OK, I know everyone and their brother is doing an iPhone post today about the new device. I thought I would at least document my thoughts to see how things go over time. So work with me here.

I had not planned on getting the new device until sometime in July. AT&T was nice enough to offer upgrades for anyone who bought the 3G in July-September of last year. For that, I figured hey.. I will just go for it. I didn’t want to wait in line, but it was seriously only a 5 minute wait. Nice.

SPEED
As for new features. Number one on my list is speed. I know they sell it as the “s” model for speed, but they ain’t jokin’. This thing blows away my old model running any version of the 2.x software as well as the 3.0 software on the original 3G. The processor they put in this coupled with the newly found additional RAM helps this thing scream along. In the past I used to run a tool called Memmaker. It would allow me to free up some RAM if it was getting low. Every time I check now I seem to have over 60MB of RAM ready to go. That is three times the free space of before.

Compass
I have to say this is a bit disappointing to me.  It seems to always need calibration.  Only once going down the road was I pointing the right direction.  I can’t seem to figure out how to re-calibrate it if it is wrong.   This one sort of kills me.. and will probably hose you on some GPS turn by turn directions in the future.  Anyone have tips here?

Video/Camera
Bar/none my most anticipated feature.  I love photography and have always hated the camera on the iPhone.  This is a MUCH better deal.  I have not yet done side by side comparisons, but the focus is great and the video seems to be quite nice.  Couple that with on-phone editing of clips and we have a winner here.

That is pretty much it for now.  I will try to add more later, but suffice to say, I am a happy camper overall.

Here are some pics I was uploading into Fotopedia…

The news of Bing this week was not overly exciting to me.  I tried it, sure. It has some neat things like the video search that plays back movies as you roll over them.. and the perpetual scrolling of images with no next button.  Do these really help me solve my search issues? I think not.  Eye candy and UI wizardry do not make my life easier.  Don’t get me wrong.. I LOVE me some eye candy.

So what is this new search product?  If you have not heard of it, it is called Google Squared.  What is Google Squared?  It is essentially a dynamic spreadsheet that brings back search results and helps you organize things, here is why I like it.

Sure, if you spend a little time you can come up with some goofy results, but the potential for an amazing thing is here.  Heck, I would even call it damn fine at this point if you understand what it is doing.  If you are looking for data that could be identified as somewhat structured, you may have a need for squared.  If you are into researching and comparing things, you may have a need for squared.  If you search and put various results into a spreadsheet, you may have a need for squared.  (ok, I really hate redneck jokes, so I’ll stop)

Check out my search for Digital SLR cameras.

Notice how it automatically brings back a set of results for certain cameras. compares things it knows about those cameras and presents it in a nice format?  Amazing.. right?  Watch.. even better.  What if I know there is a camera I wanted to see, but it is not on the list?  See that ADD ITEM on the bottom?  I just don’t want that simple ADD NEXT 10.. I am more clever than that. here goes.

Type the name of the camera in that box.  The Camera you knew did not exist.  Were you thinking of the Nikon D90?  Me too!  Here goes..

Notice how the D90 is now there, filled in and ready for my evaluation?  Fantastic.  No more trying to dig through DPREVIEW page by page trying to compare the right cameras.  OK.. one thing that was killing me was the Sony camera that showed up.  Seriously, who buys a Sony Digital SLR?  Nobody.. that’s right. Do you see that X?  The one by the name?  Yup, click it and you can kill an individual entry!  Wow.. nice.  Buh bye Sony!

OK, lets go back to the original image in the post.  This time let’s look at the columns.  See the COLOR SUPPORT?  That looks a little wonky.  Let’s kill that by clicking the X on the COLUMN this time. OK, getting better.  Now, I am interested in knowing what type of sensor each camera has.  CMOS? CCD? Maybe for me it matters.  Let’s see if Google Squared can help.

Google Squared is now recognizing that SENSOR TYPE is an attribute of Digital SLR cameras.  Amazing.  Lets do that, click sensor type and WHAM!  all filled in.  Did you notice something cool?

