iPhone 4S Keynote Impression

Well, the iPhone 4S Keynote is available now, for download and for streaming. Here goes my impression:

First, we have Tim Cook, looked and sounded subdued for whatever reason, talking about the new Apple stores in Hong Kong and China. For some reason, he kept talking about the glass staircase, saying how only Apple could do that. Hmmm, maybe Apple patented glass staircases now? 😛 The Hong Kong stores look great though.

Then he talked about Lion. Errr, I thought this was iPhone keynote? 6 million downloads of Lion. Tim Cook is comparing Lion to Windows 7, and how it took longer for Windows 7 to reach 10%. Well, 10% of Windows users is a heck lot more than 10% of Mac users. :roll eyes: Just the typical statistic spin of Apple. Mac outgrows PC… well duh. It’s easy to grow from 1% than 99%. 😛

Next he talked about music, iTunes, revolutionize, blah blah. Guess what Tim Cook, I still cannot buy many J-Pop and Eurobeat tracks from iTunes US as they are only available in iTunes Japan. So much for “revolution.”

iPod sales. With the death of the Zune player, it’s a clear win for Apple. As such, being the dominant player, things are slowing down. It’s a given ever since Apple jumped the shark and added a camera to the nano. The classic has not been updated, again. And, well, no updates on the iPod lineup at all. We’ll talk about this later.

iPhone 4 (finally, he’s talking about iPhone), best selling smartphone, “ever.” Well, considering it was selling out in countries like Singapore at the beginning of the year, yeah, it’s selling a lot. Mobile phone satisfaction…. yeah yeah, this BS talk is getting old.

iPad sale. You know, for a keynote that secifically said “Let’s Talk iPhone,” Tim Cook sure did talk a lot about everything else. Everybody loves iPad, sure, blah blah. Watch for the Kindle Fire. Tim Cook sounded like a really old person. Steve Jobs had so much more energy, even at the later days where he’s so skinny.

Next, Scott Forstall. Good, as he sounded more energetic than the tired Tim Cook. Blah blah apps blah blah app store blah blah number one blah blah billion.

New app, Cards. You can create and mail cards directly from the iPhone. Yeah… when the last time you send a card to somebody? There’s something called email and Facebook. Push notification when the card is sent. Sure, knowing how “reliable” the USPS, this is not anything you can rely on. $2.99. Meh.

iOS5. Urgh, just a recap from WWDC. 200 new features, notifications, iMessage, Reminders, Twitter integration (yup, no Facebook here), Newsstand, Camera, Photos, Game Center, Safari, Mail, PC free (it’s weird the he didn’t talk more on this other than what we already know from WWDC). October 12th.

Eddy, iCloud. Again, more rehashes from WWDC. *yawn Something new though, Find My Friends. Yeah, an official stalking app. I’m guessing a more controlled version of Google Latitude. 5GB free storage for documents (music and photos are not counted against the 5GB). iTunes Match, $25 a year, the service to legalize your downloaded music. Not something I’m interested as most of my music are not available in iTunes anyway. Same ship date as iOS5.

By the way, Apple is very good in making these videos of their own products to show the features and whatnot. I mean they have an iPhone downloading music automatically while a dad is taking care of his baby in the background. Talk about subconscious marketing.

Phil has been downgraded to talk about nothing new on iPods. LOL. Big icons on the nano and more skins for the watch feature. Whoop dee doo. Previous nano users should be able to get all these new features via an update as nothing has changed hardware wise. Phil said how people are using the nano as wristwatches by themselves. No Phil, Steve Jobs actually hinted at it when he said one of the board member was going to clip it to his arm band as a watch. It has been planned all along by Apple. Slight price drop, 8GB for $129 and 16GB for $149.

iPod Touch, nothing new. Only a white version and price drop on the 8GB version to $200. Nothing else changed, not even the prices of the 32GB/64GB Touch. Sad. What’s the point of trying to push the Touch as a gaming device if you don’t even put the A5 in it? This is another sign how innovation slows down to a halt as Apple has virtually no competition in this market.

