September 17th, 2008

Check out the new ZDNet Smartphones and Cell Phones blog

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 7:07 am

Categories: BlackBerry, Feature phones, Open Handset Alliance, Palm, S60, Smartphone, Ultra portable PC, Windows Mobile, Wireless carriers, Zune, iPhone

Tags: Phone, Mobile, Smart Phone, Blog, Cell Phone, Smart Phones, Blogging, Advertising & Promotion, Cellular Phones, Consumer Electronics

I’ve been covering everything related to mobile tech here on the ZDNet Mobile Gadgeteer blog, including mobile phones, Tablet PCs, netbooks, digital media players, portable gaming devices, and more. In an attempt to provide a bit more focus, I am now splitting that blog into two blogs with this new one focused solely on news, review, and commentary of mobile phones, accessories, and software. The new ZDNet Smartphones and Cell Phones blog kicked off this morning and in addition to the smartphone devices (Apple, Palm, Windows Mobile, S60, BlackBerry, and Google Android) I will also start including some higher end feature phone coverage there as well.

I’ll be covering all other types of mobile gear here on this blog, including Tablet PCs/MIDS, digital audio players, portable GPS units, portable gaming devices, and much more. Please let me know what interests you and what you would like to see covered in future posts, including any software or hardware you would like to see me evaluate and review. Thank you very much for your support on the Mobile Gadgeteer these last two+ years and I look forward to writing on this new blog and keeping you informed.

August 18th, 2008

T-Mobile 3G news heats up with HTC Dream and Samsung T919 rumors

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 8:36 am

Categories: Feature phones, HTC, Open Handset Alliance, Rumors, Windows Mobile

Tags: FCC, High Tech Computer Corp., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., T-Mobile, Samsung T919, 3G, Federal Government, Cellular Phones, Wireless, Consumer Electronics

The rumors that T-Mobile may launch a Google Android device in September seem more and more plausible now with the details that Engadget found in the latest FCC documents (PDF files). This FCC approval is for the rumored HTC Dream device. The operating system is not mentioned in the FCC documents so it is possible this device could be a Windows Mobile device too. Either way, it looks like this may be T-Mobile USA’s first high end device that supports their 1700 MHz 3G network. The FCC documents reveal it has WiFi, Bluetooth, and T-Mobile 3G support.

In other possible T-Mobile 3G news, it looks like the Samsung T919 (aka Tocco) may be coming soon. I haven’t use a feature phone in some time, but this looks like the T-Mobile answer to the Sprint Samsung Instinct device and if you want an iPhone alternative with T-Mobile 3G support this device may be just the ticket. This may also be the one feature phone I actually do pick up from T-Mobile and I’ll be keeping my eye on the release of this device. The Samsung T919 has a 5 megapixel camera, integrated GPS, microSD card slot, and full touch screen display.

August 10th, 2008

Is T-Mobile USA prepping a mobile phone application store similar to the iPhone App store?

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 4:12 am

Categories: BlackBerry, Feature phones, HTC, Mobile software, Open Handset Alliance, Windows Mobile, Wireless carriers

Tags: apple iphone, phone, mobile, t-mobile, cell phone, advertising & promotion, marketing, matthew miller

I have been a T-Mobile USA customer for over six years now and have four mobile phones and my T-Mobile @Home Talk Forever phone as my fifth family plan line. I read on the Washington Post that T-Mobile is apparently planning to launch a mobile phone application store similar in functionality to the Apple iPhone App store. This plan may be just what they need to actually do something ahead of other wireless carriers since they lag behind in wireless 3G data and number/variety of available high end smartphones. They do however have good coverage (I have never had a dropped call), the Sidekick, great customer service, and unique offerings with the @Home services.

