Fun with Bike Computers

Here’s to the coolness of having a super-geek bicycle computer!  Too bad the darn thing doesn’t make my bike go any faster!

The iPhone vs Future Devices

So now that the wife has had an iPhone for some time, and I’ve had some time to mess about with it – decision time has come to determine whether or not I will jump ship from Windows Mobile to the iPhone (or at least jump ship for a few months, hehe).

I tend to be a thoughtful person when it comes to decisions, and have posted a couple times on my impressions of the iPhone (here and here).  On the whole, the iPhone isn’t perfect, but it’s not a bad choice, either.  Right this second, there’s not really any competition to the iPhone.  However, around the corner always lurks new technology.  There’s bound to be something in the pipe to kill the iPhone’s current prominence as the best all-around mobile device, right?  Of course!  Read on for more…

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iPhone 3G: Second Impressions

After continuing to live with an iPhone in the house, we’ve gotten a bit more used to (and sometimes frustrated) with some features and more general comparisons to other devices, such as Windows Mobile (WM).  As we continue using the iPhone for the wife, here’s some of my ‘second’ impressions, again provided in random order…

• Expandability:  So on the WM device platform, there’s lots of third-party and freeware programs you can load up (or bog down) your device with.  For the iPhone, they have the App Store.  It’s a fairly new development, so time will have to tell just how even the playing field becomes with third-party offerings.  So far, the App Store seems to be filled with lots of cheap (in two ways – price and quality) apps that have been hastily created to either do something cool, yet are useless – or to do something useful, yet are unrefined and incomplete.
• App Store:  So more specifically on the whole App Store thing – I like the idea a lot.  It’s nice to have a single place for finding and downloading add-in applications versus crawling the Internet for WM-related software.   As mentioned above, there’s a lot of junk out there App-wise in the store.  While that’s to be expected, there’s no real option for trial software.  Sure, the prices tend to be small at under $4 for many of the apps, but still – spending 1-4 bucks a pop for junk software you delete isn’t a path to financial intelligence. Some 30-day trial option for all the app options would really help you find the best app to fit your needs, and ensure your supporting good development – not bad.  The App Store integration onto the iPhone itself is nice – letting you browse and download the apps directly from the phone.  That way you can realize even faster that you just flushed another $1.99 down the toilet… Read more »

iPhone 3G: First Impressions

Okay, so we fell for the hype a bit.  I got the wife an iPhone 3G as a gift.  It’s cool, it has some nifty features, it’s got a pretty decent price tag – and I’d been wanting to check one of these things out for a while – so it had all the makings of a great gift.  I come from a long line of Windows Mobile devices and phones, so I know what it’s like to have a bevy of features in the palm of your hand.  So after having it for a couple weeks now, is the iPhone really any better than all those other toys I’ve had?

Well – the first thing I noticed was it seems to just work…  Okay, Apple seems to have some reputation built up about it’s OS being reliable, easy and intuitive.  Well, I’m into technology, so those things have never really interested me much – haha.  I haven’t had a lot of exposure to Macs, OS X or even iPods – sticking more to Windows and Linux distributions, so the iPhone is really my first deep dive into the whole Apple ‘thing’.  Well, I can attest that the iPhone is easy to use and intuitive.  Reliable?  Well… not so much – we’ve already had a hang or two that required a reboot, and a time where the push mail just went to lunch, didn’t get any mail anymore, and didn’t tell you it wasn’t connecting – so it doesn’t seem much better in reliability to any of my WM stuff.

On the easy side:  it was setup to get onto the Internet and get Yahoo mail via push in a blink of the eye.  Oh, and no messing about with editing network connection configurations or anything, changing where to store attachments, etc. etc.  It just worked and she was happy immediately.  So that’s not that much of a big deal, what about other stuff, you say…

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