When Raccoons Invade

July 14th, 2010

Running a business is full of surprises, crisis, drama, and a fair set of adventure. However, a couple of weeks ago I got a call from one of our employees, Eric, and the conversation went something like this:

iPhone Repair & Raccoons

Raccoons in the House!

Eric: Oh my, God! There’s a bear in our office.

Short interlude here. Eric is a born and raised Chicagoan. He does love his country music, he’s a great guy, and he’s awesome at fixing broken iPhones, but a zoologist he is not.

Matt: I doubt it’s a bear. What’s it look like?
Eric: It’s furry, the size of a small dog, and has some stripes on it.
Matt: It’s a raccoon.

Short interlude #2. I was born and raised about 7 miles outside a town of 4000 people, my high school graduation had 89 participants, and most of my nearest neighbors were raccoons.

Eric: What do I do? I’ve got a hockey stick in my truck. I could poke it.
Matt: That’s a bad idea. How about I call the landlord and have him take care of it?
Eric: That sounds like a better plan.

Without going into all the gory details, there were about 6 phone calls back and forth with the landlord and Eric and eventually the raccoon was removed from the premises. In reality, it turned out to be 3 raccoons that had to be removed.

“How,” you may be wondering, “did 3 raccoons get into your office?”

Excellent question! The answer is they climbed a tree outside the building that had branches that leaned over our building. They climbed out on one of those branches, jumped on the roof, and burrowed their way through the ceiling. Once inside, they commenced having a raccoon rave complete with tearing apart the blinds, ripping up some of our accessories, knocking the printer off the table and breaking it, and leaving a pretty horrendous mess in their wake.

After a couple hours of cleaning by Eric and the landlord, we had just about everything back to normal and we were even able to get the printer working again. So all-in-all, not too horrible of an experience – just not one I ever thought I’d be blogging about.

Posted in Phone Anecdotes | 3 Comments »

Apple’s iPhone vs. Google’s Android

June 30th, 2010

I will spare you the suspense and tell you the final verdict right up front: Apple wins…but just barely and only if you don’t mind being on the AT&T network. Pretty decisive results, eh?

iPhone vs. Android

Let me make something very clear: This entire experiment was rigged in favor of the iPhone. The Android never really had a chance and to understand why, you need a little bit of history about how this experiment came about.

You’re probably already aware of this but just in case: At Jet City Devices we fix broken cell phones. Before we offer a new repair service for a particular phone, we buy a broken one online and make sure we know how to fix it. Six months ago, we considered fixing the MyTouch 3G from T-Mobile. We went online, found a MyTouch 3G with a cracked screen, bought it, got the repair parts, fixed it up, and then started offering the repair service. So for the last 6 months I’ve had a MyTouch 3G with the Google Android operating system just sitting on my workbench.

It has been calling out to me like a Siren trying to tempt Ulysses on his great adventures. Eventually, I could no longer resist the sweet temptation of that small white phone as it beckoned me closer. Fortunately, there was no shallow reef on which to destroy my ship – in fact there wasn’t even a ship. The whole Ulysses analogy is really only here to stroke my ego. Not really necessary so let’s get back to the reason this experiment was rigged…

The reason this 6 month old Android phone didn’t stand a chance against the iPhone is two-fold. First, I’ve been using an iPhone for 18 months and I really like the interface. This means I’m going to have some bias right out off the bat against the Android interface because they’re going to do some things differently.

The second reason is that the MyTouch 3G is a decrepit dinosaur of an Android phone. The hardware is slow and outdated, the touchscreen is small and unresponsive, and the software is version 1.6 (there at 2.2 as of this writing). I tried very hard in this experiment to ignore these hardware differences because I know the new Android phones are much better. However, I just can’t completely ignore it. I get uber frustrated every time I type a text and my space bar taps get ignored or it takes 2 seconds to switch screens.

So while I would love to discuss hardware, battery life, camera resolution, speaker quality, touch screen & LCD quality, and more, I just can’t do it with any validity. It’s not a fair fight because the MyTouch 3G sucks in the hardware department. In a few months, when the new Windows Phones come out, I’m going to do this again with an iPhone, an Android Phone, a Blackberry, and a Windows Phone 7. At that time, I’ll try to get the top of the line phones so we can really compare Apples to Apples. For now, I hope this software review suffices.

