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Frustration

I’ve been preparing to publish something here for quite some time. I started a writeup on smartphone platforms while sitting in the train on the way back from an useless job interview in munich. I didn’t finish it, had other things to do, my parents were on holidays nearby, and I had another stupid test to pass. While I was working on that, I head to learn the hard way why exactly Apple came up with their magsafe stuff: The power supply of my netbook somehow managed to pull it down when I stood up from my desk. Screen broken. Nice black area on the right of the screen. I most likely won’t fix it. I will rather sell it, and buy something that’s more helpful and an additional battery for my 14″ notebook.

In addition to that, another semester has started. As I hate printing all the stuff you need to be prepared at lectures and later be prepared at the examination, simply because it takes so long, is an effing waste of natural resources and it’s a pain in the neck to carry all that paper along whenever you travel in order to be able to work, i tried to find something that could fit my workflow. An electronic device, like Amazons kindle, plus some features to be able to make annotations during lectures. I hear someone shouting TabletPC. Sorry, that’s not it. It can do too much else and thus distract me badly, it’s heavy, expensive and in addition to that, most TabletPCs have a terrible battery life.

And don’t talk me into the iPad or an Android tablet. They seem (if my inquiries weren’t too bad) to lack the appropriate software – not to mention their sunlight readability. It’s too bad that there are so few tablets using Wacom technology.

Really, the only device that’s close to fit and available is made by Apple, and i am not talking of any iOS device here. I think of getting one of these crazy Newton MessagePads. Unfortunately, those that are powerful and thus interesting (2000,2100) are rare and still expensive, and then there is another drawback: Apparently no PDF support. PDF just wasn’t that popular in the 1990s. Converting is possible, maybe it would even work out.

But really: Isn’t it effing frustrating that there is no effing device that is really suitable to survive university without having to carry a huge load of paper? Is this market so uninteresting?

Probably I should turn this disaster into a business plan.

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Toshiba TG01 – Impressions

The gadget hunger won again – and so I got myself a Snapdragon device: A black Toshiba TG01 “Tsunagi”.

Yeah, it is a Windows Mobile Device. Yes, there is no Android / Linux port for the TG01 right now. But still: A 4.1″ 3G (MID size) Snapdragon slate, less than a centimeter thick – I could not resist.

brimborium

Hardware

The formfactor is really impressive. It is just as pocketable as my G1 – or even more pocketable, as it is really so thin that people almost won’t see you’ve got a phone in your pocket. But that doesn’t mean that the hardware is perfect – the resistive touchscreen of the TG01 is a good one – but I would still prefer the capacitive one of my HTC Dream. One more bad thing: No 3,5mm audio jack, and the USB port (the only port of the device) is placed on the side of the device. Small pockets and a headset? No way. No need to mention that the slimness leads to a small battery and that should lead to a “not that great” battery life.

Switching the device on you will see a customized Windows Mobile – depending on your operator you might see a special, operator made home screen replacement, e.g. SPB Mobile Shell or Toshiba’s stripe UI.

Besides this the button placement is not perfect: The camera button is directly on the other side of the volume buttons, so if you press the camera button it might happen that you press the volume buttons as well.

Windows Mobile 6.5

With the TG01 being my first Windows Mobile 6.5 device, I have to admit that I like what Microsoft did to make the UI seem more competitive – comparing this to 6.1, it is a pleasure to use – though it is in my opinion inferior to Android. The whole platform is inferior in my opinion, due to its age and a lack of APIs. Looking at the TG01, you will find out that the inbuilt G-Sensor won’t work with some games or applications that work with, say, HTC devices.

Further impressions

While Phone quality and sound are ok with the latest Swiss Orange firmware, the device feels pretty slow, considering it has an advanced 1GHz ARM v7 SoC. Scrolling isn’t even as fluent as on my good old T-Mobile G1 – but I am pretty much convinced that this is a simple OS matter – the Windows Mobile 6.5 CE 5.2 kernel is pretty old, it is still close to 2005´s Windows Mobile 5 kernel. The ARMv7 instructions don’t seem to have a noticable impact on the devices performance – though compared to the Windows Mobile devices I had before it is without a single question the fastest one.

More soon..

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The Gadget Hunger or Openness

I have to admit something today: I suffer from what I would call “gadget hunger”. Even if a device really does what I want, I become bored pretty soon, and want a new device. And guess what, there is often plenty of nice new hardware though it´s often just the hardware – the software is so often locked down as hell, that the device suddenly becomes less interesting for me – that’s the only thing that helps me staying solvent, because there is not much that’s as bad software without even the option of community driven fixes.
So I love this mobile devices. Well, it isn´t just mobility (Example: Recently I learned that there are not only rollable computer keyboards, but rollable piano keyboards as well), but somehow it´s mostly mobile computing devices.
Computing is the possibly the keyword, or explanation why I want rather open devices. As long as you have to stick to one certain OS, you might not find the appropriate software for a certain usage case. Or just not the software you would prefer if everything would be possible. Let´s face it: There is no perfect OS. And another point: It´s fun to play with different software. It´s fun to see software evolving. The hardware might be very promising, but if I can´t even try the next version of the devices OS running on it (though it would technically work and even if it is just Windows Mobile), I will try to get rid of the device. This, just to name an example, happened to the Samsung i780 i once had, gorgeous hardware, much nicer than the Openmoko Freerunner that I just keep because it is so open.

So let´s talk about openess, or let´s call it flexibility. I believe that regarding mobile computing devices we have two kinds of flexibility. The one is hardware features, like device architecture (speed, number of different devices using similar hardware) or connectivity (3G, WLan, BT, USB (Host or Device)), the other is the software that runs on the device per default.
Let´s talk about the software, because it´s less self explinatory than the hardware part in my opinion. Why? Because it is not that obvious as it might seem. Knowing little about this openness thingie, you might e.g. believe that Linux devices are more open than those running Windows Mobile. But in many (or even most cases) it is not.

