Google TV : Nice but wait for Apple to show its hand with its secret weapon.

I just finished seeing a few iterations of the new Google TV.  One word:  NICE!  I think that a lot of people wondered about the keyboard, but this was revealed to be a small Thumb board that looks relatively comfortable to type on.

Through the literature I have been reading that Google TV may make Apple TV completely irrelevant.  Mmgh?  Well that would be news to a few thousand people who, in the first 24 hours, made the tiny black box a rarity.  And to the many who have ordered the same online only to find a 2 week waiting list with free shipping.

A few people in the know, other than those looking for a Non-Roku way of getting to Netflix due to the fact that they can also get to iTunes, have snapped up the device and made it a rarity in the Apple Store.
Here's Why?  And here's why I think any talk about obsolescence, despite the AppleTV 2's flaws are way overblown:

1.  THE APP STORE!  The Secret weapon that Apple has in its armamentarium is the App store.  With the App store Apple can introduce anything that it wants.  TV mainstream channels that are resisting Apple now can put their own apps in the device.  Can you imagine Comcast putting an app in the store, making available all 800 channels just by segmenting it into an app?  Or Enhanced TV?  The App store can make the Apple TV anything that Apple wants it to be.

Want more proof?  Let's talk about my favorite pet peeve of the mobile Apple devices:  The inability to play more codecs.  I have clamored to have Divx, AVI, MKV a part of the Apple line up.  They have refused.  But there is an App called CineXplayer which will use iTunes to port .AVI files from iTunes into the iPad and play it flawlessly.  There is now also the VLC app which does the same thing.  The official Apple restriction is gone with the entrance of an App.

2.  Airplay !  There is talk that Google already has this, but I could only find it in DLNA.  This is not really the same thing and as I have found with a few friends, DLNA is really buggy and really picky.  It's not as simple as plugging in your computer or device and turning on your Samsung TV and hoping that the TV picks up the signal.  If Apple's Airplay is done correctly, you will be able to stream content from any iOS device, to the AppleTV and automatically have it show up on your TV.   This leaves room for a good hack that will stream an iOS compatible NAS drive to the Apple TV.

3.  Simplicity!  Hard to gauge, but Apple is notorious for making things simple.  It's in their DNA.  It is also that which may separate Google TV from the masses, not to mention the price difference.

I believe that the Google TV will be a hit, but pricing and bundling concerns may make it not so pleasant as it will be branded according to the distributor.  This makes for a less than linear or smooth experience.  But from what I have seen Google TV is a unique take on television and programming.   But as Google shows its hands in this arena, the App store remains Apple's playground to experiment and surprise.  Remember all Apple TV's -be they version 1 or version 2 - have a non consumer useable USB slot.  It's not there for nothing.  The gloves may be coming off for these two tech titans, but I think Apple may have the upper hand.  They have been doing media for a long time and the App store is their Trojan Horse to change.

The Apple TV Part 2 Continued Mistakes...

The Original Apple TV

So, I have had an Apple TV for almost 2 years now and was happy to hear that the device will be updated in hardware form this coming month.   But the new device still does not answer some glaring questions that bothered me about the first device.  Never before have I seen a device more Jailbroken that belonged to Apple than the Apple TV.  It is as if the powers that be at Cupertino listened but did not heed the changes that really needed to be made for the device.

First the positives about the new device.  The most underrated part of the device that was not heralded enough in my opinion is the Airplay feature.  The ability to record video, pictures and music on your iPhone or idevice and play it back on your stereo or TV wirelessly is just sensational.    It is a very good option, but still lacks a little focus in some parts.  For example, how long can you stream from a battery operated device?  Of course this ability screams for a number of secondary and independent devices that will probably come to the forefront from third party developers.  The one essential thing that I can think of is of course storage.  With the lack of storage on the new Apple TV, one cannot really see this as a replacement device, but as a $99 conduit.  That may be a major coup for Apple in that it would answer a lot of questions about the enigmatic USB slot that remains pervasive in this iteration of the device.   But even if Airplay answers the storage question and a device comes along that can stream your library of movies, music and photos there are still barriers to this device.  And here comes my major concern about the miss that this new device entails.

