Airport WiFi - Making Travel LESS Enjoyable

I’m blogging from 30,000 feet today [really this was 4-10-08]. My trip today reminds me of the inconvenience of traveling. Luckily I don’t travel all that often. Lines . . . everywhere. And if your lucky enough to have SSS on your ticket you get a free feel up by some TSA guy going through security. After the complimentary violation you’re welcomed to the terminal where you get overpriced garbage attempting to mascarade as food. Be prepared to open your wallet should you want a drink to take the edge off. WHY? Because they can.

As if all this insult wasn’t enough, I took out my iPhone from its protective confines of my bag, someone has to protect it from TSA violation, to happily find an AT&T Wi-Fi network. I fired up Safari and was taken to a AT&T launch page. I was amazed to find that they wanted me to purchase a pass to use their service. It’s bad enough that I’m traveling, but to not be able to sit at the terminal, where I’ll be for hours to make sure that I didn’t miss my flight (the LINES again), and get some free wi-fi is unacceptable. I didn’t stick around long enough to see how much AT&T wanted to scam me out of, but $1.00 would have been too much.

The worst part about the airport hotspot situation is there is no standard. I was joking before when I said $1.00 would be too much. But can you imagine spending $9.99 for a day pass, have a connecting flight at another airport, and arrive to find out that it’s a T-mobile hotspot. You’ve already paid for AT&T and now you’re going to get dinged by T-mobile in the same day. I’m surprised there isn’t more fuss coming from travelers about this. There should be a standard at airports in the US and I propose it should be free to consumers.

I should have to agree to the terms of service indicating that I won’t use the network for no good, or for porn . . . come on, kids could be around. It should be an add supported network, someone has to pay. I have no problem being presented with advertising for the newest Bose noise canceling headphones, the crap burger at the scam factory down the terminal, or even the SkyRest Travel Pillow (the most ridiculous product I was able to find from sky mall).

As I started this I said that I connected to the AT&T hotspot from my Apple iPhone. HELLO it’s already running on the AT&T network. Is there no way for the network to realize this and allow me to connect for free?? Is AT&T trying to tell me that the good money I spend every month for their service isn’t enough to consume some Wi-Fi before my flight?!? I suppose they’d rather me consume data on their cellular network which has to be more costly . . . so I did.

In our DigitalLifestyle we demand constant broadband connectivity. Every device talks to the internet and for Airports to be starving us of this connectivity after they fashion airports to be the most inconvenient places, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Tablet device... Why bother?

For years, there have been rumors of a mythical tablet, or "tablet-like" device from Apple. I hate to spoil everyone's fun, but the tablet device is already out there, and it's called the iPhone.

Yet many people think any day now, we'll see a device with perhaps a 7" screen that would pack the power of laptop, or in some speculation, the device would act as a companion device to a house of Macs. What good would this device be? If you want to sure from the couch, and find a laptop too bulky, there's already the iPhone and iPod Touch. If you're looking for a lightweight design, that comes along with its own drawbacks, there's the Macbook Air. A 7-inch screen isn't large enough to do much more than surf the web. For full computer capability, you would need a physical keyboard, and that of course means a bigger device or a smaller screen.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but I just don't see a place for this in the product lineups. If you want to talk about product gaps, we can talk about the gaping hole where a low-end tower should be, but as for portable devices, the choices are already there.

iTunes Comic Book Store?

Next weekend I'll be taking a trip to NYC to check out the New York Comic Con. Long before I had computers and the internet and video games to take up my spare time, I had comic books. Back then I spent countless hours and dollars on comic books, but now I only occasionally pick up a random issue or graphic novel. Why is that? Is it because there are too many other choices of entertainment? Have I simply out grown them? Or perhaps it's the way I acquire my entertainment that's changed.

This got me thinking. Is there an untapped market for digital comics on a device like the iPhone? Imagine if your favorite comic book series was available via the iTunes Music Store. Apple could ofter a digital comic subscription similar to the season pass that they currently offer for television shows. Issues downloaded to your iMac before they even hit your local comic shop.

Others has discussed the possibility of Apple one day offering e-books through the music store. While the current screen size of the iPhone / Touch would probably hinder using it as an e-reader, I believe it is workable for the comic book medium. To prevent the user from constantly pinching and zooming to readjust the comic book panels, issues would need to be "remixed" into lesser panels per page to allow for a simple and elegant interface. While this remixing wouldn't work for all back issues, it would work for enough to sustain the service, and also open the door for companies to create works designed specifically for the touch screen.

I certainly don't see a service like this ever eliminating traditional comic books, but like downloadable music and films, it's just another way for people to discover and consumer entertainment.

iPhone V2 Prediction - Blackberry Pearl paving the way??

