It is about 6 weeks and here is my update on my windows phone.

More on recommendations later...

I wrote on Friday about my switch from iPhone to Windows Phone 7. I am now a proud (really proud) owner of a Samsung Focus Windows Phone from AT&T. (side note: see how easy it is to refer to Windows Phone? No need to say Windows 7 Phone, Windows Phone 7 Phone, Windows Mobile 7, Windows 7 Mobile, etc. Just go with Windows Phone. That easy)

I had talked about what I use on the iPhone and here is my list of things I have done on my Windows Phone:

1. First and foremost, I cleaned up my hotmail contacts and also hooked up facebook, flickr, linkedin, yelp, wordpress, and more. (This was done earlier, in anticipation of my move to Windows Phone.)
2. I signed in with my Live ID and set up my personal account (google apps) for email, hotmail for contacts and email, facebook for contacts, photos and feeds, other gmail for email and calendar. All went well and in a few moments my phone was being "lit up" with information from various places that I did not even have to care about.
3. I downloaded the common, popular apps like:
   1. YouTube
   2. Facebook
   3. Twitter
   4. Seesmic
   5. Adobe Reader
   6. Breaking News
   7. DirecTV
   8. Fandango
   9. Flixster
   10. Foursquare
   11. Last.fm
   12. IMDb
   13. iheartradio
   14. Netflix
   15. Shazam
   16. Slacker Radio
   17. TED
   18. UStream Viewer
   19. Weatherbug
4. Then I went and downloaded a bunch of games from the Marketplace - happens to be that most of the games (perhaps all) are XBOX Live enabled. I am not an XBOX user yet so I was aslo able to set up my own XBOX Live Avatar.
5. Most of the games I downloaded, had a trial mode and I did go with the trial mode for those games. I have converted to paid on a few games already. Trial mode is simply fantastic, especially for games and especially for kids games where I can see if it is going to fly with the kids or not and then decide to put the $ down.

As you can see most of the big, common apps are already there and I am really not missing a beat.

I can say my needs are completely met (and exceeded in a lot of cases) except the following apps/scenarios:

1. Corporate email. Of course, my iPhone was a huge factor in my corporate email/calendar management. I am going to miss this feature the most. However there are multiple things to consider here - I have an iPad which is provisioned for corporate email and calendar, so I can use that when I am not at work. Also, it is only a matter of time before Windows Phone gets the at-rest encryption which will then make it feasible to get corporate email on it. Not a huge concern, in general.
2. Notifications. Even though Windows Phone provides multiple types of notifications (toaster alert like the SMS app does, Live Tiles like the Weatherbug app does and push notifications), common apps like facebook and twtter/seesmic have not implemented any notification method yet. This is an app maker's problem so I am positive the next iterations of these apps will take care of this issue. However I like the simplicity and features of Boxcar and I hope they get their app over to Windows Phone.
3. ESPN. I did not realize how much I used the ESPN ScoreCenter app on the iPhone. This weekend I wanted to keep track of multiple close Pac-10 football games and the website was simply not as efficient as the app is. I wish this app comes really fast and given how cutting edge ESPN has been until now, I don't doubt at all that a sexy-looking app is coming soon.
4. HippoRemote. For now I am not concerned much because the iPad takes care of it.
5. Amazon. Again, like ESPN I feel the app is much more efficient to use than the website and again, I am pretty sure these guys will release the app soon.
6. In-browser videos/flash-HTML5. This is quite an annoyance because even browsing to the ESPN website for example, from the iPad, plays videos in the page because they have made those videos HTML5-compliant. But the mobile IE browser does not support HTML5 and Windows Phone does not support flash or silverlight in the browser. So this is truly something I have to wait for Microsoft to deliver, hopefully in their next update.
7. Another big problem in the OS is that it cannot connect to wireless networks that are hidden. I do not broadcast my SSID and now I have to, hopefully again, only up to the upcoming update.

On the other hand, there are plenty of small things on the phone that made my smile. Simple stuff like the back button - I opened twitter, clicked on a tweet which had a link, clicked on the link and opened the browser. After I was done reading, I closed the browser and clicked the back button and I came back to the opened tweet in twitter. Small thing, but so cool.