One of my questions is, What phones would the application store be available for? T-Mobile USA has BlackBerry devices, Sidekick devices, Windows Mobile devices, Java-based devices, and custom environments from Motorola, Nokia, and Samsung. They were also one of the first to support the Open Handset Alliance (aka Android) and may be the first carrier to launch with an HTC Android device (I think they really need to be in order to bring subscribers to their network). The experience could vary widely depending on the mobile operating system that the applications would be available on and I think they may focus on the higher end smartphone market where people tend to buy 3rd party applications rather than just ringtones. Apple makes it look easy, but they have just the iPhone to support and it has a large display and powerful operating system to power the application store on the device itself. The T-Mobile store may or may not be available on the device in addition to a desktop access point.

There are other software stores, like Handango, that power other carrier’s mobile application stores on devices like Windows Mobile, but I don’t think there is a good cross platform store yet available and this could be where T-Mobile steps up and differentiates itself. This will not be an easy task and adding something like this will significantly increase the customer service demands as people buy applications and have issues.

There is a T-Mobile devPartner community site that looks well designed and has lots of information and tips for developers looking to support T-Mobile’s devices. The site mentions the t-zones catalog as a place to showcase applications and also states, “In the coming weeks, T-Mobile will be offering new ways to go to market.” I look forward to seeing what T-Mobile has to offer in the way of application distribution.

August 4th, 2008

MobileTechRoundup show #142, Is the line blurring between feature phones and smartphones?

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 7:20 am

Categories: Apple, Feature phones, MoTR podcast, Mobile software, Smartphone, Windows Mobile, iPhone

Tags: MobileTechRoundup, Phone, Mobile, Smart Phone, Podcasts, Advertising & Promotion, Internet, Marketing, Matthew Miller

Listen here (MP3, 31.2 MB, 34:00 minutes)

Subscribe to the show with this link (RSS)

James and I started off MobileTechRoundup show #142 with our thoughts on the MWg Zinc II Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional device and then Kevin joined in to talk about Windows Mobile and the apparent lack of excitement for the platform. Usability is becoming quite the topic of conversation in the mobile space as the iPhone makes people take a look at what they do with their device. Feature phones are getting more and more powerful and it seems the lines are starting to blur now with devices like the Instinct, Voyager and Dare. We also offered our thoughts on mobile specific sites and formatting for the small screen. Palringo was our freeware of the show with availability on S60, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, iPhone, PC, and Mac. We also talked a bit about Andy Abramson’s excellent Global Nomad articles where each of use picked up some new tips and tricks for working on the road.

If you enjoy listening to the MobileTechRoundup podcast, please vote for us at Podcast Alley. Also, please let me know if you have anything you would like us to cover and discuss on the show and I’ll try to work it into a future podcast.

July 7th, 2008

What are the alternatives to the iPhone 3G?

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 12:34 pm

Categories: Apple, BlackBerry, Feature phones, HTC, MP3 players, Nokia, Nseries, On the road, Palm, S60, Windows Mobile, Wireless carriers, Zune, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Phone, Device, Mobile, T-Mobile, Samsung Instinct, Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, 3G, Cellular Phones, Wireless

Last year I created a post talking about the available iPhone alternatives that you could pick up if you didn’t want to buy the Apple iPhone, but wanted a new and functional mobile device. With the iPhone 3G launching later this week, I thought it would be appropriate to provide readers with an updated alternatives post since the alternatives to the iPhone have improved significantly since last year and IMHO even more so than the minor updates (3G and GPS) to the iPhone itself.

I am personally having an internal battle in my head over whether or not to buy the new iPhone 3G because I am not sure the additional monthly cost (US$15/month) and additional year obligation (I still have 1 year left of my 2-year iPhone obligation) are worth the addition of 3G and GPS. If I was a single device kind of person, then yes I would most likely buy the iPhone 3G without much hesitation. However, I am the kind of power user who likes to try different devices and has needs/desires that the iPhone itself cannot satisfy (cut/copy/paste, DUN tethering, Bluetooth keyboard support, etc.). With the iPhone 2.0 software update coming to my original iPhone, my desire to use 3rd party applications is satisfied. I also find the current version of Google Maps adequate for my basic needs and if not, then I use other devices with integrated GPS (HTC Advantage and Nokia N95-3) to get me where I want to go.

