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DataJack – Unlimited 3G Mobile Broadband

datajack

$99 for the modem and then only $39.99 per month for unlimited 3G Access … sounds like a great deal!  This is at leas $20 less a month than anything else on the market.

The DataJack USB modem costs $99.99 and unlimited, high speed, nationwide internet access costs only $39.99 per month. Because there are no activation or termination fees and no contract, you can turn the service on and off as you wish.

DataJack Bonus:

If you stay connected for 12 consecutive months, you will earn one FREE month of unlimited 3G Internet access!

Yes, DataJack Service is truly unlimited. You can leave it connected to the Internet 24 hours a day and not worry about any overage charges.

via Andy Abramson who also noticed this seems to be running on top of T-Mobile … so be sure to check you’ve got coverage if you want to go for it.

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Location, location, location!

In the past few years, I feel like I’ve tried just about every location service.  Some have certainly offered more than others, but one thing has been sadly consistent and that’s absolutely no consistency in access to your data.  If 2010 can bring one thing, I hope it’s a simplified and federated view into our location data.

Social location services are a very interesting area.  I’ve dabbled across various apps to try and find the magic but have come up short.  The potential is there, but because no one service or perhaps suite of tools enables

  • the right degree of privacy control
  • proactive friend notifications
  • base of users and importantly a way to contact each other either publicly or privately

A quick look back at the list of things I’ve tried in no particular order… Jaiku, Twitter, Latitude, Nokia FriendView, Loopt, Brightkite, waze, Stalqer, dopplr, tripit, fire eagle, Foursquare and Gowalla.  Of all these, only Fire Eagle and Dopplr currently talk and a quick check on Fire Eagle tonight revealed I am in Singapore yet I write this from Katonah, NY.  Dopplr actually knows that’s where I am but for some reason has not shared this info with FE … not that it matters for now.

There’s a clear issue with all of this.  There is no way to share my location data easily across services and situations.  Instead I have to explicitly state or open the app I want to use in order to have things update and shared across my social network.   Unlike status messages, location is not a subjective thing, it’s actual.  You can and should be able to share the degree of accuracy people see and Latitude does this well.  Even the two competing check-in services FourSquare and Gowalla do it differently… Foursquare requires and address if you want the place to be used by others while Gowalla places a pin on the map via GPS.  I prefer the GPS method personally as I almost never know or want to take the time to find the address to simply check-in.  If I fire Latitude up my location will be highlighted within a few moments, but that’s not something I can actually use.

Speaking of using … the three points I was initially making all clearly tie together.

  • I need to have total control over how my location information is shared.  I rarely want to show when I am in my home, but showing the town is cool.
  • With friends in the system, I want to know when they are close and see that as prioritized info in whatever view I’ve got within the app.  For some reason this is not the case with anything.  Latitude sorts randomly when you browse the map, Foursquare sorts by time and Foursquare, Gowalla and Stalqer give me updates on everyone regardless of where they are.  While there are some modifiable settings, it’s not even close to granular enough to be valuable in this context.
  • Having friends in the system is important and since this space is still fragmented there are too many options to choose from to find your friends.  Stalqer did an admirable job linking through Facebook, but Facebook doesn’t actually have a native location system.

Twitter and Facebook will probably duke this out in the end with some competition from Google.  Currently twitter supports location and you can geo-tag tweets via various mobile clients, but this information is so hidden from the main view, it’s essentially a waste to even bother.  Google has quite a few pieces behind the scenes, but so far has not taken them anywhere.  You’ll notice I’ve got a location widget on the sidebar of my blog which will show city-level views via Latitude.  Other than that Latitude is mainly a view only layer on Maps.

I’m sure 2010 will be a hype filled year for location services.  I’m really hoping we’ll see standards that will let these things work together.  I don’t want to entrust my location data to a single provider (yet) though if someone was able to develop the right open federation model it would make things very interesting.

