Mobile Ambition

Nothing New in Mobile?

2008-11-17T09:22:00.000-08:00

The G1 came out. Hooray! The iPhone is the best selling phone in the US. Hooray! And, the Blackberry Storm is on its way! Hooray!

So, why do I feel like there is just nothing new in mobile? We have the rise of exciting new hardware and software environments. We are seeing the lowest common denominator in mobile capability rise exponentially. The average feature phone today is really pretty powerful. So, with all of this capability and computational power, why aren't we seeing a radical shift in our daily lives? Why, for instance, am I writing this blog on my laptop instead of my iPhone? Come to think of it, why do I even have a laptop?

The issue, more than anything, comes down to three essential items:

Ergonomics: My eyes are 41, and my iPhone screen just isn't big enough to show me all that I need to see in a document or spreadsheet. The zoom is great, but it isn't sufficient for serious working. The keyboard is the same. My typing speed on a PC is pretty poor, but on a smartphone, it is really insufficient.
Network Speed: My EDGE-based iPhone just isn't fast enough for real browsing. (It isn't fast enough on WiFi either. My Blackberry (I have an old one...) and feature phones (an LG and a RAZR) are horribly slow.
Storage: I prefer to keep things in the cloud. It just makes sense to me to have someone else worry about the hardware upkeep. On my laptop, there is ample speed to keep all of my docs in Google Docs, all of my e-mail & calendar in GMail, my Photos on Mobile Me and Flickr and my ToDos at Remember the Milk. But in a situation where access to the cloud is too slow (see #2) it means that I need to keep stuff local. My iPhone at 16G is good, but when we get to 64 or 128 it will be a lot better. The BB and phones? Forget it. There isn't enough room to keep a decent photo, never mind mail, calendar, photos, music, etc.

So those are the reasons why I feel kind of stuck and fundamentally unexcited about new hardware that is iterative and incremental. For mobile to really, truly become the informational, social, and entertainment platform it can be, we need a breakthrough in shape, speed and size. I think that a jump in speed would be great, so maybe WiMax or LTE is the breakthrough that will change it all?

But today, I am feeling like my phones (all 6 of them) aren't an adequate solution to my desire (need?) to be mobile, productive and informed.

I need passion and excitement, I need to hear about all of the exciting things you see in mobile today that get you jazzed. Maybe I am just missing it?

Microsoft to Buy RIM???

2008-10-10T10:15:00.000-07:00

OK, gang, let's not panic. Microsoft may be thinking about buying RIM if the stock slide continues. This is potentially a market changing move. (And, it may trigger some kind of anti-competitive issues, but we will let the lawyers decide that). In 2Q 2008, RIM surpassed WinMo in market share, and they doubled their market share over the previous year. With the Bold and Storm making waves, I think that the RIM market share is set to add another 50% growth in the coming year. So, what does this potential acquisition mean for Microsoft? First, it would give them a growth juggernaut, something that WinMo hasn't been in the past 12-24 months. Interestingly, the software strategies of the companies have been on a collision course. MS has been honing the mobile capabilities of Exchange to compete with Blackberry. Owning the Blackberry technology would truly put MS in the mobile e-mail drivers seat. RIM's recent push into mobile multimedia with their 88XX and beyond series, have really been making a RIM device a consumer hardware choice, too, not just an enterprise play. Microsoft, too, is pushing ahead as much as possible into the consumer space, with Zune, and other efforts. These guys are rushing for the same space. So, the strategy makes sense for MS (perhaps significantly less so for RIM, but cash is king these days). The piece of this that doesn't fit, to me, is the hardware component. RIM designed handsets and the Blackberry OS are intertwined. Microsoft isn't a handset manufacturer. In fact, becoming a handset manufacturer puts them in direct competition with their Windows Mobile licensees. The natural turn of events would be to turn the Blackberry OS into a licensable hunk of software. This seems like an unwieldy and treacherous undertaking that is likely to result in an OS that needs to make compromises in order to be successful. If the handset design falls to outsiders, I can almost guarantee that the cool, immediate, graceful integration that makes a Blackberry a Blackberry will be severely diminished. On the positive side for RIM, suddenly they would have even deeper access to Exchange which can only make their enterprise offering better. Further, I think that some of the issues that RIM has had with Blackberry service failing might be alleviated by a company that has the depth of experience in running large scale operations that Microsoft has. That could be a service boon for RIM lovers. What is your take? I, for one, hope that this never happens. RIM is an innovative company that might get lost inside of MS.

Wait, What's That? Another App Store?!?

2008-10-07T13:04:00.000-07:00

Hello Sportsfans! While the world celebrates the ascension of the Red Sox to the next round of the MLB Playoffs to face the vaunted Tampa Bay Rays, there is more mobile news worth talking about. RIM is launching an App Store for BlackBerry! That is hot on the heels of the startling news that T-Mo/Google are launching an App Store for Android! And that follows the launch of the App Store for iPhone!

So, is this anything REALLY new? I don't think so.As far as I remember, Handango has had an App Store for years. I remember how cool it was in 2004/5 when I could download a client onto my Palm Treo 600 and buy an app over the air! That was simply incredible! So futuristic, so advanced, so amazing!

What I am wondering is why it wasn't exciting to everyone then. Do any of the app stores break any new ground that Handango or even Zingy! (oops, I mean Vindigo) didn't back in the day? I'm not so sure? And, sports fans, are these app stores any better than the carrier deck? To tell you the truth, they really aren't. The interfaces are definitely better. The buying process is much smoother, but the concepts are exactly the same. Someone aggregates all the appropriate applications for your device and makes them available for sale.

What is different today is who owns the App Store. Years ago, the carrier was the gatekeeper of what could or could not be sold (and for feature phones, they still are). Then, for smartphones, Handango was the master. And today, the master is the phone manufacturer, Apple, RIM and for all intents and purposes, Google. Is this a dramatic shift? Well maybe.

