Trying various attempts to reset the device that we found on the Internet, I headed to the Amazon Kindle support page and looked for warranty information.  I wasn’t sure how old it was and didn’t know if it still fell within its warranty.  From the warranty page I click the contact us button which took me to a list of my devices.  I selected the correct device, answered a few questions via drop down selections, entered my phone number, and clicked the call me now button.  Within 2 seconds I received a call from an automated system from Amazon letting me know that my wait time would be less than 1 minute.  Within 20 seconds someone came on the phone, verified my information, and was able to help troubleshoot the Kindle.  Unfortunately nothing that we tried worked, but since it is less than one year old it is still under warranty and we should have a replacement at our house in 2 days.  All we have to do is send the old one back in the pre paid packaging.

All in all I was on the phone with Amazon support for less than 5 minutes and will have a replacement in 2 days.  Fantastic support all the way through the process.  I especially like the way the system called me first.  Doesn’t get too much easier than that.

Great job Amazon.  Another happy customer.

Here are a few things that I would really like to see Apple address with iOS5 and the iPhone.  Many of these will help in the enterprise and some are just general improvements (all my opinions).

• As mentioned in a previous post – better notification system – Completely revamped.  Finally.
• Better use of the lock screen.  This ties in to the request for better notifications a little, but those little red numbered balls are useless when you have a PIN set on your phone and you have to unlock it to even get to the home screen.  Give us info on the lock screen. – Yes!
• Even better could be an external notification of some kind, like an LED, to let me know it is even worth looking at the screen in the first place. – Yes. LED flash for notifications.
• Over The Air activation.  Please.  Connecting to iTunes is a pain when you are trying to roll out a large number of iPhones and iPads. – Yes!
• Over The Air iOS upgrades.  Blackberry has been doing this forever and Android supported it from the start. – Yes!
• Select all capability in email. – Unknown.
• Please implement the ability to tap on a conference number in a Calendar item and have it dial the number, wait, then dial the extension – including the # character.  Seriously, this is a huge miss when trying to take conference calls on the road.  There is an app that does a decent job of handling this called ApptDialer, but this should be supported natively.  If you don’t understand how useful this is you have never used a Blackberry. – Unknown.  For now ApptDialer is working well.
• In Contacts, why can’t I look someone up from the Exchange Global Address Book and easily add them to my Contacts.  A simple button that says – add to calendar like others do.  Now I have to sms it to myself. – Unknown.
• And while we are on the Contacts/Exchange Global Address Book, how about pulling back more information than just name, title, phone number, and email address.  Add the street address as well please. – Unknown.
• Rework some of the settings for better placement.  Make it easier to enable/disable WiFi and Bluetooth, or at least get them in the same area of the menus.    Move bluetooth up under WiFi in the main settings menu instead of placing it under the General section under settings.  There are times when you need to get to those things quickly so save us a couple of steps. – Unknown.
• Customization of all sounds.  I can’t believe that I even have to ask for this one.  And let me use any song or sound that I have on the device for any alert or ringtone.  I’ve already paid for the music and I want to use it for any sound that I choose. – Yes!

Those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.  Which ones did I miss that you care about?

Score: 6 wishes granted, 5 unknown or no.  Not too bad as the 6 granted are things that I really thought iOS needed, especially after using Blackberry and Android devices.

So here is my plea – consider the rise of the iPhone and Android as an opportunity.  I’m not asking for anything for free.  I’ll pay.  Just give us Outlook for mobiles and put an end to the misery of trying to get ActiveSync to work correctly for direct push for all devices.  Help us open an email that has an embedded email inside of it and actually be able to read the embedded email.  Help us move messages between folders.  Help us not only accept a meeting request but also add a comment.  Help us see contacts along with their pictures. Help us forward meeting requests to others.  Help us always access the GAL.  Help us see shared contacts that are in public folders.  The list goes on.

I know that there are partial solutions out there and that this is now a consumer driven world, but those consumer diven devices have invaded our enterprises and users want many of the features that I listed.  I realize that its probably never going to happen, but there may be money here.  Oh, and please hurry as I am an Exchange upgrade away from just delivering all of this along with OCS integration using Project GoldenGate.  I have almost all of the pieces in place and will quickly virtualize an environment to support it.  And yes, I realize it is currently a proof of concept, but it is a concept that we will be able to pick up and run with on our own if necessary.

I have long pushed the notion that the client is irrelevant and this will now allow me to push that thinking out to mobile devices as well.

I was definitely interested in the newest version of the Blackberry OS as it was finally going to offer a browser based on webkit. Personally I think the webkit engine is one of the best browser engines out there. It has served me well in Safari and more recently Chrome. Chrome has been my main browser for a while now and I love it. Very fast and clean.

