Oddly Together

The Old Man and the 3G

Who says that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks or that older people can’t adapt and change? Not me, or at least not any longer. This afternoon, I got the most amazing shock from my father-in-law, who turned 88 in December. He wants to make some changes, by going all 3G wireless.

A few months back, my father-in-law bought a Sprint modem for one of his sons, who no longer uses it. The account is still active, and I had been searching for someone to take over it so there would be no early termination fee. My father-in-law has decided to use the Sprint modem as his primary Internet access device. He’ll cancel Cox cable, Internet and phone services.

So that means no more landline for pops, who plans to port the number to his T-Mobile cell phone; that he’d like to upgrade—from a candybar Nokia phone to something with a keyboard. Based on our discussion about hard versus soft keyboard options, he will consider either my wife’s old T-Mobile MyTouch or my Nexus One (I’m switching to iPhone 4). He seems eager about having an Internet-capable phone and delighted at the idea of using a touchscreen.

Quite suddenly, he will be cutting edge mobile. Earlier today, at Betanews, I wrote about PEW Internet’s new report: “Mobile Access 2010.” The minority of Americans are cellular-only Internet users, although the percentage is highest among 18-29 year olds (19 percent). In a few days, my father-in-law will join their ranks, by cutting all the wires and going 3G Internet for laptop and cell phone. If he chooses the Nexus One, as I expect, he’ll be using a smartphone running the latest version of Android (2.2). It’s a mobile OS many much younger smartphone owners would like to be using.

Another shocker: He asked about ebooks, too. It’s good that Kindle for Android is now available. I showed him the ebook I’ve been reading on iPhone 4, and now he’s game for yet another change.

My father-in-law awoke at 4 a.m. with this plan. I didn’t influence him and wouldn’t have (shame on me), assuming so much change would rattle his routine. Well, hell, what do I know?

[Update: He decided on iPhone 4. I’ve put in a reservation at the local Apple Store; the handset should be available in a couple of weeks.]

Do you have a gadget story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

The Future of the PC as Seen From 2003

Sometimes the past feels all the more distant.

In November 2003, Jupitermedia held a small event competing with the then massive and now defunct Comdex. As a senior analyst working for the company, I was asked to give presentation: “Evolution of the PC.” The topic is so broad I griped: “Why don’t you just give me a bag of rocks and tell me to hit one of the great lakes.” So much about computing has changed since that presentation, the content seems simply ancient to me.

During the presentation, I spent some time talking about the importance of cell phones. At one point, I took out my mobile and explained how it had speedier processor, better graphics, more storage and faster Internet connection than my first home PC purchased in January 1994. I observed that the cell phone should be a boon to the kind of lighter-weight applications that ran in the tiny memory space of DOS PCs.

I’ve pulled two slides from the deck, pertaining to the future evolution of PCs. The first slide (above) identifies mobile and entertainment devices as likely successors to the PC (For editorial reasons—analysts aren’t supposed to be wrong—I was compelled to ask a question rather than make the assertion I wanted). The slide’s shortlist of leaders is dated. Apple isn’t among them, because its industry-changing role was a future to come. The iPod was just 2 years old and selling well, but nothing like it would from mid 2004 and beyond; iTunes Store only opened in April 2003.

The second slide’s title asks “Is the PC’s successor here already?” It’s a question I answered for the audience in context of smartphone and iPod—and to a lesser degree game console. I believed then, as now, that mobile phones would replace the PC in the next wave of computing. What I didn’t know then and simply couldn’t guess was Apple’s role. The next wave of computing is here, and iPhone pushed it forward from the June 2007 launch; or so I reflect as the first iPhone 4s arrive tomorrow.

By the way, I want to totally distance myself from the godawful slide designs. They were stock Jupiter issue, and I was compelled to use them. I hated them. Passionately, and I’m glad to say so. I stripped out the corporate header and footer, as the company I worked for is gone.

Do you have computing story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.

Two Stories of Smartphones Stolen

Yesterday someone stole my daughter’s new smartphone from a school locker. On Friday, a good friend’s iPhone 3GS disappeared from a car dealership, while he was talking on it. Both stories, which go oddly together, are cautionary tales about social media, cloud computing and the risks of identities stolen with the hardware.

Stolen phones used to conjure fears of minutes usage overages or big bills from calls placed to faraway places. Now the cost could be  you.