Notice how it quickly fills in the items, but it does so by searching out the answer.  Sure.. it goes back to some structured data somewhere, but that my friends is some cool magic.  If you didn’t like of the entries, you can have it search for more options, or just manually put one in.  For me, I am sure the Canon EOS came with a Kryptonite sensor.. so I corrected it.  (lets hope I don’t add to their database this way)  :)

Go crazy, try a couple things.  Squared is really making me happy.  Want to see if they know about bracketing on the camera?  Or price?  try it.  I was surprised by it’s success rate.

Squared is really pulling through for me.  I added in some columns I wanted, deleted things I didn’t, added in cameras that made sense and removed the ones that said sony.  Interesting addition I tested, I could have searched for Digital SLR -sony and it would have excluded those for me, but it is a little to selective.  I think it does a -sony search on ANY result and not on the fields.  All in all, quite an impressive set of results.

OK, now what would I change?  Or add?  I am sure these things are in work, but here was my initial set of frustrations.

1. Why can’t I open this in a Google Docs spreadsheet once done?  or export to Excel?  That should be an option

2. Re-ordering, I’d like to be able to move rows up, columns over, etc.

3. Advanced searching with modifiers on each field.  Search for the -+and ” modifiers within ONLY that subset of structured data.

4. Change / Add an image.  That’d be helpful when it messes up

5. alternate row colors?  If it gets big, it’s hard to read.  Some styling might help

6. Widgets, why can’t I embed this anywhere?  That would be amazing

7. Sorting live based on a column, as you click it re-orders, as data changes underneath, it reorders.  (think live price searches embedded on a page that update over time)

So, you can see why I like Squared.  Sure, it has some quirks.  Most things do, but for an amazing search concept, something I would use on a regular basis for research, etc.. I gotta give it a two thumbs up!  Nice job to the team behind this work.  I am impressed.

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Seems like “real time” is all the craze these days. Everyone wants to talk about real time this and that.  I don’t want to rant too much here, but just a little clarification on the importance of real time vs. the misleading facts and or outright confusion.

Real Time Vs. Ajax
Sometimes I see “real time” being used in replacement term of what Ajax has done for us for quite some time. In the background, the “real time” features are using Ajax for their refreshing. Ajax is a way for the browser to keep a channel open back to a search result.  That results may or may not be returning updated data. To me, this is what Facebook is doing with their release. This saves you from doing a page refresh to see the new content.  Nothing different from an old skool Ajax call to retrieve data.

The Real “Real Time”
Now this is where the rubber meets the road in my book. Real time search.  As the web grows older, so does the amount of content we have access to.  Worse yet, links to articles that are 7 years old are useless in some circumstances;  yet in others, this old data is king!    I am sure I’m not the only one researching data, getting excited about a data point (or sad) only to realize it is a decade old!  :)

Bringing time in the search continuum is important if you can decipher user intent, see what the searcher is actually looking for and provide the most up to date information.  I don’t necessarily agree with a reference in this article about Larry Page and “real time search”.  It implies that Twitter has something over Google by beating them to the punch with Real Time Search.  Twitter and Google are two different things.  Indexing billions of pages (google) vs. Twitter, selecting from your own database and sorting by time stamp. These are NOT the same.  No where NEAR the same. Not even close.

The New York Time has released a Real Time News page.  What does this mean?  It means they caught on to the trend of the buzz word and are bring the news to you immediately.. no page refresh needed.  Hmm.. how useful is this?  Check out this screen grab.

Is 6 updates in the last 20 minutes in “real time” really that helpful?  One could argue for REALLY slow readers maybe.  Or dial up users?  Not sure, I just don’t find it valuable.  Again.. NYT morphed the Ajax call in their web page to a market buzz word beyond the buzz of Ajax itself.  (or for those who just want to call out the XML HTTP Request Object as the real thing and Ajax is just as buzzy).. ok, rambling here.

