Roland Tanglao's Weblog

I love my iPhone (which I paid for with my own money and am still glad I did) because:

• it's beautiful and so is the interface
• the web browser is great, gmail and google reader work well
• the switching between WiFi and EDGE is seamless
• SMS interface is great, so it was great when I was out of Canada and didn't have access to affordable data and wanted to communicate with fellow SXSW attendees
• the voice call interface is great
  

I hate my iPhone because:

• the 2 mega pixel camera s*cks
• no video, i need video!!!!!!
• it's closed at the moment so there's no ShoZu, I need ShoZu! I am addicted to ShoZu's ability to post photos of the kid to my private flickr account and other pictures to my public flickr account

If the iPhone had a 5 megapixel camera and video and ShoZu was available for it, I'd switch in a heartbeat and use it all the time for everything. As it is the phone in my pocket is my N95-1 provided by the Nokia Blogger Relations program (thanks!) and the phone that i would buy with my money if I lost my iPhone and N95-1 would be one of the N95 North American versions.

Having said that I also have a love/hate relationship with my N95-1

I love my N95-1 because:

• It runs ShoZu which has literally changed my life. The ability to "photo-document" my life in real-time has been and continues to be amazing. And if ShoZu ever integrates with Twitter and gets Facebook status updating working, I'll never have to use SMS again when I am in Canada which would be no big loss since I am not a fan of SMS (or paying for messages, I just want to pay for the bandwidth I consume, SMS rates are a ripoff.)
• It runs Qik and similar 'live from the phone videocasting' apps. Qik, flixwagon et al are killer apps over WiFi and 3G!
• It's "open" (since you can only develop 1st class applications using Carbide which only runs on Windows and uses the archaic and silly C/C++ combo, it's not fully open in my book; the whole certificate model and the fact that the amazing hardware on great devices like the N93 is crippled by missing certificates for Python so you can't really access the full power from more modern and dynamic programming environments like Python means Python et al are second class citizens on S60)

I hate my N95-1 because:

1. S60 is not truly open (see the Python problems mentioned above). Hoping for a re-focus around a Linux core e.g. using Maemo from the N770, N800 and N810 Internet tablets.
2. S60 is clunky, hard to use and a maze of twisty little menus and apps are constantly moved around each firmware release. I have taught many people who just got their S60 phones how to use their devices. you don't have to do that with an iPhone which while not perfect is much, much easier to use.
3. It doesn't have enough RAM so ShoZu occasionally hangs and a reboot is required (granted this has become a lot better in the latest N95 firmware updates thank goodness!)
4. The display is too small. As big as the iPhone or VGA please!

I am not a big fan of keyboards on mobile devices (nor mobile email, i get enough email (hundreds/day like everybody else!), if you want to reach me, SMS me or call me) but if the keyboard is easy to use and doesn't make the N800 successor too thick (I like the N800 form factor), I might actually like it!

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Remember the photo above from Engadget? Click that link for more of them. Well - there's now a VERY good chance that it could be an early prototype of the third Internet Tablet. So this whole post was probably wrong.

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Apple tablet is coming if not today, soon since the iPhone (bonus relevant analysis: before iPhone and after iPhone) is just a wee tablet that has call processing (to use a Nortel/Bellhead-ism and to all the doubters Apple has done everything that the iPhone does before except call processing which is not trivial and GSM/EDGE/3G which I have to concede is even less trivial). Looking forward to the next installment of the Apple soap opera ... er keynote :-) in 1.5 hours!

FROM 12" Macbook Pro...with touchscreen keyboard | B.Mann Consulting:

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Update: I found a link to a "leaked" outline for the WWDC keynote tomorrow -- talking about a 10" iPhone at Home...which is pretty close to the "tablet / non computer" that I've been thinking Apple would launch for quite some time.

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Got my free trial Nokia N800 from Nokia Blogger Relations on Thursday (thanks Nokia and Andy). Haven't had much time for fun video, voice and other N800 geekery yet (fun with the Canucks in the playoffs, work and family has taken up too much time :-) !). Have to install new update to the N800 operating system and have bought two 2 GB SD cards to store music and my experiments. Looking forward to video GTalking (rolandt AT gmail.com) with you all (I'll finally be able to see Ken Camp!).

First impressions:

1. Have had one spontaneous reboot already of the N800 (I thought this only happened with S60). Hope this is fixed in latest N800 update.
2. The built in Opera web browser is fabulous!
3. The automatic WiFi detector works great!