After being tired of the sluggish crashiness of my 3G iPhone running iOS4, I downgraded to 3.1.2 today. Thanks, Apple, for finally adding so many basic features to your latest phone, but making the OS so bloaty it won’t run smoothly on the 3G iPhone :\
At least under my Jailbroken iPhone running OS 3.1.2, it’ll run reasonably well with all the features it should have come with in the first place. Too bad some (paid!) apps have been updated to the point they won’t run on 3.1.2. Luckily, there are sites like Hackulo.us that keep old versions around (a site I feel I am perfectly justified in using so long as I’m just trying out apps or finding old versions of apps that have been updated beyond my current phone’s ability—I’m lookin’ at YOU Joby Gorillacam!).
The next thing I’m pondering is what to do for my next cell phone. Sure, I want to upgrade to something with more storage, but the question now has become, do I go with the iPhone 4 (the predictable route) or the Dell Streak, which seems to give me almost the exact form factor I’m looking for.
The pros of the Dell Streak:
1) It’s a tablet—5 inches is perfect for e-books and watching videos.
2) It’s still a phone, which means I wouldn’t have to carry this and a cell phone, like I used to do when I still hand my Kindle 2. (I don’t worry about the ludicrous suggestion of looking like a dork with a giant handset, since there’s this little device called a “Bluetooth headset” that’s been around for a while.)
3) Logitech makes a Bluetooth keyboard that would almost perfectly fits the Streak, making it an almost perfect replacement for my eee pc 4g netbook, which would then be another thing I wouldn’t have to carry around with me.
4) expandable/swapable storage: unlike the iPhone, the Streak has a miniSDHC card I can dump stuff on at my whim (no iTunes required!!)
5) It’s an Android device which means I can drag-and-drop and enjoy all of the other benefits of a mostly open system
Pros of the iPhone 4:
1) THAT GORGEOUS DISPLAY. I am pretty much mad about this display—it’s so impressive that it looks amazing even in photos and videos.
2) I’m a Mac guy and until I read about the Streak, I had pretty much given myself over to the mercy of iTunes (as much as I resisted for years), ready to sacrifice freedom for an easier life (much like a Christian critical of the Bible). When you use Apple products the way His Steveness wants you to, they’re actually pretty awesome. Of course, when you use them the way *I* actually want to, you ended up with all sorts of hell (how DARE I what to use my gadgets the way I want to! Really! Free will? AS IF!)
3) The World of Apple backing up the damn thing. This is pretty important to me—when I have trouble with the Dell Streak, where do I go? I’m sure there’s someplace I can go for help (aside from the ‘net, I mean) but with the iPhone I can just go to one of four Apple stores within a 30 minute subway ride from me.
4) the iPhone finally has all the features it should have had all along, great battery life (Engadget claimed their i4 lasted 38 hours of regular use on one charge), HD video, cut-n-paste, front facing cam, video conferencing, camera flash and—well, no 4G connectivity. But hey, Apple’s got to give us a reason to buy the NEXT iPhone, too, right? You don’t think they didn’t call it the “iPhone 4G” by accident, did you?
Cons of the Dell Streak:
1) Display is big, but not as gorgeous as the iPhone 4’s.
2) When/if I have trouble with it, no easy place to go for help/repair.
3) battery life is not as impressive as the iPhone 4—and when I’ll be using it for as much stuff as I’m planning (phone, e-reader, email, light browsing, word processor), it needs to have a good battery. Granted, I can always bring an external charger or an actual replacement battery, but not having to shut down and swap out is nice.*
Cons of the iPhone 4:
1) Small screen—too small for browsing, really, or word processing, or reading.
2) iTunes. I’ve always hated it and always will. Fine, Apple, don’t let us DnD OFF of the device, but just integrate access to dump things onto the device into Finder/Explorer. Why do we need a whole separate app just for throwing a couple of extra tracks onto our Phone/iPods? But no DnD is actually a big deal to me—dragging and dropping may seem like something that isn’t that big of a deal, but while you’re waiting for your iPhone to sync (even though you’re adding one album or one video) is annoying as hell, when you’re already running late.
