Are limited plans or quasi-unlimited plans for data a better idea?

Last year, AT&T killed their unlimited data plans, just before the release of the iPhone 4. Now, it is becoming clear that Verizon is going to kill their unlimited data plans prior to the release of the next iPhone. As a power-user of my iPhone and iPad, this has caused me considerable upset. While I am grandfathered into the unlimited plans on AT&T (for now), no other users like me can ever get this kind of plan and if I ever want to interrupt my service for any reason (i.e. hospital stay, financial hardship) there is no way for me to get it back. It seems like a use of the duopoly power that AT&T and Verizon hold over the American cellular market.

But as I fumed and thought about this, I realized that I was only looking at this at a very shallow level. The fact is no one ever offered truly unlimited plans. Like your home internet, every "unlimited" plan has a limit after which the company will throttle your traffic or cut you off entirely. Under the "unlimited" monicker, they simply won't tell you what that limit is. Instead, one day after a bout of downloading (hopefully) legal video, you'll find your internet connection cut with a message to "contact us immediately". The saving grace of the "unlimited" plan is the cap is usually flexible, so if they have a (for instance) unspoken 4 GB cap and you hit 5 GB one month and 2 GB the next, most companies are forgiving. Whereas under a "limited" plan, as soon as you hit your cap you are either cut off or double-charged.

So, I ask Mod-Bloggers, which do you prefer and why? An "unlimited" plan which is really just "limited but we won't tell you how" or a limited plan where at least you can plan your usage? Do you prefer a false sense of security or honesty? Comment here or vote in the poll to the right.

(And no, it isn't fair to answer "I don't have a data plan, so there!" Because it is likely you at least have a dial-up or broadband internet service that got you to Mod-Blog. Same issue.)

WHAT IF? Microsoft & Skype

There are many people second-guessing the Microsoft acquisition of Skype. And for good reason. $8.5 billion is Microsoft's largest acquisition ever, and it was for a service which largely duplicates the existing MS Messenger application. The only two features that Skype has which MSN does not are: (1) the ability for telephones to call into it, and (2) the ability to call out to telephones.

And I am wondering if that is EXACTLY what MS wanted to buy.

A little while ago, Google rolled out Google Voice as "the last phone number you'll ever need". The idea was that you could give people your Google Voice number, and it would "bounce" the calls to whatever other phone you chose. It was paired with a clever speech-recognition system which was able to transcribe voice mails and send them to you as text messages and/or e-mails. The whole thing is quite clever, but it is ultimately a hack looking to work around the existing phone systems.

What if, rather than just adding Skype to XBox, Microsoft wants to change Windows Phone such that all calls thru it are done via VOIP, routed thru Microsoft servers. If Microsoft "owns" your phone number, then all calls are over data connections and it doesn't matter if you are calling on a Verizon phone, a Sprint phone, an AT&T phone, or even over your home Wifi or your XBox's ethernet connection. It could provide true phone number portability - perhaps better regarded as phone number "agnosticism" (so long as you stay with a Windows Phone). You could even, theoretically, have a "family phone" where all members of the family have their cell phones/laptops/XBoxes/Zunes ring when anyone calls their Microsoft phone number.

This would truly be thinking outside the box, and could free the customer from the control of the cellular companies. Of course, I doubt the cell phone companies would be too fond of that idea.

Secretary of Transportation would disable cell phones in cars

I try to give the benefit of the doubt to both sides, but there are times when someone says something that simply makes no sense. Consider for this point, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood who is proposing requiring car companies to actively jam all cell phones in cars in an effort to end "distracted driving."

The US government may require cars to include scrambling tech that would disable mobile-phone use by drivers, and perhaps passengers.

"I think it will be done," US Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said on Wednesday morning, according to The Daily Caller. "I think the technology is there and I think you're going to see the technology become adaptable in automobiles to disable these cell phones."

LaHood is on a self-described "rampage" against distracted driving, and if making it impossible to use a mobile phone while in a car can save lives, he's all for it...

This means not only would it be illegal to use the cell phone while driving, but it would also be impossible for you or your passengers to use it. If implemented as proposed here, it would also jam data connections (or else drivers could simply switch to Skype) which would mean the end of Pandora or other music streaming services in the car. And, of course, it would mean the end of being able to contact emergency services from your vehicle.

