6 platforms — Google Android, RIM BlackBerry, Nokia S60 and Maemo, Palm webOS, Microsoft Windows Phone — 10 devices, and almost as many weeks later and the final week of the 3rd Annual Smartphone Round Robin brings yours truly back to iPhone!

And I won’t lie — I’m loving it. It’s great to be back. All the other platforms have their strengths and highlight a few of Apple’s remaining weaknesses, and this is the first year I can honestly say that if there was no iPhone I could find a device on each and every one of them to live and work with. The iPhone, however, remains for me the most fully realized, most user friendly, most consistent, most convergent device on the market.

What has my time away taught me? What have I learned to appreciate more about the iPhone, and what have I come away wishing Apple would straight out steal from the other platforms?

I’ve already reviewed the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3.x OS before, but now I’m going to take a broader, wiser, look at it again — and I’m going to do it after the break.

5 Years Ahead — What the iPhone still does best

When he introduced the original iPhone 2G, Steve Jobs (in)famously said the technology was 5 years ahead of the competition. Back then that competition was the Treo 650, BlackBerry Curve, and Windows Mobile… something? And in many ways, he was right. The industry was complacent and unimaginative at the time. No one was driving them to innovate. Then the iPhone brought multitouch capacitive screens to the mainstream and revolutionized smartphone user interfaces and user experience. Sure, the original iPhone was missing a lot of basic “smartphone” functionality — the list is now etched in our cultural consciousness — no apps, not copy and paste, no MMS. But you know what else it was missing? Crashy, buggy, management-intensive software that was, frankly, hostile. Most of those missing basics have since been filled in (3rd party multitasking remains the most visible exception), but over the last 3 years something else interesting has happened — the competition woke up, Google jumped in, and the game got serious.

Has the iPhone stayed 5 years ahead? No. But herein lies the crux of this section:

That the iPhone 3GS, released in June 2009, can stand toe-to-toe with devices from Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, Palm, and Windows Phone that were released months later — an eternity in gadget innovation time — was one of the big surprises of this year’s Round Robin. That the iPhone 3GS could still hands down spank the best and the brightest and the latest the competition had to offer in certain areas was astonishing.

I mean, all we’ve heard for years was “iPhone killer”, right? Nokia’s had one brewing since the iPhone 2G launched. BlackBerry called the original Storm the “Apple killer”. Palm’s Pre was going to knock the iPhone off the top of smartphone mountain. And don’t even get me started on the hyperbole some media outlets spout every time a new Android device lands.

Again, each of those devices has something I’d like to see in the iPhone and we’ll get to that in a moment. First, however, I want to remark on just how remarkable the iPhone remains now 3 years later. Some may call it dated and in a purely fashion sense maybe it is, but when we get down to the bare metal and compiled code, what Apple introduced in 2007 and sped up to the nth in 2009 is still unmatched.

Multitouch

No multitouch experience is yet as good. Maybe it’s precision, consistency, responsiveness, or just the use of plastic instead of glass, but while the competition is gaining they still haven’t caught up. Of course, Apple was working on it secretly for years before they released the original iPhone, and it was the cornerstone of that release. Everyone else started at zero and had to play catchup — in public. But at the end of the day, it’s a huge part of Apple’s edge in user experience. On the iPhone 3GS interaction is almost transparent.

Virtual Keyboard

The iPhone’s virtual keyboard still sets the bar. It sets it so high, I think sometimes iPhone users take for granted just how completely Apple nailed it. It’s been 3 years. Three. Years. And despite some amazing work by brilliant companies like Google and HTC, and again factoring in the sheer quality of the iPhone’s multitouch experience, no other virtual keyboard has caught up. And on a full-screen device (or a device with a mediocre hardware keyboard, ahem) the keyboard is key.

Mobile Safari Browser

The sheer number of times we hear a rival browser is “almost as good as iPhone Safari” shows the work Apple put in, and continues to put into, Mobile Safari. To draw the starkest contrast, the browser I was using before the iPhone 2G was Blazer on the Treo 680. Yeah. Google and Palm are hot on Mobile Safari’s heels and may soon make it a real back-and-forth, but for right now Apple is packing in HTML5, CSS3, and Nitro-powered JavaScript speed to an amazing degree. Meanwhile, Firefox Mobile (Fennec) is still a work in progress and IE6 Mobile is… making progress but still based on IE6 (?!). Now, admittedly the Nokia N900 runs full on Mozilla and technically I suppose there were UMPC’s running desktop browsers going back a few years, but it’s tough to argue ease of use and overall experience isn’t still topped by Mobile Safari.

Media

The iPhone is the best iPod Apple’s ever made, and that should tell you how good the media experience is. Other platforms support broader formats (containers and codecs) for video and audio, but in terms of buying, managing, syncing, and enjoying media on the go, the iPod + iTunes ecosystem is the 900lbs gorilla in the market and for good reason. It just works, and so well this might be one of the hardest elements for the competition to ever catch up with.

Apps

The App Store is the elephant in the Smartphone Round Robin room — it really is that huge. Approaching 150,000 apps and well over 3 billion downloads, it’s often made fun of but it remains unequalled even by platforms that have been in the game far longer. Sure, no one is ever going to need 150,000 apps, but having that many, on a device with a user base as big as the iPhones, means there’s a better chance of finding those few apps you do want, and having a robust set of alternatives to choose from. The top 5 iPhone Twitter clients are often held up as examples and with good reason — not only can you find the type of app you want, you can often find one that really suits your tastes and needs. (Unless the type of app you want is Google Voice, then you’re out of luck!)

That last little shot there at the end? Yeah, that’s the transition…

A Year Behind — Where the iPhone needs to catch up

There are few important caveats that need to preface this section. First, what power-user/geek-blogger thinks is a missing feature may not be what Mr. and mom average even realizes or cares is “missing” and guess where Apple’s attention is focused? Second, even in cases where missing features are irksome across the board, Apple has shown time and time again they feel no need to rush out a short-term fix — they’d rather take their time (their frustrating, tear-your-hair-out-time sometimes) and present a polished solution. Third, even a company as big as Apple has limited time and resources. If they’d taken the time and effort to fill in a missing feature last year, this year it would just mean a different feature would be missing. Sure, Nokia had copy and paste and MMS back in 2007, but the iPhone has it now and Nokia doesn’t have the user interface or interactions Apple introduced back then. Pick your example. Apple chose some priorities over others. Say what you will about them, but from Steve Jobs down they have a laser-like focus and are absolutely ruthless about leaving out what they don’t consider to be vital — even if just “for now”.

All that being said, here’s what I came to love about the other platforms, and what I hope Apple shamelessly steals for the 4th generation iPhone and the iPhone 4.0 OS.

Android

If you’re thinking I’m going to say multitasking and notifications, you’re going to need to skip down a ways to the entry on Palm. What I’d love from Android are exactly what Google does best — services.

MobileMe is… okay… ish. Google is taking services to a new level, starting with Google Voice and Google Maps Navigation on the Droid and kicking it up a notch with the just-a-tad-too-late-to-be-officially-included Nexus One and it’s pervasive voice control.

Maybe Google will just bring their services to the iPhone — and maybe Apple will let them into the store or we’ll get them as WebApps — but it’s something that we need filled out.

As for the Hero, be it on Android or Windows Phone, Sense UI brings the widgets. The iPhone Lock Screen is screaming out for an Apple-esque version, a Dashboard.