In the dark days of carrier control, carriers were king makers, allowing only those applications that they blessed to be sold. There were strict guidelines regarding performance, audience size and potential revenue for that title to the carrier. Handango stretched that a bit, giving fairly good terms to the developers. But they still controlled the merchandising and had a "pay to play" mentality. Today's App Stores are run by more benevolent dictators, embracing some flavor of openness. And they view the app stores as opportunities to create better experiences on their devices. I suspect that few of the App Store owners will make significant money on their stores, regardless of how many apps they sell. And, mostly, that is because they are in the business of selling phones, not third party software.

In the future, the App Store model will start to die, just as the carrier deck has started to fade. More developers will become publishers, and more software will be made that is attractive, essential and compelling, and these developers won't have to share with the App Store.They will drive the sales themselves.

The App Store is a vibrant new(?) development that is a flash in the pan. And developers, get ready. Soon enough you are going to have to learn how to market your wares yourself. Hey, I think I just found a growth industry. Imagine that on a day Ben Bernanke says the we are in a world of hurt.

Verizon Tries No Contract Engagements

2008-09-25T07:16:00.001-07:00

In an interesting twist from Verizon, a company that has traditionally focused on being closed and in control, they have introduced no contract service plans. The general gist of this is that you pay full price for your hardware and there is no contract obligation. This is very European of them!

This is the plan that ATT and Apple should have engaged in for the original iPhone, which was purchased without carrier subsidy. But like all non-jailbroken Gen 1 iPhones, I am tied to a 2 year ATT contract.

Sure, folks like Sprint and T-Mo have had some kind of no-contract plan in place for a while, but the tend to be special plans, or have a higher monthly price that contracted plans. Verizon has taken a huge step forward in creating a fairly frictionless marketplace. (In a true frictionless marketplace, consumers could use any phone on any network and change carriers atany time without penalty.) Verizon has really mitigated its risk here because the only place one can go with a Verizon CDMA phone is to Sprint, and frankly, I haven't heard anyone clamoring to sign up with Sprint in ages. So Verizon is pretty safe.

This option does completely open the flood gates for Verizon's Any Phone program that they announced earlier in the year. For a certain group of customers who wish to have a special device, once the handset is approved for use on the Verizon network, you could buy a phone directly from a retailer or manufacturer and jump on Verizon with no contractual risk.

That is pretty sweet!

The (Un) Importance of the Android Google G1

2008-09-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

I think that the new Android-powered G1 is awesome. It is open. It has a ton of features, and it is built from the ground up to be futzed with. It is meant to be tinkered with, expanded upon, grown, shaped, morphed and transmorgrified into a powerful platform.

Who cares? Android doesn't matter. Neither does the iPhone. WinMo? Forget about it? Linux? Puh-leese.

Why don't these things matter? Well, hyping an OS or a device is like saying that your Dell laptop is better than my Sony, or that my iMac is better than your Gateway. The only things that matter are the browsers. Hardware and the OS don't really matter. The only thing that matters is how well your mobile data device can access the cloud. Opera, Webkit, Mobile Safari, Chrome Lite, and hopefully soon Firefox Mobile, these are the only things that matter.

On my PC, the only application I use is the browser. (On my PC, I like Chrome, and on my Mac I use Firefox.) On my phone (which is an iPhone) the only application I use regularly is the browser (and the Mail app, but it just pulls down GMail). All of the other apps on my phone are just interesting ways to pull down data from the cloud. Google Maps on the iPhone is just a single purpose browser for maps.google.com. My @Bat from MLB is just a single purpose browser that delivers the MLB WAP site. Facebook, Twitter, etc. they are all just tweaked browsers.

Larry Ellison and his failed NIC plan wasn't wrong, he was just early. With the rise of Netbooks and smartphones, it is all about the cloud. Locally stored data and local computing power are modestly anachronistic. In the mobile world, as long as a phone can make and receive calls, almost all other data functions are completely reliant on the connection to the cloud. Stick Opera on any phone an it immediately gets better. It gets you more access to the world. Build the data features of the phone around a great browser and your OS doesn't matter.

And that, my friends, is the (Un)Importance of the Android Google G1. (But Webkit and Chrome Lite, and Mobile Safari, and Opera, and mobile Mozilla are the most important developments in mobile history since the voice channel).

Mobile Video Rant #2

2008-08-26T14:16:00.000-07:00

OK, this isn't a huge, well thought out treatise where I clearly state my objectives, supply pure reason and rationale, but rather just a big complaint. Like the web world before it, mobile is full of fairly random "standards" that are incompatible. And, in the last few years, web video has settled on largely a de facto standard, Flash. Sure, there is plenty of QuickTime and Windows Media stuff out there, some Silverlight and a smattering of Divx and a couple of others. For the most part, however, most web browsers and PCs have all of the stuff that you need to play video that you run into...not 100% true, but for the vast majority, their computer recognizes the file type and picks the right player and the video just happens.

In the world of mobile, that almost never happens. Yes, there are some companies that do HTTP streaming of video that can play in a Java app. There are others that use RTSP, and leverage the best quality that they can. But, there needs to be some level of transcoding that happens to the videos before they are playable on the mobile device. And without a mobile version of Flash, or Silverlight, or some relatively hardware independent way of displaying mobile video that is widely accepted, mobile video will not flourish the way that it ought. And this fact frustrates me.

In mobile video, we have the typical issues of mobile life. You have content owners, distributors, developers, and carriers typically competing for a slice of the revenue stream. And, as we've mentioned before, discrete subscription for mobile video isn't likely to get to the tens or hundreds of millions in the United States. Indiscrete subscriptions, like Sprint's Everything plan are likely a better route to massive adoption. But web video (outside of, ehem, "adult" content where the subscription model is still abundant) did not take off until there was a site that did all of the transcoding, and presentation layer stuff for you: YouTube.

