MobileViews Blog

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  • iPhone vs. Blackberry & Android Vs. Windows Mobile

    I’ve noticed some talk of comparing the upcoming phones based on Google’s Android platform to Apple’s iPhone. But, if you look at the platforms (literally and figuratively), the comparion doesn’t actually make any sense except in the fact that all these platforms will compete with each other.

    Apple and RIM are more alike than Apple and Google. Both Apple and RIM control both the hardware and the software. Both own their respective market spaces at the moment: Apple iPhone = Consumer and RIM Blackberry = Business. And, both are trying to cross over into the other’s market territory.

    Google Android is more like Microsoft Windows Mobile. Both are software reference platforms that rely on third party hardware manufacturers to deliver products to the market. Microsoft has no branding mind-presence in the market (no casual observer asks if you are using a Windows Mobile based phone). Google may find itself with the same problem. This may be ok if a single manufacturer (say HTC) hits a home run on the first swing and everyone identifies the “Google Phone” with that one device or brand. But, if Android phones are diffused in the market with lots of brands, form factors, and models, no one will care enough to ask if you are using a Google Android phone.

    Google has one huge advantage though: It has no legacy products to worry about destroying. Microsoft has had to reduce the functionality of Windows CE/Mobile since day one to make sure it does not destroy the existing Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista market. It had to reduce the functions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Mobile to keep Microsoft Office at the top tier. Microsoft didn’t provide syncing to its Live/MSN cloud services (calendar, contacts, tasks) to protect Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Exchange Server. Google doesn’t have this problem. They have just one platform: The Google Cloud.

    Microsoft has to be willing to destroy itself in order to move forward in the mobile/cloud age. Couple of words/proper nouns to the wise: Pony Express, Western Union, DEC.

  • Viral SSID: Free Public WiFi


    I was standing outside of an office building the other day waiting for a friend to join me for lunch. While standing there, I decided to see if I could latch onto the somewhat nearby (ok, half a block) Starbucks Hotspot while waiting (definitely a long shot). Instead, I saw yet another instance of the viral SSID called Free Public WiFi. I often see these in airports and conferences. I think it was the first time I saw it standing on a sidewalk area. It is not usually dangerous in the sense that it is a malicious attempt to snare your wireless signal. It is more of an indicating of someone with a Microsoft Windows based notebook with Wireless Zero Configuration turned on. You can read more about this at the WLANBook.com site…

    “Free Public WiFi” SSID

    You’ll note that the “Free Public WiFi” connection is an ad-hoc one (client-to-client, not an access point). WLANBook.com also has an explanation for that oddball looking ad-hoc hpsetup SSID. Oy! 🙂

  • Zumobi 1.1

    Zumobi 1.1 was released earlier this month. So, I finally decided to try it out on my TyTn (Windows Mobile 6 Professional Edition) last week. The interface is nice and, I guess, finger touch friendly. But, it seems a bit slow on my Pocket PC. The content in the available Tiles didn’t interest me much. However, Version 6.1 lets you create your own Tiles from RSS feeds. So, I should try to do that sometime. However, it seems to me that it is actually faster to scan through RSS feeds using a more conventional looking interface like Ilium’s NewsBreak.

    I’ll play around with it a bit more, build a tile or two, and post some screencaps here later.

  • Eee PC 901, 1000, or 1000(H)???

    Wasn’t it less than a year ago that we didn’t have any sub-$1000 ultralight notebooks? I bought an OLPC XO because I thought it was a good idea to have one donated somewhere and another for my daughter to play with. Unfortunately, the XO provides little interest for a child who grew up with full-powered Windows PCs and Apple Macs around her. I probably should have bought the original Asus Eee PC model at the time. Ah well. Now, we have a bunch of copycat sub-$1000 mini-notebooks from many vendors. And, here comes Asus again to up the ante with new models powered by the new Atom processor.

    Asus Eee PC 901, 1000, and 1000(H) specifications

    I’m leaning towards getting the 901. But, I’ll wait for the Dell Inspiron Mini to get a release date before making a decision.

  • Windows Mobile PowerShell Provider

    I haven’t taken a close look at this yet, but this sounds very very cool! I found it mentioned in Jeffrey Snover’s blog…

    PowerShell Access to Windows Mobile Devices

    …and then hopped over to the Nivot Ink blog to learn more…

    Windows Mobile PowerShell Provider

    Here’s the feature list from that blog entry…

    • Copy, Move, Delete items between folders on your device (including Storage Card) with standard PowerShell Cmdlets
    • Move/Copy files to/from your device and your desktop with ConvertTo-WMFile and ConvertFrom-WMFile
    • Get device information and manipulate and explore the registry with a rich device object returned from Get-WMDevice
    • Invoke-Item against remote items to or execute or trigger their associated applications
    • Invoke-Item with -Local switch to attempt to execute a remote file in the context of your local desktop (e.g. office docs or images/videos)
    • New “Mode” attributes specific to Windows Mobile file attributes: (I)nRom, Rom(M)odule
    • File/Folder objects’ attributes can be modified with .Attributes properties just like FileInfos etc.
    • Tab completion with MoW’s PowerTab Download

  • iPhone/iPod touch: Tap Top Tip

    I’ve had my iPod touch since, hmm, last October. But, I only learned about this iPhone/iPod touch browser tip a week ago. One web page design convention for iPhones is to put a tabbed row at the top of a web page for navigation. This tab set disappears if you are reading a long page that scrolls down. If you tap the top of the screen, you are flung back to the top of the page and, therefore, back to the nav row. I really should read product documentation more 🙂