- Sometimes I really want to listen to a specific song. Maybe I heard it on a commercial or from a movie or something. Or just in the mood for music from one particular artist. Pandora doesn’t give you this level of control. You could buy the song from iTunes or Amazon. But half the time I have songs I really like for a short period of time, and then sort of move on.

- There are still cases where you can’t stream. Even with near ubiquitous 3G, and lots of WiFi hot spots. On a plane for example, or at some ski areas here, there is no cell service. Or camping, backpacking, etc. Also, I don’t mind my iPod getting a bit beat up if im biking, or whatever. Or running down the batt with music. I’m much more careful of my phone, so that limits my use as my iPod only has WiFi.

So I have rhapsody as it solves both problems, sort of. I can listen to whatever I want on my computer or ipod or ipad, streaming. Or I can fill certain devices with offline downloads. So I have a little cheap MP3 player for that situation. Not the best solution.

Enter the new Rhapsody mobile apps. You can DOWNLOAD to your device now, over the air. No plug in syncing. Just select whatever paylist(s) you want and hit download. Boom, offline listening! This is so great. I can load up my iPad with whatever music I feel like that day and can listen on a flight or wherever without having to find WiFi.

The apps are free, and you just need a $10 a month subscription (for 1 device) or $15 a month (for 3 devices). Doing the math, if I bought 15 $1 songs each month, I would need about 40 months to buy just what I have on my iPad right now. Thats almost 4 years. I think its  pretty good deal.

The only bummer is the Android app doesn’t support this yet, just the iDevice apps.

However, the last few weeks I have been trying to solve a technology problem and an coming to realize the iPad just might fit the bill. I switched companies a couple weeks ago and the IT setup is very different. My old company had an external WiFi network that was outside the corporate LAN, and streaming, video watching, etc, was fine. So, I took my laptop to my office and had access to Pandora, Rhapsody, Hulu, etc. My new company’s IT policy is much more strict and prohibits streaming via the company network and there is no public WiFi.

Like most people I need to be entertained while I write code, so I have been trying to come up with a better solution. Aside from streaming music, I listen to podcasts. So I have been using Pandora/Rhapsody on my Android and then have my iPod for podcasts and other media that I own. But this isn’t all that great… I dont like running music on my phone all day as it seriously hurts the battery, and I’m still using 2 devices.

Side note on why 2 devices – lets face it, iTunes is still king of media programs. The podcasting setup is great… and movie purchase/rental is nice as well. The Zune desktop app comes close, but Zune isn’t an option for my current situation as there is no 3G (yet). And Android podcasting is pretty basic.. with no good desktop app for syncing.

So, I went the netbook route and looked at 3G cards. ATT and VZ offer a 5GB/mo plan for $60, with hefty fees if you go over. Cricket offers a no contract “unlimited” plan for $40 a month. Unlimited in that you can go over 5GB, but they will throttle your bandwidth.

With a 2 year contract I can get a netbook from either ATT or VZ for $50-$200 depending on specs. This works out to be (60*24)+200 = $1640 for the two years. Cricket would be less per month, but you have to buy a netbook at full price, so its about a wash.

The problem is, 5GB wont last long spread over a month with lots of music and some vid use. Plus, the majority of netbooks I tried were just blah. Screens weren’t that nice, etc. There is a Sony with a high res screen that is very nice, but it is about $550 and isn’t carried by ATT or VZ. So that puts you at close to $2000 for a two year contract. Thats a lot just to play pandora…

Enter the iPad. I have all my music and podcasts on one device. I can rent movies, I can play silly games.. and use not so silly apps. The battery should be pretty good… and the web surfing experience will be way better than any phone… and I would bet better than the netbooks (except for the lack of Flash). Add to this the $30 a month true unlimited ATT data plan with *NO* contract! You literally can sign up and cancel service at any time from the iPad itself. No need to go to an ATT store even. This is really.

So, the base 3G model with two years of data comes to (30*24) + 630 = 1350. So not only are we cheaper than a normal netbook (and much cheaper than a good netbook) setup, we aren’t limited to 5GB. Plus, I can turn off the data any month that I dont need it, or want to save some cash.

The bottom line is, while I still think some things about iPad are stupid (no flash, no multitasking), it really does solve my current problem quite well and for less money.

