Tag Archives | Smartphones

Cheaper iPhone Data Plans? Yes, Please!

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 18, 2009 at 12:06 pm

I’m not sure if there’s a guiding principle at work with the evolution of pricing for mobile-phone data plans, but if there is, it sure isn’t Moore Law–the $30 I plunk down each month for unlimited data for my iPhone is 50 percent more than what I paid a few years ago with my first smartphone, a Treo 650. But BusinessWeek has published an encouraging report that AT&T is considering lowering the cost of iPhone data or introducing a $20 plan for something less than all-you-can eat access. Not surprisingly, the folks who have snapped up iPhones to date tend to be a pretty affluent bunch, and AT&T is worried that it may be running out of propserous customers to sell new phones to.

I hope very much that the carrier does chop prices–but that it does so by simply instituting a price cut for unlimited data rather than adding a cheaper, capped option. Smartphones are pocketable PCs, and using one with anything less than all-you-can eat data is like a trip back to the era when people paid for AOL by the hour and kept a nervous eyeball on the meter at all times. You gotta think that if AT&T reduces the cost of unlimited data, it can sell more than enough additional iPhones to end up making more money than it does today at current rates. It would be a boon for AT&T, for new customers, and for those of us who would be happy to renew our contracts at a lower rate. Come to think of it, it would also benefit customers of other carriers, since cheaper iPhones would require other providers to respond with price cuts.

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SlingPlayer for iPhone–Cool. And Crippled!

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 13, 2009 at 5:59 pm

SlingPlayer for iPhoneBack before I had an iPhone, I owned an AT&T Tilt phone. I ran the Windows Mobile version of SlingPlayer on it to watch my TiVo back home from my phone, courtesy of the Slingbox in my entertainment center. It worked wonderfully well over the AT&T network, and when I bought an iPhone 3G and put the Tilt into retirement, losing SlingPlayer was one of the few ways in which becoming an iPhone user wasn’t a major upgrade to my mobile life.

Today, eleven months after Sling announced it was working on SlingPlayer for iPhone, the app showed up in the iPhone App Store. In many ways, the iPhone was born to run SlingPlayer–video looks great on its sizable screen, and the software makes excellent use of a touch-driven user interface that pops up only when you need it.

Except…

Apple only accepted the application after Sling removed the ability to watch video over the iPhone’s cell connection. Unlike other incarnations of SlingPlayer Mobile, it’s Wi-Fi only.  Still a neat application, but one that won’t work in many of the places where I used to enjoy the Windows Mobile version, such as airport gates and my car.

(Clarification: It would work at airports, but I’d have to pay for the Wi-Fi in most places. And no, I don’t watch TV while driving…but I did used to call on SlingPlayer Mobile’s audio-only option, which both the Windows Mobile and iPhone versions offer.)

Apple isn’t saying why it forced SlingPlayer to go Wi-Fi only. But even if it had 3G access, using it would violate AT&T’s terms of service, which were recently rewritten to prohibit rerouting of a TV signal to a mobile computer. AT&T says that apps like SlingPlayer would simply hog too much precious bandwidth if it permitted them; the rule seems kinda arbitrary, considering that there are multiple iPhone apps that stream full-length video programming, such as CBS’s TV.com. And is AT&T busting folks who use SlingPlayer Mobile versions for other platforms?

On one level, I get AT&T’s concern–hey, its 3G network seems to clog up easily even without people streaming TV from their Slingboxes. But the release of a fundamentally crippled version of SlingPlayer for the iPhone is a sobering reminder that today’s wireless networks aren’t capable of supporting everything that we’d like to do with them, and the problem will only get worse as millions of people buy smartphones such as the iPhone. And it leaves me wondering whether any upcoming iPhone version of Hulu–which is, in many ways, a SlingPlayer-like service that doesn’t require a Slingbox–is going to be similarly dumbed down.

SlingPlayer Mobile for iPhone and iPod Touch is $29.99–the same price as other versions, but the most I’ve paid for an iPhone app by a factor of about 3X, and pricey given that it doesn’t do the one thing that many Slingbox owners would like it to. Maybe I’m a wild-eyed optimist, but I’m hoping that Sling will eventually be permitted to add 3G support, and that those of us who have paid thirty bucks for this first version will get free upgrades.

