The state of windows mobile

December 22

Paul Thurott has an excellent piece on the current state of windows mobile.

To use a tired analogy, the iPhone is to phones as a BMW coupe is to cars: Sleek, innovative, and superior. Meanwhile, the Windows Mobile device I’m using is more like a Ford Escort: Yes, it will get you there, but not in style.

The mystery of the iPhone 3G battery life

July 16

Since the day I picked up my iPhone 3G I have been keeping a close eye on the battery life.  Partly from my own obsessiveness and partly because of all of the supposed “poor battery life” rumors I had heard prior to the release.

Upon using the phone the first few days I did indeed notice that my battery seemed to drain quicker than normal.  At first I thought “My god, the rumors were right! The battery life is much worse”.  However after I really thought about the current use of the new iPhone and then compared it to the previous iPhone I realized that the comparison was completed skewed.

A couple of key factors all changed at once:

1. The new phone has 3G: The higher data rate is definatly nice but it certainly, and expectedly uses more power.  This should be expected to anyone who is familiar with the differences between EDGE and 3G.

2. Third Party Apps are now available: The introduction of third party applications is wonderful and as I expected it has increased the usefulness of my iPhone and naturally increased how often I use it.

3. Mobile Me is introduced Although not everyone has mobile me, it is another service that has recently has been subjected to my increased attention and use.  And another internet based service that gets used that didn’t get used before means another reason my iPhone usage has increased.

When I was previously comparing the battery life of my first iPhone to my new iPhone 3G I was tending to forget about the new features that were causing me to use my phone more actively than before.

Having realized that I loaded up my previous phone with the 2.0 software, loaded up the same applications I have on the 3G and started using it.  Sure enough, the battery was certainly getting drained far faster than before.

I get the feeling a lot of people are not considering those factors when reviewing the iPhone 3G’s battery life.

Another person who doesn’t understand flash…

June 18

In this recent article on Counternotions Kontra talks about why he thinks flash would not appear on the iPhone anytime soon.  While I tend to agree that flash isn’t likely to appear on the iPhone soon, I completely disagree on how he came to his conclusion.

One of the most common traits with Flash is its overall misunderstood nature with the general public and even most developers/designers.  In his article, Kontra argues that one of the main reasons Apple wouldn’t allow flash on the iPhone is because they would lose control of the UI and on top of that, that flash doesn’t support the multi touch api’s built in to the iPhone.

Man this guy is off his rocker… And no I don’t mean that mis guided attempt at a phone Motorola put out a couple years ago.

Before I go into detail on why he is wrong, remember this… If a flash site was made to be viewed on the iPhone’s specific screen size (making it a web app for the iphone), it is no different than any other web app that already exists for the phone whether it is made with HTML, CSS, Javascript, or all of the above.  They all utilize the same Cocoa touch api’s.

For the sake of arguement I will assume for that a flash plugin was made for the iPhone, even though in reality this has not occurred.  If a flash web based application was made for the iPhone it would operate as any other web app does.  For instance clicking a text field in a flash app would still bring up the iPhones keyboard and so on.  The thought that some how using flash would mean that basic iPhone UI controls would no longer work, like drop down lists and text inputs, and suddenly the flash developer would choose how the user typed is ludicrous.  The iPhones built in api’s for webkit tell the phone when to bring up the iPhones built in keyboard.

The idea that some how flash takes away Apples control of the UI is ridiculous and just shows the authors lack of knowledge in terms of browser operation and flash.  Any iPhone web app takes away Apple’s control of the UI.  Its up to the web designer to ensure that their website maintains those standards flash or not.  The platform used by the designer makes no difference.

Kontra also mentioned that basic controls like dragging and zooming around the page would no longer work.  Once again, Cocoa touch is what dictates webkits viewing controls.  No object rendered with in the page can take away those controls from phone.  Flash is not some mystical territory where the laws of reality no longer apply.  Its simply another web object, it is under the control of the browser and the browser is under the control of the system its running on.

While I agree that the iPhone will not likely have flash anytime soon for performance reasons.  The idea that flash somehow takes away UI control from Apple where other web apps didn’t makes no sense what-so-ever.