Techcrunch

Steve Frank

And now the FCC is asking questions about the Apple rejection of all Google Voice related app. Interesting.

All I know is I’m happy enough with my Android phone and the ability to have a pretty open platform. And I always have my iPod Touch if I really want to try out some of the cooler apps…

Plus, they have the Guru Bar (shameless knockoff of Apple’s Genius Bar). But what will happen here? If you have a Dell laptop with Windows Vista will they help you? That would be something pretty cool..

Oh and lets not forget the Zune HD.. I suppose those will be out in force. Maybe it is a precursor to a Zune Phone…. hmm.

Apple has made some really odd choices with regard to apps and such. I don’t get it.

Latitude is kind of a cool option for maps. It’s most useful if you are out on the town and you can see where are your “peeps” are at. Well provided they are all on an Android device. The reason why Latitude is pointless on iPhone is that it can’t run in the background, so unless all your friends are walking around with their iPhones locked in map mode, you wont get any updates.

At least with Android I can run it in the background if I want/need to.

Here was the deal.. I had an iPod Touch that I was using at work and the gym and all that. It was great for listening to music, pandora, and the slingbox app is killer. I have wifi at work, and my gym as free wifi as well, so I was pretty much set. Oh and I bought the Myst game port because thats just awesome. And then I used my Android for calls and email and all.

Well I was thinking, the Touch cost me $220 and I could just get an iPhone 3GS for $199. The plans were about the same cost, and I figured I could sell my G1 on CraigsList and try to cover most of my contract break fee.

So its been about half a day with the new iPhone and I have to say I’m not completely happy. The apps are great, and I have my pandora and Myst and all that. But I think the big surprise for me is how much it feels like the iPhone is sub par on the messaging and communications aspects than Android. Obviously there is no comparison with the quality and variety of the apps on iPhone, but here are the reasons why I think Android wins for Email/IM/Texting.

1) Exchange. My office mail is exchange and Android does not have native support. However, for $25 there is a very nice app (Moxier Mail) that is active sync capable for push and what not. Its just about as pretty as the iPhone mail app too.

2) PUSH gmail. I didnt think about this much until I started not getting gmail on the iPhone as often as my laptop would notify me that a mail was ready. On Android Gmail notification is faster than having Gmail open on your laptop. On the iPhone the only option is polling, and the shortest interval is 15min. And then you have to worry about batt life if you are goign out and polling Gmail that often all day.

3) IM on Android is great. There is a native gChat app and a native IM app that supports AIM, Yahoo, and Windows Live. The iPhone has no native IM app but there are a few in the app store obviously. The real problem is that none of them can run in the background. There is a free app that will keep you connected when you shut down the app on the phone, and it will send you an email notification when you get a message. but here is the problem with that… I can only poll my gmail account every 15min, so that makes for a lousy IM conversation if I have to wait some amount of time between 0 and 15min to get the next msg. I could use my work address and then have the notification pushed to my phone, but then I’m sending tons of mail through my work address all the time. Abnd then when I open up the mail app I might have a bunch of random emails to delete from notifications. That doesnt sound great. Of course when the Apple Notification enabled IM apps are out things should get better as you get a push notify and can just go open the app. Although even in that case, you have to re-open the app, wait for it to launch, and then wait for it to connect and all that. On Android I dont even have to open the chat program to view the message. An icon appears in the notification area, and I can slide the notification tray open and read the message, and if I click it it opens the IM app and I could respond. I like this method a LOT better.

4) Gmail acts in interesting ways on iPhone. When I compose a new message and start typing a name, the phone doesn’t seem to be aware of my Gmail contacts, it does however give me options from my work Exchange account. This seems really weird. Why would I want to send a mail to a work contact from my non-work email account? Shouldnt the mail app know which account I’m composing from? We have about 15000 employees plus many more mailing lists, and each conference room in every office in the world has an email address. When I started typing my friends name, the suggestion window showed a list of conference rooms as the only suggestions. Android on the other hand is aware of my Gmail contacts and when I start typing “Ma” it suggests “Markis”. This is nice. Also, the iPhone mail app does not group Gmail into conversations like the Gmail web app (which is such a nice feature). The Android Gmail app does. My mail looks exactly the same on the web client or the phone app.