So, as I try to figure out whether or not to get the new iPhone 3G, let’s take a look at what other alternatives are available or coming soon.

T-Mobile: The main alternatives available on T-Mobile are the various versions of Sidekick devices, BlackBerry Pearl or Curve devices (with @Home UMA support too), T-Mobile Shadow, T-Mobile Wing (nice hardware for the most part, but processor challenged) and T-Mobile Dash (still one of my all-time favorite devices). T-Mobile also has Read the rest of this entry »

July 2nd, 2008

Hearst provides nine fun, informative, and functional mobile sites

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 1:37 pm

Categories: Feature phones, Nseries, On the road, Palm, Smartphone, Windows Mobile, iPhone, mobile services

Tags: Mobile, Hearst Corp., Mobile Site, Sophia, Good Housekeeping, Advertising & Promotion, Marketing, Matthew Miller

I enjoy finding sites that are optimized for mobile devices and we have been seeing more and more of them being provided with the popularity of the iPhone. There are some folks in the industry who are working hard to bring us entertaining, informative, and functional mobile sites and I had the extreme pleasure of meeting the lovely Sophia Stuart a couple of weeks ago in Seattle. Sophia is the director of mobile at Hearst and has done a brilliant job of bringing optimized content to the mobile world.

Hearst is focusing on bringing content to everyone and has an advertisement campaign with the tagline, “I had no idea my phone could do that!” They currently have 9 mobile sites that can be viewed on any mobile device with browser capability, including feature phones like the popular RAZR or smartphones like the Apple iPhone. The great thing for the end user is that all of their mobile sites are accessible for free. They are seeing over 4 million page views per month on their mobile sites with 350,000 unique visitors per month so the mobile banners, SMS ad programs, and downloadable wallpapers and ringtones generate the revenue to provide you with free content.

The 9 mobile sites include Cosmo Mobile, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, CosmoGIRL!, Seventeen, Redbook, House Beautiful, Marie Claire, and Bazaar. It is interesting to see so many of the sites focused on women as I think there is a huge potential there for women to discover how mobile data access can help them find some great information and also have a good time with their mobile phone. I have been checking out Esquire and Good Housekeeping while my teenage daughters have been reading CosmoGIRL!

Esquire has some great information, like the drinks database that gives you the recipes for just about any drink you can think of making and other pieces of trivia like the 70 greatest sentences in history and 75 skills every man must know. A lot of the information is useful for starting conversations when you just can’t think of something to talk about.

Good Housekeeping has been useful for me to come up with recipes and to figure out how to get stains out.

As you read through the content in these mobile sites I think you will agree that there is lots of good information in them and the content is easy to get to and discover. I also found there is a lot of information that doesn’t interest me, but it is easy to just avoid clicking on those links too so the end user has control over what they wish to view.

June 30th, 2008

Lame hands-free law goes into effect in WA State on 1 July 2008

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 6:13 pm

Categories: Feature phones, HTC, Nokia, On the road, Palm, Smartphone, Windows Mobile, Wireless carriers, iPhone

Tags: Law, Policies And Procedures, Taxes, Text Messaging/SMS/MMS, Government, Free Trade, Cellular Phones, Telecom & Utilities, Human Resources, Financial Planning

The government is implementing news laws all the time in order to find ways to generate tax revenue, with little factual evidence backing up or validating the laws. I live in Washington State and tomorrow our second hands-free law of the year begins. Back on 1 January of this year a complete ban on text messaging while driving was started. This one actually is fine with me since text messaging while driving is just plain dumb and since it seems that every teen text messages, with little driving experience, hopefully this prevents them from causing accidents. The law going into effect tomorrow, 1 July 2008, prohibits people from holding their cell phone to their ear while making and receiving calls. You can use a wireless Bluetooth, wired headset and just turn on and use your speakerphone capability.