Another thing - the voice command and voice search is FANTASTIC. I have not had a single incorrect interpretation of my voice command. Love it.

I could go on and on about how awesome the phone is, but this post is not about that. As you can see, the switch from the iPhone is going to be a good one and hopefully in the upcoming WP7 update as well as some of the app updates (or releases) most of my pending concerns would be addressed.

So, “replace” may be a misnomer. But I wanted to write down what I am
giving up, what I am able to get which I don’t have now and what is
equally replaced.

Hat Tip Mobileburn, @wmpoweruser

[youtube www.youtube.com/watch

Poll is at http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2010/07/28/what-smartphone-os-update/

I just read this article on CrunchGear and could not help writing something about what has been irritating me for quite some time now.

That article is an example of how the Internet and the smart (no sarcasm) reporting that happens on it, can really bring the core issues up to the so-called mainstream, and fast. And increasingly, traditional media outlets are picking up on blog trending topics, and we may finally have reached a critical mass where the tech blogosphere is almost as influential as mainstream media would be and in arguably, even more so. 

Part of the reason this change has come about, is that the mainstream press doesn't have the resources to go deep into technical issues and topics. It is just not their core competency. The second reason is that a lot of these blogs are actually getting paid for these analyses and insights. So they are actually trying to dig deep and find sources, get "common person" feedback via their polls and comments and generally beefing up their research so they can provide genuinely good content for their readers and listeners. All this is great news for journalists as well as consumers/readers/listeners. The quality of what is put out on such blogs/sites is very very good.  

The tabloids

So what irritates me? The "tabloids" of the blogosphere. These are the blogs/sites who are trying hard to get the pageviews because that is their source of income. These are the sites who find it easy to come up with inflammatory headlines knowing fully well that they are bound to get the clickthroughs, and therefore get paid a ton. They don't really care about the depth of their writing, the research, or in fact whether there is any truth in their reporting. They care about scoops even if they are untrue, they care about getting their readers all riled up because of some nonsensical headlines. I am not going to link from here but Silicon Alley Insider/Business Insider recently posted a headline "The odds are increasing that Microsoft's business will collapse", and Infoworld had a post about the upcoming Windows Phone 7 claiming we should not bother about it, it is a disaster. And that was without even seeing the system in action in person. Both those posts got a lot of pageviews I am sure and both of them did make it to Techmeme.

The Ad Model

The business model is the problem. If I start a blog and get syndicated ads say from Google, as long as I can generate pageviews, I am virtually guaranteed to get some ads and I have no accountability. I can publish any number of SEO-friendly articles and I will be able to generate the pageviews and ads to hopefully get paid well enough to continue writing as a job. The crucial pieces of this business are getting click-friendly headlines and SEO-friendly, buzz-worthy content in the posts. You know, like a tabloid in the newspaper/magazine world.

However if I were getting sponsors to my site I automatically become accountable. I know the sponsor is looking at their own ROI, their own brand image and that they will not tolerate anything that may tarnish either of those things. That way I am forced to be judicious in my writing and put some integrity into what I post. I am still going to try having a good headline to get the clicks, I am still going to try to get pageviews and I am still going to try to put SEO-friendly and buzz-worthy content. The difference is, now I am doing it as a service to known advertisers whom I actually refer to as sponsors. They are not just advertising on my site, they are actually sponsoring my site. And in that capacity, they have a right to check what I write and how I write.

The tabloids irritate me because they have a steady stream of anonymous advertisers which pay almost directly proportionately to the number of articles and pageviews. It is in their best interest to create headlines with a bunch of superlatives (best, killer, new king, destroys, collapse, end, etc), make up a story out of nothing, take an angle which is bound to polarize the readers and keep seeing any news item from that angle irrespective of the justifications, logic, truth, etc.

The spiral

Going back to the Antennagate story, one of the reasons the news became so widespread is how quickly it went from being one or two articles to the whole blogosphere talking about it. We are now in a frictionless medium called the internet where Techmeme, twitter and the like make it possible to get a small story noticed by a large group just through word-of-mouth, in a manner of saying. So what was reported by some commenters on some site became a full-on post with a question mark which then went from being a snowball into a huge avalanche.

