Recently in Deeper Look Category

I owned a Nokia n770 and a n800 long before the smartphone market went ballistic. Basically, the n770/n800 were tiny, underpowered PC's with an open source Linux OS customized with std nested menus, WiFi and a stylus. 

The n770/n800 had no phone, no keyboard and they were instantly relegated to my personal tech museum once the iPhone came along, they sit on the shelf right next to my Helio (another epic FAIL).  Neither the n770 or the n800 could make traditional calls, though the n800 did sport a webcam and a skype client over WiFi.  Ever try to roam over WiFi?

And while neither of the two Nokia's would hold its own next to an iPhone today, in a pre iPhone / netbook world (circa 2005-2007), they were "cool to have" geek toys, if Nokia only added a phone to them.  But adding a phone would have conflicted with the Nokia n95 and they could not allow anything to muddy the waters of the S60 based flagship Noika, the n95 (again, epic FAIL). 

Enough Nokia history, now we have the n900 and the sad news is, while the n900 now sports a Phone and is the most impressive Nokia ever, it is also just a test mule while Nokia ever increases it's position and exposure to the aging and weak Symbian S60 OS.

Nokia has never invested to much into the Linux platform and as stated by Nokia, the n900 is just another high end, early adopter, geek toy, and not a full out change in OS strategy and direction toward Linux, which IMHO the company desperately needs. I hate to be disappointed with such cool bit of kit, but n900 is just another in a long line of Linux test beds for Nokia, each one only slightly better than the last, as the company halfheartedly weighs its smartphone options, yet again.  So let's keep this in mind as I go further into the details of the n900.

This does not represent a new Nokia OS philosophy.
"This is just a test!"

The NPR radio show "This American Life" has an amazing segment called "Another Frightening Show About the Economy". It is all about the commercial paper market and credit default swaps and how THEY caused the economic meltdown. Just sit back and take the ride.

It is in plain English and well worth your time...  Click on "Continue reading" to load the podcast.

More app store drama... Looks like Apple is creating some developer frustration and flames with it's monopolistic control of the only sales channel for iPhone Apps.

The short of the story is an app (Podcaster) written by a third party developer (Almerica) allows users to download and listen to podcasts on the iPhone in real time was rejected by Apple for App Store listing on the basis that it was guilty of "alleged duplication of iTunes functionality", which is prohibited and part of the the Apple Developer rules.


So where's the drama?

I hate to be the iPhone fanboy this week, but it is so hard to hate something that is so damn sexy. And apparently gives good talk time, if you get my drift.

5 hour and 38 min to be exact.



People's biggest 3G iPhone complaint or at least main complaint has been battery life, but when compared to the rest of the pack (sans Nokia) it still is better, so why are people complaining so much?

Me? I think the rumor mill just got hold of this issue and now it has a life of it's own... The truth is the iPhone's battery life does sucks...but it is still better than all the others.

Relevant links:
Full story at PC world

When a grain of salt won't do it.

I love industry websites like fiercewireless.com and theregister.co.uk. They keep us up to date with the goings on across wide swaths of the telecom and technology industries. However, I am rarely impressed with the accompanying analysis of many tech bloggers/writers. It seems that more and more the tech media lacks the broad technical expertise required to see much past press releases and industry hype. Often, some products are so over hyped that they have credibility bestowed upon them that they have not earned (i.e.: WiMax).  In other instances, truly ground breaking and industry shifting products get labeled as over hyped, as is the case with the iPhone.

Walt Mossberg speaks up about Internet TV...
But who's listening?
Worth the 7mins.



As a person who has not owned a TV in over 5 years, partly cause I have an unusually negative physical reaction to both advertising and the 5 o'clock NEWS, but strangely, I enjoy NPR, HBO and PBS, go figure. Mossberg's comments on the idiocy of forcing users to watch irrelevant TV ads for product they will never purchase resonated deeply with me.