Disgusting Apple

Apple, the consumer electronics giant, makes products worth drooling over. The iconic iPod and iPhone have taken the world by storm and literally reinvented the portable music player and cell phone markets. But does that justify Apple’s high handed behavior with customers and developers?

Many Apple App Store developers have been complaining about Apple’s arrogance in disallowing their applications on the App Store even though similar applications were being listed. Apple has been totally silent on it. Very recently Apple denied Google Voice iPhone application an entry into App Store. Like always no reasons were given. This has been going on for quite sometime. But for how long are we going to tolerate this?

Recently, a kid’s iPod exploded when her father dropped it. Like any other consumer, the father approached Apple for a replacement. After going through several departments, Apple agreed to refund for the damaged product only if – check this out – the father agreed to sign a sort of NDA that would allow Apple to bring litigation against the customer if the customer spread the information about the exploding iPod. Here’s the link to the story.

Hey Apple, how about sticking a label on the product warning people that the damn thing might explode if dropped? Would they do it? Of course not. If they do, will those thousands of people who wear their iPods while jogging everyday morning buy them anymore? Surely not.

There are some people who are of the opinion that Apple is justified in asking for an NDA from the customer. If that is so, shouldn’t we, the consumers be justified in asking Apple for a label on their iPods informing us about the dangers? Cigarette packets have to have a warning from the Sugeon General, maybe Apple iPods and iPhones should also have something similar.

I am sure, if people who like Apple were to read this post, I would be flamed. But had something similar happened to a product from Microsoft or Dell, these very folks would be first in line to denounce those products and praise Apple’s offerings. Agreed Apple is a great company producing great products, but it is time Apple’s ardent supporters and all others start to realize that Apple might not have been doing proper checks when coming up with frequent generations of its hand-held products.

First impressions: The return of Palm – The Palm Pre

After pioneering a revolution in mobile devices like PDAs and smart phones, Palm, as of recent times, has found itself more and more out of the market due to stiff competition. Currently it is ranked fourth after the likes of Apple, Research In Motion(RIM) and Windows Mobile. All that is pretty much set to change if what Palm showed in CES lives up to its promise. And there is a high chance that it would.

Enter the Palm Pre. This is Palm’s latest entrant in the land of mobile devices, more specifically the smart phone segment. This segment is dominated by Apple and RIM. Even though Palm did have some success with its Centro, Treo and Treo Pro lines of phones, it was nowhere near to regaining the coveted leader position. With the Pre, Palm is pretty well set to pose a challenge that is serious enough to even topple the revered Apple iPhone.

If looks could kill or rather dethrone the iPhone, the Palm Pre has it. If functions and performance can poach users, the Pre has that. If coolness is such an important factor that entire cults grow around that, the Palm Pre is well equipped. The new design features a touch screen interface along with a slide out full keyboard. It sports Palm’s latest operating system the WebOS. The combination is stupendous.

The Pre is not only a pretty looking phone, but packs a mean punch too. There is innovation at its best coupled with legendary usability. Here’s a look at a few innovations that the Pre comes with.

Wi-Fi, GPS and email are standard on the Pre. The new Synergy system also allows a user to see all the conversations with a certain contact in a chat style. The universal search feature allows searching across contacts, Google, applications and even Wikipedia. Pretty cool, huh!

The Pre treats each running application as an activity card. Multiple applications can run in parallel and a user can switch between these running instances or activity cards with the mere flick of a finger. No longer do you have to close your email application to browse a web site. All notifications, like the ones for new messages, appear at the bottom of the screen and does not interrupt the user’s current activity. Quite nifty I say.

The calendar application in the Pre can show a combined logical view of calendars stored in Outlook, Google Calendar and Facebook. Also if a single contact is stored in different applications, they can all be linked together.

The browser is full featured and fast. It supports full HTML and has the now ubiquitous zoom and pan functions. Also all the applications installed on the phone are constantly updated via the internet. This gets rid of the rather dull “Update now” function.

Another innovative feature is the Touchstone wireless charging station with which the Pre can be recharged. The Pre attaches to the Touchstone device through magnets and remains in position without any cables or wires connecting the two. The phone can be used while charging.

