As someone that has infrequently used their service, it’s easy to see that their business potential could be taking off and when you compare this to some of the other solutions on the market – PayPal for instance – it’s easy to see why people might want to switch.  Don’t get me wrong, I love PayPal, but their swipe service is virtually non-existent and for someone that wants to, from time to time, accept real credit cards with very quick turnaround, the service is excellent.  Definitely worth a look.  Works on all Apple devices and with most Android phones.

geek

As the words of this article are reaching the screen I, like many likely will, am wondering why HP, a company of such vast resources, would buy Palm, a company that has been floundering in recent years. Their last big success, the Treo, has been replaced many times over and their recent products were met with harsh criticism from even the staunchest Palm supporters. Hopefully they know better and we can all sit back and watch what they turn out of this acquisition.

~geek

First – the love – the iPhone really is an easy to use and functional device. The real game-changer is the App Store, which seems significantly better than Blackberry’s recently released App World (I am still carrying my Verizon Storm, too) and more complete then what Android has to offer. On the iPhone, when you say “there’s an App for that” you’re generally not kidding. If only the Mac had such great development community. The iPhone is also a nice phone from a design perspective. For me it fits pretty well – not quite thick enough to put between my shoulder and ear, but generally comfortable to use. It also goes well in a pocket without looking like you’re carrying around a small paperback novel.

Next – the hate – and this one is easy, too. AT&T and by association the iPhone has the worst phone service that I could ever have imagined. I’ve had cell phones for a long time, and as a Verizon customer in recent years I’ve become accustomed to treating my cell phone the same way that I would treat a land-line. I just expect it to work. With AT&T… not so much. I have come once more to the point that I am frequently apologizing for being on my cell phone. It’s embarrassing. And it’s not like I live in an unpopulated area – I live in Silicon Valley – a few miles from Apple – something tells me that it must be much, much worse in other areas.

Just my thoughts, but important to know as the next article I have in mind will include which apps are on my iPhone and why.

geek

Not surprisingly, I have an opinion about Google’s new Android phone operating system and their Open Handset Alliance, and as much as I don’t want to admit it I believe this is great for the consumer and even better for the phone manufacturers.  Why?  Because, finally the phone manufacturers can spend less time working on creating an OS for their phone and put those investment dollars into making their phones better telephones.  Add in to that some additional functionality on even the most generic of phones and you potentially end up with an exploding smart-phone revolution that significantly improves the end-user experience.

It is yet to be seen how the companies that have signed on will take advantage of the open-source nature of the Android system, or even how similar the phones will be when they come off the assembly line.  The open-source nature of the idea allows for so much variety and my greatest fear is that they’ll all come to a similar end result.  Fortunately, companies will be able to choose what they offer – their own OS, a Windows platform or an open-source Linux platform, so maybe my fears won’t reach fruition and the market will allow the differentiation to come out in the user experience, the fit and finish of the product and, quite often, the hip factor that the handset carries.

What I don’t understand is how a company like Google can honestly suggest that this new technology will make the mobile internet experience “better than on a PC.”  I’ve used the internet on my Blackberry, and frankly until web-developers get on board and write a user experience and code specifically for handsets I don’t see how a poor user experience is going to change with a new interface.  It’s a tiny screen, a typically slow speed connection, and a sacrificed keyboard.  Those things aren’t likely to change if phone manufacturers aren’t looking to alienate their customers, because frankly my Blackberry 8830 is plenty big enough.  We’ll see what dribbles out in the second half of 2008, but I don’t see a revolutionary change from what we’re used to seeing today and I definitely don’t see it being better than my PC.

The ultimate winners here could be Linux and the Windows Mobile OS.  Up until now the Microsoft product offering has been mixed, but now that the Google money machine has rolled into the open-source camp I imagine that Microsoft is going to have to step up to the plate or find the future of its mobile OS fading into the sunset.  As a Windows systems administrator (everyone has to have a day job), I value the tools that the Windows Mobile OS offers , but I can’t use their phones because they’re typically not a good phone.  If I can’t make and receive calls equal to even the lowest end LG phone, no amount of features will change my perception of that phone.  Could Google’s announcement mean that I can get a mobile platform for system administration AND a good telephone?  Only time will tell.

~geek