iPhone 3G Bashing Time!

Okay, it's not quite as serious as that, but close.

I'm going through a dilemma of sorts with my personal communication device (or tether). I need something to take some notes with (a to-do list, if you will), and a calendar. Sure, some impromptu need to check this web page stuff, email (Gmail mostly), and a weather check now and then.

My trusty Sony Ericcson W300i has served me quite well for the past 3 years. It does all the aforementioned above fairly decently, but the anemic keypad is just ain't cutting it, and well, the phone is working on spit, duct tape, and bubble gum. Time for a new phone.

While I've been eyeing up a few HTC products, and patiently waiting for the month of November when a plethora of new phones are coming out; a friend of mine let me use her iPhone for a week telling me it was the next best thing to an orgasm.

The iPhone experience has been a head-scratcher.

The phone itself is nice. The weight itself is good, the device feels solid in my hand. Voice calls work; I can hear them and they can hear me. The touch screen is rather spiffy, and the screen display sure looks nice. The bevy of connection options is great, the App Store is cool, and the iPod functions on the touch screen. well, it works (LOL - sorry not much of a music/movie watcher/listener on my cell phone - I have a Zune for that at the gym).

But I sure don't feel satisfied using this thing as it's seriously lacking features that even my W300i has.

The onscreen keyboard bites for text messaging, and why doesn't it go to landscape mode? Most, if not all, touch screen phones do this by default.

Who's genius idea was it to exclude MMS on a multimedia phone?? I can neither send nor receive picture messages on an iPhone. And yes, I am well aware of the email work-around for this, but I shouldn't have to do it that way. Take picture, tap send, choose contact(s), and off it goes! Done, done, and done. And yes, my W300i does it that way. I rode my V-Rod for 3600 miles this summer, and took pics all the time and sent them to my friends on my phone. And they in turn did the same. With an iPhone this is not possible.

Bluetooth is only usable for a singe ear headset? I heard their reasoning about A2DP (battery life), but you what? Let your users come to that conclusion. Give them a choice and options. And no file and data transfers over bluetooth? That's dumb. I know a lot of users who transfer contacts between devices and themselves, and a few pictures and ringtones from time to time.

iTunes is the bane of application existence (see above). I email stuff to myself all the time, as well as transfer some pics and ringtones. Sorry, want to add contacts, pictures, documents, ringstones, and full songs to your iPhone? Gotta use the iTunes approval service. If Stevie Jobs doesn't want that data on your phone, iTunes won't let it on there.

And what's up with Apple's remote cut-off switch that's embedded in the iPhone? If Apple don't like it, they can remotely kill it off or remove it. And what's cute about that is that at purchasing and contract signing; the AT&T rep doesn't even mention that and it isn't in the contract.

Is it me or is Stevie Jobs and company the land of obsessive, compulsive disorder control freaks?

The iPhone is a pretty neat device with quite a few glaring omissions. More like an iPod with a few anemic cell phone functions tacked on.

Open up the platform for the end users and the developers and give everyone some choices, and you've have a great device.

At least the phone call functions worked.

Let's Solve the Oil Crisis......Let's All Download!!

A thought occurred to me as I was somewhat stewing over Comcast's recent limitations on my downloading and uploading starting on Oct. 1.

Quite a few products are made from a barrel of oil or a byproduct of. With the price of oil over $100, everyone and their cousin is crying conservation, smaller cars, and better fuel mileage. Now granted, vehicles (*cough* SUVs *cough* Hummers) are a part pf the problem, but what if there was something else that could make a huge dent in oil conservation? Something in the Occam's Razor category? Something KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid)?

I ran into Circuit City the other day trolling around for a new mouse, while also finishing a shopping trip from Target and a quick run through Best Buy and I noticed how many movies and games there were at all the stores. And they're all on optical discs. Movies, Music, TV Shows, Blu-Ray, PS3, X360, Wii, PS2, PC games, applications, and on, and on, and on. All on optical discs, all in plastic cases and boxes, and all made, material wise, from oil in some way, shape, or form.

Guess what folks. We go to downloadable and digital distribution content, we take out a giant chunk of oil-manufactured products. From actually making the discs and plastic cases, to shipping the material on giant freighters and UPS/DHL/USPS shipping trucks, a giant dent can be made in oil and fuel consumption in one fell swoop.

The digital distribution framework is there. The broadband and bandwidth speeds and pipe are there. With low power server SSD drives, a dent can be made in server farm energy consumption and heat dissipation right there. All the parts and puzzle peices are there; they just have to be put together.

Detroit and the auto industry are far behind the curve as they've ben working hand and hand wit the oil industries for years and they had gotten very comfortable with navigating the money making and shaking beauracracy with each other and the various governements of the world. They're not going to give up the cornerstone of their money making abilities without kicking and screaming quietly into the night.

Imagine the money that can be saved and made just from going to digital distribution content.

Comcast's Broadband Limits

First off, I would like to applaud the FCC on taking a stand with Comcast with their blocking and spoofing of the Bittorrent protocol. Even though what they recieved was a slap on the wrist; it established that the internet should be neutral and set a precedent for other ISPs who were doing or considering their own protocol and content blocking.

But Comcast has gone ahead and decided to go with Plan B; imposition of limits on people's use of the internet by capping how much can be downloaded/uploaded in a month. This is just a blantant attempt for Comcast to almost force it's broadband only customers to also purchase Comcast's phone, digital cable services, and pay-per-view content.