The new Apple TV

First, Apple has seen fit to only allow streaming from devices that are running iTunes.  I do not know if that will change in the new device, but it is a major faux pas in my opinion.  Windows 7' s media offerings do not make that distinction.  If it's video or audio and it's on the network, it's fair game.  This is how it should be and in effect, makes the purchase of a NAS drive all the more enticing on a Windows Media Server.  However a NAS drive is not an iTunes server, thus my current Apple TV does not recognize it at all.   For me, this is heresy !  I am trying to rid myself of all DVD's once and for all.  I would like to eventually rip every single DVD that I have in my possession and leave them on a drive that is probably 1-2 terabytes in size.   I would like to put some type of device in a guest room, living room, bed room or any room that has a TV set or computer screen and allow the device to read from the NAS drive.  I would like to do this without having a computer on all of the time (hence the NAS drive).   Currently, the only device that I have seen that may be able to do this is the Western Digital Media Drive.  But I do not have enough reviews on it to render that an option.  What disappoints me is the fact that I bought the Apple TV with the expectation that this would be the major media hub for an entertainment center that I am building.  It is fast approaching that it may not be.

But streaming and storage are two things that concern me about this new device, but other smaller issues are also plaguing this device.  Let's talk about the Sync feature.  Plug in your Apple TV and open iTunes on your computer and the device starts synching immediately.  What's the problem with that you may ask?   Well, let's say that you have downloaded a 1.5 gb movie in HD from the Apple TV directly.  And let's say that you have limited drive space on your 250gb hard drive on your Mac.  The iTunes-Apple TV relationship dictates that it start synching immediately.  Thus you will be 1.5 gb down on your iMac drive just by starting iTunes and having your Apple TV on at the same time. 

Let's take a look at another scenario.  I recently started watching a TV series that is in 13 parts.  I watched 5 of them on my Apple TV, but due to the relationship with the computer, they have to remain in iTunes on the Computer due to the synching features.  If I decide to save hard drive space by erasing the entire series from my computer, all of the episodes get erased from the Apple TV as well.   So why not just turn off synching?   Well, some software engineer at Cupertino decided that if you wished to turn off synching that meant you wanted to erase your entire Apple TV library.   !!!! 

What should have been allowed is this.  And I think that the "jailbreakers" who rooted the device have done this with other file types.  Allow selective transfers to the Apple TV and perhaps Smart deletes, such as if a show has not been watched on the AppleTV, ask before erasing it if upon synching, it doesn't show up on the iTunes directory of the computer.

But the above pales in comparison to my biggest pet peeve of all for the current Apple TV.  The continuing lack of additional codecs.  First of all, I have been reading on a number of blogs and respnonses to this debate that DIVX and MKV are the codecs of bootleggers!  You know, the torrent freaks.  Take a look at the torrent sites and you will find that over 90% of files are in this format.   But I have something to say about that.  For one I use the DIVX codec for the plain and simple reason that it is small and allows the ability to put a number of different movies and shows on 1 DVD.  When I am travelling, it is great to have say 4 or 5 movies or TV shows or an entire series on 1 DVD instead of carrying a host of different files on the laptop or a bunch of DVDs.   DVD players are now being made that read DIVX thus reducing the number of DVDs needed.  There is no such player for .M4V or .H264 (At least none that can read from a DVD or CD as of this writing).  Secondly, I own a Phillips DVD player that allows USB cards.  This is just brilliant as it plays the AVI codec without a problem.

The Apple TV does not allow DIVX, AVI, MKV or anything that does not play on iPhone's Quicktime.  What is strange is that there is a Divx codec available for Quicktime that works flawlessly, but that was never transferred to either the iPhone or Apple TV.   Thus what you have is a crippled device that requires the majority of videos, movies etc. to be transcribed into H264 M4V formats.  This is a royal pain.  So much so that I have held back on transcribing many of my DVD's to this format due to the fact that the masses have just not caught on to doing this on a grand scale.  Granted the file formats are smaller and the quality is better, but for the most part a lot of hardware is still catching up to this codec.  I thought about buying an Elgato device to speed up the transcription process, but the actual principle of having to buy another device to do the job of one device seemed a little daunting and lacked any clear rhyme or reason.  Add to that Microsoft's Windows 7 solution addresses this issue in their Media Server components and we have another faux pas for this little device.  One could say that at $99 this is a reasonable omission, but what about those of us who paid upwards of $300 for the original device?  This should have been included.

