iPhone SDK, not quite

I have not had time yet to figure out whether Apple’s direction with the iPhone SDK is a good or bad thing. Apple will be taking the approach that they will be the only way to distribute apps, the gatekeeper. That sounds bad, but I’m told by people I trust that the process will be reasonable, better than the situation we have for distribution of freeware with Symbian Signed for Nokia phones.

The SDK is available now, in beta, but not for writing apps that actually run on the phone, if I understand correctly, but just for building apps and testing them (on a Mac, I believe). So they didn’t really make their promised February 2008 for release, but at least there is progress.

I’ll be spending some time with it and I’ll be particularly interested in comparing the software distribution options for iPhone vs. Symbian/Nokia. Could it be that we are actually headed toward a situation where the only open platform is Windows Mobile? How ironic would that be?

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Symbian Signed Followup

Bruce Carney from Symbian was nice enough to comment on my earlier “Why Symbian Signed must die” post.

There is no intent to prevent long term access. The Symbian Signed infrastructure hit a step change in demand. In periods of overload we have a policy to prioritize the service to ensure professional users can continue their work.

– The problem is shown in this link (i.e. a massive spike)
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/symbiansigned.com
– The underlying reason was posted in our developers forums here https://developer.symbian.com/forum/ann.jspa?annID=36
– Free Developer Certificates *already* downloaded over the past years are valid for 3 years, There are millions and millions of developers who *are* not being impacted by this outage.
– We have been trying to contact the developer of RotateMe to get the app signed (for free) and awaiting response?

If anything, this underscores
(1) How Symbian OS is around an order of magnitude more popular than iPhone or any other mobile OS.
(2) As the smartphone OS market leader, Symbian OS is solving real world mobile developer problems every day, not preaching to the faithful on podiums with powerpoint.

We just ask our developer community to be a little patient

Bruce Carney
Director, Developer Programs & Services
Symbian

Thanks for posting, Bruce.

I’m sorry I missed your call and I hope you are able to call back.

It’s great news that Symbian intends to restore the ability of people to get devcerts. And I understand and have read all the reasons and reported causes for the Open Signed outages.

I also agree that the volume of certs does suggest the popularity of the platform.

However, all that misses the point. The Symbian Signed server being down is just a symptom, as is the load on that server caused by the volume of developer cert requests. People are requesting so many certs because the signing restrictions are broken. The problem isn’t that the Symbian Signed site is down - the problem is that people have to use it in the first place. The problem is that apps need to be signed to be installed and the mechansm for freeware developers, or even small-time corporate or in-house developers, to get certs and manage getting apps signed (and tested and “approved” by Symbian) is defective. It’s untenable.

This is how we end up in the situation where developers release the apps “unsigned” and have the users themselves sign them (and thus, the high volume of “developer” certs). The arguments in favor of the signing requirement are about making phones “safe” and ensuring users can “trust” the apps. However that trust model is antiquated 20th century thinking. Look what they have to go through now to try to get freeware installed (getting a “devcert” and signing the freeware apps themselves). If they are willing to sign it themselves, it suggests that they “trust” the app, even though it has not been “blessed” by Nokia or Symbian. Why? The reason people trust these apps is not because some authority in the sky, like Symbian Signed, gives it a “thumbs up” but because the community provides a powerful degree of trust. Applications that jack around with people would be immediately discredited by the Symbian freeware community - everyone would know about it, and people would avoid the app like the plague. This works with things like Linux and Firefox and it would also work with Symbian freeware.

The current Symbian Signed process creates the opposite effect of its stated objectives. I’d suggest that Symbian Signed apps are actually less trustworthy, in the true sense of the term - it’s more likely for “official” apps that have been “approved and tested” to have bugs than the freeware ones because it takes months to get an app tested and approved (and it cost $$$) so bugs never get fixed; whereas problems with freeware get reported all over the place and they tend to get fixed quickly.

The solution is to release a version of S60 3rd edition that lets those users that are willing to take the risks install unsignd apps and grant the features, privledges, capabilities they wish to the apps, even if this is a “unsupported” “hacker” version of Symbian with “forfeit all rights to support” restrictions or some such - that would still be vastly better than the situation those people have today, where the only officially supported options are to not install the apps at all, ever or switch platforms/phones - and the “unofficial” solution is to overload the Symbian Signed site with “developer” cert requests.

