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

Kurt wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.giganews.com:

Who said anything about being a slave to the phone. It's more a case of making the best use of time while working to allow more time for not working. Some of us don't have the luxury of being able to use the timeclock as an excuse to leave something hanging until tomorrow.

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

What we are progressing towards is a society that requires instant access and instant answers. In today's environment, being the second-fastest to resolve something is no better than being last. As you know by the nature of your job (as you have explained it), some things simply can't wait. They have to be done yesterday in order for companies to operate effectively. Telling someone that they actually have to wait for something is the quickest way to find yourself at Kinko's copying your resume.

Ah yes. Rush to market products with very short lifetimes. Customer tested software. Standard answer to buggy products is to wait for the next version. Been there and you're right. In the 1970 and 80's, when I was till doing product design, the average sales lifetime of my stuff was about 6 years. I had one radio that was selling for about

12 years. These daze, you're lucky if the lifetime is 6 months or less. Disk drives are a good example, where manufacturers don't bother fixing their problems because the next *THREE* generations of replacement drives are already in the pipeline.

First to market is a guaranteed win, no matter how lousy the product. Get the early adopters and fanatics, and you have an instant fan club. You also own the market. Strangely, most are grossly dissatisfied by Release 1.0 type of products (i.e. the original GPRS iPhone), but will slobber at the mouth for a chance at a repeater performance with the next release, generation, or update. Little wonder that AT&T changed what's left of their mind and elected not to cheat their most loyal customers.

Speaking only for myself, I vacillate between taking a change on Release 1.0 and waiting for the bugs to get shaken out and the prices to drop. I've done it both ways and generally find that letting someone else find all the bugs is the path of least resistance and lowest blood pressure. At $350, I bought the first version of the Acer Aspire One Netbook, only to have it go obsolete about 2 weeks later, when the new and improved versions arrived. The secret to long life is to never waste energy resisting temptation.

If I were to assign a rigid definition of "productivity" to mean anything the contributes to my financial success, I would be better off tossing the PDA, cell phone, multiple computers, GPS map toy, and numerous other goodies and gadgets I've accumulated over the years. Most of these burn more time and effort in their upkeep and use, than they produce in revenue. Today is a marginal example. I originated 4 phone calls and received 2 phone calls. Only one had anything to do with business and was only to check if the customer was actually back from lunch. I could have left the phone off and done as well. I did quite nicely with a pager for many many years and could probably do as well today.

However, judging by my last tax return, I'm not in business for a profit. Instead, I'm in business for the entertainment value. Therefore, techy toys are perfectly acceptable, which includes the road warrior essentials of a smart phone on my belt. Actually, I've gone overboard with the Batman utility belt nerd look. I have a pedometer, cell phone, old PDAphone (xv6700), flashlight, and clasp knife on my belt. In my back pocket is my iPod Touch. Also a pocket protector stuffed full of scribbling instruments, hemostat, ruler, paper clips, and business cards.

Incidentally, I haven't needed a resume for quite a while. I've been working for myself since about 1983. I also have my own copier. Part of the problem:

(That's what my desk looks like when it's clean).

It depends on where you're sailing. In Santa Cruz harbor, one of my friends went sailing with a big panel antenna connected to his wireless bridge box (WRT54G with dd-wrt). He was able to mostly stay connected to an access point located in a house on the hill above the harbor out to about the mile marker. Of course, it took two people to run the system. One to orient the panel antenna. The other to operate the laptop.

Some of the others are into "war sailing" which is cruising up and down the harbor or coast mapping potentially available access points. For example:

Ok, there's where we differ. My road time is minimal and not terribly important.

Ouch. That's a long time. I can see why you would want and need to be connected during that time. The most I've done commuting in the past was 90 minutes each way. I used the time with a tape type voice recorder to deal with "things to do" and whatever was the problem of the day. Currently, my home to office commute is about 30 minutes, none of which is conducive to operating a laptop or PDA while driving.

What makes this practical for you is the 2.5 hr drive and airport delays. If you had my 30 minute commute, you would probably just wait until you arrived at your destination.

Incidentally, operating a computer (digital data terminal) while driving is sorta banned in California:

The problem is that the law is rather badly written and consists mostly of exceptions. Your state may have something similar. You may want to check.

I've seen people reading the newspapers while crawling in bumper to bumper traffic. Amazingly, no accidents. Your text to speech method will work, but there's always the temptation to look at the display instead of looking at the road. Methinks the risks are a bit high to make it habitual.

If you do that every day, it's a no brainer. However, if my need for internet connectivity on the road is sporadic and for shorter driving times, it's not such a no-brainer.

Thanks for explaining your thoughts and situation.

