Q to 700w

January 29, 2007 at 9:12 am · Filed under Miscellaneous

For some time I have wanted a new smart phone, but I have been lazy about it — as a gadget-user I am not easy to please.  Choosing a smart phone is an exercise in compromise.  And the few minutes of time with one in a store isn’t sufficient.  My musts are:

• For me it needs to have a pen (for writing w/Graffiti 2);
• email / calendar sync (push);
• extendable (tweakable);
• and, of course, be a usable phone. 

David Sugarman* of Microsoft gave a Treo 700w to my business partner Nathan — this gave me the chance to take a hard look at a phone.  I’ve played with other phones extensively too (some Blackberry models — they’re all right, but they smack of proprietary platform).

Anyway, the 700w is a solid piece of hardware.  I have really liked the Palm hardware since their Tungsten line.  (I was a user of the Palm OS too, but abandoned that when Palm Source was sold).  I still have a T3 in excellent shape.  I should have sold that the minute I stopped using it, but I have a hard time parting with gadgets (any one want an Apple MessagePad 100?).

Anyway, I didn’t act on my lust for a new gadget.  As much as I wanted one, I have far too often bought something because I thought it would make my life easier only to find that I did not.

Then the hinge broke on my cell phone.  It still worked.  It just had the annoying habit of hanging up on people when I flipped it open. 

So David offered me a Motorola Q.  No pen, but I thought I’d give it a try.  After all, the penless UI (i.e., for WM Smart Phone) has some advantages over the Pocket PC UI. 

I explained the advantages of the penless UI to Nathan – a light bulb went off in his head.  He had thought that WM5 was just a little harder to use than WM-2003 (his old phone), but he realized that he was comparing an older penless model with a new penful (?) model.  It was the pen that was an impediment to his 700w experience; not the version of the OS.  

So . . .

Nathan has the new Q and I have the (pretty new) Treo 700w.  I am pretty happy with it.  It has some shortcomings, but all in all it works great.   The best thing about this phone is the push synchronization of contacts / calendar entries through Exchange.  The thing I would most like to change is that there is no good push e-mail solution outside of Exchange (or across multiple Exchange servers, for that matter). 

Thanks, David! 

*Industry Partner Manager and Mobility Lead, Capital Markets, Financial Services Group.

Tags: 700w, Graffiti, Microsoft, Palm, Q, Treo, WM2003, WM5

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A better audio device

December 3, 2006 at 9:26 pm · Filed under Miscellaneous

I’ve been following (fellow ex-Gang member) Jason Calacanis on building a better iPod.  This concept strikes home for me because I’m the kind of “power-user” geek that doesn’t own an iPod because it isn’t flexible enough for me.  In the past I looked seriously into other products and decided that nothing out there would handle the things I wanted.

Jason says his key features are:

1. Open source software.
2. Wifi
3. No DRM
4. Removeable media (i.e. Compact Flash)
5. Preloaded with three shows from the top 200 podcasts

My key features are:

1. Open source software.  Because I think only a community of audio geeks can create something flexible enough for me.
2. Great tagging support.  I am an “album oriented rock” kind of guy.  I want my music to play back in the right order; and more elusively, I want my albums to be sorted in the right order.  After all, Magical Mystery Tour came out after Sgt. Pepper’s.  Not the other way around.  Tags (specifically ALBUMSORT) can solve this problem.
3. Full synchronization between the device and a desktop player.  I want playlists, ratings, tags, tracks, etc., to flow between the two.  Of course, this means that there needs to be “don’t sync” and “smart sync” options for tracks / albums / tags so the desktop player isn’t constantly flooding the device.
4. Recording function.  Podcasts on the go.
5. Bookmarking podcasts.  It should remember your position in a track even if you play something else and then go back to it.

What I don’t care about:

1. DRM.  Let there be DRM.  I see that Dave Winer is out if there is any DRM, but I don’t get why DRM kills the project.  I honestly don’t care because I’ll never use it.  The iPod doesn’t force you to use DRM.  The iTunes store does.  I know everyone wants a DRM-free online purchasing experience.  I am not voting for DRM and I don’t desire it, but I don’t see it as a player issue.

Nice to haves:

1. Wifi.  Yes, it would be cool for synchronization through Wifi.  Sharing podcasts through Wifi cool too.  A must?  Nah.
2. Removable media.  This would be cool.  I imagine Jason is talking about additional storage (so, it comes with x Gigs, but you can add additional storage with a CF card).
3. Preloaded with podcasts is a cool marketing idea. 
4. It is also a PDA phone.  OK, kind of a joke, but I really only want one device.  This begs the question: is new hardware necessary?  How about just a killer mobile app running on WM5?  All storage on removable media (not cheap, but dropping in price all the time).

Anyway, this is really fun stuff.  I just love gadgets.

Tags: Calacanis, DRM, iPod, WM5

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