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:21:14 +0000

ChangeWave is back with trends in intended smartphone buying for June 2008. The good? The iPhone has soared from 29% to 56% from a low this time last year of 18%. The bad? Rim has tumbled from 29% to 23% from a high of 33% last July. The ugly? Palm has held steady at 3%, having free fallen from 24% way back in late 2006.

The iPhone dominated almost all rounds, causing an overall increase in planned smartphone purchases to 10%. Satisfaction levels were through the roof at 78% (way above RIM’s 54% and trouncing Palm’s 29%)

Blackberry held on to the title of reigning email monster, with a holding-steady 42% ownership of that space, but Apple is making inroads even there, up to 11%.

The KO? Of those planning to buy a smartphone fully 50% plan on getting an iPhone over the Blackberry and Palm.

We expect Big John to jump in and end the slaughter any minute…

Read Via

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, July 5th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 00:19:18 +0000

In this week’s edition: Nothing. Sorry. No time. We’re already lining up for the iPhone 3G. Dieter got here early, but the rest of us are way back, forced to climb over ever-growing mounds of junked Crackberries and WinMobs and about a million Centros — ouch! Heckuva tailgate going on, though. Ballmer keeps breaking out the Monkey Boy while Colligan and Lazaridis take turns timing their virtual keyboarding.

So yeah, sorry. Zip this week. Zilch. But it’s totally not our fault. We don’t even think the sister sites have been updated. (We’d ask Kevin and Jennifer but they’re off playing hacky-sack with Sergey and Larry.)

UPDATED: Okay, fine. The Commenterati have spoken. We’ll scour the interwebs. We’ll find something. You’ll get your fix. Anything to stop from harshening our pre-launch mellow!

Blackberry Kickstart Special TV Offer — While Supplies Last!

Attention Crackberrians! You’re not gonna pay $249 for the new RIM Kickstart Flipberry, are you? No! And you’re not gonna pay $149 either, are you? Nope! You’re not gonna pay $99 or $79 either. All you’re gonna pay is one easy payment of $49! But wait, there’s more! Act now and we’ll throw in near-weekly service outages, and the classic StarTac form factor, for FREE! Tell them Crazy Mike sent you, and we’ll even throw in a free Flowbee!

(Yeesh, when did entry level become throw away? We know Amazon was even paying people to take Blackberry‘s off their hands for a while, but crack open Palm’s books sometime, Mr. Canadian CEO of the Year, and see what selling stuff for less than it costs to make it does for the old bottom line, b’okay?)

Blackberry Done Copying iPhone, Starts Copying Windows 95

Yeah, so the Thunder will still iClone the iPhone, at least as much as the old-but-not-Palm-old Java “OS” is capable of, but RIM isn’t intent on just copying Apple, oh no. Their next target — Windows 95! Seems just like good old Win95 (which knowing MS was probably release in 1997, right?), one day in the distant future a Blackberry OS may — wait for it — try to avoid “nuked” or “bricked” units by allowing users to — wait for it again — boot into safe mode!

(We need to pause here to explain to iPhone users that those poor unfortunates with “smartphones” rather than mobile computers don’t have OS’s for realzies like OS X, just weird little management systems that are far less stable and are just as likely to turn on as they are to spontaneously cease functioning. Think Xbox 360).

Rather than a function key, the tic-tactile escape key will do the trick. Press it and you’re in safe mode. Kind of makes you wonder just how unsafe regular mode is if you have to escape it…?

In faker news, head BBOS developer Marty McFly tells us we can look back to a DOS-style CTRL-ALT-DELETE “feature” by 2020…

Windows Mobile Gets… Facebook!?

Confession: We’re not sure what the story is here. Windows Mobile finally gets an application even the Palm Centro’s already had? Or is it that Pocket IE is such a non-browser that WinMob requires an entire application (GUI created in MS Paint, really?) simply to load Facebook? Or is it that people with WinMob have just now discovered this neato new site called Facebook where — just maybe! — all the cool kids used to hang out?

Now it’s WMExperts Giving With the Paper Cuts and Lemon Juice

Not enough that last week Crackberry.com made fun of the disgusting money grab that passes for Rogers’ Canadian iPhone price plans, this week the diabolical editor of WMExperts just has to point out that the HTC Diamond Touch, is getting all-it-can-eat unlimited data from Bell for $30.

Well done, Rogers, you’ve succeeded where neither HTC nor Windows Mobile have before — you’ve actually made people consider getting a Diamond Pro. Enjoy whatever layer of Hell greedy telco’s get condemned to (we forget the exact number, same as the latest WinMob release number, right?)

Palm Hires Interface Designer!

How about that? We can’t believe we typed it either, but this is big news from Treocentral. Huge. Palm actually hiring someone to consciously improve their user experience is like… hmm… if Windows Mobile actually hired someone to consciously improve their user experience (taking notes there, “J“?)

Turns out they got someone ultra-hip, ultra conceptual too. Same guy who did Helio, which according to Google Image Search has an interface consisting solely of a white flame brand over blue field. We’re not kidding. That’s all there seems to be. Makes the Google homepage looks busy. But who knows how the kids smartphone these days.

What’ll he bring to Palm? Probably something just as innovative. We’re guessing no screen at all. Joke all you want, but it would be light years ahead of Palm’s vintage-yet-still-sadly-current anti-anti-aliased 8-bit circa 1990s groove.

And in No Other News

That’s it. We have to go. The Motorola boys are playing the “iPhone 3G is the only reason we have left to live” card, trying to cry their way up in line. Brian and Casey aren’t buying it, but Chad might let them in. Meanwhile, the Nokia and Samsung iClone teams have gotten bounced for trying to get early peaks inside. We feel for them, really. Rules are rules and all, but c’mon. If they don’t find out what Apple is releasing this year, what’ll they have to copy for next year?

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, June 28th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:55:58 +0000

In this week’s edition: Boldly late… and on strike, WinMob vs. Android, more Windows raves, and Real Ed vs. Fake Steve!

Blackberry Bold-ly Not Going Where the iPhone Will Have Already Gone Before

The 11th reason the Blackberry still doesn’t compare to the iPhone 3G? The iPhone 3G will be out on time.

Unlike Apple, who typically doesn’t pre-announce but sends CEO Steve “El” Jobso out on stage to BOOM! their tech when its good to pretty much G.O., in its panicked desperation to pip the iPhone 3G to the publicity post, RIM rushed to pre-announce their Bold before it was finished and, it seems, before they had a real idea of when it would be finished.

So, also unlike Apple’s Jobs who gave us an emphatic July 11th to circle in red on our calendars (and bank accounts!), RIM’s Lazaridis gave a nebulous date which, according to Crackberry.com, has just gotten “pushed” back:

August. Maybe 2008.

Rumor has it battery issues and overheating are to blame. Yikes. Either way, that’s a full month after serious futurists have already gotten themselves an iPhone. I guess diehard Crackberrians should just expect it when they ship it.

Take Your Push and Shove It, We Ain’t Emailing Here No More!

Yup, seems like members of the Writers Guild, among others, believe that both unfair and unequal treatment for their work on the internet and in DVD sales is matched only by having to use Blackberry’s as reasons to go on strike.

