« June 2006 | Main | August 2006 »



Treo 700p has Mac OS X "Spotlight", Kind of

...and it's possible that it has for a while.

My neighbor and I were chatting about Palm recently and how it's damned difficult to scroll all the way to the contact you might want to reference using the down arrow, especially if you have accumulated hundreds or even thousands of contacts. Even the famed Blackberry scroll wheel (which IS a great idea and one that I'd love to have on my Treo) wouldn't really cut it for these industrial-strength lists.

We've discovered that the quick way to get your contact is to search for them. Really.

Just type Number(that blue colored button)-magnifying glass and type in the first few letters of the persons name, or one of their full names.

You will get a list very quickly that looks a lot like Apple's "Spotlight" function that shows you results by category. One click on the person and there you are, probably in much less than half the time of browsing.

As a matter of fact, I think this smartphone searches faster than my *desktop* computer of just a few years ago, and is one of the most compelling features to date, and one of the feats of performance that is making me feel the money invested in this is going to be well worth it.

Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on July 25, 2006 | Comments (0)

Old Phone Conspires Against Self

t610.jpg To borrow some language from the nuclear power industry, a few "events" occurred this weekend which finally tipped the scales causing this techie to finally stop dragging his feet and get a smartphone, already.

I was running a Sony Ericsson T616 from AT&T (on the Cingular Network) and for what it is, it's been quite useful. I've been using bluetooth to sync my calendar with iSync, it holds some of my contacts, allows me to SMS and take "hilariously bad" photos. All in all it's quite functional and I have few complaints. But there is more and more that I'm needing to do with this phone and it has become dangerous to leave the office for long periods of time.

Here was the weekend list:

With a week vacation coming up it seemed as though the forces were conspiring to unravel my digital lifestyle. Something had to be done.

overview_t700p_photo.jpgMonday morning I decided to take a walk past a few train stops on the way to my office. Along the way I happened upon a Radio Shack and talked to a very helpful salesperson. We discovered that I could give my current provider the finger and end up getting the same amount of minutes AND all-you-can-eat internet and data from Sprint for about the same price I was paying with Cingular. Of course I've always liked Sprint but had to drop them when I moved to NYC because they apparently didn't have towers in my neighborhood. That's all cleared up now so we're back, with a brand new Treo 700p.

Apparently these have been pretty popular because this was the last one they had in stock (no demos on the floor and they haven't even been able to keep one for the employees to power up and play with). At first even the "new customer" discount doesn't seem to be enough until you get the phone home and start playing with it. It is a damned nice phone.

It only took an hour to load up:

A few minutes later I was out the door for a meeting with the actual address of where I was going with map, some music to listen to on the way, and a qwerty keyboard for writing notes and emails.

First impressions are: This phone will survive the attack of the forthcoming iPhone. More details to follow.

Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on July 25, 2006 | Comments (0)

Disconnected Heads

So we've already covered that Motorola has abandoned the best-funded business customers of theirs to chase after their average consumer to fool them into paying more for a buggy and incomplete phone.

Of course Motorola has no interest in hearing from you about the issue. Their website, like most corporate monsters, is completely devoid of any kind of "feedback" area. If you want to send feedback to Motorola, especially if it involves product ideas, one must request a form which they will mail to you. In order for Motorola to accept your product idea you must sign away the rights to them, which is fine as I presume that only Motorola would be able to manufacture a Motorola phone.

Bronzefinger's response did not even come from a human being, but rather from

Motorola, Inc.
External Relations
Intellectual Property Section
Law Department

Here is their response:

Re: Palm OS and Touch Screen Features for Cellular Phone

Dear Mr. Detsch (misspelling):

Thank you for forwarding to us information on the above referenced idea along with a signed copy of Motorola's policy and agreement regarding submission of ideas by persons outside the company.

While we thank you for your submission, Motorola is not interested in pursuing this idea with you at this time.

We wish you luck in your endeavors.

Of course this request never made it out of the legal department so who knows what the dev team at Mot is *actually* working on or interested in. There is nothing more frustrating than the black holes created by large, spongy organizations where decision makers can be 100% protected from consumers and experts alike.

I imagine this will be the case when we write to Palm to encourage them to fight the good fight and to watch out because Microsoft is right behind them wearing smile and a ski mask and wielding a bat...

Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on July 25, 2006 | Comments (0)

Windows Mobile Threatens to Take Over The World

Though I don't have any hard numbers to back this up, my general feeling from talking to potential smartphone buyers is that Windows Mobile is going to flood this market and drown us. Here are a few brief reasons:

Any good businesspeople out there that can give our friends at Palm a hand?

Posted by Aaron R. Deutsch on July 14, 2006 | Comments (0)