Review

Google, like Microsoft, tends to let their software engineers drive the user interface (UI). As a former software engineer, I can tell you that engineers suck at designing things so they are pretty and easy to use. It is not in our nature. Because of this, Android’s UI is clunky, somewhat of a pain to setup the first time, has lots of menus, a few annoying bugs, and is not particularly pretty. Apple, on the other hand, is a company driven by designers. As a result, the iPhone is beautiful, super easy to use, and runs great straight out of the box. The iPhone is just way more polished than any other smartphone on the market. Score 3 big points for the iPhone on this one.

Once you get the Google phone setup (and you will have to have a Google account to do it) and spend a couple of days getting used to the interface, you discover that it’s a pretty nice phone. I was pleasantly surprised about the apps (called “Marketplace” in Google parlance). I have been saying for months that the one big advantage Apple has is their App Store. I’m not so sure anymore. Yes, Apple has more apps than anyone else but I had no problems finding the apps I wanted for my new Google phone. Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, some games…no big issues for me at all. That said, it’s still more fun to search the Apple App Store just because of the sheer volume of stuff they have. Score 1 point for Apple.

There is one big exception to this Apple-is-as-good-or-better-than-Google-for-apps scenario: Google Navigator.

The Google Navigator app is far and away the greatest piece of cell phone software I have ever used. In essence, it turns your Android phone into a GPS device that rivals anything I’ve used from Garmin. It offers turn-by-turn directions complete with a woman’s voice telling you when to turn. In addition, this app is integrated seamlessly with other apps on the phone. Found a restaurant and want directions? Bam! It jumps you straight to Navigator. Trying to find a friends house? Just pull up their info in contacts and, Bam!, it jumps you straight to Navigator. Seriously, this app alone, for those of you that, like me, are completely directionally challenged, makes this phone worth considering. It’s awesome! Score 2 for Google.

Let’s talk about networks, baby. If you want an iPhone with all the bells and whistles (3G, visual voicemail, support from Apple), you only have one option: AT&T. I have AT&T and, personally, I don’t mind them. I do, however, have the common complaints: They are way too expensive and their network seems lackluster at best with frequently dropped calls and a number of dead spots in Chicago where I get little or no reception. But again, I love my iPhone and nothing about AT&T is a deal killer for me. That’s not true for everyone, though, and Google Android phones do not suffer from this single carrier drawback.

There are Google phones on all major carriers. Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and even AT&T all have Google phones. In addition, there are a plethora of hardware manufacturers out there making Android phones: HTC, Samsung, Motorola, and more. What this means is that you can find a contract that’s right for you and a hardware device that suits your needs (like a slide-out keypad). This isn’t a huge deal for me at this point, but for some it could be a really big deal. I’m going to score 2 points for Google on this one. If you are playing along at home, want to be on Verizon, and like a slide-out keypad, you can go ahead and score up to 4 points for Google here.

If you’ve been keeping score, you will notice that Android is actually tied with the iPhone at this point in the contest: Apple 4, Google 4. However, we are about to award a negative point to Android.

I, like many people, have more than one Google email account. Yet, for some reason, Google saw fit to only allow me one Gmail account on my phone. Sure, I can use the email application to setup an IMap account for my second Gmail account but it’s a pain in the neck to setup and it’s two icons I have to click to view my mail. I really just want to hit the little GMail icon on the home screen and see all of my Google Mail. Boo! Hiss! Big fail here by Google (at least for me). Score -1 for Google.

So there you have it, Apple wins but by the skin of their teeth: 4-3. The fact is, for a lot of people out there, that network and slide-out keypad thing could actually catapult Android ahead of the iPhone. Make no mistake, if Apple doesn’t at least address the issue of different network carriers soon, they will find that Google, Microsoft, or Blackberry is going to release a phone that comes pretty close to the iPhone in ease of use and beauty. When that happens, Apple better look out. But that’s a different story (and one I’ve written about before). For now, if you don’t mind AT&T and you want the best smartphone on the market, go with the iPhone.