The Plam Pre appears to be of fantastic value with the necessary looks and coolness. Check out the following gallery of images taken from the Palm website:

Here are the specs as detailed on Palm’s site and do not forget to watch the keynote presentation:
Carrier
Sprint
Operating system
Palm® webOS
Network specs
3G EVDO Rev A
Display
3.1-inch touch screen with a vibrant 24-bit color 320×480 resolution HVGA display
Keyboard
Physical QWERTY keyboard
Email
Microsoft Outlook® email with Microsoft® Direct Push Technology
POP3/IMAP (Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, etc).
Messaging
Integrated IM, SMS, and MMS
GPS
Built-in GPS
Digital camera
3 megapixel camera with LED flash and extended depth of field
Sensors
Ambient light, accelerometer, and proximity
Media formats supported
Audio Formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, AMR, QCELP, WAV
Video Formats: MPEG-4, H.263, H.264
Image Formats: GIF, Animated GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP
Wireless connectivity
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g with WPA, WPA2, 801.1x authentication
Bluetooth® 2.1 + EDR with A2DP stereo Bluetooth support
Memory
8GB of user storage (~7.4GB user available)
USB mass storage support
Phone as laptop modem
Bluetooth tethering
Connector
MicroUSB connector with USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
Headphone jack
3.5mm stereo
Palm® Touchstonecharging dock
Compatible
Dimensions
Width: 59.5mm (2.3 inches)
Height: 100.5mm (3.9 inches)
Thickness: 16.95mm (0.67 inches)
Weight
135 grams (4.76 ounces)

Android can beat Apple and the iPhone

The latest entrant in the sphere of mobile operating systems in Google’s Android. The OS has been received well by the mobile content development community and has been gaining steady momentum. T-Mobile’s G1 has also received very good reviews and some(including myself) have called it better than Apple’s iPhone. 

There are quite a few reasons that are in favour of Google Android. Here are a few:

• Android is open source and free to use and customize. This also makes it more attractive for adoption by a large number of mobile phone vendors.
• There are certain features in-built like cut-n-paste that are still to make their way into the iPhone. 
• Android apps are developed using Java that run on a specialized virtual machine. This aspect makes it attractive to a larger pool of developers than the iPhone.
• The Android Market has set policies that would let developers keep a majority share of the revenues earned through it. This is in contrast to Apple’s App Store policies.
• Google has promised to have very little control over the Android Market.
• Coming from Google, Android has the backing of a behemoth and top-notch quality is ensured.
• Being open source, community based development can introduce newer features to this operating system much faster than any other.

In fact Android adoption has seen a steady rise. From developers to mobile phone vendors everybody seems to be jumping on to the Android bandwagon. Here’s a list of few news item that come up on CNET.com when you search for Android in the news section:

• Kyocera joins Android phone bandwagon
• Google Android and Symbian to merge?
• Report: Motorola expanding Android team
• Coders get 70 percent of Android Market revenue
• MySpace’s Android application goes live
• Maverick puts Google Talk on Android G1
• Motorola preps its own Android phone
• Capitalism still alive: EA on Android games
• Google adds Android app for Flickr photos

It’s pretty clear that interest amongst developers and vendors is increasing with respect to Google’s Android. Amongst mobile phone vendors Kyocera, HTC, and Motorola are already on to it. It’s only a matter of time before a lot more follow this trend. If this continues, Android’s appeal would surely surpass that of the iPhone’s. 

So is Android the beginning of the end of Apple iPhone’s dominance in the smart phone segment?

Google Android based T-Mobile G1 is better than Apple iPhone 3G

Looks like its game on. The T-Mobile G1 powered by Google’s open source Linux based operating system, Android, has already seen huge interest from the pundits and consumers alike. There have been recording pre-ordering for the G1 and it appears that the G1 will give the iPhone 3G quite good competition.

Personally I feel the biggest disadvantage that the G1 has is in the looks department. The design and looks of the G1 are nothing compared to the iPhone 3G. HTC just does not know how to make good looking phones. For them its all about using cheap plastic and tacky design philosophies.

Anyway. In a recent speed test done by CNET the T-Mobile G1 beat the pants of the Apple iPhone 3G with regards to web browsing. Click here to see the speed test video.

I am not sure how accurate this test is because web browsing performance depends on the network a lot. So even though the testers might have tried to neutralise the “network effect” I am not sure to what extent they were successful.

Another iPhone challenger: The Nokia ‘Tube’ 5800 Express Music phone

The recently released T-Mobile G1 does pose a serious challenge to Apple’s iPhone in terms of function and specs but look-wise its a no-competition. Even as the dust still settles over the hype of the G1 there’s a new kid on the block that also aims to unsettle Apple from its dominant position. It’s the Nokia 5800 Express Music phone also dubbed the Nokia ‘Tube’.

