PocketPCHow2 Log

Saturday, April 26, 2003

This morning's newspaper provides a reminder of just how far Pocket PCs have come. Actually, it was this Meijers ad. Look closely in the lower left-hand corner of the screen, you will see a Compaq iPAQ 3835. It's on sale at Meijers for $449.97. Why is this a big deal? Meijers is not a computer store. At this store you can buy an iPAQ along with some underwear and a six-pack of beer. It's basically equivalent to a Walmart super store, and they are big in the Michigan area. AFAIK this is the first time I have seen a Pocket PC being sold at a general consumer store akin to a Kmart or Target.

While it's cool to see an iPAQ being sold at a general consumer store, I don't really understand why. Obviously, HP must be clearing inventory and provided Meijer with an enticing margin. The iPAQ may be only one of a few products for sale by this chain that costs more than $450. Nobody is going to go to a Meijer to buy an iPAQ, particularly at the $450 price, when I am sure I can buy a 3835 for much less on the Internet, if not at a local Best Buy or CompUSA. So, I am figuring the $449 price is a starting point that right now probably represents a 100% (or more) markup. If Meijers actually sells a device at that price, it's pure gravy. I bet each store has one or two at most. If they sell one at $449 they probably cover their cost for the whole lot for the store. What I expect to see is the prices coming down, so I wouldn't be surprised to see a Meijers ad a month from now selling these same Pocket PCs for $300 or $200.

My wife did some shopping this afternoon and confirmed that she saw the iPAQs, albeit behind a glass case. An interesting personal note, this particular Meijers my wife was in near our house also sold copies of the first edition of my book. I had no idea why they were selling the book other than perhaps the name of the city we live in was flagged by their purchasers. Of course, I have no idea whether they ever sold any books, though I think my wife bought a copy just for grins. Of course, now that they are selling iPAQs I think they should go and buy a ton of my books to sell!
posted by Frank McPherson 7:32 PM | link

Bryce makes it sound like I am dumping my T-Mobile Pocket PC Phone. Nope. I am trying out the SmartPhone, but so far I haven't found a very compelling reason to permanently park my SIM in it. And you know, the SmartPhone is about two-thirds the size of the T-Mobile Pocket PC, so it's not like it is so incredibly small that it will be significantly easier to carry around.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:48 AM | link

Mobile gadget guru Arne Hess is thinking out loud about what is the best device/solution for him. He concludes that there is no one perfect device for him. After using the SmartPhone for just one day I pretty much feel it can't replace my Pocket PCs. The main reasons is the difficulty of inputting data and the shortcomings of Inbox. If I can't read HTML mail, either in text or HTML form, on a SmartPhone then it really isn't useful to me because as much as I wish it were not, the majority of email I receive today are in HTML thanks to the default format of Outlook. If the SmartPhone had a Bluetooth radio that would make it better because I would use a Pocket PC for reading email, but right now my SmartPhone doesn't have Bluetooth so that rules that out.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:45 AM | link

Friday, April 25, 2003

A 128 MB iPAQ. Drool!
posted by Frank McPherson 11:29 PM | link

Yesterday I received the Microsoft SmartPhone Developer Kit, which includes the Compal SmartPhone from Everlink Wireless. The kit includes a dummy SIM that enables you to turn the phone on, but it also works with my T-Mobile SIM. I've only played with for a bittle over a day now, and I think it is going to take me a while to conclude whether this is something that could work for me as my full-time phone.

Let me start with what I like so far. I am really, really impressed with Internet Explorer. Considering how tiny the screen is, web pages are fairly legible. For example, my Pocket PC tips site renders very nicely on the phone. I mean its readable, and so are other pages. I wasn't expecting to really be able to read much on the tiny screen, but I am surprised.

