Last weekend I installed Windows 7 on my Asus 1000HE netbook PC. I had planned to use the Windows Easy Transfer wizard to transfer my settings and files from the Windows XP installation on this netbook to Windows 7, but I have decided to not bother with the transfer, essentially starting from scratch.

I can tell you that I very much like Windows 7 over Windows XP, and I am finding the performance under Windows 7 to be very snappy. One of my main concerns has been with battery life, as I have been very happy with the battery life on this netbook under Windows XP. So far I have not noticed a decrease in battery life, which I think is largely due to the fact that the Asus Super Hybrid Engine, which controls the processor speed to optimize power consumption, runs just fine under Windows 7.

Last week I wrote about my concerns with how updates to Android are being tied to mobile providers, and today I read that Sprint is going against the grain of previous Android upgrades by apparently requiring connections to a desktop PC rather than using the over the air (OTA) model. Sprint’s shunning of OTA makes little sense to me, because while I am sure they will claim concerns with the impact to their network, T-Mobile has had no problems releasing major upgrades to Android over their network.

Here is the bottom line about why I am concerned about how Android is updated. In my opinion, a key differentiator between mobile operating systems is how often they are updated. The mobile space is rapidly evolving and releasing updates shows that the operating system is being kept up to date. Rapid updates also provides room for handling imperfections. I can tolerate problems and bugs if I know that an update that fixes that problem is not far away. Contrast this situation to Windows Mobile where it can literally be years between updates meaning you are going to have to live with those imperfections much longer. Guess what, people are not going to wait, they are going to move on.

Apple set this bar with the iPhone by providing a way to quickly distribute updates to the iPhone OS, and most important, enable users to install those upgrades without requiring that the phone be completely rebuilt. (Note here that my intent is not to say that OTA updates is better than side loading, my concern is with the inconsistencies in method and time between the carriers with distributing these updates.) If an upgrade is not going to wipe out all my apps and data, I have no problem if Apple or Google release updates every month or every week as there is very little impact to me as a user. In contrast, Windows Mobile upgrades have always been destructive, meaning that after the upgrade users have to restore or reinstall applications and data. That much work means users are not going to tolerate frequent updates, but it also means that there is no way to constantly evolve the phone software.

Software evolution is key in the mobile space right now because it means you can release new features in smaller chunks more quickly. Imagine how much better Windows Mobile would be if new features were added to Windows Mobile once a quarter over the next year rather than having to wait an entire year to get an entire boat load of functionality! In fact, there would be no complaints about why it is taking so long to get to Windows Mobile 7.

It is becoming evident that the only way for the mobile OS/phone provider to manage the upgrade process is to follow the Apple model of partnering with only one carrier. Without multiple carriers there is no need to deal with competing carriers who want to differentiate how they sell the same product by tweaking the upgrade process. This is a double edge sword because it means that if I want an iPhone I have to switch to AT&T, but the benefit is that the upgrade process is better managed and perhaps more frequent.

I truly believe that by sticking to one carrier Apple is limiting the market for the iPhone. I think the majority of users will not switch from their carrier to another just for a phone, and if there were a Verizon iPhone, there would be even more iPhones in the market. At the same time, I think it is becoming obvious in the Android space that the carriers all want to do their own thing and therefore the multiple carrier model means inconsistencies in how your product is presented and managed in the market. For a mobile handset provider that may be the worse thing to happen than limiting the size of your potential market.  Of course, it’s worth noting that Google is not a handset provider, they are a mobile OS provider, but I think the same concerns apply.

What better way to spend Halloween than to upgrade my Asus Eee PC 1000HE to Windows 7? Actually, I think this is a good machine to act as the guinea pig because I don’t store any real data on it nor do I have many programs on it. That being said, I still plan on using the Windows easy transfer wizard to backup my data before upgrading and at the moment I am formatting my Seagate FreeAgent to Go hard drive to NTFS because I had been using with the Mac Mini.

For the upgrade process I plan to follow Tom Merritt’s instructions, which should pretty much be a straight forward installation. This PC is running Windows XP and that complicates the upgrade process a bit because the Windows 7 upgrade is really a fresh installation and migration of your data (and some settings) to the Windows 7 installation. What I am most concerned about with the upgrade is what, if any, affect there will be on battery life? I really like how long the battery lasts on the 1000HE, which I think is in large part due to the Asus software that throttles the CPU speed when it is only on battery power.

