Samsung Captivate - My iPhone Replacement

My AT+T family plan phone upgrade eligibility seems to waffle (even on the one iphone). One day they are all eligible, the next none are. This waffling even happens within the same day - stupid. It's a full five months before our "2 years" is up but some consistency would be nice. I won't even bother to tell you what the ATT person said, it just doesn't make any sense. What has happened, though, is I have been able to order my iphone replacement and my daughter ordered a new iphone (3GS, not 4, she needs to actually use the phone, not just look at it).


Over that past week I learned that ATT now has one of (if not the) best Android phones available - the Samsung Captivate (generically aka Galaxy S). It has a great screen, FAST processor, and lots of cool stuff you can do with it/add to it. Like Apple phones, these phones have some features (like FM radio) defeated on ATT. 


An iPhone 4 will beat a Captivate in certain specs and performance - especially (for now) web page loading. That will change when the next Android OS (2.2) comes out for this phone, which will be very soon.The iPhone 4 takes better pictures. There also is no  front facing camera (will we actually use these eventually? - it may just be disabled) or (almost useless) led "flash." The stuff it does do though is impressive, like great Office integration, easily replaceable $5 battery, cheap add-ons, Adobe Flash, etc. It is the best phone for gaming. Period. Too bad I don't do much of that.

It's $149 at Amazon for a family plan upgrade, $199 at ATT store.

And check out the do-dads, cases, etc.

Windows phones will be out soon. They will have better cameras and eventually a better OS (really, I am confident that WP7 is going to be a much more complete and robust OS than any previous mobile OS). But I had to jump on this - I am impatient and sick of my iPhone.

Android

I find it exciting to see a robust community of Android users. I don't think there is anything I will miss from the iphone world, application-wise. Some of my most favorite apps on the iPhone include Radar Scope (I found something just like it for Android), Stanza (ditto), Uverse (I don't think so, but it has to be coming) and Nano Studio (will be hard to beat except for the pathetic CPU of my 3G). Everything else is there (all those crappy apps, Android has them too). 

ATT has their Android phones somewhat locked down (I just can't have that) but this is easily circumvented with Android Sideload Wonder Machine or very straightforward rooting. Tethering is easily available once rooted. All interesting and useful stuff. I plays flacs but I haven't figured out if I will be able to play flacs 24 bit flacs (I have my doubts). UPDATE: The samsung/att media player plays 24 bit 48 kHz flacs, but not higher. The stock android player does 16 bit flacs only, from what I can tell. Sounds great.

I was sick of Apple, iTunes, and the shape of the iPhone 4, and I don't want a Edsel-phone. Now I can leave that all behind me!

I Dodged the iPhone 4 Bullet ...

... and now I think I am cured of iPhone desire for good. To think I nearly bought one on blind faith, but I was saved when I decided to wait for a white one.

After actually handling one, I decided there isn't anything compelling about it. Besides the much publicized issues of non-functional antenna design, weak blue tooth support and a flaky proximity sensor, I have these issues:

• Boxy, uncomfortable shape - despite being smaller, it doesn't feel smaller (inversely, though, despite being heavier than my 3G, it feels lighter)
• The display is good, but not so good I have to have it. Over-hyped.
• Bogus multitasking - this is no way to operate a computer. How stupid. 
• Still not the strongest camera.

There are lots of things that are still issues like the lack of removable media, lousy bluetooth functionality, and being tied to the Apple ecosystem. Were it not for jailbreaking, the whole iPhone experience would be more like an iPod toy than a hand held pocket computer (which is what I really wanted in the first place). The jailbreaking community is the best thing about iPhones, and from what I've seen, there isn't much of a parallel in the Android world. When the Windows 7 phone OS comes out, I think it should quickly eclipse the Android user community (wishful thinking). 

All this has led me to be happy with what I have for the next few months and see if something better comes along. The iPhone 4 now looks like it would have been a mistake. In the mean time, I bought a little 2.2 pound net book to play with. I know a lot of techies have tried and abandoned the net book genre, but I'll give it a try anyway. My consolation toy. Thanks to jailbreaking I will be able to tether it to my iPhone with MyWi (not that I ever really need to).

I Think I'll Settle for an iPhone 4 and a Cheaper Data Plan ...

... in fact, I am thinking about getting THREE iPhone 4's next week (don't tell my kids). I'm thinking in public here.

The new AT&T data plans
When I decided I wanted a phone that could do more than a feature phone (mostly I wanted to access Internet resources), the cheapskate in me (with two kids in college at the time) REALLY didn't want a $30/month data plan. I love the freedom the unlimited data plan provided - do whatever you want. Stream audio, video (the biggest two consumers). Upload, download (what?). Tether the connection to your PC via wi-fi or bluetooth. No wait, AT&T and Apple won't let you do that. But I didn't like the high cost.

So here you had an unlimited connection, but in reality, the vast majority of users never used even 200 MB per month (the new limit for the half price, $15 plan). Streamed audio works pretty good - I sometime listen to Internet radio or Wolfgang's Vault while driving - but it sounds like satellite radio - compressed and crappy. Streamed video is barely practical over 3G - even AT&T's faster variety. You generally aren't going to be moving very large files around with an iPhone, so in order to get your data use up you will have to move lots of them.

And tethering, well, the jailbreak app MyWi works exceptionally well, giving you wi-fi or bluetooth (or USB) tethering, but how much do most people need to use something like this? It's sort of a last resort, when you are in a cheap hotel with no wi-fi, for instance. The phone gets really hot with all the radios going full blast and you better have a power source.