BlackBerry

Big Mike, RIM Co-CEO, center stage at WWDC, announcing BlackBerry connect for the iPhone. No? Not going to happen? Okay, so I agree with Dieter that proprietary communication protocols are non-ideal for everyone except RIM, and sure there are iPhone IM clients that try to give the BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) experience, but what really makes BBM is that everyone has it built in. It’s a ready-set-go community,

We’ve spoken about the near criminal lack of an official Apple Mobile iChat client on the iPhone before, and while it wouldn’t be BBM, it would be a start. Make a MobileMe IM account free for every iPhone user, and use open IM protocols just like iChat does already. Instant instant community.

Oh, and if I could get that 9700 battery life…

Nokia

Nokia is strong in the customization. Very strong. The ability to put what you want where you want in the way you want is incredibly well supported. I don’t see Apple doing anything like that, but starting with the Home Screen wallpaper in iPad, we are seeing a slight move in that direction.

Palm

Apple implemented Mobile Safari Pages in version 1.0. Palm did something similar with Card but made it a system-wide multitasking metaphor. And it works really well (especially on the Palm Pre Plus with its extra beefy RAM). Does the iPhone need that kind of multitasking? Power-user geeks certainly think so, and Apple could certainly adopt something similar.

For mainstream users, however, is the functionality worth the complexity? The typical complaint is “I want to listen to streaming internet while browsing the web”. Sometimes the aforementioned geeks will add in “I want to tweet/IM/SMS while surfing the web without existing and coming back”. But so far Apple’s approach has been to expose web views, email sending, and iPod controls as APIs for developers. They want to let you do basic stuff inside an app rather than multitask a… a bunch of unitaskers.

Could the reverse work? Could iPod offer a hook to your internet streaming radio and then run it in the background just like any other iPod music? And even if they did, it wouldn’t answer the Twitter/IM/SMS problem. So we’re back with the Palm-like solution.

And while we’re at it, we need something like their alert handling as well. There’s just too many push notifications coming in for a single, modal alert box to handle. Even a simple Push Notification app that showed a cue of Recent Alerts — like the Phone app’s Recent Calls — would be a start. A robust, system-wide service that, again, used typical Apple elegance to handle new alerts as they come in without obliterating older alerts, would be a better start.

Palm’s doing it, so is Android. Here’s hoping iPhone 4.0 does it to.

Windows Phone

I mentioned HTC’s Sense UI widgets under Android already, but I’ll pay lip service to an iPhone Dashboard here as well.

Mostly — and I’ll be delicate here for Phil’s sake — it’s the HD2’s hardware I covert. I asked for an iPhone HD last year, I want one this year. Spec for spec it’s a monster, and it’s 480p (480×800) display with a 5 megapixel camera — and throw in some 720p video recording.

And the Winners of the 6 Smartphones are…!

And now for the part you’ve all really been waiting for… the winners! Just for posting on the Round Robin forum threads across the Smartphone Experts Network of sites, we gave members the chance to win a new smartphone! Each of the participating sites is giving away a phone to a member who got their lucky post picked from among the thousands posted…. and at TiPb the lucky winner is

TiPb: DRTigerlilly!

And here are our other winners:

CrackBerry.com: iLovemy_bb

Android Central: droid00

Nokia Experts: David

PreCentral.net: skabeer

WMExperts: dougsyo

Congrats to the winners! Note to the winners on getting their prize: It’s Mobile World Congress craziness right now… so you’ll have to wait until it’s all over at the end of next week. You’ll receive an email from Dieter Bohn folllowing up with you to pick your prize and work out the shipping logistics. Thx for the patience and congrats again!

Smartphone Round Robin Wrap Up: Contest Winners Announced and Some Closing Thoughts! is a story by TiPb. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb - The #1 iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch Blog

Over the last 5 weeks of the 3rd Annual Smartphone Round Robin, the editors of our sibling sites, Casey from AndroidCentral.com, Kevin from CrackBerry.com, Matt from NokiaExperts.com, Dieter from PreCentral.net, and Phil from WMExperts.com have all had their chance to review TiPb’s flagship iPhone 3GS. And we’ve just had to sit here and take it, the good and the bad, the raves and the rants. Well, it’s week 6 now, baby, and TiPb gets to retort!

PreCentral.net’s Dieter Bohn

Week 1 saw our Editor-in-Chief, Dieter Bohn, this time representing PreCentral.net, return to the iPhone he’s reviewed about 5 or 6 times already, and… he was remarkably fair and I’m kind of sad there’s nothing much to pick him apart over. Thanks for nothing! One of his negatives is something I’ve been thinking about for a while, though:

I will admit to being a little tired of the iPhone’s design. It’s iconic and singular, but honestly it doesn’t feel as ‘high end’ as it once did. Not that the Palm Pre or Pixi is the picture of luxury, but sometime soon Apple will need to remember that phones are fashion and fashion changes.

iPhone 3G was indeed a departure from the original iPhone 2G; it lost the aluminum and gained a new, curved-for-thinness form. And people got really upset their cases didn’t fit any more, their docks didn’t fit anymore, and accused Apple of changing just to force people to re-buy all their accessories. Then the iPhone 3GS came out, new model same as the one before, and people got really upset that it wasn’t refreshed. Fashionistas complained one could tell they had the new model. Both the iPhone casing and the iPhone home screen wouldn’t be hurt for an update, but Apple won’t win either way.

As for Dieter’s conclusion:

We try not to pick winners in the Smartphone Round Robin, but rather talk about user needs and preferences. If you need apps and music, right now your choice is iPhone. If that’s not big and you care about openness and multitasking, webOS has a serious leg up. What’s sort of amazing is that most users don’t need to dismiss either out of hand.

I’d add the mobile web to that. iPhone Safari still hasn’t been exceeded and there’s a reason iPhone-optimized sites are still what other mobile WebKit clients want to pull. The point itself is spot on though — iPhone is owning the app and media space while BlackBerry owns messaging, and Android, Palm, Nokia, and WinMo battle it out over “openness” and “in-between”. Multitasking we might get in a future update (iPhone 4.0?) but it’s tough to see Apple loosening their ties on the App Store until and unless competition forces them to. Geeks and philosophers notwithstanding, some users and some developers prefer the level of trust a “gate-keeper”-style store provide (though Apple could certainly do better on the consistency side).

WMExperts’ Phil Nickinson

Week 2 brought us Phil Nickinson, editor of WMExperts.com, and again he was frustratingly fair. He also raised some good food for thought:

Some of the best conversations surrounding smartphones these days have to do with Apple’s singular vision. It designs the phones. It keeps a tight fist on the manufacturing process. It largely controls the marketing of the devices. Even the act of selling an iPhone is controlled by Apple. Want to use the iPhone? You have to connect to iTunes at least once. Apps? Only (official) way to get them is through Apple’s App Store. Everything, at least at some point, must pass through Apple. Do not pass Go, head directly to Cupertino.

I’ve been toying with the over-simplification that iPhone involves surrendering control to Apple in exchange for user-experience, Android involves surrendering privacy to Google in exchange for free services, and BlackBerry involves surrendering serenity to RIM in exchange for constant connectivity. There’s no perfect device or perfect model; everything is a compromise, and for a large swath of users, that’s a good deal. They don’t want to control (or have to worry about managing) their device — they just want to easily use it.