The specs that I could gather from this website are:

General

• 3.2″ touchscreen with VGA resolution (640×480 pixels), 16M colors
• 3.2 megapixel camera with autofocus and dual LED flash(Carl Zeiss lens)
• 30 FPS VGA recording
• 3 physical buttons – answer call, softkey, end call
• Landscape keyboard mode
• Symbian S60 Touch UI, or S60 5th edition

Connectivity

• Quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900), UMTS 2100, GSM/Edge, HSDPA connectivity
• Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR and A2DP
• USB 2.0 connectivity
• Built-in GPS with A-GPS
• WLAN, Wi-Fi
• 3.5mm headphone jack, TV-Out port

Memory

• 150MB of User memory
• microSDHC memory card slot (up to 16GB, 8GB memory card in a box)

Size & Weight

• Dimensions: 111×52×15.5mm
• Weight: 109 gr

And here are a few photos of the device:

Like the G1 the Nokia 5800 is better speced out than the Apple iPhone 3G. On top of that it has the looks that are so important for successful smart phones. So where the G1 fails, Nokia succeeds. The question is will it still be enough to topple the iPhone? The answer lies in how Nokia intends to build an ecosystem around the 5800. 

Rumors are that the 5800 will be available in Europe first and then in the US. Also there is a chance that consumers would be able to buy an unlocked version of the phone in the US.

Palm use Android, scrap Nova

Arguably Palm is considered to be the company that started the smart phone trend. Initially Palm was just a maker of hand-held computers or PDAs. Later they merged the PDA to the cell phone and thus was born the smart phone in the form of the iconic Palm Treo lineup. Ironically, even though global adoption of smart phones has increased over the years, Palm’s market share has seen a steady decline.

With more and more smart phone vendors offering PDA capabilities in their phones, Palm’s niche PDA market saw a steep decline. The company faced tough times and even sold off their software division. Later they re-acquired the same. For the past few years Palm is going through a very rough patch.

This is very surprising for a company that has a brilliant team of technical experts and who have in the past created superb products for the mobile professionals. To get back to a healthy state Palm even started making smart phones based on Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform. Though this helped the company it did nothing to reinstate it in its former state of glory. Of late with the Centro smart phone, Palm saw some success. They followed it up very recently with the Palm Treo Pro that was received well by the consumers. However the Treo Pro was running on the Windows platform – not something with which you would expect to set the market ablaze.

For quite some time now, Palm has been reported to be working on its next generation operating system based on the Linux platform. Known as the Nova, its still away from seeing production by at least a year. The bigger question is would Palm’s fortunes turn around with Nova, now that we have multiple mobile operating systems in the market? Operating systems like Apple’s Mac OS, Nokia’s Symbian, etc. have gained a lot of popularity. RIM’s Blackberry is still supposed to be the be-all and end-all of smart phones. And the latest entrant in this field is Google with its Android operating system. 

So does it make sense for Palm to spend time and money after its Nova? Wouldn’t it be more prudent to just take Android and then work your magic on it? I sincerely believe that Palm should try to embrace Android. Not only is it backed by a powerhouse like Google, but it provides an extendible platform on which Palm can start building its next generation of applications. For Android Palm would not have to pay any licensing fees since its open source. 

Palm has the capability and the prowess to turn around by embracing the Android platform. The question is will it?

Apple iPhone will lose to Google Android powered T-Mobile G1

The Google Android powered T-Mobile G1 was being waited for ever since reports leaked about it. Now its a reality. The G1 is the new kid on the block with the goods to give Apple’s hallowed iPhone 3G a run for its money. Spec wise the G1 surely has a lot more to offer than the iPhone. Check out my feature comparison between the two. T-Mobile’s network is not that bad even though it has limited 3G capabilities. But all that is going to change once T-Mobile rolls out its 3G network in full.

So does Apple need to worry? You bet it does. 

The G1 comes with a lot more goodies for its price. It beats the iPhone in most feature comparisons. The only thing that the iPhone has going in its favour is looks. The G1 is positively ugly. But it more than makes up for that with its feature list. Being powered by an open source operating system from Google also gives it an advantage. The thriving open source community is more likely to come up with future enhancements of the OS than any proprietary company can. 

The iPhone’s success was accelarated by the launch of the App Store from where users could download third-party applications for the device. Google has already announced the launch of the Android Market on the lines of the App Store but having a lot better and transparent policies for developers. With the Android Market, Google has ensured availability of a rich set of third-party applications for users. Google’s approach with the Android Market is going to be very hands-off thus encouraging more development of applications for the Android platform.

Apple’s arrogance in dealing with developers of the App Store is bound to hit it where it hurts the most. In fact, chances are high that a lot of miffed developers, whose apps were unreasonably rejected from the App Store, may be switching allegiance to the more open Android Market. 