I have never used 200 MB of  AT&T cell phone data in a month. I've come close but never gone over. I will take the rate reduction and lose my unlimited data plan forever (forever is a long time).

iPhone 4

Then along come AT&T and Apple allowing us to upgrade now instead of the previously posted October date for all the phones in my family plan (5). I always want to upgrade phones ASAP. The subsidies make them relatively cheap. You can resell phones on eBay. So an early upgrade is almost a no brainer.

Now lets see, though. I have to choose an Apple smartphone for this early upgrade - no Android, Blackberry, Windows, Palm, etc. Realistically, there isn't another phone that can do what this phone does any better or with more style. The UI is outstanding and the devices are extremely well made.

The other thing that has made me happy in the Apple camp are the many "others" (in Lost-speak) - a huge community of techies and hackers to keep Apple's "Dharma Initiative" (more Lost-speak) in check. iOS4 jailbreaks will be available.

I guess I can settle for a half price data plan and a new, much improved (over my 3G) iPhone. I'll be ordering phones next week!

Post Script: the manager I spoke with at the AT&T store (who was assuring me that, yes, once you lose your unlimited plan, it is gone, but you can switch any time between the remaining plans) told me the AT&T Uverse iPhone app will eventually have video streaming from your DVR. That would be nice - like a Slingbox without the box.

The iPhone and the Large Law Firm

Warning - this post contains some of my thoughts about iPhone use at a large law firm from my perspective of an iPhone user who works in a law firm IT department. I have no practical experience with any level of iPhone integration in a large law firm.

Unfortunately, when one talks about things that law firms are commonly doing, it frequently doesn't include the largest firms. What works for most law firms may not work for one of the biggest. Yet there are some things that are common to most decent-sized firms. In large law firm IT departments, iPhones are very common, though probably not as prevalent as the officially supported (and subsidized) Blackberry. I know there has been some work by vendors to provide the necessary hooks to do some cool things with iPhones in large enterprises. It was encouraging to see this http://www.apple.com/iphone/business/profiles/sonnenschein-nath-rosenthal/, especially since it included SharePoint integration.

To me it seems like Apple's http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/Enterprise_Deployment_Guide.pdf misses the mark. I'm not sure how all large enterprises work, but I think most of them have no interest in providing the kind of support this manual suggests. I think they would prefer to carefully allow access to things like email, SharePoint or a Citrix Desktop from employee owned phones rather than owning and babysitting the entire operation. Coordinating phones from different carriers all over the world is much better pushed back to the individual (at least organizationally).

Various strata of integration could strengthen iPhone support in larger, more secure enterprises. Of course it starts with email, Lotus Notes integration being of interest to me. Sybase iAnywhere, IBM's iNotes, Notes Pro and maybe a couple other apps provide Notes email to iPhones. Mail should always work fine in this form factor, you just need to make the necessary security hops. There are a few others vendors that do some Notes database replication as well, but I don't see that as a strong draw since Notes has been dying as an application platform. Secure access to SharePoint servers providing mobile-optimized web pages could be useful, and fairly easy to establish. Attending meetings through a mobile device is a natural. A Citrix desktop might also be OK, but have you ever tried operating a desktop on a little touch screen? It's not a very useful capability.

Having a resourceful, always connected computer in my pocket has been great, and I don't expect to ever again be without such service. Integrating this level of mobile functionality into large enterprise will take some time and effort and I look forward to it.

Stanza Ebook Reader for iPhone With Calibre

In my post about Kindle and the Kindle iPhone app I was a little off due to my new found enthusiasm for ebook reading. I've been having a good time reading several books on my tiny screen - it really works - using Kindle for the iPhone. My only apprehension is that the iPhone screen will not be good enough to use while basking in the tropical sun when I go to Cancun in May. But I picked the wrong application. The Kindle solution I proposed requires a jailbroken phone, which not everyone has, and there is a much better alternative: Stanza for the iPhone and Calibre on your computer.

At first blush, Stanza has many features Kindle does not, and I'm not sure if anything from Kindle is missing on Stanza. But Kindle does have a nice feel and good speed. Some operations on Stanza can be slower (especially on my 3G, the most brain dead iThing still sold) and the feel is different. But after a little digging, and working with the very good Calibre application and Stanza on the phone, I have concluded that this is a far better solution. There is nothing to prevent you from using both, but Stanza is the way to go.

Using them is simple - no instructions necessary - just get Stanza from the app store and Calibre here: http://calibre-ebook.com/download. Both are free.

Using the Kindle iPhone App for Reading Non-Kindle Ebooks

Please see my update - I found something that works much better and does not require a jailbroken phone, which using a back door to the iPhone file system does. Read: http://bobklass.blogspot.com/2010/03/stanza-ebook-reader-for-iphone-with.html


I've tried reading PDF's off the iphone, but I really wanted to read big ebooks. It was very much hit or miss, mostly miss. The PDF could be too big or too small and would not reformat appropriately. Not useable.

The answer - Amazon Kindle. The Kindle itself is a great device, but one whose days are numbered (unfortunately - I think they are a great idea). The Kindle iPhone app is free. Kindle books are expensive, but there is usually a free download of the first few chapters which gives you a good idea of both the books' contents and the reading experience on the hand held. The XML-ish text reformats based on the size font you want. The PRC file format seems to mostly be XML and some binary compression standards. Bookmarks are kept. It all works nicely. And Kindle isn't a horrible deal right now - $259 for the device and free global wireless data access (for now). 

PDF's, TXT or DOC files can all be turned into Kindle PRC files with a free app called MobiPocket Creator. Home made PRC's can be a little idiocyncratic, but they aren't bad. You sftp into your device (OpenSSH from Cydia and Winscp) and drop these files into your hand held (find the folder by searching for *.prc with Winscp). I am reading multiple books this way right now, and the Kindle app keeps my place nicely. Highly recommended.