The Dodge Retort

Darth Vader is not happy about his iPhone 4….

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I love this…..iPhone mania is lunacy…a bit off color but unambiguous

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And you didn’t think you could understand Chinese…..

Well, I’ve had the iPad for a month and I am supposed to love it. Guess what? I don’t know quite what to do with it.

It seems like a toy….great for watching videos, perusing photos and perhaps reading a book. It’s very good for reading newspapers to which I am addicted, but not hugely better than my $290 PC laptop. It competently plays music, but no better than my much smaller and cheaper iPod Touch.

I surf the App Store about every night to find that killer which will tip me from “I like it” to “I love it.” Everybody else seems to.

The iPad technology is sound, elegant and reliable save its annoying habit of dropping my Wifi connection mid-session. My $290 PC laptop doesn’t ever drop as Wifi session.

I just checked Apple’s stock and it’s trading at $257 a share just $22 off its 52-week high. The market must love the iPad so why don’t I. I want to given that I waited a month for the privilege of shelling out $829 for it, but I am just not there yet.

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Update Sunday night, July 11, 10:12 P.M.

The Wifi dropping problem is apparently not unique to me. There are discussion threads in the Apple forum that examine the problem and Apple has a page with about four work-arounds, including adjusting screen brightness off the lowest settings (???), replacing WEP security with WPA or WPA2 security, making sure your router firmware is up to date or renewing the iPad’s IP address.

I’ll try numbers 1 and 4 given they are easiest. If all of them fail, call Apple.

As for loving my iPad, things are looking up. MTV just released a Beavis and Butthead video clip app for a buck ninety nine for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch. Actually, I’m not sure this is THE killer iPad app.

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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Verizon, which offers more  Smartphones or cell phones for that matter, added the Droid X to its expanding stable of hot Android phones. [Follow me on Twitter.]

The new Droid X has a BIG 4.3 inch display.

Motorola’s Droid X not only competes with its intended target, Apple’s iPhone 4, but other Verizon offerings such as the HTC Droid Incredible, which if you ordered today would not be shipped July 22nd. I chatted with “Charity” on the Verizon Wireless’ site and she offered me $30 off the the Incredible if I bought an accessory. Discounting a phone I can’t get for month!? Seems weird.

Verizon’s strategy is simple: blitz the market with powerful Android-based smartphones, which offer a great web experience, cam/camera, video, music – you know, the stuff brought to us first by the iPhone – and get all those customers to sign up for two years of Verizon wireless. Verizon could care less which phone you buy. It wants to send you those monthly bills which include a data plan.

When I asked Charity what the difference between the Incredible and Droid X, she said she was “unsure” and seemed intent on selling me an Incredible. From the looks of it, the main difference is bigger display. Note that HTC’s Evo 4G from Sprint has a 4.3 inch display – bigger displays is where smartphones are going.

It’s the razor blade strategy on steroids. Give the phones at a discount, which could be lot steeper, by the way. Here’s the Droid X details lifted from the Verizon press release (hype removed) that came out today.

“DROID X [offers] a 4.3-inch high-resolution screen (compared to the Incredible’s 3.7 inch display – TDR)  for viewing movies and video from BLOCKBUSTER On Demand^®presented by V CAST Video, the newest addition to the Verizon Wireless V CAST application, which also includes access to favorite TV shows.  The DROID X video capabilities let customers capture spontaneous fun, combining a dual-flash, 8-megapixel camera, HD camcorder, as well as DLNA and HDMI connectivity to download, stream and share personal HD content.

DROID X also [offers] Android 2.2 and Adobe Flash Player 10.1 with an over-the-air update in the latter half of the summer.  With the update, the Flash Player will allow mobile users to experience hundreds of sites with rich applications and content inside the browser, including games, animations, rich Internet applications (RIAs), data presentations and visualizations, ecommerce, music, video, audio and more.”

Boy Genius liked the Droid X – a lot, according to its first impression. I hope to get my hands on a review unit very soon. Here’s Boy Genius’ summary:

“Our first impressions are very, very positive. Between the phones impressive stat sheet and our initial tests we can’t wait to start really putting this thing through its paces over the next several weeks.”

By the way, a site called Shrinkage is Good sent me a handy chart comparing total cost of smartphone ownership when you commit to a phone and the service agreement that go with them.  Verizon is the most expensive of the four for both unlimited data plans and the minimum plans, which goes to show how relatively inconsequential the price of the phone is: it’s the phone bill, stupid!

The Droid  X isn’t on the chart, but would cost the same as the Droid Incredible. The chart is accompanied by a blog post which explains the usual apple to oranges comparison:

source:  Shrinkage is Good.

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I wish I could tell you this is my first post composed on my new iPad, but its on-screen keyboard doesn’t come when I use WordPress 3.0 in the Safari browser.

That’s just one example of things I can’t do on the iPad that I can on my netbooks, notebooks and tower PCs. Actually, I just found WordPress in the iPad App Store and with a couple tweaks, adapted my blog editor to the iPad. But going into WordPress straight through Safari was a bust.

Apple's WordPress app for iPad

So this post was half-composed with the iPad and I am still figuring out details like embedding links and that sort of thing.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s plenty to like about the iPad:  it’s a great reader, photo and video viewer with a fantastic display, but to three decade PC vet like me, it feels quirky. And the tablet metaphor has some drawbacks.

For instance, I recline using my netbook and notebook. With the display flipped up, I plunk the notebook down on my belly or chest and type with two hands. The tablet requires one hand to hold it up (it feels heavy at one pound, six ounces), leaving only one hand with which to peck away. For me, this is a downside of the tablet.

I have this idea for a sling like device attached to the iPad and fastened to my forehead. That would free up my left hand for typing. Or I could really grow mountainous beer belly and lean it against that.

No Adobe Flash on the iPad also means I can’t play my favorite Facebook game, Word Twist. And funneling everything through iTunes onto the iPad (save a the Camera Connection Kit, which my Apple store seems always out of) is a pain. iPad like Macs are closed systems.

I  like the iPad the more I understand its trove of features, but I won’t be giving up my PCs any time soon.

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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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As the Apple iPad touched down in nine more countries, I trekked to my local Apple Store today in Salem, N.H. to buy one. My wife has expressed interest in one so it was time to spring.

No luck. There’s a 3-4 four week wait for the 64 GB 3G model, two to three weeks for non-3G models. With wide access to WIFI, I  had intended to skip 3G and maybe go for the 32 or 16 GB model, but I usually end up regretting low balling myself.

You also can turn the $30 a month AT&T mobile broadband on and off at will so for extra $130 over the non 3G 64 GB model, why not. It’ll be good for longer trips in the car.

Buy a case, wait for an iPad

So I gave them my iTunes login and password to get on their notification list.  I have 24 hours to claim it after it arrives in the store. No deposit necessary, but I feel, at long last, committed.

No iPads are sold unreserved and just off the floor. The notification list swallows them all.

Is becoming an Apple customer just a matter of time? In my case, it’s taken decades. After all, I wrote about PCs for the better part of my career.

But someone please tell me if there’s a whiff of anything exciting coming down the PC-Windows world besides some  loooong-talked about tablet wannabes.

Granted, I’ve argued both sides of cheap PCs versus Apple’s superior technology.

Interestingly, the Apple salesperson tried to lock me in a bit more. iPad cases are scarce and they had some in. Buy one now, he advised. Cart before horse, I retorted, being Dodge.

The newly ‘iPadded’ countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, U.K., Spain and Australia.

So I wait.

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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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