3) Closed system. Even after jailbreaking the iPhone won’t do *everything* I want it to. Close, but there will always be things that are just impossible to run in any practical way—like Flash or Android. ;)
So, it’s a pretty even fight, huh?
I’m not sure what to do since they’re the same cost. I may choose neither since neither is exactly what I need (the Streak would be if the screen was higher rez and had a real “big boy” keyboard).
Which would you choose?
*UPDATE 20100822: I found a review of the Dell Streak that describes the battery life as being superb—apparently it will go a full day with regular use and could even last a weekend if you use it a little less. Engadget had the iPhone 4 at 38 hours—but really, I’d just need the Streak to go 24 since it’s convenient to charge it every night. Buy an extra battery for $40 from the Dell website and I’ll never worry again. In short: that’s one less “con” for the Streak.
Steve Jobs is Scared
One thing I’ve learned in life is that most people don’t speak out or speak up unless they’re scared of something. Fear is a great motivator. In fact, if you think about it, none of us really do anything we don’t want to without fear being at the core of that motivation.
Seeing as the last couple times Steve Jobs spoke to the press outside of his usual key-note-based comfort zones it was to 1) assure people he wasn’t dying and 2) to explain to everyone how he was going to deal with antennagate, it follows that him showing up on that “earnings call” thing yesterday was something he did because he is scared—and I think he’s scared shitless. Sure, I’m scared I’m wrong, which is why I’m posting this, but that’s beside the point. Steve Jobs is seriously brown-pantsing it.
“We’ve now passed RIM and I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future.”
Really, Steve? Last time I checked RIM had way more experience in smartphoning than Apple. Last time I checked, RIM had their Blackberry phones firmly established in the business world as the smartphones grown-ups use. Their core market is probably not going anywhere. They shouldn’t try to expand and if they just stick to what they do best, they’ll be fine. They won’t “beat” you, but they shouldn’t care. What’s more is that you won’t be able to make inroads into their specific market, either, because (and I should know) iPhones just take too much effort to do basic stuff. BB’s just work—unlike iPhones. iPhones are like the Windows PCs of the smartphone world (with better design, of course). But seriously, if RIM keeps their flagship product focused on what it does best, they are invincible against Apple.
“…we believe integrated will trump fragmented every time.”
Really? You mean like Apple computers? Or like Windows computers? Last time I checked there isn’t a single type of computer that runs Windows, Linux or even OSX. There are quite a few. So, if by “every time” you mean “every time you’ve tried it with your iOS devices” then I can see your point. However, you completely ignore the rest of the world of devices that run on MUCH more open systems than iOS devices (aka unwalled gardens). There’s also this myth going around that people actually think of Windows boxes first when considering the definition of “open”. No chance. I think Linux. That bitch is open. Sure, I see the theory that Windows is open (ie anyone can program for Windows) but Linux is better known for it. All that aside, “fragmented” (aka too many different hardware configs to code software for) is a bullshit argument since that’s what OSes are for. OSes give programmers a universal set of “buttons” to press (commands to use) that do the same thing on every device that runs the given OS. So, this is an outright and complete LIE.
This is like Al Qeada actually representing a real threat to America. This is like nukes in Iraq. This is like illegal immigration and homophobia. Jobs is trumping this shit up to scare people—plain and simple. And when I see people buy into shit like this, it’s the Absurd Disconnect I talk about so much over at website666.com.
Everyone seriously needs to spend 30 seconds thinking about what they are saying to make sure it makes sense.
“The more Jobs talks about the iPad, the more apparent that he sees it as his true legacy. And as laptops continue to give way to tablets, he’ll be the guy who first gave them to us.” -Gizmodo’s Brian Barrett in a post last night.