The story of my good friend Andy begins on a sunny Southern California afternoon. Andy is a small business guy who runs bookstores and Halloween costume shops in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas. He’s a boisterous, happy fellow who walks around with a bluetooth earpiece that might as well be surgically attached to his head. Andy’s a talker. Constantly. If it’s not someone present, it’s to someone on the phone.

Andy got his first iPhone in summer 2008, at my recommendation. He upgraded to iPhone 3GS a few months ago. For Andy, iPhone is more than just talk. He uses it for email, texting and running applications that support his business, including built-in photo and video capabilities and others downloaded from Apple’s App Store. “My iPhone is my life,” I’ve heard him say.

Continue reading…

My Nokia N97 is Gone

Snail pic taken with Nokia N97 smartphone

I’m mad at Apple and Nokia. Apple has the best mobile software and services platform anywhere. Nokia offers the best hardware platform—granted, HTC closes in. This difference has forced me to choose one company’s smartphone over the other, leaving behind dissatisfaction with the compromise.

Continue reading…

Your Next PC is a Smartphone

Last Friday’s Silicon Alley Insider Chart of the Day should scare Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer so badly that he accidentally buys a Japanese car. Sorry, Steve, you missed the Cash for Clunkers program. That’s OK, maybe someday the Obama Administration will offer a clunkers program for Windows PCs.

Silicon Alley Insider’s Dan Frommer explains the chart: “By the end of 2011, worldwide smartphone sales will pass worldwide PC sales, RBC analyst Mike Abramsky estimates, approaching 400 million annual shipments of each.” Say, Gartner or IDC, how about you pipe in with some estimates, too, eh?

Continue reading…

Microsoft Has Lost Its Way Part 2

Microsoft has abandoned the fundamental principles that made it the most successful software company of the last decade and ensured its software would be the most widely used everywhere. But in just three years, since 2006, startups and Apple have set a new course for technology and how societies use it.

For Microsoft, this change is scarier than movie “Quarantine.” Without a course correction, Microsoft in the 2010s will be very much like IBM was in the 1990s. That’s no place Microsoft should want to be.

Continue reading…

Quick Quotes: iPhone 3.0 Edition

[Editor’s Note, March 29, 2010: For about six weeks during summer 2009, and following my April 30 layoff from eWEEK, I put out my shingle as an independent analyst. I had worked as an analyst for JupiterResearch from 2003 to 2006. But the role just didn’t feel right, particularly given the economy. This post represents a feature of “quotes” for journalists to use in their stories.]

What have I got to say about iPhone 3.0, available today, and iPhone 3GS, coming on Friday? Here is my quick take.

“The 3.0 version closes the gap Apple left open for competitors. The iPhone will get features, like search and copy and paste, that are standard on competing smartphones.”

Continue reading…

iPhone 3G Whiners Should Just Get a Life

Historically, early technology adopters have paid more to get their goodies. Pick a category: Big-screen TV, color TV, Blu-ray player or recorder, car phone, cell phone, digital camera, DVR,  high-speed broadband, MP3 player, VHS player, VHS recorder, Walkman, etc., etc., etc. Early adopters paid a price premium. If they want the newest thing, they pay more.

But with iPhone 3GS, that “pay more” comes at a price hard for some people to accept. Many existing US iPhone 3G owners are whining about not being eligible for discounted iPhone 3GS pricing. I say: Tough luck. You want the newest thing, you’re going to have to pay for it.

First-time iPhone buyers—and the earliest iPhone adopters who didn’t purchase the 3G—are eligible for discounted pricing on the 3GS. They will pay $199 for the 16GB model, or $299 for 32GB. For most iPhone 3G buyers, the price will be $399 and $499, respectively, and still with a two-year contractual commitment to AT&T. These existing customers don’t qualify for the lowest pricing, and many are whining about it.

Get a life. This is how the cell phone business is done. Carriers subsidize the cost of a phone. If the buyer wants the benefit of the discount he or she must agree to some term of service. With AT&T, that’s two years, bud.

The whiners are banding together. At Twitition there is petition:

We the undersigned petition AT&T to offer reasonable iPhone 3GS upgrade prices. AT&T should give existing customers the same rate for the new iPhone 3Gs that they do for new customers. New customers or not, another 2-year contract is being made.