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Apple catches thieves!

June 26th, 2010

Good citizens of the world, don’t be scared, Apple is here! Recently a man arrived at his apartment to find his iPad(s) were gone (what the heck man, you need more than one, really?) Luckily he had an app that showed (on gps) where his iPad(s) were heading. With the cops right over his shoulder, they bolted in to action to stop two men, in a Dodge Neon (yea I know..two guys walk into a Dodge Neon…nevermind). Here’s the story !

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Why Apple is in Trouble

June 18th, 2010

Let me start by saying that I love my iPhone. I can barely function without it any longer. Seriously, I went to a wedding last weekend in northern Michigan and had no reception for 4 days! It was brutal. Your sympathies are much appreciated. For all of you planning weddings out there, try to consider the mental health of your electronic addict friends before scheduling. Enough about me and the daily crosses I must bear. Back to the iPhone’s demise.

Apple's First Heyday

Repeat of the PC wars?

Before we proceed, a little history lesson (don’t worry, it’s short). Back in the early 1980’s, Apple dominated the PC market. They were titans. Controlling, with an iron fist, the hardware and software for their beautiful machines. Then along came Microsoft. They didn’t really care too much about the hardware. They allowed everyone to go ahead and build their own machines: IBM, HP, Dell, Gateway, Joe & Mary PC Nuts, and anyone else with access to computer hardware. These computers were ugly, grotesque, gargantuan, and, above all, cheap. The result: Microsoft came to dominate the world while Apple, for 20 years, languished on the brink of destruction.

Of course, the last 7 or 8 years have seen a great resurgence for Apple. It started with OS X and some good new laptop computers, was greatly advanced by the iPod, and has absolutely exploded with the iPhone. So much so, that in the past few weeks Apple has passed Microsoft in market cap. That’s right, on paper, Apple is now a bigger company than Microsoft. So much for Apple being the underdog.

But I fear that Apple is gearing up to make the same mistake they did 30 years ago with the PC. They control both the hardware and software – including a dictatorial rule over the apps that are allowed to run on it. Contrast this to Google that is basically just writing software and allowing HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and any other hardware manufacturer create their own devices. You can also bet your bottom dollar that Microsoft will take the same tact. In fact, when they announced the release of Windows Phone 7 they announced they’d be partnering with Dell, HTC, LG, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, and more for hardware; and Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint for carriers.

So what does all this “software for any hardware” mean? It means that non-Apple phones are going to get cheaper and cheaper and the data/voice/text plans for them are also going to plummet in price. Apple has a huge head start and a great product. They are not going to die any time soon. But the question is, even with this great product, can Apple count on a huge customer base that will be willing to pay a lot more for their devices?

If the PC wars of the past are any indication, the answer is, “No,” and Apple is in trouble.

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Posted in Android Phones, Windows Mobile, iPhone | No Comments »

Ready. Set. iPhone OS 4

June 17th, 2010

I’m not one to get too excited for release dates, other than the Beatles Rockband. But after I watched Apple’s Keynote speech, I felt like a little girl waiting for my birthday. Of course the majority of the buzz is generated by multitasking. What? Yes. Just double click and switch between your apps. So go ahead and listen to Pandora, check your email, and play Pocket God.

Unfortunately for Apple’s once beloved middle child, the 3G, multitasking will not be an option. But to my fellow jail-breaking brothers and sisters, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel: the iPhone Dev team has already told us that the multitasking feature will be “switched on” for us.

You can also gift apps, so go ahead pay the .99 so your friend can play along with you, since they don’t want to link a credit card to their iTunes account.

And finally, non jail-broken iPhones can have a home screen, I don’t know why there was such a wait on that. Cameras will now have a 5X zoom, and for those who like to text like an adult there’s spellcheck.

Other than that, the iPhone 4 was somewhat disappointing to me. First its going to use a micro SIM, which hasn’t really been used before. Probably to stop jail-breaking and then using another carriers SIM card. The video chat is nice – it finally feels like we’re in the future. Unfortunately, at least this point, it only seems that it will work with other iPhone 4 users. Can anybody else say Skype?