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Google Latitude Location Alerts

latitude location alert

On my way home tonight I fired up Google Maps to get an address and since I use Latitude, I was also activating my location.  I got an sms telling me my friend and colleague Will was “nearby.”  I received the image above in an email with a similar message …

I actually had forgotten I had turned on these location settings, and now that I see how they really function, I have a few suggestions:

  • 50+ KM is not exactly a practical range for spur of the moment meetups for starters.  Will was 52km away when the alert triggered …
  • There’s no contact number in the sms alert which forces a few more steps to contact (call or sms) the person

I love the idea of social location and if you follow me across various services I’m sure you’ve noticed as well.  What Google is doing is trying to make it easy through the use of location history, but it’s still unclear how that works without constantly opening Maps.  I can’t afford to let Latitude project my location in the background all day as GPS tends to eat batteries …   I’m wondering if there isn’t some sort of data partnership to be had with the various check-in services (or even Yelp!) to augment the more direct GPS tagging you do with maps.  The more data in the mix here the more valuable the results.

Btw – Will developed the Michael Ruhlman Ratio iPhone app – be sure to check it out!

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Mag+

Mag+ from Bonnier on Vimeo.

This is a really slick prototype for a future e-magazine reader.  I really like how they are not looking to make it play video or fake the page turn.  The experience is focused and lets you enjoy reading – yet in a beautiful digitally enhanced manner.

I recommend playing the video back in fullscreen mode.

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A small wishlist for the iPhone in 2010

The more I use a a variety of mobile devices I keep coming back to a few seemingly arbitrary limits of the iPhone. I’m hoping the following issues are resolved in a future release:

If I can’t have all apps multitask I would prioritize media playing apps. There is no reason why listening to audio needs to monopolize a device – ever. This is not a radio, it’s a pocket computer come on!

While on the topic of media, it also seems quite abitrary that Apple’s core app functions are not available to things like Pandora or Last.fm. Why can’t I see the album art like from the ipod when waking the screen? Why can’t the remote button on our headphones also control these 3rd party apps.

These are details but severly limit how the iphone works.

One final nit I have is regarding voice control. I’d like to know what genius thought it should just be on all the time with headphones?! As a result my music is constantly interrupted by the iphone’s expectation of a voice command. This only seems to happen with the standard headphones but happens both indoors as well as out.

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What about the Google Phone is Going to matter?

Take a peek on Techmeme and you might think the only story in tech news is the upcoming and likely release of a Google Phone.  I’m sure it will be decent enough but am starting to question the logic a bit given the rumor that the Nexus One as it seems to be called will be sold as an open device, yet on T-Mobile.

I’m definitely a fan of open.  I absolutely prefer that my mobile devices not have restrictions based on operator business development initiatives and instead offer all that the hardware and OS can deliver.  I just don’t see how this device is going to really make that much of a difference for the mainstream consumer – or for T-Mobile.  According to the FCC leak the supported bands will be global and specifically TMO’s (1700) in the US.

If T-Mobile sells and supports the device it will really be a T-Mobile device.  Even if you buy it elsewhere you will need to run it on T-Mobile (again in the US) to actually take advantage of the 3G services and why would you buy an advanced smartphone otherwise?

I would love to be a fly on the way at Verizon Wireless right now.  They just spent gobs of cash launching the Droid which is strongly co-branded Google and has little to no Verizon anywhere.  Maybe they jumped the gun on going for Droid so quickly when big G had this cooking (to compete) all along …

I’m wondering whether Google might be looking to upend the subsidy market by  taking on the cost directly in exchange for all the lovely data they track … assuming a Google phone is like the G1 in that you must have a Google Account for it to work.  I tend to agree with Ewan that this really is going to be a price play.  It’s unlikely that this will be the phone for me, and I do wonder who an open Android device is for just now … Looking forward to seeing how this all plays out.

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BlackBerry Bold 9700 initial thoughts

I’ve been using the new BlackBerry 9700 for a bit over a week and it’s an impressive device. The last BB I used was a curve from about two years ago and it is immediately clear that the platform has matured to accommodate applications and multitasking.

In the past my experience aside from email and ota sync of exchange, was pretty negative. The curve was a very underwhelming device once you started to consider it a smartphone. Multitasking brought it to its knees and made anything in addition to email rather unpleasant.