So save yourself some money on upgrading the Symbian Signed server crypto hardware and instead release a simple version of S60 3rd edition. You’ll be happy, I’ll be happy, and users will be happy. And your phone manufacturer customers like Nokia will be happy too, happy that they don’t lose their customers to Windows Mobile, the iPhone, or other alternative platforms.

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T-mobile offers Vonage-like service

Last year, T-mobile introduced a Wi-Fi calling UMA service called @Home, a mobile handset-based service. The idea was that you would use your mobile handset exclusively as a replacement for a standard home phone. The selling proposition of this service was basically (1) no in-home GSM coverage problems (because calls use wi-fi/broadband in the home), and (2) “unlimited” (domestic) calls from at home or at wi-fi hotspots.

T-mobile is now introducing a variant of that @Home play called Talk Forever Home Phone. It is an add-on service for T-mobile wireless customers that essentially provides a Vonage-style replacement home phone service. You get an ATA/router with a standard RJ-11 phone jack output to connect to a standard touchtone home phone.

The Talk Forever service is available as an add-on to an existing T-mobile plan and cannot be purchased separately. It is priced at $10 per month. This should put significant downward pressure on Vonage and AT&T CallVantage. But before you get too excited, note that this comes with the usual cell phone fine print and red tape - specifically there is a two-year agreement required and a $200 early cancellation fee! It also has unspecified taxes and fees.

With the advertised $10/month price point, one has to wonder if it might also impact Cable VOIP which has seen strong growth at a $40/month price point.

At the moment the service is only available in Seattle and Dallas. One thing not talked about with this service is international calling rates - if they are the same as normal T-mobile mobile prices, then this service will not be a competitive threat to other VOIP services in that regard.

Standard touch tone home phone

I think this move by T-Mobile of offering a “home phone”-based service shows that T-mobile has discovered through their experience with the handset-only first generation of the @Home service that there is a customer segment out there that is more comfortable using a ‘home phone” in the home, rather than their mobile handset. Here are some possible reasons why:

1. missed calls because the cell phone was on silent or vibrate somewhere.
2. cell phone is turned off to conserve battery power
3. accidentally leave cell phone at work and find yourself without a home phone for a night

T-mobile has no wireline assets in the US, so clearly this is a way to attack Verizon and AT&T for the household user experience. It will be interesting to see if any other pure-play wireless carriers make similar moves.

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iPhone SDK promised date approaching

As many may recall, Steve Jobs had announced in October that Apple would be releasing its much-anticipated iPhone SDK (Software Developers Kit) before the end of February - I’m certainly not going to let them forget it.

Rumors are flying as the final days wind down. Some say it will happen next week - others say it will be delayed. One has to hope that Apple doesn’t follow in Nokia’s Symbian Signed disastrous ways. if they do, I guess we all have to become Windows Mobile developers or wait for Android.

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Why Symbian Signed must die

With the latest S60 “3rd Edition” phones (such as the N95, N81 etc), Nokia in their infinite wisdom, has decided for us that we users don’t want to install “freeware” apps any more. These phones now require all apps to be “signed” - they don’t give the option to the user to install an unsigned app.

Nokia says this is supposed to protect users from “bad” apps. So what is the result? Freeware developers now release “unsigned” versions of their apps and provide step-by-step instructions for users on how to get their own “developer” cert and sign the app themselves.

See the irony yet? Nokia told us that users wanted to be “protected” from “bad” apps, yet what we really see is users going to the trouble of acting like “developers” so they can sign these “bad” apps and get them installed on their phone. They clearly want freeware, whether it’s officially “approved” by Nokia’s “Symbian Signed” or not.