You get my point.  Check out Google Trends comparing Ajax Search to Real Time Search

Holy cow!  Look at that spike starting in April!  I’ll go back to a use case that make sense for the types of Real Time being hyped.  Twitter real time could be useful.  I don’t want to diminish the power of users in “real time”, just clarify it.  FAR more people are contributing to the web as a whole than the number of global Twitter users.   I used WolframAlpha to get a guess on number of Twitter Users.  It is a dated number from last year.  I took the number, grew it a bit and it places it in the millions… it is FAR below what you would see for overall content contributors on the web.  Think of all the webmasters, writers, bloggers, forum users, commentors, social network site users.. Even if you took a percentage of the internet users in the US only at 10% contributors, you are still a magnitude above twitters user base.

So.. my point.  Real time search of Twitter users can provide value.  It is MUCH easier to get this type of data.. This is real time power of crowdsourcing your own site.  Up to the minute data from a small user base.

For a real search engine to index the billions of pages world wide and have a real time search of that index.. without clogging the internet trying to keep up with updates.  Hell, I am not sure how you would even do that.  I just think overall value of the collective real time web publishing traffic could yield more useful information over what real time Twitter search could do. Both could have uses for sure.

I just think that “real time” only matters in the context of a search.  If you are bringing back a page and using a background call to load fresh data to the page, you are just doing a fancy “F5″.. and it’s umimpressive (cough) Facebook.  If you can solve real time data collection from billions of pages.. You win!  :)  If you could couple Google real time with Wolfram Alpha computational site.. hmm, crazy!

I have always been on the lookout for the next greatest tool to help me be less forgetful, keep up with tasks and have quick and easy access to the things I need.  I have to be proactive on organizational skills, it does not come naturally to me.  Tools are my friend.

Evernote was something I had used in the past with older versions yet I was never completely sold on the product, that was until their latest version that was across desktop, web and mobile. It truly works with the way I think and function, and continues to grow.

For a while I was using it as a snippet capture tool only.  Remembering wine labels,  terminal commands for periodic use, etc. Then along came the ability to attach files.  genius!  I love this portion of the product almost more than anything.  Nothing for me works quite the same.  I dont use it daily, but it IS handy.  and access to my notes from Mobile?  Oh yes, you better believe I love that facet of the product.  I live and breathe mobile daily.. it is my industry, so I am thrilled that Evernote has a focus.

So why do I sound like a Fanboy yet feel like I am losing my ambition to continue here?  Let me explain.

Notes
First and foremost, Evernote is supposed to be for tracking notes.  Snippets of text are one thing, Have you ever tried to format a note for meeting minutes or a trip? Use a different font for headers, add a horizontal rule for breaking things up?  It Starts to look ok at first but quickly breaks down.

There are no templates for formatting new notes.  Adding a new note is one thing, but I’d like to create new MEETING notes, or a new VACATION PLANNING note, or a new JEFFS RANDOM IDEAS note that has a particular format.  Heck, it’d be great if I could even add in my own attachments to go along with it.  Imagine a meeting note template that had an excel file attached by default that was empty and ready to accept an issues list.  That’d rock.

OK, back from dreaming here…Simple things, the formatting does not act consistent between mobile, web and desktop. Heck, even on the desktop there are MAJOR issues with the way things format.  You somehow end up carrying over formatting from one type to another without intent.  Word processors have been getting formatting (including pre-defied styles) right for a couple of decades.  How is this so broken?  They say it is in the works to fix, but daily it frustrates me.

Here’s a thought.  Could I do free-form (One note like) note taking in my evernote files?  How great would that be?  Capture notes, draw a quick mind map,etc.  I dont think like a word processor.. don’t make me take notes that way!!  Why should I be limited to a serialized structure.  It is not normal.

Mobile
On to mobile, which should make me smile.  You can guess by now that I am less than happy with it.  I am only talking the iPhone experience here since that is what I have.