So nonetheless, I’m crazy excited when OS 4 comes out, then I just have to wait for the Dev team to hurry up.

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Posted in iPhone | 2 Comments »

Apple vs. Google vs. Uhm..

June 15th, 2010

The battle of open source software vs. Apple is one that has been going on for what seems like ages. Check out this article.

Posted in iPhone | 1 Comment »

If I Were In Charge: iPhone Shortcuts

April 16th, 2010

The other day I decided to pretend I was Steve Jobs and figure out all the stuff missing or not working properly in the iPhone. After 30 minutes of brainstorming, I had a list of about 15 things to add/fix. My original plan was to list each of these things in a single post. However, I was so impressed with myself for one item on the list that I decided to dedicate this entire post to that one brilliant idea:

If I were in charge, we'd backpack.

The iPhone (and any other touchscreen phone) should offer users a custom, programmable set of shortcut gestures on their phone.

Here’s the situation: I’m on my iPhone and want to check my mail. Like most everyone I know, I don’t just have a single email account. I have several. But to check all my mail I have to click mail, click the account I want, pick inbox, read my messages, and then hit the back button several times to get to my list of accounts and then repeat the process to read messages in a different inbox. Basically, it’s a pain in the neck. Wouldn’t it be much better if I could just put my finger down, make two circles and jump straight to inbox one? Make three circles and go to inbox two?

How about shutting off your wifi by just tapping the screen two times in the top right corner? Or swipe left-to-right across the top of the screen and go to my podcasts; right-to-left takes me to my music playlists? I’d love to launch Scramble 2 by just making  a ‘Z’ on the screen. Sure, I could swipe my finger through my 5 different home screens to find the one that has the app and then tap it, but I’d prefer to just make a ‘Z’ on any screen.

You get the picture, right? I love keyboard shortcuts on my computer and I want them on my phone. However, I’d prefer that Apple engineers don’t decide for me what shortcuts I need nor how to activate them. Here’s the interface I would create:

  1. You go to settings and select “Shortcuts”.
  2. You then select an option called “Record Taps”.
  3. You are thrown back to the home page and you click through the desired series of actions you’re looking for. For example, you click iPod and then navigate to your favorite playlist.
  4. Once you’re on the final destination, you hit the home button and the iPhone records your series of clicks.
  5. You are then prompted for the shortcut action.
  6. You put your finger(s) on the screen and make your custom gesture.
  7. Once you lift your fingers up, the gesture is saved and associated with the recorded actions.

That’s it. You can now record all of your most common actions and associate them with one quick and simple screen gesture. Sure, there are some little details to deal with (like double tapping on a letter while doing a text should not jump you to some shortcut), but those are manageable. The point is, this type of interface would be a big improvement over the current method of navigation.

So there you have it, one of my many brilliant ideas. I also have another idea about location based settings on your iPhone but we’ll save that for the next installment.

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Posted in If I Were In Charge, iPhone | 1 Comment »

Celebrity in the (Seattle) House!

April 9th, 2010

We had a very, very exciting customer visit the Seattle office yesterday. It was someone quite famous in the nerd circles that Tom and I travel in. Out of respect for our customer’s privacy, I’m not going to mention his name. However, to get an idea of his celebrity status, imagine Bill Gates, Alex Trebek, and John von Neumann all rolled into one unbelievable person. You now have an idea of the kind of mega star we’re dealing with here. And as big a fan as I am, Tom is twice the celebrity hound. What happened to Tom yesterday would undoubtedly happen to me if Chana Joffe-Walt walked into my office.

Let’s begin….

As anyone that has had a phone repaired by us in Seattle knows, we require an appointment. Like so many famous people before him, this Amazingly Wonderful and Energetic Selebrity Of Meaningful Exposure did not follow the rules. (For the record, I know that “selebrity” is spelled with a ‘C’ but using an ‘S’ allows for a much better acronym going forward.) AWESOME simply showed up at our office. In Tom’s own words:

If he had just called ahead, I could have prepared. I’d have done a little personal research, arranged topics of conversation, and had it all put down on neatly organized note cards.

