Louie discusses the Motorola Droid 4 and HP hanging onto WebOS

- Yes, the font is smaller
- No iPad app
- No phone
- New addition to location services

The once king of the smartphone market, Blackberry by RIM, has been all but silent after the iPhone knocked off of its pedestal in 2007. Since then, their releases have been lackluster at best with huge disasters intermingled over the years. One such mess was the Storm. It was labeled as the iPhone killer. This was RIM’s mindset more than the media. It was codenamed AK, for Apple Killer, while in development.

Upon launch, things were different. Frequent freezes and resets, lack of selection of 3rd part applications and a strange experience with the tilting screen created left this device all about the hype and not at all about using it. There was a Storm 2 somewhere along the way that supposedly fixed the problems but, got no media.

The folks over at RIM are convinced they’re still part of the game and, just today, released two new models. The BlackBerry Bold 9650 and BlackBerry Pearl 3G.

The new Bold is just a BlackBerry Tour on steroids as it looks almost identical. A couple of differences to note are twice as much memory and the inclusion of WiFi (802.11b/g only). Most importantly, another device drops the ball and moves to the optical trackpad.

The Pearl 3G also moved to the trackpad which is funny because the Pearl was the first to sport the little white ball giving the Pearl its name. Namesake aside, the trackpad is a smart move. The Pearl will sport WiFi also (802.11b/g/n) as well as a higher resolution for the social networking, non business type users that has always been the demographic for the wildly popular Pearl. The Pearl 3G will also come in two flavors - the 9100 gives the standard 14 keys while the 9015 offers 20 keys for expanded QWERTY.

The new Bold is CDMA and will more than likely appear on Sprint and Verizon. The Peal 3G is standard GSM which points to AT&T, T-Mobile and most of Europe.

The extra memory, optical trackpad and WiFi features will keep BlackBerry fans happy but I don’t’ see it creating and converts. RIM is going to have to step it up on the innovation side to pull away iPhone or Android owners. RIM cannot hide behind the enterprise stronghold forever as other smartphone manufacturers creep closer toward the corporate market.

It is that time of year again when iPhone rumors ramp up more than usual. All year long we hear about the next iPhone and what it may contain but it is around now that things kick into high gear. Speculation has been high about the iPhone coming to Verizon and AT&T getting a new version.

We may now have the strongest piece of evidence that a new phone is due this summer though. Each year since its inception, the iPhone has been announced at the Worldwide Developers’ Conference and been released shortly thereafter. The phone is due for a refresh.

In a turn of events, it is now being reported that AT&T has restricted employee vacation in the month of June. The only time this has happened in the past was for previous iPhones and not it is happening again. The timing could be coincidental but what could be the reason if not another iPhone.

The next phone is rumored to have a better camera, possibly a front-facing camera, the Apple A4 silicon chip, more memory, better battery life, and even a touch based case (like the magic mouse).

All of this information in concert with the definitive release of the next iPhone OS (version 4) makes for a pretty substantial rumor. We have seen minor releases of the OS throughout the year on existing models but  major releases have traditionally arrived on new hardware. To that end, OS 4 will not be compatible with the original iPhone 2G and only portions of it will be available on the iPhone 3G. It stands to reason that the 3G S and the forthcoming next-generation device will be Apple’s two devices.

Time will tell but June is not far away so you don’t have to wait long.

This is not as much about a new iPhone or its features as it is about the outrageous reporting that is happening around it.

There is rumor of a 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) because the conference center where it is usually held has a “corporate event” booked in a similar timeframe. Apple consistently books anonymously with that same title. That may be the closest item to fact revolving around a new iPhone.

What are some of the other items in the media?