Well, Phil finally talked about the new iPhone 4S. Sound similar? Yes, Phil also did the keynote for iPhone 3GS. iPhone 4S has A5 chip (dual core), like the iPad 2. Who knows if it’s clocked as fast as the iPad 2 though.

Mid intermission, Epic Games was showing Infinity Blade 2. Ooooh, Koi in the pond. Phil doesn’t look too amazed though.

Okay, back to iPhone 4S. 8 hours 3G talk time. “Fantastic battery life.” Sounds good, right? But what Phil didn’t mention is the standby time is a lot less than the iPhone 4, down to 200 hours from 300 hours. New switching antenna. LOL. Now you don’t have to worry if you hold your phone wrong. HSDPA+, 14.4Mbps down, fake 4G. World phone, meaning there’s only 1 version of iPhone 4S, having both GSM and CDMA radio. Question is, will it be unlocked? Nobody knows.

New camera. 8MP sensor, backside illuminated CMOS (sounds like the one Sony was talking about), f/2.4, software features like face detection (something that is commonly available in point-n-shoot digicams), faster than Droid Bionic (getting a cup of coffee?) and SGS2 (well, better be). One of the sample photos showed no barrel distortion, something that is a problem in most compact digicams.

1080p video recording. Meh, I hope it can be scaled back down to 720p. Also I find it funny that Apple never supported their own iFrame format in their own hardware. The big thing is video image stabilization. If this works, it will be a God send. The camera features themselves imo is worth getting the iPhone 4S.

Airplay. Meh, I don’t have the Apple TV.

“Most amazing iPhone yet.”

Oh, Phil forgot something. Yup, as rumored, Siri personal assistant, built-in to the iPhone 4S. The idea is mind blowing. Yeah, it’s Star Trek’s computer that you talk to. Scott Forstall doing the demo. The problem with voice recognition is recognizing the words for a non-perfect-English-speaker. Hopefully this will work, because currently the voice recognition of iOS4 is mediocre at best (I cannot have it do anything). Siri + wikipedia + wolfram alpha = ultimate exam machine. God, I wish we had this technology when I was in school. 😀 This is going to freak out a lot of old school teachers that think you have to memorize everything on earth. Now in beta. Can’t wait for the technology to enable automatic real-time translation, just like Start Trek’s Universal Translator.

More videos. Where’s Johnny Ive?

Black and white, 64GB option. Apple also keeps the 3GS and iPhone 4 (downgraded to 8GB). Subsidized price for 8GB 3GS is $0, or $375 unlocked. Yeah, it’s the first time Apple made an unlocked 3GS available in the US. It took them like what, 2 years? iPhone 4 8GB subsidized price is $99, $549 unlocked. Subsidized price for the 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB 4S are $199, $299, and $399 respectively. No info on unlocked price yet, but looks like it’s going to be $649 for the 16GB version (and adding $100 for the next size up). New carriers mentioned, Sprint for US and KDDI for Japan. My biggest question is, since the 4S is a world phone and (maybe) unlocked, does it mean users can jump from AT&T to Verizon to Sprint and back willy nilly? I hope so, but US carriers are notorious for their anti-consumer and anti-competitive business practices of provider locking. Hopefully Apple can lead the way to a world without provider-locked phones in the US.

October 14th, shipping to 7 countries. October 28th, pretty much everywhere else. Compare this to Android OEMs that are dragging their feet in releasing their phones in the US. Yeah, I’m looking at you Sony Ericsson, Samsung, taking 6 months after releasing their phones in Europe/Asia to the US.

Keynote ended with an old and tired sounding Tim Cook. I hope he’s just nervous. He needs to be more upbeat and energetic like Scott Forstall.

Well, there you go. And yes, I’m going to get one as to me the camera and A5 alone are huge improvements. Besides, I’m a sucker for new gadgets anyway. Gotta cath-em-all!