The new Bold 9700 is a refreshing change. I really find the experience to be solid. The 9700 truly excels as a communicator which clearly remains the core blackberry sweet spot. The unified inbox is a very smart idea and let’s you focus a great deal of attention in a single streamlined place. Multiple email inboxes, gtalk chats, facebook notices (which open contextually in the app!) blackberry messenger chats and sms messages all in one place really rock. I still like to move between the various comms modes but staying connected cross channel in one place is awesome.

While the 9700 is my main work device I am still exploring apps and getting a rich feel for the platform and app ecosystem. I have yet to purchase any apps, but have spent a fair bit of time with BB App World. Its easy to see where it is heading and the initial roll out is admirable but there are quite a few issues … To name a few:

Even after sharing my imei and specific device on the web I still get apps that are not compatible. Fail.

App World is a bit tedious. Its nice that you can download multiple things but navigation requires too many steps. If you find an app online either from the desktop or mobile you often find a page that gives you a choice of downloading within app world or actually downloading app world itself. Why wasn’t the store even on my brand new flagship by default??

Back to the device itself…

The keyboard takes a bit of getting used to but once you have a feel its super to type on. I can type much faster than I ever did on either the Nokia E71 or E75. No contest really.

The speed at which you can process incoming messages as well as crank out what you need on the go is outstanding. Mobile productivity is way up compared to both Symbian and iPhone usage. Exchange integration is amazing with BES. I realize that’s quite a premium compared to the more standard consumer facing BIS but it truly is a robust solution. I know Nokia is trying to compete with this via Mail For Exchange but in the past few years I have experienced far too many halted syncs and errors to believe that’s really an appropriate enterprise solution. On the consumer side perhaps there is more tolerance but I’ve lost some faith after so many hiccups.

I’ve started to use BB Messenger with some teammates and see that really in the same way that Nextel offered Direct Connect (sans voice). It’s a solid choice for chatting in either one to one or groups on the go and is an sms beater (with threads!) If everyone is on the platform.

The browser has improved and is tolerable. At best it gives S60 a run for the money but has nothing on the webkit offerings from Android and iphone. For me it gets the job done as needed but it is not my goto browser. I do really like the use of keyboard shortcuts and how easy it is to initiate a new page or search. Tabs would be excellent and I am unsure why this was omitted …

Call quality, camera (with geotagging) and memory usage are all solid. It seems impossible to understand what apps are currently running vs recently run in the task switcher but as I have yet to run out of RAM this seems like a minor point.

I will probably have some additional points soon but thus far the current Blackberry system is quite solid and something I would definitely recommend.

Btw – I wrote this post on the 9700 while on the train home. Pandora was streaming nicely in the background the whole time.

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MityCross 350

Mitycross 350

This morning I took my first ride with the MityCross 350 LED bike light an came away generally impressed.  I’ve used two other lights, both from Blackburn but this simply outshines (ahem) the other units.

I do a lot of riding first thing in the morning, typically leaving around 5:30am and it’s dark.  Seeing the road and being seen by cars is a rather critical detail.  With the past lights, I was able to see though there clear limits to what the lights could cover and I’ve wanted to have something much brighter for a while.  There’s honestly no comparison to the other lights in general light output and range of the beam.  While small, the MityCross 350 really pumps out a very bright and wide beam of light.  I was able to see the road ahead as well as a good bit of the peripheral bit of the road in pre-sun darkness.

The best part of the MityCross was that oncoming traffic generally dimmed their high beams.  This is a huge plus as one of the more dangerous aspects of riding in the dark is being blinded by oncoming cars.  Now they see me coming clearly and tend to respect my presence as though I was a motor vehicle.

My usual morning loop is a bit over an hour (all I can do before heading to work sadly) and the sun starts to rise about mid-way through.  Once that happens, I tend to switch over to blinker mode which the MityCross also handles expertly.  The flasher is more like a strobe and again, enabled cars to easily see my approach from well off in the distance.

