Category: Mobile

The TouchPad and Software

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]Of course with the TouchPad being so new, its not too surprising to find its app store a little sparse on software.  However even I am amazed at how few applications are actually available for the TouchPad.

In several places in the OS, HP has included links to the store to find new providers (like for accounts and VOIP) however they do not actually have any in the store so blank results are returned.  It just feels so wrong to to have placed something there from HP to ensure a result was returned.

I have so far downloaded and am using the following:

  • Facebook
  • Angry Birds HD
  • WordPress
  • AccuWeather
  • Amazon Kindle (Beta)
  • BHomePro (Purchased)
  • Canadian Weather
  • FreeCam
  • KalemSoft Media Player
  • Opera’s Bookmarks (Purchased)
  • PPTP VPN
  • Solitaire
  • Spaz HD (Beta Preview 2)
  • TuneInRadio
  • Weather Dashboard HD

Big apps missing that I use from the catalog include:

  • Official Twitter
  • IMDB
  • Poynt/Flickster/other local services app

Also strangely missing form the build in TouchPad apps is a camera app, the front facing camera is apparently only there for video chat.  Since the 3.0.2 update, several camera apps have been released so this is taken care of now at least.

The biggest grip I have with the TouchPad software in general so far is that, with the exception of Maps, there is no support for Microsoft services.  This seems really strange to me since HP and MS have had a very close relationship for decades and HP leaving these services out just seems odd.

I am still looking for the Live Messenger support, SkyDrive support, Bing search (ok, I’m not actually looking for that Winking smile).

The HP app store software is reasonable, not great by any means but functions.  My biggest grip is that once you have purchased an app, it’s price changes to Free.  So you can’t really tell the difference between a “Free” application and one you have already purchased.

The update service needs some work on the TouchPad, you have to manually open the software manager and then wait until it checks to see if there are any updates, then do the updates.  This should be a background process with a notification message so you know there are updates waiting for you.

Facebook

The Facebook app is pretty standard, I won’t go in to do much detail, but if you use Facebook, it will work.  IM is missing and updates don’t always seem to come through in a timely fashion, but I found that with pretty much any Facebook client that is the primary web site.

Angry Birds HD

Yes it’s free and it’s Angry Birds.  Nuff said.

WordPress

The WordPress client is nice, functions well and has even been updated since the  initial release.

AccuWeather

I’m not using this much anymore as “Canadian Weather” and “Weather Dashboard HD” have replaced it.

Amazon Kindle (Beta)

Ok, this is BUGGY in the extreme.  It’s been updated once but it still has some major issues.  And it’s SLOW to boot.

BHomePro (Purchased)

This is a DLNA/uPnP client for streaming media to the TouchPad, initial versions were pretty bad and couldn’t find my DLNA server, but recent improvements have made a major improvement in the software.  I purchased the app and don’t regret it, the developer has been updating it regularly and one day it should do everything I want.

One thing that is disappointing (but not surprising) is the lack of support for any media format that the TouchPad doesn’t play natively.   Perhaps in a future release…

I have been having an issue with this app saving it’s preferences and have been working with the developer on a solution, but its a minor issue.

Canadian Weather

If your not in Canada, this app won’t do anything  for you (unless you want to know the weather in Canada of course).  It pulls data from Environment Canada (the federal weather department) and displays it in a nicely formated page.  It’s free and support multiple locations.  What more could you want?

FreeCam

Since HP decided not to include a camera app on the TouchPad, this is just a basic camera app, nothing fancy but unlike many of the other camera apps, it’s free.

KalemSoft Media Player (Purchased)

As noted above in the BHomePro section, the TouchPad has limited support for video formats.  The major one missing is AVI files, which pretty much excludes 99% of my video collection.  KalemSoft has a PC side service that supports multiple formats, include AVI, and streams them to the TouchPad for playback.  The video quality is a little low but it does work as advertised.

Opera’s Bookmarks (Purchased)

As I’ve mentioned before, Opera is my primary browser on my PC and I use the sync service to keep my bookmarks etc available to all the PC’s I use.  This little app downloads your bookmarks from the Opera Link service and gives you a way to browse and open them.

Editing is not supported (no a big deal) and it’s only the bookmarks, so the SpeedDial links are not included, but a handy tool if you use Opera.

