The Dodge Retort

By now, everyone and their mother has heard about the Bloomberg story yesterday that Verizon will get the iPhone by early next year. We’ve heard this before.

Here’s the top of the story.

Verizon Wireless, the largest U.S. mobile-phone company, will start selling Apple Inc.’s iPhone next year, ending AT&T Inc.’s exclusive hold on the smartphone in the U.S., two people familiar with the plans said.

The device will be available to customers in January, according to the people, who declined to be named because the information isn’t public. Natalie Kerris, an Apple spokeswoman, and Jeffrey Nelson, a Verizon Wireless spokesman, declined to comment.

I was just on the phone with Verizon Blackberry support tech, who out of the blue offered me the iPhone – in jest, of course, but it was bold offer by a guy whose ilk are usually pretty scripted. This guy was good technically and spoke freely. “Both [Apple and Verizon] denied it so it must be true,” he said (they actually had no comment, which is even more of a loaded non-response).

“Let me tell you, it has been a roller coaster. Yes [we going to get it], no (we’re not going to get it], yes, no, yes, no. Our CEO has told Apple “we are waiting for you…we’re ready when you are…we want it,” he said.

Assuming it’s as powerful as the iPhone 4, the new addition would be one more step to Verizon’s domination of the U.S. wireless market. The Bloomberg story guesstimates Verizon could sell 12 million iPhones in the first year and it fair to assume many would be defections from AT&T’s inferior network.

“We can put AT&T out of business,” the Verizon spokesman volunteered (I was not playing my reporter self – this guy wanted to talk about this as we established a rapport). Coincidentally Verizon just launched it Rule the Air ad campaign to drive home that its network is superior to arch rival AT&T’s. The massage? To make sure “the signal is strong so the most important transmitter is you.”

Last week, I blogged about the blitz of phones Verizon is unleashing, which is hedging its bets if it doesn’t get the iPhone. Today’s expanding crop of Droids do just about as much the iPhone so that base is covered. The iPhone would be just one more red hot offering to Verizon’s 92.8 million wireless customers (to AT&T’s 85.1 million).

How can Apple ignore Verizon’s huge installed base any longer? Fact is, it can’t. Outlook for AT&T? Gloomy.

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Like two million others before me, I am getting my iPad – today. Yes, t minus 90 minutes before I head to the Apple store in Salem, N.H. to pick up my  64 GB 3G iPad.

It seems so appropriate for Father’s Day. Just plunk down the $829 cost on plastic (add $30 for the cover and god knows what else I’ll get while I am in the spending mood) and worry about paying later. Truly the American way…

As many of you know, the iPad is seriously back-ordered. I put my iPad reservation in 4-5 weeks ago and checked on it Friday. The store salesman told me it had no reservation for me on record, but that he’d re-enter it and I should expect to wait two months for delivery.

The next day as in yesterday June 19th, I got an e-mail from Apple telling me my unit was in and that it would be held in my name for 24 hours. I’ll take that as a good sign.

I better print out that e-mail and take it with me.

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I’ve screaming about Verizon getting the iPhone, but HTC’s Droid Incredible smartphone is shutting me up.

I’ve been playing with one since late last week and love it.  OK, the iPhone has apps numbering the six figures and there’s only 10,000 (yeah, only…) for the Incredible, but I like the Verizon network and don’t want to switch to AT&T which has that VERY ANNOYING exclusive on the iPhone. We can blame Apple for that. I think the Incredible and more Android-based phones coming from other manufacturers represent the first serious  challenge to the iPhone.

The Incredible's camera at full zoom. That's John McEnroe signing autographs.

So far, Motorola, Google and HTC (who’s “quietly brilliant” HTC? Click here) have designed and manufacturered Android phones for the U.S. market, but can Nokia, Samsung, LG and maybe even Apple be far behind?

The Incredible’s resident applications are too numerous to comprehensively review, but the 8-megapixel camera and video cam are exceptional. The zoom leaves something to be desired as my photos show, but you can upload photos and the MP4′s videos directly to e-mail, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook other social media sites directly from the Incredible (for video, a WIFI connection is required). Any video beyond 30 seconds takes a few minutes and sometimes a couple of tries. After all, this is only 1-2 Megabit per second 3G technology – much faster 4G will fix that.