Steve Jobs detailing what customers want in Apple TV.

Storage issues, too tight a link to iTunes and the lack of codecs leads me to wonder if Apple will ever come to terms with this device and its customers.  I saw the slide in which Mr Jobs pointed out what he was hearing from his customers and what they told him they wanted.  But I think that the slide shown was probably very selective in terms of answers.  Every person that I have ever spoken to who owns an Apple TV has complained about the Codec issue as being the weakest aspect of the device.  You see, it is not only "bootleggers" who need additional codecs and do not want to transcode - that has always been too simple of an excuse.  There are millions of people out there who have video cameras, such as Flip Recorders, Cannon Digital etc., who do not want to transcode their video before editing so that it can show up on AppleTV.  Many have .AVI codecs or other non-proprietary codecs.  These potential customers are being missed by Apple.  I for one have movies from vacations that I have not edited because of this issue.  It is a pain to transcribe gigabytes of home movies before they can be edited for the Apple TV.  These customers were either ignored or did not present with a loud enough voice.

So on the one hand you have a new device that may equal a new conduit and a new revenue stream due to simplicity.  On the other hand you have a new device that fails to answer the shortcomings of the first device.   For now, the strongest point for the Apple TV for me has been the movie rentals.  But others such as Roku, Microsoft, Samsung and Sony are already doing this sort of thing.  So integration with other devices may be the next forward step.  But if Cupertino fails to listen to its customers, there is no question that this device will remain just a hobby.

I will not upgrade to iOS 4.0 on My 3G iphone..

After reading this successful upgrade and witnessing the descriptions of the problems that the owner has had with the phone since the upgrade, I have decided not to upgrade my iPhone 3G but to wait to purchase iPhone 4.0.


http://shegeeks.net/shegeeks-mobile-iphone-os-4-on-an-iphone-3g-review/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Corvida+%28Shefks%29

iOS4 on iPhone 3G Upgrade Woes....

So this weekend I tried to upgrade my iPhone 3G.  Let's just say that I still haven't done it yet.  First came the backup debacle.  I downloaded the iOS4.0 and hit the upgrade button.  After 1 hour the back up was at 1%, after 2 hours 3%, 8 hours 4% (and that's being generous).  Luckily I had something to do (ie. sleep) while it was doing all of that.  Additionally, something interesting was also noted.  The phone does not charge during the Sync or the Backup phase of the upgrade.  I could see the battery draining even though it was plugged into the computer.   I cancelled the backup and decided to delete a few things to see if that would speed things up.

First I looked at movies, podcasts and music.  I figured I could just click on iTunes to put them back in if I wanted them.  Then I turned to 3rd Party Apps that have their own ecosystem or "sand box" of saved files.  Airshare was my biggest with 1.2 gigabytes of data bound to it.  I did a local backup of all the files in Airshare and erased them from the iPhone. 

That worked.  When I hit upgrade again, the backup went much more smoothly, this time taking 10 minutes!  It then told me that it wanted to backup my Notes, calendar, phonebook etc.  I said okay.  Then I got an error stating that everything couldn't be backed up.  It then went on to ask whether it was okay to just erase the iPhone and install iOS4.0 !!!! What the heck? 

At that point, I said "No."   And I now have a faster iPhone 3G running iOS 3.3.  It seems that all of that other minutiae, you know - podcasts, music and such- actually influence the running of the machine itself in 3.0.  Pictures however do not.  I'll let you know how the back up goes.  So far, it's been very frustrating - a first for an Apple device of mine.

LDD

On AT&T and the new pricing plan.....

Today, AT&T announced new pricing plans for Smartphones.  Gone is the Unlimited plan for new subscribers, but old subscribers will be able to keep their existing unlimited plans for the new phone.

This is huge!  I ran to my usage log a few minutes ago to see how much data I have actually used since I got the phone.  I am certain that it is a lot more than shown, since I mainly use it on a WIFI network, so the limits appeared to be okay for me.  But what about for others?  I can visibly see this new pricing structure putting a serious dent in 3G music listening, not to mention video streaming.   Perhaps that was the intent.