Phil’s conclusion:

We don’t believe in iPhone killers. That’s a phrase that was coined by writers who couldn’t think of any other arguments to make. No, we’re not looking for Windows Mobile 7, if and when it’s announced and later released, to “kill” anything, save for maybe the bad taste that Windows Mobile 6.5 left in a lot of mouths. But even that isn’t entirely fair. Microsoft announced Windows Mobile 6.5 and for the most part delivered exactly what it promised. No more, no less. A stopgap to hold things over until WM7.

Actor and gadget aficionado Stephen Fry uproariously so elegantly phrased:

Does anybody seriously believe that Android, Nokia, Samsung, Palm, BlackBerry and a dozen others would since have produced the product line they have without the 100,000 volt taser shot up the jacksie that the iPhone delivered to the entire market?

That the iPhone jumpstarted a complacent smartphone industry in 2007 is undeniable, as is the impact its made since. In that context, the media contrivance of “iPhone killer” makes sense. Until something makes that same original-iPhone-in-2007 level leap, it’s likely the media will keep comparing everything to the iPhone. Steve Jobs was recently rumored to have said Google’s Android wants to “kill” the iPhone, and likely the Windows Mobile team does as well. They have to if they want any hope to be competitive. No doubt the iPhone G4/4.0 team at Apple wants to kill the iPhone 3GS/3.0 as well. That is one of the keys to Apple’s success.

AndroidCentral’s Casey Chan

Week 3 had Casey Chan, editor of AndroidCentral.com share his thoughts on the iPhone 3GS, and forget the conclusion, he starts with the bang:

Ah, the iPhone. For better or worse, the iPhone has become the starting point for many consumers looking to buy a smartphone. In a sense, it’s become the standard for everyone to measure themselves against. Because of its position at the forefront of consumer’s minds and the fact that it’s in everyone’s pocket, that’s completely fair. But because of Apple’s sometimes senseless decisions in dealing with all things iPhone, it leaves the rest of us a little uneasy.

Our own Chad Garrett likes to say the iPhone is the first smartphone for everyone upgrading from the RAZR and there’s some truth to that. With the iPhone, Apple mainstreamed the smartphone — they took it from a power device for power users with a powerful requirement for tweaking, managing, and messing around with, and carefully packaged a subset of important features for the masses. That means that, for any particular user — and especially for a power user — there’s a high chance that subset doesn’t include an important feature.

That’s Apple’s modus operandi, however. They’d rather start limited and add slowly. They’d rather leave something out completely than add in something they don’t think just works well enough. They’re masters of always leaving something else on the table for the next update. And they’re laser-focused on those features they consider essential for the user they’re targeting.

And yes, it drives us all nuts, even as they’ve sold 70,000 devices on the iPhone OS platform and used it to familiarize everyone with the next-step in multitouch iPhone OS UI — the iPad.

CrackBerry.com’s Kevin Michaluk

Week 4 was our best frenemy forever, CrackBerry.com’s own Kevin Michaluk and he embraces the same yin/yang theory about iPhone/BlackBerry as TiPb:

I’ve said it many times over the past two years, be it in blog posts, on our CrackBerry podcast, or to individuals asking advice on what device to buy, that if you want the absolute no-compromise best smartphone solution that you keep a BlackBerry in one pocket and an iPhone (or iPod Touch) in the other. Though both Apple, RIM and every other manufacturer and platform in the smartphone space for that matter have the aim of developing the one device you need (in other words they’re trying to be both Yin and Yang), I still think as of now it takes two devices to have Best of Class everything. A device like the BlackBerry Bold 9700 is the ultimate communication and productivity tool, which excels in areas that matter both in enterprise (security, deployment, IT management) and to people who run their business and their lives depending on the phone, maximizing every minute of their day (one-handed speed of use, battery life, push everything, etc.). Apple hit the market with a compelling touchscreen experience that’s both intuitive and enjoyable to use that fits into the Apple ecosystem of products and services (ie. iTunes) and took it to the next level by causing a revolution in the mobile app space. So while the BlackBerry is still the ultimate communication / utilty tool, the iPhone arguably remains the ultimate convergence device.

Kevin being Kevin, however, he can’t resist tweaking us either. The Man who, in the first year called the iPhone 2G the iSmudge (before BlackBerry copied its black and silver design) and in the second year called it the Ah Frak Phone (on the eve of the BlackBerry Storm launch no less), decided this year he’d call the iPhone 3GS the douchebag phone (he owns one — as do almost all the Smartphone Experts editors).

NokiaExperts’ Matt Miller

Week 5 closed things out with NokiaExperts.com’s Matt Miller, who like Dieter is a multi-handset mobile gadgeteer with a lot of experience and a global point of view. His take:

As a guy who has used every smartphone operating system I am also quite frustrated with the iPhone OS because I know Apple can do better as they have shown glimpses of in the past. One of the main things people mention with the iPhone OS compared to other smartphone operating systems is the lack of multi-tasking with 3rd party applications. [...] Personally, the major thing I want to see in the next version of the iPhone OS is support for some kind of Today or status screen where I can put widgets or parts of applications on a single screen so my key information is glanceable without having to dive into applications. [...] Another area I would like to see addressed is notifications. Palm’s webOS and Google Android have the best implementation of notifications while the iPhone’s is pretty poor.

Setting aside that these are some of the most popular reasons people still Jailbreak their iPhones, Matt (and the other editors who took similar issue with iPhone functionality) will likely find many TiPb readers agreeing with him, yours truly included. Only built-in Apple apps can multitask, only your latest push message is shown on the Lock Screen (if you haven’t already dismissed it), and that same one message/dismissal is the crux of the notification problem.

This brings everything sharply into focus. Apple prides itself on making software “5-years ahead of the competition” (see iPhone virtual keyboard). They would rather not provide a solution than provide one that they don’t think answers the problem simply and elegantly (see cut, copy, and paste appearing only in iPhone 3.). They would rather provide a highly focused subset of functionality for the mainstream than to check off every power-user want (see everything all of us, er… want). Every version of the iPhone adds features that were considered “missing” to the previous version, either as technology and development resources allow, or Apple deems us sufficiently learned on what came before, and sufficiently motivated to buy what’s next.

So, if RAM and CPU are at the level where multitasking will almost never crash the Phone app and Apple decides they have the UI for it they want, if Dashboard goes mobile but can remain uncluttered and Apple-esque in execution and DashCode joins the iPhone SDK, if… well, given the rapid rise of push notifications, there’s no if — we need better alert handling — we just might get some or all of these things in iPhone 4.0.

Conclusion… Coming Soon

Week 6 is my turn. The iPhone 3GS comes home to TiPb and given everything every other editor has written about it, and everything I’ve written about the Nokia, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone, and Palm webOS, I have to re-examine and re-review the iPhone 3GS.

While that may not be conclusive, it will be TiPb’s conclusion for this year.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Responds to iPhone Reviews — Smartphone Round Robin

My first smartphone was a Palm Treo 600 and so my last 2009 Smartphone Round Robin “away” review focusing on Palm’s new webOS platform as embodied by the Palm Pre and Palm Pix does not lack for symmetry. Between the two, last year I reviewed the Palm Treo Pro which I quipped was more HTC than Palm, ran Windows Mobile and not a Palm-made OS, and had a keyboard that was hard to consider “pro” level. 3 years of round robin, three totally different platforms from Palm, and only this review for me to try and make my own sense out of it.

Luckily I had the mobile accomplisher himself, our editor-in-chief Dieter Bohn to show me Palm’s new platform and their new devices, and the truly exceptional community over at PreCentral.net Forums to help understand where it’s at and where it’s going.