Check out my home office video below shot with the Incredible. I also shot my yard, but the Incredible’s mike picked up the crashing sound of a stiff wind. Both of these will confirm my non-standing as a professional videographer.

The camera comes 8GB of memory and you can add a 16GB SD card. The 25-30 second videos I’ve been shooting take between 6-8MB so I won’t be running out of RAM any time soon unless I shoot a full length motion picture with the Incredible.

The Incredible's poor zoom shown here with Bjorn Borg serving.

The 3.7 inch high definition AMOLED (AMOLED is very bright LED display technology with no power-draining back-lighting required) touch screen is a killer and you can read books given the crispness of the type. One drawback is that it’s hard to make out in the bright sunlight – harder than the touch screen on my new Palm Pre Plus, which is a generation behind the Incredible in most other respects.

The pricing shows it: the discounted Droid Incredible at Verizon Wireless is $200 versus $30 for Palm Pre Plus.  Despite solid reviews, the Pre has not sold well during the few months Verizon has offered it so it’s being heavily discounted and coming with enticements such as free mobile broadband.

I wrote about the original Droid (Motorola) at SmartPlanet.com (my former blog) and liked it. But the HTC Incredible’s camera is far superior than any other cell phone’s save the iPhone (I wouldn’t know…) and much sleeker than its brick-ishly shaped Motorola predecessor. At that time, I wrote about the Droid’s terrific voice search and it’s just as good in the Incredible.

Follow this link to check out the specs.

The dilemma for me now is whether to send back my 10-day-old Palm Pre Plus and give up the its free mobile broadband which will cost me $30 a month using the Incredible as a modem like I did my now retired Blackberry Curve. The Pre is nowhere near as versatile and fun as the Incredible, but over my just renewed two-year indentured servitude to Verizon, I will save $720 at today’s mobile broadband prices. Double that savings with the Pre if you trade in a USB modem with requires what amounts to its own separate phone number and costs $60 a month.

What’s more, the Pre is a WIFI hotspot so you don’t have to load and deal with the Verizon Access Manager software every time you want to connect. And it’s not a bad touch screen phone. It’s certainly worth 30 bucks (actually, I’m checking to see if the free mobile broadband promotion is still good….with that, Verizon is leaving a lot of money on the table).

But the Droid Incredible is an awfully nice smart phone rivaled only by the iPhone.

Also bear in mind that both the Pre and the Incredible are far different phones than the popular Blackberry Curve with its familiar keyboard. But the Curve is comparatively crude with the Internet and after e-mail, it’s just a phone for talking. The Pre has a keyboard, but is a good compromise between the Curve and the Incredible, which is touch screen all the way and very Internet-centric.

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My favorite Ubuntu site workswithu.com is reporting that Canonical, Ubuntu’s commercial sponsor,  will (or already has) demoed Android applications running on Ubuntu at its Developer Summit this week in Barcelona. I hope the developers didn’t get trampled by crazed soccer fans celebrating Barcelon’a win over Manchester United. Worswithu editor Joe Panettieri’s story is the best I’ve seen on the topic and take it from me, Joe (a former Ziff Davis colleague) is one reliable source. I will link to his update on this topic when he posts.

I’ve been heads down with Windows 7 for the better part of a week and interviewed two of Microsoft’s Windows 7 on netbook gurus at length yesterday. I hope to post what I learned from that interview by end of day tomorrow as well as my testing. In fact, The Dodge Retort now has a special section dedicated to coverage of Windows 7 on netbooks. Also, longtime technology watcher Nick Wingfield in the Wall Street Journal this morning beat up on Linux variants such as Ubuntu for having device compitbility issues – something Microsoft trumpets as being nearly bulletproof with Windows.

Shortly, I also will have a review of the Verizon mobile wireless service on the HP Mini 1000 model  1151r netbook.

Dell Latitude 2100 for Education Market

Dell confirmed it will have netbooks for education by the time kids go back to school this Fall.

Dubbed the Latitude 2100, Gizmodo scooped the story about them in late March. Starting at  $369, they seem a bit pricey for what the student gets and for some reason, Dell omitted the display size in the blog post in which it released info about the machine (Gizmodo’s March story says 10 inches and in the video, it looks like a 10).