There is no mobile version of You Tube. There are smatterings of content that are suitable (VCast, for instance, has good, deep content, but it is subscription-based). And there will be ad-supported video on demand solutions coming soon. But there is still no mobile video tipping point. Could mobile Hulu be the solution? Could a better mobile You Tube do it? Will it be a mobile only solution that suprises us all? I am not sure.

Here is what I do know:

From a technical standpoint, mobile video software just ain't that hard
Hardware that acceptably supports mobile video is abundant
No one has the vision (or muscle) to make video central to the mobile experience
No one will make significant money through mobile video until #3 is achieved

The major reason mobile video isn't central to the experience is insufficient bandwidth. The carriers do't have big enough pipes to let everyone engage in broadband quality media engagement at the same time. There are solutions (3G, EVDO-A,WiFi, WiMax, LTE) but they haven't hit total affordable ubiquity the same way wired broadband has. So, I guess the ranting can stop until somebody spends another $3 billion in infrastructure to get everywhere wireless broadband...or, I suppose, two smart people in a garage can figure out how to tip this whole thing...I'm hoping for the garage solution.

Why doesn't anybody make money in mobile video...and how to make it better

2008-08-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

Listen, gang, mobile video is a completely terrific experience, when done well. Good examples are You Tube (their iPhone and Java examples are really good), the MLB At Bat application for iPhone, and to a lesser extent, all of the carrier versions of video are generally, maybe even universally, OK.

So, why are there so many second and third tier mobile content providers teetering on the edge of obscurity? Why can't I see Law and Order or The Simpsons on my mobile device? Why can't I get mobile Hulu?

The answer is simple: MONEY.

The economics of video are completely unfriendly to wide scale, cost-effective distribution. With revenue pressures from all of the producers and unions, and in mobile, revenue pressure from carriers, each piece of mobile video has tremendous pressure on it to monetize itself very well in order to support the proud parents that gave it birth. If you are a network, and have a significant nut to pay with every distribution, you are sure to be careful to only share your precious content with those who can pay dearly. And, that, my friends is the issue.

In the offline world, over cable and broadcast networks, there is the opportunity to monetize your content through subscription (very small base with premium content), through utility bundling (Lifetime, Oxygen and myriad other channels wouldn't exist except for the magic of the "Digital" tier of cable subscriptions) or through advertising, or some combination of the three. In the mobile world, the initial idea is to monetize the video through subscription. This isn't a bad idea, until the end consumer realizes that they typically get the content for free at home. Then that $9.99 charge for Sprint TV, or Media Flo, really starts to stick in one's craw. (As a point of interest, I do understand that the vast majority of Americans use some kind of subscription based (cable or satellite) television service, and thereby are paying a fee for the content. BUT, the ubiquity of cable/satellite is so great that it has become a utility (like gas or electric service) and it provides a better end-user experience than the free (over the air broadcast) alternative.) So, mobile video has backed itself into a corner. It is generally seeking a premium subscription (although mobile plans like Sprint's Everything Plan are making a bid to utility-ize mobile video) for content that is either received for free or perceived to be received as free. And to top it all off, the user experience is dramatically worse than cable/satellite or OTA broadcast.

So, what is one to do with the promise of mobile video? After all, it makes PERFECT sense. We are a nation of television junkies, You Tube addicts, and we lust after passive entertainment. So, why isn't a little video on the handset a complete slam dunk? Well, essentially because the screen size is so small that engaging with video on a handset requires active concentration. It is no longer a passive or engrossing experience. But to top it off, it is really expensive for the consumer. So it has all sorts of pressures against it...but it simply won't die.

So, sports fans, how do we make it better? Here are my 5 ideas:

Kill the subscription fees: These are an unneeded obstacle. Sub fees deter adoption unless those sub fees give the end user a better experience. The wireless carriers and content owners need to hook up with the cable/satellite providers and bundle the mobile video fee into their current subscriptions. Comcast, Time Warner, ATT...all you guys, get together, figure out a rev share (share ad inventory across all three screens) and make your content ubiquitous.
Make the service better: These are technical issues that are difficult to solve, and will require big 3G/4G investments, but make the delivery of mobile video easier. There are a few handsets and a few technologies that really do this well, but on your typical feature phone, mobile video is a slow, pixelated mess. Fix the service. You've made billions of dollars in investments to make a voice network that isn't awful, perhaps we could get an infrastructure worthy of carrying the video content you want to sell me a subscription for.
Standardize the ad format: Listen, this works for TV. Make all the ads 0:15 or 0:30 seconds. Run them at the same points in the shows. If broadcast, we already know the schedule. If unicast or VOD, make them at the beginning, middle and end. This is a familiar enough pattern. Stop trying to be inventive, and simply give me ads that I can actively ignore but subconsciously react to...just like on TV.
Make the content worthwhile: If you can't give me The Tudors or at least Scrubs then don't bother. If no one will watch it regularly on television or online, the chances are slim that someone will want to watch it on a handset. Let's face it, we are addicted to video, but we aren't completely without standards.
Keep track of my service: Let me bookmark where I stop on my handset, and let me pick it up again on my PC, or come back to it later, or make that show available via VOD on my TV. Listen up mobile carriers, since your network isn't perfect, cut a deal to let me have my content via my PC, too, so that I can start watching a great mobisode, or highlight clip or something and when my signal drops (as it invariably will) I can recover my entertainment investment through a more perfected network device (my PC or TV).

That's it. Make it free, better and ubiquitous (or at least hide the price somewhere else so it feels free) and mobile video will really start to make us all money.

End of rant.