I ran into a problem finding the right version of the Windows easy transfer wizard because the link provided in Tom Merritt’s instructions point to the Windows Vista version of the transfer wizard. My next step to finding the correct version was to go to Microsoft’s Windows home page, select downloads, select Windows 7, and then download the Windows XP version of the transfer wizard. However, it appears that version is also not the correct version because when I try to install it I get a dialog box that appears to be in French. Finally, I ran a search for “windows xp easy transfer wizard” and found this Microsoft downloads link points to the correct version of the file.

One word: price!

For a while now there has been speculation about whether someone will sell a netbook running Android. The question got murkier when Google announced the Chrome operating system this summer, which appears to be targetted at netbooks. However, for now Chrome is vaporware and Android is real, so the prospect of seeing a netbook running Android is higher in the near term. This article reports that Asus is indeed planning to sell a netbook running Android next year, claiming it to be “their secret weapon.”

Clearly there is only one way that Android could provide a bump in sales for Asus, and that is if the price of the device is so low as to make it a “no-brainer” decision to purchase. The article says that the price may be $180, which while lower than most netbooks on the market, might still be too high. I am thinking make the price $100, with that 1GHz Snapdragon processor and I am getting more interested. If it were light, converted to a tablet, and ran the Android version of the eBook software that Barnes & Noble will sell with the nook they might truly have a secret weapon.

Much, if not all, of the buzz in mobile tech this week has been about the Verizon Droid, which I wrote about last week as a seminal moment for Google’s Android operating system. As much as I am excited by seeing Verizon put their marketing muscle behind Android, I am also concerned about how Google appears to be tying upgrades to Android to wireless carriers.

Long time Windows Mobile users can tell you how frustrating it is to have the phone software be controlled by the carriers. The time between when Microsoft says a new version of Windows Mobile is available and when users can actually upgrade phones to the new version can vary wildly depending on what phone use and what carrier you use because the carriers are the gatekeepers for when and whether you get the software. Nothing is more frustrating than to learn that a new version of software will not be available for your phone and you will have to buy a new phone to have the latest and greatest.

Up until now this has not been an issue with Android because there has only been one carrier, T-Mobile, that has had phones with Android. Historically T-Mobile has done a good job of releasing new versions not too long after Google makes it known that they are available. However, now we have three carriers, Verizon, Sprint, and T-Mobile, with Android phones and as far as I know all the talk about Android V2 has been associated with Verizon’s phones. Ideally, all three carriers would make Android 2 available on the same date, which I think would be November 6, but we have yet to see whether that will happen. What if a carrier negotiates a deal with Google to exclusively have the latest version of the operating system before everyone else? In my opinion if Android updates are not consistently made available for all users regardless of carrier, users will suffer (which version do I have? when can I get it?) and the Android brand will suffer.

The confusion of when and whether users will be able to get new versions of Windows Mobile has been a huge problem for Microsoft. Google would do well to learn from Microsoft’s mistake and try not to repeat it.

 

On October 6, 2009 there were two major news items relating to mobile computing, the official availability of Windows Mobile 6.5 and the announcement that Verizon will be selling phones running Google’s Android operating system. What struck me about these announcements is the stark contrast in the two directions of the two platforms. The Verizon and Google announcement is absolutely huge for one reason, marketing. Meanwhile, the Windows Mobile 6.5 launch is absolutely disappointing in the little amount of change that has occurred since Windows Mobile first launched in 2006. Stood side by side, Google appears as the company that has been developing mobile devices for more than a decade, where Microsoft appears as the company struggling to figure out what to do from its first launch a little more than a year ago. Sadly, the reality is that Microsoft is the company that has been in the mobile market for more than a decade, and Google is the young upstart schooling Microsoft.

I do not think enough has been written about the significance of Verizon’s partnership with Google, for evidence of the significance all one has to do is watch this advertisement. Verizon stands heads and shoulders above all their competitors in marketing. Almost anyone in the U.S. knows that Verizon has the best mobile network in the country thanks to the “Can You Hear Me Now” commercials in the various forms. Clearly, Verizon has taken aim at Apple and AT&T by using their marketing muscle to pit Android against iPhone, and it’s network against AT&Ts. Second only to delivering a great product, marketing is crucial to selling more devices and increasing market share, and say what you want about them, you have to admit that Verizon seems to know marketing.

