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The Motorola Charm, the morning after

Is it perfect? No, not by a mile.

Is it better than the iPhone? In some ways, yes. In others, no way.

Will I go back to the iPhone? Nope.

So it’s been nearly three weeks since I purchased the Charm, and a week since I formally pulled the plug on my iPhone 3GS and moved my life into it (and my phone service to T-Mobile’s unlimited everything plan).

As with every bit of kit, there are little things that you notice over time. Here’s the latest batch of them:

The random reboots with WiFi are continuing, with WiFi access points across SFO, YYC, and a couple of hotels, so it’s likely not my Apple Airport Extreme to blame
Battery life is ok, especially when using the larger of the two batteries that they include in the box - nice to have the second one as a backup for travel
I’m definitely missing having some of my favorite apps - Amazon.com and FxCamera in particular - as they’re not listed in the Market at all, presumably because they’re not registered for the 320x240 display
Touch sensitivity isn’t as good as the iPhones, and can be a bit jittery, especially when doing large horizontal swipes
Sometimes touch doesn’t work at all, and you have to tap the power button twice (sleep/awake) to get it to start working again
I love how, when you have a pending alarm, it shows up on the lock screen when you tap the power button (“6:00am, Fri”)
I was in Canada over the last couple of days, and received two voicemails, but upon returning to the States and rejoining the T-Mobile network, the visual voicemail app never did sync up and I had to call voicemail instead
The GPS is pretty slow to get a fix, especially when you don’t also have a data connection - I’ve learned to go outside a couple of minutes before I start tracking my runs with RunKeeper
The developer for HardCopy, Tony Cosentini, is very responsive and has been making fixes to the app to help get it up to par on the Charm
The Audio Postcard app (creates an MMS for you with a photo, frame, and voiceover) is actually kind of cute - wish it could send emails as well, though

Next up: I need to do a writeup on the Phone Portal, where you can connect to your Charm via (local) WiFi and manipulate data, grab your photos, upload files, etc. Very reminiscent of the old Sidekick online portal. Speaking of Sidekicks, there are a lot of keyboard shortcuts on there … another topic for the next post.

It’s official. I’ve been (Motorola) Charmed.

Well, on Friday I finally took the plunge, cancelled the AT&T contract, and went over to an Android-powered Motorola Charm on T-Mobile. So far, in honeymoon phase, I’m very happy with the decision.

Here are some of the things I’ve noticed so far, in case they’re interesting to other potential switchers:

Absolutely in love with once again having a decent physical keyboard - heck, I’m writing this entire post on it
Finding the non-slider keyboard to be much more useful than I imagined. No more sliding to open, then doing something. Rather, I just start typing and the Android jumps to search mode.
Surprised about how much I was putting up with (making excuses for) AT&T’s network. This little Charm hasn’t dropped a call yet, where I’d usually have several drops by now.
The cursor keys … wow, they make navigation and text editing so much more enjoyable, and are much better than a trackball or an optical cursor thing
Ok, this is crazy, but I’m already partially touch-typing on this thing, without looking at the keyboard
The low-res screen is a bit, well, sad. I mean, sure, I can read things and see things, but this is pretty much the low end of usable displays.
The camera is low res, sure, but it takes decent pictures which, after running thru the included Kodak photo improver, are reminiscent of the old Sidekick 2 photos
I have, on the other hand, run into one nasty bug: if I leave WiFi on, the Charm will reboot periodically. It took me 48 teeth-grinding hours to sort that out, but for now at least I know the source of the problem.
The BackTrack thing sits right underneath where my (long) fingers sit when I’m holding the Charm, so I’ve had to disable it for the time being.

But all in all, very happy. More soon …

So close, but no Android SIM card

I was >this close< to having completely switched over to the Android phone from the iPhone - and had been living entirely out of the Nexus One for nearly a month - when all of a sudden my phone decides to no longer connect to my WiFi at home. Checking the settings didn’t do anything. Unfriending the WiFi and friending it again? Nothing. Burning a small effigy of the 802.11 working committee, complete with them holding detailed reproductions of the entire specification document painstakingly recreated by hand with grains of rice and a toothpick dipped in ram’s blood? Nothing.

*sigh*

So it’s back to the iPhone 3GS for me, and that pecky little keyboard, and no voice recognition, and no ‘back’ button to so elegantly (and confusingly, natch) temporally reverse my path through clicks and taps.

Let’s see how long it lasts.

The old GoPhone is looking better and better by the day.

(and yes, my sincerest apologies for the “So close but no cigar” rhyme up there)

Rule #2: Focus on what we can do with the device, not the guy in a polo shirt

Somehow I got rickrolled into learning more about the Dell Streak. I was doing some research just now on basic versus smartphone penetration in Africa (really) and somehow ended up watching this video (really). But in keeping with the Streak theme today, I just had to comment.

Why is it that every technology company feels obliged to parade out an engineer or product manager to talk about their latest product? Just look at this grab from the video: during at least four minutes of the video, the Streak takes up roughly 6.7% of the video real estate, with the remaining 93.3% of the pixels paying homage to Benjamin Moore paint and Ralph Lauren shirts.

Dude, get out of the frame, set the Streak on the table, and point the camera at it. Talk about that giant display, or how you can use the phone while surfing on WiFi, or how you can stick it in one of the smaller pockets in your Scottevest Carry-On Coat, ok?

Rule #1: If it doesn’t compete with an Apple product, don’t say it does.

Geek.com: “Dell’s Android-powered Streak slate takes on the iPad tomorrow.” Are they just trolling for pageviews? Come on, just because it’s roughly rectangular, has a touch display, and does things online doesn’t mean it’s an iPad competitor.