In reviewing my own data usage, since I have never reset it, it shows that I have downloaded 2 gigabytes of data over 19 months of usage, while sending a total of 300 mb.  I also checked my usage for the previous month and noted that it was in the megabytes and not gigabytes, something that I found very interesting.  Perhaps my usage was not as intense as I had first imagined.  Or perhaps I am lucky to have WIFI wherever I go and just use 3G when that is not possible.  Remember, AT&T counts email as data and I have a lot of that coming in on a constant basis.  They also count all of those "pings" for badges that show that you have a text message or a message in an app.  Streaming data is also included.

The New AT&T Data Plan:

Data Plus  :  200 mb of Data for $15 per month. If you go over, you get another 200mb for $15.

Data Pro   :  2 GB data for $25 per month.  If you go over, you get an additional 1GB for $10.

According to AT&T, 65% of their smartphone users use less than 200mb per month.

While 98% use less than 2GB per month on average. 

AT&T provided a Data Calculator so that you can calculate your need at this time.  -> Data Calculator

Information provided from the AT&T website (AT&T) to go into effect on June 7, 2010.


There is an uproar across the internet right now, with blogs requesting that a letter be written to the CEO of AT&T.   However such a letter, as discovered by Giorgio Galante, may lead to a cease and desist letter from AT&T.  Such customer service!  No wonder why we are seeing some major rumblings about leaving AT&T.  This may also be the reason AT&T is preparing for what may indeed be inevitable:  The iPhone opening up to other companies in the US.   At the rate that things are going, with data fee changes and a contentious public relations policy, AT&T may be unlucky if a large majority of iPhone owners decide to take up residence with another provider.

However, there may be more to the changes in rates.  One option could be that AT&T knows what's coming down the pike.  Certainly a new iPhone. One that will compete with Google's Android on many levels.  But one that will usurp more bandwidth than AT&T can provide, particularly in the hardest hit metropolitan areas of New York and San Francisco.  What is crazy now, could be madness in two weeks as the new phones come into play.  It could also mean that AT&T knows about the iPad and its 3G demands.  The fact that NYC ran out of 3G iPads is testament to what will happen once Apple brings supply up to satiate the demand.   All of this 3G activity from two Apple devices, which may include Video Conferencing, is bound to obstipate the bandwidth.  Especially in the first two weeks of the release.  Let's see some of the rumors from various web sites for next week, which could account for AT&T putting a sweeper in the defensive line:

Rumor 1:  A video camera on the iphone.  Talk about bandwidth hogging.  Who wouldn't stay on line forever over 3G (if it worked), sucking up bandwidth forever.

Rumor 2:  (Confirmed Fact):  Pandora and other music entities will be allowed to run in the background.  More bandwidth hogging, this time 8 hours per day from work, subway, bus and anywhere that allows a cell phone.

Rumor 3:  Tethering.  I used to tether my Palm Vx to my cell phone and then my Lifedrive to the same via Bluetooth.  It was slow, but it worked.  Picture doing the same with a full fledged computer over 3G.  Picture doing this with FLASH running in the background (alone 1mb down), spreadsheets (1mb), attachments etc.  So before even starting, you're 2-3 mb in the hole.  (So much for the potential $15 (200mb) plan).   You can see how this could become very cumbersome, usurping at least 200 mb per session.

Rumor 4:  Android devices will need the internet for just about everything.  It stands to reason that when Google comes out with Froyo, everything will be linked to the internet and that will cause more bandwidth to be used.  Consider Google's Documents app.  You will be looking at multiple megabytes of data being downloaded.  My thoughts:  AT&T is shivering thinking about this potential.

Rumor 5:  Tied into Rumor 4, Apple may make MobileMe free!  Now picture Rumor 4 running on Google devices and now multiply that by about 10 for AT&T to include current owners of MobileMe and new owners of MobileMe all vying for bandwidth at the same time - uploading/downloading movies, pictures, music, sound files, applications all over 3G!  If AT&T shivered thinking about Google, there is now panic in the streets at the AT&T headquarters.