Crackberry.com says ABC (the American one, not the Australian one, we’re properly ethnocentric on this) backed down quickly in face of the Blackberry-out, and no scripts or fall season release schedules were harmed under the repetitive stress.

Crackberry Gives Papercut, Pours Lemon Juice On it

Yes. Thank you, Crackberry.com. Potential iPhone 3G customers in Canada are going to get Rogered by the local GSM monopoly — almost as badly as the RIMtards. The difference? Whereas the Blackberry is pretty much a business appliance typically subsidized by companies, the iPhone is a mobile computer platform typically paid dearly for by consumers themselves.

Way to drag us down with you, hosers.

WinMob vs. Android: Complexity Showdown!

WMExperts gives us a peak beneath the Android Kimono, and what a peak it is! Seems Google’s little mobile monster is poised to give Windows Mobile a run for its so-many-versions-developers-will-tear-their-neck-beards-out money. Way to go. May the least of the worst win the bottom of the most!

More Raves for Windows!

Typical Windows user feedback?

I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues. [...] So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated. [...] Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night — why should I reboot at that time? [...] Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up. [...] What an absolute mess. [...] The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind.

Nope. THE Windows user feedback to rule them all, courtesy of Kaiser Bill Gates himself. Now, sure, this is technically about the desktop version of Windows 5.5 (aka XP), and not the similar-in-name-and-ill-conceived-GUI-only handset version, currently on 6.6.6 (or something), but the probative value far exceeds any potential prejudice (or the humor outweighs the difference, whatever).

Sadly, though much like typical user feedback, it had absolutely no effect on future development.

Keeping Palm Real Fake

Real Ed:

We are more confident than ever in our transformational effort. We’ve added extraordinary new talent, the Centro is a smash success, we have an incredibly competitive product pipeline, and are developing a world class software platform. I expect together, these efforts will deliver positive results in the coming years.

Fake Steve:

You turn your $500 Treo into a $100 Centro, sell each unit at a massive loss, and make it up on volume. How totally brilliant! Why didn’t we think of that? I mean here at Apple we’re still stuck in that old-economy mindset where you sell stuff for more than what it costs you to make it. Meanwhile Palm is getting inquiries from Chris Anderson of Wired who wants to do a big cover story on how “selling for less than cost” is the new future of business.

Real Ed:

I have never felt more enthusiastic about our product pipeline and our ability to get back on the right track.

Fake Steve:

If you really want to scare the crap out of yourselves, check out your company’s official earnings statement and scroll down to the balance sheet. Little item called “Total stockholders’ equity.” Look at where it is today versus a year ago. Teeny tiny drop from $1 billion last year to $100 million now.

Real Ed:

We are extremely confident that the enhanced functionality of this new platform and its accessibility to the developer community, combined with the game changing hardware we have designed for it will usher in a new era for Palm. This platform development effort is proceeding very well and we look forward to bringing these products to market.

Fake Steve:

Well, nothing to worry about, I’m sure. Ahem. Anyway, much love to all of you. We miss you. Not really. And if you’re thinking about maybe you’ll crawl back here when Palm goes under, um, don’t bother. Peace.

And in No Other News

Motorolo is pinning all their hopes for the future on the Alexander. That’s not a joke. The sentence, I mean. Motorola definitely is.

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, June 21st Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 22:46:52 +0000

In this week’s edition: Blackberry iClone’s visual voice mail — but don’t make them angry! Windows Mobile 6.0 ready to crash already frozen Treo 800wx’s, and can Centro has future?

Apple Reinvents the Phone. RIM Regurgitates the iPhone.

RIM loves them the iPhone. They love it’s glossy black facade. They love its silvered bezel. They love its rounded rectangular slab-like form factor. They love its iTunes connectivity. And despite we-think-they-doth-protest-to-much comments to the contrary, boy do they love its touchscreen. They love it so much, they’ve done nothing but spend the last year iCloning it. They’re latest, according to Crackberry.com?

Visual Voice Mail.

Yup.

Way to go, Lazaridis. A year and a half later, and you’re finally copying something Steve Jobs showed off six months prior to the iPhone launch…

Good news for Crackberrians, though! At this rate, you’ll get a MobileSafari class browser by 2011!

You Won’t Like Crackberry Kevin When He’s Angry!

Okay, we totally take back that last story. It wasn’t us, and it certainly wasn’t RIM. In fact, it was probably those troublemakers over at AndroidCentral saying the iPhone was copying the Bold again. Totally. Just don’t get Crackberry Kevin angry. We don’t like him when he’s angry. We mean, did you see what he did to Rogers’ data rates when he got angry? We don’t have the healing factor to take that kind of pain!

We’ll just stick to making fun of WindowsMobile for the rest of this edition, okay?

Please?

Obsolete Hardware, Meet Outdated OS!

Speaking of making fun of Windows Mobile, looks like the Treo 800wx will finally be getting an upgrade to version 6.0. No, that’s not a typo. They’re actually taking the oldest WinMob Treo (actually, the “fixed” rev of the oldest WinMob Treo, but why split petrified hairs?), and cramming the previous (not current) version of Windows Mobile on it.

And they’re not even doing that yet, so some poor battered-consumer syndrome hax0rs have stepped in and actually made the monstrous little FrankenTreos themselves. Think getting XP up on your 486. Sorta.

WMExperts.com has the gory details. Or it could just be another spy shot of the 800w. Either way…

Centro: Can Has Future?

TreoCentral.com bravely asks: “Can Palm’s Centro Still Roll With The Big Dogs at AT&T?”

In a sentence: About well as Motorola has post-RAZR.

In a word: No.

But if they play the chihuahua card low and long enough, they might sneak by until their next handset can go… er… Nova.

And in No Other News…

Samsung announced, and Sprint spat up $100,000,000 to advertise, the Instinct to compete with the old iPhone about 5 minutes before Steve Jobs announced the new iPhone 3G, officially making the Instinct a year too late and a (next) generation too short (not to mention quite a bit too expensive when faced with a $199 price tag for the Real Thing). So, the big bosses at Samsung and Sprint bit the bullet and dropped their prices… But not enough to impress Uncle Walt, much less our own big boss, who summed up the whole thing thusly:

Honestly – is anybody out there seriously considering an Instinct over an iPhone? We’ll grant that there are some people who prefer to pick their carrier first, phone second — but still, is it possible to even pick up the clean end of a piece of …Instinct?

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, June 14th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 02:14:44 +0000

In this week’s edition: RIM Flips, Windows Mobile is why Ballmer should quit, and Palm’s Centro is a… hit?!

Kirk to Enterpise, the [Redacted] NOC is [Redacted] Down Again!

Crackberry.com continues their awesome trend of RIMsclusives, this week bringing us the pre-release (and bathroom-floor?) pics of the upcoming BlackBerry Flip… er… KickStart. Kudos to RIM marketing, the idea of kicking your new form factor to start it is both glee-worthy and certainly cathartic. The first live YouTubes of a boardroom full of business suits round-housing the flipugly little things through the plate glass and down to 100 story doom will earn our inaugural “favorite” badge.

RIM design should likewise be praised for boldly (oops, wrong model!) flippedly going where no one since 1960s sci-fi has gone before. Maybe the Aurora will sport it some phaser chic?

Blackberry Can Has Windows Live Candy?