Stephen Frey’s commentary on what is essentially the phrase “He who dies with the most toys wins”

“We do not possess antlers, horns or tusks, we cannot display fans of feather or manes of fur, the best we can do is express our personality, aspirations, beliefs, outlook, sexual potency, status, right to breed and place in the hierarchy through the choices we make in our possessions: and no possession, here in the early part of the twenty-first century, speaks quite so loudly as our smartphone. Once upon a time it was our motorcar and in the future it may well be a robot, a rocket-pack or a hoverpenis that defines us, but for the moment it is, for good or ill, a smartphone.”

Yesterday I received my Platinum Zune HD, and so I am now in the process of playing with it and reacting to what I find. Because I am finding that I can’t record my reactions in 140 character sound bits that Twitter requires, I’ve decided to create this post here and if you have suggestions for anything that I write please post a comment.

First off, the reasons why I bought the Zune HD are two fold. First is that I find my original Zune 30 to be too large to carry around. Second, is the buzz in the gadget community about the device and in particular the OLED screen. The Zune HD is the first device that I have with an OLED screen and I have to admit that it is beautiful. However, I am probably in the minority, but I think the screen is too small, particularly for browsing the Internet. I think there needs to be some healthy debate about what is the appropriate screen size of a mobile device for different use cases. Too small screens limit the amount of words that can be displayed at a resolution that is comfortable to read. Back 8 years ago when the mobile device was between Palm and Microsoft, one of the reasons why I preferred Pocket PCs is because they had larger screens for reading e-books and web pages. I think the size of the T-Mobile myTouch is as about as small as a mobile data device should go.

By the way, speaking of web browsing, my first reaction to the web browser on the Zune HD is that it is too slow. Much slower than Safari on the iPod Touch and the Android browser. Safari is still superior to all mobile browsers because of it’s ability to make full pages nearly legible and it’s ability to automatically resize columns in web pages to the full width of the screen in a font size that is legible.

As it seems to be the tradition in Microsoft’s mobile devices, some functions require too many menu layers. For instance, wireless sync could be a cool feature except that I have to tap Settings, Wireless, Sync; how about a one button tap to sync? May be this is something that Microsoft can provide as an application?

One of the things the Zune HD doesn’t have that the Zune 30 has is the ability to display a background image on the home page; on the Zune HD the background image only appears when you first turn the device on. I wish the HD kept the feature for the home page as it provides a way to personalize the device, and as you know, personalization is all the rage.

Why is it that when you display pictures in landscape the picture is not resized to fill the entire screen? You are losing a good half inch of screen space (about a quarter of an inch on each size) that would provide better picture viewing. With the myTouch when I rotate the screen Android automatically resizes the image so that the entire screen is used. Pictures are gorgeous on the Zune HD and I want to take full advantage of that screen!

Much evolution has occurred with communicating via the Web. About a decade ago I learned about a new thing called weblogs, which provide an easy way to write and publish information on the Web. Back then the social aspects of a weblog were with cross-linking between weblogs. If I read something on someone else’s weblog that I wanted to comment on, I would write that comment on my weblog, with a link back to the post on the weblog that I am commenting on. Tracebacks were then created as a way for the writer of the original blog post to know that someone had linked to their post, providing a way (usually via an e-mail) for that writer to go and read the comment and perhaps write another comment in another blog post, and thus the conversation would flow back and forth.

Google determined that by counting the number of links coming in to a blog post they could gauge the interest in that post and give it a weight for interest and/or credibility. Content with a higher number of incoming links would receive a higher Google search rating and appear higher in a Google search. Knowledge of how Google values inbound links has lead to spam blogs and weblog comment spam, all targeted at gaming Google into increasing a web site’s search rating.

Back then some weblogs had the ability for comments, and there was debate on whether or not that was a good thing. Weblog commenting harkened back to Internet newsgroups and web-based message boards along with its good, threaded discussions, and bad, flame wars. For some weblog writers, comments added more that they had to manage on their web site, and that issue increased exponentially when weblog spamming was “discovered.” Fortunately tools have been developed that help filter out spam so that most weblogs today support comments. Along with the spam filtering that WordPress provides for this site, I moderate comment posts for further protection against spam.

