One of the greatest tricks Apple pulled off at the iPhone 4 press conference was changing the dialog from death-touch — a single point of antenna trouble on iPhone 4 — to death-grip — a device-wide point of antenna trouble faced by the entire industry.
Apple for their part did cop to making iPhone 4’s point of attenuation very external and incredibly visible. Steve Jobs called it “x-marks the spot”, but then Apple very quickly moved on from this death-touch to a wider death-grip and demonstrated it on handsets from RIM’s BlackBerry to HTC’s Droid to Samsung’s Windows Mobile.
I initially thought this was a mistake on Apple’s part — that they were spending too much time deflecting onto the competition. Turns out I underestimated Apple, but not as badly as the competition. What Apple very neatly managed to do there was conflate their own widely reported iPhone 4 death-touch into the very real but widely under-reported death-grip phenomena that does indeed affect the entire industry.
What’s more, by those very competitors responding that the death-grip either didn’t affect their devices, was minimal at best, or wouldn’t affect future devices, they cinched it for Apple. They became part of the problem. Why?
Because their devices absolutely suffer from the death grip. Instead of pointing out that yes, Apple was correct, the death-grip was an industry-wide problem but the death-touch was thus far unique to Apple, RIM BlackBerry, Samsung, and Nokia denied the death-grip, thus ensuring everyone with the issue — or just an itch for attenuation attention — would fire up YouTube and make a video clearly discrediting their statements.
HTC for their part just said they didn’t have many reports of the problem. However, as David Chartier points out, HTC effectively white-labels their phones to Verizon and they didn’t make it clear whether the number of complaints they reported included Verizon numbers. This is similar to Apple citing AT&T return numbers for iPhone 4, not gross Apple return numbers. It’s what brought about the saying “lies, damn lies, and statistics”.
My original take on Apple’s press conference was that Steve Jobs should have just stressed that making the iPhone 4 antenna the way they did was a trade-off, better battery life and stronger signal in many cases in exchange for that single point of problem — the lower left hand corner death-touch. Andy Ihnatko made the same point, if more eloquently. Arguably a modern smartphone has any number of tradeoffs — AMOLED screens offer better color and blacks that utterly fail in direct sunlight. (Free sun-screens anyone?)
I still think Apple should have been crystal clear about that trade-off, but it’s looking increasingly like they didn’t have to. In their rush to get comments out in front of the media RIM, Samsung, Nokia, et al have let the conversation get changed from death-touch to death-grip, and they’ve let videos on their own handsets propagate across the web. One look at BlackBerry on Boy Genius, Nokia on Electronista, Samsung on InformationWeek, HTC on Engadget, many others via Daring Fireball, and even manufactures’ own warnings against touching their antennas in their own manuals via 1FPS shows how they’ve become part of a story that last week was all about Apple.
Sure a few sites like Ars Technica and When Will Apple? will raise a fuss over it, but it’s done. Competitors dove headlong into it. And since Apple has now effectively priced the death-touch problem as one free case per phone, all that remains to be seen is if competitor’s denials + customers videos = free cases for other phones too.
So I underestimated Apple but they didn’t underestimate their competition.
Note: this editorial is based on a Twitter conversation with Seth Weintraub from 9to5Mac who is absolutely right, one day college courses will be taught on these PR tactics. Check out his article on Fortune.
Update 1: Dilbert’s Scott Adams comes to the same conclusion, which he calls the “high ground maneuver”, and wonders if Jobs has had hypnotist training.
Update 2: I said above that while many smartphones have the death-grip, only the iPhone has the death-touch. Daring Fireball links to a YouTube video showing the Samsung Galaxy S having, if not the death-touch, then at least the death-finger. Again, from now on no smartphone is safe.
“Approximately .016% of customers [have complained]. We have had very few complaints about signal or antenna problems on the Eris”.
Which could also just mean there hasn’t been the attention or scrutiny placed on signal strength attenuation in the past, and again it will be open season now with any number of YouTube videos popping up showing everything from the HTC Droid Eris to HTC Droid Incredible to HTC Nexus One succumbing to the death-grip, just like Apple demonstrated.
However, HTC does have the forethought to warn customers not to touch the spot over their antenna (see image, top).
