My Elusive Quest for the Perfect Pocket Media Device
Posted by Hanson Hosein
“notmyPhone.” There I said it. I own or operate five Apple computers, three iPods, two Airports, constantly curse anytime I have to use Windows, and regularly sermonize that Steve Jobs singled-handedly democratized media production.
But in my quest for that one device that can do everything (phone, e-mail, web, pictures, video, GPS, word processing, modem), the iPhone continues to come up short. And that’s too bad, because it puts any other phone operating system to shame (I know that much just from using the iPod Touch).
I could just be a contrarian happy to challenge the wisdom of the crowd — I didn’t think the Dark Knight was anything special (even on IMAX), preferred Batman Begins, and suspect that Iron Man is the holy grail of superhero movies. So you just may want to stop reading now if you believe my opinion counts for nothing.
But I do maintain that the graphic above gets it right (link to original article What Your Phone Says About You): the iPhone is a media consumption device, not a media production one. So its beautifully self-contained operating system makes mobile telephony a sheer joy for the vast majority of owners, but does little to satisfy all the ridiculous hoops I want my phone to jump through.
My current Nokia E61i is an amazing workhorse. It lies somewhere between “Worker” and “Media Creator” on that scale. I use Blackberry Connect on it, through T-Mobile, which is fast and cheap (with a flat data rate add-on when I travel overseas, which is huge, and one major reason why I don’t go with AT&T). The camera is so-so, but at least it shoots video. The browser isn’t bad, but after playing around with Apple’s mobile OS, the Symbian 60 3rd edition OS reminds me of Windows — very flexible if you know what you’re doing, but not all that fun. I tether it to my Macbook Pro for a data connection (Edge). I connect it via bluetooth to a GPS unit, and sometimes to an external keyboard. I sometimes listen to music and audiobooks. I use it for Skype, Twitter, and Google Maps. I can leave my laptop at home when I’m take short trips across the country.
Now that our MCDM program is looking to focus on the power of consumer-grade pocket media devices, I’m striving to find that One Device to rule them all. I’d like a Nokia N95 for its amazing video and still capabilities, but it doesn’t have a keyboard. I coveted the new Nokia E71, but Nokia just ended its relationship with Blackberry. The Blackberry Bold looks cool, but the camera is still 2 megapixels, with the Blackberry OS getting a little long in the tooth. And the iPhone has that amazing touch OS, but doesn’t shoot video nor send multimedia messages. Besides, it’s tied to AT&T.
What I did today exemplifies the kind of tech travesty to which I regularly subject myself, in the absence of the ideal pocket device. I recently picked up the Pentax W60 waterproof point-and-shoot, on the strength of its HD video capabilities (well, not quite, only 15 fps at 720p and mediocre sound).
Here’s my nephew and niece monkeying around in the water in 720p AVI: Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this VideoPress video.
I wanted a “take-everywhere’” camera that could potentially supplement my 1080p HD films (the Flip camera, simple and beautiful, just doesn’t cut it in that department).
Part of “everywhere” includes my weekly kayak commute to campus. Here’s how I wrapped myself up in proverbial knots, gadgetry-wise to record my trip.
(1) Attached the Pentax W60 to the bow of the kayak to shoot the entire 52-minute, 3.5 mile trip, in 320×240 30fps — that way I could get the entire trip in one shot, as each video clip maxes out at 2 GB. Here’s the video, massively compressed, and sped up 1500%: Please enable Javascript and Flash to view this VideoPress video.
(2) Activated a GlobalSat BT-338 Bluetooth GPS receiver and stuck it in my lifejacket pocket.
(3) Tethered the BT-338 to my Nokia E61i via bluetooth, and fired up Nokia’s amazing Sportstracker program to track my water commute (see Google Earth image above).
(4) Plugged in Sennheiser PX-100 headphones (I like top-quality sound, even with compressed MP3 files) to a Sandisk M240 MP3 player for tunes to inspire my paddle. I’d rather not risk my iPod 160GB classic in the wake of all those speeding boats, though I did dare to stick my E61i into a waterproof Pelican case and strap it down near me. Sadly, I did lose my brand new Pacific Science Center waterbottle (sorry Stan!).
(5) Strung a water-resistant Plantronics Voyager 370 bluetooth earpiece around my neck just in case my wife and daughter needed to check in with me. Or if I needed saving because the boat was too heavy with superfluous tech jetsam.
Sheer folly isn’t it? Since I’m obviously a big Nokia fan (have been ever since I used its nearly bulletproof phones as an NBC journalist in the Iraqi, Israeli and Balkan wars), maybe my best bet is the somewhat bulky E90. But I’m still missing out on that magnificent Apple touch screen…do I need to wait until Nokia releases its own superhero touch device, which got an early sneak peek via The Dark Knight when Morgan Freeman used it to knock out communications in a Hong Kong skyscraper?
Maybe I had better be patient. (Perhaps Iron Man will design a waterproof all-inclusive gadget one day.) In the meantime, I intend to add a 5-credit course to our program on Digital Media in the Mobile Space in the coming academic year. Hopefully its new instructor will also schedule a gadget intervention for me…
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6 Comments, Comment or Ping
Dave Schappell
Hanson — loved the compressed kayaking video. One puzzling question though… why don’t you have the ‘comment notifier’ plug-in for WordPress, so that I can be notified if anyone comments after I comment. That way, if you respond to someone’s comment, the burden isn’t on you to e-mail them as well. The official name of the plug-in is “Subscribe-to-Comments” and it works great (I actually installed it myself on the TeachStreet WordPress blog.