The main “issue” with the MityCross is that the battery is external and requires that you fasten it to your bike (or helmet) via a velcro strap.  I found that there was plenty of cable to manage, but it’s considerably less clean of an install over an all in one type of light.  The MityCross 350 runs about $200 at retail which is probably more than most people look to spend, but amazing is really just the starting point for bright bike lights.  I believe I’ll be satisfied with this light for a while and expect it to serve my riding needs for many miles.

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Is Blaze Mobile BS?

I signed up for Blaze Mobile over the summer and while I have received a number of emails from the company touting how wonderful they are, I have yet to receive my NFC sticker – the core product they offer.

When I questioned this I received the following:

We are sorry for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, our bank requires us to mail the stickers with a plastic prepaid card which are on back-order. As soon as they are in, we will mail both to you.

In the meantime, you can use 90% of the Blaze Wallet without the sticker including the following just to name a few:

  • You can get your account balance and receipts from over 8,000 financial institutions
  • You can load your reward cards for hotels, airlines, rental cards and get your point balances
  • You can purchase movie tickets
  • You can search for restaurants and other points of interest and get turn-by-turn directions
  • You can create expense reports (iPhone version only)

Last I checked, there’s nothing unique or beneficial about doing any of this stuff with Blaze.  I would not even consider Blaze the source for any of this activity … The only semi-interesting bit is the expense report though it’s highly unlikely that it would work with our corporate system and most importantly what would I be expensing without a way to pay??

I get that NFC payments are still largely considered new and mainly in tests outside of a few cases like retail and transit cases  – at least in NYC.  What I don’t like though is how a product is openly marketed as real and prevalent with little to no “customer” communication about where things really stand.  When I signed up there was no mention of a backlog on pre-paid cards … and come on really?  Is it that hard for whatever bank is backing this to issue a card?

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Sony seems out to prove online video can’t work

I’ve written about day and date previously and think it’s a compelling opportunity for media companies and of course the consumer. I seriously doubt though that offering a $25 24 hour rental is the way to succeed.

It is doubtful consumers will find the offer particularly attractive: At $24.95 for a 24-hour rental, it is more than many movies cost to buy on DVD. Still, the offer demonstrates how Sony, like its hardware rival Apple, has more incentive to promote Internet video than other media companies. via WSJ.com.

Sony is apparently offering this solely through their connected TVs which is totally ridiculous. No PS3? Oh right different department. Fail. I’m curious what percentage of consumers with a new connected set, actually have it configured and working for anything … It should be interesting to hear how Sony reports back on the results of this test.

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Switching iphones

This weekend I made a trip to the Apple store to finally deal with the terrible (worse than yours) battery life I have been experiencing with the 3GS. It did not take long for the Genius to confirm the battery was defective and I was soon on my way with a replacement device.

When I got home it was time to go through the restore process to hopefully be back where I was data-wise and hopefully things would be as they were. My experience was largely positive though a few notes.

1. The single connection through iTunes remains an amazingly strong point for Apple. The way a device backs up and restores is unparalled. Not perfect, but solid.

2. If you dont use iPhoto or Aperture for imaging you need to manually back up your pictures but the restore process does bring them back a well as all that data is stored together.

3. iTunes installed every app I had ever downloaded which was not what I wanted at all but it has been easier to remove things again than trying to hunt down apps again.

4. The application restration process sets up apps in alphabetical order which is seriosly annoying. I have more apps than can be displayed now and even using iTunes to slide things around, it will take a while and some patience to rebuild my prior setup.

5. I have 3 email accounts and both my work exchange account as well as my .me account needed to have their passwords entered to connect. My voicemail password also needed to be entered though that happened before I had a chance to sync and seemed more related to visual voicemail wanting to connect.

The process of restoring the iPhone, updating the software to the latest version and then resyncing all my media took a few hours. I only had to click ok a few times and spent most of the time cycling so I hardly noticed.

Replacing a device because you need to too is consderably less fun than when you choose to buy a new one. Even with the few hitches Ive menioned Apple is leading the customer experience in an area that is always frustrating.

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Who approves Sprint’s product shots? #fail

I’m not sure why I always notice stuff like this, but I find it so lame, I have to comment.