So what to do?  Well, if capacity cannot equal demand and you have the ability to lock in the already existing customers, you start to make some big decisions.  Some that could ruin you as a company or save the company going into the future:

• You become proactive and ask customers to report low signal areas.  You then try to fix the problem (this seems to be working in some parts of the country).
• You increase the price to get out of the AT&T contract from $175 to $325.  You claim that the new devices have nothing to do with this change.  Thus you prevent the cavalier purchases and the possibility of never recuperating the money spent to subsidize the phone.
• Although this draws ire from the blogosphere, you know that people will still buy the new iPhone because you are the only one selling it.  And should the sky fall next year as the iPhone migrates to other carriers, you will still collect revenue from the current AT&T subscribers for they will think twice before leaving.
• You support your claim that it is the Power Users who are hogging up the bandwidth.  You get rid of the unlimited plans and kick these vagabonds off the network, hoping that these power users will leave and go to Verizon where you only too happy to see them "clog their pipes."

All of this because AT&T knows that there is a lot more coming down the pike than they are letting on about.  Just the above mentioned possibilities and rumors are enough to require change on their side of the wall.

What is left to ponder is what about the consumer?  Is 2 gigabytes enough to satiate the average iPhone user?  Or more importantly, will 2 gigabytes be enough to satiate the NEW IPHONE USER?  Or will AT&T, and let's be fair, other companies including Verizon, do just enough tweaking of the bandwidth that they stifle innovation and cost developers a lot of money.  If nobody downloads a Pandora, Etrade streaming, Facebook, Twitter or similar apps for fear that it will eat up their bandwidth, the growth of the App store could come to an end.  Let's hope not.


LDD.

Toodledo and Todo Too Listmaking Nirvana

When I used my Lifedrive profusely, I often wondered what would happen if I forgot the gadget at home. All of my Todo lists were on the device. Naturally, I could have used the Exchange server at work as a backup, but there were times when I felt that my needs with the Exchange Server conflicted. For example, did I really need my workplace to know that I was visiting my mother or that I had to pick up milk at 5pm? Too personal. On the other hand, I needed to know about important meetings and the Lifedrive and all of the Palm devices afforded me a way of knowing these things well in advance - be it 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week. But I still yearned for something more. The day that I left my machine at home showed me that.

It was a tuesday as I recall, back in 2002, I had a calendar of events as long as my arm. I had to see patients, but in between that there were other things that had deadlines fast approaching - and all of those non-direct patient care deadlines were on the device. Some things required phone calls being made before 5pm, some before 2 pm. I couldn't keep up with them all. My Palm Tungsten kept everything in place. I missed nothing that day, but only after getting back in my car at lunch time and driving home to get it. My partners thought I was crazy, but I knew better. The day ended at 11pm, but not without me putting a check mark next to every single item on the Todo list for that day.

So I began thinking.... Backing up the Todo list and the calendar to the PC was not the best thing in the world. If you left the gadget at home, you had two devices at home - The gadget and the PC. Enter Google!

Google was not the first to start putting things in the cloud, they are just the best at it. They have seen the future and it really is in cloud computing. Other companies have jumped on the bandwagon and some of these smaller companies are doing an incredible job. Again, I do want to give a shout out to Mobisystems for creating one of the first cloud devices, found on the palm with their MobiOffice suite for Palm. Hands down the best ever created for the Palm, eclipsing Dataviz. But I digress.

For the last two years I have been looking for a calendar solution that would integrate online and with the iPhone. I have yet to find a solution that works well. If I use my workplace Exchange calendar, it wipes out my regular calendar and events. If I use Google's calendar, I can't get my work calendar in at the same time due to the limitation of only 1 exchange server at a time on the device.

So, I began looking at the second problem that I was having, linking Todo lists which I use quite frequently. After reading "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People," and "Getting Things Done," and eventually listening to the hyper linguistical Merlyn Mann, I have been keeping TODO lists since 2000 and perfecting them after reading and listening to the other two that I mentioned. The 7 Habits book was a lifestyle changer for me. I categorized everything that I had to do, including family time and forced breaks. I have since fallen away from some of the very draconian things that I used to do, but with work, I find that these lists are invaluable. If something is due next friday, I label it a "3." If it suddenly becomes more important, I drag it up to a "1." I am able to complete things, not always in a timely fashion, but complete them none the less, using this system of importance. It turns out that others have been using systems like this for years. In "The Toyota Way," one of the first electronic books that I ever downloaded, I was stunned to see how these systems were used over and over again in the production plants. Microsoft, in a book written by one of its serious gurus - Randall Stross, this system was not only looked at, but strictly adhered to and probably accounted for much of the incredible profits this company produced during the heady 90's. "The Microsoft Way by Randall Stross" is a book about nothing but lists. I couldn't believe it when I read it in 1999, soon after reading "The 7 Habits..."