First and foremost is the speed of this application.  It is bar-none the slowest application I have used.  I only have around 500 notes in my account, this should not be a major issue I would think, yet I continue to WAIT and WAIT for this application to do anything.  Trying to search your notes, even over Wi-fi, is incredibly slow.  Ever tried to look up your reservation PDF while at the counter of a hotel?  You may as well try to run back home and print it.  Way too slow and not functional.

How about the favorites?  You can mark something as a favorite and it is supposed to store it for offline use.  the catch is.. it does not cache attachments.  Due to the way the Safari plugin for Evernote works (which is actually an amazing high point for this application), it creates PDFs of the web page you are on.  It works like a champ, just don’t expect it to be available for offline use.

Creating new notes on the application is just not useful due to the speed.  I rarely try it.  I had even gone to the point of buying the Griffen case with the macro lens cover explicitly for Evernote.  Again, yesterday when I was trying to take a picture of a business card, it failed.  It just hangs and forced a re-boot of my iPhone.  I pretty much do NOT use the notes creation from my iPhone.  Makes me a little sad.

Honestly, for mobile, I have resorted almost exclusively to using the web interface through safari.  it just works far better than the app for the iPhone, which is very sad. It had such promise.

Task Management
Evernote added the ability to add in tasks for items.  These are really just little check boxes in front of the text with the ability to tick off the box when complete.  Well, what ticks me off is that there is no way to really manage my tasks this way.  It is interesting to note TODO items in a large set of meeting notes, yet there is no way to globally manage all tasks to complete, no way to really see what is not yet done.  I know this app is for taking notes, but really.. if I could manage my tasks like I do with “The Hit List”, I would be one happy puppy.

Summary
So.. for now I am on the fence.  Do I convert my Evernote T-Shirt into a garage rag, go back to finding a new love for note taking and tracking tasks… or do I stick it out in hopes that my Evernote Peeps will fix these issues, and fix them soon.  I am truly frustrated and done paying for small subscription after small subscription for applications annually, yet Evernote for me was one that was well worth it.. until I really got into it for my daily routine.  Maybe I am just asking too much? Or is my hard earned money worthy of more?

Evernote, oh Evernote… Please fix the mobile application, make it work.  Fix the lack of task management in the application, I could really use that.. and for god sakes.. fix the note taking portion of your note taking application.  It is a train wreck.

As for the pluses.. thanks for the attachments, cross computer syncing and the hopefully continued innovation.  We will wait and see if I continue to use this after another month or two.. and as for my evangalising?  I will hold off for now.  No more trying to force my friends to sign up on Evernote.  Just too many issues as it stands for the way I use it.

UPDATE:  This was initially a list ONLY out of Twitter book, as people suggest updates, I validate and add to the list, then I will place the update below.  * means it is NOT in the book

I was one of your typical people who did not “get” Twitter back in 2007 when I signed up . It took me a while but I got there.  Once #TwitterBook came out I was anxious to see what else I could learn.  It was a great read for showing value in what most see as a social toy at best.

I had asked Sarah Milstein and Tim O’Reilly about a list of links from their book.  They had compiled a good set of tools for Twitter.   One did not exist, so I will start to compile their list here as well as add to it over time.. for now this is the URLs mentioned in #TwitterBook.

General Links

• Accessible Twitter – Twitter that works with assistive technologies
• Twitter Help – If you need help, get it from the source
• Twitter Search – Search things in Twitter like #FollowFriday
• Yiying Lu – Original creator of the Fail Whale
• GetSatisfaction – Twitter Customer Service
• Spam Issues? – Twitter Spam reporting
• Widgets? – Widgets for Twitter

Twitter Tools

• Hashtags – Tracks and shares hashtags from Twitter
• Tagal.us – Find out what hashtags are all about
• Twtvite – simple event management from Twitter
• TweetBeep – Free Twitter Alerts
• BackTweets – Search links on Twitter
• Twitturly – Top Twitter links Real Time
• TweetMeMe – The hottest stories on Twitter
• MicroPlaza – popular Twitter news
• TwitterCounter – Ultimate Twitter Stats Tool
• Twitalyzer – Track your influence on Twitter
• TweetBrain – Crowdsourcing Questions on Twitter
• TweetChat -
• TweetGrid – Create a search Dashboard
• TwiMailer – Advanced Mailing solution for Twitter
• TwitterFeed – Feed your blog to Twitter
• TipJoy – Get tips on Twitter for charity
• TweetStats – Get stats on usage
• TweetReach – How far did your tweet travel?