(And just a reminder, every day you post on that PreCentral.net thread, or any of the official Round Robin threads, is another day you’re entered to win one of six (6!) new smartphones!)

Now let’s get this on…

Previously on Palm

First, this is where Palm stood last year, without a PalmOS device in the competition, represented instead by the HTC-built, Windows Mobile running, Treo Pro:

And now, just one year later Dieter was kind enough to show me the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi running the all new, all different, all Palm webOS:

CrackBerry Kevin and I also stopped by Palm at CES 2010 to check out the new Palm Pre Plus and Palm Pixi Plus for Verizon:

And here are the rest of the contextual links:

• PreCentral’s Dieter Bohn and Rene (and Phil!) on the iPhone Live! Podcast.
• PreCentral.net Palm Pre review (and all-new Palm Pre Plus review)
• PreCentral.net Palm Pixi review (and all-new updated Palm Pixi Plus review)
• 2008 TiPb Smartphone Round Robin Palm Treo Pro review

Hardware Design

I’m starting with hardware only because every other review started with hardware, and I’m telling you that because I really wish for this one review I didn’t have to start with hardware. But I’m a sucker for consistency.

And the Palm Pre Hardware Just…

Well, it isn’t great. The concept is killer, don’t get me wrong. The river-stone ergonomics are beautiful. The execution, however, especially on the early units, was really unfortunate given how much else Palm got right.

After using the iPhone’s glass screen for years, using the plastic screen on the Pre just feels… not good. The first Pre I tried at a local Best Buy had a screen protector over the plastic, and I found it almost unusable. If I was Kevin I could figure out some witty, spot-on analogy about layers of prophylactics between me and my multitouch but I’m not and I can’t and so I won’t. I’ll just say Palm needs to switch to glass and now.

The Pre is also a vertical slider. It looks like an iPhone slab but pull down and a full physical keyboard is revealed. While this could be a best-of-both-worlds compromise, the lack of an official, built-in virtual keyboard means (unlike the Motorola Android Droid) you have to use the physical keyboard and… it’s not great. A couple of Pre devices I’ve tried didn’t have very solid feeling sliders and all of them had cramped quarters that made the physical keyboard not that enjoyable for me. I had to use the tips of my fingers/nails and still watch out on the top ridge of the display and the sharp edges of the sides.

I’m not sure what they could do to fix it, though Dieter says the new Palm Pre Plus is an improvement in the feel of the keys itself. That, combined with the better build quality control could be part of the answer. I look forward to spending more time with it in the future to find out.

Palm Pixi By Contrast…

Eschewing the slider for their second webOS device, Palm returned to their roots with the front-facing QWERTY. They also returned to the form factor of the Palm Centro, which saw high sales if low margins during the final year of PalmOS.

The device is tiny. It’s deceptively tiny. It’s so tiny that, like in the Dark Knight movie, you half-expect that if Dieter’s Pre ever broke at the mechanism, he’d pull a release, a full Pixi would eject, and he’d just keep on typing. Actually, he’d likely type better because, counter-intutively, the Palm Pixi keyboard feels better than the Pre’s. I don’t know if it’s crazy Pixi magic, or just the better Feng Shui of not having to type inside the Pre’s cavity, but the tiny keys worked well.

The huge problem here, however, is that Palm reduced the screen size to fit in that keyboard. This isn’t the Treo 240×240 or 320×320 of yesteryear. In 2009, never mind 2010, screen size matters. Aspect ratio matters. In a post-iPhone, capacitive era how we interact with our device is more screen-dependant than anything else. There are times you won’t need a physical keyboard (watching video, playing games, reading e-books). There’s almost no time when you won’t want the full screen. Sure, it’s only a few pixels shorter, but on a screen that small, the difference is noticeable. It’s like having a 16:9 HDTV for a year or so, then suddenly getting a 4:3 SDTV again. You know what you’re missing.

There’s no easy fix for that easy, unless they jettison the physical keyboard and go with a fullscreen Pixi with a virtual keyboard. Many would hate that, but it’s something I’ve been increasingly considering as of late…

Is the Era of Physical Keyboards Over?

Originally this section was going to be called “the era of physical keyboards is over” but a funny thing happened on the way to writing this review — I kind of changed my mind.

Physical keyboards on smartphones are a strange beast. That a QWERTY button layout originally intended to prevent jamming on ancient IBM typewriters still exists on some of the most modern gadgets today is… either stupefying or a testament to the intractability of consumer typists.

Interestingly, Palm didn’t start off with physical keyboards. The Palm Pilot had no keyboard and used a proprietary form of handwriting recognition. The iPhone doesn’t have a physical keyboard either, and does offer recognition for Chinese character input, but uses virtual keys for most other languages, and sticks to QWERTY for English.

Rumor has it, physical vs. virtual keyboard was a huge area of contention between Apple CEO, Steve Jobs and then-Apple VP and head of iPod, Jon Rubinstein. Jobs didn’t want a physical keyboard, Rubinstein did. And we all know how that turned out — we have the iPhone sans-physical keyboard and Rubinstein has a new job as CEO of Palm.

It should come as no surprise, then, that when the Palm Pre debuted and looked a lot like an iPhone with a physical keyboard, many (and yours truly included) figured it was the iPhone Rubinstein always wanted to build.

He wanted the keyboard so much, as mentioned, he sacrificed screen real-estate on the Palm Pixi for it. I find that absurd. I would have removed the keys and made it an iPhone-nano-esque slab. As I said, until this review, I would have whole-heartedly exclaimed “the era of physical keyboards is over”.

But then I started thinking about the BlackBerry and how the Storm2 is no replacement for the 9700 for their user-base. Just like it took a long time to transition from CLI (command line interface, the text-only days of DOS prompts and UNIX terminals) to GUI (graphical user interface, the windows, mouse, pointer paradigm we see today), it will take a while to transition from physical keyboards to virtual ones. And just like some people (not gonna say neckbeards!) still turn off the GUI on Linux, go pure Terminal on Mac OS X, and ignore WIndows completely, some people have been so raised on physical keyboards, even on tiny little devices, that they wouldn’t transition to virtual even if, from an overall usability standpoint, they could or should.

BlackBerry is the easy example because they’re essentially messaging devices. The iPhone is essentially a big screen you fill with media and apps, so that’s an easy example of where the virtual keyboard fits best (especially Apple’s still unequalled implementation thereof).

And that brought me to the crux of this long, rambling, tangent — what’s the Palm Pre (and webOS in general)? I had the same question about Android and pretty much determined it was Google’s mobile insurance policy. But Palm is a mobile company. It’s not an “also have” like Microsoft. It’s their sole reason for being, and they’re one of the original innovators in the space.

So I wondered again, what’s the Palm Pre? And then I realized Palm told us from the beginning — it’s the fat middle. Where the Treo converged three devices into one, the Palm Pre bridges the traditional, keyboard-centric mobile messaging device with the new, screen-centric mobile platform device.

It’s likely not keyboard enough for a BlackBerry addict, and it’s not screen enough for an iPhone user, but it’s a compromise form factor for those who want the okay-of-both-worlds.

