Monthly Archives: November 2007

So, What About the Google Phone?

Like most people I read the Google Open Handset Alliance reports with great interest (here’s MSNBC’s report if you haven’t read any of the reports yet). At the end of the day (quite literally in the case of writing this blog item), what’s the deal?

First, no handsets will be available until the 2nd half of 2008. In Internet time, that is forever. The Symbian and maybe UIQ based phones will probably have some kind of response by then. Palm OS seems mired in development issues. And, Windows Mobile shows no signs of evolving much past where it was when the Pocket PC 2002 came out. Apple, of course, is the possible spoiler. But, um, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt sits on Apple’s board. I wonder if…

(Second) this is the reason the Google based phones will not be available for essentially another year and they have not signed up AT&T Wireless (which has the exclusive to the Apple iPhone). US mobile service providers Sprint (#3 in the US) and T-Mobile (#4 in the US) signed up. But, Verizon Wireless (#2 in the US and with a history for turning off features such as Bluetooth file copy and Bluetooth shared modem) has not signed but is said to be in talks.

Third, Google’s strategy will probably assume an always connected model. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile has an excellent client software model. But, they too are focusing on model that assumes you are always connected (read my earlier rant on this topic at: Windows Mobile Focusing on Windows Live). Some of us (a lot of us? most of us?) spend part of the time either completely out of mobile carrier signal range or in poor data quality situations. For those of us in that situation, always connected is not part of our reality. Client resident software is a good thing.

Fourth, T-Mobile is limited to relatively slow (but cheap!) EDGE wireless data. Sprint PCS has the faster EVDO available and has, I guess, some kind of WiMax plan. Unfortunately, they appear to have customer retention and net income issues (see this RCR Wireless News article).

Fifth, it is very interesting that HTC signed on as a handset manufacturer. This was no secret of course. But, HTC has been (as far as I know) producing only Windows Mobile based phones up until now. And, IMHO, they are pretty much responsible for most of the innovation we have seen in the Windows Mobile space in the past few years. It will be interesting to see what the combination of their hardware design skills and Google’s software design skills creates. More importantly, will HTC’s top engineers be moved from Windows Mobile hardware projects to the Google phone project? This might mean a drop in innovation for the Windows Mobile space.

Sixth, the presumed low price (Google is providing their phone software for free) of the new phones combined with their presumed coolness factor should make life miserable for Microsoft, Nokia, and Sony-Ericsson in the consumer space. The enterprise space is if-fy if you assume that Google’s phone must tie into Microsoft Exchange Server and IBM’s Lotus Notes to make inroads to the enterprise space.

Seventh, and finally, although the Google phone does not appear to have the closed-system Apple iPhone issue (at least for now), it remains to be seen how much innovation we’ll see from third party developers. It’ll be interesting to see which developers get seeded with prototype phones.

iPhone Yahoo Pipes

I’m constantly amazed by how enthusiastically websites are adapting to the relatively new iPhone browser. The latest one that caught my attention is the iPhone tuned site for Yahoo! Pipes.

iphone.pipes.yahoo.com: Access your mashup while mobile

As the announcement’s title says, you can find it at…

iphone.pipes.yahoo.com

I just tried it using my iPod touch and it worked fine on that too (as expected). The one tiny gotcha is that the login screen is the conventional non-iPhone formatted web page. Fortunately, the Safari browser deals with it just fine. You are thrown back to an iPhone/touch friendly view after the login process is complete.

Back to Basics: Jumping Bluetooth Com Ports

One of the two RAM DIMM sticks in my main PC went bad last week. So, I had to unplug the cables from the back, take the case cover off, replace the bad DIMM (lucky to have guessed on the first try which of the two DIMMs was bad), replace the cover, and plug all the cables back in. Simple, right? One would think so. But, not really.

My Bluetooth USB dongle is on a USB hub. When I plugged the hub and other USB cables back in, I didn’t plug them back in to the same USB ports they were in before I took the PC’s case cover off. After I turned on the now repaired PC, I tried to Sync my Windows Mobile smartphone over Bluetooth. Didn’t work. When, I checked ActiveSync, it showed grayed out options. A bit of digging around revealed that the pseudo COM port Windows XP assigned to the Bluetooth dongle had jumped from COM4 to COM6. A bit of fiddling around fixed this and got things working as expected.

So, if you need to pull cables from your PC, be sure to note which physical port the Bluetooth dongle is assigned to. FYI: This is an issue for the USB sync cable too. Although it does not suffer from the jumping pseudo COM port issue, Windows will not recognize your Windows Mobile device hardware and will have to re-recognize it. This should not require any intervention on your part. But, it does take a bit of time and may be anxiety causing the first time you see this. This has been like this for years. So, I don’t expect it to change anything soon.

Mailbag Q&A/Back to Basics: ActiveSync and Bluetooth

Having used Windows Mobile devices since 1997 when the Handheld PCs running Windows CE (still the core engine underneath the Windows Mobile shell) had been out for just a few months, I sometimes forget that things that seem obvious to Windows Mobile enthusiasts may not be obvious to other people. So, I’ll pontificate 🙂 talk about some real basic type topics here now and then to try to help people who haven’t spent the past decade playing with these things.

Back in May I posted a short video to YouTube titled T-Mobile Dash WM6 Bluetooth ActiveSync demonstrating syncing with my PC using BT. I received an email from viewer ZTT asking:

hello, so on active sync you just have to turn bluetooth on and how does it connect to the computer? does the computer have to be bluetooth??

Oy! Good question. Microsoft ActiveSync and Bluetooth (BT) are two of the most problematic basic tech items I know of. They shouldn’t be. But, they are.

First, yes, your desktop or notebook computer must have a Bluetooth radio in order to sync with a Windows Mobile device over Bluetooth. Unlike Apple Macs (which all have BT these days), very few desktop and notebook Windows PCs come with an intergrated Bluetooth radio. Some notebooks have the option have adding an integrated BT radio at the time of purchase. If your Windows PC does not have BT, BT dongles are fairly inexpensive these days.

You need to partner your Windows Mobile device with the PC using a USB cable the first time. If all goes well, you should be able to configure ActiveSync and the WiMo device to sync over BT. I have an earlier blog entry that details this process. It can be found at…

Tips for ActiveSync With Bluetooth