HTC has just announced that they’re counter-suing Apple for infringement, claiming Apple treads on 5 specific HTC patents.
“As the innovator of the original Windows Mobile PocketPC Phone Edition in 2002 and the first Android smartphone in 2008, HTC believes the industry should be driven by healthy competition and innovation that offer consumers the best, most accessible mobile experiences possible,” said Jason Mackenzie, vice president of North America, HTC Corporation. “We are taking this action against Apple to protect our intellectual property, our industry partners, and most importantly our customers that use HTC phones.”
Apple originally sued HTC for patent infringement on April 2, citing 20 patents in a move widely speculated to be directed towards Google’s Android platform in general. HTC had since agreed to license patents from Microsoft — counter-intuitively — for Android, again speculated to me a move directed towards Google.
Just like the Nokia vs. Apple suit and counter-suit, these types of suits can take months if not years to resolve, especially in the still forming smartphone space.
Apple has sued HTC for patent infringement with Android almost certainly being the target, now it turns out Microsoft believes Android also infringes on their patents and HTC has just paid up.
That means the free-as-in-Google smartphone OS isn’t free anymore — it’s just Microsoft who’s getting the money for it, and from the maker of the Nexus One, Desire, Legend, and Droid Incredible no less. That hurts Android.
How the deal affects HTC’s position in the Apple patent infringement case, however, is unclear. If HTC can point to a licensed Microsoft patent for technology Apple claims HTC is infringing upon then that no doubt helps HTC and hurts Apple and the iPhone.
With Windows Phone 7series fast approaching, it looks like Microsoft took the opportunity to get more than a little Sun Tzu on their smartphone rivals last night.
Our sibling site Android Central has just published a full review of the Verizon Droid Incredible — the latest Google superphoneAndroid competition to the iPhone. (And yes, it does seem like they’re coming more than once a month now — we feel bad for Phil!).
All three devices are by HTC, who Apple is suing for patent infringement, and their ability to keep dropping high-end Android bombs like this is likely the reason why. Say what you want about software fragmentation, highly restricted app storage, and OLED screens you may or may not be able to see out in the daylight, the absolutely relentless improvements in UI and hardware both is very much in keeping with the robotic nature of the brand.
Whether those iPhone on Verizon rumors finally pan out along with it, or in September, or only in 2011 we don’t know, but our advice to potential buyers remains the same as in our iPhone vs. Nexus One: which should you buy?. Check that post for details, but in broad strokes:
If you have to get a new phone right now and you want AT&T, the 2009 iPhone 3GS (see our review) remains head of that class. If you want Verizon, however, the Incredible is certainly a credible choice. The original Droid has a hardware keyboard (lackluster though it may be) and the Nexus One has the Google rather than HTC Sense UI (though who knows when it will actually ship?) so it’s an embarrassment of Android riches over in Big Red land. (If you’re on Sprint, it’s EVO 4G ‘natch).
If you can wait until the summer and aren’t fussy about carriers, Google may have another (two, three?) Androids on the market by then, but we have a sneaky suspicion Apple and iPhone HD (it won’t be called iPhone 4G) along with iPhone OS 4 will be the ones to watch in 2010. Again.
While Apple will almost certainly release a 4th generation iPhone this June or July, it won’t be an iPhone 4G because 4G LTE networks in the US won’t be up and running in significant enough quantities until 2011 or 2012 but Sprint is slowly rolling out a competing 4G WiMax network and has just announced a competing uber-phone to go with it — the Android 2.1 powered, Sense UI shellacked HTC EVO 4G.
Our buddy Phil Nickinson from Android Central is on the ground at CTIA 2010 and bringing us back the full Sprint EVO 4G video and hands on, but suffice it to say, once again HTC is just showing off. The specs are obscene. Total. Gadget. Porn.
First and foremost, the thing is a beast. A 4.3-inch LED touchscreen — same as the HD2 — and the same 1GHz Snapdragon processor. A gigabyte of ROM and 512 of RAM round out what’s under the hood.
Like taking pictures? There’s an 8-megapixel camera and dual flashes — for sheer candle power — to take care of that. Wanna record moving pictures in 720p? No sweat. Plus, there’s a basic 1.3MP camera on the front of the phone — pretty much a first for a U.S. carrier-sanctioned device. Now you just have to have apps that support it.