A while back Sprint was running a relatively smart ad about belt tightening and featured this ad which I snapped a pic of during my commute:

I am sure the creative director thought the belt needed to be horizontal...

Tonight was just browsing some RSS and see that once again Sprint has decided that regardless of how someone might actually be using the device being shown they will show it in a way that better suits someone’s creative eye:

Samsung Moment

Of course Sprint has bigger issues … like preventing tethering!

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A day late and a dollar short?

With all the noise yesterday about Android 2.0 and Google’s new free navigation service, this release just feels a bit … Meh.

Navigation market leader, Telmap, has used its unique navigation technology and NAVTEQ’s superior global map data, to bring a comprehensive mobile search, mapping and navigation solution for the iPhone, thus enabling mass adoption of mobile navigation. via Realwire

Since Nokia owns Navteq is does also immediately bring back my first thought on Ovi Maps…. How much longer can Nokia even consider charging for navigation services? nbsp;The PND category took a huge hit yesterday … Garmin alone lost 1.2 Billion off their market cap.

Once again the rules have changed. Will Nokia continue to play the same hand?


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Nokia Booklet 3G – Coming Soon to the US for $299

IMG_1298

Today Nokia confirmed pricing on their upcoming netbook, the Nokia Booklet 3G. Initially, you’ll be able to scoop one up at Best Buy for a subsidized price of $299. There will also be an contract free option which will be offered for $599.

$600 bucks is a lot for a netbook, but the Booklet 3G brings quite a bit to the table. It’s clear that Nokia has really developed something considerably more premium than the typical $300 machine. The aluminum construction is very solid and feels quite like a micro macbook. I’m sure this feel as well as the actual design was no accident and think a lot of people are going to really like how this notebook looks. The 10″ display offers a 720p ready resolution which is higher than standard, but also not too high. I was unable to confirm what the HDMI port can drive on an external display, only that it’s higher than the standard screen. This will be great for users looking to dock at home, though I could see using this in full laptop mode all the time.

Of course the real appeal of the Booklet 3G is the always-on connectivity combined with an impressive 12 hours of battery life. During the press Q&A it was unclear whether this battery life was with or without wireless and clearly using the device intensely will impact things a fair bit. That said, I would be surprised if you did not see over 8 hours of battery usage which certainly classifies itself as an all day machine in my book. Windows 7 will be the standard OS which is excellent. In my own netbook tests, Windows 7 has been an excellent performer and I would expect the same for the Booklet as well. I would expect the home edition as the standard install …

Best Buy will be the exclusive retailer when the Booklet 3G becomes available in time for holiday shopping while AT&T will be the exclusive launch operator for those looking to buy with a plan. The standard $60/5G/mo plan will be standard, though AT&T alluded to some lower priced price options coming as well.

In general, the Nokia Booklet 3G looks like a very compelling mobile computer. I could definitely see using this as my work computer. For my daily tasks managing email, web and social streams it would be perfect and the addition of always on connectivity along with stellar battery performance make it a just about a slam dunk. I’m looking forward to getting a real test machine to confirm my assumptions, but am very excited by what Nokia has done here.

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A Mobile Challenge!

Calling all mobile device manufacturer’s, carriers and anyone else who wants to play!

This is your chance to prove just how reliable your high end devices are!  I’m tired of seeing low battery warnings on my mobile devices before the end of a business day and am looking to you to prove me wrong — that there is actually at least one power device that can handle this seemingly simple task.  My normal usage is probably more aggressive than the average consumer and I’m looking to find the most robust smartphone on the market.

