Introduction
I have been a long time user of “smartphones”, in fact I was using a “smartphone” back when they weren’t phones and rather were PDAs, PPCs and handheld computing devices. One of my first devices was a simple PPC, back in 2002, the Casio BE-300, which used windows ce 3.0 OS backend with a simple menu overlay. I even released what would be considered a “custom rom” for this device, hacking a full windows ce interface into the device. Time passed, The PPC and PDA products merged together into the smartphone devices we have today.
From 2004 to 2009 I used a windows mobile device that had touchscreen inputs with a sylus. I used the PPC 6700, the PPC6800, and always was fairly happy with the functionality that these devices provided me with. Althogh recently mobile hotspots have become popular, I was doing this way back in 2007 on my windows mobile device. I was very happy with the windows mobile platform, however it seemed to be in a stanstill even from the original release, there were many minor updates, but the core interface stayed roughly the same for many years, I didn’t have any problem with this, then something dramatic happened… my wife purchased me an iPod touch for my birthday, I had seen the release of the iphone happen, even the 3gs was about to launch at this point; but I had not ever used the iphone or ipod touch devices until this point.
I was absolutely blown away… the smoothness of the UI, the responsiveness, the ease of use and the menu standardization were unlike anything I had seen before on a mobile device. It was simple yet elegant. Some advanced functionality seemed to be missing, but there were plenty of apps in the app store to make up for this. I actually found myself furious at microsoft, how could they be this far outclassed on a mobile device, when they had had SOO long to make improvements and so much of a head start? Needless to say, I obviously became an enthusiastic iPhone user (unlocked 3gs 32GB on T-mobile)
Fast forward to today, I just purchased a Google Nexus One, what prompted me to make this move? Why have I decided to ditch my beloved iphone for an android device? Here are my reasons:
1) Jailbreaking and unlocking woes.
In order to use my iPhone on T-mobile’s network, I had to jailbreak and unlock this phone, however doing this voids your warranty, and at any time could be wiped out by a firmware update from apple. Living on an unlocked iPhone is like being a squirrel in an unsprung trap, all the goodies are in the upside down box, but you constantly wonder when someone is going to pull the string and lock you away, rendering your phone investment a 600 paperweight.
2) Why not just use AT&T?
I am very unenthusiastic about apple’s decision to lock all iphone users into AT&T expensive plans, the unfairness is especially apparent as they have started to cap user’s data plans to unreasonable amounts of data.
3) Flash Fiasco leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
It has been one thing for apple to not support flash for this long, but with the capacities of the 3GS, the ipad and iphone4’s processors, there is no reason that flash could not be made to work on i devices. So what if it might slow things down a little when rendering web pages? that is to be expected, the trade off is you can view flash! If they made it so you could turn it off and on at will it would not be an issue. The real reason that apple does not support flash is to protect the status of their apps in the app store. And I guess that is their own decision as well, but for them to blame the lack of support and send their i-minions after adobe calling it buggy and a major security risk is a little unfair (all applications and platforms have security issues) flash has been around for way too long, and now for apple to start attacking like this for doing what they have been doing for decades is a facade for their true intentions of maximizing profits in their app store.
I normally wouldn’t mind so much, but I have utilized flash for so long (newgrounds? homestarrunner anyone?) and have even created my own flash movies that cannot be viewed by anyone with an iphone. Flash does have value.
4) Hardware
With 2.5 times the pixels of the iphone 3gs, a 1ghz+ processor, and amoled screen with awesome viewing angles, the nexus one very solidly outclasses the i-devices in terms of hardware, with the exception of the new iphone4.
5) 3G Internet
Unfortunately, it is impossible to get anything faster than Edge connectivity on an unlocked iPhone on T-Mobile’s network, with the Nexus One I can get full 3G speeds. Yet another reason why I wish Apple wouldn’t lock their devices down to one carrier.
So those are my reasons for checking out google’s flagship phone the Nexus One…. be prepared for a followup article on whether I believe that the Nexus One will live up to my expectations, continue as my primary phone, or if I will be seeing an iPhone4 in my future, despite my qualms with apple and at&t.
Hey all,
Finally have an update here after quite a while. Today we take a brief look at the Harmony 650 remote and unbox it, compare it to a previous harmony model and take it for a spin! Take a look at the vid below:
Episode 3:
You asked for it, the next addition to the podcast lineup, episode 3, here we discuss those tech topics that you crave to hear.
Show notes Below:
(0:00 – 12:30) Windows Home Server revisited! How has this microsoft product improved?
(12:31 – 22:45) PS3 Slim discussion, XBOX 360 Revisions power consumption.
(26:40 – End) Motion sensor controllers and other jibber jabber.
eXoid.com Technology Podcast
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Episode 2:
We are at it again, your end user source for all your technology info cravings. We discuss some usefull tips for your SSD, the future of television as we know it, Microsoft SteadyState, mixed with more discussion of Apple vs. Microsoft. And also a long history of our notebooks we have owned and what we liked about each of them. Show notes Below:
(1:15 – 5:30) eXoid Quick Tip
We give you some tips on optimizing windows OS for SSD
We also discuss a few apple iPhone tips.
(5:45 – 11:45) The new Samsung LED TVs
(12:00 – 20:45) Future of Television
Discusion ensues about Hulu Desktop, the future of advertising in television, and the DTV changeover that occurred.