What surprised me was seeing the Blackberry Torch as the phone that RIM would rollout to showcase it’s new OS. I guess it’s just me, but I have no use for a physical keyboard anymore. The on screen keyboards for the iPhone, Droid 2 and Droid X are rock solid and to me a physical keyboard just makes for a thicker mobile device, even if it does slide out of the way when you aren’t using it.

I get that Blackberry’s Suretype keyboard is very popular with users and it makes one handed typing a little more convenient, but why lead with this phone? Why not go after an entirely touch based device that is slim and light? In my opinion RIM already had most of everything that they needed. I was an original Storm owner and that phone was horrible. I hung in there for over 6 months hoping for code improvements that would improve on all of it’s shortcomings but I couldn’t wait any longer and went back to my trusty Curve.

When the Storm 2 came out I agreed to testing it even though I was so unimpressed with the original Storm. I’m glad I did as the Storm 2 was an excellent phone. It fixed pretty much every issue that I had with the original Storm. So how does this fit with my thoughts on RIM and the Torch?

I believe that RIM should have taken the Storm 2, reduced the thickness and weight a little, switched from the screen that you push to a simple capacitive screen like the iPhone and Droids, and put OS 6 on it. That would have been a killer showcase phone for their new OS 6 as the OS itself was very nice. Very smooth. Very fast. And it was still a Blackberry. But they didn’t, they gave us the Torch and put us on AT&T. So the Torch went back in the box and I switched over to a phone that met more of my needs; the Droid X. Huge phone because of the screen but it became comfortable and easy to use in a day.

It’s a little strange using something other than a Blackberry for work, but Android has grown on me quickly and the learning curve is mostly gone. Most of that is probably because I have had an iPhone since they were released so using a purely touch interface just feels natural to me. When RIM delivers the phone I described above you can be sure that I will test it out. I’m looking forward to it as I can’t imagine it taking too long before they deliver something else as I hear that Torch sales aren’t all that great. It really is a nice phone but just not what I’m looking for anymore.

Posted via email from michael pardee’s posterous

I get it, I’ve been an OS X user for 8 or 9 years now and I know what the Flash player can do. The CPU goes up, the fans kick in, and the performance goes down. I’ve been there many times. But even if the world decided to make html5 a killer Flash replacement it would not change over night. I would like to make the decision on running Flash or not. It ends up that I do want the “complete” web experience and good or bad, Flash is a part of that.

It’s a shame that Apple didn’t take the approach or working with Adobe to improve the Flash experience instead of an outright ban. Maybe all of that past Windows preference by Adobe had something to do with it. Steve has made his position clear I guess, but tonight was the first time that i had to use something other than my iPad to use the web and that is unfortunate.

The good:

• The battery life is amazing
• The size and weight work out really well
• The screen is beautiful, sharp, and bright
• The on screen keyboard is way better than I better than I expected
• Apps written for the iPad look very nice

The other:

• No wireless sync, so you have to activate and occasionally connect to a computer.  This is why I said “mostly” above.  You still need a computer to activate.
• The screen is a magnet for finger prints. The good news is you only see them when the screen is off or dark.
• iBooks has set the standard for how to turn a page. Now go make that work for the built in calendar and contacts applications. All developers should implement this, I don’t want to hit a next button to turn a page again.
• No alarm. I know, I complained about this before, but it really makes no sense that this is not included with this thing. I know there are third party alarms available, but you have to have them running (which I do) but if that alarm app crashes for unknown reasons overnight you are going to be late for work. Trust me, I speak from experience on this one.
• I still want a customizable home screen so that I can display a clock with an alarm, the current weather, the forecast, and maybe a news feed or 2. Call it nightstand mode.  Is that so much to ask?

Overall I do enjoy using the iPad. As someone who has been in the IT field for almost 26 years I did not think this was going to work for me. But I was wrong and the iPad has worked out just fine. But, and here is the important part, I still ace access to another computer if i need to access a little heavier lifting, like Skype. Other than that I am full time iPad. I think my next move is the 3G model so I can stop using the Verizon mifi when away from wifi, but you can’t find one anywhere.

It’s funny, but giving my MacBook Pro to my wife was a huge upgrade from her older G4 PowerBook, so she was immediately happy with the additional performance. But guess what she reaches for when she wants to use a computer? Correct, the same thing my youngest daughter reaches for, my iPad. I think the wireless thin client – I mean, the wireless tablet – I mean, the wireless iPad, could push the whole “home server” market a little further, but the safer bet is probably that the iPad makes for an excellent thin client for cloud computer.