A good (but rather deprecated) example are Motorolas EZX phones. A team of able developers wanted to free these phones since they hit the market in late 2005. Still there is nothing like an open distribution for these devices – as the OpenEZX project is focussed on the kernel and the now nicely supported devices have become rather old (and boring). Now why did it take so long? First of all these devices had a 2.4 kernel, so porting was supposedly not that easy. But there is another problem, that makes it tough to port SHR or Android to devices like the LiMo running phones: bootloaders, plenty of them, requiring signed images. Often there is no easy way to install additional native (non-Java/J2ME) software and though this is changing (App Stores), you will not be able to easily install software that helps “openning” the devices. Recent LiMo Devices like the Samsung H1 and M1 for Vodafone´s 360 social media platform still have non writable partitions (using compressed filesystems like cramfs) containing the core OS.

Let´s compare this to the (dying) Windows Mobile platform: Maybe you heard of HaRET (Hardware Reverse Engineering Tool), which is a (not only) linux bootloader launched just like a Windows Mobile application, usually used to load a kernel and rootfs from SD – no changes to the actual hardware have to be done, no need to hack a variety of bootloaders (at the risk of bricking your device) as long as you have a HaRET version that supports your phones hardware platform.

Time to get back to the start, gadget hunger, or why i started to write this unreadable crap: Recently I spent some time looking for a cheap snapdragon device – and because I did so on ebay, because I ´ve got no problem with using used stuff, as long it is cheap, I ran into the Toshiba TG01 aka “Tsunagi“, the first Snapdragon phone, though one could call it Pocket PC, MID or slate as well, as it is a damn thin (9,9mm) 4,1 inch touchscreen device. And yes, I am tempted to buy one of these, even though there aren´t even “real” attempts to run Linux on the TG01 – there is hope, as it is ported to HTCs´ HD2 (HaRET) and because there are several Android devices out there using the Snapdragon platform as well. And it supports USB Host right of the box ;-)

Admittedly this post would fit linmob just as good or better, but I had to post something here. I really have to learn to write about things that are not gadgets or bad storys again.. ;-)

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More on the iPad.

iPad

What I have been reading during the last hour, was a lot of criticism, lots of people seem to be disappointed of the iPad.
Well, that´s pretty much normal, afair – take a look at all these latest launches of Apple products. All these rumored features in the time before whispered by tons of experts and “experts” are too much to be delivered at one launch – and no one would expect any other company to bring that much innovation to the markets in single products.

Of course it is dissapointing that the iPad does not support Videochat, does not support Flash (I do not believe that Flash is the best technology for flash video, anyway), is unable to beam you to the Maledives – oh, wait, that wasn´ t rumored? I am so sorry.

The dissapointment is the lack of multitasking – but I do believe, that Apple will add that, once they have it worked out in a way that is appropriate for such a tablet device. But still, even though I do not love Apple: This is the best tablet to date, and it will most likely be the best tablet when it will be available. Of course, the hardware is not perfect, a flat bottom would be better for on table use, iPad is a bit heavy, or think of a second dock connector for keyboard use in landscape mode (which was much more laptop like). And the screen will (compared to PixelQi solutions) suck at outdoor use I bet. Or more video out options, like Display Port or HDMI. I don´ t have to mention that I would love USB Host on a device of that size, do I?

All nice to have, but not that necessary – because it has Apples software on it, which is just impressive and has huge competitive advantages like all the iPhone Apps and iTunes. No other company will (ever?) be able to offer those.

And let´s not forget one other thing: This is a home entertainment device rather than a mobile companion device – battery life, the screen – all this makes it a device for at home use, particulary when you are on holiday and stay in a cabin or so. A leisure device with some sunday work features. Maybe I am wrong here, and I believe future iPads will be different, better.

Let´s be realistic: This is Apples´ first torpedo to sink netbooks (meaning: the devices between notebooks and sub 4 inch devices. Not perfect, it will most certainly miss its target, the ship will not sink. But better be scared of the next one. The iPhone 3GS was the one that sold best until now – I believe a 3rd generation iPad will be similar. If Apple just listens a little bit to the complaints of the people, this generation will sell more than O.K. and future iterations will be .. just fantastic, at least as far as sales figures go.

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iPad. First thoughts.

I was expecting a lot of Apples new device. Having had read most of the rumors, I believed that it would have a 9.7″ capacitive multitouch screen (because there were these rumors of Apple having ordered large quantities of these), I believed the “own silicon” rumor (as Apple aquired P.A. Semi years ago), I did not believe in those Verizon CDMA rumors (simply because GSM is almost worldwide). So, I was pretty close to what Apple delivered announced today.

But still I am pretty impressed having I only seen text and pictures at gdgt.com. The only thing I can think of is “Well Done, Apple!” (And: “Goodbye JooJoo (the ex Crunchpad) and others!”).

Of course, yeah, Wacom like stylus input for handwriting (as we know it) was nice to have. Or voice recognition (which is most likely just a software matter, if iPad has a microphone). And Apple was apparently pretty silent about video, so most likely no 1080p like nVidia Tegra (II) powered solutions… besides: 4:3, not 16:9, so not that great for “mobile cinema”, anyway. And a personal issue: Openess.. (Free Software? Apple!? Rather not.)

But besides these few points, this is a great product. A impressive one. Just like the iPhone was. Just look at the accesoires – a keyboard dock, and a bag, which is a stand. The fact that they made productivity software for this device. They didn´t forget too much, did they?

(More might follow later.)