Of course, if you record in HD, you might as well have HD playback, right? And for that, there’s a mini-HDMI port, so you can go straight from the Evo 4G to an HD television. There’s a cute little kickstand, too, which makes the Evo 4G great for watching movies.
Now Steve Jobs is rumored to have said the iPhone G4 (not iPhone 4G!) will be an A+ upgrade, but what does that mean? Will the lack of 4G networking hurt them? We doubt it. Will less-than-EVO specs?
Apple has repeatedly said they believe software — not hardware — is their key advantage, so will they even try to match specs with HTC or are they hoping iPhone 4.0 (with its rumored multitasking) will be enough to stay ahead of even beefier handsets?
We know Apple has to bring it in 2010, but the bar for that bring might just have been raised again. Take a gander at the new king of iPhone competition (for this month at least) and let us know what you think!
“HTC disagrees with Apple’s actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible.”
The full presser lists out all of HTC’s “firsts” in the industry but gives no indication about what, if any, counter-suit and patent infringement claims of their own they might use to return fire.
“HTC disagrees with Apple’s actions and will fully defend itself. HTC strongly advocates intellectual property protection and will continue to respect other innovators and their technologies as we have always done, but we will continue to embrace competition through our own innovation as a healthy way for consumers to get the best mobile experience possible.”
The full presser lists out all of HTC’s “firsts” in the industry but gives no indication about what, if any, counter-suit and patent infringement claims of their own they might use to return fire.
Apple announced today that they are suing Windows Phone and Android hardware manufacturer, and Sense UI developer, HTC for patent infringement. The suit, filed in US District Court in Delaware, alleges violation of “20 Apple patents related to the iPhone’s user interface, underlying architecture and hardware”. Says Apple CEO Steve Jobs:
“We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We’ve decided to do something about it. We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours.”
This harkens back to Steve Jobs’ original introduction of the iPhone at Macworld 2007 when, as a keynote bullet point, he stated emphatically about the iPhone — “boy did we patent it.”
HTC, who produces the Android G1, MyTouch, and Hero and the Nexus One hardware for Google, and a variety of Windows Phones including the Touch Pro 2 and HD2 has built their own multitouch solutions, even when Google was reticent to implement the technology themselves. Curiously, Apple has yet to go after Palm, perhaps due to Palm’s equally impressive mobile patent portfolio. Likewise, does going after HTC allow Apple to go after Android and Windows Phone without taking on Google and Microsoft?
More on this as it develops. Also keep an eye on our sibling sites, Android Central for more from the HTC angle.
We only learned of Apple’s actions based on your stories and Apple’s press release. We have not been served yet so we are in no position to comment on the claims. We respect and value patent rights but we are committed to defending our own innovations. We have been innovating and patenting our own technology for 13 years.
The ‘331 Patent, entitled “Time-Based, Non-Constant Translation Of User Interface Objects Between States,” was duly and legally issued on April 22, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The ‘949 Patent, entitled “Touch Screen Device, Method, And Graphical User Interface For Determining Commands By Applying Heuristics,” was duly and legally issued on January 20, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘949 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit B.
The ‘849 Patent, entitled “Unlocking A Device By Performing Gestures On An Unlock Image,” was duly and legally issued on February 2, 2010 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘849 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit C.
The ‘381 Patent, entitled “List Scrolling And Document Translation, Scaling, And Rotation On A Touch-Screen Display,” was duly and legally issued on December 23, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘381 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit D.
The ‘726 Patent, entitled “System And Method For Managing Power Conditions Within A Digital Camera Device,” was duly and legally issued on July 6, 1999 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘726 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit E.
The ‘076 Patent, entitled “Automated Response To And Sensing Of User Activity In Portable Devices,” was duly and legally issued on December 15, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘076 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit F.
The ‘105 Patent, entitled “GMSK Signal Processors For Improved Communications Capacity And Quality,” was duly and legally issued on December 8, 1998 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘105 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit G.
The ‘453 Patent, entitled “Conserving Power By Reducing Voltage Supplied To An Instruction-Processing Portion Of A Processor,” was duly and legally issued on June 3, 2008 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘453 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit H.