And with all these pseudo-developers requesting certs so they can install these “bad” apps, guess what? Nokia’s certificate creation site “Symbian Signed” can’t handle the load. It has been mostly down for weeks. Here’s what it says today:

Not to mention all the support costs for Nokia and the overall costs to the entire ecosystem (where about 90% of S60 3rd edition discussion seems to be about signing and certs). Hopefully Nokia will wake up and put an end to this ridiculous nightmare soon. Here’s a few reasons why the time has come for enabling users to install unsigned apps on their 3rd edition phones, just like they can on 1st and 2nd edition phones:

• The overhead of depending on Symbian Signed for signing promotes bug-ridden software that is never updated.
• It is destroying the Symbian third-party ecosystem (which is where all the best Symbian software has always come from)
• It leaves the door open for competitors like Apple, Microsoft, RIM, etc. and dilutes Nokia’s significant lead in third-party developer support.
• If plain users, through step-by-step guides, are signing apps, there is really no argument for the “all apps must be signed” restriction

The signing debacle is nothing new, but the prolonged downtime of Symbian Signed is.

Nokia, please. It’s time to close the door on the the Symbian Signed experiment and let us install the apps we want on our phones again.

UPDATE: Monday February 18, 2008:

Today the site says:

Note their words “huge demand for developer certificates”. Nokia doesn’t that tell you something? And by the way, it is Monday February 18, folks, and the ability to get certs is still down.

UPDATE: Weds Feb 20 the saga continues:

So now it looks like end-users and hobby developers cannot get certificates at all, meaning they cannot write code or experiment with freeware on their Symbian S60 3rd edition phones anymore. I cannot tell from the above message whether this the new permanent policy or just more “damage control”.

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Reviewing the Nokia N81 - a teenager’s perspective

[Editors note: When I was asked to look at the N81, I decided, since Nokia is targeting youth with this new phone, who better to review it than my 16-year-old son. Thus, what follows is his opinion of the N81 8GB]

When I first got the Nokia N81, I was pleased at its sleek look and relatively nice size. Its weight is a little on the heavy side but that does give it that overall Nokia “tank of phones” feel which I like, as opposed to the awkward skinny light phones whose purpose of being small and light is totally countered by the fact that you are so scared of dropping the tiny piece of plastic, that you have to go out and buy a massive cover that defeats the purpose of having a small and light phone anyway. The Nokia N81’s interface is the classic Nokia [Symbian Series 60] interface which I am a big fan of and I enjoy that Nokia keeps a constant user interface rather that scrapping it every time so you have to learn how to work a whole new type of system with every new phone.

The battery life on the N81 is rather impressive, going for roughly three days without needing a charge.

The phone has a N-gage application, which from playing the demos, looks solid but I cannot picture anyone who would really buy the actual games and not just play the demos to death. The fact that Nokia is now trying to incorporate one of the most failed gaming systems in the history of man back into their phones makes me chuckle at how horribly N-gage failed in the past and how imminent its future failure is.

The music player is quality and simple, operating very similarly to an ipod. Nokia does not yet offer the downloadable software for the N81 that allows it to sync with itunes, so I had to place music on the phone by plugging it in like a flash drive and dragging and dropping songs into it. This method is tedious but works fine and I have full confidence that the N81 software will work just fine when it is released. The likable things about the music player are that for a phone, 8gb is pretty large and definitely enough to have a good selection of music. My favorite feature of the music player is that it takes a basic headphone jack. Most phones require that you buy an adapter or use the strange uncomfortable ear buds that come with the phone but being able to plug any old headphones you want into the jack makes it seem o-so-much better. Oddly enough, the music player also has one of the least thought through features I have ever seen, which makes operating the phone insanely frustrating. The aforementioned problem is the combination of small buttons and the fact that the play button works no matter what else the phone is doing. The play-stop-pause-rewind-etc. buttons encompass the up-down-left-right buttons. So when navigating around the phone, it is easy and almost unavoidable to hit both up and play at the same time because both buttons are so small and so close together. Now normally, no harm no foul, you’re not in the music player so nothing should happen - but since Nokia always has to have one massive flaw that was probably thrown in thoughtlessly towards the end of production, no matter what you are doing, the play button still plays music and since the speakers are rather loud and startling when you did not plan or even think that random music could suddenly stream from your phone, it is often an embarrassing moment when you are trying to text whilst walking down the street and Hardcore gangster rap blasts out of your phone unexpectedly. This is something I have yet to learn how to fix. This dilemma continually frustrates me to no end and is the only thing that would make me consider not using this phone.