There is a time and place for government intervention, and "distracted driving" is definitely a problem. But let's be reasonable and realize that such whole hog solutions create more problems than they solve.

You're not fooling anyone

From here.

Is this the long-rumored Playstation Phone?

Engadget claims it is. I am interested to see how a game-oriented phone fares in the iPhone/Android/Windows 7 Phone/WebOS war. Nokia's NGage did not last long on the market.

Why does this remind me of Nokia?

Captivate vs iPhone: Speed

I did not extensively test an iPhone 4, so I did not get a good feel for its multitasking. The iPhone 2G that I tested did not have multitasking. It was slow at times, but overall responsive.

Android's ability to multitask is great because you can have many apps open and running at once. Unfortunately, it doesn't work well on the Captivate due to memory issues. The good news is that turning off some of the widgets and using Advanced Task Killer to periodically kill lingering apps has helped. The downside of this is that it can cause the battery to drain more quickly. Reports are that the new firmware, available in Europe, solves the issue. This will hopefully be fixed with the Android 2.2 (Froyo) update due in September for the Captivate. The biggest place where this is a problem is that the onscreen buttons don't always respond. Once or twice I've caught myself trying to press a virtual button harder in an effort to get it to respond. The other solution is to periodically power down your phone and start it back up again.

If you don't mind managing your tasks either manually or with an automated schedule, Android's multitasking is a nice feature. Developers don't have to rewrite their apps to support it, like they do for the new iPhone OS. If you don't want to be thinking about phone performance, you're better off with an iPhone.

This is the fourth in a series of posts. You can find the first article here.

Captivate vs. iPhone: Ease of Use

To start off the ease of use discussion, I'll mention that I had been using an iPhone for a few weeks and had gotten used to how an iPhone worked.

At first, I had trouble getting used to the iPhone interface. It took me about three days to feel more or less comfortable with it. I still had trouble figuring out some of the settings, but for the most part, it has a very clean interface and is easy to use. Apple does a very good job of just making things work.

Switching to an Android-based phone, I felt clueless again. It took me about a week to feel relatively comfortable with the phone. (Part of this was my e-mail setup, which will be covered in a later post.) I'm still finding settings I didn't know were there. Google has done a great job of making sure their services just work. It's everything else that you want to do with the phone where the complexity starts.

There is one ease of use point where the Captivate beats the iPhone: notifications. Rather than having a notification pop-up on the screen and having to deal with it right now, the Captivate has a notification area. It displays an icon (or multiple icons) at the top of the screen. A simple flick of the finger and you can see your notifications.

In short, the iPhone has a much better "it just works" Mac OS feel. Android feels more like using a really polished Linux machine or a combination of Linux and Windows. Apple clearly wins this category. It should be noted that different phone manufacturers modify Android. The Captivate ships with Samsung's TouchWiz user interface.

This is the third in a series of posts. You can find the first article here.

Captivate vs. iPhone: Overall Design

I mentioned in my previous post that while some felt the plastic feel of the Captivate was too light, I prefer having a lighter phone, though to be fair, the Captivate is only 0.3 ounces lighter than the iPhone. I was not able to get a good feel for how heavy the iPhone 4 was due to it being cabled to the stand at the AT&T store. The Captivate has a sleek looking design that some have compared to the older iPhones at a quick glance. The phone can slip easily in your hand, so I recommend getting a soft case. I bought the Body Glove Clear Soft Shell Case though I wish my local AT&T store had a case with a belt clip.

While the iPhone does boast a higher resolution display, the bigger, 4" AMOLED display on the Captivate is beautiful. It is nice and bright, though in limited full sun use, it was hard to see. Part of this could be due to the default settings of dimmer the screen as needed.

The mini-USB port is at the top of the phone. My last phone (as well as the iPhone I tested) plugged in at the bottom. That has taken a little getting used to. Samsung included a nifty feature when the mini-USB port is not in use. Rather than leaving the port open or having a rubber flap that tends to break, they have a plastic sliding cover. In theory, it was a good idea. In practice, I tend to forget to close it. It also takes a little extra shove to open completely. The one big flaw with the mini-USB port is that it does not use a standard mini-USB plug. This is a bummer as I have a number of mini-USB cables. It was nice having one plugged into my docking station and another in my bag.