(20:45 – 37:45) Microsoft Steadystate and another classic Apple vs Microsoft Debate.
(38:00 – End) Discussion about our long history with notebooks and our preferences in a mobile computer.
eXoid.com Technology Podcast
According to some sources; Apple is at it again, and may release a new device to their lineup of phones, ipods and computers. Some speculate that apple will release some sort of iTablet device; whether this will be a fully featured tablet running on an intel processor remains to be seen. It is entirely possible that the new device (if it indeed exists) will utilize the Arm Cortex A8 processor on a larger device than the iPhone. We mentioned some more details on our podcast earlier this week. Give it a listen.
The bottom line in my opinion is that it is about time that Apple does release some sort of tablet device. So much of Apple’s company is tied into the desktop computing market and with their prowess with touch interfaces; It makes perfect sense to combine the two. Not to mention the success of the iPhone and iPod Touch which both make excellent use of touch. The marriage of the two into a tablet like device could be a winner. Especially after seeing the success of “netbooks” if apple released something similar with a touch interface that worked well, they might be onto something very profitable. Either way, we will have to wait till Apple’s press conference to find out.
The debut of the eXoid.com Technology Podcast is Here!
Guest: Tyler Butterfield – Cell Phone Specialist [http://www.connectionsmobile.com]
Today In our debut podcast we will be covering the following topics:
-eXoid.com Tip of the Day
-Solid State Disks – We Discuss the latest SSDs from OCZ and Intel
-Mobile Devices / iPhone 3Gs / Windows Mobile Phones / Android and G1
-We discuss the future of mobile devices, and what we love hate about the current tech.
-Windows 7 – The new operating system from Microsoft, hear about the new features and what people are saying about the new OS.
Download the podcast here:
eXoid.com Podcast Episode 1
Or Listen Directly HERE:
eXoid.com Technology Podcast
Also subscribe now to our feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/eXoid
Let Windows Nerds around the world rejoice!
As of 03:40 PM Wednesday Jul 22, 2009 Windows Seven has gone official! Congratulations to the Windows 7 Team.
Can’t wait till it is released in stores now. Then my never ending journey to have the latest and greatest of everything can continue on….. and on…
Exerpt:
I am pleased to announce that Windows 7 has RTM’d!
As I mentioned previously, RTM officially happens only after sign-off occurs. What happens is a build gets designated as a RTM contender after going through significant testing and meeting our quality bar for RTM. Then, it goes though all the validation checks required for RTM including having all languages of that build completed. If all the validation checks have passed – sign-off for RTM can occur. Today after all the validation checks were met, we signed off and declared build 7600 as RTM.
Everyone knows that Intel shocked the tech market when it released it’s x25-m SSD which outperformed by an incredible margin all current SSDs on the market. Since then, other manufactuers have released SSDs that closed the performance gap, but most people and reviewers agreed that the Intel SSD was still the better drive.
Intel is now launching new 34nm (nanometer) SSDs as a new product, apparently even though this is a completely new product on a new manufacturing process, intel is keeping the model number the same: X25-M. (Editor’s Note: Way to go intel, you provide thousands of confusing model names for your CPUs, yet can’t pony up a new name for a completely new product….)
Despite the confusing naming that will most likely create confusion for consumers wanting to buy the new product, and will cause thousands to get screwed on ebay; The new product looks promising! It offers better write performance, some say it ‘doubles the write speed’ (I’ll wait for the benchmarks on that one..)
The new SSDs even comes in at a lower price. (Smaller nanonmeter processes usually provide more units per production run and make things cheaper.) Therefore the new 80GB x25-M is geared to come in at $220 which is very reasonable! especially since most likely it is the quickest thing on the market!
There is still no word of larger capacity drives from intel (wouldn’t a 320GB X25-M be awesome!) but these puppies are expected to be available starting today.
UPDATE: Riot! Riot! It appears that INTEL has announced TRIM support for the newer 34nm drives, yet states that the older x25-M versions won’t be given the TRIM goodness! It appears that there isn’t any real reason they can’t give the older x25-m SSD drives TRIM support other than they just don’t feel like it. They feel like you should buy one of the new ones…. Grrrr… Rabble Rabble.
P.S. Voice your opinion in the forums. 
Hello all,
I have recently posted a new video guide on how to setup your ipod touch (2G Required) to work with Skype, I will show you how to get your internal speaker to work on the iPod touch even when a microphone is plugged in. I have tested this with an iPod Touch 2G with a speakeasy thumbtack mic and also apple’s own microphone / headphone set I also show how to setup skype so it runs in the background. This involves using a program called “Backgrounder”. Take a look at the video for complete details. Also, I am not using the 3.0 Firmware in this video. You may need a jailbroken ipod to perform all of the tips and tricks in the video.
Take a look:
With the Windows 7 RTM (Release To Manufacturing) on the horizon, or wait, did it already happen, some people say yes, or wait the RTM build has leaked… or wait, Microsoft says it hasn’t RTMed Windows 7 yet… Oh wait the transcript of microsoft’s press conference says that “this morning we will release windows seven to manufacturing” oh wait, he really said “this month” but the transcript did stated “this morning”, oh wait.. it was ammended to say “this month”..
You can see that things are getting pretty out of hand especially with all the forum chatter and buzz.
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