Yes, that’s apparently NOT a typo. This really does pass for screencandy on the Blackberry.

If an iPhone app ever came out looking that 2001, it would only be because Ashton Kutcher had developed it and was filming the reaction from backstage…

The OS Update Heard Around the World!

As we’re all probably sick of hearing about now, a little OS update was announced this week. Flaunting a host of new features, the update will soon let everyone, everywhere, experience the next great revolution in smartphone… er… experience. Unfortunately, the announced OS update won’t be released right away. Nope, we’re all going to have to dig deep and wait just a little bit longer. But the relentless media coverage, the rumors, the anticipation, the fanboy frenzy… it will all be worth it soon.

Yup, in just a few short weeks, WMExperts.com says we’ll be getting Windows 6.6.6 for the Moto Q9h! Booyah!

Windows Mobile — Yup, THAT’s a Firing!

Seems Jim Lynch over at ExtremeTech loves him some Windows Mobile almost as much as pundit Paul Thurrott. How much is that? Enough to make it his #4 reason Microsoft CEO Steve “Internet Monkey-Boy Dance Phenom” Ballmer should be fired:

Windows Mobile has been a dismal failure for Microsoft that has only become more apparent with the launch and success of the iPhone. Microsoft blew a lot of money and time with Windows Mobile and never managed to come up with a good mobile operating system. Apple, on the other hand, managed to hit a home run the first time out by using Mac OS X in the iPhone. I remember owning a Compaq iPaq years ago and, at first, I loved it. But as time went on I stopped using it and finally just got rid of it. Looking back at it now, from the perspective of an iPhone owner, I see that the iPaq was a good product but it suffered from a poorly thought out and awfully implemented operating system. Microsoft never got it right and still hasn’t. As usual Microsoft is playing catch-up to Apple and we’ll no doubt see Microsoft blatantly copying Apple’s iPhone interface and features in a future release of Windows Mobile. For letting Windows Mobile continue to be a failed also-ran, Steve Ballmer should be fired.

No Dev in the Palm is Worth 2 Million Centros?

TreoCentral.com informs us that the “breakthrough hit” that is the Palm Centro is on track to sell 2 million units this year… of an OS Palm introduced only 6 years ago! And now they’ll be selling on shiny happy Verizon as well! Everyone is thrilled. Seriously. Stock is up 9%. Colligan and Rubenstein are high-fiving in the halls.

Sure, instead of 2 million with a 6 year old OS, Apple sold 6 million with an OS introduced barely a year ago, but think about how much work that must of been, all that innovation and stuff. Why break a sweat when you get sit on your apps for 6 years and still bump the stock, right?

And since by the sounds of it, the next generation Nova OS will basically be a web browser, it looks like Palm has finally found it’s winning strategy and is going for it! All engines in reverse, and straight ahead ’til yesterday!

And in No Other News…

Pop quiz, hotshot: You’re a once relevant mobile phone manufacturer who once struck gold with the then-innovative RAZR and has since done everything corporately possible to never again recapture the lightning in that bottle. Your boogeyman of the last few years has just switched his attention to the MicroHoo! debacle, and Apple has shown you can still shake up the space with a breakthrough device fresh out the gate.

What do you do, hotshot? What do you do?

If you’re Moto, you fire half your design team. That’s what!

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, June 7th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 21:22:43 +0000

In this week’s edition: Nothing. Seriously. It’s like there’s some event on Monday that’s blotted out the smartphone sun…

(Okay, fine, maybe there’s some small something or other we can dig up. Hit the read link…)

Breaking: TiPb Welcomes Messrs. Lazaridis, Ballmer, and Colligan!

More fake breaking news, as we’ve received no tips reporting that the head honchos over at RIM, Microsoft, and what’s left of Palm have done nothing all week but wire up fiber channels and practice hitting “refresh” in anticipation of our live meta blog coverage of the WWDC keynote on Monday.

When reached for non-comment, dead-pan funnyman Lazaridis said, “C’mon, I need to know what Apple’s new phone looks like this year so I can figure out what RIM’s will look like next year!”

Monkey-Boy dance phenom Ballmer didn’t chime in with, “We’ll be selling 3 friktillian smartphones with Windows Mobile Se7en on by 2012, and we’re going to need to know what else to copy beside Multi-touch!”

Colligan, however, when awoken from his 5 year stasis, never remained cool, “We have no interest in duplicating the iPhone. We’re about to release our 19th version of the Treo 600, and we’ve got 37 more where that came from!”.

Alrighty then…

ATTN: Crackberry.com, RE: Coming Back Around…

Confession: We make a little fun of RIM’s well-publicized and hugely embarrassing network outages (see, we did it again right there). But last week, when .Mac went down and we here at TiPb reported it pro-forma as the nothing little insignificant blip on an otherwise perfectly clear iPhone sky that it was, Crackberry.com wasted no time, and spared no level of glee, in NOC’ing it up, and twisting it into some big brouhaha.

Bulletin: A .Mac outage probably effects exactly 3 iPhone users. If that. We don’t like to publicize it, but even Dear Leader doesn’t really use the service (he’s using the new one already, which is why they needed some massive super secret upgrade you may be hearing about at a little developers conference you may have hear about, b’okay?) Anyway, .Mac going out is like the 300th ranked ISP in Bavaria going out — barely anyone noticed. They were all busy with setting up their new Exchange or MobileMe accounts for Monday.

Payback: However, you noticed, and we noticed you noticing, so we called up our “friends” in Waterloo and convinced the former Canadian Tire cashier whose hand’s on the giant red NOC-off lever that, since everyone on the planet will pretty much be iPhone-only this weekend, it would be the perfect time for a “scheduled” outage. Poor kid. We’re talking hook, line, and voice-cracking sinker…

We’re not sure what Crackberry addicts pop when the push is down (our guess — Solitaire on Win95), but enjoy the weekend!

Microsoft Out the Gates and High on Life

Or something! First up we have Microsoft (probably Ballmer), who according to WMExperts.com is sending letters (probably cut out of a soon-to-be-extinct magazine and stick-glued onto unsold Vista boxtops…) to their partners desperately reassuring them that Windows Mobile 6.6.6 (or 6.1, whatever the latest — and by that we mean most currently behind schedule — release is) will somehow still be relevant come Monday after El Jobso drops the iPhone 2.0 bomb.

Er… yeah… Not sure how to break this to you, but Windows Mobile 6.x wasn’t relevant after iPhone 1.0 back in January 2007. And instead of trying to get Windows Mobile Se7en up to iPhone 1.0 standards, you might want to think outside the little beige box and shoot for something innovative your own self?

And no, spreading rumors of a Blu-Ray Xbox 360 in some attempt to “steal Apple’s thunder” is not innovative. A giant, red-ringing, PowerPC, noisy, inelegant gaming machine, no matter how we loves us our Gears of War, suddenly getting the technology that beat the stuffing out of your own HD-DVD format years after Sony released it in the PS3 just doesn’t crossover the same news circles.

But here’s an idea: maybe call that friend of yours Bill. You remember him, the one you no longer need but may still use? (Leastways he could help keep you from blurting out your envy towards the iPhone’s admittedly top-tier browser experience…)

Government Tracking Treo Users

TreoCentral.com is claiming that the US government is tracking cellphone users. Since some of us aren’t in the US, or in Government, we have no way of knowing whether this is true or not, but since we grew up on everything from Orwell to the Matrix, we kinda just assumed it already.