They differ from Dell Minis in that they have a rubberized case for durability, an optional touchscreen and a network monitor light that tells the teacher the student is online. It also can be securely stored in a networked case where an administrator or teacher can download software or data to up to 10 netbooks simultaneously.

Here’s the specs:

• Intel Atom N270 processor
• Up to 1GB fixed RAM; Additional memory slot to accommodate up to 2GB RAM total
• Display: 1024×576 LED screen, optional touch screen
• Storage options: standard hard drive options up to 250GB; SSD drive up to 16GB
• Battery: 3 and 6-cell battery options
• Wired Connectivity: 10/100/1000Mb Gigabit Ethernet
• Wireless Connectivity: 802.11g standard, option 802.11n
• Ports: 3 USB, VGA, headphone/speaker out, mic
• Expansion slot: SD/ MMC card reader

I have limited Internet and no phone access back the U.S. from here in Prague, but I do have a few news bytes to share:

Research firm Displaysearch reported that nearly six million netbooks which it calls “mini-note PCs”  were sold in the first quarter, comprising 20% of worldwide notebook sales. Acer was the leader with 30.5 % followed by Asus with half as many sales. Mini-note PCs sold especially well in Europe, the Middle East, Asia (not including China) and Latin America. Sales were slower in China, Japan and North America.

There’s no doubt netbooks are taking off, but I have yet to see evidence of them in the  Internet cafes of Prague where I am vacationing. Europe has reportedly been a sales hotspot for netbooks. None of my son’s college-mates at Charles Univerisity here this semester had them either, but most of the 100 or so in his program were from the U.S.

He just sat down at a netbook (mine) for the first time and complained a blue streak about the size of the keyboard. Such a reaction is to be expected given how much smaller it is than the keyboard in his powerful Dell XPS notebook. But with the introduction of 92 per cent keyboard in many new models such as Dell’s 10v, such complaints should lessen.

Dell chief blogger Lionel Menchaca

Last Thursday, Google cast a line on Craigs List for netbook users to survey. Today, it was Dell’s turn.

In its Direct2Dell blog, chief blogger Lionel Menchaca put out a call to users to query them on what they’d like to see in Dell Minis netbooks. Menchaca writes:

What would you like to see in future Dell Minis? (Things like form factor, new features, personalization ideas, operating system support, etc.). What features are most important in a netbook? (Things like HD capability, network connectivity options, battery life, usability, etc.)

Input can shared on Dell’s Ideastorm crowdsourcing site where users are bunt about what they don’t like such as Windows on very machine, trialware and Windows sticks such as “Vista Capable” or “Designed for XP.”

Sorry no $100 American Express gift cheque such as Google is offering.

Lenovo also has active feedback forums for its notebooks, but not for its netbooks.

Yours truly takes a break for the roving photographer.

As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, The Dodge Retort has taken on a new look and has become focused exclusively on mobile computing with netbooks as a core topic. In short, TDR has transitioned from a personal blog covering a range of subjects to covering netbooks, handsets and wireless. As the saying goes, focus builds a marketable audience.

What can I uniquely deliver that myriad other sites covering mobile  computing don’t already blast out through a firehose? To begin with, I have three decades of not only covering technology, but offering perspective that comes with experience. You will see that here as well as news reporting which is my specialty. Check me out on the about page.

I invite you send me tips, rumors, netbook applications, case studies and if you’re interested in blogging on TDR, please let me know at jdodge349@gmail.com.

The other thing I want to point is the web site of which I am proud. Any web site is a work in progress, but I am have reached some milestones with TDR after three months. First, The Dodge Retort is a real self-hosted WordPress 2.7.1 blog now. This WordPress version is a more robust content management system than auto-hosted WordPress.com which got me started. The chief advantage of 2.7.1 is that TDR can deploy any of the 4,500 free plugins. For example, I can now use Google Feedburner to send out email newsletters (please sign up) and have a range of social media elements that I could not dep0loy with WordPress.com. And I will selectively experiment with more plugins. It will also be easier to optimize the site for building traffic.

I’d also like to thank Dan Englander at High Rock Media for his help with the transition. As a web developer,  Dan knows his stuff and is wonderful problem solver. My plan isn’t to deploy every feature under the sun. The site will continue to be simple and uncluttered with my thinking and writing as its main asset. I hope you like it and welcome all views, opinions and comments.

Computerworld blogger Cyber Cynic Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols wrote an interesting post this morning about Microsoft’s ploy to suck in netbook users with Windows 7 Starter edition, have them get “disgusted” with it and then pay to upgrade to full Windows 7.

The ploy put forward by Vaughn Nichols makes me feel almost lucky that I have netbooks with full version of the aging Windows XP Home Edition, which is not limited to running only up to three applications simultaneously which is the alleged to be the case with Windows 7 Starter.

But the conspiracy theory here is beyond the pale. If netbooks continue to be the only sweet spot in the PC market, a bad user experience with Windows 7 would give the entire family a bad name. Cyber-Cynic Vaughn-Nichols suggests that Microsoft has deliberately hamstrung Windows 7 Starter to get folks to eventually pay to upgrade to full Windows 7 which the more netbooks in the pipeline will run just fine.

The upgrade is Microsoft’s way of solving the netbook conundrum which is reaping far fewer dollars on pre-loaded XP than Windows on full notebooks and desktop PCs. Such a ploy seems so utterly transparent, but I can’t deny the Windows Starter scenario is plausible.

The Windows 7 version strategy is explained in a Feb. 3 Q&A with Windows general manager Mike Ybarra (also referenced in Vaughn-Nichols post).

“With Windows 7 there will be two primary editions: Windows 7 Home Premium, and Windows 7 Professional. For a majority of our customers the choice is really simple: Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 7 Professional” Ybarra says. But that’s not really the case because in the next breath, he talks about an Enterprise version, Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic and Windows 7 Ultimate. I add that up to be six versions.  Windows has more than a billion users so obviously there’s many, many  niches the ubiquitous operating system.

So I will go out on limb (I have not run Windows 7 beta) and say for many millions of netbook users, Windows 7 Starter probably be perfectly fine especially if it solves the performance problems netbook users  currently experience. Stay tuned.

Who do you follow on Twitter and why do you follow them? Before I explain my views, I’d be interested in hearing  about who you follow and why. Please take the quick poll below and please follow TDR on Twitter.

As my band of followers approaches 500, I’ve still try to put some thought into who I follow. There’s no one answer except I try to follow folks who are interesting, edgy and with whom I have something in common. And I routinely follow friends, family and known colleagues (the ones I like anyway-:).

[polldaddy poll=1527054]

As Twitter evolves, my philosophy could change. I’ve resisted trying to amass a huge following for its own sake….following tons of people so they’ll follow me back. At this early stage, who knows? That may be the right way. Will massive legions of followers with some approaching a million just keep growing and for what purpose? Will they be money makers and how? Or will Twitter be mostly for fun and professional exposure?

Pondering where Twitter is headed is fascinating. The last annual growth figure measured in twit volume I saw was 1,382 per cent. Will people tire of it? That may be a possibility. My tweet level has gone down slightly, but nowhere near as much as my time on Facebook. It seems like the Twits aren’t as active as usual today.  Still, those who follow the company say Twitter is worth no less than $1 billion to whoever might be interested in buying it.

Who I follow is the direct result of who follows me because I rarely if ever scour the followers of my followees. Perhaps I should do more of that. I check out those who follow me. That’s probably pretty-narrow minded.

Quid pro quo “You follow me and I’ll follow you” doesn’t factor much into it even though some Twits say it’s “rude” not to follow back. I can understand that. I generally dislike twitterers who have massive followings and who follow back very few. That’s why I removed from Shaq (582,105 followers/following 488) who didn’t seem to tweet much anyway.I wonder if he has a professional twit to cover for him.

In any event, I follow folks who have something in common with me. In no specific order, I like bloggers, journalists, technology people,  news hounds, web folk, edginess and more randomly, interesting people. And I check out the profile of everyone who follows me which is still manageable given I’ve been adding about 15 followers a day.

Yesterday, I also went back and looked at my following and removed about five I felt I had nothing in common with or because just because I felt like. It’s hard to really know people on Twitter. Facebook is better at that. I suspect in a month or two, my following will be big enough where I no longer will have time to review it on a comprehensive basis.

And don’t forget, follow TDR on Twitter.