Here’s what you can expect your devices to have to survive …

  • I wake each day around 5am using the phone as an alarm.  It is then, that I unplug and really begin my day on battery.  I’ll check email from multiple accounts, take a peak at the weather, twitter and facebook.
  • I typically then work out and use my mobile for music.  I’m open to tracking the workout as well via whatever app you recommend, but typically use my Garmin to capture sports telemetry.  Post workout it’s back to check in with my various feeds as above and then off to the train …
  • On the train is where your device is going to experience some heavy usage and my commute is 90 minutes total in both directions.  The train itself is an hour and during that time, you expect the following type of usage: email (mulitiple accounts), twitter, facebook, extensive web usage (mainly google reader), ebooks and multimedia (music mainly).  I’ll probably check in on foursquare at both ends as well … I’m usually at the office by 9 though sometimes later like today.
  • During  the course of my business day I make a few calls, stay on track of upcoming meetings (exchange sync), and check-in occasionally with Foursquare (lunch), twitter, facebook and google reader.  Much of my information flow switches to the desktop during the day, but as I move between meetings mobile usage does come into play.
  • I’ll probably snap some pictures and upload them to various services as well … just part of a normal day.
  • The return commute is much like the morning.  I tend to take a train anytime between 6 and 8pm so your device needs to be able to last until 9pm.

In my experience the only device that has come close is the Nokia E71.  The iPhone 3GS ranks among the worst performers … requiring multiple top-ups throughout the day.  Other failed devices are the Nokia N80 and T-Mobile G1.

Here are the basic rules:

  • I’m happy to use my SIM card, but only have a personal account on AT&T so if you want to submit a device to this test, I’m requesting that you cover the data and call plan during the trial.
  • All devices must have 3G service in NYC.
  • All devices must fit into the “smartphone” category.
  • I’d like to test all devices submitted over a few days to understand what’s normal and to make sure they all get a fair shake.
  • All devices will be loaner.  I’m not looking to take your phones … just test them.
  • There’s no prize other than bragging rights.  I’m an individual not a company and can’t offer anything other than that.

If you are interested in participating, please leave a comment with an email in the contact field so I can reach out with an address to send things.  If you have any questions, please also leave a comment so others can benefit from the shared knowledge.

I’d like to test a good range of products, but what gets put into the ring will be up to you … I expect this to take a few weeks if all goes as planned and hope it’s fun for everyone.

Let’s get it on!

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IO Shortcuts

Cablevision just launched a cool new interactive layer to their digital cable service … It’s not exactly FiOS widgets, but still cool to see some innovation here.

io_shortcuts

I have not had a chance to try this yet, but look forward to seeing how it works.

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Google Latitude Goes iPhone via Web App … sigh

So Google Latitude finally arrives on the iPhone and it comes through as a web app?! One one hand you have to admire the skill in which it was programmed by the Google team. Speed is nice and quick, features are rich including pinch zoom and it generally looks like a native app. But it’s not.

Native applications get different access … If this had been part of the actual Maps application – like it is on every Google Maps app that runs on every other platform, you’d have access to your favorites and it might even potentially run in the background – but not.

Instead apparently Apple demanded that it live as a web app over the native app Google had already written.  Apparently the reason is to avoid confusion between Maps and Latitude, yet on every other platform Latitude is a layer that simply loads on top of the map… This decision simply defies all logic for me.  The evolution of the platform goes to native apps from web apps as and back again?  NO!

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Pandora for iPhone streams while offline*

Pandora Streaming Without a Connection

Check out that screenshot … Pandora is actively playing while there is no signal on the iPhone!

I was enjoying some streaming music on my way to work today and though I fully expected the stream to drop as we went underground, it kept on playing!  my iPhone has been jailbroken and I use backgroundr to enable background streaming … I doubt that has anything to do with this, but thought I should mention it.

Presumably Pandora pre-caches the next track as it’s playing which enabled the “local” track to play.  It seems as if the album art downloads as the song is active and since there was no connection that was impossible at the time.  Amazingly my stream kept on playing when the connection kicked back as we pulled into Grand Central.

*You obviously can’t start a stream without a connection.

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gogo internet on american sfo to jfk

gogo internet on american sfo to jfk

That’s a pretty close to live speedtest coming from my flight from SFO to JFK and while the upstream is far from awesome, I don’t even care.  I’m cruising through mail, tweeting and (obviously) blogging with ease.  This is a completely game changing travel experience and something I hope goes to many more flights and airlines soon.

I should note the service costs $15/ flight but I am surfing free thanks to a summer promotion from American Airlines.