PPTP VPN

One of the big issues I had with the VPN support on the TouchPad is it really only supported the Cisco VPN solution.  HP released PPTP support a few weeks ago to help correct that issue, but I have to admit I can’t get it to work.

The connection is established, but no data will move through the VPN it looks like DNS is failing somewhere but there isn’t enough detail in the VPN client on the TouchPad to get any useful troubleshooting done.

Solitaire

It’s free, I downlaoded it, it’s Solitaire, what more do you want?

Spaz HD (Beta Preview 2)

Spaz HD is the Twitter client I’m using on the TouchPad.  It’s been updated and work quite well so far, but I’m not a huge Twitter user.

TuneInRadio

This is an internet radio client, it’s awesome.

Weather Dashboard HD (Purchased)

I have to say that when I saw the TouchPad’s presentation mode, weather information seemed like a natural fit.  HP didn’t include such a service but Weather Dashboard HD fills in this gap quite nicely.  It also gives you the current weather details in the notification area on the TouchPad which is kind of nice.

The only issue I have with it is that it supports both metric and imperial, but when you select metric, it doesn’t convert the forecast description from imperial, only the current temperature.  A minor issue overall.

The HTC Titan

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]Last week we finally saw the first new Windows Phone hardware since the launch of WP7 almost a year ago (ok, technically the Japan only phone that was launched a few weeks ago was the first, but I don’t live in Japan, so it doesn’t  really count Winking smile).

HTC announced the Radar and Titan, both running Mango (looks like they’re calling it Windows Phone 7.5).  The Radar is a pretty ordinary phone, so I won’t talk about it, but the Titan?  That’s a whole different story.

As the name infers, the Titan is one majorly large phone, with a 4.7″ screen, it has one of the largest displays ever packed in to a commercial handset (Dell had a 5″ tablet they called a phone, but no one bought it).

I wanted to know exactly how big the Titan is, so I thought I’d compare it to something I already have, my HD7.  Oh and some other phone I hear is kind of popular:

HD7

Titan

iPhone 4
Height (mm)

122

131.5

111.2
Width (mm)

68

70.7

58.6
Depth (mm)

11.2

9.9

9.3
Weight (g)

162

160

137
Display Size (I)

4.3

4.7

3.5

So a little bit taller than the HD7 (9mm), just a hair wider (2.7mm) and thinner by 1.3mm.  That’s quite impressive and it’s actually lighter as well.

In fact when you do the math, the titan takes up less volume then the HD7 (92cm2 vs 92.9cm2).

In comparison to that “other” phone, the Titan is larger (20.3×12.1×0.6) and takes up about 1/3 more volume, but you get over 50% more screen real estate.  Not a bad trade off I think.

One item that many in the press have noticed is that the Titan still has the 800×480 resolution that all the other WP7 phones have.  While I don’t think this is a huge problem (we’re looking at a phone, not hanging it on the wall as art) it does concern me that MS hasn’t yet moved beyond this single resolution or form factor.

One of the grips I had in my HD7 review was the back plate of the phone was not as good as the rest of the phone.  The Titan takes care of this by have a aluminum uni-body construction for the back of the phone, which seems like a really nice improvement.

The other big piece of news on the Titan is the front facing camera.  Skype and other video conferencing services will use this, but I have to admit I think it’s mostly used by vain people.  Really, who wants to see everyone else’s ugly mug on their phone while they talk to them.  The last decade of cell phones have show us that text messaging is immensely popular and you don’t even have to talk to the person let alone see them Winking smile.

Will the Titan be my next phone?  Probably not.  I’m looking for two things that it doesn’t have:

  1. Wireless charging
  2. Removable storage with SDXC support (SD cards with more than 32g of space)

Since I’ve had the TouchPad, wireless charging has become a significant addition to my feature list on any portable device I buy.  It’s just so convenient to just drop the device on the dock and walk away.

SDXC support should be standard in everything by now, their no excuse for limiting the storage to 32g.

But if I had to buy a new phone for some reason, the Titan would certainly be the front runner.

A study of contrasts: Microsoft Kin vs. HP WebOS

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]At first glance there are many similarities between MS’s ill fated Kin phones and HP’s WebOS phones and tablets, but when you look a little deeper, the differences far outweigh the similarities.

