Triangle Trip

As a long time Blackberry user and an experienced Android user, I recently migrated to the iPhone 4S. This is Apple’s fifth generation iPhone and I can’t believe Apple didn’t include the follow standard smartphone features:

1.  Battery life is horrendous – First issue is related to the iPhone 4S’s battery life which could be related to iOS 5. The iPhone 4S with iOS 5 is a battery killer. I cannot use the iPhone throughout a normal day (7 hours) without plugging it into a charger.

2. Phone vibration is too weak – This issue is also related to the iPhone 4S hardware. The iPhone 4 and 4S are heavy. As a result the vibration for phone calls and text messages are extremely settle which leads to missed calls and texts. The vibration lasts .4 seconds. I can’t feel a phone call when the phone is in my pocket — whether I am walking or sitting down. I have also heard many others echoing my sentiment.

3.   Alarm clock does not turn on the phone – This issue is related to hardware and software. When the iPhone is power off, the iOS clock alarm doesn’t turn on the phone unlike Blackberry devices. I normally turn my off my Blackberry Pearl from 2006 before I go to bed as I don’t want to hear the phone vibrate when emails, text messages and phone calls come in. The Blackberry served as my alarm clock to help wake me up each morning. Another benefit is the Blackberry would seamlessly show me emails from the prior night first thing in the morning. So if you want uninterrupted sleep and use the iPhone as the alarm clock, you can forget about it. The alarm on the iPhone would not turn on the iPhone. I’ve actually overslept today because this issue. My current work around is to set the iPhone on airplane mode and leave my iPhone on so I can use the alarm clock to wake me up.

3a.  Alarm clock requires you to reconfigure it everyday. For example, I set my alarm to wake me up at 7:00am and the default setting is off after I turn off the alarm. I’ve to swipe the alarm to make sure it’s on for the following day.

4.  Limited notification settings – Furthering points 2 and 3, there’s no way for you to set different vibration modes for different messages. Every message (email, SMS, iMessage, Facebook message, etc.) vibrates once to notify you of a new message. On all Blackberries, you can setup specific rings and vibration for each type of messages you’re getting on your phone (i.e., 1 vibration for emails, 2 vibrations for SMS, etc.). The iOS 5 Notification Center is not a true notification center.

5.  No custom dictionary – While the new shortcuts setting allows you to type faster, the iPhone 4S (iOS 5) does not provide a custom dictionary for users to configure your typing habits and add words. You will have to force the iPhone to learn your most frequent used words. The Blackberry and Android operating systems are far superior than the iPhone in adapting to users’ typing behaviors.

6.  Can’t customize keyboard layout – The iPhone keyboard is very good compared to Android touch screen keyboards. However, Apple needs to realize the iPhone keyboard layout is not for everyone. I’m a big fan of compact QWERTY while some of my friends prefer Swype. iPhone users are limited to three (3) keyboard layouts (QWERTY, AZERTY, QWERTZ). No one has ever heard of two out of the three available keyboards. I highly doubt anyone has ever used AZERTY or QWERTZ keyboards.

7.  No time stamp on iMessages and text messages – The chat thread feature is nice (since it was copied from the Palm Treo) but it doesn’t have time stamps for each text message or iMessage sent and received. If you had a conversation that started at 3:00PM and ended at 3:15PM, there is no way that the last message sent or received took place at 3:15PM.

I can’t say I’m overly impressed with Apple’s iPhone 4S and iOS 5 when they’ve overlooked so many basic phone features. Hopefully someone at Apple working on the iPhone 5 adds the above list to their enhancements.

Ever jot down your shopping list on your desktop computer and go to the grocery store and wish you had jotted it down on your smartphone? Ever type in an address on your smartphone and wish you had it on your laptop so you could copy and paste it into Google maps? Ever save a password on your smartphone, desktop computer, and laptop only to change it later and have to change it on all three devices?

If you ever wanted to sync notes across all your devices, here is one solution: Evernote.

Evernote is a free note taking tool that is available for Mac, Windows, iPhone/iPod, Blackberry, Palm Pre, and Windows Mobile. The beauty of it being available for multiple platforms is that it allows you to sync your notes across most of your devices, if not all.

To get started you first need to create an account on evernote.com. The next step is to download the Evernote application for each of your devices. Finally, configure the Evernote app for each of your devices with the Evernote account you created. It’s as simple as that.

Now you can use the Evernote application to jot down all your notes on whichever device and you will have access to all your notes regardless of device. You can configure the Evernote application on each of your devices to either sync manually or sync every so often (every 5 mins, 15 mins, etc.).

I’ve been using Evernote with my Macbook Pro and my iPhone. The iPhone application is particularly neat because it also allows me to take voice and picture notes with a timestamp AND a location-stamp.

I discovered Evernote when I was trying to find an alternative to MS Office OneNote for the Mac, which leads me to another feature of Evernote. When I was transitioning all my notes from OneNote to Evernote, I was pleased to find that Evernote had a OneNote 2007 import wizard (this is only available for the Windows version of Evernote). I was able to export my notes from OneNote 2007 and import them into Evernote on my Windows machine.  Then, when I synced or uploaded all my notes from my Windows machine, I was able to sync or download them on my Evernote application on my Macbook Pro.

Since I’m cheap, I’m using the free version of Evernote which gives me a limited allowance of 40MB per month on note uploads. However, since I usually just jot down text notes I’ve never ever come close to my 40MB limit in any given month. Also, the free version comes with small ads that are tucked away in a corner so it hasn’t really bothered me.

In my previous post on syncing calendars between your iPhone and Mac, I mentioned that my life was fully synced. Now all my knowledge is n’sync as well, this I promise you.  Bye bye bye.

For the past couple of weeks, I have seen Apple’s iPhone ads touting the iPhone and the OS 3.0’s new features — which aren’t really new to the mobile world. Apple has been touting its new iPhone can do:

1.  cut and paste
2.  voice dialing
3.  video recording

These marketed features have been available to me since February 2007 when I got my first Blackberry Pearl. With my previous Blackberries, I have been able to cut and paste since 2005. With my Blackberry Pearl in 2007, I had voice dialing features. With a push of a button (left hand side by default on the Pearl), I could tell my Blackberry to “Call John Smith Mobile.” The voice recognition software was reliable.

As for multimedia recording and playback… With my Pearl and even older Blackberries (i.e., the 8800), you can record video, download MP3/MP4 and it has a removable mini SD slot. You can probably get a 4GB mini SD cards on sale for under $10. What is the size of the Apple iPhone’s hard drive?

Finally… I can even watch live TV via my Blackberry.  Something Apple nor AT&T could do today.

So… What the innovation behind the new iPhone and its new features?  I am still trying to figure that out. What’s so fast about it when its running on AT&T, its (lack of) service partner. Apple is getting too comfortable as a market leader and falling into the Microsoft trap. Instead of inventing new products, it is trying to market its way to profitability. Ironically this is the version 3 of Apple’s iPhone OS or is this Windows 3.0 🙂   Didn’t Apple management say something about Microsoft’s lack of innovation back in 1990?

Captain G is contemplating if he should write a letter the Steve Jobs and warn him about this issue. Alternatively, I could also write a letter to RIM’s Board of Directors blasting management’s lackluster marketing efforts in 2007. RIM has also been too comfortable with its corporate accounts and still does not have a real answer to the iPhone (the Storm is not quite there).

For everyone’s reference, here are three screenshots from my Blackberry Pearl: