NEWS: AT&T loosens its iPhone 3G S upgrade policy

The big advantage of mobile data is when you use public transport. Some public transportation has free WiFi, i.e. the AC Transit transbay buses, but most of the public transit WiFi comes at prices higher than the $30/month adder that 3G costs on Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint. You also have to be careful as to which 3G service you choose. I.e. I go to D.C. a lot for meetings and I use the metro. There is no AT&T, Sprint, or T-Mobile coverage in the Metro's underground portion, only Verizon has coverage.

I just setup a new XP machine. I left my USB flash drive with all my updates at home, so I did all the updates from the internet. Looking at the router logs, that's about 650Mbytes of downloads, including Quickbooks 2006 updates. Can you really do that via 3G wireless, with a tethered cell phone? Is the 5GB download limit for all customers, for tethered cell phones, or just for the G1?

Incidentally, my office internet traffic is almost all downloading updates and apps. That's a big part of being productive. Based on last months totals, my guess is about 8GBytes per month in updates and apps, all of which would need to be transfered to 3G should I decide to convert to a mobile office.

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 09:33:13 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

Yesterday in addition to normal Internet usage I downloaded 24 podcasts of 20 MB each over 3G, for a total of at least 500 MB for the day. That, by the way, was straight to the 2 GB memory card in the phone, not tethered access -- my "dumb" phone can easily consume a *lot* of data, not only podcasts, but also streaming radio, video, Google Maps, etc. That said, if I have fast non-3G available, I tend to use it over

Actually a soft cap, throttling of heaviest users, which I think makes sense. I don't see that in my own package terms and conditions, and I've seen no evidence of it on my account thus far. I'll let you know if I do.

I use a variety of services depending on what's readily available, wired, Wi-Fi, 3G, and my normal 3G traffic was on the order of 1 GB per month the last time I checked.

Nope. That's the new reality. Last night, I went to my usual dinner spot with some friends. It was crowded. At the adjacent table were what looked like four UCSC students, each with cell phones, all sending SMS messages, Twittering, or what not. Only a few words were exchanged. I figured that the keyboarding would stop when the food arrived, but they just switched to a slower one handed keyboarding technique. This is the digital version of everyone at the table yacking on their cell phones during dinner.

I recently picked up a friend at SJO airport. I had some time to burn in the lobby, so I sat there reading an eBook on my iPod Touch. No need for connectivity to do that. I was also watching the others in the lobby. Almost all the business travellers were either poking at their PDA or phone, or yacking on the phone. A tiny percentage were reading a book, newspaper, or magazine. No wonder the printed press is collapsing.

Methinks it's no so much that one is a "slave" to the phone. That only happens when one allows the phone to interrupt one's activities. That's what voice mail and email are for. What has happened is that we are slowly progressing towards the cell phone being the ultimate portable multimedia entertainment device. Internet access is a big part of that, but only because most phones have very limited storage and display. That will change. Maybe then I'll consider paying for the privledge of not being bored in airport lobbies. Of course, I'll justify the expense by claiming to be "productive".

It's very much like component hi-fi systems versus integrated entertainment consoles. Each have their uses and supporters. The iPhone, smart phones, PDAphone, and such are integrated solutions. I'm partial to seperating the components of the puzzle, which gives me more versatility, more functionality, and reduced cost. It allows me to juggle components as needed (I'm playing with various PDA's and cell phones this month).

For example, I'm finding that the built in email client in the iPod Touch is next to useless. The problem is that POP3 insists on downloading everything from my provider. It can seperate the spam into a seperate folder, but there's no way to delete ALL the contents of the spam folder in one command. It insists that the user delete each message individually, which can be rather tedious with hundreds of spam messages per day. I managed to work around this with IMAP4, but my mail email account is POP3 only.

As always, it comes down to cost. The money I'm saving by NOT subscribing to a 3G data plan, can buy me a new PDA every 6-9 months.

Full disclosure: I sometimes use Verizon's ultra-slow 14.4Kbit/sec data service for doing phone number or address searches. It's slow, but doesn't cost extra.

Why would "all" be transferred to 3G? It's not necessarily an either/or- you could still use WiFi, or a client's on-site connection when available- cellular data would be an avenue of last resort for big downloads, I would think.

I'm a dinosaur- I don't even have 3G. I'm a T-Mobile user (T-Mo finally added 3G recently, but uses a "new" frequency band incompatible with most prior 3G devices including my unlocked AT&T Tilt.) My data needs are more modest- mostly ubiquitous access to email, a bit of info lookup, and a little remote desktop, so the slower speeds aren't really a handicap. I use faster Wifi whenever available, but cellular data is my "safety net" filling in the "holes" in my WiFi coverage. (And for a lousy $6/month I really can't complain about the speed!)

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:00:34 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

That depends on your perspective. My perspective is that my cell phone is greatly liberating, making it possible for me to be in lots of great places I wouldn't be able to be without it. When I'm happily surfing over 3G in the cockpit of an anchored sailboat or sitting on a rock up Mt Diablo, I'm anything but a "slave" to my phone -- I'd otherwise be stuck inside.

