Sharing the Risk

Windows 7 Phone vs iPhone

Well I thought I would try the Windows 7 Phone since I really do not like the "phone" part of the iPhone. I mean I really want to make phone calls and not get "Call Failed" or just random drops. But oh well.

So when I got the new Windows 7 Phone, I went with T-Mobile and the HTC HD7. I ordered it from the T-Mobile website and all went well. I received the phone relatively quick and off I went.

First impression, the screen is really big and nice! But first impression faded quickly as I worked on using the phone.

Speed Dial

Windows 7 Phone 

I wanted simply to add my favorites to the phone for calling people. Well the Windows 7 Phone design idea for that is to create a tile for each contact on the home screen. Ok this results in 12 different tiles and the screen that require a lot of work to scroll through. And even that is just a link to the contact, you still have to select the number you want to call. Overall takes too many steps.

So I thought let's look for an app in the MarketPlace for Speed Dial. I found a number of cool apps that have SpeedDial functionality but they all had one major flaw, you had to re-type each of your contacts!! UGG!

So I thought, that I would write my own app for SpeedDial and make millions on a SpeedDial app that would pull straight from the People in WinPhone7. Well another failure in that there is no API method to get to that data. I can understand the security concerns but they should leave that up to the end user not restrict the development of apps that can use contact data.

But I was willing to live with this lack of usability.

I cannot sync AND listen to music

So I use a Mac at home and Windows at work. It is intentional, I really like WIndows 7. And I really like OS X. But to be honest, it is all about the applications more that it is about the operating system. But that is a review for another time.

So I was excited to see that Microsoft has a Windows 7 Phone Connector for Mac. So I downloaded it and it works extremely well syncing my music for iTunes and also syncing photos from iPhoto. Which is really cool! It also charges the phone. Very cool.

But that is the end of the coolness. While it was charging I wanted to listen to some music on the phone. But NOPE, it will not let you. The phone tells you that you must disconnect the device first. Ok I will watch a video instead, no go there either. Seriously?

So I tried this on my iPhone and it let me play music, watch a video, etc. Now to be fair, it does cancel any sync that is happening but so. Again put the power in the hands of the end-user to make choices not cripple the device just because you do not see why would anyone use that.

Battery Life

Well this is not really Microsofts fault but rather HTC fault. Battery life is about 1/2 day for active use and 3/4 day of light use. By time I got home each day (6pm) it was alerting that the battery was critically low. My iPhone can go two days before getting the 20% warning.

Plugging into Car

Alright, next thing I want is to listen to music while in my car (Jeep Grand Cherokee). So I plugged in the Win7Phone and all was going well but I could barely hear anything. So I turned up the car stereo but it was still really quiet. So I turned up the volume on the phone to max and then I could actually hear the music. Now I am not going for super loud music or anything but just to be able to discern the words of the song. 

Seeing the screen

So I was outside and wanted to see what was on the phone. Not so good. I had the shield the screen to be able to see what the sections were.

Overall

Well I wanted to like the Windows 7 Phone. I really did. But I could find NO compelling reason to switch from my iPhone. In the last few days with my iPhone again, no failed calls,etc. So maybe the Verizon deal has made it where ATT's network can handle the traffic or maybe I have just been lucky!

If you are coming from a different non-smart phone, I think you would be happy with the Windows 7 Phone device. T-Mobile had a GREAT deal in that the phone did not cost anything and their plan was reasonable so it does make a great case for switching from a non-smart phone to the Windows 7 Phone.

Now to switch from the iPhone, no way. And the recent update that Microsoft only appears to address Copy/Paste and searching in the MarketPlace.

So if you have an iPhone, keep it! There is NO reason to switch.

iPad Review

So here is my review of the iPad. I wanted to wait at least a week of using the device before I actually reviewed it so that I could give an actual review after real usage. So I am going to break this review into two parts as I see the iPad being used in a variety of places but mostly split between personal use and business use. And I am writing this post from the iPad as well to show that long things can be written on the iPad without much effort.