The ‘599 Patent, entitled “Object-Oriented Graphic System,” was duly and legally issued on October 3, 1995 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘599 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit I.
The ‘354 Patent, entitled “Object-Oriented Event Notification System With Listener Registration Of Both Interests And Methods,” was duly and legally issued on July 23, 2002 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. A copy of the ‘354 Patent is attached hereto as Exhibit J.
Yikes. Apple is asking for permanent injunction and triple damages. Some of those also read so broad that I don’t feel safe even making gestures in traffic any more!
What do you think? Is Apple right to sue? Is this their attempt to stop what happened with the Mac from happening to the iPhone? And why HTC in particular?
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:
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.
From the Forums is a great way to see what all of the current hot topics are on the TiPb forums. Today we would like to go over some of the popular sub-forums for those of you who may not be familiar with our forum setup. Becoming a member is fast and free, so if you have not already already done so, head on over and register now.
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!
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!
The very first time I used the capacitive touchscreen of an iPhone it was clear that there was no other mobile device on the market that could match it’s performance. Now, a few years later, that still holds true for most of us and if you’d like proof labs.moto.com has performed a touchscreen stress test.
The iPhone’s touch sensor showed the most linear tracking with the least amount of stair-stepping. The Droid Eris and Nexus One tied for second with only faint wiggling – but actually performed best at the edge of the screen. Last in the line-up was the Motorola Droid, which demonstrated significant wavy artifacts or “stair-stepping.”
Something to keep in mind, the MOTO Development Group used more sophisticated tools to test touchscreen accuracy but the above video simply demonstrates a technique any of you can use to evaluate the accuracy of your own device.
At the end of the day it all comes down to touchscreen hardware and the integration of that hardware with software and user interaction development. Was there really any doubt of which device would come out on top?
So the oldest 2007 iPhone 2G can easily download and run (most of) iPhone OS 3.1 while the current 2009 crop of HTC Dream and Magic devices on Rogers will officially be stuck on Android 1.5? According to sibling site AndroidCentral.com:
“HTC is not currently planning any Android 1.6 upgrades for Rogers Dream or Magic. Android 1.6 was only made available for “Google”-branded devices such as the G1. It is not available for HTC-branded products such as the Dream or Magic, which use Android 1.5. We believe that Android 1.5 is a stable and reliable software platform that delivers a terrific user experience.”
Google explains this is a consequence of being not evil “open”, again via AndroidCentral.com:
When we open source our code we use standard, open Apache 2.0 licensing, which means we don’t control the code. Others can take our open source code, modify it, close it up and ship it as their own. Android is a classic example of this, as several OEMs have already taken the code and done great things with it. There are risks to this approach, however, as the software can fragment into different branches which don’t work well together (remember how Unix for workstations devolved into various flavors — Apollo, Sun, HP, etc.). This is something we are working hard to avoid with Android.
Working well together isn’t the problem. Rogers, HTC, and Google ignoring an entire country full of early adopters — the very users that help drive a platform — is the problem. How many Dream and Magic owners, likely geeks who form the loving core of Google and Android’s user base, will be happy to here they’re “stable* with 1.5 and don’t need and won’t be getting 1.6 (and who knows about 2.x?) while seeing the Motorola Droid and upcoming Hero updates, never mind Nexus One, splashed all over their interwebs.
There are pros and cons to both the integrated hardware/software/benevolent dictatorship model of Apple and the licensed hardware/software/wild west model of Google, to be sure. Buyers should beware of Apple control over the App Store and ecosystem, but they should also beware of hardware fracture from the hands-off overlords.
Sure, one day Apple will kill backwards compatibility as well, iPhone 2G first, then subsequent devices over time. If you’d bought an iPhone 3G earlier this year, however, how happy would you be if Apple and Rogers announced 2.0 was “stable” and that you don’t need and won’t be getting iPhone 2.x? 3.0? Would you be enjoying all the iPhone 3GS cut and paste and video commercials then? How happy would you were told your brand new iPhone 3GS wouldn’t be getting 4.0 next year?
Maybe it’s me; maybe it’s a fanboy thing; maybe it’s my desire to impose more text on screen about this, but when I read people calling an HTC HD2/Dragon/Passion device absent HTC branding “THE Google Phone” (now officially caught on camera, see above), I can’t help but think that if we go back to 2007 and Steve Jobs had taken the stage at Macworld and pulled out an HTC Excalibur with Apple branding on it, even if it had an Apple OS, it wouldn’t have been “THE iPhone” and it certainly isn’t what Apple did or what we as consumers got.