PS: I’m typing this entirely on my iPad (with a bluetooth keyboard of course, the touch keyboard on the iPad sux). Just trying to live in a post-PC world. 🙂

 

Returned my Samsung Infuse 4G

Well, I returned my Samsung Infuse (good thing AT&T has a 30-day return policy). Not, it’s not that I didn’t like it. It’s okay, but there are things that started to annoy me.
First of all, what I liked about it:
-Large screen. In the past, I wouldn’t imagine having a 4.5″ screen phone. Now, everything seems too small and too tight to use.
-Android and Google Voice integration. This is more a plus for Android. I love the integration of Google Voice in Android, that it’s seamless. Not the case on iOS.
-Generous internal memory for apps.

Now, I find the Infuse to be fine on day-to-day use. But then the small things are getting annoying:
-It’s still Froyo. With Gingerbread already 6+ months old, it’s abhorrent that Samsung/AT&T released this phone with Froyo. And who knows if AT&T is going to update it. I inquired AT&T about it, and they said that they will only release an update if it meets their high standard. :puke: Really? High standard? Outside the US, Samsung handsets (SGS and SGS2) are sporting Gingerbread already, and I’m sure Samsung would know a lot more of their phones than AT&T. Bullshit. Using Froyo means that there are bugs, bugs that are only fixed with Gingerbread. Accessing things like the list of apps and general usability put Gingerbread above Froyo. Granted, Samsung’s Touch Wiz is actually not bad, and Samsung seems to manage to smooth out a lot of the quirks on Froyo. But going back to my Nexus One with Gingerbread after a month of using the Infuse breathed so much fresh air. Gingerbread is simply a lot smoother, and the keyboard is better too.
-AT&T controlled. Sure, I did manage to unlock it, but certain features like tethering and wifi hotspot remain under AT&T control unless you root the phone. But why do I have to do that? My Nexus One has those features available without having to root.
-Questionable touch-tone keypad. I think this is a Samsung issue. I found out about this issue when I was trying to navigate the touch-tone-base menu of a bank. The Infuse is literally unusable. Every touch tone key press on the virtual keypad of the Infuse registers as multiple numbers, even if I only tap the number really lightly. I don’t understand why. My N1 and iPhone 3GS don’t have this issue.
-Useless front facing camera. The only app included with the Infuse that can interact with the front facing camera is the camera app, and it can only take pictures, not video. I tried using other apps like Qik and Tango, the video captured by the front facing camera is rotated by 90-degrees. WTF? It’s close to useless.

I guess my next venture to Android will be on the Nexus 3. I’m sick and tired with carrier-controlled phones. With Apple now selling the iPhone 4 unlocked, I might go back to iOS, and replace my 3GS, the only provider-locked phone I own now.

 

T-Mobile G2x Brief Impression

Haven’t been updating my blog for a long time. 🙂 Easier to rant on twitter, but I guess I have a new thing to rant.

Let’s start with the background, about wireless carriers in the US. There are only 2 GSM carriers in the US, AT&T and T-Mobile. Sure, you might find some no-name local/prepaid carrier, but in the end if they are using GSM, they are using AT&T or T-Mobile’s towers. The biggest problem with GSM in the US is the incompatibility between AT&T and T-Mobile for 3G. AT&T uses 850/1900 frequency bands, T-Mobile uses AWS (1700/2100) frequency bands. To make things worse, the number of modern smartphones that support 3G on both carriers are few and far in between. Nokia is the first one that put out a penta-band equipped phone, the N8, running Symbian. Android is the worst, as the OEMs are only interested in making their phones specific to each carriers (eg. HTC phones on AT&T would only have 850/1900 3G bands, while HTC phones on T-Mobile would only have AWS). It’s ridiculous and severely limit consumers’ choice.

Enter the G2x. It was advertised by T-Mobile to have quad-band 3G, supporting all of the bands above, 850/1900 and AWS. Every tech blogs and reviewers regurgitated the same information, claiming this to be a future-proof phone in the event AT&T bought T-Mobile. Naturally, I bought one, thinking that I can have it unlocked and use it on AT&T since my Nexus One is showing its age.