Fast forward to the present day, after years of searching for the near perfect solution, I finally believe that I have found my list taking Nirvana. The website is called TOODLEDO.COM. There is a competitor called REMEMBERTHEMILK.COM that is similar. But what makes Toodledo so wonderful for me is its integration with a TODO list suite called TODO (What else right :)?). TODO is available on the iPhone and is a list makers dream. It is customizable and can synch with either your Mac Desktop wirelessly (which is a dramatic plus - can you hear me Dataviz????). But it can also synch with TOODLEDO.COM for free. What's nice about this is the fact that even without a desktop app for the TODO iPhone program (It synchs with the iCal application, but not in an elegant way), synching with TOODLEDO.COM affords the download of a desktop widget, which is basically your TODO list synched with your iPhone. Make a change to your iPhone and hit synch and the change is on the desktop in the widget, in the cloud and available from any machine, be it windows, linux, solaris, Mac OS X, Symbian, Pen & Paper :). That IS TODO Nirvana.

Now, I am looking for the same thing for a calendar program. I would like a calendar program on my iPhone or any phone for that matter that would just synch anywhere. Google doesn't quite cut it due to some issues on the iPhone, especially the lack of multiple exchange servers or at the very least allowing 2 exchange servers on the phone. In addition, I would like for the calendar to be able to show the calendars of the rest of my family. Even my young kids have gotten into the calendars now themselves. I would like to see those calendars and not have to put their events in my own calendar, but have it just show up. Still not there yet.

In regards to notes, I have found a note Nirvana solution too. But more on that later.
For now, I highly recommend the following for the chronic List Takers out there:

1. TOODLEDO.COM - An online Todo list that synchs with iPhone's TODO.

2. iPhone App TODO by Appigo - A little expensive at $9.00, but very customizable and the best TODO app I have ever seen on the market. I've used at least 5 of them on the iPhone.








Honorable Mention:

1. REMEMBERTHEMILK.COM - These guys actually started the craze, but App
integration has been spotty. Additionally, the iPhone app is a
little too sparse, when compared to TOODLEDO.

2. Mobisystems Database for Palm - When I used it, it was the best Office App ever,
but it is a little dated now with the iPhone. Additionally,
there is no TODO list available. Still a great suite if you're
still using the old Palm OS. By the way, it won't crash your
Lifedrive. (This is really an honorable mention for a program
that brought me great joy).

LDD.

Open vs. Closed System.....

This afternoon was a pinnacle moment. One that will remain etched in time for me because of a decision that I made a year ago. It has proven to be the correct decision without a doubt.

I was on a journey in 2006 when my wife purchased a Lifedrive for my birthday. I couldn't decide when or if to stay with Palm, but all of my previous software would run on the Lifedrive (most of the time) and I was entrenched in the Palm ecosystem for at least another year or two I figured. At the time I thought that Palm would come out with a new operating system by 2006, then 2007.... but Nothing emanated! The system was old. My old software just wasn't cutting it anymore. I wanted more. Even the wonderful audiovisual beauty of the Lifedrive lost its luster. "Buy a TX," came the cry from others, "...it's just like a Lifedrive, but without the drive. So it's faster." But I became extremely cautious. I wondered whether transporting an old system to another new device was worth it. The more I read, the more I became worried. Another $300 on a legacy device was not worth it. As I read more blogs, I started discovering that the TX was a lot like the Lifedrive, with one exception: It could restart a lot quicker! But it still had a lot of restarts because of the same operating system failing to work well with the NVFS. So I waited.

The wait grew longer and longer until Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. My mind became clear. This is what a device was supposed to do. I never liked convergence devices because of the battery life, but this was something else. It was stylish, elegant, light, carried more capacity than a Lifedrive and just worked! But it had very little Medical Software. So, I waited. But I waited in awe. I saw the device at an airport terminal once and I asked the man in front of me if I could look at his device. It was amazing. Even my wife was amazed by its sheer simplicity. No stylus, just your finger.