The problem with this spiral though, is that it gives very little chance for fact-checking because everything is moving so fast. Now those tabloids can spin up a great juicy story and just with the headline, create enough momentum in this frictionless medium to make that made-up story become a so-called reality. Now we have people who have no idea where the story started, but who feel like they need to contribute something about it so their site gets picked up too in this spiral. So we have more fringe players getting into the spiral causing even more belief in the made-up story. And once it catches fire in the technosphere, the "mainstream" media picks it up and publishes their own take! Now, we have the common person getting hit with a story which may or may not be true at all. But it is enough to create fear, uncertainty and doubt in their minds, or on the flip side, cause them to believe something will happen "because everyone is talking about it". The Verizon iPhone rumor is one good example of this phenomenon. How many times have people said they have a source who has confirmed it is coming and how many times have those dates passed?

Camp Apple or Camp Google?

Separately, for one reason or the other, we are seeing an intense polarization among the tech community in that you are a fanboy of one company/product or the other. And as a fanboy of one company, you are forced to start hating on anything the competitor does. This has created Camp Apple, Camp Android/Google and the favorite punching bags called Microsoft and Facebook. If you like the iPhone for example, you are almost expected to post something about why you like the iPhone better than the Nexus One or if you like the DroidX you are almost forced to write on why you dumped the iPhone and went with the DroidX. This is perhaps because everyone wants to justify their decision by putting the other system/company/product down rather than rationalize it by talking about the features and benefits of their purchased product. Every time a feature is praised, it has to be compared to the other company's lack of either that feature or two other unrelated features, regardless of how useful those may or may not be.

This polarization is hurting us because then we start seeing such vitriolic writing, we could see luminaries write just for the sake of taking sides and start picking nits about the other system. These nits could then be picked up by the tabloids and made into a bigger "story". Also, the tabloids could see that being fodder to start creating artificial rifts between two or more companies which, if unresolved at the personal level, could unfortunately escalate into something real. And these tabloid-style "scoops" are then sucked into the spiral, creating enough noise for the common man to start seeing these things in their morning paper via the mainstream media and therefore start believing them even more.

So what now?

I believe the bloggers should take it upon themselves and behave maturely and be responsible for their words. They cannot be playing to "vote banks" or in this case "reader banks". Just because most of your listeners are techie, does not mean you say "Facebook is horrible because their so-and-so API is limited".  Just because you cater to a techie crowd does not mean you state that "the iPhone sucks because it does not have widgets". This techie crowd may be the first touch point but three levels later, some layperson may end up deleting her Facebook account or someone else would give up on getting the iPhone because of what "everyone seems to know for sure". A good example? The iPhone4's antenna issue has now become "the iPhone4 cannot make phone calls". That is utter rubbish but who can stop that tidal wave now? It is already out there.

We need to have that journalistic maturity and since there is no certification required to publish an article, we need to make sure whoever writes, especially if they have a large readership/listenership (for podcasts/online shows), that they are aware of the fact that more than just techies may be getting this information. I know it is very idealistic thinking, but that is the only thing I can hope for, right?

For common tasks like looking up movies and weather, Bing is totally better than Google. One of the reasons I have made it my default search engines on all my browsers. The start page is also fantastic, so Bing.com is also my homepage on some (non-work) browsers.

And I did not put the “verticals” here like Bing Shopping, Bing Entertainment, Bing Social, Bing Finance!

Update: I completely forgot to mention Bing Maps! I used them recently on a trip to Santa Barbara both on the iPad and on my iPhone. The directions have a neat feature that said “if you have passed so-and-so street you have gone too far” or something to that effect. Nice touch!

 Update 2: Cannot believe how much else there is! I forgot Visual Search! I added a new image below showing what else is there in Bing which makes “searching” so much cooler for non-geeks (although, geeks are not left behind, clearly!)