MS Kin

MS purchased Danger Inc. several years ago and didn’t seem to be doing much with the company until they announced a new generation of phones, the Kin One and Two.  These phones were a radical change from previous Danger products and seemed to be targeted at a different demographic as well.

They were launched with much fan fare and MS was very enthusiastic about them, then just a few months after launch, they were terminated after poor sales.  Microsoft took a billion plus dollar hit in the debacle.

HP WebOS

HP Purchased Palm just over a year ago and immediately announced a slew of new products and plans for WebOS.  Then nothing.  Finally the new hardware was announced, including the Veer, Pre 3 and TouchPad.

The launch for the new hardware had a massive ad campaign behind it and HP pushed hard in to the tablet market.  Just over a month after the launch, HP killed the entire WebOS lineup, taking a multi-billion dollar hit in the process.

Seems kind of the same, so what’s the difference?

At the summary level, everything looks the same, new tech, high hopes, billions lost.  But where as MS had a clear strategy with killing the Kin, HP has none.

MS killed the Kin, not because of the poor sales (though I’m sure that made it easier), but because internally MS had two phone platforms, Kin and the upcoming Windows Phone.  The battle royal that went on inside MS as these two platforms competed to survive is the stuff of legends, and in the end the Kin was killed, gutted and consumed by the Windows Phone team.  But at the end of the day, MS was still in the phone business.

When MS killed the Kin, they made it VERY clear it was to focus on Windows Phone.  It was in the announcements, the executives recited the party line time and again.  When it was all over, no one wondered what was going to become of the Kin, Windows Phone or MS.

HP on the other hand kill WebOS with no plan B.  They simply exited the market, tail between their legs.  The announcement created far more questions then it answered and days later everyone is still scratching their heads.

So what would MS’s announcement have been like if it was the same scope as HPs?

For MS to have made make the same kind of announcement HP did, it would have had to included:

  • The Kin is dead.
  • Windows Phone too, the consumer space is just too competitive.
  • Oh, and we’re dumping all our mice, keyboards, webcams, etc., anyone what to buy that business?
  • But we’re going to keep Xbox because we make a boat load of cash from that.

Not really the same at all when you think about it.

#@$^ HP…

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]I’ve spend all weekend since the HP announcement on Friday which killed the TouchPad pissed off at HP.  So much so that I really had to take a look and ask why?

It’s not that the TouchPad is such a great product as to be a great loss to humanity or anything.  Yes, it showed promise, but had a ways to go to get there.

I think what pisses me off about it is HOW HP killed the TouchPad.  HP spent $1.2 billion to acquire Palm, hundreds of millions more to build the product and hundreds more to advertise it.  The cost to HP must be north of $2 billion at this point.  Dropped like radioactive hot potato.  With shards of glass protruding from it.  And was on fire.

Dropping all WebOS devices so soon after launching them just reeks of a clueless management.  And I do blame management at the highest level on this one.  Yes I’m talking about Leo Apotheker, ex CEO of SAP and WebOS butcher.

How can a CEO reasonable tell his board that he’s not even going to try and make a go of a multi billion dollar business and instead is going to focus on a highly competitive space that the company has failed at several times already?  Ok, fail might be too strong of word, but the HP services and software group have never been the star of HP.  Printers, PC, servers and other hardware has been.

Maybe that’s because HP is a hardware company.

And what’s so wrong with being a hardware company these days anyway?  Yes the margins aren’t what they use to be, but you can still make a profit and with the volume you do it’s a good business to be in when you’re the largest player.  And let’s face it, Apple is a hardware company and they seem to be doing just fine.

Let’s look at what HP did keep from the consumer market… printers.  Something that has always been a cash cow for HP.  But really, if Leo wants to be out of the consumer market, then nothing screams consumer hardware more than an HP printer.

Killing WebOS was just plain laziness, Leo couldn’t be bothered to put in the work required to get HP to the top of the tablet and phone markets but was quite willing to stay in the printer business because it didn’t involve any risk or work.

Before Friday, if you had asked me what words I would use to describe HP’s products, one of them would certainly have been “stability” and another would have been “long term support”.  Today, well not so much.

And what did HP get for it’s big move?  HP’s stock price tumbled by 25%.  How many billion did that cost them?