I’ve discovered several things with the N81 that I consider bugs that could use fixing. The first is that the phone has trouble finding service and once service is lost, you have to turn the phone off and back on for it to start searching for service again. This bug is surprisingly not as inconvenient as one would think, although the phone would be greatly improved if this was fixed. The only other bug that is worth mentioning is that text messages sometime take five to ten minutes to send or be received causing you to seem rude for taking too long to respond [editor: that may be T-mobile]. Other than that, it has no actual effect being that eventually the texts get sent or received.

The N81 is a good combination of the classic, simple “Nokia sturdy brick” and the advanced little flashy features like music or gaming that make a phone sell these days. Overall the Nokia N81 is a quality phone that has potential for excellence, with the right subtle tweaks.

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Hands-on with iPhone - Look but don’t touch

As many reading here know, I’ve been using an N95 for some time now. After one day with the iPhone, here are some first impressions.

First, of course the two phones appeal to different kinds of users. There may be overlap, but for the most part, the N95 is for the self-proclaimed ultra-geek while the typical iPhone buyer is more likely to be less tech-inclined, perhaps one might even say “the average phone buyer” (with a little bit of extra cash). So to a large degree any comparison is somewhat lame. There will not be a lot of common ground between the two camps.

That said, here’s my quick take. Some things are easier and more comfortable on the iPhone. At the same time, the closed nature of the phone surfaces frequently and in ways that effect more than just geeks. The N95 is open to the extreme. Somebody that paid $750 for it will probably find all these deep and powerful features (why else would they pay that much). But if you just gave the phone to someone as a replacement for a common phone, that kind of person is probably not going to know how to use the majority of the features. These people might buy the iPhone. They will just accept that it is AT&T only (that’s all they know anyway). But even they will eventually wonder why it’s so restricted.

For example, take something as simple as ringtones. The iPhone can play MP3 files. Yet Apple wants to force customers to buy ringtones for $2. Yes, there are hacks to overcome that, but the point is with the N95, no hacks are needed. Any media can be loaded as a ringtone. Apple had to code specifically to block this capability (i.e. it’s more work to prevent it than allow it).

The two phones are at the EXTREME ends of the spectrum in terms of openness. The N95 is incredibly powerful but requires a serious geek to operate. The iPhone is easy (mostly), but closed and annoyingly so.

So for me, the first impression is I kind of wish I could use the iPhone as my phone, but Apple’s decisions to make it closed, keeps it just out of my reach, like it’s behind a window. I can look, but I can’t touch.

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Apple’s iPhone hacker dilema

Everyone has heard about Apple’s threats regarding unlocked iPhones. On Monday, Apple issued this statement “unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone’s software which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed.”

I’m sure this will scare off some people that had considered unlocking their phone. In my case, I have to admit that I was thinking about getting an iPhone now that they can be unlocked, but I’ve put that on hold for now.

It will be very interesting to see if Apple really even continues to pursue this tactic. On the one hand, they must have At&T/Cingular breathing down their neck about it, buton the other hand, just as Microsoft benefited tremendously from all the illegal copies of Windows flying about, one part of Apple must want to encourage the hacking.

It’s not a matter of what can Apple do, contractually, or legally. It’s a matter of what will the costs be if they burn too many people, or the wrong people, and really do cause iPhones to become “permanently inoperable” and refuse to fix them. Apple depends on their standing and reputation. Once they stop being “cool” they will have a hard time getting new customers on product features alone.

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My love/hate relationship with the N95 GPS

I have a fair amount of experience with GPS devices, going back over more than 10 years. My first device was an Eagle Explorer (I still have it) and I’ve used countless GPS systems since. I also developed a GPS-based vehicle tracking system. So I can speak with some authority on the technology.

Compared head-to-head with modern dedicated GPS devices, the Nokia N95 falls well short. The drawback that surprises me the most is the time it takes to get a fix. This is of course an area where early GPS devices were highly criticized, so it was a key area of research over the years and is now rather well known technology. Nokia seems to be back in the 90’s with the basic ability to obtain and keep a fix. Typical time seems to be about 10 to 15 minutes whereas a modern dedicated GPS typically gets an initial fix (the first time you turn it on) within 5 minutes and subsequent fixes within 2-3 minutes (often far less).

