more on My encounter with new cell phones

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Read till the end. Djf


------ Forwarded Message
From: Robert Raisch <info () raisch com>
Reply-To: info () raisch com
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2003 19:32:46 -0500
To: dave () farber net
Subject: RE: [IP] My encounter with new cell phones

Dave,

I've had a Danger Sidekick for almost six months and for certain things, I
absolutely love it.

Anyone in the handheld/palmtop space should take a hard look at the
Sidekick's ergonomics.  In its category, I find the Sidekick to be the
easiest device to type on of all.  Blackberry could learn a lot from Danger
in the area of real-estate usage and tactile feedback.

The AIM client is marvelous ("c4l1b4n sk") and has caused me to rethink many
of my ideas of an "always on" life.  While driving back across Canada from
Michigan to Massachusetts this Christmas, I was in constant contact with
co-workers and friends.  Several topics rose in the conversation while
driving that were handily augmented by quick Googling.  (I wasn't driving
the car. ;)  On recent trips to the local bookseller, I quickly found the
titles I required, but had forgotten the names of, by visiting Amazon, which
I think is an amusing reverse on the usual complaint of online retailers
winning over storefronts.

Best of all, I think, is the SKs multitasking capabilities.  While the
intra-application integration could be better (no clicking on links in AIM,
no cut/paste, etc.), the fact that I can refer to email or google for a fact
while IMing with a colleague is marvelous.  I wish more devices understood
user interaction as well.

Now the downside:

You're absolutely right, the phone sucks.  I think they tried for
speakerphone-style operation and along the way, lost sight of how "normal"
people use a phone.  Since Danger/T-Mobile's stated market is the 18-24
year-old demographic, I find this strange.

My Sidekick was just remotely updated with the new operating system.  This
is the first and only update since the device was released last October and
it is supposed to fix some VERY serious problems with receiving calls.  I
have yet to prove the fix works, but prior to this, the phone could receive
a call or a SMS message and not indicate it to me at all.  No light, no
sound, no nothing.  There were (?) also serious problems with cell-tower
roaming which they say are fixed.  (See www.dangerinfo.com for comments.)
There are still problems with SMS message reception.  I've had messages
delayed for hours.

> From a developer standpoint, the device runs a Java operating system of
their own design and while developers are supposed to be able to use
standard tools to create programs, those programs must be "compiled" with
Danger's tools into a form that is not industry standard.  Danger states
they need to do this to accomplish the small application footprint they
require for operations.  Apparently, the "compiler" removes all the run-time
type checking of standard Java.  I think there is some serious
standardization needed here.  Danger does not support J2ME because, one
presumes, of its bloat.

Largest of my complaints (as a developer) is the almost complete lack of
information from Danger about the device, specifically when we could expect
updates or the much-promised SDK (now released in a hobbled form.)  We
waited months and months for the SDK, all the while being told it was
"almost ready."  Danger really needs to learn what it means to provide
programmable technology to early-adopters.

While I have yet to form a strong opinion either way, the odd forced-clubby
tenor of their new developer website and its requirement that developers who
"contribute" are awarded "points" which they can redeem for tee-shirts and
coffee-mugs, while those who do not contribute are given reduced access,
strikes me as grotesque and unnecessary.

Now it appears Danger/T-Mobile will not support the delivery of open-source,
free applications to consumers.  Applications will be downloaded or "sent"
to the device over the phone company's cellular network rather than the web,
and so, cannot be distributed without fee.  At least, I believe that's the
current thinking.  There is no way using the current version of the SDK to
load an application onto the device; one can only test applications using
the included emulator.  All of these bode ill for the developer community.

Danger positions this lack of general download as a requirement of T-Mobile,
and here is the biggest problem.  Danger is only the provider of a
marvelously designed computing device to phone companies while T-Mobile
provides the product to consumers.  T-Mobile is a phone company, used to
smart-networks and dumb-devices, and this flies in the face of our current
understanding of egalitarian global networking.

Without a free market approach to new application delivery, I'm afraid the
SK will be another short-term "might-have-been", quickly superceded by less
well-designed, better considered devices.

/rr





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