Why I like iPhone independence from Cellular companies

Apple's iPhone was the first phone I'm aware of to completely disallow pre-installed cellular-company software.  You can choose to download the AT&T app, for example, but AT&T gets no software on an iPhone out of the box.

The recent CarrierIQ scandal highlights the benefits of this separation.  I cannot stress enough how much a keystroke logger built into the OS for carriers is very bad news.

I expect that carriers are not leaders in developing and maintaining software that helps create the best experience for users.  It is not their expertise.

I'm flabbergasted at this CarrierIQ news and I am glad to be using an iPhone!


UPDATE: Apple has a very limited form of CarrierIQ installed.  You can turn it off under Settings, General, About, Diagnostics & Usage, Don't Send.  You can also see what data is gathred under Diagnostics & Usage.

Apple has promised to not use any form of CarrierIQ in the future in any case.

UPDATE 2

I have seen reports that Carriers (or is it the OEMs?) are not following Google's recommendations regarding settings related to security.  It is at an NCSU website

A couple months into using a Macbook Air and I love it

I switched to a macbook air a couple months ago.  I had some minor concerns:

• Don't I need that DVD drive with me all the time?
• I've been having a hard time with my machine being slow at times.  Won't that macbook air be slow too?

With the SSD storage in the macbook air, I have had no problems with performance.  In fact, performance has been simply great!  I'm especially happy with the performance of running my virtual desktops in my macbook air.  

I think there will be ultra power users who might really want the additional RAM and cores of a macbook pro, but I firmly believe that few really need that.  Few.

I have missed the DVD player at times, but when I need it, I can have it.  And the rest of the time, I don't have to carry it everywhere.  And that is a good thing.

I'm quite happy.  I'm not so easy to please.

I've got an encrypted hard drive, I have run simultaneous backups to time machine and a network-service-based backup, a virus scanner, and more, and have been able to work without hiccup.  

Why I like the Thunderbolt monitor for modern Apple laptops

#1 I don't have to buy a dual-link DVI video cable - saves about $100.

#2 I don't have to buy a second power supply to carry around.  My monitor is my power supply at my desk - saves $80.

#3 In the past it has been cheaper than other 27-30" monitors - saves $50.

$230 in savings is nothing to sneeze at…

#4 has a camera and speakers.  This does not save me money but is convenient.  It might save someone else money over buying a camera.  It's HD to boot.

#5 it lets me pass through the thunderbolt capability and add thunderbolt accessories if they ever become available

#6 1Gb ethernet port for my macbook air

#7 power savings - even being the power brick for my laptop it seems to give off no heat.  I t uses much less power than other LCD screens I've used in the past.

iPhone brief updates

1. I've been having some problems since upgrading my iPhone 4 to IOS5.  Apps hang.  Apps crash.  Frankly I'm surprised at how little this is interfering with my usage.  But it is real, and two co-workers have said they have had similar experiences.
2. Garageband released for iPhone!  I'l post more about it after I use it, but this is pretty exciting to me.
3. Lots of reports about iPhone 4S problems, mostly about power draining quickly, are out there.  There is talk of rebooting your phone to help.  There is talk of other cellular settings restartings... Comment if you have the real answer
4. I have been having reminder sync problems.  My reminders kept vanishing!  That made them very not useful.  They were set to sync both with iCloud and with Zimbra (via an exchange connector) as well.  It seems Zimbra sucked them in and wiped them from my phone!  Now I'm set to just sync reminders just with iCloud and all is will with my reminders now!  
5. I've been reading the Steve Jobs biography via ibooks on my iPhone!  If only I could also read the ibook on my macbook air...
6. I'm loving the out-of-the-way alerts in IOS5!
7. I'm loving the easy-access camera in IOS5!

Apple and Starbucks - a partnership

People who frequent Starbucks have long experienced many iPhone related partnership featured:

• AT&T wireless providing free and seamless internet access
• free music - a song of the day from iTunes

Apple works hard on its image and so does Starbucks.  The partnership made sense to me as it was from two branding titans.

The new partnership is mostly great, but not all:

• AT&T providing free internet access for all, but not the seamless iPhone access - you have to go to a web browser and ok the terms now...
• free music - a song of the week from iTunes
• free apps - an app of the week from iTunes

The free apps are fun.  I've gotten Shazam, Momento, and The Monster at the End of this Book.  

It keeps me interested and not forgetting to look for apps in the app store.  It gives me one more reason to go to Starbucks a tad more often.  

I can't help it: Comparing iPhone experience to Android

Update 10/27:  This article puts some of my concerns well: Andoid Orphans

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I have to start by saying this: I'm not an Android user.  What I have comes from marketing aimed at me, users around me, and some news on the net.  But I have these thoughts and this blog is where they come out.

Who else is successful at making a reasonable experience?  Palm and RIM.  They made the OS and sold the hardware but still the cellular carrier got their mitts on the user experience and OS a bit.

Apple came along and pried just about the entire experience away from the carriers.  The carriers do not focus on "the best user experience" the way Apple does.  AT&T did contribute something great - a network that supports being on the phone while using your cellular data plan.  Apple and AT&T partnered - AT&T got something - all iPhones have a data plan.  That was really new at the time.

This is what I see of the Android experience...

First, a lack of control of the experience:

• Google makes the OS
• Someone makes the hardware
• The cellular carrier controls part of the experience (this is the old-school way of things)

Second, changes in direction that fly in the face of their marketing:

Google has aggressively marketed how Android is open source, and how much better that is than Apple's ways.  It is now closed source.  I feel lied to by Google's marketing, and I'm not even an Android user.

Third, a lack of updates:

I have heard from people around me and from news stories that people cannot upgrade to the newest Android OS version.  This sounds related to the first point.  This article says it pretty well towards the end: Apple aggressively markets IOS5 upgrades

Fourth is just general confusion:

If I wanted an Android phone, what should I pick?  Which is best for screen, battery life, and more?  There are so many choices... Is the best phone on all carriers?  When will who come out with the next one?  Does it have the right OS version?  Do any have any special integration with some features?  Are any missing any Google features?  Ugh.

Fifth is what I call "total packaging" and is perhaps an extension of point 1 in some ways:

This is perhaps an extension of control of the experience.  With an iPhone I know how I am going to:

• Put music, movies, podcasts on my phone, and share them with my computer and immediate family
• Buy music and share with my immediate family as needed
• Make sure my phone is backed up and recoverable should I replace my phone even if I upgrade in 2 years - the path is already confidently defined.
• Get support - at the Apple store (NOT THE CELLULAR CARRIER)
• secure my phone (find remotely, wipe remotely, encrypt if I want to)
• Get apps - a walled garden with some vetting by Apple for security

With Android I know I have more choices.  I have more ways to "normally" buy music and apps, sync data, tinker and possibly fix problems with my data I cannot fix on my iPhone.    

Google has all kinds of great services - like:

• gmail
• maps
• google voice
• search
• google+
• blogger
• reader

Having them available on iPhone makes sense - it is a marketing tool for Google and drives traffic to Google search and other ways Google makes money.  But I do not know how there are special integration capabilities for Android and Google services that are better than they are for iPhone like there could be, flowing between them.

And if there is a problem, whose fault is it?  The manufacturer?  The carrier and their special additions to the OS?  Google?  Who is accountable?

Android phones just don't have the total packaging that Apple phones have.

How the iPhone has made me go wow before IOS5

I have to start by talking about my previous experience - It was a Treo 650.  In fact that phone started me blogging!  With that phone I could:

• Listen to MP3s (but it was hard to set up, nearly impossible to manage play lists)
• Watch movies (hard doesn't begin to describe it, plus it crashed all the time and the screen was tiny)
• Download apps from the internet and use them (again, very very very hard to do)
• Read RSS feeds, have access to podcasts (hard but doable)
• Tether to the cellular-based internet (slow, buggy, but doable)
• Play games (rudimentary, like chess - not action games)
• VPN to the corporate network, use other admin tools like ssh
• read emails, have access to my address book synced with my computer - PDA stuff
• task lists
• I even read project Gutenberg books on my Treo!
• maps - Google maps actually worked on this thing, without GPS of course...
• camera in a cell phone - it was more like a toy and not SO useful, but a start

I could not really do two things at once.  No multi-tasking on the Treo 650.  Well, you could listen to music and maybe do something else.  Mostly that was buggy.

Much of what I use my iPhone for today is that list but refined.  What do I not do from that list?

• tether - I just haven't been willing to pay more for that ability.  The iPhone is good enough to make me have to have it and there is enough WiFi availability now otherwise to make tethering not mission critical thus far.

Why did the Treo/palm guys not take things to the next level?  They did use a phone OS image warped a bit and hindered by the cellular carriers for one thing...  The rest - I don't know.  There was a lot that was bad about that experience - battery life was very bad while I watched movies and used my Treo for so many things, the screen was tiny, and everything was hard.

Apple took what I used my tree 650 for and made it all oh so much better.

• iTunes let me manage my music and playlists, but later I could just buy music on my phone or on my computer and it is easy, oh so easy!  (And with DRM-free tunes I can make CDs for when I want my iPhone for other things.)  Oh, even before Apple supported multi-tasking, Apple made listening to music while doing other things work and made it easy.
• iTunes makes buying movies easy.  I have a Mac and that has made getting my DVDs onto my iPhone pretty easy, but that's a story for another day.
• Netflix watch it now on my iPhone has been a game changer!  Wow!
• iTunes has made things like podcasts really easy!
• The iPhone App store has made getting new apps really easy, as the world knows.
• Email - vastly better and with Exchange-style sync and more I can read personal and corporate email and - it is all easy.  VPN to work - easy.  
• A camera eventually taking video and even enabling on-camera video editing!  That blows me away and they keep making it better even on slightly older phones!
• Google maps with GPS integration and now even a rudimentary compass and turn-by-turn directions!
• News, RSS feeds (I use reeder), weather info built-in app, 
• I now have so many options for music - Pandora for example, Bing music search.  The ability to use my headphone controls to turn music on and off from different apps has been amazing.
• Voice command - the most impressive part to me is asking to call people and mostly have my iPhone understand who I mean without training the iPhone.

Once I play with IOS5 I'll share those experiences.