Recently in cellular Category

We're all wizards now.   A C Clarke's often cited,paraphrased or mangle quote is appropriate for many of the daily tasks we take for granted.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.' 1972 A. C. Clarke Lost Worlds

Over the last couple of weeks I've found that walk up magic and showing people how to get the most out of a cell phone leads to the same reaction. ( the latter is far less likely to get you  burned as a witch in some of our undeveloped  3g areas) 

 Shazam is one of those apps that is cooler than a cold man's  cold bits  during an Alaskan  Mr Ice Pants festival.   For the last  few months  I've been trying to find out the names of a couple of songs that are played  at the  good old hockey game. Both tracks  have no music ,  have really short hooks and one could safely classify them as being graduates from the " bleep bleep thump"  school.

I'd sat with an iPhone in my pocket  game after game while forgetting I had the means to do so with me. Loaded the shazam app from the stadium wifi,  awaited the song to come on and set it to capture.  This is not an easy capture.  That's a PA  with  cheering and pervasive  clapping   but Shazam was  able to determine most of the songs under these conditions.    Just load, lift and listen and it does the rest on your iPhone or Android device and you can save it for later, or buy it  now.   My god a  business model on the mobile web what a wondrous age we live in!

That's still not the interesting part.  Why did it take so long to put this 2+2  together?   Turns out it was an ambiguity that I could live with but my  wife always  kept asking about.. "what song's that"   is a problem that's harder to live with. 

Locating the good apps quickly then  finding out what is, and isn't useful , could be a second career,  a really badly remunerated  second career.   So best make it a hobbyto find out what your friends regularly overlook  when relating to the net  and   with your  best  Carnac the magnificient  impression  hold the phone  to your head and proceed to  amaze.

 Why spend the time?  Most of the coolest apps  work when   you have an audience,  heck  in that  stadium of 11,000 people only  2 were logged in on the  two presence services I use. In general  I feel like a "boy and his iPod dog" wandering the  desert , Phoenix  looks pretty much looks like  distopic sci fi anyway so it's not too hard to play along.

I'm going to start posting items from my work blog onto this one since I get more exposure here.

A couple of items appeared on my  reader in close proximity that  suggested that iPhone isn't just a neat phone but it's also the future of handheld gaming and the death of terrestrial radio.

It's also the death of common sense least for  the current incarnation of the iPhone. Which network is going to have the ability to support that many real times streams?  If you don't have immediacy it's not radio.  Sure you can  DL the playlist  1st over night then just add in the  hosts  locally  may work, but  why bother  what are we trying to achieve here?   Replication of radio? Why if it's so bad, would we want to?

Apples  target"¦ 10 million  phones.

Yep that kills radio's    more than 1 unit per person.   > 300 million.
that kills  Nintendo's ( just one  companies) 20 million  DS base.

It doesn't even kill XM/ Sirius  merge  with  17.3 million paying users.  It's a bit late to walk by the  bleeding corpse of radio  and get your friend to take a picture of you standing with your foot on its chest.  That's the perception of radio anyway.   Sadly it doesn't jibe with these results.

Radio reaches more than 235 million listeners over the course of the week according to the RADAR 97 June 2008 Radio Listening Estimates. (link)

20 times more people than  Apple expect to sell phones to. Radio  Two controls,  no computer needed to keep it in sync  and oh battery life can be in weeks/ month range.

As to handheld gaming?  Would you  pay  $70 a month for your kid to play games on it?  Beggars belief really that it's being seriously considered as a question. 

Can we start using the iPhone to do excellent iPhone  related things rather than trying to recreate the old world?

Let's take a look at the quality of thought possessed by our alleged servants in the Phoenix city council this gem about the recent ban on "texting while driving", despite an existing law against distracted driving and yet another state one making its way through.

"We're legislating common sense," Councilman Doug Lingner said."

Then why does it need a law?

Cynical point 1:

This law is "needed" since the money goes to Phoenix while enforcing a general law on distracted driving wouldn't be as advantageous financially, I mean the people just.. oh wait I mean 3.9% of the eligible voters of Phoenix just inflicted another tax rise to pay for 500 additional police which one hopes will catch most of those "do gooders" with a nice fine ;) Secondly I don't for a second believe that those additional officers will ever see the street and the money will go to something shiny that no one uses.

Cynical point 2:

As usual those super humans that have state jobs , like those that enforce the new law ,are... EXEMPT... in the state version. The same reason most of us have to prove we're not on drugs while state legislators do not , what a lovely country you lost.