What’s particularly disturbing, however, is that TreoCentral.com reporting this makes us think the US Government is tracking Treo users as well.

Why?

Is it for anthropology, like when the Discovery Channel finds some lost, never before contacted Amazonian tribe and wants to study their behavior? Is it that they think tax dollars are well spent analyzing a people untouched by mobile technology since 1999?

Dunno. But we sure hope Dr. Jones doesn’t get a shunning for his troubles.

And in No Other News

HTC finally got around to still not releasing their HTC Touch Diamond, which early reviews say just crackles on EDGE, given its lack of support for North American HSPA. Not a problem though, as it seems the OS is slow enough that you can barely notice…

Points for consistency, but you had to know slapping an extra layer of OS on top of WinMob and then chipping down the radio was putting the advertising spin before the handset, right?

This Week in Smartphone Schadenfreude, May 17th Edition

Rene Ritchie — Sat, 17 May 2008 15:55:47 +0000

Not evil twin to Phone Different Week in Review, not an invasion by Fake Steve, This Week in Smart Phone Schadenfreude brings you all the feel-better news you need about the smartphone world outside Apple’s current media dominator. (Who knew there was such a world? We were just as surprised! Inelegant, interface challenged, keyboardy, crashy, single-touchy place — best not to linger…). Join us as we mock review the big news from last week at our sister sites. Everybody loves sibling rivalry!

WinMob on ur Blackberryz

No, Crackberrians, no need to have an OS attack. Ballmer isn’t threatening to unleash his BSOD’d “platform” on the Javaware that passes to power your little e-mail monster (yet). Our bad. Maybe we should have titled this “WMExperts on the Blackberry Bold”, or maybe just “Hawt or Not?” instead?

Anyway, seems WMExperts.com had this to title about the first-to-market iClone job from RIM:

Alright, the BlackBerry 9000 is Hawt

Far be it for us to argue with Fearless Leader… So we’ll just yield the titular comeback to the Mossbergites over at D|All Things Digital:

Think of It as an iPhone With a Broken Touchscreen

Will do! Because we all know RIM CEO, and noted internet deadpan funnyman, Mike Lazaridis’ whiplash inducing take on the touch anyway: They stink — let’s make one!

Blackberryz in ur iTunez

Sadly, this title is accurate. First RIM announces a $150 million development fund for “all mobile platforms” (read “iPhone”, since pretty much every other platform has had development going for years now and should already be a huge success, right?). Then, flabbergast-ingly enough, RIM — incapable of, you know, actually engineering their own way to effortlessly sync media to the Blackberry even with $150 million to throw at it — has decided to use Apple’s. So far there are no reports of RIM actually licensing iTunes connectivity from Apple, like… say… Apple just licensed Exchange ActiveSync connectivity from Microsoft.

Oksy, so let’s get this straight. First, RIM says they’ll give to the iPhone whether Apple likes it — or needs it — or not, and now they’ll take. Fiendishly clever, Lazaridis. Or it would be if you were a 12 year old 133t Hax0r in your parents’ basement, and not the CEO of the (technically) dominant smartphone maker in the world.

Hey RIM, how’d you like it if Ballmer monkey-boy danced his way into your NOC?

Epic kludge.

State of the WinMob — A Microsoft Mulligan?

Microsoft pundit and Apple-baiter extraordinaire, Paul Thurrott gave an(other) impromptu State of Windows Mobile speech on last week’s Windows Weekly:

You know, Windows Mobile is horrible. [...] It’s horrible. Horrible. [...] Don’t even get me started, we don’t have time. I… I… Windows Mobile is a disaster. [...]

[Is Windows 6.1 better?] Better than what? Yeah, it’s better than 5. But so what? This thing has the latest, 6.1 or whatever, the phone I’m using now. God, what a… it’s terrible. It’s terrible. They should be ashamed of themselves. They’ve had this thing… I don’t.. God, it’s embarrassing.

And, you know, I stuck around and I had the motorola Q for along time which I stuck with because of the high speed network and the fact that I could tether it to my laptop and use it as a high speed modem for my laptop. That’s great. I miss that. I’m going to tell you, though, the Windows Mobile stuff.. geez… It’s like going back.. Oh, god, it makes Windows 95 look futuristic by comparison.

[Is it challenging getting an OS onto mobiles?] Okay, Apple did something pretty impressive.

[The iPhone doesn't have cut and paste.] I hear ya, I’m just saying, you know, from a usability standpoint — night and day. [...] This thing is a piece of crap. They should completely start over. It’s horrible. It’s a complete waste of time. They should just pretend this never happened. This is.. it’s… it is the mulligan. They should just start over. Nobody uses the thing anyway. It’s just ridiculous.

[Treo 700w, HTC, and people love Sprint handsets...] I wouldn’t say love. Remember what they love about these devices are the form factors. The keyboards and, you know… You’re not going to find too many people who… I… I shouldn’t say that because, of course… [...]

You know what, look, I hear from Apple guys obviously. At least that I get. I mean, I could have my arguments with these people but at least Apple makes high quality stuff so we can arg–we can nitpick over whatever we want.

If someone is actually going to come to me and explain that Windows Mobile is not, in fact, a piece of crap, I’m sorry, I don’t entertain lunacy. This… This thing is ridiculous.

No, it’s terrible. No, it’s not even like a debate, it’s terrible. There’s no — you know what I’m saying — we can debate things. We can’t debate this.

[...] It’s terrible.

There’s nothing there. And this from a man who likes the Zune…

Yowza.

Palm’s 800th Verse — Same as the First!

Okay, even we have to admit it: the upcoming 800w is the Palm device we always wanted…

Back in 2005 when it should have shipped.

It takes until now to get WiFi? Now? Really? And still not on Palm OS “Granite”, but on Windows Mobile 6.1, which even HTC is desperately trying to hide like a Remond-headed stepchild?

Treocentral.com has the first “spy” pics, but honestly, who can tell if that’s even an 800w and not a 680 or even a 600 with a clever case and antenna mod?

And word to the “shadowmite”, how about obscuring the serial number on the proto and, hey, your reflection on the screen, so, you know, Colligan doesn’t have the hounds unleashed next time he spots you sneaking into the antiquities wing of Palm HQ, b’okay?

Definitions of Nova

nova |ˈnōvə|
noun ( pl. -vae |-vē; -ˌvī| or -vas ) Astronomy
a star showing a sudden large increase in brightness and then slowly returning to its original state over a few months.

Do they pick these code names just so these columns write themselves? Seriously. Nothing says next generation, second coming, return to dominance like something that explodes, kills all life, only to end up an infinitely sucking mass of dark matter.

On the other hand, since it won’t ship until first half 2009 at the earliest — by which time iPhone 3.0 will be on its way, and maybe a new, non-iClony Blackberry revolution (we dare to dream!) as well — perhaps Colligan and Co. really are code name picking geniuses?

And In No Other News…

We already covered how Sprint is ~~spending~~ wasting $150 million advertising dollars just to make the brand new Samsung Instinct pale in copy-catastrophe next to the last gen iPhone, but in an effort to be more helpful than hurtful, here’s some advice:

Just spend the money giving the devices away to your few remaining customers. You’ll move far more units than if you try and sell them, and maybe even engender a few more months of gratitude usage.