“This changes everything” say many blogs. Certainly, for Google’s Android partners, competing against the Google brand, and bank, and engineering team changes a lot. And if they sell it unlocked (assuming they put a radio in it that can support all 4 US carriers, including both AT&T and T-Mobile 3G, and Verizon and Sprint EVDO) it will change things for the carriers, and for users who are accustomed to paying subsidized prices.
Before Apple released the original iPhone in 2007 there was talk (read: hope) of Apple releasing it unlocked, and talk (read: more hope) again with the iPhone 3G. (TiPb even predicted that as WWDC 2008’s “one more thing” — and boy were we wrong). It sounds great and we gadget geeks love it, but the truth is unlocked devices coast $700+, as anyone currently trying to import an HTC HD2 or Xperia X10 are no doubt aware.
The iPhone became a phenomenon when it hit $199 and a bigger one when it hit $99 through heavy carrier subsidies. Next June/July when another iPhone comes along, current owners will again be livid if AT&T doesn’t cut them a break on costs, even if they haven’ fulfilled their own end of the 2 year contract again. Google could possibly try to self-subsidize with the intent on making back the money via advertising (or online services, though they traditionally give those away for free in exchange for the aforementioned ad revenue), and that really would “change everything” if it worked. (Hey, TiPb’s joked Google should just give free cell service to everyone in the US. Then it’s game over.)
This might be a great phone. It might be the best smartphone to date. But for an end user, how will it be different than if HTC simply released the Dragon/Passion/HD2 running Android 2.1?
So, unless the above is just an HTC shell for as-yet-unrevealed and totally redesigned-by-Google hardware (or Google just buys HTC like they’re buying everything else), it might well be a Google-branded phone, but it’s not “THE Google Phone”, at least not in the way the iPhone was and is Apple’s.
[Clarification: I'm not commenting on Google or their phone initiative here, I'm commenting on the coverage. Google hasn't announced a Google Phone. As their blog (which we linked to previously) plainly says, they're running tests with a partner, aka HTC, device. It's the coverage that's dubbing it Google Phone and a game changer. At this point, based on the image, it looks like an HTC device -- like an HD2/Passion/Dragon in Hero wrapping. And that's fine. That's great. If it's sold unlocked and runs on standard GSM 3G, I'd probably even buy one just to have fun with, sans contract. Analogies to the iPhone and Foxconn are completely off base, however. Foxconn isn't selling dozens of other devices, and certainly isn't selling other devices running iPhone OS X. Apple produces "THE iPhone". So far, this is a really interesting Android phone packaged by Google (instead of HTC or Verizon). But it's not "THE Google Phone". I suspect that one, running Chrome OS and using only Google Voice and VoIP, is still pending, and that well could be the next game changer.]
We recently came up with the concept of a mobile lab, which is a device that combines innovative hardware from a partner with software that runs on Android to experiment with new mobile features and capabilities, and we shared this device with Google employees across the globe. This means they get to test out a new technology and help improve it.
Unfortunately, because dogfooding is a process exclusively for Google employees, we cannot share specific product details. We hope to share more after our dogfood diet.
And TechCrunch is back again with a roundup of the details: think Google branded HTC HD2-style slab form factor, 1Ghz Snapdragon CPU, unlocked, virtual keyboard with voice-to-text dictation/transcription, likely T-Mo and maybe AT&T.
Finally, Daring Fireball has the supposed user agent string:
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.1; en-us; Nexus One Build/ERD56C) AppleWebKit/530.17 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/530.17
Nexus One perhaps being a reference to the android-like replicants in Blade Runner aka Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Nice.
Original commentary after the break…
Before I quote AndroidCentral’s Phil Nickinson, who nailed the intro to the latest Google Phone rumors the way nailing’s meant to be done, let me just ask (again) how giving employees HTC phones running Android 2.1 has anything to do with Google making their own hardware or learning Kung-Fu. Sigh. Take it away, Phil:
Looks like Twitter asploded overnight regarding the fabled Google phone. TechCrunch’s Mike Arrington stopped crying JooJoo tears long enough to cull some of the Tweets, and here’s what he found:
Google program manager Leslie Hawthorne kicked things off with: “Stuck in mass of traffic leaving work post last all hands of 2009. ZOMG we had fireworks and we all got the new Google phone. It’s beautiful.”