Let’s start with the goods. The G2x is a dual-core Tegra 2 Android phone, running 2.2.2 (Froyo). It’s basically the LG Optimus 2x, but with un-skinned Froyo + T-Mobile junk added. It’s fast. Android phones other than the Nexus’ are well known to be laggy. The G2x feel very snappy, even sometimes smoother than my Gingerbread running N1. The phone is sleek and nicely built. The front glass is curved, adding a neat design. The screen is a 4″ IPS screen, looks quite nice and vibrant without oversaturation like the OLED screen on the N1. Same resolution though as the N1.

The camera is great too, capable of 1080p video recording, definitely above and beyond the N1’s camera. Not only that, it has a 1.3MP front-facing camera, dwarfing most other phones that only have a VGA front-facing camera. Really, there’s a lot to like about this phone.

Another plus is the 8GB built-in memory. The internal memory is partitioned into two parts, with about 5.4GB set aside as an “internal SD card” storage. There’s still an ample amount of memory left for the main partition, about 1+GB free. This is a huge advantage over the Nexus One where it only has 100 something MB free on the internal memory, severely limiting how many apps you can put on the phone (not all Android apps can be installed on the SD card).

Now, let’s start with the ugly side. When I first set up the phone, I found out that for whatever reason, it refused to hand off data from the cell network to wifi, even with a solid wifi connection. The G2x insisted on using the 3G connection to do data. Not cool. This issue has been posted in T-Mobile’s own forum and XDA forum. Long story short, this happens since I don’t setup my Google account from the start, and the only way to fix it is to factory reset the phone and setup the Google account on the first setup phase. Annoying bug. I have no issues in setting up my Google account later on my Nexus One. To make things worse, that’s not the only culprit. Once you did this, the phone is more reliable in switching from 3G to wifi, but there are times that the 3G connection is still being used. Apparently it’s due to T-Mobile’s own My Account app that, for whatever reason, requires a cellular data connection instead of wifi. Highly annoying, but at least you could force the phone to use wifi by intentionally disabling cellular data in the settings. Still, it’s cumbersome and shouldn’t be an issue in the first place as handing off data from 3G to wifi and vice versa is the basic feature of the OS. I never have this problem at all on my Nexus One. This is extremely dangerous if you are on metered or limited data plan. Another proof that carrier junk really screw up the user experience of Android.

Another ugly side is stability. Users are reporting that the phone freezes/reboots. This happened to me once, when the phone just rebooted itself. Hard to see if it’s the phone or the software. My Nexus One also experienced random reboots prior to Gingerbread, so my guess it’s the OS.

Now, the bad. Remember how I bought the phone thinking that it has quad-band 3G support? Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, guess what, it doesn’t. Yup, the phone actually only supports T-Mobile’s 3G, AWS. No 850/1900 3G support, contrary to T-Mobile’s own website. I should’ve realized this as the box itself only listed 1700/2100 as the supported HSDPA frequency bands. People on XDA forum that got their G2xes unlocked only got 2G when they used AT&T SIM. Even LG’s own service manual for the phone only listed the phone as dual-band WCDMA capable. So why did all the tech bloggers and reviewers not mention this? Well, this kinda proves to you that these tech bloggers are not doing thorough reviews. Even Engadget, a well known tech blog site, failed to point this out on their review, and even after they updated it, they still think that the phone might be quad-band.

So, that kinda defeats my purpose in purchasing the phone. Extremely disappointed. I want to like the phone, but alas, I guess it’s not meant to be. After using it for a couple days, I returned it. Back to my Nexus One. It’s unfortunate that today, in 2011, US phone selections still sucks, with phones that only work with one carrier.

 

iPhone 4

In before the analyst.
Well, watching various live blogging on WWDC 2010, one thing really captured my attention that nobody seemed to pay attention too. iPhone 4 have quad-band HSDPA! That means both AT&T and T-Mobile. So T-Mobile is getting iPhone 4! Or better, unlocked!

Edit: Well, so much for that. The spec for the iPhone 4 is up, and not 1700 HSDPA band. The quad-band is 850/900/1900/2100.

😦