Which is absolutely sad since the guy pretty much made computers (and gadgets in general) cool. I love my MacBook Pro and my PowerBook before it (my MacBook sucked ass and should never have been born along with the iBook I had before my PowerBook, but I’m seriously digressing). I’ve loved my iPods and my iPhone for quite a while. What I hate is when Steve gets his fingers in things—iTunes ruins more and more of my iExperience the more I rely on it. For years I never “synced” anything with any iDevice I owned (I just click “manually manage”). Finally, I’ve handed control over to iTunes and I hate it. I expected to like it in a sort of “it’s nice to be part of the hive mind” way, but nope. So it pisses me off that this idiot may think his latest “gizmo” is his true legacy and not making a success out of computers that “just work.”
I’m going to skip over the part where Steve hates Flash—we all know he does and we all know he’s stupid for giving in to this hate since (as much as I wish it wasn’t) Flash is everywhere. I am reminded of this every time I’m reading blogs on my iPhone and I can’t play embedded video. HTML 5, huh Steve?
I’m also skipping his AppleTV propaganda. Apple TV is useless. Newsflash: if you have a Touch or an iPhone, you can pretty much plug that into your TV and do everything the AppleTV can do. OK, maybe not HD, but if you really give a shit, you already have a device plugged into your TV that does. So effyou AppleTV.
“We think the current crop of 7-inch tablets are going to be DOA-Dead on Arrival. Their manufacturers will learn the painful lesson that their tablets are too small…”
Really, Steve? Is that why you once, famously said that people didn’t want video on their iPods? I may be just one man, but I DON’T want an iPad—why? Because the screen is too big. If I’m going to drop $500+ on something like this, it’s going to be a something that is more convenient than what I have now. Carrying a 10 inch tablet in my bag is just a few inches more convenient than carrying my 13-inch MacBook Pro. And it’s just a few inches LESS convenient than carrying my 7-inch netbook around which has a keyboard attached to it (which will always make for easier typing). And guess what, Steve! My netbook lets me install whatever software I want on it! WOW.
Oh and so, when I do upgrade from my iPhone I’ll be switching to a tablet-phone device. Probably the Dell Streak. The 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab is still to big for me (and their backside cam is too crappy), so the Streak is perfect. Great for watching video and (more importantly) perfect for reading. I’ve tried reading books and scripts on the iPhone and it’s like reading a book through a pinhole camera to me. It’s doable, but give me a real book any day—or a Streak, which is big enough for what I need it for but small enough to carry with me everywhere. And if I get a Bluetooth keyboard, I can type on it like a grown-up writer.
So, there are scores of practical reasons for smaller-screens than the one on the iPad. The Kindle has a 7-inch screen and while some folks prefer the DX’s bigger screen, I prefer the portability of the 7-inch Kindle. It’s plenty big enough to read (and I miss that size screen since I gave mine to my Mom) and it’s thin/light enough to keep with me always. It’s still too big to pocket, but the iPad is even more too big.
In conclusion…
I think it’s hilarious that guys like Jobs don’t just take stock in what they have. They have to keep talking shit about other people, other companies and other ideas. Even if Apple ceases to exist tomorrow, they will still have done what no other company has. They lost everything and got it back. They provided real competition to the monolith that is the Windows PC. They created a mechanism where with every sneeze, burp and fart out of Cupertino, they can cause ripples in the fabric of the tech world.
Apple is now worth more than any other tech company on the stock market—and that’s not enough for Steve.
That’s sad, man. To see him so scared like this is sad.
It’s OK, Steve, no one’s going to take your Apple Empire away from ya, buddy. It may get a little smaller, but you’ll still be stinking rich and largely in control of all you survey. Well, except *my* iPhone, I’ve turned off your little kill switch. So far the world hasn’t ended, so I’m pretty sure it’s cool.
sources for this post: posts on Gizmodo and Engadget.