But alas, Tom was not prepared. When AWESOME arrived, Tom immediately recognized him and about 3 seconds later began shaking uncontrollably with excitement and nervousness. I think letting Tom proceed in his own words at this point might be a good idea:

I was seriously concerned I was going to wreck his phone. I couldn’t keep my hands from shaking and I couldn’t focus. All I kept thinking was, “Oh my God, AWESOME is in my house. I can’t screw this up!” To make matters worse, I couldn’t even form complete sentences and I just kept stammering on about iPhones and how cool they are.

On the bright side, I’m sure he’ll be sending us all kinds of business. I can hear him talking to his friends now: “You have to get your iPhone fixed by Jet City Devices. It’s so great of them to hire special needs people to fix phones.

I’m such an unbelievable moron. Matt, on the other hand, is suave and smooth and almost as cool as AWESOME.

Okay, I might have taken some liberties with Tom’s statements on that last line, but you get the idea. Tom was totally star struck, but I’m proud of him for successfully fixing our first celebrity iPhone!

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Posted in Phone Anecdotes | 2 Comments »

iPhone App Review: Mint

March 31st, 2010

Do you suck at budgeting your money? Want to make it easier? Do you not mind sharing your online banking and credit card passwords with a third party? Then this app is for you.

Mint.com

Budgeting App: Mint.com

WOH! Hold on! Did I just say that you’ll have to share your online financial passwords with a 3rd party? Yes I did. And if you’re not okay with that, then stop reading now because you will not want to use this app. To get the full benefits out of it, you’ll have give Mint.com your passwords so that they can download your expenses and balances. If that’s okay with you, read on because this app is the best budgeting software you’ll ever use.

Mint.com is the self described: “…best free way to manage you’re money.” I agree with this. Once you set it up (by giving them the passwords to your bank and credit card accounts), Mint will automatically download all of your expenses, withdrawals, deposits, transfers, fees, and everything else that affects your accounts. In addition, it will email you about upcoming payments due (like your upcoming credit card bill), tell you when the devil (aka: Chase Bank) hits you with some kind of bogus fee, and will alert you when you’ve gone over budget for specific kind of expenses. This last little bit brings out the real power of Mint.com.

Before we talk about these alerts, we need to examine the basics of how Mint.com tracks your expenses. For optimal results, you’ll want to use your debit or credit card for all purchases. If you do that, Mint can track where you spent your money. On top of that, Mint has a lot of information about various places so about 90% of the time it can correctly categorize your expense. For example, if I stop at a BP or go to the grocery store, Mint knows that I bought gas or groceries, respectively. If they do miscatagorize an expense (or don’t have the store in their database), you can manually enter what the expense was for.

Now that you have Mint tracking your expenses, you can log in to Mint and set thresholds for different expenses and Mint will alert you when you go over an expense. Time for another example: If you set your eating out threshold at $200 for the month, Mint will let you know the instant you go over that amount. The same goes for groceries, gas, clothes, coffee, or anything else you spend your money on. In this way, you don’t really have to spend a lot of time on your budget. You simply spend a couple of hours up front telling Mint what you want your thresholds to be, another couple of hours a month double checking Mint’s categorizing, and you will have a much easier time keeping to a budget.

Setting your budgets can only be done online but everything else can be done online or through the iPhone app. However, updating expense categories is a bit tedious using the app. In all honesty, the best thing about the app is viewing your expenses, incomes, and the alerts. It’s good for letting you know that you’ve over spent on things or just to review how much money you have in your accounts when you’re on the go. Great for impressing the girls at the bar, or, as I find to be more often the case, letting you know that it’s worth hunting down a cash machine for that last $20 dollars you have in your account.

iPhone App Notes

  • Name: Mint
  • Cost: Free
  • Time to Learn: A couple of hours
  • Addictiveness: Low
  • Overall Rating: 4/5

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Posted in iPhone Apps | No Comments »

Product Review: T-Mobile MyTouch

March 25th, 2010

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I know that you have all come to rely heavily on my blog posts for their witty and informative style. It’s like teaching the proverbial hungry man to fish and then taking away his fishing pole. Very cruel and I will try to not let it happen again.