There has been a great deal of speculation on when we're going to get the next version of the iPhone and even more speculation surrounding its new features.  I'm going to add one more to the menu today based on the announcement coming out of the RIM & T-mobile camp.  RIM released the Blackberry Pearl 8120t.  WHO CARES

Well I do.  I think it's significant for several reasons . . . ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION APPLE??

Here goes . . . the 8120t does all the great stuff the other Blackberrys do, but it goes one more step and adds Hotspot @ Home to the list of features.  This means that the smartphone will use Voice Over IP (VOIP) when making calls from your home network.  This marks the first consumer focused smartphone to use this technology.  I can hear the screams already . . . yes there are several other Blackberry devices utilizing this technology, but the pearl is a consumer device so stick with me.

In the all you can eat world of cell phones today, consumers demand unlimited everything.  Currently AT&T offers unlimited data , texting (if you choose to pay for it), and voice (again if you choose to pay for it).  Should you opt for all 3 your monthly service bill before all those taxes is $140.  Pretty steep if you ask me.  In contrast Hotspot @ Home will run you $20 additional.  Assuming you make the majority of your calls from home you can get away with the $40 or $50 plan and pay $60 or $70 total each month.

Besides from the cost basis alone, VOIP is just plain old cool.  Apple likes to be the first to do everything.  They've missed the VOIP smartphone game just slightly, but it's not too late.  My prediction for iPhone V2, VOIP, and not just @ Home.  You heard it here first folks, Apple and AT&T are going to deploy technology that will allow the iPhone to make a call over any WiFi network it can join.  This would mean massive rollover minutes so AT&T better get those calculators and slide rules out to keep track of it all.

So there you have it.  T-mobile has decided that consumer smartphones should have VOIP technology, and I agree.  The cool factor alone will sell tons of phones and the industry once again will have to figure out how to keep up.

iPhone gaming: Top Five Unanswered Questions

The iPhone SDK is out there, (And actually it just had an update today.) and we know a lot of people are working on a lot of great applications, many of which will be games. Unlike the launch of a true gaming console at CES or the heyday of E3, this is the rare instance in which millions of the "console" have already sold, and no one quite knows what will happen with games. And so we present (in no particular order) the top five unanswered questions about gaming on the iPhone.

1. Is the hardware up to the challenge? Or more precisely, how much of the hardware power will Apple allow to be unleashed? According to specs from Roughlydrafted.com, iPhone specs include a 620mhz processor (underclocked to 412mhz), compared to the 67mhz ARM processor in the DS, and a 333mhz processor in the PSP. Of course as anyone from the PowerPC days knows, processor speed is only a small part of the story. The iPhone also has four times the RAM, and much more than ten times the storage capacity. However, it is after all, a phone. How much of this hardware can be maxed out for gameplay? How much of that RAM needs to be ready for use by mail, iTunes, Safari, etc? How hard does Apple want to push the hardware, and was this in mind when the phone was designed? After all, some have questioned whether Apple ever wanted to put out an SDK to begin with.

2. What will happen with battery life? Again, related to just how much of that raw hardware power Apple wants to unleash. The processor is already underclocked by more than 100mhz, presumably to save battery life. And as mentioned on this blog previously, battery life can be slightly shorter than expected already. What happens when you have 3D graphics running all the time during game play, as well as accelerometer input, etc? Look for a surge in 3rd party battery solutions to give gamers more juice.

3. What happens when the phone rings? When you're playing most consoles and the phone rings, you can ignore it, or glance over at your phone and take the call. It's presumable that gameplay will pause, and a dialog box will ask you whether to take the call. Given the concern over Apple's limitations on running apps in the background though, will you lose your game/saved data? This seems like an unlikely scenario, yet the SDK limitations could be interpreted to show this as a potential problem.

4. Can your music be integrated with gameplay? Already some games for the iPod allow you to continue listening to your iTunes while playing. Will Apple's restrictions around music, ie. not allowing developers to access iTunes, limit this capability on the phone? And more importantly, will it limit the creation of exciting new games that could integrate the users media already stored on the device? Imagine a 3rd person shooter in which the tv in one of the settings is playing your favorite music videos. Personalization could be taken to a whole new level, or it could whither on the vine.

5. What about wifi/bluetooth? Three cell phones ago, I enjoyed playing Battleship with a friend via bluetooth. Yes it was nerdy to sit there at the same table and play on two different phones. But it was also fun. The bluetooth functionality of the iPhone is limited right now, to put it kindly. Devices like bluetooth-enabled cars, with integrated address books are unable to communicate with the phone. Will we see more support of bluetooth standards in general, or will developers have to create their own solutions? And even if they can, will Apple give them access to the system calls and underlying OS to make that possible? The same questions surround wi-fi. Will iPhones be able to communicate directly with each other? Will a wifi network be required?

Clearly those five questions lead to many, many more. What are your predictions? Let us know in the comments.