Just in case it wasn’t painfully obvious, I’ve got mobile devices on the brain.  My latest wonderings have been on the FaceTime app that is in the iPhone 4.  Apple has been advertising the crap out of it and tech blogs have been mentioning it everywhere.  And it really does look cool.

The problem is, I still have a few questions:

1) Apple called it an ‘open standard’ when they announced it.

Yet, here we are almost a month and a half from when the iPhone 4 launched and there’s still no official word on a timeline of when access to the service might become available for 3rd parties.

Is it an open standard once Apple has released new iPods and iPads that have front facing cameras? Is it an open standard that’s only for companies that want to pay Apple money?

You shouldn’t call a standard “open” unless you’re actually unveiling the standard.  Feel free to say it’s designed to be an open standard but don’t claim it is one when no one but you can access it.

2) WiFi only?

What is this crap?  Look, I know iPhones are killing AT&T’s bandwidth but it’s kind of annoying that the person who bought the phone and is paying for the data plan doesn’t get to make that decision.  If I want to chew up a bunch of bandwidth making video calls to other people, that should be my choice.

When the iPhone first came out, it was obvious that AT&T was giving up its authority to get the device on their network.  However, every year since its release, it seems like their fears and insecurities are having a bigger impact on the device.

No tethering, no Google Voice, no 3G video calls, really crappy resolution for streaming video over 3G.  These are all decisions that smack of carrier interference and Apple’s willingness to compromise on the functionality of their product to make the service provider happy highlights why we need more open access to a mobile wireless internet.

3)  Long term usefulness

My final question, is this really that useful?  I can certainly see uses for it.  The best example I can think of is when I end up offering tech support remotely.  Way too often I find myself thinking, “If I could just see what they see, I’d have this resolved in 5 minutes.”  And that’s a great use.  But besides that, what is there?

Do I really want to have video chats with people.  Not particularly.  Not if it means I have to sit there and hold a phone up in front of my face the whole time.

The situations where having video contributes to the conversation is, I think, going to be the vast minority of the time.  Not that I don’t think it will come in handy sometimes, just that it would probably account for less than 5% of my phone calls.

Anyway, at the end of the day, Apple has taken something that’s been tried by a number of different people before and managed to make it relevant by streamlining it, getting widespread adoption, and just having it work.

It’s hard to think of any other company that’s ever been as good at taking failed tech ideas and reinvent them into success.

So, as I mentioned before. I ended up ordering the Samsung Vibrant Android phone for T-Mobile.  Just a few short days later, I’m sorry to say that I’ve ended up sending it back.

On its surface the phone is pretty good.  The display is crisp and amazing.  The form factor is nice and relatively compact.  It’s got an expandable micro SD slot and I generally got pretty good reception with it.

There were a number of smaller issues though that kept annoying me.  The biggest one had to be the battery life.  The phone would be almost dead after 12 hours of standby and mild use.  Worse, there would always be a bunch of random pre-installed apps that would start in the background and were probably killing the battery.

I had to download this program to kill the apps since it wasn’t always obvious what was running.  And even then there was no clear explanation of what had been started and why.

Besides the poor battery life (which I probably could have addressed in a month or two by buying a larger battery), the GPS functionality didn’t work.  It was unable to ever determine my position with the GPS.  A quick search online revealed it as a widespread problem that would supposedly get fixed in an update that was coming out soon but given that the GPS was one thing that I really wanted to get from the phone, I’m not willing to hang onto it and hope for the best.

And finally we get to the Android OS.  I generally like the OS but it suffers from the same thing that Windows always has, when the OS itself wasn’t designed for specific hardware, it just doesn’t feel seamless.  The way the Samsung vs. T-Mobile vs. Google apps worked was just too inconsistent.  I was never confident of where to look or how to use something.  As someone who has gone to school for interface design, it was just inconsistent enough to be frustrating.  And I don’t want my phone to be something I have to sit there and tinker with.

There were a number of other nitpicky things that annoyed me as well: lack of an integrated music library manager, no integrated video store, the location of the power button, the poor integration of my work/GMail/phone contacts, the use of a separate GMail client vs. work email, no Skype app, and more I’m sure.

I guess at the end of the day, there were too many little details that I was unhappy with to commit to using the phone for the next 2 years.

My plan now is to wait a few months and see what happens and if anyone is going to come out with a phone that addresses my issues (Microsoft, Palm/HP, Google, or even Apple).  If not, I guess I’ll just have to suck it up and deal with what I can get but until I’ve reached that point I’m going to go back to using my ol’ Sony Ericsson  phone.

Ah well, it’s way cheaper anyway.

I’ve talked about my cell phone lust on this blog a number of times and by my count it’s about time to go back to that well.

I think I’m in the same place that many people are now: iPhone or Android?

They both have their pluses and minuses:

iPhone

• a stabler more robust platform
• has only one form factor per year making the software specifically tailored for the device
• I already have a bunch of iTunes movies/music
• will be guaranteed at least 1 significant OS update per year
• stuck with AT&T and no unlimited data
• not great multitasking

Android

• the new kid on the block, seems to be hungrier and more innovative than Apple … also buggier
• So many different hardware types, not all software in the app store works on each device
• no guarantee that the device software will be updated by the manufacturer
• Can stick with T-Mobile
• Can develop software for it without having to buy a Mac or use Objective C
• Includes a pretty good (and free GPS software)
• Removable battery/expandable memory

Those are just off the top of my head.  Of course, at this point I’m strongly leaning towards an Android phone (specifically the new Samsung Vibrant on T-Mobile).  The only reason I’d stick with Apple would be that I’ve got an old iPod Touch G1 that I really like and I’ve got some copy protected media that I wouldn’t mind being able to keep on it.

I’m afraid that trying to port my number might be a hassle since I’m no longer in the same city that I was when I got my cell phone (they seem to not let you port numbers for different area codes for some reason).  So that’d be another reason to stick with T-Mobile–who I’ve always been generally satisfied with.

Anyway, I guess I’ll update this when I make up my mind.