This is slightly off-topic. But, I figured a few other people might find it useful information (I did) in this article from Government Technology magazine.
FTC Separates Fact from Fiction on Cell Phone Do Not Call Registry
There’s a 7-point bullet list specifically related to cell phones.
Viewings videos on ultra portable devices is nothing new. However, perhaps surprisingly, the oldest of the device families, Windows Mobile, falls far short of a good end-user experience. This is especially true for the under-powered (processor-wise) Smartphone (Standard Edition) where viewing anything except a video specially prepared for it results in a disappointing experience. For example try viewing a video podcast NOT specially prepared for a Smartphone. You will probably see what amounts to still images with a sound track.
The Pocket PC (Professional Edition) video experience is a bit better but still not good. Since Windows Mobile is not designed as a media device, you will find it does things like dim or blank the screen after a timeout period. Normally, this is fine since it is a battery saving feature. However, it is annoying to have to remember to change this setting everytime you watch a video and then set it back when you are done. On the other hand, the faster processors on the Pocket PC (compared to the Smartphones) lets you watch a wider variety of video files (including video podcasts). And, it is not often that you see someone showing a video on an external device connected to a Smartphone or Pocket PC. Despite what Microsoft might claim, these are not real media devices (see any WM5 or WM6 Playlists for example?).
The Zune does a better job since it is designed as media device. However, its non-intuitive user interface (navigation pad) makes something as simple as scrolling and selecting from a list tedious. Once a video gets rolling, it is a pretty good experience though and optional docks make it easy to connect to an external display.
The iPod touch has the best video and user interface I’ve seen so far. Its one drawback is that Apple decided that all 6th generation iPods require docks with a special chip for video playback on external devices. So, previous video docking solutions do not work with the latest iPod models.
The 5th (previous) generation iPods only had one model that provided video playback. But, it has a huge existing accessory infrastructure that lets you easily and relatively cheaply purchase devices to provide a larger video screen. For example, there are several portable DVD players with integrated LCD screens that also have iPod docs built-in. This lets you use the player to show and listen to videos on a larger screen.
For the moment, it is a toss-up between the 5th and 6th generation iPods. As soon as the 3rd party accessory market catches up (probably this holiday season or early 2008), the 6th generation will be the device of choice. It will be interesting to see what the Zune 2.0 delivers. And, unfortunately, my favorite overall mobile device family (Windows Mobile) is down for the count when it comes to Media playback.
Do you sometimes feel phantom vibrations from the area where you phone sits on your body even when your phone is not on you? Apparently you are not alone (I think I’ve felt this too). Check out this article on CNN…
No third party binary applications for the Apple iPhone or iPod touch yet. However, Apple created a list of web apps for these devices. You can find it linked below.
I was surprised to see so many (relatively speaking) web apps designed specifically for the iPhone/touch (215 as of Oct. 11, 2007). It will be interesting to see if this part of the iPod eco-system continues to grow.
The old Windows CE Handheld PCs had large (by today’s thumb keyboard standards) physical keyboards and a touch screen. They never caught on (even though I really enjoyed using them :-). The problem was that the touch screen were really just a substitute for a mouse and the need to pick up a stylus in between typing was annoying.
Following the lead of the Palm Pilot, Microsoft moved on to the Palm-size/Pocket PC and dropped the physical keyboard completely. Then RIMM’s Blackberry and Palm’s Treo showed that a physical keyboard was indeed a good thing but needed to be sized and designed correctly. Many current generation Windows Mobile Pocket PCs (Professional Edition) and Smartphones (Standard Edition) have physical thumb keyboards too. And, many of them are well designed (I particularly like the Dash’s and TyTyn’s).
Recently, Apple went retro and introduced the iPhone and iPod touch with touch screens that don’t need (or work) with a stylus and dropped the physical keyboard in favor of a graphical tactile-less one. On one hand, the finger gestures for viewing photos and navigating web pages works much better than stylus based Pocket PCs or keyboard based Smartphones. On the other hand, I guess I’m just one of those fumble-fingered people who prefers tactile feedback when typing (even thumb typing). I do think it is great that I don’t have to reach for a stylus to use the iPod touch. But, I really wish I had some kind of option (Bluetooth keyboard for example) for the iPod touch.
I was originally going to comment on the relative granularity differences between finger touch screens and stylus touch screens. But, I need to think that through a bit more. It just occurred to me that one of the original applications categories for the Pocket PC were little mini-PhotoShop type drawing apps. Yet, those never did become very popular. And, we don’t see that category heavily pushed or sold these days. Part of the issue may be the relatively small processing power on mobile devices (compared to desktops). But, I wonder if the digitization errors inherent in any touch screen might have something to do with this too. More later…
I think I’ve suggested manually clearing the Windows Mobile Internet Explorer browser cache once a week or so to help prevent what might otherwise be mysterious system-wide slowdowns on a Pocket PC or Smartphone. However, today I got another reminder of why I spend more time using Ilium’s NewsBreak RSS client on Windows Mobile than the IE browser.
When using IE directly, I am pretty careful to stick to mobile-friendly websites in my Favorites list. However, I clicked on a Reuters link in their RSS feed after reading a brief summary in NewsBreak which launched IE (this normal). This turned out to be a bad idea because the feed link led to Reuters normal website formatted for desktop PCs. WiMo IE couldn’t deal with what appears to me to be a decently designed web page for the desktop and froze my entire phone. I couldn’t even turn it off and had to pull the battery to reset my Dash. Upon rebooting, the Dash came up very slowly… more slowly than normal. So, I went to IE’s options menu and manually cleared the browser cache (about 2.5MB, large but not huge). This returned my phone to normal.
In comparison, I just brought up Reuters.com on my iPod touch Safari web browser. And, while it seemed to navigate that site much slower than other sites (there must be some Javascript whackiness going on there), the site didn’t blow up the browser or lock the iPod touch.