Trends and Advanced Searching Tools

• Twist – See and compare trends
• WhatTheTrend – Find out what is trending on Twitter
• TwitScoop – Tag cloud of current Twitter Trends
• Twopular – Popular Trends
• TweetGrid – Create a Twitter Dashboard
• Monittor – Realtime live Twitter monitor

URL Shortners

• 140it – One of the many URL Shortners
• Bit.ly – Customize and track short URLs (What I use)
• Is.gd – Another popular shortner
• Twi.bz – hints at the underlying domain while shortening
• tr.im – track URLS as well
• TinyURL – One of the original URL Shorteners

Picture / Video Services

• TwitPic – Post pics to Twitter
• yFrog – Share pics from Twitter here too *
• Twitvid – If you want to share videos *

Scheduling Services

• TweetLater – schedule Tweets for later

Twitter Themes

• TwitterGallery – Free Twitter Themes
• TwitBacks – Create Twitter Backgrounds

Twitter Directories

• PeopleBrowsr – view your account in a variety of ways
• WeFollow – User powered Twitter Directory
• Twellow – Twitter Directory
• MrTweet – Personal Networking Agent for Twitter
• WhoShouldIFollow – Following Recommendations
• TwitterHolic – Top Twitter Users
• Retweetist – Retweeting lists
• Retweet Radar – More retweeting goodness
• DoesFollow – Find out who follows whom
• FriendorFollow – Who is not following you back?
• TwitterSheep – Tagcloud goodness of your peeps
• TweepDiff – Find out who your missing

Twitter Clients

• Twhirl – Social Software Client
• TweetDeck – Personal Twitter Browser
• Mobile Twitter - small Twitter for small Browsers
• Tweetie – Mac and iPhone Clients
• Twitteriffic
• TwitterBerry – Blackberry Twitter Client
• TinyTwitter – tiny java twitter client

Other

• TrackingTwitter – Find out the top brands using Twitter
• ExecTweets – Top execs and brands on Twitter
• StockTwits – Real time stock tips built on the API
• CoTweet – How business does Twitter

UPDATED June 12th
Added yFrog and Twitvid per Dennis

LTE is to Wi-Max as VHS was to BetaMax.  OK, I could go on here but you get the picture.  I am not really seeing a future for Wi-Max beyond 3-5 years at best.

If I look at the demise of both Betamax and HD-DVD, it really came down to who had backing from not only the consumer market, but where did hardware manufacturers choose to place bets.  Recently you all remember Blue-Ray starting to succeed due to backing from the Movie Industry for a format to support, then large companies like Best Buy placed bets on Blue-Ray for stock and finally hardware manufacturers started placing their bets to follow.  Betamax was a very similar story.  In both cases there was a good competing technology yet someone had to win.

Fast Forward to 2009.. We are starting to see early decisions around two competing technologies for the next generation of wireless data transfer.  Verizon is making progress in getting out specs for it’s LTE network and plan to have 25-30 markets by next year..  Vodafone and AT&T are two other big players who are pushing for versions of LTE as the standard, even as far back as April of last year.  Even small carriers like MetroPCS are pushing for LTE to be the standard and planning on releasing phones based on this technology.  Fred Wright, who is an exec for Motorola on 4G networks has stated that not only are  80% of the carriers world wide moving to adopt LTE as a standard, Motorola is also pushing to make 70-80% of the work they are doing on supporting Wi-Max today  re-usable by LTE in 2012.