This latest blog post is actually from one of our new employees who played with a T-Mobile MyTouch 3G phone we had laying around the office. We let him use it for about 10 days and here is what he had to say…

The T-Mobile MyTouch 3G (also called the HTC Magic) is the second Google Android phone to hit the US market, and it definitely made a good showing in today’s multimedia/touchscreen/app world we live in.

T-Mobile MyTouch 3G

At first glance, the MyTouch appears to be a finely polished version of the older, bulkier G1 sans the physical keyboard. This sleek design makes it a friendly fit for your pocket – even if you’re one of those trendy guys wearing skinny jeans; you know who you are.

It has a nice sized touchscreen together with a volume toggle on the left side and six additional buttons directly under the display: Home, menu, call, end call, back, and a “google search” button. Why they added a physical search button on the phone is beyond me.

You will also find a gargantuan track ball amongst the 6 hot keys. This button is great at, well, nothing really. Why would I want a scroll wheel on a touchscreen phone? It’s like the HTC designers that built the MyTouch had both iPhone and Blackberry envy. A scroll wheel only makes sense if you don’t have a touchscreen (or you break your touchscreen and can’t use it anymore).

The one hardware design flaw I really noticed was the lack of a 3.5-mm jack. I really don’t know how they could have missed this. Yes, they have the mini-USB port I can plug the stock headphones into, but come on, I’d like to be able to plug in the awesome Bose headphones I don’t have because I can’t afford them…yet.

Now on to the user interface. This is where you find your contacts, plan your dates (anyone out there need a date?), and browse the web. You will find the touchscreen very responsive, and pretty finger friendly – even people with fat fingers like me. The MyTouch has the three different windows/displays, just like the G1. These are all fully customizable with whatever icons you choose to put on your main displays.

While there is no physical keypad, there is touchscreen keypad for text messaging, emailing, surfing the web, etc. When you turn the phone horizontally, this keypad widens which makes it a little easier to type (at least for me). The one exception to this is when using the Google search. In this case the keypad will not rotate and enlarge – it stays in vertical mode. That doesn’t bother me too much, but I’m sure it’s an issue for some.

While I’m on the subject of Google search, a cool feature is voice activated search. This allows you to speak your search terms directly into the phone instead of typing them. It takes a little time to process your voice, but it is definitely an awesome feature. I found it to be very accurate at figuring out what I wanted to search for.

The 3G web browsing is fairly quick and the internet functionality is pretty solid. Google has paid attention to some of the small details like allowing you to click on a phone number and copying the number right to your “dialer”. You are also able to copy addresses right off the internet into Google maps which I think is a great feature. Another big advantage of the MyTouch is that Google has made it easy to tether your phone to a PC or laptop. Tethering, for those that don’t know, allows you to connect your computer to the internet using your phone as the modem. PdaNet is a great app for getting tethering up and running.

Lastly, I’m going to review a few apps that I thought would be useful, or at least fun. While it’s not so much an app as software built into the phone, I’m going to mention Google maps. It’s a pretty self explanatory mapping program and the cream of the crop. It’s a wonderful piece of software. Beyond that, I downloaded Weatherbug and Pandora.

Weatherbug is an outstanding weather updater. It allows you to see the temperature in your notifications tab as well as semi-live Doppler when you launch the actual application. I am always on the run going from place to place, so knowing the weather and temperature at the tap of my fingers is fantastic.

Now, on to Pandora, an application for music lovers.  You can customize radio stations to fit your favorite genre of music or just find someone that’s already created a “station” that you like. You can search by artists or genre, and even purchase the songs right from the application. The only thing that would make this application a bit better would be a 3.5-mm headphone jack on the phone…of course, we’ve already been over that.

Overall this phone is better than I expected.  Android’s firmware 1.6 is quick and responsive. The phone does a lot of great things and I think Google is in a good position to make it even better in the future. If you are looking for a user-friendly device that allows you to make calls, search the web, and have a little fun in-between, you will find the T-mobile MyTouch 3G a nice phone.

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Posted in Product Reviews | 1 Comment »

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