I have said this many times, but Google does need to clean up (literally) its interface. Not only are there inconsistencies among apps for doing the same things, but look at how the "Google apps" logo sticks out in my gmail theme. Sucks. 

BTW, the logo? It also stinks. 

Sliders are SO much better for such things than radio buttons/drop downs and anything else facebook has implemented so far! 

As I read about the Conficker worm getting active again, I was virtually forced to put down the thoughts I had at the time around 4/1 when it was supposed to create havoc.

I started thinking, this is a fabulous marketing ploy from the security companies to boost their sales. Think about it, it had the perfect story - a security threat, there was time to react (buy security software), there was widespread media attention (awareness = more purchases) and of course the most brilliant part about it was that if on 4/1 nothing happens, the security companies could declare victory!

And that’s exactly what happened. Press releases went out from the security companies about how good their software was to stop Conficker. Of course, the other outcome was that if on 4/1 the worm hit, the security companies could easily spin it as not enough computers being protected. Quite convenient, right?

Did anyone else notice that 4/1 was just before quarter-end? It could not have been a better-timed situation!

And now today, we are back at it again. It may not be quarter-end, but the dormant worm story is perfect for security companies and the news is that the worm has gotten some new updates via P2P and that it is going to start downloading some keyloggers and such. Grreeeat.

I just read the GMail Blog post about the temporary outage to some Gmail accounts this afternoon.

Among other things, they suggested that we go through the user group on Google groups.

Unfortunately, I have had very bad luck getting updates on my posts on various Google-run Google Groups. Has anyone posted to the Gmail group or for example the Blogger group? Hardly any responses to the many posts/questions I have asked there.

I reasoned to myself that I cannot expect much support because after all these are free services, but these services are taking over my work and personal life slowly. For example I have converted from my Outlook-based email setup to a completely web-based GMail setup. I went through the pain of migrating all my emails over to GMail and am happy that I don’t have to worry about multiple Outlook versions on multiple computers anymore and am always just one click (a few clicks, actually ;-) ) away from all my email.

But that means such outages and lack of responses to queries about the usage of certain features annoys me.

Anyone else in the same boat?

Gotham 2 off my Amazon Wish List

Found a cool site - http://bayareafreefi.com. Lets you search for free hotspots in your area.

Nice.

Not that I have to prove anything to anyone, but from Thursday night 11pm to Monday night 11pm, I did not access the internet! That’s 4 complete days with no email and no internet access.

I know I can do it. But does everyone else believe it?

They’d better!!

Google bans Gmail swaps and sales

HAHAHA!

What’s the fascination with Gmail? I know that when something is hard to get, it becomes more wanted. But after all the upgrades to Yahoo and hotmail, why is there such a demand still for Gmail?

As I start browsing sites about blogging, I realize a common trend is for people to announce that they have a Gmail account or they are so frustrated that they don’t have one.

Heck, even I announced that I have Gmail! What a fool I am…

No, I am not excited that I have one. I use Outlook, so disk space and email quota don’t have too much importance in my books. I would love to see their ‘threading’ feature, but that is not something I am dying for at this moment.

Come on people….there are better things in life to look forward to :-)

Thanks to my cousin in NJ, who signed up me instead of himself, I have a Gmail account now! It is truly a no-frills interface, in line with all other google properties. And in fact now since rediffmail has offered free email account with 1GB, the whole novelty of high storage space is also gone.

But the good thing is that Gmail lets me see my emails in a thread fashion too. That really helps if I am trying to follow a conversation. I am sure it will only improve as time passes by.

Now I am waiting for an invite from Gmail, so I can sign my cousin up….

Users fume over Yahoo-Trillian scuffle | CNET News.com

Why would there be no interoperability I don’t know…but this has to stop. Yahoo has other features in its tool that makes me not want to uninstall the yahoo messenger client from my machine like webcam and launchcast, but at work, I would rather have trillian.

Yahoo, please stop this blocking business. If you are afraid of spim, please find other solutions rather than just taking the easy way out by blocking third party clients.

Hotmail to offer 250MB of free storage | CNET News.com

About time, eh?

Can you please throw in spam blocker too? ;-)