Due to the lack of software, I stayed with Palm until finally in 2008, I purchased my first iPhone- The iPhone 3G. It carried 16 gb, 4x the size of my Lifedrive (You always want to trade up). Again the app store was sparse, but rudimentary versions of some important programs started to surface: Epocrates, HandBase, TealDocs (Which I have since erased - no need for this sort of thing anymore), but no Smartlistogo (what a wasted opportunity). I was also being introduced to Cloud Computing with the iPhone through several different websites. I was able to keep many documents in the cloud without a problem (by the way, let me give credit to Mobisystems for being one of the first to successfully introduce this in their Mobi suite on Palm. It worked well there too).

What has followed has been a steady stream of legacy programs updated, but more importantly there is now an entire ecosystem for programs that are not costly, and appear to generate more value for the dollar than on any system that has arisen before it. The App store has changed everything. And perhaps, if not because, this is due to Apple controlling almost everything that goes into the App store.

This is the major bone of contention however. For many, this gatekeeper is a sore and miserly figure who traverses the App Universe saying "Yes" or "No" at a single notice. Apps have been known to have been held in limbo for months before getting approved. The Google Phone App, which by the way has nothing to do with Google making it, but an independent programmer, has been held in limbo for months. The Facebook programmer Joe Hewitt actually quit the App store. He left parting quotes to the news media: "My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s policies,” “I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process.”

Locally, this has been quite a problem for some other people too. A drug rep showed up to my office 6 weeks ago to introduce a new device. We got to talking and after his presentation, he looked at my iPhone. He liked it, but he was with Verizon. He couldn't wait for the iPhone to come to Verizon, but was very excited that the Android was going to be available. I told him about how pleased I was with my iPhone and the entire Apple ecosystem. He felt that it was a little controlling and wondered whether open source would be better and quicker. However, I could tell that he really wanted an iPhone, but did not want to leave Verizon. I told him that I didn't mind the ecosystem. It enabled me to have a small amount of confidence that the software being installed would actually run and not wreck my entire device, ie. CaslBasic for the Lifedrive. I have had maybe two wayward apps that did nothing to the iPhone because the applications were confined to a sandbox. They could not ruin the address book or any of the system files, because they are not allowed to enter that realm. If faulty, they are removed without consequence until the developer updates the program.

3 weeks ago he came back into the office with a second round of devices to show me. After our business discussion was over, he was gleaming about his Android. Its buttons, its incredible screen, its incredible apps. Well, some apps which were actually not bad at all. I liked the multitasking, it was quite nice, but I didn't like the scrolling and the brief pause after hitting the icons. But I was biased. I love my iPhone. But he was in la-la- land and with the Google going full steam ahead in the advertising department, along with Verizon belittling the iPhone and AT&T, why shouldn't he? He was very gracious in his criticism about the iPhone, mainly the closed nature of the App store and the approval process, whereas he could download software from almost anywhere. I warned him about rogue software, but he was in la-la land. And who could blame him?

This afternoon it happened! He came back in to get a signature for a device for a patient. He was extremely sad. I asked him what happened. He told me that he downloaded a program for his Android called "Weatherbug." After a few clicks, it worked once, but then it completely shut down his system. He turned it back on only to find that he could run none of his apps and above all else, unable to make any phone calls at all. I couldn't believe it. This was no laughing matter! He had important calls, some life saving calls for his equipment and he couldn't answer them back. His entire phone was bricked !!!! He began panicking, but luckily he had done a backup of his system and his music and photos were still intact and many A/V files were stored on the SD card which was preserved. But the settings for programs and individual files were gone! Unless they were backed up. He was able to do a fresh install of the software, but settings and other file attributes were gone. Of course he did not reload the Weather Bug software.

After calming down to tell me about it, he performed a Mea Culpa: "I really want an iPhone!" He admitted that the closed system of Apple was probably responsible for something like this not happening with the iPhone in the first place. I told him that the gatekeeper system has its flaws, but it has kept millions of iPhone owners safe. It's the so-called Uber-Geeks who want freedom at any cost, even if the cost is destroying the very device that they are trying to save. I witnessed the process first hand with Palm. I am certain that many Lifedrive programs just crashed because of faulty software addressing nonexistent memory locations. Some companies programmed better than others.

Open vs. Closed? Most of the time I would choose Open, but when it's done correctly, a Closed system can have its benefits too. In this case, I am very happy that I chose to enter and stay in the walled garden of Apple.