Let me explain.

First off, let me complain about the price. I pay $70 a month for Comcast's high speed internet (8MB downstream/ 2 MB up). It's expensive, but I use it quite a bit. I play online video games here and there with my PC and Xbox 360. I download movies from either iTunes, Amazon Unbox, or Netflix and with the advent of downloadable high defintion movies I will be getting those types of movies as well streamed to my HDTV. I also stream music from Pandora or my XM Satellite radio online. I also use VOIP services over my internet connection. So, bottom line is I use my expensive high speed internet to pay for and receive quite a few other services.

I don't use any other Comcast services, but they do call or send mail always asking me to sign up for their digital cable (pay per view and downloadable), or their phone service. I use DirectTV and I'm perfectly happy with it, and my VOIP and cell service serve me fine (I tell them). What's funny is if I add Comcast's digital cable service to their internet package the price goes from $70 to $55.

But what about families of 4 who use quite a bit more downloadable services? Xbox 360, Playstation 3, VOIP, Netflix, Apple TV and iTunes, Amazon Unbox, PC games and downloads and music. You name it. They're going to hit that 250GB ceiling really quick all because Comcast does not like you paying for and using other provider's content over their internet pipes. They want you to pay for their pay-per-view movies and downloadable content and make and pay for phone calls on their network.

Comcast has always advertised their broadband internet as unlimited and high speed, but now Comcast has resorting to imposing limits on your usage and blocking protocols instead of innovating and adding to their network. Whatever happened to spending money to make money and promote competition? Remember the dark ages of AOL/Prodigy/Compulink dial-up ISP service and that they charged consumers based on hourly usage and how much was downloaded on the internet? Do we really need or want to return to that?

I would change ISPs in a heartbeat, but Comcast in the only game in town and the surrounding towns.

Comcast needs to be stopped yet again. Moving forward, innovating, and inventing are what's needed; not blocking and limits. If companies like Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, and the like are to provide consumers with services they they want and use, they need to work without limits as well.

How Sci-Fi Channel Frakked Up

"The Scariest Night on Television!" Oooooooooo, brings up some spine tingly images, doesn't it?

I mean, it's a good tag line and all, but it doesn't bring up images of cheesy B-rated acting and dialogue, does it? Or cheap-ass CGI that looks like it was rendered by a 486DX with a whopping 16MB of RAM.

What I'm alluding to is Sci-Fi channel's continued airing and financing of really, really bad Saturday night B-rated horror-sci-fi flicks, and the cancellation of Stargate Atlantis.

Now first off, I'm not a big time, Tivo saving, TV addicted watcher. Never have been. I got hooked on 24 starting with season 5, Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis since the first seasons, Eureka, and I fall asleep to Adult Swim.

When SG-1 was not renewed, it sucked, but was understandable. The show had gone on for 10 years! The money pile from reruns and syndication was running a little thin; so Sci-Fi didn't renew and MGM said DVD movies. It worked. Both Ark of Truth and Continuum were great flicks for SG-1 and it seemed like a great way for the franchise to continue and Atlantis to carry the TV torch while we wait for Stargate Universe.

But canceling SGA is just a bit on the mind boggling side. Sci-Fi recently let the news out that this was their most watched summer ever lead by Eureka, Ghost Hunters, and Scare Tactics. They mentioned that their Saturday crap CGI-fests averaged 2 million viewers. No mention of SGA even though numbers averaged above 2 million viewers per episode this season, and ECW, well let's not start on why that's even on the Sci-Fi channel.

This is probably a case of dancing numbers around to make things look positive (seriously, those awful Saturday night flicks were getting 2 million viewers in the summer?!?!?). And I know that SGA was getting expensive due to the US dollar/Canadian dollar conversion rate was getting expensive. So money somehow, someway was getting to be a sticking point with SGA.

But the ratings were up (1.5 to 1.7; about 2 to 2.4 million viewers) per episode, and they did climb a bit more with DVRs. The legal download sector was making some money from SGA (number 1 on Amazon's Unbox) too.

And then when MGM/Sci-Fi announced Stargate Universe the next day, and they said they were going to target the younger demographic (thoughts of Stargate: 90210 flashed through my mind). And then the answer hit me; I'm getting older!

I've been watching SG-1 and SGA for 11 years; SG-1 started when I as 20. I'm hitting the end of that 18-34 money making demographic that the TV execs and advertisers love. They want to bring in new young blood to watch the show.

So there you have it kids. All us faithful watchers of SG-1 and SGA were getting too old for the execs and advertisers and they want the young blod to watch the show and spend the money on the stuff the advertisers hawk.

I'll still watch Stargate Universe and the Stargate movies when they come out, but I'll be less enthused about it.

Let's Blog! (Sounds Like a Wierd....Never Mind)

Okay, so I know right off the proverbial bat that I'm entering in quite a crowded field here. Blogging.....the dog next door is even doing; detailing his last biscuit treat, butt scratch, and that interesting smell he couldn't quite let go of.

So what makes me special that I decided to do this 5 years after blogging hit the mainstream media like John Pinette at Red Lobster shrimp fest? Simple, I may have a few interesting things to say (Or may not, and I may just say something about it).

But I also just wanted to do it. As the old saying and adage always declares; "Whatever happens, happens, just have fun while doing it.".

And that's exactly what I'm going to do.