The way to make this thing an iPad competitor is to focus on what you can do with it, not the features and functions under the hood:

1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon chip

Does it surf the web and do YouTube? Good enough. Speeds and feeds turn the average consumer off.

Five-inch capacitive multitouch 800×480 WVGA display

How about “Brilliant large display that still fits in your pocket or purse, but makes videos and family photos look fantastic”?

3G, UMTS/GPRS/EDGE class 12 GSM radio with link speeds of up to 7.2 Mbps, WiFi 802.11b/g, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR

Right now, thousands of eyes are glazing over. Try ”Gives you both WiFi and 3G, so you can stay in touch with your friends and family whether you’re at home, in a coffee shop, or traveling the country on vacation.” Oh, right, and “And Bluetooth so you can make phone calls without looking like a dumbass with this thing pressed up against the side of your head.”

Five-megapixel autofocus camera with dual LED flash VGA camera for videoconferencing

“Videoconferencing” makes me think of putty-colored cubicle walls and bad lighting. Talk it up, make it personal, connect emotionally: ”Front-facing camera so you can stay in touch with people at home while you’re on the road!”

Android 1.6 (Froyo update is due later this year) with Android Market and Dell’s custom UI skin

Wait, you mean it’s coming out tomorrow, but it’s got an operating system from nearly a year ago? What’d you do, stick the developers in an air-tight room and tell them they wouldn’t get out until they ship? (Explains the front-facing camera for videoconferencing, natch).

Packaged with cushions made from 100 percent sustainable, compostable bamboo

Which, for some reason and in this context, just highlights how the rest of it looks like a block carved from petroleum.

(via Dell’s Android-powered Streak slate takes on the iPad tomorrow – Cell Phones & Mobile Device Technology News & Updates | Geek.com)

Icon Design Guidelines, Android 2.0 | Android Developers

Back when we wrote How people really use the iPhone, one of the key things that I mentioned was that a lousy icon was enough to turn someone off from trying or buying an app.

And since then, I’ve even been known to delete an app from my iPhone just because (I know, I know) the icon wasn’t quite as nice as the Apple icons.

Google has published updated icon design guidelines for the Android. Unfortunately, if the current crop of apps in the Market is any indication, about 80% of the developers will summarily ignore the guidelines and pull out MSPaint.exe instead. Oh, and what’s with using the Android robot in your icon? I mean, it’s cute here and there, but after a while … sheesh!

Can anyone recommend a good app store for Android?

Not necessarily the most comprehensive one, but one that has a good, solid hand-picked selection of top apps.

Rethinking the iPhone

Over the past few years I’ve been an iPhone loyalist of sorts, carrying one iPhone or another in my front left pocket day in and day out since shortly after they first arrived on the market. However, the iPhone 4 hasn’t really grabbed me - other than the improved camera - so I’m a bit adrift.

Before the iPhone, I was a huge fan of the T-Mobile Sidekick (née Danger Hiptop) phones, due to both the clever and smooth UI as well as the fantastic flip-out keyboard. Especially with the Sidekick LX, I got to the point that I was nearly able to touch-type with the thing, and could easily hit 30-35 words per minute with minimal peeking at the keyboard.

Since I’m also very fast at typing on the computer keyboard (I frequently do near real-time verbatim capture of notes during research interviews), I was very frustrated when I first started using the iPhone virtual keyboard. The problem is that, rather than wearing off, the frustration has just increased - to the point where I also carry around a tiny notebook and a pen rather than trying to tap notes-to-self into the iPhone.

And yes, I do use the ‘type like mad and let the iPhone autocorrect the stream of characters’, which works reasonably well for long prose but is lousy for email addresses, URLs, abbreviations, and pretty much everything else that I am actually using the iPhone for.

We bought a high-end Blackberry recently in order to test some applications for a client, and I thought that the legendary Blackberry keyboard would solve the problem. However, the only outcome of that test was a deep feeling of sadness for anyone carrying a Blackberry and dealing with that combination of operating system and physical keyboard. Really, I mean that - I just want to walk up and hug them, and give them a coupon for some sort of modern mobile phone.

So a week or so ago, I got out the old Sidekick LX and charged it up, thinking about possibly activating it while it’s still possible (T-Mobile just stopped selling Sidekick devices, so I’m guessing we’ve got 12-18 months before they shut down the entire back end service). Unfortunately, technology has passed the platform by, and things I’ve grown to rely upon just aren’t there any more (IMAP, primarily), so the Sidekick went back into the drawer.

All that said, I recently posted a report that we did on the Google Nexus One and Android UI, and despite the report being somewhat critical of the rough edges on the Android, it sparked a renewed interest in Android phones. A few days later, I found myself standing at a T-Mobile store staring at the Android-powered MyTouch 3G Slide - which is somewhat of a evolutionary next step beyond the Sidekick - and marveling at its fantastic little keyboard and excellent layer on top of the Android OS. And now with a bit of research, I’m finding other goodies like the Motorola Flipout (pictured, not yet available in the US market).

Ahh, the joys of being off-contract…

Android wallpaper app that steals your data was downloaded by millions | VentureBeat

Ouch. Not to say that something like this could conceivably get past the Apple watchdogs, though.

“By contrast, Google has taught consumers to expect free, the Android Market is hobbled by poor discovery and clunky, inconsistent monetization workflows. Most damning, despite touted high-volume third-party applications, there are (seemingly) no breakout third-party developer successes, despite Android being around two-thirds as long as the iPhone platform.”

Five reasons iPhone vs Android isn’t Mac vs Windows - O’Reilly Radar

Great quote on why the Android Market is not as compelling of a story to developers or consumers.

Good compare of iPhone versus Android ‘multitasking’ - in the end, quite similar under the covers, but some differences http://bit.ly/doHnfp