Jeff Liebermann wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

A couple of clarifications:

- The commute time I mentioned is total for the day- a little over an hour each way. South of Colorado Springs to south metro Denver.

- I agree that glancing at the screen can be a temptation. The car charger I have is long enough for me to place the computer in the back seat with the screen facing towards the rear. I can easily reach it ONLY if I've come to a complete stop and undo my seat belt. I do this not really out of the temptation to glance at it, but out of the need to be aware of some of the really crazy and stupid drivers I encounter on a daily basis.

I see it takes video at 640x480, but only emails at 480x360. Can it ftp or in some other way transmit a 640x480 video?

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:45:46 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

Tell that to Eiger Labs (MPMan, 1998) and Diamond (Rio, 1998). Apple (iPod) didn't come along until 2001, three years later.

I find it amazing how widely held that misconception is since evidence to the contrary abounds.

What wins in the marketplace is the product that gets it right.

On Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:56:58 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

The better setup for those depending on Wi-Fi, as described in , is a high-gain omni antenna and wireless Ethernet client bridge at the top of the mast, and PoE on Cat 5 cable running up the mast, giving very good range with no aiming required.

On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:48:06 +0000 (UTC), snipped-for-privacy@acm.org wrote in :

My Sony Ericsson TM506 can message or email photos at full resolution in addition to downsized resolution, depending on an option setting. It can also upload them to the Web. And because it uses a removable memory card, those photos can be taken with a high quality digital camera, not just the camera in the phone.

Congrats, you found a few exceptions to the rule.

Like VHS?

And even getting right is moving target. I would submit the US Automakers as Exhibit 1.

Well, you may have a point with the iPod. From my warped perspective, it's the company that makes the fewest mistakes that eventually prevails. Price also has a big effect on adoption rate.

There's also the common problem of innovative small companies getting bought by larger companies that then have sufficient resources to "get it right". Size matters.

I was given a Diamond Rio PMP300:

I'm staring at the box on the shelf as I write. Total piece of junk. Not enough audio volume, self corroding copper contacts, nearly useless file transfer software, parallel port interface, and a complex music distribution system. What killed it for me was that the non-rechargeable battery would rapidly discharge when turned off. Diamond also didn't have its legal act together resulting in the RIAA blocking shipments until the royalty issues were settled in court. $200 to play only about 12 tunes meant that the useless file transfer mechanics and software became more than an inconvenience. At the same time (1999) Diamond Multimedia was acquired by S3 graphics who decided it best to concentrate on video card products. Initial sales of about

300K Rio units were deemed insufficient to justify support or a follow up product.

As I previously mumbled, rush to market and in this case, making every mistake possible. Releasing and then not supporting a product in the middle while being acquired is not a great idea. If they had made fewer mistakes, they could have owned the market. Yet another lost opportunity.

My version is the company that makes the fewest mistakes, wins. Diamond Rio did everything wrong. Apple learned from their efforts, made fewer mistakes, and prevailed.

I don't know anything about MPMan but my guess(tm) is was much of the same:

Yep. Also the company the pours millions into promotion is usually perceived as the one that gets it right. From my perspective, it's what the user is willing to tolerate is a big factor. I'll spare you my criticism of the iPod and iPhone.

It's also possible to screw up something that already works well. My Verizon XV6700 PDAphone has all the features I could want. The problem is that everything has something slightly broken. Using the phone is an exercise in minor frustrations. Roll forward 3 years, and I inherit a Palm Pro PDAphone (on Cingular). The former owner died, possibly from frustration trying to operate the phone. Going from Windoze Mobile 5 to 6.1 retained most of the broken features, with the addition of some new problems. Wi-Fi range is even worse than the iPod Touch. It will be for sale as soon as I can convince Verizon to deactivate the account (an amazingly difficult process).

Who cares?

A guy asks about getting video thru at better resolution and NavASS starts yaking about his crappy photo fone...

On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 11:16:41 -0500, Custom Cars wrote in :

Yes.

On Sat, 20 Jun 2009 09:50:17 -0700, Jeff Liebermann wrote in :

The iPod is a premium price product.

And being first to market didn't matter. And BTW, lots of other folks were in the market along with Diamond by the time Apple came along.

If you go back in time you see just this sort of successful strategy by heavyweights like IBM, Cisco, and Hewlett-Packard. What matters is getting it right, not being first.

I disagree. There are many examples of products succeeding in the face of heavier advertising by competitors.

This also illustrates the importance of defining one's market. VHS won out in the Consumer area, but Beta was the choice for professionals. TV stations for instance.

Obviously, Navas's idea of "got it right" means "got 20% more record time," and isn't "got hugely better image quality".

On Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:15:27 -0400, Kurt Ullman wrote in :

Actually U-Matic in the beginning, later Betacam (not Betamax).