Do I expect HP to reverse course?  No, that ship has sailed and even if they change their mind and stay in the PC business, WebOS is dead at HP.  The only hope it has is that HTC or Samsung decide to license it, which is a possibility, but seems like a long shot at this point.

I guess for me HP’s total lack of commitment to the TouchPad has soured my view of HP, so much so that I’ll never buy or recommend an HP product again just on simple principle.  It’s not like they do anything unique any more, they’re just another enterprise services company now.

Motorola Mobility and Google?

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:mobile-category ]This week we had the big announcement that Google is going to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.  That’s a big chunk of change even for Google, but what is really behind the move?

There have been several theories floating around the net, but the one that makes the most sense to me is the patent portfolio that Motorola Mobility holds.  Google is a late comer to the tech industry and as such doesn’t have a large number of patents.  This puts it at a disadvantage to people like Microsoft, Apple, IBM and Nokia in any field that they compete.

Several articles have suggested the deal was struck very quickly over the weekend and I can believe that as even as late as last week the CEO of MM was hedging his bets about mobile OSs saying he was open to Windows Phone 7.  Truth or shrude salesmanship to get Google to move even quicker?

But none the less, what does it mean moving forward?

From a patent perspective MM is a granddaddy in the mobile space so the patents will be helpful in many aspects of Google’s future, but for the short term, it won’t help them much with the multiple lawsuits that are already in play.  Longer term, it seems likely a good bargaining chip to have the next time someone comes knocking on their door with infringement claims.

From a product perspective, it certainly cuts out Windows Phone from being an option on Motorola hardware and brings in to question the future of Android on other third party vendors.  Yes, I know everyone lined up on announcement day and sang the party line that this was good for Android and everyone was still committed to it being open and free.  But let’s be pragmatic, when Google goes to make its next phone its not going to ask HTC or Samsung to build it when it can do it it’s self.

With Android 3, Google close the source code to everyone and still hasn’t released it, can you image when Google owns MM that they won’t have access to the code first and then everyone else.  It is just in Google’s own best interest to do this, to make sure MM comes out with new products based on new version of Android before everyone else.

So what do Samsung, HTC and the other do?  Sit back and accept they have just been demoted to the second tier of Android vendors?  Or do they start hedging their bets?

Business is business and any Android vendor that isn’t looking to reduce their reliance on Android is not doing their job at this point.  This is probably a really good opportunity for Microsoft all things considered.  Samsung and HTC have long support WP7 and Acer was announced a while ago, but they put out many more Android models than WP7 (which is to be expected up until now) but I think we might see that change over the next 6-12 months.  Should Sony Ericsson or other vendors start up conversations with Microsoft?  Might not be a bad idea all things considered.

Microsoft has always know that you can’t be an OS vendor and a hardware vendor for that OS at the same time, you have to choose what you want to be and run with it.  When Microsoft does make hardware (Xbox, Zune, etc) they build a custom OS and don’t license it out.  It makes no sense as you’re just helping others take you business away from you.  With the OSs they do license (Windows, Windows Phone, etc.) they just stay out of the hardware business.  I can’t imagine the number of times a vendor (HP, Acer, etc. Ok, maybe not IBM) must have gone to MS and asked to make a Microsoft branded PC to put on store shelves and MS wisely said no thanks.

If multiple Android vendors do start to move away, what can Google do?  The most obvious move would be to spin Android out of the company in to some kind of industry consortium.  But that would really defeat Google’s real reason for making Android in the first place as the consortium would no longer be tied to Google’s services and could even select other search engines and advertising providers if they wanted to.  It would just give up too much control to people who aren’t all that interested in Google’s advertising business.  In this scenario, could MS actually pay the consortium to make Bing the default search engine?

Could we see a fork of Android?  Certainly there’s a lot of competition in the marketplace already, with multiple app stores available and several forks of Android , but without the big handset makers behind them they are not really an option at this point.  But if Samsung, HTC and other put their weight behind a new app store and a forked kernel?  That would make it very interesting for Google and MM.

What the Google purchase of MM really shows us though is that the smartphone business is still experiencing growing pains, it hasn’t even reached puberty yet.  It’s still anyone’s game to win and everyone is using everything they’ve got to win it.