[Cialug] OT: Best phone for the geek

[Tim Wilson]

On Tue, Mar 4, 2008 at 11:47 AM, Matthew Nuzum <newz at bearfruit.org> wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 3, 2008 at 4:25 PM,  <jrnosee at gmail.com> wrote:
> > My current cell plan is about up and my wife, by some miracle is telling
> me
> > I *SHOULD* get a PDA phone (she never wants me to spend money on tech).
>  I
> > have never liked GSM when I've tried it so unless someone wants to
> convince
> > me ATT & Tmobile are off my list.  What provider/phone does everyone
> > suggest?  I'm looking at the HTC Mogul from Sprint right now on the SERO
> > program (1250 min and unlimited txt/data for $49.99/mo).  I'd prefer
> Windows
> > Mobile, since that's what I have now on my regular PDA.
>
> Here's a slightly related note from Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox article
> that came in the e-mail today. Jakob is a usability specialist.
>
> > iPHONE USABILITY STUDY
> >
> > The Swedish usability firm inUse has conducted a competitive usability
> > test of the iPhone and 3 traditional phones that are operated by
> pressing
> > buttons and function keys. (Simple through medium-complexity phone
> > tasks were tested, ranging from "place a call" to "take a photo and send
> > to a person in the address book". No truly high-end mobile tasks were
> > tested, such as connecting to an enterprise-level sales force automation
> > backend to update a customer's order status.)
> >
> > The iPhone had the highest usability in the study, in terms of users'
> > ability to complete the test tasks. Also, participants' subjective
> > preferences were in favor of the iPhone.
> >
> > The biggest difference between the iPhone and the traditional mobile UI
> > devices came from the DIRECT MANIPULATION employed on the iPhone: you
> > press the thing you want. In contrast, other phones use INDIRECT
> > manipulation where you press various function keys to make things happen
> > on the screen.
> >
> > The difference is similar to that between a graphical user interface
> (GUI)
> > with a mouse and a traditional character-driven UI where you push
> function
> > keys that are divorced from the objects on the screen that they operate
> > on.
> >
> > Thus, I like to say that the iPhone is the "Macintosh" of mobile,
> because
> > it's the first mainstream direct manipulation UI with an interaction
> style
> > similar to a mouse-driven GUI. Other phones are the "DOS" of mobile user
> > experience, because they rely on keystrokes.
> >
> > Of course, what we really need is the "Windows" of mobile: something
> cheap
> > with a boatload of 3rd party applications and the freedom to connect to
> > any carrier. (Note that Windows Mobile is not the "Windows of mobile",
> > because current phones with this OS use indirect manipulation.)
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Matthew Nuzum
> newz2000 on freenode
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>


My wife has an iPhone and loves it.  The only complaints that she's had is
no installable games (have to go to a web site to play a game), and MMS
doesn't seem to exist.  If she receives an MMS, it tells her to go to a web
site, and there isn't a link to click.  She can't send an MMS either, which
kinda defeats the purpose of a camera phone.  I thought I heard that Apple
was working on the "no installable games" part (it may already be resolved,
I'm not sure).

Another interesting tidbit is she had some serious problems with hers a few
weeks ago.  She was afraid she'd have to shell out cash to buy a new one.
Apple tech support looked at it, and said basically it's hosed, and gave her
a new one.  I don't think there's warranties on other cell phones, just
insurance.  And that usually requires a deductible.  Since most of the stuff
is synced back to iTunes, when she plugged in the new phone, everything was
transferred again.  The one thing that didn't get synced was the pictures
she had taken with the phone.

So why didn't I get one?  Mainly I was waiting for the bugs to get worked
out of it.  It is much better now than it was day one.  I still think I'm
gonna wait for a while.  Gotta save up the $$$ again.  But for now, I'm
pretty happy with my V3xx.



-- 
Tim
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