5) Widgets. These are new in Android 1.5. I only use a couple, but I found myself missing them quickly. Widgets are little apps that run directly on your home screen and can do things when clicked or just display info. For example on my main home screen I have a calendar widget that displays the next meeting I have upcoming, the time and the location. If I click the widget it launches the calendar. On another screen I have the google widget. It has a box where I can type a search and then a browser window will come up. And finally I have a weather widget. Its small (the size of 2 iPhone app icons in a row) and it just sits on my home screen and shows me the current conditions.

Also, I have widgets that enable/disable WiFi and Bluetooth. This is super nice. When I’m not at work or the gym or home I dont need WiFi enabled and looking for networks. I can click the widget and turn WiFi off. This is a several click procedure on the iPhone. Ditto for Bluetooth.

6) Also, generally the iPhone OS feels more “dead” than Android. In Android notifications pop up, I can move though programs and swtich between things. On the iPhone, I do one thing with one app… hit the home button to close and then go do something else. Android has this concept of application stacks. If I’m working in one app, and I open another for whatever reason, a message comes in or an email, when I hit the back button the top app screen slides off and I’m back at the last app I was working with.

And then on top of that, I don’t like how some apps have their settings located in the main settings app. For example, weather bug. If I go to settings and scroll down there are the options for configuring it. But I can’t get to the settings when I’m in the app. So if I want to change from F to C temperatures, I have to close the app, go find settings, scroll around, change stuff, go back to the home screen and then launch weather bug again. Urbanspoon, snaptell, and others do this as well. I find it odd.

So here is my great dilemma for the evening. What do I do? The iPhone is vastly superior in the areas of music, games, and nifty apps. But Android is superior in how it handles email, IM, and other communictions.

My thought right now is that I think I would prefer better communication on my phone, and would use the games and nifty apps more when I’m not driving or out running around town. So I;m coming back to the 2 device solution as the winner for me right now. I have the iPod touch at the office so I can listen to music, watch slingbox, etc etc when im in the lab, and then have my G1 for calls and email.

Obviously this isnt an idea solution, and I wish it could be fixed. Apple needs to revamp the look and feel of the iPhone soon or more people might catch on to how out of date it seems to feel compared to Android or Palm’s WebOS. For example, the way icons are arranged on the iPhone is limited. They are in a grid and you can just move them around, but they auto fill up and to the left… Android is also a grid style layout, but I can put any icon anywhere and have blank spaces wherever I want. AND I dont have to have all my app icons out on my home screens. There is a tray tab at the bottom that you can pull up to show all icons and all apps installed. I can drag any that I want to my home screens if I want faster access. This makes even more sense when you can actually have a background image that you see for more than the 3.5 seconds it takes to unlock the iPhone. The black background needs to go…

I actually like the Palm Pre way of doing things even more. You have a task bar along the bottom, and then can open a tray in an Android fashion to apps you dont have in the task bar. And you get a nice clean desktop… and if you have any apps open, they appear as cards that you can swipe between or close. This is one area Android needs to add – an easy way to kill apps, not having to wait for the garbage collection system to kill it off to recover resources. UPDATE: I got a demo Pre from a Sprint store today and used it for about 30min. While it is an impressive device and has a lot going for it, I still prefer Android for now. Mainly because of the lack of apps, but also, the version 1 software seems to be a bit slow. Even though the Pre has the same Cortex CPU as the new 3GS, the system hesitates when launching apps and that was annoying. Also, after 30 min of email, txt, and web surfing I can’t say I’m a big fan of the keyboard, its just a bit too cramped, and there is no option to use a soft keyboard. Although, given how small the device is an on screen keyboard may not work well at all. So, for now, in my book Android is still the winner.

Oh, and one point about the screens between the two devices. I think the iPhone has a slightly better screen, but it look more pixelated due to being the same resolution, but larger physically. Its hard to say if I have a preference. I guess the G1 looks a bit smoother, but the iPhone seems to be a bit brighter and just looks better for some reason (except the pixels).

Another thing about Android are the context menus. Hold your finger down over an item or icon or the background of the home screen and a menu will appear with options. This makes it easy to do quite a few thigns.. and I found myself missing them on the iPhone.

For example, in Android, if I click and hold on a mail item or IM convo or txt message thread, a menu pops up and I can delete the thread. On the iPhone I have to click “edit” and then click the little red icon thing next to the thread and then a delete button appears on the other side and then I click that.