CNET’s Jason Howell says he saw it, HTC did the hardware, it’s unlocked and a buttload of Google employees got them this week.
And from Great White Snark: A friend from Google showed me the new Android 2.1 phone from HTC coming out in Jan. A sexy beast. Like an iPhone on beautifying steroids.
To be clear, Google hardware would mean a Google design handed off to a manufacturer to build, much like Apple and Jony Ive do with the iPhone and Foxconn. Rebranding a Passion (or variant device) just ain’t what we consider building one’s own hardware hereabouts.
That said, HTC makes great gear, and Android 2.1 (tasty pastry codename please?) will no doubt be very cool, so we’d like to see the latest Android phone, even if it isn’t (yet) “THE Google Phone“.
Competition will be a great motivator for Apple, maybe help them find our still missing iPhone 3.2 update, never mind the likely iPhone 4.0 Sneak Preview event in March, if they stick to their cycles…
Our buddy Phil Nickinson over at sibling site WMExperts finally got his HTC HD2 on this weekend and has video’d up an amazing hands-on with what he swears is a 3-foot screen! Ahem. Anyway, I had a chance to try it out as well, but you’ll have to wait on my thoughts for a bit still…
Meanwhile, check out Phil’s video and let us know what you think!
First up, the highly anticipated HTC Hero is in Android Central’s house, and Casey gives us a look at the decidedly non-Google Android phone and SenseUI, something closer akin to HTC’s previous Windows Mobile powered TouchFLO3D. And we think he likes it:
We believe that you’ll be stunned at how easy it is to use and how polished it all works. If you’re looking from the myTouch 3G or T-Mobile G1, you can’t help but be jealous of the Hero. The UI offers a great experience while still maintaining the same lovely Android and even adds a better browser! We have no hesitation in saying that the HTC Hero is the best Android phone available and after using HTC Sense, will be for quite some time.
Next up, I don’t think we’ve ever mentioned “Motorola” and “competition” to the iPhone in the same paragraph before, but with the introduction of the CLIQ, their first device running Google’s Android OS, do we have to stop chuckling at the mere concept?
Maybe. We often say (okay, Chad often says) that Apple designed the iPhone for RAZR users — the first dead-simple, consumer-friendly smartphone. Well Moto built the RAZR, and now they’ve built MOTOBLUR, a new, hyper-social network focused new layer on top of Android designed to hook the heart of the Twitter/FaceBook generation (yes, Icebike, I campout firmly in the former). And they’ve put it on a G1/Dream-style horizontal slider.
Let’s be very clear: though it fares pretty competitively against the aging crop of Google-powered devices on the market today, the CLIQ isn’t the Android phone to end all Android phones. Then again, it’s not supposed to be — at least, we hope it isn’t — because a smallish HVGA display and an overworked, outmatched MSM7201A core aren’t going to win any believers that haven’t already been won over by HTC’s stable. What the CLIQ does do, though, is lay the groundwork for something better — a Motorola that doesn’t cause eyes to roll, a Motorola that makes aspirational phones that people can want to own again.
One thing’s clear, however. The competition is focusing on the social networks, something Apple’s never been historically good at, and something they may still not quite understand. Is it an achilles heel for the iPhone? Not yet, especially not with the App Store. But there’s no MOTOBLUR or widgets or Synergy in the App Store yet, and likely there won’t be given SDK restrictions. So, Apple, howsabout 4.0?
While reaction to Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 6.5 release ranged from “yawn” to “yeesh”, one device, not even given the stage, certainly seems to have stolen the show — HTC’s HD2.
Theories on why Microsoft didn’t see fit to show off, indeed highlight, the HD2 range from friction with HTC over their foray into Google’s Android OS, to an attempt not to show up other partners whose devices look outdated by comparison. That anyone saw it at all was only due to a few HTC reps carrying it around the show. Microsoft’s latest baffling behavior aside, the device itself clearly shows that if they aren’t going to raise their game, HTC will do it for them:
640×800 capacitive, multitouch screen driven by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, complete with Sense UI built in so deeply Microsoft’s interface is all but completely hidden from the end user.