Wow, being nice really is its own reward…

Top 10 Reasons the iPhone is Incomparable – Wait-a-Thon!

Rene Ritchie — Fri, 02 May 2008 04:30:33 +0000

[Ed: We're bringing back the Wait-a-Thon and making it regular again. Sorry we dropped it off there for awhile, folks. With all those 3G and iPhone 2.0 rumors flying about these past couple of weeks, it almost felt like the release was already here. In the meantime, comment on any post tagged "Wait-a-Thon" for your chance to win a $100 iTunes Gift Card!]

This is not a response to Crackberry.com‘s excellent article, Top 10 Reasons Why the iPhone Is NO BlackBerry. Quite frankly, the iPhone doesn’t need a response; it’s the rest of industry that’s so desperately trying to find one to the iPhone.

I don’t know about you, but it’s getting more than a little tiring hearing everyone compare themselves to — and constantly try to rip-off — the iPhone. I can’t surf a website or cruise the main without some claw-handed Crackberry addict, neck-bearded Palm artifact, or frazzle-haired WinMob frustrati glaring and frothing with barely-contained envy at the perfectly balanced, seamlessly integrated, lustfully convergent iPhone held ever-so casually in my grip.

They know the iPhone is beyond cool. Sure, they cling to their once innovative, formerly revolutionary (at least in the case of Palm and RIM) devices, the ones overwhelming nostalgia or massive business infrastructure investment won’t let them slam to the ground and stomp into the call-dropping, web-mangling, constantly crashing oblivion they so richly deserve.

So the comparisons to the iPhone just won’t stop, despite the fact that the iPhone is pretty much incomparable. Don’t believe me? I’ve got ten reasons to back me up. And these aren’t minor feature gripes or personal peccadilloes. In proper Apple fashion, these are just 10 simple little words…

10. Communication

It’s right there in the name: iPhone. Steve Jobs said it himself at Macworld 2007: the killer smartphone app is voice. How ironic, then, that so many other smartphones so often kill voice.

Making and receiving calls without my phone freezing or crashing, as my previous device did almost daily, is huge. Unprecedented simplicity in everything from easily finding my way back if I navigate away from the phone app, to elegantly handling call holding, muting, and multiple output sources like Blue Tooth, to effortlessly setting up conference calls is huger still. I can’t remember how often I got lost, couldn’t get calls off my headset, or accidentally hung up on people with the confusing hackjobs that passed for interfaces on my previous smartphones.

The iPhone also introduced desktop-class HTML email rendering and “just the internet”, AJaX powered, standards compliant web browsing, along with interface innovations for SMS, .MAC gallery transfer for photos, and the ability to email YouTube videos, photos, and web links at the tap of a virtual button.

(The browsing is so good, ironically, everyone from Amazon to Facebook to popular blogging plugin makers are providing iPhone-optimized web pages now, lumping every other device into the substandard “mobile” experience or the abortive hell that is WAP).

While some may grumble that this or that power-user feature, or device-specific protocol is missing, Apple has proven they can deliver updates faster and better than anyone in the industry (going from version 1 to 1.1.4, with 2.0 immanent, in less than a year and adding significant capability in the process).

For the user, the interface is the app, and for Apple, their interfaces are remarkably back-end independent. So, if the iPhone needs to improve SMS, or add IM or MMS for now until the differences between desktop and handset protocols evaporate, well Apple’s already got patents pending for that as well.

In the mean time, as most of the iPhone commercials show, having music or video or web pages fade away when your phone rings only to fade right back when your done — that’s truly killer.

Listen up, communication-centric users, especially those who want the internet in their pocket, are all over the iPhone.

9. Media

The iPod is the king of all mobile media, with an over 70% share of the US market. People love them their iPods and Steve Jobs has repeatedly said the iPhone is the best iPod Apple has ever made.

Just look at the stats: up to 16GB of flash storage, a 3.5”, 160dpi wide screen display, and seamless integration with the #1 music and leading downloadable media store in the US, iTunes.

Apple can also extend iPhone media in ways their competitors can only dream. From high-end Final Cut Pro for Hollywood scale video production, to (Mac) desktop Garage Band podcast and ringtone creation, to Apple TV syncing and streaming the same iTunes content to your big screen TV, Apple literally can create, manage, and deploy iPhone media from end-to-end. They can do it easily, and what’s really scary (for the competition) is that this is something the iPhone merely inherited. (Imagine what they might just be preparing for the future…)

No one else, not desktop monopolists, old media stalwarts, or upstart email monsters, even come close.

For media-centric users who don’t want to fill their pockets with a second device just for voice and data, the iPhone’s barrier of entry is zero.

8. Gaming

Though not to anywhere near the extent of media, Apple has been integrating gaming into the iPod — and into iTunes — for years now, and with the SDK Roadmap event, they’re getting serious about putting it on the iPhone as well.

EA’s Spore and Sega’s Super Monkey Ball (among others, including Apple’s homegrown Touch Fighter) were given the spotlight, taking full advantage of the iPhone’s unique video and audio power, accelerometer, and multi-touch controls. Sega even said they’d so underestimate the iPhone’s potential they had to fly in another developer just to crank up the graphics. Wow.

No other smartphone, even today, can boast the 1 year old iPhone’s raw feature set (chips + sensors + inputs + display). As for gaming handhelds, the Sony PSP can’t fully match it (though their dedicated chipsets and vast software library clearly give them a huge advantage… for now). Only the Nintendo DS, which sports touch and mic, is competitive (massive understatement given they’re the sales leader in mobile gaming).

But here’s the thing: while other smartphone are playing copycat and catchup with 1.0, the iPhone is poised to go to 2.0, and while dedicated gaming kits have undeniable advantages, they can’t make cell phone calls, can’t play iTunes media, and can’t do a host of other things the iPhone delivered on day one.

For anyone who wants to game and doesn’t want to carry around a second, dedicated box to go with their media-savvy phone, June will score for the iPhone as well.

7. Business

Make no mistake, the aforementioned iPhone SDK event didn’t only reach out to gamers, it offered a firm handshake to business as well. Exchange ActiveSync (not to be confused with the confusingly named desktop Windows ActiveSync), 802.1x, Cisco VPN, remote wipe, Enterprise “App Stores”, and a host of other features were released as part of the iPhone 2.0 beta.

What’s more, unlike RIM’s technology, which uses a single Network Operations Center (NOC) to handle all Blackberry data transactions — making the service infamously prone to failures and terrifyingly susceptible to security compromises, state-sponsored and otherwise, ActiveSync offers a direct connection between enterprise server and user client. No Chinese or Singaporean RIM-supplied proxy snoopers, no Indian data disconnections. With ActiveSync, each individual business’ server would have to be individually compromised or blocked, a vastly more difficult task.

For Microsoft users worried about a “premiere” experience, having an Apple client may just redefine their concept of “premiere”. And for open-source advocates, Apple’s been their from the beginning, with full support for standards like IMAP, and community-friendly initiatives like CalDAV.

Bottom line, the iPhone is in a unique position to appeal to almost all business-centric users who don’t want to lug around an second or third device just to watch a movie or play a game on the flight home, or call their loved ones when they land.