Or, if I’m viewing a txt thread, on the iPhone I have to scroll all the way to the top of the convo to find the “call” button. On Android, I just click and hold any message in the thread from the other person and a menu pops up and I can click call.

If I want to change my background image on my home screen, I just click and hold on the background and a menu pops up with options… one of them is change background. On the iPhone I have to find the settings app icon and launch that then select background.

Right now I’m leaning towards going back to my 2 device solution tomorrow and just deal with the fact that the iPhone doesnt cut it in terms of notifications, IM and email, but it rocks for fun apps and media. And reactivate my G1 so I can have the goodness that is Android for communications.

1080p or 1920 x 1080 (progressive)
1080i or 1920 x 1080 (interlaced, which means only have the picture is displayed at a time)
720p or 1280 x 720
480i/p or 640 x 480 in 4:3 mode or 854 x 480 in 16:9

Anything less than 720p and you really can’t call it HD, it is just “enhanced definition” TV.

Here is a handy chart showing the various resolutions in comparison (taken from Wikipedia).

I pulled some screenshots from my iMac playing back an episode of the office. Here is a comparison between the standard definition and the high definition versions of the same scene. The first shot is the standard definition, and the second is the high definition. Click the thumbnail to view the full-size image.

If you look in iTunes at the info for “The Office” video files, it is reporting that the resolution of the “Standard Definition” version is 853 x 480 (or 480p) and that the resolution of the “High Definition” version is 1280 x 720 (or 720p). You can see some improvement, specifically around the text on the milk carton, but I don’t really see enough to justify the extra $1.00 per episode.

I’d really have liked to see Apple step up and offer content in 1080p. If they are going to lure me away from my DirecTV service and my DVR, they need to offer me something more compelling. I already get my shows in 1080i and will be getting them soon in 1080p form DirecTV. If they had come out and started offering 1080p content I would be buying all my TV shows from iTunes. As it is I can get higher resolution content for an arguably cheaper price from DirecTV service. Until they can get the massive amount of content, all available in 1080i or greater, I think I’ll stick to my current solution.

The big features of the 3.0 software that everyone is talking about are:

– Copy/Paste
I have this on Android, and most other smart phones do this. Pure catch up

– Landscape keyboard
Really? Only just now getting this?

– Type new messages while the old is still sending
This is a feature? I can do this on Android, or better yet, type a message, send it, go do something else, and still have my streaming music player open in the background.

– Spotlight search
This is very cool, and a nice addition

– YouTube video upload
Android, Pre, etc can do this already.

– Turn by Turn nav
Nice, but Pre had it out of the box, most all Verizon phones have this as well.

– MMS*
Welcome to the 21st century iPhone! Oh wait ATT still doesnt support this…

– Notifications
Nifty I guess, but my Android phone notifies me all the time, and Androids notification system is far better. More on this later

And the new 3GS hardware itself has some new toys:

– Compass
Ok, I have this on Android and I rarely use it, I wouldnt switch phones for this

– Video recording
Again, this is not new and somethign that should have been there a long time ago.

– Tethering
ATT is killing this, so no point in upgrading for it. T-Mobile wont let Android either. VZ lets you, and its pretty fast too.

– Voice control
Could be interesting, I would have to see how it actaully works in practice. I can do voice google searches already on my Android, but I rarely use it.

– Better battery
This would be by far the best part of the new HW. If the batt is much better a lot of people will be happy.

– Faster processor. This is the new Cortex chip, so should be a nice speed improvement. But the Pre has this chip too… and the Toshiba G01 has a Snapdragon that will toast anything else… so not a wild technology leap, but still a good upgrade.

Notifications were one of the biggest things hyped about the new 3.0 software. This is Apples answer to the cries for multitasking. But this still won’t matter. For example, say I have a notifications enabled IM app, and then I go off and open Pandora and listen to some tunes. I get an IM and I get “notified” however that happens to look on the phone’s UI. If I switch to the IM app, I still have to kill pandora and my music goes away.

Now, lets look at this scenario on Android. I’m playing music on fast.fm. I get an IM on gChat. It pops up in the notifications area and I can simple slide the notifcations bar down, read the message and be done. Or, I can click on it and gChat opens and I can respond. And guess what? My streaming music is still playing!

In the end, I this won’t stop the complaints about no multitaksing, it will just finally make some things actually work ok on the phone – IM clients and the like.

