Shopping for the iPhone or iPod Touch

Black Friday has come and gone and as usual madness and chaos ensued in many places. Now we have Cyber Monday where the only issue you are likely to encounter is a slowdown of your internet connection due to so many people shopping online at once.

So today I present my favorite software titles for the iPhone or iPod Touch, but in my own unique little way. All can be found in the App Store in iTunes on your PC or the iPhone or iPod Touch. All are $9.99 or less so it shouldn’t hurt the pockets. Enjoy.

iPhone or Storm it all depends on your needs

RIM or should I say Verizon has finally let loose the Storm across the U.S. Now, I could go on and continue with what I see as an energy wasting debate over which is better; the iPhone or the Storm but I won’t. There are enough articles out there for that. Suffice it to say the iPhone is mainly a consumer device and the Blackberry Storm is mainly a business device and both overlap into each others playground. While neither device is perfect and have their differences I think it is more important to realize that both devices do fill a void for many users. That void is a smartphone with a full touch-screen display, designed from a mobile device perspective not a computer perspective. I also give credit to both Apple and RIM for tackling the same problems but taking different approaches to solving them without giving up their different perspectives or entirely alienating their current user’s needs.

With that said I’m keeping this one very short and not getting into any real detail so I will end it with this. If you are in the market for a smartphone with a full-screen display and no physical keyboard and it’s more for personal use than business then the iPhone is more than likely the device for you. Conversely, if you are in the market for a smartphone with a full-screen display and no physical keyboard and it’s more for business use than personal then the Storm is more than likely the device for you. In either case take both for a spin as you can use either, but the one you feel most comfortable with and has the features you’re looking for will serve you better. And just as a reminder here in the U.S. the iPhone is only available on AT&T and the Storm is only available on Verizon. Either way you really can’t go wrong.

Sony PlayStation Portable System Update v5.02

Sony’s PSP is a very good portable gaming and entertainment system but has been plagued by one thing. Slow load times. This I have found to be quite unacceptable when trying to get in a quick game of Star Wars Battlefront for example. Loading a UMD and listening to it spin, then watching the screen as it goes through it’s start up routine is incredibly painful and very annoying. Being just a casual gamer, I could just imagine how you hardcore gamers must feel going through this process.

Windows Mobile 6.5

Back in September I wrote my thoughts on smartphone makers creating their own application stores. So far Google’s Android has one, RIM’s latest Blackberrys have one and even Nokia’s Symbian OS has one. This leaves only Microsoft’s Windows Mobile without one. Over at Mobility Today they have confirmation from CEO Steve Ballmer that WM 6.5 is on the way.

Ironic, maybe or it was actually planned this way. The real question is what are they going to put in this next update before WM7 is released. Will they actually introduce their App Store, or even better, make use of that WM Update utility which to this day has remained dormant. I don’t expect a rewritten OS or anything ground breaking but this would be a good time for them to start transitioning to a newer user-friendlier OS. In essense, just like they did with Pocket PC 2003 SE followed by Windows Mobile 5.

After using WM for a few years I feel that a totally new OS may be the only way for them to introduce an application store and have software developers really make any money from it. I don’t honestly believe or see how developers could make money from a Windows Mobile application store in it’s current incarnation. Windows Mobile has only had internal, under the hood changes; nothing visually to write home about. So if there are any new profits to be made a new UI must emerge by WM7 with possibly WM6.5 being the start. This is all just speculation but I’ll be watching to see what comes of this.

Still no MMS on the iPhone. Why Not?

Since the iPhone hit the scene my wife made a point to say how was appauled and disappointed she was that it does not support MMS and she will not get one until it does. For her this was the breaking point that no amount of advertising or hype could change. And for many people I’m sure this remains true. I can’t say that not being able send or receive MMS hasn’t been a litttle annoying for me but I do understand why it was left out.

The under lying issue is that MMS is not 100% interoperable between cellular carriers. I experienced this first hand when I started using it on a T-Mobile Dash just 3 years ago. I would receive an MMS and the audio would not play or the text that came with it would not show. The other cravat was that it would simply not send the message in the first place of I would get a blank message altogether.