The communication aspects of a weblog center around the content of the weblog post written by the writer of the weblog. Whether its an essay, like this post, or a simple list of links to cool things found on the Web, any discussion that occurs is around the content of the weblog. From weblogs evolved what is now referred to as social media and/or social networks. Sites like MySpace and Facebook built on the technology of weblogs the idea moving the conversation from the content of a web page to about the owner of the web page, and provided ways for people reading that owner’s “profile” to start a conversation about anything, not necessarily related to the content of a weblog post. The other key aspect is that while weblogs are simply pages published on the Web for anyone to read, these social networks limit who can see a person’s profile to individuals that person identifies.

While weblogs are easily understood by writers, and they were essentially created for writers, the value of weblogs are not understood by most people. Why spend the time writing something to be read by anyone in the world that I don’t know? On the other hand, most people understand the idea of random conversations that go on between a circle of friends. It’s not unlike the conversations that occur amongst friends before and throughout the school or work day, or the conversations that start up in a bar. The conversations don’t take place with anyone that will listen, rather they occur between people who know each other.

So we come now to Facebook and Twitter which are two different communication tools. Facebook is a social network and the only people that I interact with and see my information in Facebook are the people that I know. Because Facebook makes sense to the majority of people, many people who I have known through the years have signed up and become my friends. I have 118 friends in Facebook, many are high school and college classmates that I lost contact with over the years because we are located around the world, but with Facebook we have been able to reconnect and reestablish friendships. Most of these friends wouldn’t write a weblog or use Twitter, but spend a significant amount of time on Facebook.

Twitter is really much like a weblog in that what I write in Twitter can be read by anyone on the Web. Twitter provides tools to make it easier for one to follow anyone that posts something on Twitter. Like weblogs, people most often focus on the part of Twitter that “broadcasts” information on the Web and wonder why anyone would want to, like I just did, tweet that I am having problems with the Genius feature in iTunes 9. “Who cares?” is the thought. However, the real value of Twitter is in following people or services that you are interested in. I have 424 people following me in Twitter, and I don’t know most of those people. I follow 73 people or services and while some of those people I do know personally, many, like Amy Grant, I know of. The people that I follow provide me information that I am interested in, for example from Twitter last night I learned that the Space Shuttle was landing in California in about an hour and I decided to watch the landing on NASA TV on the Web. The key with Twitter is to only follow people that provide what you are interested in knowing, and the big difference between Twitter and Facebook is that you can unfollow someone in Twitter and they will probably never know, while unfriending someone in Facebook is known to both parties.

Pundits who comment on social networks have written much about how Facebook is trying to be more like Twitter and vice versa. In my opinion thinking of the two in the same way is a mistake. Twitter excels at being a web-based broadcast tool for those who want to broadcast information and provide it for those who want to “tune-in” to their broadcast, not unlike ham radio operators. Facebook excels by providing a closed environment for socialization amongst friends or colleagues. In my own experiment with integrating the two, I have observed the differences and the jarring affect caused by merging them.

Twitter provides an interface to Facebook so that for people who use the interface, when they post something in Twitter that same post appears in the person’s Facebook status. The idea is to provide one place, Twitter, for posting “status” information that in turn is published in multiple places. While the interface is convenient for the writer, it creates confusion amongst that person’s Facebook friends. Often I would post something related to what I was doing with computers on Twitter that I thought is interesting, but that would only be uninteresting for confusing for my Facebook friends. After receiving comments in Facebook along the lines of “what they hell are you talking about, Frank?” I decide to quit using the interface after realizing that the Twitter and Facebook audiences are completely different. You wouldn’t start up a conversation with a friend in a bar about something totally unrelated to or unknown by that friend, or you would at least provide some context first, and it’s hard to provide context in a 140 character tweet.

So, my advice to anyone trying to look at Twitter and Facebook through the same lenses is to stop because they aren’t the same. While they do a similar thing they involve different groups of people, and I think trying to make one more like the other in turn diminishes the value of both. If you want to follow me on Twitter, you will find me at http://www.twitter.com/frankm. If you are a friend and on Facebook, you can initiate contact with me at http://www.facebook.com/frank.mcpherson.