For all of you uber-geeks out there this may not be for you.  You wanted power – lot’s of power – in a small package.  You wanted something like a MacBook Pro screen without the rest of the computer.  You probably wanted it to run OS X.  You wanted full support for Flash.  You wanted a camera in the front for video conferencing and a camera on the back so that you could take pictures.  You wanted GPS.  You wanted an OLED screen.  You wanted multitasking.  You probably expected all of this with 4+ hours of battery life.  AT&T?!  Are you kidding me?  No wonder you are so upset about this thing.  And what’s with the name?  Even my wife thinks this thing is stupid.

But there is a different demographic that Apple is aware of and they don’t care about most of that stuff.  They love what their iPod Touch can do and they just wish it had a larger screen.  Maybe they would have liked to have the Touch but the screen was just too small (trust me, hit 40 and reading small screens starts to get interesting).  They would be happy reading their “newspaper” online with this thing.  eBooks?  Sure, why not?  It’s not open like Android.  They don’t care.  Truly they don’t.  They don’t understand vendor lock-in and they really don’t care as long as it does the things that they want it to do.

I think of it kind of like the Nintendo Wii.  The Wii is the least powerful game console out there.  The XBox 360 and the PS3 just crush the Wii’s hardware specs.  The XBox 360 and the PS3 are both capable of doing much more than just games, yet somehow the Wii just keeps chugging along and is one of the most popular game consoles around.  I know a ton of people that have one.  But the serious gamers I know have the XBox 360, PS3, or use a Windows PC.  The Wii is accessible and easily used by the masses.  The interface and controller require very little thought – you can just pick up the controller and play most games.

Personally, I fit more in to the geek category than the non-geek category but I am sure that I will buy one.  I’ll buy it because I love technology and like to think that I occasionally understand where things are headed – and I don’t think this is such a bad product at all.  Just like the iPhone and iTunes before it, the apps and the acceptance will come.  I’m even dumb enough to think that we could still see some changes to it for the launch.  Maybe that camera will show up as well as a new version of the OS that will allow multitasking.  Remember, this is Apple’s chip in this thing so we really don’t know what it can, and cannot do yet.

I’m certainly not right all of the time, and many of the smartest people on the Internet (as well as my wife) seem to think that this one falls short, but I still believe that the iPad will do very well.  I would be surprised if Apple sells less than 2-3 million of them by the end of this year.  And maybe, just maybe, as technology continues to advance and costs come down, Apple will give us some of those MacBook components in a tablet form – including the OS.  Until then, I can see no reason why they would be willing to cannibalize their laptop sales by giving us everything that we really wanted in a tablet.

The iPad is the iPod Touch for an entire generation that has a lot of disposable income and needs reading glasses.  You already know them because they raised you as children and are now showing up on Facebook in droves.

I’ll set a few of the basics here in the beginning: I have an iPhone 3G (not 3Gs) with over 120 apps of which I probably use 15-20 or so often. I love the thing and use it probably 90% of the time and use my laptop the other 10%.

Right now I have 2 different phones in front of me; the iPhone 3G for personal use, and the Droid that I am testing for work. You definitely don’t have to love Apple or even like them a little, but without the iPhone I doubt we would have seen anything like the Droid for a long time. The Blackberry Curve would still be one of the sexiest phones out there, and that’s not saying much.

Google has really done a nice job with the Android 2.0 operating system. I never used any of the earlier versions, but the Droid comes with 2.0 and I am really impressed. If there is anything that I am not too impressed with when it comes to the Droid it is the hardware itself. Maybe I am just spoiled by (or really used to) the way the iPhone feels when you hold it, but the Droid it a little to square for my taste. I would like to see rounder edges, like the iPhone, but that it just me. I am also not a fan of the slide out keyboard, which is probably what most of you will end up liking the Droid for. I get spoiled by the on screen keyboard on the iPhone and the on screen Droid keyboard works just as well in my opinion. If anything, I found that I made more typos on the on screen Droid keyboard, but the Droid does a better job of suggesting words as you type. I am sure that I would get better with it as I spent more time with it. So Google operating system = excellent, Motorola hardware, stuck in the past.

As an iPhone user you never think that there is anything wrong with the screen – it is beautiful – until you put it next to the Droid. The screen on the Droid is higher resolution and the text is really smooth. Once you see the Droid you realize that Apple really needs to move to a better screen in their next gen phone. The Droid also had better sound to me than the iPhone. I have always felt that the built in speakers on the iPhone were weak and the Droid just basically solidified that for me. Neither are fantastic but the Droid sounds much better to me.