After the jump, some screenshots of iPhone SlingPlayer in action (and I repeat–except for the network restriction, this is a nicely-done application).

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Bento Comes to the iPhone

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 6, 2009 at 12:38 am

BentoWhen Apple’s FileMaker division told me that it had iPhone-related news, my first guess was that it was announcing a version of its flagship cross-platform database application for its parent company’s phone. Not quite. It released a database for the iPhone yesterday, but that database is Bento, a $4.99 mobile version of the company’s consumer and small-business database application, which until now has run only on Macs with OS X 10.5 Leopard.

Bento for the iPhone (and iPod Touch) isn’t the first database for the iPhone, but it may be the most thoroughly Apple-esque one to date. (Which makes sense.) A cover-flow like browser lets you choose from dozens of templates, like the ones you get in Bento for the Mac–everything from an equipment log to a digital media collection to expenses to notes to a record of your diet. There’s also a blank template. Once you choose a template and create a database–which Bento calls a Library–you can customize the fields and their order, then populate them with information.

On the Mac, Bento’s biggest distinguishing characteristic is its pretty, flexible layouts. On the iPhone, sensibly enough, everything’s organized into the typical iPhone list-like format. It’s less flashy but makes good use of the available real estate, and it’s easy to browse records, update old ones, and add new information.

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Take Wired.com’s 3G Phone Speed Test

Posted by Harry McCracken on May 4, 2009 at 8:56 am

Wired Speed TestsWired.com, which published an eye-opening survey of iPhone 3G users’ experiences with data last August, is doing it all over again–but this time, it’s expanding its scope to test the 3G networks of all the major U.S. wireless carriers: AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless. It’s a public service, and whatever the results are, they’ll be interesting. This article explains how to participate, which you do by running interactive tests on your smartphone.

I’m going to do just that on my iPhone–hope you do, too.

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Palm's First Post-Pre Phone?

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 30, 2009 at 1:13 pm

One major bright spot during Palm’s recent rocky history has been the success of its Centro–a Palm OS device that’s cheap, small, simple, and a best-seller. Even once the far fancier Pre is out, you’d think that Palm wouldn’t want to abandon the low end of the market. And it looks like you’d be right: Engadget has a photo and some other details on a WebOS phone allegedly called the Eros Eos which is allegedly coming to AT&T. If it’s real, it looks like the Centro’s successor. And even if it’s someone’s fantasy…well, the basic idea is so logical that I’d be stunned if Palm doesn’t come up with something similar. And with the Pre debuting exclusively on Sprint, it also makes perfect sense for the company to have something else it can sell via other carriers to keep its partnerships with them from fading away.

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Is Palm Planning to Pre-Empt (Get It?) the New iPhone?

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 28, 2009 at 9:37 pm

Nelson MuntzOver at MobileCrunch, M.G. Siegler engages in some speculation that’s entertaining–even if it turns out to be wrong. (And we don’t yet know whether even Palm knows a firm ship date for the Pre.)

It’s now just about May and there’s still been no official word from Palm when it comes to an official launch date or pricing for the Pre. All we know is what we’ve known for a long time — it’ll launch the first half of 2009; a window that is quickly closing. But a few pieces of new evidence today point to an actual specific date. And it’s a very intriguing one — June 7: The day before a likely Apple keynote address at its WWDC conference.

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WSJ Says Microsoft is, Indeed, Working on a Phone

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 28, 2009 at 12:36 pm

The rumors about this have been flying for months: The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is in talks with Verizon to launch an iPhone rival next year. (Here’s a link to a story at Silicon Alley Insider; the Journal’s piece is behind a paywall.)  The project is code-named “Pink,” and Microsoft would handle the software and services, with the manufacturing being done by someone else.

Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer says there’s a good chance that a Microsoft phone would flop, because Microsoft is late to the game and its prior mobile products have been uninspiring. This may be a contrarian view, but I don’t think timing is in a issue–we’re still very, very early in the smartphone revolution, and a knockout product with lots of money and resources behind it could still be a big deal. (Remember, the iPhone looked like a late entrant when it was announced in 2007.) The bigger question is whether Microsoft can come up with anything truly exciting–and, actually, whether it can come up with anything that feels like it’s part of the future of phones rather than its past.

I keep harping on the idea that smartphones are the new PC, and that they’ll eventually replace PCs as we know them. So far, that’s an out-there notion–when I raise it, folks usually nod their heads in agreement and then say “Yes, but…” I’m fixated on it because I believe it with all my heart. I think that most of the major companies of the PC era, from Microsoft to HP to Dell to Adobe to Intuit, are going to have to figure out how to make themselves part of this world, or they’ll get left behind–just as all the minicomputer companies that once lined Route 128 in the Boston area once did. (I grew up in Boston in an era when Digital, Wang, Data General, Prime, and Apollo were titans–bought a computer from any of them lately?)

It was Microsoft software running on commodity hardware, as much or more than anything else, that did in the minicomputer back in the 1980s. I can’t imagine that any rational person outside or inside of Microsoft truly believes that Windows Mobile 6.5 is a platform for a robust Microsoft presence on smartphones over the next five to ten years–and no matter what happens, it’s going to be fascinating to see how Microsoft and dozens of other companies respond to this sea change.

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Zoho Goes Mobile, But I'm Still Waiting For the First Great Web-Based Office Suite for Phones

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 28, 2009 at 11:13 am

Zoho Mobile LogoZoho–also known as the little company that takes on Google in the world of Web-based productivity, and sometimes outdoes it–has released a new version of its Zoho Mobile service for phones today. As usual with Zoho, it’s ambitious: The new version works on iPhones, BlackBerries, Android phones, Symbian phones, and Windows Mobile ones, and provides access to the service’s mail, calendar, word processor, spreadsheet, presentation package, and database. Here’s Zoho’s blog post on the news; the suite itself resides at m.zoho.com.

I tried Zoho Mobile this morning on my iPhone, and ran into multiple glitches: The e-mail and word processor looked good, but I couldn’t get spreadsheets or presentations to load properly. And the calendar’s “Quick Add” feature for entering appointments didn’t work. (Actually, I can’t get it to work on my notebook, either.) I just dropped a note to Zoho to see if the company knows what’s up.

Doing productivity well on a phone remains one of the larger challenges in software: I can’t get Google’s iPhone version of Google Docs’ presentations app to work either, and have problems with its spreadsheet, too. And neither Zoho nor Google offers full-blown editing of word-processing documents and spreadsheets in mobile form. (Google does provide some rudimentary editing in its spreadsheet, with an oddball user interface.)

In other words, I’m still waiting for the first great Web-based suite I can use on my iPhone. I’m sure it’ll come along–and Zoho and Google are the two primary candidates to make it happen. But both Zoho Mobile and Google Docs still feel experimental at this point.

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Apple Gadgets From Verizon? This Summer?

Posted by Harry McCracken on April 27, 2009 at 8:02 pm

verizonmainlogoOver at Business Week, Spencer Ante and Arik Hesseldahl have a story (warning: auto-playing video on page) saying that Apple is in talks with Verizon Wireless to have the wireless giant sell a couple of new devices: a smaller iPhone Light” phone and a “media pad” that does photos, movies, music, and–via Wi-Fi–phone calls. One of the devices could be out this summer, the story says.

The details here sound a tad odd–which doesn’t, of course, mean they’re not true. If Apple doesn’t have a deal nailed down with Verizon for a phone, could it really have a model that works on Verizon’s network out in just a few months? (Seems unlikely, but who knows?) Would Apple make a smaller, cheaper phone that couldn’t run iPhone apps (it sounds improbable, although Apple often does things that seem improbable until it does them?) Would Verizon Wireless really want to sell a device that made phone calls over Wi-Fi? (Actually, that sounds entirely plausible, if the company’s in the mood to do something different.)

One part of this does sound logical: If Apple were to work with Verizon on some new devices, it could expand its carrier relationships while still signing a deal to extend AT&T’s iPhone  exclusivity…

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