Over a Candle

Two days short of three months, and I have a better idea of what I like, and what I don’t, about my new phone. The sheen of my new purchase has come off a bit, and it leaves me a tad underwhelmed.

I think I said this in my original post, but it bears repeating… If I had never used an iPod Touch, I might have absolutely no complaints about the HTC Hero. But I have used an iPod Touch, and there is no unringing of that bell.

The most maddening thing about the HTC Hero is the unresponsiveness of the screen. I have missed many a phone call because, though I got to the phone in plenty of time, I could not get the screen to acknowledge that I was swiping it in order to unlock it. Typing characters in texts or email, I sometimes find a delay of recognizing my tap of second, and sometimes not at all. The same is true for selecting an app on the screen.

I’m assuming this is a hardware issue, rather than a software. The touch screen just doesn’t respond as well as it needs to. Thus, using the phone is often an exercise in frustration.

Further, I had to call Sprint, get a code from them, and then dig around the guts of the OS to improve the time I have to answer a call. In testing, I found that the caller would often hear two or three rings before my screen even lit to acknowledge the incoming call. And then another ring or two before I heard a noise. This meant that often I had one ring to pick up my phone before it would go to voicemail. So unless the phone was out, and I was looking at it, I usually missed calls. I managed to fix that (now I usually get three or four rings to pick up) only to miss calls because of the screen issue.

As far as Google Market goes, it has been – for me, at least – a lesson in why Apple maintains such tight control over the App Store. Perhaps Apple goes too far in controlling the apps in the App Store. But if so, Google doesn’t go far enough. The Market is generally so flooded with apps that, unless I go there knowing exactly what I’m searching for, every search returns too many hits. So much garbage shows up in the searches that it rarely makes finding the few quality apps worth the time. I have no interest in lauding Apple’s over-controlling ways on its App Store, but surely there has to be a better answer than absolutely no control at all.

There is, too, the problem with battery life. It drains quickly. If I don’t do too much email, texting, or surfing, I can get a charge to last a day. Playing games is right out most of the time, unless I brought my charger with me. One day, somehow, my camera got turned on. It stayed on in the background, and my phone died before dinner. So I was away from the house with an expensive brick. Not the best situation to be in. This seems a combination of both hardware and software. Yes the phone can run multiple apps. And run them so long that you can’t use the phone at all.

That said, it is still a usable phone. And I do like using it (when I’m not struggling to get the screen to recognize my taps and swipes). Most of the time, it functions just fine. (The screen seems most unresponsive when first waking up.) And it works much better than my old Palm Centro did at most things. So I am still glad I bought it.

But these problems are the price I pay for not being in an AT&T service area. While I feel for my iPhone-enabled friends who struggle in locations where AT&T has not provided reliable service, sometimes I find myself wishing I had their problems. As it is, with the new sheen off, I find myself reaching for my iPod Touch for causal gaming or for checking and replying to email (when I’m in a Wi-Fi location). The phone is used for phone calls, texting, and email/web when I’m not in a Wi-Fi area.

So I’m still carrying around two electronic devices. And while I’m still very happy with Sprint’s network, they are going to need to get a better phone on the market to keep me around if AT&T ever comes to town.

We own an iPad.

More specifically, Ronni owns an iPad. And she has much more self-control (or perhaps different weird quirks) than I do.

See, the original plan was that I would buy one, let her play with it, and if she liked it, I would give her that one and buy a 3G version when it comes out at the end of the month.

Apparently, I talked her into wanting one so much that she didn’t feel the need to play with one first. She just wanted it. So she went ahead and bought it.

And because she didn’t have a screen protector yet, she has left it in the box. I want to play with it! But I also don’t want to mess up her iPad, so I haven’t pestered her to take it out to let me play with it (much).

It’s just sitting there, in a box, waiting for a screen protector! AAAAUUGH!!!

But I can wait. She wanted to get one in time for her trip to NYC next week, and I thought it was a good idea. I’m not sure I really want to spend the extra $130 for the 3G version. I’m not sure how often I would use that capacity. But I can think of at least one instance (when I’m visiting Ohio and don’t have easy access to wireless). So I’m think I should wait until the end of the month. *sigh*

And I hope Ronni takes it out of the box before I go completely crazy.

This is post is not being written on an iPad.

But it was a near thing. After dinner with friends tonight, I dragged Ronni to our local Best Buy to see if they had any in stock. It was an impulse. Not something I had planned on doing. If I had planned it, I would have gone earlier in the day.