P.S. The difference between a weblog and Twitter should be obvious. More words, and more links.

About two months ago T-Mobile announced that the myTouch phone, running the Google Android operating system, was available for pre-order for existing customers and would ship by August 5. From that point I had been keeping my gadget lust in check, debating in my mind whether or not to get the new phone. In the past when I was buying Windows Mobile phones, significant new phone releases coincided with a new release of Windows Mobile, and since I was writing books about Windows Mobile, I had to stay current with the latest and greatest.

The myTouch, (which is a really bad name for a phone, I prefer the HTC code name Magic) comes with the “Cupcake” version of Android that I already have on my T-Mobile G1. In addition to the same version of the operating sysem, the G1 and myTouch also have the same processor, and for many the G1’s hardware keyboard is a big plus over the myTouch’s onscreen keyboard. Still, the HTC Magic, as I will henceforth call the myTouch, has some advantages such as a smaller size, a bigger battery for longer battery life, more ROM for storing applications, and more RAM to enable applications to run more efficiently.

All of changes in the HTC Magic, particularly battery life, are significant improvements that could justify upgrading from the G1, but what pushed me over the edge are rumors that the G1 will not be upgradable to future versions of Android to be released by Google. T-Mobile has stated that they will continue providing updates to the G1, but as far as I know it has not come right out and said that we will be able to install Android 2.0 on it. The G1 does have constraints in storage space due to it’s smaller ROM size, so I am inclined to believe that you aren’t going to be able to install many more upgrades on it. Sure, you might be able to install Android 2.0, but at the cost of only being able to install an even smaller number of applications.

Yesterday I went ahead and upgraded to the HTC Magic and it hasn’t taken me very long to determine that I am very happy with the phone. The smaller size and the rounded edges make it easier to hold in my hand, and there is an added bonus that it fits perfect in the holster case that came with the T-Mobile Shadow. Today was the first day that I used it while being in the office, and I can report that the battery got me back home though I did have to recharge it fairly soon after I was home. The G1 would often have to be recharged by lunch time or early afternoon at the latest. Ideally the Magic should get to the evening to make it completely through the day, and it might still as today was a pretty heavy use day as I paid extra attention to my new toy.

One of the things I was dreading about getting the new phone is re-configuring it to my use, which includes moving data and applications. Moving data is easy as it synchronizes with the Google Calendar, Contacts, and Mail applications. The Magic comes with a 4 GB micro-SD storage card to store photos and music, which is also an upgrade over the G1’s 2 GB card. However, what that means is that you won’t want to simply move the storage card from the G1 to the Magic. Instead, I connected the G1 to my desktop computer and attached it as a storage device, then I copied the music and photos folders to a directory on the desktop. I then disconnected the G1 and connected the Magic and copied the folders to its storage card.

Re-installing applications is a good news, bad news story. The good news is that the Android Market remembers the applications that you purchase, so the first time I opened the Market all the purchased applications are listed that I could then tap to install on the Magic. The bad news is that the Market doesn’t remember the free applications that you download and install. Because free apps are tracked on the G1, I am certain the information about the applications is stored in a file that probably could be copied over to another phone, but I wasn’t in the mood to go hunting around, so I manually reinstalled the applications that I want on the Magic.

I’ve installed most of the applications that I had on my G1 and 260 MB of space is still available on the Magic, which is much more than the 15 MB I have been wrestling with on the G1. Also, so far I am finding performance on the Magic to be better than the G1, which I am certain that is attributable to having more RAM for running applications and possibly due to the greater storage space. Everything else related to performance is the same on both devices, so I am left with these two improvements being the factor, that or the fact that I am not running Locale on the Magic, which is a program that monitors the phone’s location and based on where it is performs certain functions like turn Wi-Fi on or off.

As you might suspect by now, I recommend that G1 owners upgrade to the myTouch/HTC Magic. So far I have found that with the smaller size and the better performance the onscreen keyboard works much better than on the G1, making it good enough for my use. If you really want a keyboard-based Android device, rumors are that T-Mobile will have a true replacement for the G1 later in the year and other carriers are said to be adding Android devices to their line-up in the future.