2 Months With an iPhone...

2008-05-22T07:56:00.000-07:00

It was the beginning of April when I got my iPhone. This isn't my first smartphone. I have had 1 Windows mobile phone, 2 Blackberries, 3 Treos...so I know my way around the space pretty well. Even on my feature phones, I have done things like contact management, e-mail, etc. Suffice it to say, I try to get my phones to do the most that they can.

So, onto my iPhone experience. I assume that anyone in the audience is pretty familiar with the iPhone capabilities, so this won't be a blow by blow description of features. And, next month, with a software refresh, any compliments or criticisms I might levy could be moot, so I won't bore you with all of that. All of that being said, the iPhone is the best information device I have ever had. As a phone, it is as good or better than many other devices, but the phone part of the iPhone isn't the killer app.

The killer app for the iPhone: THE BROWSER.

You've seen posts by me extolling the virtues of Opera Mini (which is pretty terrific) but the mobile Safari browser is the best piece of mobile software I have every used. Even over the EDGE network, getting to REAL web pages is easy. Over WiFi, practically delicious.

I live in a multi-computer house. There is almost always a laptop within 30 feet. When I get home from the office now, my laptop stays in my bag. Mobile Safari over WiFi is so easy and fast that I don't need my laptop as much. In fact, my home usage of my laptop has declined by at least 50%. There is almost nothing that I do (in my spare time) on my computer that I can't do on my iPhone. Web browsing, You Tube (my kids LOVE watching You Tube cartoons on my iPhone...especially old Bugs Bunny!), e-mail...all well implemented, easy to use, and intuitive.

Speaking of intuitive, my 4 year old daughter grabbed my iPhone on the first day I had it. She immediately figured out the slider lock, saw the phone icon and was able to call my wife without me explaining to her how to do it. Intuitive enough that the interface is satisfying to me, and easy enough for a child to navigate. That is incredible.

So, while all my other smartphones had nice features (e-mail and keyboard on Blackberry are better), the iPhone is in a different league. The iPhone has a different mobile ambition than the average smartphone. For example, t he iPod features are also excellent (but they should enable video download over WiFi), the camera is good, but the photo display is excellent! My iPhone is where I keep my important music, video and photos, along side my important e-mails, contacts, and calendar.Smartphones are tools to get things done. My iPhone is my companion that helps me live my life. Nice job, Apple.

iPhone in My Hands

2008-05-13T09:05:00.001-07:00

The day before I was headed to CTIA, an amazing thing happened. I dropped my Blackberry into the toilet. ( Embarrassing!) I did not have a backup handset, and Sprint was less than helpful in helping me get a replacement sent to my hotel, so I decided to bail on Sprint. Sorry guys! (I was one of those million + defectors last quarter.) So, during a stopover in Philadelphia, I hopped in a cab, went to an ATT store and got a 16 Gig iPhone. (And, I feel compelled to point out that shopping in an ATT store is pretty rotten. The clerk wouldn't let me leave without getting a credit approval (and since I was in Philadelphia it had some kind of location code attached to it) and when I went to activate through iTunes, it wouldn't let me port in my Boston number. WTF? So, after 2 hours on a payphone at the Philadelphia airport, and getting nowhere with ATT, I just tried activate it like I had purchased it at the Apple store. I didn't use the credit approval code and ported in my number like a charm! Now, after a little investigation, it seems like my erstwhile ATT store rep was trying to earn a little commission on my activation by demanding that I get a credit approval. I hate that stuff. He wasted my time, and I am glad that he got not credit for my activation. Long story short, if you want an iPhone, go to the Apple store.

2 months with an iPhone in my next post.

2 Months...and No Posts Ugggh

2008-05-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

So, I am back blogging. Thanks for your patience. Laziness got the best of me.

Mo-Mo Mobile Music

2008-03-06T09:21:00.000-08:00

The music industry is collapsing under its own weight. The days of physical distribution are dwindling, and digital has yet to replace that revenue. Well, digital does not need to replace physical distribution (i.e., shipments of CDs to stores), but rather the physical distribution eco-system needs to rapidly compress to keep costs in line with revenue and profits from that channel. But anyhow, the music industry is in trouble. And MOBILE is a place where the opportunity seems to be enormous.

So, there are tons of mobile music options, like Pandora, IPhone/iTunes, Napster, XM and any other of a thousand options. The interesting thing that has yet to happen is the emergence of a free music product. There is no free mobile radio. (NPR has done an interesting thing, making some of their local broadcasts available via the voice channel, but that isn't spot on to this discussion). Most services are either subscription based, or per song based.

Now, I love music. And I think that music is a key element in discovering one's essential humanity. BUT, there is no way that I am going to pay for something that I can get free on the radio. Well, there are a few more options to most paid services, like custom playlists, samples, artist discovery, information value added services, etc. But fundamentally, am I going to want to pay $3.99, $4.99 or, heaven forbid $9.99 per month to access these services through my mobile device on top of my data plan? I don't think so.

Here is where I would love to see the industry head:

Music Industry: Figure out a way to make streaming your music so cheap that there will be 10,000 mobile radio channels playing all the time. This is a sticky wicket, I understand that. You have the costs of developing and producing the music that we want to hear, and that takes oodles of cash. But face it, the physical world is over for music. Grow your revenues by providing even more services to artists, like show promotion, merchandising, rights sales, etc. Either add value to the artists and become a marketing hub that drives profits for you and the artists or get out of the way. I, frankly don't have the answers, but I am continually impressed with the creativity and intelligence, passion and drive of all I know in the music industry. The answer is there, somewhere, but restricting access to your content by charging users $6.99 a month (and then asking them to pay again to have access to the music on other devices) is not the right approach.
Mobile Carriers: Face it, people already pay for voice and data. Cut them some slack and load up the basic service tier with lots of compelling content. The cable guys have been brilliant at this. (The only reason you pay $32.99 for basic cable is that it offers you a ton of value in increased content and reception improvements) So, give me 25 FREE radio stations with my data plan, and you will get significantly higher data plan uptakes, especially in the under 25 crowd...and they have the highest lifetime value of any customer...