Overall the device gets an A in my book as I have found that I spend more time with it than i do my MacBook Air. But let me describe how I use it. First I use it to read websites followed by reading email. That is what I bought the device for but have found that after a week I use it for more than that. The absence of Flash is a tad annoying but I figure someone has to give. I doubt it will be Apple and so I except a lot of sites to begin to phase out Flash in favor of HTML5 but that will probably be a ways off.

I also find that not having tabs is a bit of a loss as I like to cross-reference sites quite a bit when browsing. But overall the browsing has been great.

For business I was a little skeptical at first because I was not sure how the iPad would fit. But I have discovered where eMonarch will be using it. Up until now when we make a call on a prospect we have never used a presentation as pulling out the laptop and a projector was just too cumbersome. Printing the slides also seemed a little low-tech for a technology company so we just did not use them. Even though I feel that a good presentation would make it a little easier to describe our services.

But here is where the iPad will shine for us. Now with Keynote for the iPad, we can open and start the presentation in less than 30 seconds and also get a little of a Wow factor for using the device. The orientation and the simple navigation will make going through a few slides a very effective tool.

Another place in business I see the iPad being a big win will be in the medical community. Up till now, battery life for laptops has been a real limiting factor as well as having this clunky laptop getting in the way. But now with a true 'slate' device, I think that medical professionals will feel more comfortable using the technology as this is no bigger than a notepad or legal pad to take notes.

One of the key things is that it will all come down to the apps though. So far the apps i have seen for business have been OK but not great as of yet. But it has been only a week. So as the apps come out, the iPad will probably become a staple in many business environments.

For personal use the iPad has lots of pluses. One the key things that gauges how successful a piece of technology will be is how it is received by my wife. If she embraces it then I know it is a winner. So I got her and iPad as well and shee took to it right away! We both took our iPads to church on Easter Sunday as our Bibles. It worked! I was a little nervous as to how it would go as I did not want the technology to get in the way of spending time worshipping God. And it didn't. My wife and I were actually able to both read from the Bible easily and even take notes.

Another very cool usage is in the kitchen. For years i have struggled trying to figure out how to have all the recipes we have in cookbooks readily available and use an electronic version while actually cooking. Having a laptop in kitchen could work but the iPad ended up being a much more elegant solution. We found a great app, Epicurious, that has a lot of great recipes and when in landscape mode makes it a viable electronic cookbook.

Watching movies on the iPad works as promised and provides a great experience using Netflix. I watched two separate movies and am going to watch another tonight after I finish this post.

So overall is the ipad worth it, I think so. I have decided to stick with just the wifi version and not get the 3G version. I figure any place that I am going to be at will have wifi. I am considering getting one of those mifi type devices to use with my existing data card. I just could not see paying for yet another data plan. This is where tethering would have been a great feature to have.

An often asked question so far has been will the iPad replace a laptop. I do not think so just as I do not think it was ever intended to do that. There are probably folks that could replace their laptops with the device but not me.

Battery life has been right on. I use it everyday and have had to charge it once. And I charged it when it had 30% left so I could have gone much farther.

A thing I do dislike is having to clean the screen every other day! I am looking forward to the OS upgrade that the iPad will get this fall with the addition of multitasking and a consolidated inbox. Those will be nice features for sure.

But back to to business use. So far - yeah apps are not there yet or if they are I have not seen them. So far I think we will end up sticking with the "presentation mode" for the iPad at work. However I do expect this to change in the near term as developers get going with creating rich business applications for the iPad.

Oh forgot, I have had NO issues with the wireless connection issues that others have commented on. Does not mean those issues do not exist but with the wireless routers I use, no issues here.

So go out take a look at one or if you are in Tulsa and want to have some coffee and discuss what it can do, give me a buzz and I will be more than happy to meet you and show you how I use it. You just have to buy the coffee!

iPad - Long 60 days!