While this may sound good at first, I have to say this law seems to just be a law of convenience since it is easy to see if someone is using a cell phone or not. However, I feel strongly that putting on makeup, eating fast food, swapping out CDs or messing with your radio, reading a book (yes, I have seen people doing this on I-5), putting the binky back in your baby’s mouth, and any number of other distractions probably contribute just as much or more to accidents than talking on your cell phone.

In addition, how are people supposed to actually place calls? There is nothing in the law that states you have to be able to dial in a hands-free mode so people will still be looking down to dial, which is probably more dangerous than actually looking at the road and talking on the phone.

As you can see in the text of the actual law (PDF document) it is a bit short on detail and looks to leave a lot of discretion up to the enforcement officer.

I think Jeremy Toeman’s blog post on this issue in California does a nice job of summarizing the evidence and is what I think about the situation.

Right now, both of these laws are secondary enforcement laws so you can’t be pulled over for breaking one of these alone. However, the seat belt law (another one I am not sure is warranted) started off as a secondary enforcement law and after a couple years became a primary law. I am sure in 2 to 3 years we will see one or both of these becoming primary laws too since the legislators will see that more tax revenue can be captured by making them primary. These secondary laws will help them gauge how much revenue can be generated from these laws and they will see it is another great moneymaker, whether it actually has any impact on traffic accidents or not.

I posted a review roundup of several hands-free solutions that people may be interested in checking out as they look for a good hands-free solution. I personally plan to use the new Aliph Jawbone most of the time, with the Etymotic Hf2 with my iPhone and new iPhone 3G. I make very few calls in the car, since I am a train commuter, but I do plan to keep using a wireless headset because my devices support Bluetooth and I personally prefer to have nothing restrict me while I am driving. However, I am a very cautious driver who has not received a ticket since I started driving on my 16th birthday over 20 years ago.

I may change my mind about the law if there was evidence that supports it directly, while also showing the impacts of other distractions. Will the government next ban fast food drive-thrus, kids in your car, CD players, and seats for passengers who may distract you with conversations?

June 25th, 2008

T-Mobile @Home Talk Forever to launch nationwide on 2 July

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 12:33 am

Categories: Feature phones, Wireless carriers

Tags: @Home, Phone, T-Mobile, Service, Telecom & Utilities, Routers & Switches, Wireless LANs, Network Technology, Wi-Fi, Wireless

I happen to live in one of two areas where T-Mobile was testing out their T-Mobile @Home Talk Forever service and as I wrote about in February I bought the service to see if it would work for me. After about 5 months of using the service, and saving myself $35/month, I am happy to say it is a worthwhile service that T-Mobile customers may want to take a serious look at when it comes to your area. T-Mobile announced that starting on 2 July the service will roll out nationwide. $10/month for unlimited local and long distance calling is a great deal.

For the first 3 months, I did experience random loss of service about every 3 weeks and had to speak with T-Mobile support. They took quick action and solved the issue, which was great because my wife was not happy about losing phone service. I have only seen a loss of service, the small blue light goes out, once in the last couple of months and that was simply solved by resetting the router without calling T-Mobile. I never lost my WiFi connection during these outages.

To be clear, this is not the UMA WiFi service that lets you call via a UMA-enabled device from your home and other WiFi hotspots, but it is the home phone service that uses the T-Mobile network (you actually put a SIM card in your router and it appears as another line of service). You will need 5.8 GHz wireless home phones, which you can buy from T-Mobile with your router. I had my own 5.8 GHz phones and they have worked well with voicemail, call waiting, caller ID, etc. Text messaging is not supported, which would actually be a cool feature to add in the future.