The Droid’s camera is 5MP and the iPhone 3G is something like 2MP I think. Since my 3G doesn’t have the autofocus capabilities of the newer 3Gs it is probably not a fair fight, but the camera on the Droid took decent pictures for me when I tried it out. They still don’t seem as nice as the ones from my cheap Canon camera, but they were not too bad. Oh, and the Droid’s camera has a flash as well, so you can take a picture in your pitch black walk in closet and have it turn out like it was taken during the middle of the day with the sun sining. Really impressive.

The Droid comes with a free navigation app that I used over the weekend. It worked fine. I even took a few wrong turns to see how it would react and the Droid recalculated the route quickly and talked me through the route with turn by turn spoken directions. Not as nice of an app as my Garmin but if I didn’t already have the Garmin I would not have a need for one after getting the Droid.

Unfortunately I will not be able to recommend the Droid for work as it does not fully support the Microsoft ActiveSync protocol to connect securely to our Exchange environment, but that was pretty much one of the only negatives that I could find. Remember, the Droid runs version 2.0 so I would expect that we will see some updates addressing the bugs pretty soon. I have heard 12/11 could be one such software update. Oh, and this thing has more ringtones than any other phone that I have used. It was also extremely easy to make any of my music a ringtone as well. Play the song and hit the button to make it your ringtone. Done.

But the strength of the iPhone is its ecosystem – the app store being a huge part of it. “There is an app for that.” Well, the iTunes App Store has over 100,000 apps now, but let’s be honest, how many are actually any good, or useful? For the consumer that is in to the social media thing, they care about a good phone with email, calendar, IM, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Well, a quick look through the Android Market place, which is just a button on the Droid interface, and I found free apps for everything that I just listed and way more. Even found a really nice barcode reader (Shopsavvy) that scanned barcodes and told me where to find the item the cheapest online or near where I was. Location based services is the future baby.

Google has really done a great job with the operating system and Verizon has always been a pretty strong network. I found that the Droid was really quick on the internet using the Verizon EVDO (3G) network and the Droid was able to take advantage of the WiFi in my house for testing as well. I found that the battery life was a little lower than I would like, but some of that may because I can’t put the stupid thing down and I just keep playing with it. Since I have no need for the slide out keyboard I would really like to see an Android 2.0 based device with just an on screen keyboard. That would allow the device to be a little thinner as well. Again, most of you will probably like the slide out keyboard, but the keys were too flat for me – the on screen worked just fine.

So would I recommend the Droid to my friends? Well, let’s look at it like this – the Droid is not an iPhone – I am not going to switch. But, if you have wanted something like an iPhone that has tons of applications, decent sound, WiFi, a beautiful screen, free turn by turn navigation, a real keyboard, is fast, and it runs on the Verizon network – do it. If not the Droid then whatever comes next running Android 2.x. So, yes, I would recommend it to my friends that want to stay with Verizon.

Google is really going to shake up the mobile market. Setting up this phone, since I use gmail, could not have been easier. This should have most of the mobile OS providers more than a little worried. How can a Microsoft or a Nokia sustain their internal development when Google provides something this strong as an open source OS? Does anyone other than Android, Apple, and Blackberry survive?

Additional thoughts:

• One thing I was not able to resolve with the Droid that seemed so simple was that I could not sort my Contacts by last name, first name.  They were always first last.  I prefer them sorted by last name. -1 for Droid.
• The Droid has a removable battery. +1 Droid.
• You can expand the storage on the Droid.  It comes with a 16GB SD memory card but I believe you can use a 32GB card.  +1 Droid.
• Did I even mention the Droid multitasks?  I think this one should get a plus rating but I am sure the tradeoff has to be battery life, so this one will depend on how you choose to use your Droid, but since you at least have the choice I am going to give the Droid +1 here.
• I didn’t even mention the Droid’s default notification sound that goes “Drooooooiiiiiiid.”  I bet it could get old after a while, but I never grew tired of it.  No points for the cool sound though, sorry.
• This one is pure personal preference, but the Blackberry has always had one thing that I wished the iPhone had and now I see that the Droid has it – I wish the iPhone had a LED display somewhere that told you that there was a notification.  The Droid and the Blackberries have a little light in the upper right hand corner that flashes when you have a notification.  Pretty nice when you don’t have your phone with you every second.  The blinking light tells you that you missed something.  I always wanted Apple to “borrow” that one from the Blackberry.  Nice to see that the Droid has taken care of that.

Posted via email from blindsquirrel’s posterous

But lately even that isn’t taking care of it. I’ve tried rebuilding the mailbox that I use via imap with gmail but that only lasts for a short while. So until I get this one figured out Mail and I are on a break. I have turned to Microsoft Entourage and things seem to be fine. I know many really dislike Entourage, but I’ve had pretty good success with it in the past as I used to use it to connect to an Exchange2003 server with work.

Back to the internets to see if I can find the solution.