So for me, while I love the physical design of the phone, and the interface is so nice and polished, I just don’t see how I could upgrade and lose out on things I do the most – IM and txting, and being able to do those things while I have whatever else I want running at the same time. Oh ya, and ATT still has a sucky network…

First, the specs lifted from zune.net:

• Zune HD comes with a built-in HD Radio receiver so users can listen to higher-quality sound than traditional radio on the go. Users also will have access to the additional song and artist data broadcast by HD Radio stations as well as additional channels from their favorite stations multicasting in HD. If you don’t like the song playing on your station’s HD channel, switch to its HD2 or HD3 channels for additional programming.
• The bright OLED touch screen interface allows users to flip through music, movies and other content with ease, and the 16:9 widescreen format display (480×272 resolution) offers a premium viewing experience on the go.
• The HD-compatible output lets Zune HD customers playback supported HD video files from the device through a premium high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) audiovisual docking station (sold separately) direct to an HD TV in 720p.*
• Zune HD will include a full-screen Internet browser optimized for multitouch functionality.
• Zune HD is Wi-Fi enabled, allowing for instant streaming to the device from the more than 5 million-track Zune music store.

First, the screen resolution is slightly less than the Touch. How much that matters, not sure. We’ll have to see. But it is OLED, so that should be very nice.

A built-in HD radio is pure awesome. This is something I wish my Touch had – a radio of any kind. Granted with I Heart Radio I can listen to any of the stations here in Denver that I care about, but its not HD and I have to have WiFi for it to work. Score 1 for Zune.

HDMI hi def output! This is killer as well. I download a video from somehwere… I take my Zune to my friends house… hook it up to the flat panel and bam, movie night. Or maybe a slide show of my favorite vacation pics. Score 2 for Zune.

Full screen internet browsing and WiFi. Nice. And then they say “multitouch”… and all the Apple lawyers start salivating. First Palm and now Microsoft. It will be interesting to see how the Apple patents hold up. This is a good feature, but nothing new over the Touch.

Streaming of music from the Zune store is cool too. But since you can get a SUBSCRIPTION to the Zune store, this is even cooler. I could listen and refill my Zune as much as I want, over WiFi.. or stream anything. This model is very much needed with iTunes.

But the biggest question… will there be any sort of “apps” at all. I mean music and such is nice… but if I can’t play Oregon Trail like you can on the Touch, then whats the point?

A few interesting points about this. The storage capacity is the base amount (or with the Pre the only amount). The G1 looks bad, but then again, it has a micro SD slot so you can put whatever you want in there.

Battery life for the G1 looks bad as well, but this is very different from other data (see last post) where standby was over 300hrs. However, as a G1 owner, I can say that standby time is not stellar, and I don’t think its really 300hrs.

Voice commands are interesting. The new Android 1.5 software has Google voice search. Which is interesting I guess, but most of the time I’m using my cell, its not ideal conditions for voice commands.

The app store should have listed an approximate number of apps available. Obvious the Apple App Store is the huge winner. Android Market isn’t bad, several thousand apps now. The Palm Catalog is new and has less than 20 apps, but we should give it a few months before passing judgement.

Multitasking is slightly misleading on the iPhone 3GS. The new 3.0 software has “notifications” so things like IM can “run” in the background. Or at least you could stay logged in and be notified when a new message comes in. Of course this isn’t real multitasking. And there is no way (that I have seen) to let 3rd party apps hook various system features. Android is great at this.

Finally, the thing that hurts the iPhone most in this chart is the service plan. ATT is more expensive than plans from T-Mobile or Sprint. I shopped plans myself, and I do a lot of txting and data, but don’t need a lot of minutes. Sprint ended up being cheapest – about $55 a month plus their free night minutes start at 7pm! T-mobile (my current carrier) was next cheapest at about $70. The win with them is the “My Favs”. I get unlimited calling any time to any three numbers. I use the Phonalyzr app to keep track of who most of my minutes go to, and set them as my favs. I have never gone over my minutes. ATT is fairly expensive by comparison. $20 extra just for unlimited messaging! My $25 unlimited data plan from T-Mobile includes unlimited SMS and MMS.

Bottom line from this graphic is the iPhone still has the edge in a apps and storage. But carrier selection hurts and still no true multitasking is a bummer. However, if the notifications service works well, that might be good enough for most people.