Mobile music is a HUGE opportunity, and I believe that mobile will be the dominant growth area for music over the next decade. It just needs to be free.

Unlimited Voice Plans Ahoy!

2008-02-19T12:33:00.000-08:00

In the latest bit of "Oh yeah, me too" marketing, it seems like the top 3 mobile carriers and an MVNO all have (or will have soon) flat fee plans that have unlimited voice, messaging , and data. As a nice geture of inclusivity for smartphones, apparently the ATT plan includes iPhone users. (No word on the Blackberry crowd, yet)

Cool stuff. Soon enough, tethering or card access will join. Hooray!

ATT Plans (unlimited will be up on 2/22, I think)
Verizon Plans
Sprint Plans
Helio Plans
and T-Mo is in the game, too!

As a side note, Sprint plans seem to be limited to certain markets.

This is good stuff. Look for these prices to compress even further in 2009.

Verizon to Join In on Unlimited Plans on 12/19/08?

2008-02-18T08:16:00.000-08:00

I've heard this from a number of folks, but Engadet Mobile is where I read it first. It seems like Verizon will be offering unlimited voice and data plans as soon as tomorrow. This is a good deal, but at the top end of the plans, the price seems a little steep. No mention of if this includes tethering or BB data. Stay tuned.

$100 - Nationwide Unlimited (voice)
$120 - Nationwide Select Unlimited (voice, SMS, MMS)
$140 - Nationwide Premium (voice, SMS, MMS, VZNav, VCAST, email)
$150 - Nationwide Email and Messaging (voice, SMS, MMS, and data)
$170 - Nationwide Global Email and Messaging (voice, SMS, MMS, and international data)
$200 - Family plan with two lines, $100 per additional line.

BlackBerry 8830 Review: 6 Months Later, Would I Buy It Again?

2008-02-11T08:56:00.000-08:00

While this won't be an exhaustive review, you either love or hate Blackberries. This 8830 was an upgrade to my 7200 series. The 7200 had a GREAT keyboard, the thumb friendly scroll wheel, and INCREDIBLE battery life and all sorts of other fancy, schmancy stuff. It did, however, have a very poor screen that was hard to see. So, I upgraded to the 8830. Here is what I was attracted to:

Great Looking Screen

TrackBall

Narrower Form Factor

6 months into owning the 8830, I have more complaints than I thought I would have. Here goes a section by section look at the device:

Phone: As a phone, the 8830 is good. The integration with the addressbook is very good. I like having all of my phone numbers in one place. Is it better than my old Treo? I am not sure. It is certainly a big step up, as a phone, from the 7200 series. The inclusion of a speakerphone is good (although the volume could be a little louder), and the connectivity options (bluetooth) are better than in the 7200 series, but the phone call quality seems improved (and this is surprising since my old BB was on Verizon, and my new one one Sprint and I think Verizon's voice network is significantly better). So I attribute the better defintion and ability to talk longer without significant ear fatigue to be a product of the phone. I think that the BB 8830 gets a B+ on phone call quality, and an A on addressbook integrations. It gets a C on playing well with Bluetooth headsets, however. I have a Moto H700 and a Jawbone, and neither has reliable connections with my BB. The handset form-factor is much improved over the 7200 series. Overall Phone Grade: B

E-Mail: E-Mail on the Blackberry is fine...mostly. For various and sundry reasons that have more to do with Sprint and with my company's exchange server, I can't connect directly to my corporate e-mail account, so I have messages sent to my Blackberry e-mail address as well as my corporate address, so I don't have comfortable synching. So that is a problem, but I don't attribute it to the BB. My other issue is that I have about 5 or 6 active e-mail addresses, and although the BB handles up to 10, the setting up of all these accounts is very slow and painful, and forget working out signatures for each. It is hard. To complicate matters, I manage all of these e-mail addresses through GMail. GMail and BB have a complicated relationship, mostly because both want to leverage their strengths. BB wants to leverage its real-time, proprietary messaging infrastructure, and GMail wants to provide a similar mobile and web management experience. They aren't terrific together, and if I were to start this again, I would stake advantage of the BB device strengths and not have all my e-mail coming through GMail, or I would pick a different device. I need to do a little more exploration on making these things work together. But here is my major complaint with the BB: it doesn't handle HTML e-mail. I would say that 40-50% of e-mail that I get that I want to read is in the form of newletters, or web-group e-mails, or what have you, and these are almost unreadable on the BB. I hate this. I have a very powerful handheld device that can render complex images, handle web pages, and can't do an HTML e-mail? Ridiculous. Really, really, really ridiculous. I know that there is a BB software update in the works but this is an afterthought, and I am really disappointed in the existing experience. On the flip side, I have been using the GMail app on the BB and find that it is very good. It doesn't render HTML e-mails faithfully either, but it strips out the text and presents it in a readable fashion. I find myself using the GMail App more and more and wish that I could just replace the BB e-mail with GMail completely. So, kudos to BB for having great real time e-mail deliver. Boo for your handling of HTML. I may be being a little harsh here, but I feel like the e-mail could use a fair bit of improvement. I use my BB for 40% of my e-mail, so it needs to be ROCK SOLID, and I don't get the feeling that it is. Overall E-Mail Grade: B-