I’m so happy with the iPhone keyboard that I’ll never go back to a physical one. I use my iPhone keyboard far more than I ever used the physical keyboards on my Treo 600 or 680 because it works better for me. Not having to engage forearm muscles to depress tiny keys and hold the rest of the phone stable while I do so is a huge advantage in my book. It’s just effortless and it just works. I won’t be writing novel-length compositions on a BlackBerry anyway, so no argument about volume of typing impresses me. Likewise, I see enough physical keyboarders glancing constantly at their screens that muscle-memory no longer resonates with me as a deal-breaker either. New devices are about consuming information as much as creating it, and even glance-ability requires — you guessed it — glances.

One day haptics may be sufficiently advanced enough that mighty-morphin’, there-and-gone-again virtual-that-feel-like-physical keyboards are enough for everybody. But right now, today, you have legacy keyboarders who’ll never abandon their keys, and devices on Android that still haven’t gotten their software right, and there needs to be a middle ground.

Or to be more succinct — Smartphones are evolving beyond priority messaging devices to priority (data/media/etc.) consumption devices and hardware keyboards are legacy, bolted-on technology comforting for the former but waiting to be obsoleted when technology allows virtual keyboards to better serve the latter (and we’re part of the way there with the iPhone).

(hat Palm didn’t have hardware keyboards when the Pilot was priority PIM device is interesting as an aside. And no, Dieter, I won’t take that back )

Inductive Charging

Palm debuted it with their Touchstone accessory. Cool. Future. Let’s me leave this section on a positive note.

Software Experience

Okay, here’s where webOS is interesting enough that any complaints about the hardware take a back seat. First let’s get something out of the way. We’ve teased Palm about having the former head of Apple’s iPod division as their CEO, and about bringing over a bunch of iPhone engineers to help create webOS. We’ve listed what webOS adopted from the iPhone (and we’re far from the only ones), but it’s important to remember the iPhone wasn’t made in a vacuum. The icon grid as launcher, the tabbed phone app, and other paradigms existed in earlier Palm Pilots and Treos and Apple took them and put them together with a bunch of other stuff for iPhone OS. Likewise, some of the multitouch gestures in webOS are the same as the iPhone (and thank goodness), the way Cards works is greatly expanded from, but visually identical to how iPhone Safari Pages work, etc. In the end, they’ll figure out the legal issues and we’ll say the user benefits from a certain amount of consistency when it comes to these platforms. With that behind us…

HTML, CSS, JavaScript

Palm faced a huge problem when launching webOS. They couldn’t really bring PalmOS developers forward because the platform was different and, unfortunately, the time it took between the decline of PalmOS and the rise of webOS meant a significant amount of developers had moved on. iPhone 2.0, meanwhile, had re-framed the mobile discussion for the second time, going from killer UI in 2007 to being all about apps in 2008, and Palm didn’t have the money or mindshare of Google who was already offering the Android alternative. So what to do?

In a move I called brilliant at the time, they decided to make their UI layer, and hence development environment, out of web-standards — HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. While they would — and did — take a performance hit by essentially running localized web pages as apps, it meant anyone who knew how to make webApps could fairly easily develop for webOS. (That Palm named it webOS shows how seriously they take that concept).

Apple tried a non-localized version of this with iPhone 1.0 and it’s “sweet” (TM, Steve Jobs, WWDC 2007) WebApp SDK. It failed. But 2009 brought far more robust web technologies, including HTML 5 with SQLite for local storage, CSS3 with animations, and a whole lot more maturity in WebApp development. While Palm hasn’t succeeded with this to App Store levels, no one else has with interpreted SDK (Java) or native apps either. Palm has succeeded to some degree, however, and iPhone 3.0 is now supporting localized HTML 5 apps on the iPhone home screen, while RIM, Android, and others are embracing WebApps and widgets.

It was a gutsy gamble. I still think Google saw webOS, smacked themselves in the Android and raced to make Chrome OS in response. It’s also clearly a first step for Palm. Just like Apple released a full, native SDK for iPhone 2.0, Palm is now offering native plug-ins for games like Need for Speed (something that WebApps can’t do, and even WebGL might struggle to get them to do as well).

It’s not perfect. webOS’ lack of contrast in the UI still flabbergasts me. More practically, it’s sluggish at times, especially on the anemic Palm Pix processor, and it can take far too long for built-in apps like the calendar to launch. It also presents problems for developers who want to hide their source code, although Palm now has a solution that doesn’t involve limiting apps to onboard RAM (something Android and BlackBerry still suffer from). Full GPU support might (though I think likely not) improve that, but hardware is always getting faster and bandwidth is (hopefully) getting bigger. Palm will benefit from both. In a year or two, it will be buttery smooth and still enjoy the flexibility and future-proofing that is webOS’ promise.

Synergy Contacts, Multitasking Cards, and Non-Modal Notifications

Three areas where webOS absolutely kills are their Synergy contact system, their Cards visualization for multitasking, and their non-modal notification system.

Synergy, as far as I can figure out, takes all of your online data points, sucks them in while maintaining them as separate silos, then aggregates them, filters out duplications, and presents you a unified view of the data. So, for example, you have Facebook friends, Gmail contacts, a couple of Exchange accounts, and an old Yahoo! setup. Synergy will take all that, figure out that 700 of them are the same, create a unified contact that has all the information for each of those 700 (while leaving each untouched on their own service), and present you a single contact list containing those 700 as well as all the other (unique to Yahoo! or Gmail, etc.) contacts. I can’t explain it as elegantly as it works most of the time (on occasion it won’t match and you’ll have to do some work to help it), but it’s the future of contact management as far as I’m concerned — with a few caveats.

If I don’t want Google’s terrible, promiscuous email retention polluting my phone contacts (or Facebook messing up my Exchange) that needs to be easily managed (it might be on webOS, I didn’t get into it but hope it is). Also, an easy way to export the final, Synergy-zed contact list for backup — or replacement of other online contact data bases! — would be nifty. That webOS’ approach allows them to elegantly handle multiple Exchange accounts is testament enough.

Cards for multitasking is likewise the future. If you’ve used Pages on the iPhone Safari — where you can keep several web sites available at the same time and easily zoom out, see all the pages, swipe across to change them, and then zoom back in — then imagine that but taken to the ultimate, logical, extreme. That’s webOS Cards. Instead of just web pages, every app including web pages gets its own Card and you can zoom out to see them all, swipe to change between them, and tap to zoom back in. Yes, that means webOS supports multitasking for 3rd party apps, something only Apple apps are allowed to do on the iPhone.

It works well on the Palm Pre. It works mind-bogglingly well on the Palm Pre Plus (Dieter had 50 apps up all at once). It works so well, in fact, it kind of makes me sad I can’t drag and drop elements from one Card to another. Why give me that fantastic visualization, why make a windowed multitasking interface for a small screen, if the biggest advantage of doing it — drag and drop — isn’t implemented. Unless, of course, that’s the “next step”. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for webOS 2.0…

Notifications, in terms of webOS, means once again I have to complain about the iPhone’s current, modal implementation. Modal, if you’re not familiar with the term, means that once the notification pops up, you have to either “dismiss” (and lose it forever) or “view” (and interrupt whatever you’re doing) immediately. There is no later. And if another notification comes in, it obliterates the previous one entirely. With webOS, like Android, you’re told about a new notification but you’re free to ignore it and the system will just keep track of them for you until you choose to take a look at them. That difference means everything, especially when you start getting a ton of notifications coming in.