• CDMA iPhone for Verizon starts production in September
• CMDA iPhone not likely for Verizon, rather China Telecom or KDDI in Japan
• HD video playback and recording w/ 5 megapixel camera
• 64GB of NAND flash storage
• Increased battery life
• AMOLED screen
• IPS (Intra-Plane Switching) screen
• OS 4.0 w/ multitasking
• Front facing camera
• 960x640 double resolution
• Apple A4 processor (like in the iPad)

Is there any validity to any of these statements? At the moment, no. It is all speculation. Anyone who knows anything about Apple can attest to the fact that pictures of an iPhone part or facts of this nature being leaked this early just doesn’t happen. Many of these types of specifications can be likely as it nears and they are sound rumors, but rumors nonetheless - some of them anyway.

Many of these points came out of the Wall Street Journal. Does anyone remember January 26/27 this year? The 27th was the day the iPad keynote happened. The 26th was the night Jason Calacanis (CEO Mahalo, Open Angel Forums, etc) sent several Twitter updates with a variety of features the forthcoming iPad was to have. Each and every one of them was more ridiculous than the last. They were all implausible by size, weight, price point, or a combination of those. Early the next morning before the keynote, many of those factors were announced in the Wall Street Journal thanks for poor reporting and no fact checking.

Historically speaking, Apple is likely to release an iPhone this summer after 2010’s WWDC. Given the landscape of smartphones today, Apple has no choice but to include many new features and “wow factors” this time around. The move from the 3G to the 3G S brought better processing speed but not much else to speak of. 

One or some of these features will more than likely be in the next generation iPhone (Rumored to be called either 4G, HD, Pro, or Premium). All of them being included with a price point of $199 and $299 is unlikely. Especially if an expensive IPS screen, HD camera, additional camera and an A4 processor are all involved.

This year, more than ever, we should all be cautious to believe what we read/hear about a next generation iPhone. No doubt the hype will grow in the next couple of months and Apple will re-enter with a grand flourish but until that time… the specifics are unknown and the facts are rumors.

We have been hearing about this for years through all the grapevines but nothing has ever come out of it. Multi-tasking on the iPhone. That rumor is swirling around yet again. The iPad drops tomorrow. What is the next big thing on Apple’s plate? A new iPhone this summer and a new OS 4.0 to go with it.

Let’s set the record straight, the phone is totally capable of it - just ask anyone who has jailbroken theirs. That means that if multi-tasking is not done, that’s on purpose. Apple has its reasons for doing this and they all make sense but they it is still a hindrance and there is some hypocrisy involved. I’ll explain what I mean.

What are the detractors for enabling multi-tasking?

Battery life in a phone with existing substandard battery performance

Memory management - the iPhone’s greatest feature is that it never crashes which can be forgotten about with multi-tasking. Palm OS users want to chime in here?

App switching/closing - this is not a detractor as much as it’s something just needs to be addressed. You have an app open. How do you open another without closing the first? What if you want to close the first? This needs to be built which takes away from the simplicity of the home button.

Why is it a hindrance to not have it?

I can’t listen to music on Pandora and check an email while keeping the music going.

I can’t play a game and stop to respond to an SMS and come back to where I left off.

Think of anything you do on your iPhone for an extended period of time (let’s say 10 minutes straight) and then think about all the ways that can be interrupted (text, email, phone calls, push notifications) and realize how much productivity would be gained if you could pick up where you left off.

Hypocrisy?

Have you ever been listening to music in iTunes and moved applications elsewhere and the music kept playing? I suppose that means Apple will partially allow it with their native apps but 3rd party apps don’t count. Checking email and listening to music with the iPod function still causes battery drain, right?

I know there are push notifications now and that helps a little. So you can log into Yahoo messenger and leave the app and a push notification will alert you when a message comes in. Even with that, when you enter the app it is opening as if from scratch which causes a delay that you wouldn’t have if you were opening a minimized application.

So what does this mean? Will they include it. Several places are reporting this but there is no date for 4.0 out there yet. There is no justification for this except one major business idea. Competitors have offered multi-tasking all along but not enough of everything else to be an issue. With WebOS and Android picking up steam and Blackberry in the background with its own market share, it’s time Apple started addressing the concerns of their customers. I think everyone agrees that an overhaul of the OS to bring in some killer features like multi-tasking and something nobody really sees coming is needed. Bringing us a  new revision number on small hardware changes and no “wow features” this summer will narrow the gap and Apple will no longer have the lead they have now. They even run the risk of falling behind.