In spite of the outcry from developers asking Apple to come clean on its publishing policy for applications on App Store, Apple has kept quite. Its attitude is more like a dictator and some developers might even view its policies as tyranny. And they would be right. What was bad with IAmRich,  NetShare, BoxOffice, MailWrangler or Podcaster applications? What was the reason for Apple banning these applications from its App Store? Will someone from Apple please answer? Or is it below their hallowed self esteem to answer such questions?

If Apple does not act quick and take certain important decisions, it runs a very high risk of alienating those loyal group of developers who are the reason behind the resounding success of the iPhone 3G, even though the device itself is plagued by many serious flaws. The sooner Steve Jobs and his group of control-freaks open things up in the App Store, the better it would be for Apple.

Comparison: Apple iPhone 3G vs. Google T-Mobile G1

Here’s a cursory feature comparison between Apple iPhone 3G and the new T-Mobile G1 powered by Google Android:

Feature	Apple iPhone	T-Mobile G1
Keyboard	On screen	Full QWERTY slide-out keyboard
Connectivity	3G, WiFi, Tri band GSM, UMTS, Bluetooth	3G, WiFi, Quad band GSM, Dual band UMTS, Bluetooth
Messaging	Email, Instant messaging, Microsoft Exchange support	Email, Instant messaging, Special GMail push support, Multimedia messaging, multi-tasking while messaging
GPS and other services	Assisted GPS	GPS, Google Maps, Google Maps Street View with compass mode
Media store	Apple iTunes music store	Amazon MP3 store
Camera	2 mp	3.1 mp
Dimensions (HxWxD)	4.5 x 2.4 x 0.48 in	4.6 x 2.16 x 0.63 in
Weight	4.7 ounces	5.6 ounces
Storage	8/16 GB	Expandable up to 8GB
Screen resolution	480 x 320 163 ppi	480 x 320 65K color screen
Talk time	5 hour talk time, 300 hour standby time	5 hour talk time, 130 hour standby time
Application support	Apple App Store	Google Android Market
Voice dialling	No	Yes
Removable battery	No	Yes
Copy & Paste support	No	Yes

As seen from the above comparison, the phones stack up pretty well against each other. In connectivity, messaging, GPS and the camera, the T-Mobile G1 has an edge over the iPhone. Some would argue that having a full QWERTY keyboard is also a major feature. So we can consider the T-Mobile G1 better in that area too. In the others the iPhone is pretty good. The overall user experience should be better with the G1 because of certain features like copy & paste, etc. Also the fact that the G1 has a removable battery makes a big difference.

If T-Mobile can provide service and coverage at par with AT&T, the G1 does have the goods to give the iPhone a run for its money.

The new Palm Treo Pro: Its officially out

Palm publicly announced the new Palm Treo Pro smartphone after having accidentally released it on its website a few days back. The phone looks sharp, smart, slim and all set to make an impact. In my previous post I had posted the specs.

The phone is intended for the business users and from the specs it appears to pack enough punch to do it with aplomb. The shape echoes that of the Centro but slimmer. The only thing that I am bit sceptic about is the Windows Mobile operating system that is driving this machine.

Even though the phone has been announced, its still not available for sale in the US. From first reports it appears that the phone would be sold as an unlocked one starting fall. Apparently Europe and Australia will see it before US.

So will the new Palm act like napalm and set the smart phone market on fire? Lets wait and watch. Its got the goods.

The return of Palm: The new Treo 850 or Treo Pro

Palm, the once upon a time leader in PDAs and smart phones is all set to make a comeback. Even though Palm did have reasonable success with its Centro smart phone, it could never rival the popularity of the RIM BlackBerry or the Apple iPhone. Now it seems Palm is all set to make a splash with the upcoming 3G enabled Treo 850 rechristened the Treo Pro.

A Flash presentation of the Treo Pro recently went live accidentally on the Palm website earlier this week. Even though it was taken down soon, some people did capture a few screen shots. Here is what we can expect.

The front view:

The rear view:

Looks quite nice. The Treo Pro is expected to be slimmer than the Centro but with a more comfortable keyboard. First looks do seem impressive.

Now for some specs:

• 2.4-inch, 320 by 320-pixel display
• Wi-Fi
• 2 megapixel camera
• 400MHz processor
• 100MB of RAM
• microSD memory expansion
• 3.5mm headphone jack

The only let down is that it would be running on the latest Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 and not on Palm’s Nova, the operating system based on Linux, on which Palm is still working. Being a long time user of the Palm Tungsten E2 handheld, I can vouch for the preformance and reliability of the Palm OS Garnet. Even though handhelds from other manufacturers running Windows may have had a more attractive look they simply did not perform upto the same levels as Palm OS.

The Treo Pro looks like a winner to me, but I would still like to wait for the Treo that would run Nova; just can’t compromise on performance.