I also like that since the phone stays on, Inbox can be configured to automatically check email at set time intervals. Pocket PC Phone Edition cannot do that because once the device turns off, which you want it to do to save battery life, the GPRS connection is cut, and Inbox doesn't have the ability to wake up the device to actually connect to the network and retrieve email. I work around this on my PPE by using SMS alerts which come across when I receive an email from someone on my whitelist.

Unfortunately, Inbox on the SmartPhone is not as good as it could be. Today I received a couple of emails that weren't spam but where in HTML, and Inbox couldnt' handle it. Instead I get some message about the message being in an invalid MIME format. Another thing I dont' understand is why Inbox doesn't have an easy way to remove all mail on the device. Clearly noone is going to use this phone as their main mail machine, so there is going to be copies of that mail somewhere else. So, wouldn't you want to just clear everthing out? Nope, no menu option that I could find.

I am also surprised that the SmartPhone doesn't have an equivalent to tap-and-hold. I believe all SmartPhones will come with navigation buttons or joy sticks (the Compal has a joy stick) and I keep wanting to press and hold the stick to pop up a menu. Pressing the stick is equivalent to pressing ENTER.

One final thing that I noticed has to do with Tasks. Basically, there is no horizontal scroll, so if you have a task item that doesn't fit in the width of the phone's screen, you aren't going to see it all. There is no summary view that I could find; pressing the joy stick checks the item off. If there is a way to see all of a task I haven't figured it out. I will be surprised if there isn't a way to see all of a task.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:22 PM | link

If you want to turn a Pocket PC into a phone, here are the different pieces and parts that you can use to build a phone:

• Convergent Technology sells a Compact Flash GSM/GPRS card.


• The Sierra Wireless AirCard 550 PC Card works on the Sprint PCS network


• The Sierra Wireless AirCard 555 PC Card works with Verizon, Cellular One, Bell Mobility and Telus in Canada.


• The Sierra Wireless AirCard 710 PC Card works with AT&T Wireless. The AirCard 750 works with AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile, and Rogers.


• Novatel Wireless' Merlin G301 works on GSM/GPRS networks. The Merlin G201 works on GSM/GPRS networks in Europe, the Merlin G100 network works on GSM networks in North America. Versions of the G100 are sold under brands from AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile, and Fido-Microcell.


• The Sprint PCS Connection Card CF2031 is a CompactFlash card that works on the Sprint PCS network

Thursday, April 24, 2003

The e-book version of How To Do Everything With Your Pocket PC, 2nd Edition is now available at Amazon. Unfortunately, it is only in the Adobe E-Book Reader format and is not viewable on Pocket PCs or Macs. My publisher, Osborne/McGraw-Hill, makes the decisions on the ebook formats and availability.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:53 AM | link

I think Mobitopia encapsulates the personal value of camera phones. To increase this to social value add a weblog and do some moblogging. Of course, this presents a conflict because as more people see the value of camera phones and thus want them, they will find it difficult to carry around everywhere as businesses grow concerned about security and people grow concerned about privacy.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:50 AM | link

The two leading GSM/GPRS providers in the United States, T-Mobile and AT&T Wireless, have announced a joint roaming agreement allowing users to roam on either network. The big winner here are AT&T Wireless customers who will gain greatly expanded coverage.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:27 AM | link

Wednesday, April 23, 2003

The T-Mobile Pocket PC has been my main PDA and mobile phone for something like six months, and while it does everything I could hope for, I am beginning to desire something new. Mind you, this is more about geek lust than any deficiency in the T-Mobile, as the T-Mobile is more than good enough for the majority of my needs, but there are a few things I wish it had:

• More memory. The 32 MB of built-in RAM is just not enough for installing all the apps I tend to play with and keep the Pocket PC running smoothly. I install just about every app to the Storage Card, but some apps don't run off cards, and frankly, it can be a pain when you want to swap cards. Fonix can be particularly annoying, but it just has to go on a card because it is so large. Any new Pocket PC I buy going forward must have 64 MB of RAM, and I would love even more.