Texting-while-driving ban passed

Cynical point 3:

There is no way an officer can tell if you are engaging in legal ( dialing the phone) versus illegal activity and this law is merely a pretext to  allow the police to pull over anyone to start their "fishing expedition" 

Note that the newspaper of record doesn't tell you the bill's name or contents in either case.

Well I received a call from Nextel re my  letter submitted to them through a consumer complaint site  and the myriad mails to and fro their tech support.   I explained once more where my problem lay , that my trying a new handset out to see if the problem was resolved was not a year commitment. After restating my case they are taking the phone back, canceling both lines, no fee.

I'm happy. Once they get back on their feet and start to provide a better choice of phones for Sprint/Nextel  ( Cell on sprint, walkie talkie on Nextel)  there's a chance I'll come back( though only on an annual contract )   when they do.  It's a shame that so many hours had to be wasted to get to this stage but I am glad I finally found someone to talk to  ( 2 people actually)  that at least  tried to get me a solution to stay with them, I tried it, didn't  feel like it was a fair trade that I would have to extend my contract because it wasn't working.    

Not over yet.  Phone has to go back, final bill received and a note saying I am free and clear:)  Still there is hope.

Why the bitterness?  Seemingly I can't cancel my phone of near 4 years with them since , shock horror, the plan changed in 2005 and they added 2years onto it. Seemingly the person in the Nextel shop answered the question about adding a secondary number to the line requiring  the old contract. Well he lied both phones  have to go till nov 2007 or  I have to pay a $400 "early" termination fee.  Shame that the network is  becoming increasingly unreliable.

They  don't have the old contract available , nor have I signed an update, so I would like them to provide the document to which they have said is impossible. Nextel's service in the Phoenix region has  deteriorated over the last few months , they have acknowledged this problem   with their "hybrid" phones that run  calls over spring and keep the walkie talkie on nextel but  here's the problem .

Been offered 2 free phones/ transfer etc that works on this system on an Annual contract  ie  3 months longer than they have "got" me for.  Doesn't that admit that the service level has been broken ?  Or should I be the "good little consumer"  and just take a "generous" offer.

Sadly I am at a loss as to how I can argue against a contract I don't physically possess or show that their conditions have materially changed since signing? 

My Me 2.0 post

No rush  the I phone is coming out in the summer which is a cruel and heartless trick to play on the Q using public. Apple , though I have not seen anything other than the site (I'll watch the keynote at home later in QT)  but the thought that's made "no thought just do it"  an apparent reality is gratifying. I've not been having that great a day with technology  as it is.  

So the rumored Apple phone and Widescreen iPod just happen to be in the same body, add in a fully featured browser a top OSX and what we have here is technolust writ large. ( so much so I am not even going to indulge in carrier bashing)

K this phone has a glass cockpit , it's just touchy touchy  and if Smith had dialed for help , say from a scriptwriter, in I Robot this iPhone would not have looked out of place.   They've taken one of the oldest actions  flipping through a rolodex or your record collection and brought it into gestures that  look natural.    The phone's  "aware" of it's orientation and function and changes the display accordingly, disables features you shouldn't hit when on a call, moves to landscape mode at the same time you tilt it 

Whoopee a camera.. I'm a real downer on these since the kind of results you can get out of the space a lens has to go in  invariably sucks. I have a really neat Sony with Zeiss optics that you can see chromatic aberration on and it's a GOOD dedicated camera of it's kind costing more than the iPhone so  please just stop with the cameras  it's the  "new digital clock on a smaller item" that seemed to sum up Japanese innovation in the 70's :)

Connections?  Frankly I don't care about the phone section at all. While the  iPhone uses quad-band GSM and  Cingular’s EDGE network, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.0  leave enough options to make this useful around the home  as a player, vid and organizer if someone can hack skype into it I am so there.

Storage, OMG  a mobile device that doesn't come hobbled  with 64mb or 128mb  but a reasonable 4 or 8gb. Given Apple's penchant for doubling the size of these in the first few iterations I'm not too concerned.

As for iTV  I need a raise, I need some kind of plan where pre tax  Apple purchases can be taken of my salary.. like a 401k  but maybe a 1024Mb?

What's even cooler is Erin   was suitably geeked and cooing in all the right places : I had no sleep,   blocked head, unblocked bottom and  I need some sanity nap