More than 5,500 people have signed the petition. AT&T shouldn’t give into you. Carrier subsidy is a benefit, it’s not a right. You received the benefit when buying the iPhone 3G for $199 or $299 (Apple lowered price to $99 on Monday). The real cost of the device, unsubsidized, is $699 or $799, without contractual commitment or carrier lock in.

AT&T shouldn’t get all the blame here—if any is warranted. Apple launched the original iPhone with no subsidy, sharing revenue with AT&T. Early iPhone adopters like me paid $600, and there was still a two-year contractual commitment. Now that was outrageous. Apple and AT&T charged full price for a phone under contract. The policy had been full price, no commitment.

Because the original iPhone sold unsubsidized, most existing customers were eligible to buy the iPhone 3G starting July 11, 2008. But iPhone 3G’s lower subsidized pricing means that most people have to wait more than a year—as long as 18 months—before becoming eligible for discounted pricing on iPhone 3GS.

Is it unfair? Absolutely not. AT&T doesn’t hide this policy. Just the opposite. The carrier encourages customers to get new phones when they’re eligible, particularly if their two-year contract has expired.

I am one of you. My iPhone 3GS eligibility is July 12, a date that is earlier than expected, since it’s not 18 months since my iPhone 3G purchase. But that does make me ineligible to buy the new smartphone on June 16. Here’s a question: Should any current 3G owner buy up to 3GS? For most people, my answer is no, which is yet another reason for the cry babies to shut up.

The main advantages of 3GS over the 3G model are the less crappy camera and video capabilities. Oh, yeah, supposedly there will be faster 3G data, too. Right, just as Sprint and Verizon roll out 4G services. Sure, there will eventually be applications taking advantage of the video capabilities. Those apps ought to come out in big numbers about the time you whiners are eligible for the full subsidy.

It’s heartening to see that among all the babies calling AT&T a bully, there are a few adults. Over at Technologizer, Harry McCraken writes (I’ve reversed the order of the paragraphs):

I’m not that sympathetic towards iPhone 3G owners who want AT&T to sell them the iPhone 3G S at the same sweetheart price as someone who didn’t buy an iPhone 3G last year. You agreed to fulfill a two-year contract with AT&T in return for the discount you got last year.

If there’s a problem here, it’s the way phones are usually sold in America, via subsidies that encourage us to think that phones cost less than they really do, and which tie us up with a carrier and prevent us from moving a phone we’ve bought to another carrier (even temporarily, when we’re overseas). A top-of-the-line iPhone really costs $699, which is not a crazy price given its capabilities; it’s just that very few of us ever pay that price or even realize it exists. We’re conditioned to think of those subsidized prices as the prices, in part because phone manufacturers and carriers stress them above all else.

God love him, Jesus Diaz isn’t taking any of this whining either. His Gizmodo headline reads “Whiners of the World: Shut Up About the iPhone 3GS’ Upgrade Price.” He writes:

So you bought your heavily subsidised iPhone 3G with a two-year contract and now you are upset because AT&T wants to charge you full price for the new iPhone 3GS, right? Well, stop whining. You have no arguments. I have the iPhone 3G—by the way, I paid an extra $500 deposit on top of the price tag because I didn’t have US credit history back then—and I don’t qualify for a subsidised upgrade. I have to finish my contract first, then renew to qualify for the subsidy. If I was in Spain or anywhere else in the world, it will be the same.

But I am not whining. Not because I am a fanboy—I hate AT&T with a passion—but because there are no logical arguments to support the whining. Sure, it sucks to be me and pay almost-full price for the iPhone 3GS, but that’s how life is. You don’t get a reduced price on your new notebook just because you bought the old model a year ago. You don’t get reduced price on cars, or anything else.

I love these guys. Harry and Jesus are men. They’re taking this like adults. Why aren’t you?

As for me, I figured that if I’ve got to spend big bucks on an unsubsidized phone, why not one that is unlocked and packs better hardware and features. Yesterday I ordered a Nokia N97. The phone should arrive tomorrow. The N97 has a real camera, shoots great video and offers many other features superior to iPhone 3G. Based on using other Nokia handsets, I presume better call quality and battery life will be on the better-than-iPhone list.

Had I decided to buy the cheaper costing iPhone 3GS, I would have quietly waited until July 12. No whining. No complaining. Just anticipation. What’s your problem?

Do you have an iPhone story that you’d like told? Please email Joe Wilcox: oddlytogether at gmail dot com.