That said, the N95 is not a dedicated GPS device - it is a cell phone. As a cell phone, it is a pretty nifty GPS device. Let’s put aside the matter of the length of time it takes to get a fix and focus on the GPS once it has a fix (although this alone often makes the GPS worthless, since you are already where you want to be, or hopelessly lost, by the time the N95 GPS is ready to use). The N95 pulls maps down over the air (using your data conection), so without an unlimited data plan, you might want to steer clear of the GPS feature. It also means the N95 is useless as a GPS for hiking or use anywhere that you cannot get a data connection. On the other hand, it means you do not need to have a lot of internal memory for maps, use CDs/DVDs, or pre-load specific maps for a specific region. As a device that pulls map data in dynamically as needed, it is one of the slickest I’ve used. The user interface in general, however, is difficult to use, a bit slow, and missing many features of a real dedicated GPS. Things like waypoints, routes, track-logs and such are nowhere to be found.

On the other hand, if you are lost, and the N95 is all you have (and you can get a data connection), it’s a godsend, even if a horrendously frustrating one. What I found particularly frustrating is that the N95 requires you to subscribe to a “service’” to receive navigation capabilities. You can search for a location on the device, but if you click ‘navigate’ you get a screen requiring purchase. In practice, this purchase experience is very awkward so I have never actually purchased it. It felt like the phone was running an extortion scheme, saying “buy this or get car-jacked when you get lost in the wrong neighborhood.” Supposedly, you can buy one week for about $10 or three years for about $100, and it works. But I wouldn’t know, and here’s why: It’s not a good enough GPS to justify using it all the time as a replacement for a “real” GPS (which provides navigation without any additional fee). If the rest of the GPS features worked really well, and if the purchase experience were simpler, and clearer, I might be a bit more inclined. But there still is this fundamental hurdle that those of us that have used GPS systems for years have come to expect navigation to be a feature of a product, not a service we subscribe to.

The one-week navigation subscription is probably worth it, if you are really stuck somewhere and perhaps sometime I’ll try it and report on it. Without it, what you have is a live map that shows your position in real-time. That’s a pretty clunky way to navigate, and certainly not something a driver should try to alone - leave it to a passenger.

As a close to this post, to illustrate further the love/hate nature of my experience with the N95 GPS, I have used the GPS to help get “un-lost” and for that I’m grateful for it, but it has also crashed (the entire phone) mid-navigation which really screwed me up. So there.

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Don’t kid yourself. Apple’s iPhone strategy is an iTunes strategy

A lot of us would kill for the master hyping ability of Apple and Steve Jobs. What they achived with the iPhone is nothing short of incredible. And perhaps some of us are just being a little jealous when we write posts like those of Richard Stastny and Michael Robertson. For the most part, I agree with their posts, and I encourage you to check them out.

There is one thing that stood out for me in the comparison table by Michael Robertson between the Nokia E61 and iPhone:

I highlighted the one (and only) place where iPhone is totally unique: iTunes. Michael notes that Nokia is the world’s largest phone maker, selling more than twice as many phones as their nearest competitor, but none of them offer syncing with iTiunes — and they likely never will. This point gets lost in a bullet-point “features list” like the one above.There is no other phone today that will work with iTunes and this is the only thing that makes this phone stand out, really. The rest is fluff and window dressing, including the touchscreen. Someone can copy everything else about this phone, and as Michael’s chart shows, there are already phones that do more than the iPhone, in all other respects.

Personally, the fact that the wi-fi is crippled is a huge black eye for Apple and something that simply outrages me. It’s the kind of thing we expect from AT&T, but for Apple to be all over that is just painful. And it is a very slippery slope. But I digress.

The point is, everything about Apple’s iPhone strategy is really an iTunes strategy, to make iTunes central to one’s life experience. Will it work, given all the downsides and limitations of the iPhone product? Time will tell.

They want people’s attention, the way Google and Microsoft want our attention. That’s what iPhone is really about.

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