Web Browsing: The browser that ships with the BB8830 is garbage. It is REALLY rotten. It isn't really any better than a WAP browser. Boo! Hiss! Get the torches! Really, I am very disapponted with the long term performance of this piece of software. It is slow, it renders pages very awkwardly. For example, many pages that are tabbed result in a long list of non-clickable images of the tabs. Very frustrating. Also, the speed is very slow. I know that it trying hard to make things work, but the speed, even on Sprint's EV-DO network (which provides reasonable speeds) is so slow as to be useless. Long story made short, I have switched exclusively to Opera Mini (see my earlier post on Opera Mini on

Mobile Ambition). The downside to that is there is no way t configure Opera Mini as your default browser, so if I click on an e-mail link, I end up in the disappointing BB standard browser. Uggh. Using the trackball with browsing is pretty good, especially on Opera Mini. Overall Browser Grade: D

Keyboard: The keyboard on the 8830 is pretty good. The keys are easy to get to by feel and have a satifying "click" response when you touch them. I consistently get confused/fat-fingered by the SHIFT and ALT keys. That is a little frustrating and I feel like it is an ergonomic/layout problem, but it could be that I am just not able to map my brain to this keyborad. Your mileage may vary. Strangely, I feel like this keyboard is more likely to be inadvertantly dialed by keys in your pocket, or by a curious toddler (I have a 3 kids, 5, 4, and 2 and Daddy's phone is a desired object). I know that I can lock the keyboard, but I never had to do that on my last BB, so it is a little frustrating that this keyboard like to dial when I am not watching, but other than that it is very good. This would have gotten an A if it weren't for the SHIFT/ALT thing. Overall Keyboard Grade: A-

Apps, Etc: There are a ton of apps for the BB. A lot of them are terrible, but, conversely, a lot of them are wonderful. I really like Sprint Navigator, Yahoo Go! 3.0, Opera Mini and the Google Apps. I don't use many others, so my experience is a little limited. Overall Apps Grade: A

PC Synching: When I was using Outlook, the synching features were stellar. I never had a problem. That gets an A. But, when I switched to using GMail, Google Calendar, and managing my contacts through Plaxo and Google, I haven't synched with my PC...which is fine. The only drawback is phone numbers. As I add new contacts into Google, they don't get into my Blackberry address book...which is just a killer. So my BB address book is 5 months out of date. Can anybody help? Overall PC Synching Grade: Depending on your circumstances it is either an A+ or an F

Media Support: One of the big advances of the 8000 series of BB was supposed to be media support, and I have listened to a little music on my BB, and watched the video that came with the phone. So, when push comes to shove, since there is no iTunes, Pandora, Rhapsody client, and there is no support for streaming audio or video (as I understand it, the BB can only play media that is resident on the device, so there is no streaming available, which is the way that most mobile media is delivered) so most regular mobile media services don't work. And, the closed nature of iTunes means that I can't make my BB play well with my music collection. (That is a major downside to working with iTunes, but I find that the iTunes inerface and iPod synch to be so compelling that I accept is limitations, albeit begrudgingly.) So, if I were a real tech guy who wished to play with files all day and whatever, I might be happier with the BB, but as my teachers always used to say, the BB has a lot of unrealized potential. Overall Media Grade: C+

Would I Buy The BlackBerry 8830 Again? I think that I can comfortably say no. And much of it has to do with the browser, the lack of web-based synching and media support. (There is also the issue of a $39.99 data plan on top of a huge voice plan that frustrates me, but I won't attribute that to the BB) The BB wants you to check in with your PC everyday. And, frankly, I want all my data accessible all the time so that if I don't want to synch, or don't have the opportunity to synch, I am still up to date. I know that there isn't a perfect solution, but the BB seems to be more geared to big corporations and places that are forever tied to their PC. I want my mobile to share data with my PC (wirelessly) and have enough oomph of its own to be my PC Lite when I want it to be. The BB isn't there yet. My Treo, weirdly enough, felt closer to this. Maybe the iPhone is the answer? Who knows. Let me know what you think.

Blackberry 8830 Overall Grade: B. Would I Buy It Again? No.

Mac Book Air Giveaway...Through Feb 10!

2008-02-06T13:16:00.001-08:00

The guys over at Boy Genius report are giving away a MacBook Air. And entry into this drawing is the very amazing price of a comment on their blog. Go, comment, and see if you win. Enjoy, just comment before the 10th of February!

Another Unlimited Plan...this time from Sprint

2008-02-06T11:26:00.000-08:00

While this Sprint plan is really very good, it isn't EVERYTHING. It offers unlimited minutes, text, web, e-mail, etc. But it doesn't include any Power or PowerVision options, so that things like SprintTV, or Sprint Navigation or any of the extras that really turn the phone into a multi-media powerhouse are only available at an extra charge (as much a $25/mo). And if you have a Blackberry, that service is additional as well.

However, the fact that it does allow for unlimited data via tethering to your laptop is VERY great. This could mean a real boon for EVDO phones like the Palm Centro where you can get good internet via the phone and very good computer access through the phone when needed. This is a real step in the right direction.

This plan makes me want to give up my BlackBerry and its $39.99/mo data plan...

Unlimited Everything?

2008-02-04T13:47:00.001-08:00

So, Helio wasn't whom I was thinking about when I posted last month that a major carrier would unleash a true unlimited plan, but this is pretty close: $99 for unlimited minites, mobile minutes, text, MMS, Web and GPS is pretty good. The only thing that is missing is tethering or an Aircard option. But, frankly, you will never see an MVNO offer that kind of deal because they pay for their data bit by bit, and there is no way to guarantee that they won't have a gazillion users hitting the web all month long and chewing through very expensive data. This is a very nice step in the right direction, and I suspect that some other carriers who are really looking for subscribers (uhhh...Hello? Sprint, Can you hear me now?) to add to their rolls might make a good candidate to offer this kind of plan soon too. Nice job, Helio. (By the way, their phone selection is very good, and the network speedy quick. Worth a look if you are in the market.) Thanks to my friends at Engadget Mobile for posting this first.

iPhone Users Use 30x More Data!