The power button is on the side of the phone. Both my last phone and the iPhone I tested had the power button on the top. This isn't a problem, but I find that I'm still having trouble quickly turning on the phone.

I love that the iPhone 4 has both a front and rear facing video camera. This was a big draw for me. The Galaxy S, which the Captivate is based off of, has both video cameras. Sadly, AT&T did not have Samsung include the front facing camera in the Captivate. I suspect that it was to give the iPhone exclusivity in this department, at least for AT&T phones.

Overall, I prefer the look and feel of the Captivate to the iPhone 4. Previous iPhones are a closer call for me. The bigger screen of the Captivate ultimately wins in my opinion, even over the front facing camera due to the fact that the screen is used all of the time whereas the front facing camera is used for limited applications.

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Why I Chose the Samsung Captivate

I recently took the plunge and signed up for two more years with AT&T. I had been using the HTC Wizard and was long overdue for a new phone. I needed a smartphone and it had to be on AT&T due to the shared-minute plan I am on. My original plan was to get either a BlackBerry for its great e-mail and notification capability or an iPhone because of the great apps. I assumed that I would end up with a BlackBerry because it had a physical keyboard.

To help determine if an iPhone was right for me, I borrowed a friend's iPhone 2G. Unfortunately I could only keep my $30 unlimited data plan by going straight from my current phone to a new phone so I used the iPhone in WIFI only mode.

It took me a few days to a week to get used to the virtual keyboard. If it weren't for Apple's error correcting, it would have taken much longer. I was definitely much better in landscape mode, but still not as fast as with a physical keyboard.

After playing with a number of free applications and determining that the virtual keyboard would be good enough, I realized that my decision was between having the notifications of a BlackBerry along with the ability to tether for free and having a great mini computer that had an okay e-mail program. I wanted to get the iPhone, but I was torn.

It was at that point that I started looking into Android. With Android, I could get some of the same (or similar) apps as the iPhone. I also had the openness to install any application I wanted without rooting or jailbreaking my iPhone, which I refused to do. Android phones exist with all major U.S. carriers, so I would have the ability to keep my apps and switch providers, if I desired. I was intrigued.

My choices switched to the iPhone or the Samsung Captivate. I had the ability to play with the Captivate before it was available for sale. I also played with the iPhone 4. While some feel that the Captivate is too light, I enjoyed the feel of it much better than the iPhone 4. In fact, I enjoyed the feel of the iPhone 2G better than the iPhone 4. The bigger screen on the Captivate also helped typing on the virtual keyboard.

After much thinking and research, I settled on the Captivate despite the lack of the front-facing camera. I still wish AT&T had included it, but the openness of the Android platform (both apps and carriers) as well as the integration with Google swayed me.

I picked up my phone the day it came out. While I've had some issues with it, I still think it was the right choice. Stay tuned for more on my experience with the Samsung Captivate.

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Spell Check

That sound you're hearing is the screams from Garmin and TomTom

Google has announced their own FREE turn-by-turn with voice directions GPS app for all Google Android phones, starting to the Verizon/Motorola DROID. And yes, they have confirmed it is coming to the iPhone as well. This could be the beginning of the end for the old GPS manufacturers.

Droid - The Reality behind the 'iDon't" Commerials

If you watched any sports over the weekend, you saw the commercial below played ad nauseum. This is a teaser cooked by Verizon to build buzz over their intended iPhone-killer, called DROID.


It appears that this phone is real, not just another Verizon vaporware phone, and is running Google Android 2.0. Allegedly, the Droid was co-designed by Google, Verizon, and Motorola and is intended to replace the Blackberry Storm as Verizon's flagship smartphone for the 2009 holiday season. And Boy Genius Report has pictures.

The real question is whether Apple has any reason to be worried. The phrase "iPhone Killer" has been thrown about so much - and to so little effect - that it is nearly meaningless at this point. The Palm Pre is the only phone to come close in terms of original thought and usability, and its relationship with Sprint the anemic Palm have held it back from really taking off. And Verizon has a long history of hyping phones, and then killing them off with horrible execution and upgrade policies. Still, a thriving competition in the smartphone space would keep Apple honest, and be good for consumers overall. I hope Droid is better than history would predict.