Conclusion

It’s not all rosy for Palm, webOS, the Palm Pre, Palm Pixi, and their mobile strategy going forward. Sprint exclusivity might have guaranteed Palm some money but it doesn’t seem to have given them the sales they needed. They’re hitting Verizon now, and AT&T soon, but if they’d gone on Verizon sooner (before the Droid) they could have had a much bigger impact. Unlike Apple, Google, or Microsoft, they don’t have billions in the bank or other businesses to prop them up. Unlike RIM or Nokia, they don’t have entrenched business or international market share to ride. It’s going to be an uphill battle for Palm. That they’ve accomplished and innovated so much in just a year is an outstanding accomplishment, however, and means I’ll be cheering as they battle up that hill.

For iPhone users, switching to webOS means you gain a physical keyboard and those nifty Synergy, Cards, and notifications. You’ll also gain a more “open” system as Palm has treated hacking webOS in a way Apple almost certainly won’t for the foreseeable future. We didn’t really get into the whole homebrew (think jailbreak apps) and patching culture of webOS, or Palm’s efforts to reach out and embrace developers, but kudos to them for doing it. If that’s something that’s important to you, and Android/Google is a non-starter, it’s certainly another plus in Palm’s column.

As I write this, however, Apple might just be on the verge of announcing iPhone 4.0, and that just might “invent” multitasking for iPhone users. Better contact and notifications might be on tap as well. Hey, maybe even an iPhone on Verizon. The soonest we’ll know is this Wednesday’s “Come see our latest creation” event, otherwise Apple usually shows off new software in March and new hardware at WWDC in June.

I’m not saying wait and see before you leap to webOS or another platform. I’m just saying… wait and see.

The biggest thing about this year’s Round Robin is that every device-maker brought the competition. Apple is still ahead in some areas, but they’ve been overtaken in some others. Apple having to catch up… that’s good for iPhone users, and it’s good for everyone.

Things are exciting again!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Palm Pre, Palm Pixi, webOS Review from an iPhone Perspective — Smartphone Round Robin

We’re in the final “away” week of the 2009 Smartphone Round Robin, and since I began the event looking at Nokia, what better way to cap it off than with NokiaExperts‘ Matt Miller looking at our iPhone 3GS.

Matt’s got his thread going at TiPb’s iPhone Forums, trying to figure out if even a applezillion apps can make up for the loss of full-on N900 Mozilla, so hit reply and help him out. Every day you help him on that thread, you’re entered for a chance to WIN AN iPHONE 3GS! (smartphoneroundrobin.com has all your details!)

As for me, I’m over at the PreCentral.net Forums learning me some webOS via the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi. Give me a hand over there, and you could win one of them as well!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone Hands-on from a Nokia Expert’s Perspective — Smartphone Round Robin

Apple’s third iPhone meets CrackBerry Kevin’s third iPhone review, exclusively in the 2009 Smartphone Round Robin. Year one he called it the iSmudge. Then they got the Storm. Year two he called it the Ah **** phone. Then they got the Storm. (Joking. Not.) What’s he calling the iPhone and iPhone users this year?

Yeah, it ain’t pretty. But he’s also calling the iPhone the yin to his yang, the night to his day, the left pocket to his right pocketed BlackBerry, the… you get the idea. (We got it too.)

All credit for what little progress he’s made goes to our outstanding TiPb forum members, who learned him as much as any CrackBerry addict-in-chief can really be learned.

If you want to win an iPhone 3GS of your very own, you can still enter once a day on his thread, or any of the previous Round Robin threads in our forum. And for all the other videos, reviews, and contest threads (there are 6 smartphones up for grabs after all!) keep your browsers locked on smartphoneroundrobin.com!)

Now go read Kev’s review, then come back here and tell us whether you agree or disagree, and why!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone Review from CrackBerry Kevin — Smartphone Round Robin

When last I left Palm they had but the Centro and some HTC Windows Mobile device to offer, now webOS and the Palm Pre and Palm Pixi’s inform Week 6 of the 2009 Smartphone Round Robin. Talk about night and day. Lucky I have the daywalker himself, our illustrious editor-in-chief and PreCentral.net’s own Dieter Bohn to show me how the brand new generation of Palm devices work. And works well.

Remember, every day you post on my PreCentral.net Forums thread, you’re entered for a chance to win a webOS device of your very own. (And there’s a total of 6 smartphones up for grabs — one per SPE site — so check them all out!)

This week also brings mobile powerhouse Matt Miller of Nokia Experts to TiPb’s own iPhone. He’s on the TiPb iPhone Forums and needs your help! Give him a hand and get a chance to win an iPhone 3GS for your troubles!

Video hands-on with Palm Pre and Palm Pixi, after the break!

(And if you’re confused by the intro to this year’s video, you really need to go watch last year’s Treo Pro video NOW!)

UPDATE: since Palm released the Palm Pre Plus and the Palm Pixi Plus at CES 2010, CrackBerry Kevin and I got Dieter to give us an updated look at the new hardware. (Which is a bit of a cheat, really, since they’re not waiting for Apple’s Jan. 27 event to do their iPhone reviews!)

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Palm Pre, Palm Pixi webOS Hands-on Video — Smartphone Round Robin

Phil and Mal over at WMExperts.com were gracious enough to invite me onto the WMExperts podcast today to kick my apps discuss my Windows Phone Review, as well as all the weeks news — including whether the iTablet or Windows Mobile 7 wins the prize for most rumored, unannounced product of the year.

Check it out!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

TiPb Invades WMExperts Podcast — Round Robin

Windows Phone is only slightly better off in this year’s Smartphone Round Robin than Palm was last year — like we substituted in the WinMo Treo Pro for the aging PalmOS in 2008, we’re using two heavily HTC-skinned devices as WMExperts entries in 2009 — the HTC Touch Pro2 and massive HTC HD2.

And I’m melancholy about that, because I kind of liked the unabashedly Windows Mobile tweaky, geeky Treo Pro last year, and was hoping to see a pure Microsoft Windows Mobile 7 device this year. Scrappy, underfunded Palm was able to deliver webOS after all, Google went Android 2.0, and Apple went iPhone 3.0. Instead we got Windows Mobile 6.5, which was decidedly bashed, and the aforementioned HTC Sense UI/TouchFlo shellacked over it — a UI so opaque I think users might have trouble distinguishing HTC’s Windows Phone devices from their Android ones going forward.

But those are the WinPhos we were dealt, and they’re certainly tremendous in their own rights. To help me make sense of them (no pun intended), Phil Nickinson went over the finer points for me and the WMExperts Forum members really helped me out.

(And just a reminder, every day you post on that WMExperts thread, or any of the official Round Robin threads, is another day you’re entered to win one of six (6!) new smartphones!)

Okay, enough preamble, it’s time for the review… after the break!

Windows Treatment

Previously, Phil took me on a tour of the HTC Touch Pro2 and HD2:

[YouTube Video link]

And here are the rest of the contextual links:

• WMExpert’s Phil Nickinson, Keith Newman, and Rene on the iPhone Live! podcast.
• WMExperts HTC Touch Pro 2 — All the different versions head to head (yes, they vary by carrier!)
• WMExperts HTC Touch Pro 2 (aka Tilt 2) review (specific version we looked at)
• WMExperts HTC HD2 Review
• 2008 TiPb Smartphone Round Robin Touch Pro 1 (Fuze) video and Treo Pro video
• 2008 TiPb Smartphone Round Robin Touch Pro 1 (Fuze) review and Treo Pro review

Hardware Design

HTC makes great hardware, no ifs, ands, or buts. These are two distinct form-facters, the landscape slider (with tilt!) of the Touch Pro 2, and the massive black slab of the HD2, but they both feel solid, they both feel premium.

