David Pogue, New York Times consumer tech writer, has a no holds barred article unabashedly praising and then trashing T-Mobile’s newest device, the Shadow.
Pogue outlines the newish environment where T-Mobile and former Apple designer have designed a device with some great innovative features and taken the third-party manufacturer (apparently HTC is the manufacturer, if you believe ZDNet) out of the picture, designed their own device and rethought a few key features. The list of praise is impressive including a rethought click-wheel for scrolling plus directional buttons for up, down, left, right selections and a Blackberry Pearl style keypad licensed from RIM. But then, Pogue says, “you turn it on.” You see, its fatal mistake is it’s running Windows Mobile 6.
Pogues’ rant reminds me of my own review of the Windows Mobile 5 Samsung Blackjack.
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Carrier: AT&T (formerly Cingular)
Manufacturer: Samsung
Platform/OS: Windows Mobile 5
We can’t help the fact that mobile devices are often presented in retail environments with dummy mockups and fake printed screens. But, we can help the dialogue with a focus on the whole user experience and not merely a features and form factor breakdown.
The Blackjack is a conversation starter. It’s small, it’s capable and it’s good looking in a utilitarian kind of way. When people inevitably ask about it and I’m forced to explain my love/hate relationship with it.
For the good, the bad, the ugly, odd and puzzling keep reading after the bump. Continue Reading »
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1// Picturephoning has an interesting write-up on “unauthorized” use of mobile phones by students in classrooms with plenty of YouTube evidence to back it up.
2// At Punchcut we’ve been calling it the new convergence (where convergence is no longer a move to a single, mega-device, but a broad move toward ubiquitous data availability across devices and media), but Mike Mace is calling it the information ecosystem. Whatever you call it, Mike shares an interesting perspective: “The rise of the information ecosystem: How mobile devices, personal computing, media, and the Internet all fit together.
3// Cingular (AT&T) is the second carrier to adopt Qualcomm’s mobile broadcast TV platform MediaFLO.
4// Microsoft announces Windows Mobile 6 at 3GSM.
5// Wired features a quick look at the smartphone lineup that was announced at 3GSM this week.
6// In non-phone device news, a cadre of music execs are busy creating the next gen MP3 player.
7// Finally! Bluetooth headphones worthy of audiophiles.
8// Bank of America Mobile to let users check their accounts, pay bills and transfer funds.
9// Business Week analyzes the timing of a Virgin Mobile USA IPO. It’s an interesting run-down of the US prepaid wireless market with Virgin’s competition from MVNOs Boost, Amp’d and Helio.
10// The “fourth screen”, as the film industry has dubbed it, had an interesting submission from Sundance that debuted at 3GSM. BBC Quote: “Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s A Slip In Time is one of six shorts made especially for mobiles as part of the Sundance Film Festival Global Short Film Project, and screened at the 3GSM Mobile Phone conference in Barcelona this week.”
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Got Windows Mobile? Don’t fret, you can be cool like Steve Jobs too.
If you’re like me, perhaps you bought that Motorola Q for its slim form factor, only to find that you no longer have the sveltest handset on the market anymore. Well look no further; you don’t have to switch to Cingular in June after all. Simply enable this handy iPhone theme on your Q (or brand new Q Pro) and be the envy of all.
Before you get your hopes up, those nifty icons are just for decoration. Its Windows Mobile; you didn’t actually expect them to work, did you?
The theme does provide one-click access to your messaging options. [Not available for download.]
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