Our sibling site, WMExperts.com, has been following the device since it was known by the code-name Leo, and report that it should be making its way to the US in the first part of 2010.
It’s nice to see some competition, if not from Microsoft itself then from HTC. But it brings a question to mind — will buyers of non-integrated devices end up going by carrier brand (AT&T, Verizon, etc.), OS brand (Android, Windows Mobile/Windows Phone), or manufacturer (HTC, Motorola, LG, Samsung, etc.)? And will that give the unified devices from Apple, BlackBerry, and Palm an easier shot at mindshare?
So in 2007 if Apple Slapped a Logo on an HTC Excalibur, Would That Have Been “the iPhone”?
December 13th, 2009Maybe it’s me; maybe it’s a fanboy thing; maybe it’s my desire to impose more text on screen about this, but when I read people calling an HTC HD2/Dragon/Passion device absent HTC branding “THE Google Phone” (now officially caught on camera, see above), I can’t help but think that if we go back to 2007 and Steve Jobs had taken the stage at Macworld and pulled out an HTC Excalibur with Apple branding on it, even if it had an Apple OS, it wouldn’t have been “THE iPhone” and it certainly isn’t what Apple did or what we as consumers got.
“This changes everything” say many blogs. Certainly, for Google’s Android partners, competing against the Google brand, and bank, and engineering team changes a lot. And if they sell it unlocked (assuming they put a radio in it that can support all 4 US carriers, including both AT&T and T-Mobile 3G, and Verizon and Sprint EVDO) it will change things for the carriers, and for users who are accustomed to paying subsidized prices.
Before Apple released the original iPhone in 2007 there was talk (read: hope) of Apple releasing it unlocked, and talk (read: more hope) again with the iPhone 3G. (TiPb even predicted that as WWDC 2008’s “one more thing” — and boy were we wrong). It sounds great and we gadget geeks love it, but the truth is unlocked devices coast $700+, as anyone currently trying to import an HTC HD2 or Xperia X10 are no doubt aware.
The iPhone became a phenomenon when it hit $199 and a bigger one when it hit $99 through heavy carrier subsidies. Next June/July when another iPhone comes along, current owners will again be livid if AT&T doesn’t cut them a break on costs, even if they haven’ fulfilled their own end of the 2 year contract again. Google could possibly try to self-subsidize with the intent on making back the money via advertising (or online services, though they traditionally give those away for free in exchange for the aforementioned ad revenue), and that really would “change everything” if it worked. (Hey, TiPb’s joked Google should just give free cell service to everyone in the US. Then it’s game over.)
This might be a great phone. It might be the best smartphone to date. But for an end user, how will it be different than if HTC simply released the Dragon/Passion/HD2 running Android 2.1?
So, unless the above is just an HTC shell for as-yet-unrevealed and totally redesigned-by-Google hardware (or Google just buys HTC like they’re buying everything else), it might well be a Google-branded phone, but it’s not “THE Google Phone”, at least not in the way the iPhone was and is Apple’s.
[Clarification: I'm not commenting on Google or their phone initiative here, I'm commenting on the coverage. Google hasn't announced a Google Phone. As their blog (which we linked to previously) plainly says, they're running tests with a partner, aka HTC, device. It's the coverage that's dubbing it Google Phone and a game changer. At this point, based on the image, it looks like an HTC device -- like an HD2/Passion/Dragon in Hero wrapping. And that's fine. That's great. If it's sold unlocked and runs on standard GSM 3G, I'd probably even buy one just to have fun with, sans contract. Analogies to the iPhone and Foxconn are completely off base, however. Foxconn isn't selling dozens of other devices, and certainly isn't selling other devices running iPhone OS X. Apple produces "THE iPhone". So far, this is a really interesting Android phone packaged by Google (instead of HTC or Verizon). But it's not "THE Google Phone". I suspect that one, running Chrome OS and using only Google Voice and VoIP, is still pending, and that well could be the next game changer.]
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So in 2007 if Apple Slapped a Logo on an HTC Excalibur, Would That Have Been “the iPhone”?
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