• An SDIO slot. The T-Mobile is very limited in expandability because it doesn't have an SDIO slot. I can't add Bluetooth or WiFI, both which I want to use more. I can cover this deficiency by using another Pocket PC, but that means I then carry two Pocket PCs, which stupid.
  
  
• A side jog wheel. Navigating eBooks on the T-Mobile is just not simple enough due to the fact that it doesn't have a jog wheel. Again, since this doesn't exist I find myself reaching for my Toshiba E740.
  
  

If you are hooked on weblogs and want to see who has the latest posts, here is a site that provides links to updated weblogs every minute and it formats nice on Pocket PCs.
posted by Frank McPherson 11:12 AM | link

Wikipedia is an open content encyclopedia that is multilingual and freely accessible on the web. The English version contains more than 100,000 articles contributed by writers from all around the world. Since anyone is free to contribute to the Wikipedia, it is constantly being updated. The Wikipedia web page format is good enough for viewing on Pocket PCs, so if you have an Internet connection and need to look something up, it is a good place to go. Those who don't have built-in Internet connections on their Pocket PC can now download a version of Wikipedia in Tomeraider format. The file is 100 MB so you will need a large storage card. I don't know how often the Tomeraider file will be updated, but one of the benefits of Tomeraider is that it is cross platform and very fast at searching for content. The reason why it is so fast is that the content is stored in a database that is indexed. The Wikipedia download site provides instructions for how to convert Wikipedia to Tomeraider so you could make sure you have the latest version.

I downloaded and installed the trial version of Tomeraider, and in the process I remember why it isn't a permanent part of my Pocket PC software collection. It costs $25 to register, which I find a bit expensive for an ebook reader. On the other hand, most of the Tomeraider content is free, so I guess if you compare the cost of buying multiple Palm Reader books to the one time purchase of Tomeraider, it may be worth the expensene.

The trial version also has a very annoying feature where it hides random records with a registration nag. This type of nagware really turns me off, and I think software vendors should provide fully functioning applications that simply expire after a month.
posted by Frank McPherson 10:54 AM | link

I am not so sure PDAs with integrated cameras are such a good thing. Sure, I understand the convenience, but here is the problem. More and more businesses are banning camera phones from being carried into their offices to protect against trade secrets. The U.S. government also has a similar ban for their offices. Soon they will realize that there is little difference between a camera phone, or a PDA with an integrated camera, or a digital camera.

Now, I can leave my digital camera at home, but will I want to leave my mobile phone or PDA at home? In this case a camera attachment may be more appropriate.

The moral of this story is, make sure you can take cameras in to the business establishments that you frequent.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:20 AM | link

Reading the features of the new Palm handhelds sounds more like reading about Pocket PCs. I am still not sure how well a Palm scales up for the Internet connectivity that these devices now provide. To me the new Zire looks a lot like the original Handspring Visors. However, one has to ask, would you buy the Zire for $299 or get a iPAQ 1910?
posted by Frank McPherson 9:16 AM | link

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

In case you don't know, you can buy a Microsoft SmartPhone right now if you buy the SmartPhone SDK. Robert Levy has posted pictures showing what you get and comparing it to a Dell Axim.
posted by Frank McPherson 4:29 PM | link

Monday, April 21, 2003

Cool! It looks like Legend has developed a really small Pocket PC Phone Edition, that definitely has my curiosity piqued. I wonder if it will be sold in the United States, and if it is, by whom. I'm thinking that T-Mobile will have at least one new Phone Edition by the end of this year, with the most likely candidate the GSM/GPRS version of the Samsung i700.
posted by Frank McPherson 12:19 PM | link

Yesterday I flipped the switch on the new PocketPCHow2 web site, which I am now calling Pocket PC Hints and Tips. Go check it out and let me know what you think!
posted by Frank McPherson 9:13 AM | link

pt has given flashenabled a new look, but it has the same great gadget tips and info.
posted by Frank McPherson 9:10 AM | link