GSM (i.e. Your Cell Phone) has been cracked!

There are days when it pays to be telephobic. I am one of those people who will tend to reply to a phone call with an e-mail, a text message, a tweet, a face-to-face drop-by - anything to avoid having to actually use a telephone. But at the same time, I rely heavily on my iPhone to stay connected, and use it for both casual web browsing AND for doing eCommerce transactions.

It turns out that a group of hackers has hacked the most common cell phone system in the world - GSM and has released the results of the hack into the wild. This means anyone with a radio card, a laptop, and a little know-how can listen in on the cell phone calls of anyone on T-Mobile, AT&T Wireless, and many other providers (Sprint and Verizon use a competing standard called CDMA and are unaffected).

This is potentially a business-killer for GSM cellular companies, especially those who sell to businesses and government users. It is likely well be seeing firmware updates shortly to address the security hole. Or else the cell companies will try to use it as an excuse to make you pay for a new phone and re-up your contract.

Palm Pre Phone Home?

There has been a lot of scrutiny of Apple's iPhone because of its so-called "monopoly status", but it is important to keep your eyes on the smaller guys as well. A hacker, going thru the Palm Pre SDK has determined that the Palm Pre regularly calls home and sends your current location to Palm, Inc. They claim that the privacy policy protects customers, but such a setup could easily allow the company to insert location-targeted ads into their apps to generate extra profit.

Blocking Text Message SPAM

CNET has done us all a great service by putting together a summary of the ways to block text message spam for all of the major cell phone providers. Text message spam is worse than e-mail spam because most users are paying for each one in and out. And advertisers know the value of text message spam because it is hard to ignore. Click on thru to see how to deal with this plague on your provider of choice.

NuviPhone shown for real?

It has been a while since we last heard about Garmin's NuviPhone - which is now a joint partnership between Garmin and Asus, it was still a prototype at best. And the few that had seen the light of day were buggy and hardly usable. But now, a working NuviPhone has been seen in Barcelona, and people were mostly impressed with it.

The phone has come a very long way since we last saw it, with a snappy, smooth interface, and nary a glitch or crash. The touchscreen keyboard -- usable in portrait and landscape modes -- is no pretender to the iPhone's throne, but is one of the best we've seen on a resistive touch device. We also found the WebKit-based browser to be one of the smoother ones we've seen outside the T-Mobile G1 and the iPhone.

I doubt this phone will gain a significant marketshare in light of the Apple iPhone, Google Android, and Palm Pre. But it is never a bad thing to have a good competitor in the market to keep the big guys honest. And I do love my Garmin Nuvi GPS.

Stupid Criminals

My mother loves the "stupid criminals" features on Jay Leno's show, so she is sure to enjoy this story. An Ohio man had his car stolen, along with his cell phone. A friend, on a whim, sent a text message to the stolen phone pretending to have "hot chicks and drugs". He then sent an address to meet at, which the criminals rushed to reach. The police were there instead. The following has to be my favorite line from the story...

And to make things easier for the officers, the suspects showed up in the stolen car.

Text Messages are expensive because...

...uh... well... It must be because of the scarcity of bandwidth, right? After all, more cell phones means less lines available, right? Right?

But text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

Professor Keshav said that once a carrier invests in the centralized storage equipment — storing a terabyte now costs only $100 and is dropping — and the staff to maintain it, its costs are basically covered. “Operating costs are relatively insensitive to volume,” he said. “It doesn’t cost the carrier much more to transmit a hundred million messages than a million.”

It is bad news for cell phone companies that the NYTimes has up an exposé on text messaging and the unreasonable rates that most cell carriers are charging. Is this perhaps why Apple has resisted advertising much about its own text messaging plans for the iPhone, and instead focusses on e-mail?

Fuzzy math

I found this interesting.  Apparently text messaging isn't the best deal on the web - if you don't have an unlimited plan.  Basically text messages on AT&T cost $1,310.72 per megabyte (6,553.6 text messages at $0.20 each).  Hmmm.... and the reason Sean doesn't text message is?

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