This is the link for Subscribe-to-Comments:
http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/
Dave
Jul 26th, 2008
crackerbelly
Hanson,
I just need a bit of clarification. Are you generally a Marvel fan as opposed to a DC fan or are you simply considering super-hero movies “all up” and what is the best of all time? I have to agree that Dark Knight was just ok. It was worth the price of admission but still not as good as Batman Begins and definitely not as good as Iron Man. I think Iron Man vies for the top spot of all time best super hero movie but I would have to put Superman (1978) up against it. I think a person would be influenced in their choice for top spot based on their predeliction for Marvel or DC…..just sayin’.
I really liked your analysis of available phones. And I’m with Dave, I loved your compressed video of the kayak ride. It’s time for me to come into the new century and abandon my old clam shell but I really, really hate those subscription plans. I don’t mind buying my own phone but it is very hard to know which phone is right for me.
I just started reading Jonathan Zittrain’s “The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It“. I highly recommend, if nothing else, a quick read of the introduction. He has some interesting comments there about Apple. He contrasts Steve Jobs’ beginnings with the Apple II versus what the iPhone is today. Zittrain compares the open and generative nature of the Apple II to the closed and sterile (although very pretty) nature of the iPhone.
So, I wonder, is it possible for a phone to be generative in nature? Is it possible for a phone to be open and offer choice? I can imagine all kinds of reasons why the answer to these questions would be that it is not possible to have a phone that offers too many choices. But that’s what I want and I think you’re saying you want it too. Give me choice. Allow me to roll my own. I think when a company discovers how to do that, we will have the one to rule them all.
–Mark
Jul 27th, 2008
hrhmedia
Alas Mark, although I did read comic books when I was a kid, I never became a “Comic Book Guy” (“best movie EVER”). So I don’t know the difference between D.C. and Marvel the way I know the difference between baseball’s AL and NL (I’m an AL guy through and through by the way).
I hate subscription plans too — that’s why I like T-Mobile’s flexibility. I always have an “unlocked phone” and they let me sign up for a year (not the usual 2), and now I’m on a month-to-month basis without a contract. Guess I like my freedom.
Part of Apple’s magic as a newly reinvented “consumer electronics” company (their niche, I believe, used to be for professionals), is locking us into self-contained, relatively foolproof, fun, operating systems. I’m not happy that you need to “jailbreak” their iPhones to make them somewhat usable for my purposes. Maybe Google’s Android will give us the flexibility that some of us crave? And I would never commit to AT&T for two years.
(I’m glad I’m not alone on The Dark Knight. I know it’s 95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, but I think I think we’re being blindsided by the convoluted “deep” plot, Heath Ledger hagiography, and comic book geekdom. I wholeheartedly concur with this dissenting review: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/reviews/article-1037123/Holy-Moly-Batmans-big-noise–loses-plot.html)
Jul 27th, 2008
Jeremy
I’ve been struggling with technolust as well. We had several mobile devices at the Real booth at Casual Connect last week: an HTC Tilt, an iPod Touch (our iPhone demo unit was pinched at Digital Life), and some VM-something sliver flip phone. The Tilt is a brick, and the flip phone was so mundane. The iPod Touch, though, was a fun toy to play with; it would be fun for consuming content (inasmuch as the OS allows), but I don’t think I could appreciate it for email without a tactile keyboard.
So for the time being, my Blackjack stays around. The screen’s not that luscious and the camera’s 1.3 MP, but the keyboard is usable, the OS is familiar, it plays well with Office, and there are plenty of apps for it.
Jul 27th, 2008
Adriana
RE: THE PHONE DILEMMA
I’ve been struggling with the iPhone vs blackberry decision. Today I went to the At&T store and they told I had to wait a month for iPhone! I’m really not into waiting that long for anything.
I’ve fast-read/skimmed the Zittrain book, and I agree with Mark on the sense of anti-open source commentary. However, there is something to say about self-contained solutions. I love open-source, but having dealt with a few different platforms (including my beloved wordpress.org) it’s a time consuming option to make things work like you need them to. Plus, there’s always glitches to be maintaining. So I guess it comes down to what you need the device for and how much time are you willing to spend on set-up and maintenance. Me personally, I want something in my life to plug-n-play (like my phone) and some others to allow me full freedom and control (aka my web platforms).
RE: BLOG COMMENTS:
Dave—> as for the comments notifier for the blog, it will be coming soon
We’re in the process of migrating the Flipthemedia blog to a self-hosting solution with wordpress.org. Right now we’re using wordpress.com which does not allow for comments subscription. They disabled it because of security issues.
But don’t despair! You can manually subscribe to a specific blog post comments by clicking on the post and adding ‘/feed/’ at the end of the URL. Then click on the RSS button in your browser.
-Adri
Jul 27th, 2008
Kirk Mastin
Two things make the iPhone the winner for me:
1. The interface is simply unbeatable. (I know I know, I have heard people complaingin about the touch screen, but after a week of using it I can type without looking. The iPhone corrects my errors and learns from me over time.)
2. The App Store (Monkeyball to Beatmaker to Shozu…which allows you to blog with photos to ALL of your social media networks AT THE SAME TIME.)
The iPhone 3G + App store has been around for less than a month and already i can download over 500 free applications that just keep making my iPhone more and more useful everyday.
Yes I consume media through the iPhone, but only because it provides either entertainment or more functionality.
With the introduction of photo editing software on the iPhone ‘Picoli’ as well as blogging apps, the iPhone does what i need it to do. Video is available on the iPhone (jailbroken models only for now…) so I suspect video to be officially available sometime this year.
Can you tell I’m an iPhone fanboy now?
My two cents-
Kirk
Aug 7th, 2008
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