I played around with one of the demos for five or ten minutes. And I really liked it. It was smaller than I imagined, and maybe a tad heavier than I expected. Still, viewing web pages was a much nicer experience than on the iPod Touch (where I have to do much panning and scaling, and it’s still nicer than on my old Palm Centro). Text entry on the keyboard was a little easier than on the iPod Touch, too, though I’ve gotten good at thumbing the iPod and that skill is useless on the bigger iPad.

In short, within five minutes, I knew I wanted one. I don’t know that I need one, but I definitely want one.

My impulse-buy mode in full gear, I asked the salesperson if she had them in stock. She had to check. They had both the 16 GB and the 32 GB in stock, but they were out of the 64 GB. I toyed with the idea of picking up the 32 GB model for a minute, and realized that I didn’t need one today, and I would rather wait for the 64 GB model.

So I’m typing this post on my laptop. And I imagine my laptop will still be my primary computer for the foreseeable future. But now I know that an iPad is in my immediate future.

It’s been a busy couple of days. Watching live blog updates on Apple’s announcement of the new iPad, blatantly ignoring the political theatre that is the State of the Union, and then making a decision to not wait for an iPhone any longer. So much to do, so little time.

Yes, I’m interested in the iPad. I can already think of certain uses for it. For instance, the iPod Touch I took to Ireland last summer was perfect for many things. It’s the perfect size for a pocket. It allowed me to check the web, email, and get a currency converter (among other things). But the one thing where it fell flat was text entry.

I didn’t mind the onscreen keyboard for emails and the like, but trying to type an entire blog post on it was usually more time consuming than I liked. I could do it, mind you, and I got really accustomed to the on-screen keyboard. But pecking out an entire post with just my thumbs got to be too much, and I gave up.

The iPad helps that problem immensely. With both a bigger on-screen keyboard and a keyboard doc option, it would make text entry a lot easier. I can certainly see other uses for it, and I am very likely to get one after they are released.

I do feel badly for Apple. With the hype and anticipation leading up to this announcement, I can’t imagine what they could have released that would have lived up to it. (Well, maybe if they had announced a cure for cancer. )

Still, what I really wanted from that announcement was some indication that I could get an iPhone this year. Had the iPad come out for Verizon as well as AT&T, for instance, I might have had some hope that I could get an iPhone in this coverage wasteland that is the upper midwest.

But those hopes were dashed. So yesterday I went out and finally bought an HTC Hero, which runs on Google’s Android OS. I felt a little guilty doing it, but I was getting desperate for a new phone.

Now that I’ve had the Hero for a little over 24 hours, I think I’m ready to share my initial impression of it.

It took a bit of getting used to, after using the iPod Touch, but I’m really liking the Hero. One nice feature are the widgets. Widgets allow you to access the functionality of apps without having to actually start the app itself. They run in windows on the screen of the phone, giving you instant access to weather, music, calendars, Twitter, Facebook, and more. The widget scheme is handy, though I’m worried about battery usage, so I don’t leave too many of them up and running.

Apps are accessed through the menu at the bottom of the screen. You can put a shortcut to an app you use a lot on the screen itself. This is a shift for me from the iPod, as I’ve gotten used to all the apps being on the iPod screens. But it’s handy, as I only need shortcuts for those apps I use often.

Also, there is a notification scheme that tells you when you’ve gotten an email, a text, or a voice-mail. A small icon at the top of the screen shows you that something has happened, and a quick swipe down pulls down a menu showing you the different things that have happened. A quick touch takes you to the right program.

I’ve only had one phone call so far, but the quality was very good. The on-screen keyboard has physical feedback to help simulate the feel an actual keyboard. It’s not the same thing, mind you, but it’s a nice touch (no pun intended).

So far the only thing that really annoys me is that the touch screen is not quite as sensitive as I’d like. Sometimes I find myself having to tap several times to get the input recognized. This is something the iPod Touch does very well, so maybe I’m spoiled.

I also wish that the phone would sync with a Mac out of the box. Getting my contacts and calendars into the phone is the one thing I really was getting frustrated about with my Palm Centro. (The close connection between Palm and Macs was what had kept me buying Palm products for so long. With that gone, there was no real reason to stay with them.)

Missing Sync, a good third-party app, gives me this functionality (available for both Android, Palm, and many others). Except for my calendars.

Missing Sync is in beta for Android, and it won’t sync repeating events with exceptions (like all my classes that meet for sixteen weeks, with the exception of Spring Break). So most of my events didn’t sync. Then I noticed that none of my nonrepeating events synced either. I’m still trouble-shooting that. A friend of mine has suggested he might have a solution, and I’m hoping he does.

Still, the struggle over the calendar is something I was already having with my phone, so it’s not really a loss. And if I can get it working, then I’ve already got a vast improvement over my previous phone.

I’ll be curious to see what I think about the phone after the next week or month or year, but after the first day, I’m very happy with my purchase.

I can almost forget that it isn’t an iPhone. Almost.

I was worried about my less than complete enthusiastic response to Steve Jobs’ keynote address Tuesday. So I swiped this quiz from Thane.

78%How Addicted to Apple Are You?

I feel a little better now. (And to be clear, I am still intrigued by the new announcements. I’m just not desperate to have one, the way I sometimes am.)

Apple’s big product announcement was today. I knew I had forgotten something. (That’s what I get for actually doing work at work.)

The big product? The thinnest laptop ever… The MacBook Air

I have to admit, the little I’ve seen, it looks very pretty. And I’m pretty impressed with it. There are a few things that I’m a little hung up on, though.

In the write-up, it looks as though there’s a USB 2.0 port, and a port to connect an external monitor. That looks to be it. The lack of firewire bothers me. As does the lack of ethernet (though I admit that’s not as important to me as it used to be). Further, there is no optical drive. You can either attach a superdrive using the USB port, or wirelessly hook into another computer’s drive. That’s kind of nifty, but it means I would have to have a second computer. In recent years, that’s not been a problem. But I don’t like the idea of having to rely on another computer’s drive.

I like the idea of the computer, and I like the way it looks. But it isn’t so impressive that I feel like I MUST have it. I might pick one up the next time I need a computer, but it isn’t making me feel like I need a computer right now.

In a way, I’m almost more interested in Time Capsule, an airport base station and external hard drive all in one. That might provide a really good solution for backing up and providing more storage at those times I need it.

I’m worried I might be growing up, or something. I don’t seem to feel the need to have the latest toys as much anymore. Hmmm… Seems odd.

Ronni’s mom (who I have recently succeeded in converting to the Mac platform) wanted to come to the new Apple Store in Manhattan on 14th Street. So against our better judgments, we took the subway downtown on the day after Christmas. (I needed to buy a new battery anyway.)

Since she was with me, I actually got to have some pictures taken of myself blogging and being a general geek at my own personal holy site. As soon as we get back to their apartment, I’ll be uploading a couple of pictures.

But I had to blog, on my own computer, from the new Apple Store. Just thought I’d share with you all.

Finally… Here are some photos. First, me blogging…

See? Isn’t blogging exciting? But then we realized that I could be sitting in any random place (I mean, it wasn’t like it was actual proof or anything). That is, unless you knew what the corner of 14th St. and 9th Ave. looks like.

So we staged another shot inside the store.

Again, not exactly an action shot. But at least a recognizable Apple Store feature.

Okay, that’s more images of me on my blog than I ever wanted, and than you all wanted. I think I’ll quit while I’m behind.

Okay, I think I’m finally done. I’ve changed all the operating systems on our computers to Leopard. The longest delay was reformatting the external hard drive. That took a little while (the better part of many hours). All of which was slowed down by the fact that I thought I had bought a firewire drive and it turned out to be a USB drive. Grrr…

Then I had to make a back up of my laptop so I could do a clean install, and that took more time. But I got the laptop up and running yesterday evening. Today was Ronni’s laptop and my desktop. Both computers got the archive and install treatment instead of a clean install. It was just easier, and both computers are used rather lightly, so I didn’t feel the need for a clean sweep.

The system looks nice. Most of the changes I’ve noticed are subtle, but pleasant. Until I play with it more, I won’t be able to comment much. I’m just glad the process is finished with no hitches. *knocks on wood*

And… oh look… the weekend is over… *sigh*

For those that care (how could you not care???) the new MAC OS comes out today. Leopard looks like it’s going to incorporate some nifty new features. It might not be a giant leap forward, but it didn’t take five years to come out, either.

My copy arrived today from Amazon, so my weekend is basically shot. (That is, assuming that my external harddrive also arrives today like it’s supposed to. Need to do some backing up.)

Yay! for new toys!