6. Convergence

Communication, media, gaming, and business. In one or two of these areas, other devices currently have an edge. That is, if you’re happy with the idea of carrying around a feature phone, iPod Touch, Nintendo DS, and Blackberry all strapped to your utility belt (I’ve been there and it wasn’t pretty!).

Convergence, however, doesn’t begin or end with just the iPhone. As we touched on before, Apple is the first, and so far only company to truly deploy spherical integration across their product line.

Apple designs its own hardware (iPhone handset), engineers its own operating system (OS X) and software (built in apps like MobileSafari Touch and the Google Maps client), creates its own accessories (docks, media cables, headsets, etc.), offers its own ecosystem (from Macs to the Apple TV, from iLife to Leopard Server), sells them all in their own retail Apple Stores (which bested Tiffanies last year in earnings per square foot), handles their own carrier activation via iTunes, provides value-added services (iPhoto books), runs its own cloud services (.Mac) and ties into other cloud service providers (Google search, Yahoo! weather), offers the #1 music marketplace in the US (iTunes), which also provides TV, movies, and a staggering amount of free audio and video podcasts, iTunes University, and other free content, and is about to be joined by the App Store, which may just do for 3rd party App sales what iTunes did for music.

Verizon commercials like to show a virtual network of technicians following its users around everywhere they go. Just imagine that commercial with Apple’s 360 degrees of integration backing up every iPhone user.

When it comes to convergence, nothing else matches the current iPhone’s capabilities, never mind its next-generation potential. Anyone looking for the “one device to rule them all” will find it all elegantly wrapped up in only one package: the iPhone.

5. Development

Okay, numbers 8 and 7 — and thus 6 — are still in beta. Fair enough. But what’s driving that beta is an SDK the likes of which has never been seen before in the mobile space.

Sure, some platforms use Sun’s “Compile once… er… often.. run anywhere” Java language/interpreter, or Microsoft’s Windows-in-name only kit, and others delve deep to the metal on Palm’s sold and bought-back and locked-in-stasis OS.

Apple, much as they miraculously managed to cram a UNIX-based OS, BSD networking, Open GL, and other desktop class systems into the iPhone, also delivered a remarkably mature, surprisingly polished SDK based entirely on their existing Mac Objective C and Cocoa (dubbed Cocoa Touch for the iPhone) architectures.

Far from the afterthought or hurried response partisan pundits paint it, thanks to Steve Jobs’ legacy from NeXTStep, its frameworks, and its processor independence (it’s run on PowerPC, x86, and now Arm), Mac developers instantly gained the ability to dive right into the system, while those familiar with other flavors of C quickly ramped up thanks to powerful tools like X-Code and Interface Builder.

(It was stated repeatedly during the SDK event that demoes were produced in just two weeks, mostly by developers who’d never touched Objective C before in their lives. Amazing.)

A desktop-class OS with desktop-class development tools leads to something no other smartphone maker has ever been able to deliver to consumers before: desktop class mobile Apps.

Even a cursory look at who’s announced development plans for the iPhone reveals an impressive list of real companies making real apps… maybe even Microsoft and RIM.

Combine all this with a serious attitude towards security, ensuring the platform doesn’t become unstable or an easy target for malware, along with an unprecedented delivery system in App Store — which will put every App in front of every iPhone user, including free Apps for free, and numbers 8, 7, and 6 might actually underestimate the iPhone’s ultimate appeal.

Basically, anyone who wants to run anything on the next great platform wants an iPhone.

4. Design

While software may sell systems, when electronics became mainstream consumers began to shop not only with their brains but with their senses and their tastes.

And if there’s one thing Apple has plenty of, it’s taste.

From the translucent berry-colored iMac and clamshell iBook that re-ignited Apple’s consumer push, to the iconic brushed-aluminum, rounded-rectangular slab that all but makes the computer disappear inside the ultra-thin current iMac, MacBook Air, and iPhone, Apple (or more specifically, the team led by perennial design award winner, Jonathan Ive) seems to hold the magic formula to modern, drool-inducing, industrial design.

Indeed, Apple has not only shaped this electronic generation, it’s shaped the design path of many of it’s copiers… er… competitors as well.

Let’s face it, for a long time garish gray or neon paint over chintzy plastic bodies that looked at though they were assembled from old lego parts with build quality straight out of the Soviet salvage committee were all consumers had to choose from. And, as the saying goes, while consumers don’t always notice good design, they sure do notice it’s absence. Apple knows this, just like they know for good design to be great, it has to be functional.

See, it’s not that Apple “just works”, it’s that Apple designs things, from first transistor to final trim, to “just work.”

Why else, at this very moment, would Jonathan Ive be jetting between NASA and Shenzhen finalizing some futuristic, light and yet durable stealth-like composite that will form the outer shell of the next most lusted-after consumer electronic device — the iPhone 3G?

So that when consumers see, touch, and use it, it’ll be just like the first iPhone — what they want.

3. Usability

I have a two-and-half-year old godson who, first time he picked up the iPhone, figured out how to navigate in and between photos, effortlessly type his ABCs and 123s on the soft keyboard, play with his numbers on the calculator, tap to show and hide video controls, use the camera, flick through the weather, and transition between them all with the solitary hard button on the device face. And not only that, he enjoyed it so much he wants to do it again and again (and again!) every time I see him. (If Apple would just add dial-by-photo, I swear he could call me on his own already).

Give him any other smartphone and you know what he could figure out? How to use it as a building block or a projectile (and with my luck, the latter). A quick search of YouTube will show he’s not the only infant interfacing with the iPhone either.

We’ve seen a lot of iClone skins and sku’s, attempts to duplicate the most superficial aspects of the iPhone, but what few competitors understand is that its not the gradients and transparencies, not the special effects and animation that make the iPhone’s software revolutionary — it’s the user experience.

Sure, I could lecture on about how animation hides transition, allows for error recovery, lends analog comfort, taps into intuitive understanding, and makes use of precious space in truly Tog-worthy fashion, but what’s the point?

Apple has made the smartphone so elegant and easy that a two-and-half year old not only can use, but really wants to. And they’ve done the same thing for adult consumers.

2. Brand

The little forbidden fruit with a bite out of it ranks up there with Superman’s S and the Golden McArches as one of the most recognized brands in the world.

Apple brought the first consumer computers to market with the Apple II, the first consumer GUI machines to market with the Mac, the first consumer MP3 (AAC if you want to get technical) players to market with the iPod, the first consumer music download service to market with iTunes. And in so doing, they’ve earned a reputation for cutting-edge, consumer-driven innovation.

Sure, Blackberries have their addicts, but the cult of apple is legendary and, as outlined before, far wider reaching than just the smartphone space. You can’t buy that kind of brand projection, trust, or loyalty (just ask Microsoft).

When Apple negotiates innovative features like Visual Voice-Mail, pressures carryings to lower data rates, gets Starbucks and AT&T to stop gouging and start giving away free WiFi at their hotspots, their brand is leveraged to benefit consumers.

When Apple Care or the Apple Store swaps out a 8GB iPhone with one dead pixel for a 16GB replacement, or instantly commands a managerial intervention for any unsatisfied email response, their brand is being protected to consumer advantage.