T-Mobile is also holding a couple of special promotions to kick off the nationwide launch where they will be giving away homes, mortgage, and rent payments.

May 29th, 2008

Review roundup: Hands-free headset/speaker solutions from Etymotic, Aliph, Nokia and Spracht

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 4:51 am

Categories: Feature phones, Nokia, Nseries, On the road, Review, Windows Mobile, iPhone

Tags: Apple iPhone, Solution, Ear, Phone, Device, Microphone, Nokia Corp., Mobile, Call, Controller

In just over a month, you will not be able to use your cellphone in your automobile in Washington State without some kind of hands-free solution. Hands-free laws are in place now or coming soon to many other states and areas of the world so now is a good time to take a look at some of the solutions available to you besides the standard wired hands-free kit included with your cellphone purchase.

I had the opportunity to personally evaluate the Etymotic hf2 wired iPhone stereo headphones, Etymotic EtyBLU Bluetooth headset, Aliph’s new Jawbone Bluetooth headset, Nokia BH-903 Bluetooth stereo headphones, and Spracht Aura Mobile BT Bluetooth speakephone. They all have their strengths and weaknesses and it really comes down to your own personal preference when selecting a hands-free kit that fits your specific needs. However, I did find a new personal favorite in the bunch that I plan to use myself now that I can no longer just hold my phone to my head and drive. Check out my product photo gallery and then read through the rest of my review to see which solution I chose.

	Image Gallery:People are starting to look for hands-free solutions as laws require them in many U.S. States and you can check out five possible solutions that may help with your purchase decisions.

My friend Buzz introduced me to the very nice folks at Etymotic Research at CES 2008 back in January and a couple of weeks ago I received samples of both the Etymotic hf2 and EtyBlu headsets to evaluate. The Etymotic hf2 is a wired stereo headset primarily designed to replace the iPhone headset included with your iPhone purchase. The EtyBlu is a wireless Bluetooth headset designed to work with all of your devices.

Etymotic hf2: I first took a look at the Etymotic hf2 headset because I was interested in finding something better than the headset that came with my iPhone since I don’t really like the way the Apple earbuds rest unsecurely in your ears. I have also been using my slightly modified US$250 Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 headphones (I had to shave back the rubber a bit to fit into the iPhone) to listen to music and podcasts on my iPhone and was hoping these Etymotic headphones would serve two functions.

The headset consists of a 4 foot cable with a straight 3.5mm plug end that goes right into the current generation iPhone. The great thing about the cable is that it Read the rest of this entry »

May 15th, 2008

Aliph releases new Jawbone that is 50% smaller than the original

Posted by Matthew Miller @ 7:09 am

Categories: Feature phones, Gadgets, On the road, Smartphone, Windows Mobile, Wireless carriers

Tags: Gram, Battery, AT&T Corp., Model, Aliph Jawbone, Battery Life, Engineering, Retail, Matthew Miller

IMHO, one of the best Bluetooth headsets you can buy (after getting the swing of putting it on and off) is the Aliph Jawbone. Today the announced a new model that has several improvements that look like they actually listened to what consumer wanted changed. There should be one at my house and a review will be coming shortly.

The new Jawbone is available today in AT&T retail stores or via AT&T and Aliph’s sites for US$129.99. It is 50% smaller than the current model and has a cooler design. Thay really tried to focus on making it look like a fashionable accessory so you don’t look like a dork wearing it around all day. AIt comes in gold, silver, and black. I think the new leather earstrap looks more comfortable and easy to attach so I look forward to trying it myself.

They use their NoiseAssassin technology (developed by DARPA and not to be confused with the Darma initiative) with Voice Activity Sensor and Digital Signal Processing to give you the experience where background noise is removed while your voice is clear.

The new Jawbone weighs 10 grams compared to the previous model at 14 grams. Battery life is stated to provide you with over 4 hours of talk time and over 8 days of standby, which both exceed the capacity of most of my phones.