I often listen to podcasts or audio books, which I can do without connectivity (assuming I've planned ahead), but I also listen to Internet radio and watch Internet video, which does take connectivity.

Newspapers are collapsing because (a) their ad-supported business model got broken by the Internet and (b) they failed to reinvent themselves in response. Next in the crosshairs are printed books, as ebooks become better and better (although my own preference is audiobooks and podcasts, so I can rest my eyes and eliminate distractions).

Yep. Part of why I like using my phone for audiobooks and podcasts is because I can hear and see incoming calls and messages, respond if needed, or ignore them if not.

Already has. Even the better dumb phones now have memory card slots, and the cost of GB flash memory is dirt cheap. I "only" got 2 GB for my "dumb" TM506 because it was easy, cheap, and big enough for my immediate needs, but I plan to upgrade to at least 8 GB when I find a good deal, or perhaps even 16 GB. (That the iPhone doesn't use memory cards is what's really "dumb".)

Google hosts my email, and the Google Mail (Gmail) client for the TM506 is very good, much better than the bundled email client.

BTW, I'm pretty impressed with how well Skype works over T-Mobile 3G, almost as good as Skype over Wi-Fi.

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:50:16 -0700, John Navas wrote in :

Since your email supports POP3 access, you could set up a free Google Mail account for mobile use that automatically and seamlessly fetches mail from your existing account for access with the Gmail Mobile client (or any good IMAP client). You can even set up Filters in Google Mail to alert you by text message, although my own style is to just leave the Gmail Mobile client running in the background of my cell phone. Long term you might want to consider free domain hosting in Google Apps, which is what I use for email on my own domains and those of many of my clients (along with free Google Sites, etc).

the iphone comes with as much as 32 gig built-in, so why fuss with cards? it's much more than what most people generally use. the most popular ipods have historically been smaller in capacity, starting with the 4 gig mini that far outsold the 20 gig ipod which was only $50 more at the time, and later the ipod nano that replaced it.

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:55:13 -0700, nospam wrote in :

Because it's better, easier, and cheaper to use removable memory cards, which have the advantage of being swappable and usable in other devices.

I can take a memory card out of a digital camera, insert it into a phone, and send pictures to my friends, online album, and blog.

Because I was considering becoming a portable person and getting rid of the office and its associated rent and expenses. If I could effectively do the same work in a van, I could save far more than the cost of the 3G service. The limiting factor has always been the download cap.

True. However, then the marginal improvement in "productivity" provided by access to 3G wireless data would be small and certainly insufficient to justify the expense. However, there are far too many areas in the County of Santa Cruz CA, where DSL or cable data are simply not available. We have a local Wi-Max provider (Razzolink) that fills in some of these areas. Also some WISP providers (SurfNetC). However, there are plenty of customers still on dialup. I find it impossible to update and maintain some of these machines without having to drag them to the office and back, just to get a broadband connection. 3G wireless would be a big help for these customers.

My usage is similar to yours. Instead of downloading everything directly to the handset or PDA, I use VNC to control my office desktop, which then does the downloading. For ftp downloads, I use my Unix box, running from the "at" command to do the download at hours when the DSL connection isn't so busy. (It's shared with 4 other businesses). All of this is a convenience, not a business necessity.

most people are not interested in juggling multiple memory cards.

there's already a camera in the iphone and there will be card readers that attach to the dock connector shortly.

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:11:52 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

Why not a high-gain Wi-Fi antenna in the van making it an excellent Wi-Fi client to offload a good deal of traffic from 3G?

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:17:48 -0700, nospam wrote in :

Most people I know are quite comfortable moving memory cards to transfer and print pictures, transfer files, etc.

It's a poor camera compared to a real digital camera, and I'm not interested in carrying accessories around.

The iPhone would be more impressive if fans didn't have to keep making excuses and work-arounds for it. ;)

invalid sample size that's not representative of the masses. the average user is not a geek that wants to deal with cards and the ipod and iphone already have more storage than they know what to do with.

it's certainly no dslr but it *is* a camera and the latest firmware improves the picture quality. the best camera is one that's with you and it's not always feasible to carry another camera, no matter what kind of camera it is.

i can't speak for others but i'm not making excuses at all. it's not perfect and despite its shortcomings, a lot of people are extremely satisfied with it, something like 80-90% in a survey last year. sorry if facts don't jive with your bias.

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:57:13 -0700, nospam wrote in :

I'm talking a respectable sample size (20+) of ordinary users.

It's a poor camera.

Sure sounds like it to me.

i never said it was a great camera. read what i wrote.

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 14:25:28 -0700, nospam wrote in :

You apparently don't understand statistics.

In fact you touted it as an alternative to a quality digital camera.

actually i do, and apparently you don't understand the needs of the typical user versus 20 of your friends.

i said no such thing. what i said was that it is an alternative when carrying another camera is not desired or even possible. obviously, there are better cameras available.

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:42:29 -0700, nospam wrote in :

Your statement contradicts that.

Those are typical users.

Actually you did.

I'm done. Have the last word.