2008-01-31T09:01:00.000-08:00

While this is not hard to believe, T-Mobile says that iPhone users use 30X more data than standard mobile users. This simply supports my thoughts that the iPhone, while maybe not revolutionary, is raising the bar for the entire mobile industry.

Several months ago, I was at a meeting with a carrier who doesn't offer the iPhone. Their thoughts about the iPhone were simple. They didn't care that they weren't offering it because they were seeing increased consumer demand for data services and increased interest from high-quality developers to offer iPhone-like interfaces. The iPhone was having a positive effect on their data businesses, because it raised the bar, but also drove awareness of mobile data.

This awareness and profile raising can only mean good things for mobile data, because when the end customer expects more, they get more. Boring WAP will no longer be good enough. Apps that provide minimal functionality will no longer be good enough. Rich, deep data experiences that offer multi-media and a strong focus on the UI will become the norm rather than the exception. Bravo!

Nokia and Motorola Results

2008-01-25T11:44:00.001-08:00

What a week. Nokia announces that it has 40% GLOBAL MARKET SHARE. That is just remarkable. 4 out of every 10 phones sold belong to Nokia. That is an astounding piece of news. This kind of global market leverage makes Nokia's push into content and services through Ovi, and their acquisition of Navteq seem like incredibly smart moves. This puts Nokia into a real power position and potentially reduces the need for any carrier influence in the content and service value chain.

Motorola, on the other hand, announced diappointing results. Most interesting is the drop in marketshare. In 2006, Moto made 1 out of every 4 phones, now it is one out of every 8. (I think we know where the difference went...) Moto is on the verge of becoming a footnote in mobile. Nokia, Apple, Samsung are all on the rise, and Moto is searching desperately for a RAZR hit. Moto is approaching the game like Jack Cust, swinging hard and looking for a big home run. Nokia is more like Ichiro, hitting for average and stretching singles into doubles. Guess who is an All-Star?

You Tube Goes Mobile

2008-01-24T10:57:00.000-08:00

You Tube goes MOBILE. This is interesting not because it is You Tube. There are plenty of ways to get You Tube on your phone. What is interesting is that there is a Beta app that is FREE. Thi smeans that carriers are beginning to honor their promises to be open. In years past, there would have been no access to video through a Java app unless a carrier were involved. It is fitting that Google has done this first, and had the opportunity to create this kind of opportunity. It will be interesting to see how quickly they port the beat app and see what kind of application reach they try to get. The WAP site works well. There are still significant issues of video discovery, but that is endemic to the mobile world (and pretty endemic to You Tube's web experience, too).

This is good stuff. I would imagine that we will see Google-delivered pre and post roll ads as well as the "layover" type that have started to pop up on YT recently. Although huge success isn't neccessary in the short term for this to be called a positive experience, I do believe that this is a very interesting development and potentially one of those inflection points that all the biz guys talk about ;-)

Sprint to Cut 4000 Jobs

2008-01-18T09:12:00.000-08:00

Sprint has announced that it will cut 4000 jobs. Further it will pull back on some of its retail efforts, and cull some of its affiliates. It lost 638,000 subscribers. Holy guacamole.

So, clearly things aren't headed in the right direction for Sprint. The problem isn't the product. Sure the network isn't as good as Verizon's, but I am a Sprint subscriber and I rarely have problems with my coverage. The value proposition is essentially the same as the big two carriers, but Sprint is hemmoraging while others continue to enjoy growth.

The issue revolves around messaging. Verizon has been using the "Can you hear me now" guy for years. ATT masterfully negotiated the Cingular transition (why they spent $1b to do it is beyond me, Cingular was a good name and a good brand). But ATT has been consistent in messaging (more bars in more places). What has Sprint's messaging been? Sprint Speed? Power Up? We used to be Nextel?

The issue for Sprint is not the product, but rather the message. Sprint has lacked the vision (resources?) and leadership to create a brand message and see it through. That hurts customer acquisition. The other issues that Sprint has around cost of service calls from its subscribers, and their inability to fix basic billing issues has been problematic and that impinges on the subscriber base. So what happens when you can't acquire new customers and you have problems servicing the ones that you do? Well, you lose a subscribers at an alarming rate.

Sprint needs to hire new marketing folks. Hire a new ad agency. And get some differentiated phones. ATT has the iPhone. Verizon the Voyager. T-Mo makes a big deal out of multi-colored Pearls. Sprint...ahhh....well...they have the Upstage?

Sprint needs to focus on customers, phones, customers, and customers.

I think Sprint is too big to buy, and too big to fail. Do they just become the network that powers MVNOs? Do they become subserviant to their cable JV partners? Many folks predict that Google will buy Sprint. I can't figure out whay that deal makes any sense. What do you think happens?

Here is my prediction: By 2011, Sprint is still the #3 carrier, but they are constantly battling with T-Mo for that spot. And nobody notices.

iPod Touch, the Next Generation

2008-01-16T07:27:00.000-08:00

So, Apple unleashed a slew of hardware yesterday. The Macbook Air looks very interesting, and with its emphasis on wireless communications, it really has piqued my interest. (I hate wires of all sorts. Despise them actually...wish every cord and wire and cable would evaporate instantly.) The Air doesn't sport cables other than a power cord. Bravo! It sports Bluetooth, 802.11n, and some nifty software. What it doesn't support is true mobile connectivity...so, it is truly a portable, not a mobile computing device. A bit of a letdown. Integrated mobile access through ATT would have been a great addition. Perhaps the next rev.
However, I think that the most overlooked event of this edition of the Macworld Expo was the upgrade to the iPod Touch. With the advent of location awareness through Skyhook Wireless and their excellent wiFi Access Point location database, and the inclusion of a mail client on the device, the Touch just changed who and what it is.
Previously, sporting WiFi and the excellent mobile Safari browser, the Touch was a great info-tainment device. But with location awareness and the new mail client, the Touch has jumped the chasm into a mobile computing device. For all of the Apple fans and folks who post to sites like MacNN who were clamoring for a tablet computer, Apple just surpassed your expectations by delivering a micro-tablet. It sports a touch screen interface, internet access, media players, e-mail, and location-sensitive mapping. That is HUGE. It allows access to Word, Excel and PDFs, and carries calendar and addressbook info.