HTC Touch Pro2

The Touch Pro2 is one of the better sliders I’ve tried, far less rickety in the hinges than last years devices, and the keyboard, impossibly, is even better. If you’re really one of those people who demand a physical keyboard on your mobile, if you’re really serious about the QWERTY, then this device is for you. It may not be a tiny netbook like the Nokia N900, but it’s got almost a netbook-caliber keyboard. Fear it. The screen is also big and bright, but it’s still resistive and requires you not just to touch and flick but press and drag to trigger interaction. And even though resistive screens are reaching new heights, they’re still nowhere near as visceral, as tactile, as I’m-a-part-of-this-device as capacitive screens. In all fairness, however, none of us ever reached for the stylus, if I recall right, but that’s only because most of us would rather grit our teeth and press and drag.

HTC HD2

On the other hand (or both hands, it’s that huge) the HD2 is the first Windows Phone to have a capacitive screen — supposedly coded by HTC itself. And what a screen it is! I think just the screen is as big as the iPhone. While I won’t use the analogy CrackBerry Kevin did, it really does verge on the ridiculous. The entire device, in fact, is so utterly pimped out I’m certain HTC made it just to show off what their hardware engineers are capable of. It’s the $10K gaming rig of smartphones. It’s gadget pr0n. And because it’s capacitive, it’s size doesn’t stop it from being usable. If your thumbs can reach across its girth, you’re good to go.

Software Experience

I usually break software experience down by device, but in this case while there’s minor version differences in the HTC Sense UI/TouchFlo lacquered over both these devices, by far the biggest difference between the HTC Touch Pro2 and HD2 is to the latter’s capacitive screen (which, yes, I’ll keep harping on because I’m an iPhone guy, okay?). Especially for someone coming from the iPhone, it makes all the difference in the world.

HTC Sense UI/TouchFlo

If Sense UI/TouchFlo kind of warbles on the Touch Pro2, having the right notes but missing the rhythm at times, it sings on the HD2. And its eye-candy, frankly, makes the iPhone look dated. It’s got all the bells and whistles and widgets you want, and every time I write about it, I’m compelled to mention that the HTC weather screen is an instant crowd pleaser, and on the HD2 the windshield wiper is almost big enough to really make you think you’re in your car. The UI still isn’t as intuitive and consistent as I’d like — when to move in what direction and so forth — but it’s so far beyond last year’s frustrating TouchFlo experience on the Fuze that I’m hopefully they’ll nail it completely in the near future.

Windows Mobile 6.5 Titanium

One of the huge advantages of WIndows Phone is how customizable they are, especially the HTC devices for which ROMs are readily available. Lots of “cooks” and their “kitchens” whip up custom versions of the entire software stack, giving previews of upcoming, unreleased versions, stripping out carrier bloatware, maximizing speed and/or stability, and so on. And flashing ROMs is fast. I mention this because Phil was able to change the ROM on his Touch Pro 2 in the time between two video shoots. Super fast.

Whether it was a result of this, or simply Phil turning off SenseUI/TouchFlo on the Touch Pro2, I’m not certain (I lost track!) but he also showed me the default Microsoft experience on the phone, Titanium. If you imagine the ZuneHD interface layered on top of a new, “finger friendlier” (please, someone, anyone, kill that term — it’s embarrassing to the implementer in this day and age!) home screen and… pretty much the same Windows 98-esque UI beneath the surface.

Windows Mobile… Everything Else

And SenseUI and Titanium are just two of the many, many, (did I say many?) UI options available to Windows Phone aficionados. Since the iPhone only has one, and even if you Jailbreak you can only skin that one, it’s a huge difference and shows how truly tweak-able Windows Phone really is.

George Ponder rounded a lot of them up over at WMExperts, including SPB Mobile Shell, Winterface, Xperia Panels, Touchwiz, etc. Check it out.

Wherein We Explore the State of the WIndows Phone

While we’re looking at individual phones this year, we’re also looking at the platforms in general, where they are, and more importantly where they’re going. And that’s actually a good thing for Microsoft because where they are is nowhere good. I know a lot of people love their Windows Phones (if they know they have a Windows Phone, but we’ll get to that in a moment). I’m willing to bet these people love them in spite of Microsoft, not because of it, for what they and their community can do with Windows Phone and not what Microsoft has so far done for it. Could that change?

Ghosts of WinPhos Past

One of the questions I had about Windows Phone was — if they were going to try to brand the overall platform, why call it Windows Phone? I mean, Apple didn’t call their device the MacPhone, did they? Sure, it’s Microsoft’s attempt to bring some uniformity to their mobile device strategy, and okay Windows Vista was a consumer disaster but Windows 7 is proving popular and lots of people use Office, right?

But if a consumer walks into AT&T and sees all the phones on the wall, is a Windows Phone going to have any more luck against an iPhone or BlackBerry than an HTC phone?

Microsoft’s most consumer friendly brand is the Xbox. Yet they didn’t name their MP3 device the Xplayer to leverage that name (nor did they bother to integrate the services, but that’s another rant), they called it the Zune. And while the latest ZuneHD is outstanding, it still hasn’t been anything approaching successful. Now people, including WMExperts, have asked Microsoft to make a ZuneHD a phone (just stick a microphone on it, Nickinson oft bellowed), but is slapping a phone on a failed brand really the answer? Instead of Xbox, Zune, and Windows Phone in the commercial space, why isn’t it Xbox, Xplayer, and Xphone? If a consumer sees the Xbox ecosystem next to an iPhone, maybe then it becomes a fight for their mindshare.

But we know why this hasn’t happened. Microsoft isn’t one company, it’s multiple companies, 6 or so, and they don’t get along together. In fact, Microsoft is willing to sacrifice one to benefit another. Instead of keeping Exchange tied to Windows Mobile to combat BlackBerry’s proprietary push service, they’ll license it to everyone, including BlackBerry, iPhone, and Google. Microsoft has Exchange, and Bing, and yes, Zune not so that they can expand their platforms but so that they can offer those services to competing platforms. Maybe you’ll get Zune services for webOS one day. Who knows. On Windows, that’s fine because it has a 90% share. On Windows Phone?

Compare that to Apple. Seen iPod App for Android lately? It looks to this iPhone outsider as if Microsoft has intentionally fractured their offerings and licensed or given them out — or set them up to license or give out — at the expense of Windows Mobile. That’s great for those services, arguably great for the overall internet (though open source, non-proprietary versions would be better), but — again — it’s not great for Windows Mobile.

That’s problem one. Problem two is the same things I mentioned about Google and Android — I don’t think Steve Ballmer cares about Windows Mobile any more than he thinks Microsoft needs the mobile screen in their catalog. He’s smart enough to know the future is mobile and he wants Microsoft to own that future, but he doesn’t care about the end products to the degree that Steve Jobs cares about iPhone or the RIM co-CEO’s love their Berrys, or Jon Rubinstein poured himself into Palm. Even Android has Andy Rubin at the helm, a singular visionary whose vision is hampered by the needs of a larger corporate mandate, but remains singular none the less.

Who has Windows Mobile got in their corner?