Other smartphone makers, who worry less about their lesser brands often abandon you the moment your credit card clears, or dump you to outsourced OEM ping-pong at the first sign of trouble. Is it any wonder the iPhone continually tops user satisfaction surveys?

1. Leadership

Apple is far from the sales leader in the smartphone space, yet they’ve instantly become the de facto market leader. When every other company is racing to copy Apple’s hardware and interface, and all competitive product releases are tripping over each other to proclaim themselves the iPhone (or Apple) Killer, they can’t be doing anything else but following.

Palm almost patented Zen with their original Treo, but then they got comfortable and stayed there, with the original Treo, long after the world — and technology — moved on. Blackberry made mobile email so addictive it’s likened to a drug (and for the record, please don’t drop and drive), but buried their head so far up their email they seemingly forgot about everything else. And Microsoft… well, if Zen has an opposite, it’s Windows Mobile, an OS whose power is matched only by its legacy handicaps and user impenetrability.

So now Palm is raiding Apple talent. RIM either wants to be the iPhone or just on it. And even die-hard Windows Mobile pundits have given up on Microsoft’s ability to deliver on even their most realistic of vaporwares.

That leaves Apple, alone atop innovation mountain. And luckily, that’s just where one Steven P. Jobs likes to meditate.

It’s impossible to discuss Apple’s leadership without discussing its leader. If any one factor encompasses Apple’s (and the iPhone’s) current success, it’s the CEO. Perfectly melding unsurpassed customer savvy with unequalled industry prescience, his singular focus and uncanny aesthetic have not only brought Apple back from the brink, but made it the greatest second act in tech history.

It’s largely due to Steve Jobs that no one else has, or can come close to the iPhone. Who else besides Jobs or Apple could sit on something like the iPhone for close to 3 years without so much as a peak or a peep. Who else could ditch the floppy one generation (iMac) and the optical disk the next (MacBook Air)?

Every great artist (like Johnny Ive’s design team) needs a patron and every benevolent dictatorship (like Apple Inc.) needs its guiding mind. As long as Apple has Steve Jobs, the competition can try to copy iPhone 1.0 all they want. Jobs is already putting the final, tiny touches on 2.0 and has his sites firmly set on 3.0 and 4.0. And that’s fine because Apple — as it proved when it killed the iPod Mini and replaced it with the Nano — is really the only one who can compete with Apple anyway.

Jobs has always said Apple makes the devices they themselves want to use. Well, they make the devices an ever increasing amount of consumers want to use as well.

Conclusion

So, there they are. The top ten reasons that every other smartphone maker on the planet keeps comparing themselves to the incomparable iPhone. Come WWDC in June, the official SDK release, and — dare we guess? — iPhone 3G debut, it’s only going to get worse (and harder!)

What do you think?

[Ed- Digg link...]

Down the Rabbit-Hole: From Treo to iPhone

Brian Hart — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:04:51 +0000

I can hardly remember my life before having a PDA. I held a Palm Pilot for the first time in 1996, a Pilot 1000 my father received at work. He was somewhat non-plussed; technology was not his gig and he deferred to me for most things with a power button. For me, the Palm Pilot was something revolutionary and Graffiti input was mind-blowing.

The addiction and PDA-dependence grew from there for me. I was “plugged in” and my vocabulary would now include words and acronyms like “stylus”, “PIM” and “SD Card”. As other platforms emerged, like Pocket PC and Symbian, I remained doggedly loyal to the Palm OS through it’s progression of versions. I watched Palm OS become Garnet and then “FrankenGarnet.” I even got used to seeing “Powered by Access” when I fired up my trusty Palm. I made the leap from PDA to a converged device with the Treo 650, then the 680. Throughout the years I endured the criticisms of Palm’s lack of multitasking, multithreading, no wifi (!?!) and antiquated PIM. I remained a Palm loyalist and apologist, looking toward the horizon for a Cobalt or Palm OS 2 that would never come.

More on my migration to the iPhone after the break!

I was feeling restless and the seed of malcontent began to first germinate and then sprout tiny roots. I dabbled with Windows Mobile and felt dissatisfied. I returned to familiar, safe territory with Palm. Though long in the tooth, it was an OS I was familiar with and I had a plethora of third-party software that met my needs. But the roots spread deeper and wider as my discontent grew, and I started looking for an answer that would replace my restlessness and discouragement with hope.

Hope finally came with the release of Apple’s iPhone. After much anticipation and fanfare, the iPhone became a reality for me on June 29, 2007. My local Apple Store was open late. I called and sheepishly inquired about iPhone availability, fully expecting laughter followed by an attempt to politely explain that all iPhones were long-gone. To my pleasant surprise, I was asked which flavor I wanted, 4GB or 8GB? Once I knew that Apple had planned well and had numerous iPhones in stock, I drove to the store and was greeted at the door. The store employee asked me which phone I wanted, and I did well to contain my excitement and managed to calmly tell him I wanted the 8GB iPhone. Moments later, he returned with my new iPhone in a gift bag. I handed over my credit card without hesitation and returned home with my prize, anxious to connect it to my MacBook Pro and embark on a new journey.

Once plugged in, my iPhone activation process began and I was presented with the “Are You a New or Existing AT&T (Cingular) Wireless Customer?” screen. I clicked the radio button indicating I was already an AT&T subscriber and was replacing my current phone (my Treo) with my shiny new iPhone. Moving my mouse arrow down, I could click on “Go Back” or “Continue”. I paused. These two choices suddenly appeared in my mind’s eye like a blue pill or red pill. “Go Back” was the blue pill. “Continue” was the red pill. The words of Morpheus came to me: “You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”

Was I not in Steve Job’s “Wonderland”? Was I not peering through the looking-glass, in this case, the glass of the iPhone’s brilliant and unparalleled multi-touch display? I mused upon this metaphor for a moment, then clicked the “Continue” button. I was taking the RED pill, dammit. I had already decided.

The Rabbit Hole

I know there are lots of different options out there for a smartphone or even semi-smartphone, but I’m keeping this strictly about the Palm OS Treo vs. iPhone and my experience making the switch. I took the red pill and I’ve not regretted it. I’ve never looked back and wished I’d taken the blue pill instead. I know there are others out there who have made the same decision, others who are thinking about it, and still others that prefer to with their Palm OS Treo (no offense, of course. It’s all about free will, baby!). My goal is to take you down the rabbit-hole with me and help you see why I’m liking the journey.

Having used the iPhone as my primary device since what I fondly refer to as “i-Day”, I can honestly say there is nothing like it. It’s elegant and functional design is what one would expect from Apple, but design is only part of what makes this phone special. Apple has thought of so many of the little touches, like sensors for light and proximity. My cheek has made countless inputs on my Treo when I was on a call, anywhere from scheduling a new calendar event without my knowledge or disconnecting my call entirely. I don’t have this problem with my iPhone because it’s smart (and who said it wasn’t a smartphone??) – it knows when I’m on a call and my cheeks are allowed mischief no longer!