The biggest news over the last couple of days has not been the advancement of new technology or the proliferation of new social media. It has not been a new product or must have gadget. It has been the removal of something. Apple began to quietly remove and apps with “objectionable content.” It all began with an app called - Wobble iBoobs and grew from there. At last check the count was over 5,000 apps removed but not from all sexy app developers. While smaller companies and developers like those responsible for Wobbly iBoobs see their app magically erased from the store; Sports Illustrated and even Playboy remain in the store. The reasoning for this is, “The difference is this is a well-known company with previously published material available broadly in a well-accepted format,” as told to us by Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of worldwide product marketing.

What started this? Apple was getting an increasing number of complaints from women who found the contest offensive and objectionable as well as parents concerned about what their children might be seeing. What was failed to be mentioned here was that every app with questionable material has a warning that it should only be downloaded by someone 17 years of age or older. Anyone under that age that still downloads has violated Apple’s terms of service so there should be no children downloading. Any child young enough to be maladjusted from an app like that shouldn’t have an iPhone or at least not without parental supervision. Women offended by these apps should simple make a choice not to download them. I don’t have a single app like that on my phone but I believe in the freedom of other people to have them if they so choose.

The end result is that the Apple brand is as squeaky clean and G-Rated as Mickey Mouse and they want to keep it that way, even if that means continue to censor the apps the way China censors its Internet usage and pulling these Gestapo-like tactics of sweeping through the app store and eradicating all apps Schiller deems unfit. This is reminiscent of Apple’s decision to deny Google Voice.

Their management over the hardware and software with an app approval process is brilliant in terms of moderating memory usage and keeping the device stable. However the dictatorship of content goes beyond ensuring developers keep clean code and is getting into a realm of censorship. They are not the MPAA, FCC, etc and should put the onus on the user or the parent to choose what is sensible for them. If a parent doesn’t watch their child, the app gets removed and all the legitimate adults lose out. That is like saying that HBO will take off late night racy shows because children are waking up and turning on the TV.

Bottom line - Police the behavior of your children and yourselves so the company doesn’t have to. Apple; stop being overly sensitive and allow creativity and innovation to flourish in your closed-platform or people will leave for open source projects that will allow it.

Windows Phone 7 - Initial reactions

I saw a demo of the new Windows Phone 7 today. I wasn’t impressed. Here are my immediate thoughts.

If you’re reading this immediately after it was posted, then I can bet you’re not reading it on your Nexus One. This morning, every Nexus One in the country lost service all at once. To be specific, data service. Was it all T-Mobile? No. All HTC phones? No. Just the Nexus One. No network upgrade, not phone firmware patch. It just stopped working.

It starts with a prompt on the phone to buy a data plan (even if you already have one). So you call T-Mobile but they have to forward you to HTC support. That’s where you get the help. They tell you that they have no idea but it’ll be fixed soon.

Some are wondering, “Why HTC? It’s the Google Nexus One.” Nope. It’s not. It’s Google branded but it’s made by HTC. How does it differ from the HTC Hero, Tattoo, Magic, or the Dream. It doesn’t except in terms of the version of the Android OS.

There is one other major difference. You have to buy it through Google, get billing support through T-Mobile and tech support through HTC. T-Mobile’s only apparent role is to provide signal to the antenna. So far this morning they haven’t done that.

This is not a Google bashing article to leverage against Apple’s shortcomings this week. This is not a T-Mobile bashing article to raise the opinion of AT&T. This is phantom problem without rhyme or reason and poor replies to customer because of poorly engineered business deal between the three companies.

If the Nexus One wants to mature and see its full potential, it will most certainly need to not continue to stop working spontaneously. And when it reaches other carriers, the support path will need to be better as well.