It doesn't come with an integrated phone. So it doesn't come with a carrier contract. What a relief.

So, here you go...everything that the iPhone has with none of the drawbacks (and twice the storage). The Touch is now hot. The iPhone is still cool, but the Touch is hot.

More iPhone/Google Excitement

2008-01-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

Over the holidays, Google logged in more search traffic from iPhone users than from Symbian users, and now Eric Schmidt, Head Googler and Apple Board Member, seems to have to recuse himself from Apple meetings when mobile discussions are happening, and Google has just updated the iGoogle for the iPhone and Google's Vic Gondotra keeps saying that "This will work great on Android!" all of which lead me to believe that Google is using the iPhone as a finishing school. (The previous sentence was not only one of the longest I have ever written, but also has the distinction of having more hyperlinks in it than any other sentence I have written. Yay me!)

Google is clearly viewing the iPhone as a learning experience. The iPhone could serve as the inspiration for many of Android's key features. It is very smart of Google to use the iPhone as a vehicle by which they can observe sophisticated mobile devices in action before the plethora of Android devices come to the fore. It is clear, then, that Google is a difficult company with which to partner because they are so good at so many things that it is impossible for them to engage with a partner and then not step on the partner's toes. (Other tech companies, like Microsoft, and certainly Apple, are guilty of this too.) (Just ask the Konfabulator guys, or any of the freeware folks that made "Spaces" type software for the Mac before 10.5...Cupertino assimilated their ideas and made them irrelevant.)

So, can Android make the iPhone less relevant? The answer is "maybe". If Google can assimilate enough UI experience from the iPhone, and create better media search tools (and provide an even better browsing experience (Flash support anyone?) than mobile Safari) then I think that Google has the opportunity to return Apple to its industry changing, but fundamentally niche market position in mobile. Since Google does not have to worry about hardware, but rather put all of its emphasis on the core functionality of the software and let other folks (i.e. Android developers) build all of the treacherous middleware and connector pieces, the I believe that Android could have an even bigger actual impact on mobile than Apple has. Apple will continue to own the aspirational user and maintain aesthetic and idea leadership, but 5 years hence, I believe that there will be orders of magnitudes more Android phones than Apple phones.

To be honest with you, that makes me a little sad to envision. I am a big Apple fan, and don't mind paying homage to Cupertino with an all Mac setup, but the Google beast will eventually eat up the mobile world much in the same way that it has devoured the internet one. Is it a bad future? No, but I suspect that we will all feel about Google the way that we used to feel about Microsoft...

Skype to Demonstrate Mobile Skype Experience at CES

2008-01-08T07:25:00.000-08:00

Skype to Demonstrate Mobile Skype Experience at CES: So, really, what is the big to-do here? I'm down with Skype. The service is cool. The technology is cool too. But, truly, truly, truly when is the last time you thought about the cost of making a long distance phone call? Domestic calls are virtually free (or, really, the cost is disguised) and international calls are plummeting in cost. (Although roaming calls and international long distance are still a huge profit center for the mobile industry.)Mobile Skype doesn't relieve you of any burdens. While you are traveling, you must either be paying roaming data rates, or be using a data plan. If you are using just Wifi, then it really isn't mobile, but rather portable...Mobile Skype may be cheaper than using voice minutes, but you give up the reliability of carrier voice connections. If you are traveling abroad, you will likely be using Wifi and a PC will be just as good an option.No real story here, although the VOIP guys want you to think there is. (As a disclaimer, I love VOIP. My home phone is VOIP, my office phone is VOIP, but they are relacements for traditional services, whereas mobile Skype will be an add-on service on top of your usual monthly voice/data plan fee).If we can get true mobile service without a carrier agreement, then that would be a story.

Yahoo Mobile Go 3.0: The New OS?

2008-01-08T07:10:00.000-08:00

Yahoo Go 3.0 is rapidly becoming its own operating system. With the recent announcement of third party widgets, Yahoo has truly entered a new position in the mobile eco-system. Yahoo Go was already a terrific collection of software and had pretty deep functionality (I especially liked the Flickr access), but with the addition of relatively easy to create widgets that can live inside the Yahoo application, Yahoo has made itself a formidible player in the mobile space. By creating an environment that acts as a platform, Yahoo has made itself a reasonable friend of the development community.

The interesting aspects of Go 3.0:

Off Deck: No carrier interference...ad supported?
Good Reach: Yahoo Go supports roughly 300 handsets at the moment. This saves developers thousands and thousands of hours of porting and development time. Further, Yahoo Go is already cross platform, so Java developers, or BREW developers, or 'Berry developers get access to a new slew of demographically diverse folks...without any effort.
Yahoo is heavily invested in making Yahoo Go a success, so Yahoo bears the brunt of finding the interested customers.
Any experience built to work inside Yahoo Go will work as a stand alone experience...very good stuff.

The bad things about Yahoo Go:

Off Deck: No Carrier Push
Your experience will live inside a Yahoo branded thing
I would imagine that any advertising revenue will be sourced and controlled by Yahoo, limiting your potential financial gain
No clear storefront/m-commerce opportunities

I think this is a great move by Yahoo! Good luck!