Wi-Max is supported heavily by Clearwire Wireless.  Nokia and Intel have also put some backing into support for devices through the chipset, or embedded support as in Nokia’s case.  I won’t call this level of support insignificant however; when you see stories like Alcatel Lucent making a clear stand on re-focusing all Wi-Max resource over to support LTE it makes you question the long-term viability of Wi-Max.  Alcatel-Lucent even goes on to state they don’t believe the market can afford to support two competing standards. (I agree)

Some people think that the “sibling rivalry” will bode well for both technologies. I can’t help but go back to the earlier analogies I was mentioning with VHS and Blue-Ray winning out.  Their competitors were not horrible technologies, as a matter of fact they had some actual backing in the industry.  The problem is once the balance starts shifting to one or another technology, companies are less and less likely to place bets on the “underdog”, and almost nobody today has the budget to fund two technologies.

Sure the two technologies are relatively close, some even believe at some point they could work together and devices could switch between them.  The reason I think Wi-Max is doomed in a few years is this.  History shows that technologies DO end up having clear winners when it comes to a Battle Royale.  As technology pushes wireless to faster speeds, the lack of need to attach physical lines to a house for Broadband connection.. where am I going to go for this type of technology?  I have already given up my land line for a Cellular only household.  I know some people who already use Air Cards from Sprint, Verizon or AT&T for their PRIMARY internet access.  Why would I want to pay yet ANOTHER bill to someone?  The market will mature, price pressure will occur and at some point I will have my carrier wanting my Cellular Voice traffic, My Cellular phone Data traffic as well as a tethered primary home connection, All for one low price.. and at speeds faster than I have now!

The question in my mind really is around how Comcast, DirecTV, Verizon DSL/Cable, etc.. are going to compete with my new found wireless, ultra fast and bundled play with my cell provider?  How can they compete to get all of the rural customers with the capital expense of running cables when LTE will get that “last mile” customer at no additional cost!    If I were a “wired” broadband provider these days, I’d be concerned about my business model and what the 5-7 year revenue charts are going to start looking like.  I don’t think “Down and to the right” is the chart you want to be showing your board.

As for me?  I am waiting for that AT&T bundle for my LTE based iPhone/Tethered connection that is with me at ALL times.  I can throw my Dell Mini9 running OSX online anywhere and forget the fact I live rural and had issues in the past even getting  cable operator to call me back.  Hulu over my Cellular connection is working just fine in 2011 for me thanks and I am thankful for the geniuses behind 4G and beyond!

- Jeff Torgerson

Photo Courtesy of AlicePopKorn

OK, so over the past couple days there have been many rumors about Verizon and what they may bring to market to compete with AT&T and the iPhone.  Stay with me here as this post is going to be a little bit all over the map with the info I am reading.. just trying to catch up!

CNN Money has a post about Verizon and the possible iPhone Lite as well as a small touch pad device.  With that said, there are a few rumors around this happening, not just this one.  I cant find the original source but the posts seem to come from the New York Times, USA Today, and Businessweek according to the article.

There have been rumors swirling for about a month on some 10 inch touch screen devices that Apple is purchasing, this could line up with a device they are shopping around, or it could be something new they are bringing to market on their own. I actually believe that going to the carriers looking for a deal is a good solution, and here is why.  People have been snatching up netbooks for a while now.  These are great little “always connected” devices for accessing data so long as you are near Wi-Fi or happen to have a netbook with a 3G card built in.  If Apple wanted to bring a netbook to market they would have to be concerned about how it will cannibalize sales on the $999 Macbook.  Many people (my wife included) have  a Macbook that is primarily used for accessing Email, Facebook, Recipies, booking trips, online banking, etc.. NOTE:  Very little application access.

If you are trying to differentiate yourself against OTHER netbooks in the market, you surely can not do it on price right now.  Hell, even the OLPC laptops are selling for $199 still.  If you try to come in at the $200-$400 range, the only differentiators you have is the brand.  Don’t get me wrong, an Apple netbook at $400 would sell like hotcakes I think, I just don’t see Apple doing that.  You need to find something more.. something exciting and different to give people yet not cut off future sales of the Macbook line.