First off I am excited about the upcoming iPad from Apple. You can view the press event here. And to be honest I was not going to blog about it as I did not have that much to add to the content that has already been published about it. But then there was this article at CRN about MS partners not feeling the tablet love.

Now as it would have it, I have had two (2) Microsoft Tablet PC's. They were both Toshiba and good laptops but they were terrible tablets. Too cumbersome and nothing overly special about them other than you could write on the screen with a stylus. I REALLY wanted the Tablet PC to be my only mobile computing device but it was nothing more than a laptop that I could turn landscape and write on the screen. Battery life was marginal. So I eventually abandoned both of them as there was nothing that special about them. I found that I type faster than I can write and it is more legible.

Now I have seen some great implementations of Tablet PC's. The best was when our company signed up with PayChex. The sales guy whipped out his tablet with a InfoPath application that allowed for me to fill out the form and sign it with out any paper. Then when the sales guy got back to his office, he could just dock his tablet and then it would automatically submit the application and sync everything to the backend. So definitely a great use of a Tablet.

But the iPad will rule the tablet space and not because it will have limited exposure. The iPad pricing is perfect for widespread adoption and has a lot of great potential. It was interesting to hear that some believe this to be niche product when I have talked to many a non-technical person who is excited about the iPad. 

Steve Jobs said it best when he discussed their vision for the iPad in that it had to be better than anything already out there. It could not just be a better Netbook because he was right, NetBooks are terrible! They are limited in everything except that they are cheap. Seriously what does a NetBook do that a decent small laptop does not?

So what needs to happen for MS to compete in the tablet space? They need to work with one hardware vendor extremely close and develop something completely innovative that is NOT tied to Windows 7 or anything else they have devised to date. They need to look at how to integrate it with the upcoming Office 2010 Web version and integrate with some Cloud Storage service but have some options for it to integrate into other web services. Make it work fantastically with hosted CRM and Hosted Exchange. Not to mention Sharepoint. 

Me, I will be standing in line the day that the iPad is available and trying to think about what I am going to use my MacBook Air for now!

NOTE: eMonarch (my company) is a Microsoft Gold Partner and make a great living working with Microsoft products. I love what MS does in the business space and the XBox 360 is the best consumer device I have ever seen!

Future of the Desktop - Part 2

Back in April of last year, I wrote about the future of the desktop with respect to a battle between Apple, Microsoft and Linux for the desktop operating system that seemed to be brewing as more folks were not happy with Vista and Apple was becoming more common in both the home and the business community.

Well it appears I was sleeping on the job as I never considered a fourth alternative, Google! I remember talking to many of my peers that Google would not create OS as it did not make much sense to me. Boy was I wrong on that one.

On 7/7/2009 Google announce Google Chrome OS (Announcement from Google). That was a surprise to me but really it should not be as the future of computing really appears to be where applications are offered via the Internet (or Cloud) especially for the consumer space. 

So what is interesting about Chrome OS?

Google is targeting it for a very specific use, Netbook computers and for people who spend the majority of their time on the web. So for example, users of applications like Google Apps, Zoho, Salesforce, and NetSuite to name just a few of web-based applications. This is really compelling even if you agree with Steve Ballmer from Microsoft who last week said "There’s good data that says 50 percent of the time that someone’s on their PC, they’re not doing something with the Web browser" at the MS annual partner conference.

Ok but what about the other 50% of the time where we are using the browser? What was that percentage two years ago - 25%? So maybe in two more years that number will change again to 75% and then who knows where the future will go with it.

I think back in the days of the browser wars between Microsoft and the others, that Bill Gates was worried that the browser would replace Windows as the platform and so they invested so much in IE and other web technologies.

Regardless of the posturing of the technology companies, the Internet is not a fad (I had a friend once refer the Internet as the CB of the 90's) and Software as a Service is not a fad. 

There are a lot of other factors that I am beginning to see even in our neck of the woods with respect to businesses becoming more comfortable with the idea of data living in the Cloud and not having servers,etc. 