Ghosts of WIndows Mobile Future

I just said I don’t think Windows Mobile really has Steve Ballmer in its corner. I don’t think it has its own division honcho, Robbie Bach in its corner either (which may be a good thing). I’d hope it has J Allard, who WMExperts called their savior and is responsible for the Xbox 360 and ZuneHD, given the seriousness of connected mobile. However, given his grand role, he may well be dreaming up the UI for the Xbox 720 or Zune1080p, and not be dedicated enough to give Windows Mobile the attention it needs. Maybe it’s Roz Ho, formerly of Microsoft’s Mac Office Business Unit (sigh) and currently leading up the horribly code-named Project Pink, reportedly based on Microsoft’s acquisition of Sidekick-maker Danger. But anyway, that it’s not widely known, that we don’t see a singular visionary on stage at CES, Mobile World Congress (MWC) or special Microsoft events holding up Windows Phone version whatever, putting his or her name and reputation on it, just like Andy Rubin did for Android and the Nexus One… makes me nervous.

Windows Mobile 7 is delayed. Yes, it’s not fair to call an unannounced product delayed, but if Microsoft didn’t intend to get a new OS out earlier than now, they have bigger issues than a delay. So, yeah, delayed. I don’t know if Microsoft got the same kick in the restarts Palm did after seeing the iPhone, but 3 years have passed since Macworld 2007 and Microsoft still has nothing revolutionary on the market — not for consumers.

If they have restarted, if they’ve restarted more than once or several times already, it’s taken so long now that they can’t just equal or even better iPhone or Android or webOS in terms of user experience. They can’t rely on a Windows Vista-esque bad taste that makes for a Windows 7 equally and opposing-ly sweet reception. Windows doesn’t have the competition Windows Mobile has. No, for Windows Mobile 7, Microsoft has to knock it out of the park so far it lands in the basketball stadium across town and swooshes clear through the basket, no net.

What that revolution is, I have no idea. It’s easy to imagine the Zune UI but that lacks telephony features and other elements a phone would require (think how much more the iPhone is than just the iPod app). And the ZuneHD still suffers from being merely competitive, not revolutionary. Microsoft could go for natural interfaces, the kind Bill Gates has been advocating for years, but Google’s Nexus One already does voice well enough that Microsoft is still only left with better. Current rumors postulate an Xbox “Project Natal”-style gesture interface where you can wave your hands and cameras pick up your movement along with facial detection and voice. Maybe that’s Star Trek enough, but it occurs to me when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone and its capacitive display and said, at last, people could “touch their music”, he was exactly right — people like the intimacy and sense of connection provided by touch. Not to go all CrackBerry Kevin on this review, but is waving your hands 5 feet away from your significant other and reading their body language with no contact the best experience you can imagine for human interaction? Likely not.

I have no answers, only questions, but Microsoft will need answers to slingshot Windows Mobile 7 back into the public mind, to become relevant again.

If that sounds harsh, I don’t apologize. 4 years ago I was all in on Microsoft. I had a Windows XP machine, Xbox, and Windows Mobile device, and… none of them worked together in any significant way. Individually I was annoyed enough to change all of them for other platforms. Collectively I was disheartened enough to leave Microsoft entirely and go almost all in with Apple (and Sony, since Apple doesn’t make game consoles or TVs yet). Microsoft could have been the integrated offering a decade ago. They had all the pieces in place and whether they were scared of anti-trust (and I don’t buy that excuse because you can integrate without anti-competitive behavior) or just couldn’t get themselves organized as a company enough to do it, Windows Mobile as much as anything suffers for that today.

Wherein this Review, Lost Track, Attempts to Re-Find it

Thanks in large part to the versatility and partner-centric model Microsoft decided to imbue into Windows Mobile, and the near miraculous deep-skinning ability of HTC, the Touch Pro2 and especially the HD2 are fully competitive devices in this year’s Round Robin. Spec for spec, the HD2 is unrivaled (perhaps only because the Android Nexus One, also by HTC, wasn’t ready in time to enter). I could never have used the Fuze for more than a week last year. If there was no iPhone, I could use the HD2 for a good long while.

If you were to leave the iPhone for the Touch Pro2 you’d get a world-class horizontal keyboard, deeper and better Exchange integration, and a phone that’s as individually tweak-able as your imagination and latest ROM cook-ups allow. You can also find versions across all the major carriers, multitask your heart out, and install Windows Phone apps from anyone and in any which way you please.

If you were to leave the iPhone for the HD2 you’d get… a bigger iPhone-like phone. That’s not a knock, far from it. As you no doubt suspect I love the iPhone. But unlike the different form factor of the Touch Pro2, the HD2 is the same shape, just much larger, with a far more animated if not quite as consistent a UI, and the same integration and ecosystem issues as any other Windows Phone. It’s also only coming to the US on T-Mobile at the moment, which means no 3G for any other North American network.

You’d lose out on the iPhone’s iconic integration and ecosystem, however, which still includes the best user experience and apps in the mobile space. Power users won’t care — they can figure out, and around, almost anything. For new smartphone owners, however, it’s hard to put a price on “just works”.

At the end of the day, however, if Apple running the iPhone like a benevolent dictatorship drives you batty and you don’t trust your privacy to Google and their Androids, if webOS is too abstracted and BlackBerry is too much messenger and not enough computing platform, if you want the latest and greatest hardware and the ability to do pretty much anything you’re smart enough to do with it, Windows Mobile remains the only choice (outside of Nokia, which just isn’t that popular here at home).

More than anyone else in this year’s Round Robin, Microsoft has to bring it next year. It won’t be enough to impress us, they’ll have to astonish us. Here’s hoping they can and do.

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Microsoft Windows Phone HTC Touch Pro2 and HTC HD2 Review from an iPhone Perspective — Smartphone Round Robin

Well, well, look who’s coming to demo — CrackBerry.com’s Kevin Michaluk, and we gave him the full-on look at Apple’s latest iPhone 3GS, so be sure to check that out.

Kevin being Kevin, he’s also hopped onto TiPb’s iPhone Forums to ask “where’s the keyboard on this thing?” Every day you help him on that thread, you’re entered for a chance to WIN AN iPHONE 3GS! (smartphoneroundrobin.com has all your details!)

As for me, I’m over at the WMExperts Forums trying to figure out if the HTC HD2 is the obelisk from 2001… or something bigger. Give me a hand over there, and you could win one of them ginormous bad boys as well!

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

iPhone Hands-on from a BlackBerry Abuser’s Perspective — Smartphone Round Robin

Week 4 of the 2009 Smartphone Round Robin brings me face-to-big-glass-face with our most ancient nemesis — Microsoft’s Windows Mobile Phone, this year spawning the killer keyboard of the HTC Touch Pro 2, and the monstrous hardware of the HTC HD2. Yes, that’s 2 times HTC version 2 devices and to help me out, I’ve got the dark lord of WMExperts himself, the one and only WMExperts Phil Nickinson to show me the ropes — and quite honestly to help me lift that ginormous HD2 onto the table!

Remember, every day you post on my WMExperts Forums thread, you’re entered for a chance to win the Windows Phone of your choice. (And there’s a total of 6 smartphones up for grabs — one per SPE site — so check them all out!)

This week also brings the yin to my yang, the productivity to my play, my best frenemy forever, CrackBerry Kevin back to TiPb and the iPhone he claims never to use. Head on over to the TiPb forums and help him out, would you? (i.e. show him some neat new games). And get a chance to win an iPhone 3GS for your troubles.

Video hands-on with the Touch Pro 2 and HD2 after the break!

[YouTube Video link]

This is a story by the iPhone Blog. This feed is sponsored by The iPhone Blog Store.

Microsoft Windows Phone HTC Touch Pro 2, HD2 Hands-on Video — Smartphone Round Robin