Apple has to be looking at the success they have had with the phone.  Partnering with a carrier to provide the infrastructure while they provide a portable computing platform and closed ecosystem for selling applications, what could be better!  This is working on AT&T so far.

OK, so I am Apple, I know I want to protect my Macbook sales.. and I want to bring a small netbook type device to market.  The logical thing I could do is try to repeat success I have had with the iPhone.. bring a small touch screen connected netbook to market that has constant connection.  The flaw here is if I am an iPhone user, I am on AT&T in the US.. so would I want to subscribe to Verizon for the access?

If this is the plan for Verizon, to get an Apple netbook deal, does it hurt Verizon as a “dumb pipe” play even if this is not a phone? Sprint sold access with Kindle.. that apparently worked for them.  I seriously just don’t see Verizon getting the deal for a connected device from Apple.  It would fragment their loyal customer base and cause TWO contracts for access.  Verizon is already starting to subsidize netbooks for users by allowing a $50 price so long as you sign up for data access on the device.  AT&T is testing it’s own netbook subsidy as well.  As a side note, why would carrier do this? The hope for the carrier is to increase awareness of mobile data usage, get people hooked on access to content 24/7 and then close the deal on multiple channels of data for each subscriber.  From there you want to collect usage data and leverage that to extend your relationship with you subscriber base.   We are already seeing places in the world where mobile penetration rates are greater than 100%, it won’t be long and AT&T/Verizon would love to see data penetration rates there as well.

OK, rambling.. back to the main topic.  More rumors.. We already know the rumors about Apple and Verizon. Today we have more coming out about Microsoft and Verizon trying to launch a device code named “pink”.  Apparently it is a windows mobile based device that Microsoft is working on with a modified OS to be more touch screen friendly.  First things first.. Apple nailed the usability because the iPhone was designed from the ground up to be touch screen, not a hack on top of an already outdated OS.  Second, iPhones are popular because they are also great media devices.  Microsoft either has to concede that Zune is failing and just let people use Media Player in the Windows Mobile OS, or they have to pull out all the stops and take a run with the Zune phone.  I vote for the former.  Serisously, there is nothing wrong with playing to your strengths Microsoft.  Let Zune die and realize that for your mobile play, Windows based OS with Office suite and Media Player is REALLY a good solution.  Just do it right.  Don’t hack it.

Where does this really leave us then?  Well, besides having more fodder to chat about tomorrow.. I think Verizon needs to close a deal with Apple for an LTE based iPhone as well as a heavily subsidized netbook if they have a chance to start playing in the “Apple spotlight”.  (if they care)  However, I think Apple would be better served by working with AT&T to offer a bundled plan that is a subsidized netbook, and if you sign up for a tethering plan on AT&T iPhones (something we know the 3.0 OS will support) it would give AT&T an opportunity to milk just a little more money from their already willing spenders on the Apple money train.   If I pay $30 a month for internet on my iPhone, would I pay $50-60 for my iPhone/Netbook combo?  Maybe. It could be bumped to $75-$100 for unlimited pricing and try to pull people from their ISP and use this as primary access.  Think of the data that could be gathered on their user base.. cross sell opportunities, etc.

WOW.. After re-reading that.. it really is a lot of info with my standard free-flow writing.  As promised, I don’t go back and re-write things.. I do a quick error correction pass and leave it as a stream on concious.  What are your thoughts after reading this?  Should Verizon try for Apple?  Should Apple secure a deal with AT&T to leverage more data rate and try to negotiate a portion of the data subscriber piece?

This was a shot from a car show we went to in Tacoma Washington.  The gear shifter is off a 1968 Chevelle SS.  It is quite an amazing car.  I had zoomed in with my 18-105mm lens, dropped the Aperture way down.. and cranked up the ISO.. there is some noise in the shot on the large version.. but it adds to the shot.