Citrix is doing some interesting stuff with their Service Provider program that will enable technology firms to provide traditional applications via the web as well as seeing more and more applications being written solely for the web.

The Google Chrome OS is not done yet and so we will have to take a wait and see approach but I believe that the Google Chrome OS will find its place and also drive a heck of a lot of innovation that will determine the future of the desktop OS.

The real question will be what is MS going to do in response if anything and what will the next OS out of Redmond have for us? Windows 7 is right around the corner (September for business customers under a MS licensing program) and it holds some promise as well.

So what does the future of the desktop hold for us? No answers here but it will be an interesting ride for sure.

More Switching

So we are now up to four (4) Macs at this point. I have since added an iMac and a Mac Mini to our growing collection of Apple hardware and that is not including the iPhone that I recently picked up.

The Mac Mini is running the Apple OS X Server product and I am going to be working on a comparison between it and the new MS Small Business Server (Cougar) product that is due out this summer. I want to see just where the two meet at and what they can really offer the small business with a special eye towards features that businesses use (key point) and the price for those features. But that will be coming in the weeks ahead as we start our testing. I will post the results here on the blog and on our upcoming new site dedicated to running a small business on the Mac platform. Can't tell you the url just yet but it will be coming soon.

So the iPhone - WOW! I was perhaps one of the most anti-iPhone folks you could find due to just being biased. No other reason really. But I watched the announcement about the upcoming iPhone 2.0 (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/iphoneroadmap/) and was really excited about the potential. So much so that I made the announcement to our customer base that eMonarch would be officially supporting the iPhone on corporate networks for integration with MS Exchange. I even got the iPhone that same day.

But what was even more exciting was the phone itself. It is simple to use, works extremely well, very responsive, and the most important part is that it works great as a phone. Crazy thought that a cell phone is actually used to call people and used as a phone but it does! It is easy to dial with and make calls.

It does not stop there though. One of the things that I have always thought was just plain stupid was to have a camera on your phone that was taking absolutely ugly pictures. The iPhone takes remarkable pictures!! Seriously it really does. I have taken a number of pictures with it and they are great! So now I am taking way more pictures than I should but oh well.

There are so many other great things the phone has, Google Maps (you gotta use that feature) and Weather (my wife loves that one as she is constantly asking me about the weather and now I so go grab my phone).

All in all a very good experience. The iMac was simple to setup as well. What amazed me was that essentially I took it out of the box and hooked up one cable - the power cable and I was up and running! Try that on a PC!

Well the switch is on now to see what we can make the server do.

The Big Switch

Yesterday Apple posted a news item to their website that I found interesting about a company switching from Windows to Apple for its platform (Article can be found here).

What makes this so interesting is that we are considering the same thing. Two weeks ago I bought a MacBook Air. This came as a major surprise to all of my staff and my family. I am/was a big Microsoft fan and even considered myself a Microsoft evangelist.

I am very compelled with the Apple story for the small business and am looking into its potential. I have since bought another MacBook for one of our staff to use to see how it works for his day to day work. So far so good since we can still run Windows on the MacBook using BootCamp and VMWare Fusion.

There seems to be a lot of interest in the Apple with their iPhone, iPod and other innovations and it appears that MS is stumbling a little with Vista. When in the Apple Store it is almost always busy. I was in there the other day getting Microsoft Office for Mac and it was the first time that there was less than a full crowd in there.

But what was really interesting about my experience is that is was an experience. It was not just buy the Mac and have a nice day. Apple has done a fantastic job of creating a culture around their platform and it is very similar to the culture surrounding the Mini Cooper. When I bought my Mac, I also bought their OneToOne service which is 52 sessions of training on everything related to the Mac. I sit down one to one with a Apple trainer and they go over different items from Mac 101 to creating a Podcast using GarageBand. All for $99!

So all in all a very positive experience. More to come on the switch!