What about the keyboard? Where is it? How could ANYONE like a virtual keyboard?? Well, to borrow shamelessly from another film franchise of mega-iconic proportions, using the iPhone software keyboard requires using “The Force” (I’ll come back to this momentarily). I really do like the Treo keyboard and had become quite proficient in using it. I have big hands and fat fingers, but I still managed to tap away at that Treo keyboard with minimal errors. The iPhone’s software keyboard is unlike anything else I’ve used for input — no tactile feel and it’s non-existent unless your iPhone decides you need it. The advantages of the iPhone’s keyboard are more screen real estate and far less physical force to type something. I had my doubts about this “soft” keyboard, but after just a few hours of use, I became a believer and adopter.

Remember “The Force” I was talking about? If you focus on the keyboard and at least attempt to type correctly, the iPhone is EXTREMELY good at figuring out what the heck you are trying to type and does a FANTASTIC job of correcting your mistakes. For me, Mr. Sausagefingers, I’ve had little trouble. If I use The Force and have faith in my iPhone, I can tap away at a high rate of speed and feel confident that my iPhone will get it right.

Web-browsing? No comparison, really. That’s the first thing I show someone who has never held an iPhone in their hands. Several of my acquaintances have inquired about my iPhone with mocking skepticism, only to begin salivating and babbling “my presssssscious!” (another shameless movie rip-off) as they scroll and “pinch” to their bug-eyed delight on the iPhone’s Safari web-browser. With a Treo (using Blazer, Opera Mini, etc.), I only used the internet when I had no other choice, and it was a chore of epic proportions. My iPhone? A different story, my friends. I use the web-browser on a regular basis and now take for granted how it renders full web pages. Man, am I spoiled.

Like millions of others, I have an iPod. I love how I can store all of my music, videos, podcasts, and photos on my iPod. With a Treo, you have the same features using various 3rd-party apps or even the out-of-the-box software that comes on the Treo. There is a big difference for me, though. I rarely used my Treo for multimedia because it felt too cumbersome. I’ve done my fair share of “tweaking” my Treo, but it was too much of a hassle to use one program for videos, another for music, yet another for photos, and still another for podcasts. I’m not that smart. Rather than use my Treo for multimedia, I carried around my iPod instead. The beauty and genius of the iPhone is it’s simplicity — I can carry around my aforementioned multimedia on my phone and conveniently sync it with iTunes. It’s virtually dummy-proof.

How about email? Email, at least for this comparison, is really part of a larger whole, that greater whole being 3rd-party native apps. They are coming for the iPhone as I write this. The Treo wins on the many different email solutions via 3rd-party apps, but for my needs, my iPhone’s email app is adequate. I have a .Mac account for email and it is regularly delivered to my iPhone via the Auto-Check feature. This isn’t as handy as true “push” email, but I don’t mind having the option to have my iPhone check my mail every 15, 30 or 60 minutes. If someone needs to reach me THAT urgently they can always call, right? I’ve also found a nifty way around the enterprise (or lack thereof) mail problem. I spoke to the IT guys where I work and now my work email is forwarded to my .mac account, so I’m not missing anything. I get all of my email on my iPhone and don’t need a Treo to do it.

The iPhone has many onboard features that can be matched or exceeded by a Palm OS 3rd-party app, like stock reporting software, weather, clock, calculator programs ad infinitum, notes, etc. Many of these inequalities that are missed from my Treo days will hopefully be resolved when the SDK is available and developers start cranking out software for the iPhone. Even so, the apps that are standard on the iPhone are well-designed and simply beautiful to look at. They are also very functional and easy to use. Until a parity is reached with 3rd-party apps, I can live with using the myriad of web apps that are available to take care of one or two things that I used to use my Treo for, like a checkbook program (one of my only major gripes). Also, some of the iPhone onboard apps are simply superior when you combine functionality with the expansive screen real estate, like Google Maps. YouTube is also worth it’s weight… er… memory space in gold when it comes to entertainment value.

Both the Treo and iPhone have cameras. And yes, both of their cameras are, shall we say, closer to the Fisher-Price end of the spectrum than a Nikon, for instance. Neither platform can brag about the camera, but again, for me, it’s about ease-of-use and functionality. With the iPhone, I can take a picture and save it, make it the phone wallpaper, delete it, email it, or upload it to my website to share to the world with one press of the virtual button. Treo has an advantage with the ability to take video, and I’m hoping video will be a future iPhone feature. Also, iPhone is embarrassingly lacking the MMS feature with its messaging so I can’t send a picture via text/multimedia message, but hopefully this will also be addressed in future updates.

Personal Information Management

The Treo, and Palm OS in general, has a very simple PIM (Personal Information Management) that is what first attracted me to Palm so many years ago. I will be the first to admit that the Treo’s PIM is superior to the iPhone’s PIM in that it is easier to access and more straight-forward. A To-Do list is standard (iPhone, at the time of this writing, requires a web app for any kind of “to do’s”, sadly). The basic Contacts/Address book for Palm is first-rate, but the iPhone’s is very similar by comparison. As for Memos, the Treo allows categorization, which is nice. The iPhone’s “Notes” program leaves a lot to be desired, from the Market Felt font to the lack of organizing notes in any kind of logical way.

My biggest gripe is the Calendar. With a Treo, a calendar entry is as simple as opening up the calendar app, tapping on the time you want, and entering the text for an appointment. It’s as simple as you care to make it and everything is saved. With the iPhone, you tap on the Calendar, hit the “+” button, then have to enter the appointment details, scroll through the “start” and “end” times, and make sure you SAVE it or it’s lost. I’ve messed up that last step one or twenty times and it can get irritating.

Even with some of the drawbacks, though, I can accept some of the idiosyncrasies of the iPhone’s PIM when considering the entire package of what I’m getting with this baby. Although I prefer the Treo’s PIM features, it’s not enough to even make the blue pill look tempting.

How much deeper will the Rabbit Hole go?

I could go on about the pros and cons, like user-replaceable battery vs. non-user-replaceable, expandable memory, 3rd-party apps, stylus vs. finger (can’t say I’m missing the stylus), and maybe my biggest pet peeve of all: CUT AND FRICKIN PASTE, please. I’m not going to tell you, my good reader, that you should be baptized an iPhone convert, but I will say that I was not happy with Palm’s lackluster roadmap and was elated to finally have an option to take a blue or red pill.

The rabbit-hole is not uniquely mine. If you look closely, you should find a rabbit-hole in your own back yard (think AT&T or Apple Store) and perhaps, if you are still reading, you’ll feel the same compulsion I did and decide to see how deep the rabbit-hole goes for yourself. On the eve of the highly-anticipated SDK release with the promise of 3rd-party apps and future product upgrades, I believe the rabbit-hole will go deep indeed. I traveled a similar rabbit-hole long ago with a similar excitement, but Palm’s rabbit-hole, at least for me, resulted in a disappointing dead-end. With Apple’s iPhone, I am happy to have found a new rabbit-hole and I believe that THIS one does, in fact, lead to Wonderland.

iPhone First Looks at TreoCentral

Mike Overbo — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 14:01:01 +0000

I just wanted to highlight Jennifer Chappell’s excellent article at TreoCentral. Jennifer is the editor at TreoCentral, and usually uses a Treo 680, much like I once did. She’s been taking the iPhone through its paces, and her excellent first look article is now up.

This review is more relevant than most out there, as iPhone owners were 10 times more likely to have used a Treo prior to the iPhone. I got bitten by the iPhone bug, and bitten hard. Using a Treo in the next week or so is going to be interesting.