That’s easy to assume with it’s relatively high profile millions of users and many more millions of photographs, but it’s still very much slanted towards web-savvy users in North America.

Theage.com.au reports on an interesting Cornell study that describes, “revealing various interesting properties about popular cities and landmarks at a global scale.”

The findings show that the Fifth Avenue Apple Store, which opened in May 2006, is more popular than many other well-known tourist sites such as St Paul’s Cathedral in London, the Reichstag in Berlin and the Washington Monument in the US capital.

I don’t believe it.

Well, I believe the study is accurate for Flickr users, but to make any further assumptions beyond this limited user base is foolish. This just shows how far from truly mainstream even the largest of web applications are. I’m not knocking the Apple Store, but something tells me more Americans are interested in the US Capital.

For me, this really hits home two points in this web-centric world of ours:

1. We’re creating exponentially more minable data than a generation ago.
2. All gleanings based on this flood of data must take this into context.

Want to see the web-centric populace slanting data toward the modern age in action? Check out the revision history of Wikipedia’s entry on Swine Flu. At this rate soon it will eclipse the combined importance of everything that happened in say, 1958. Sorry 1958.

I was dismayed to see replacement batteries at APC’s site for my model ran $79.99, which is frightfully close to what I paid for the whole unit in the first place. Other retailers online ranged hugely in price, and frankly most of them didn’t look like the kind of economic endeavors I like to share my credit card with.

I took a chance and headed down to Fry’s, knowing they stocked at least 20 different APC UPS models. As soon as I tracked down an employee in the UPS aisle and asked him about battery replacements…well if I’m to speak kindly this would be a deer in headlights scenario.

I poked around the store and found something that looked like what I needed, but it was in the home security aisle. Luckily, I brought the APC battery down with me, so I brought the dead battery into the store for reference. (Note this is a good idea right up until you find yourself hauling 24 lbs of batteries around a giant electronics store.)

After deconstructing the APC “RBC32″ I found out that two common 12 volt 7.0 amp batteries sandwiched together with APC’s wiring harness worked perfectly, and saved quite a bit of coin. Each battery from Fry’s was $26, so right off the top I saved $28, and that’s not including shipping which is substantial for 12 lbs of batteries.

In Conclusion

Don’t buy overpriced APC brand replacements or pay a ton to ship heavy batteries, just pull apart your original, save the wiring harness and find something compatible in town. The re-wiring is self-explanatory and you’ll save a lot of coin.

Heck, you might even get a charge out of it.

Note
The only thing this technique doesn’t account for is battery recycling—Fry’s won’t take your old batteries, so you’ll have to find another home for them—preferably not in a landfill.

ISPs cannot become arbiters of content and the defacto police for creators—this would be an extremely dangerous precedent. It conjures images of the Great Firewall of China. Piracy is a serious issue, but attempting to filter it at the ISP level is a minefield.

I have no problem paying for Internet access, but I won’t pay for access to MOST of the Internet. Filtering is not just a threat to individual’s access to a free flow of information, but a threat to all content creators and their rights to uncensored distribution. How long before any company with a bit of cash can filter out a smaller competitor for trumped up violations? How long before blacklists of questionable content become whitelists of paid-for content providers? For customers, what constitutes a violation, and what is the recourse? Does an ISP keep a running list of all your activities using their service without your consent, available for purchase by the highest bidder?

Today we enjoy a huge amount of open access and rely upon law enforcement and the courts to address copyright infringement. These duties should not be turned over to for-profit companies and advocacy groups. This isn’t just a threat to Net Neutrality, but to every citizen’s access to a free flow of uncensored information.

Update
Apparently, Google has similar ideas. Yesterday they launched M-Lab, “an open platform that researchers can use to deploy Internet measurement tools.”

At Google, we care deeply about sustaining the Internet as an open platform for consumer choice and innovation. No matter your views on net neutrality and ISP network management practices, everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about what they’re getting when they sign up for broadband, and good data is the bedrock of sound policy. Transparency has always been crucial to the success of the Internet, and, by advancing network research in this area, M-Lab aims to help sustain a healthy, innovative Internet.

By all accounts, the original negatives of the first two films were so torn up and dirty that they could no longer be run through standard film laboratory printing equipment, and so the only option became a digital, rather than a photochemical, restoration.

The final product, which the studio is calling “The Godfather: The Coppola Restoration,” combines bits and pieces of film recovered from innumerable sources, scanned at high resolution and then retouched frame by frame to remove dirt and scratches. The color was brought back to its original values by comparing it with first-generation release prints and by extensive consultation with Gordon Willis, who shot all three films, and Allen Daviau, a cinematographer (“E.T.”) who is also a leading historian of photographic technology. [New York Times]

The restoration is a thrill to watch, and I’ve never seen a better presentation, even compared to viewings in the theater. Particularly captivating was the amount of detail preserved (rescued even?) while keeping the character (grain, color) perfectly intact.

Blink

“What?” I yelled in my darkened apartment, fumbling for the rewind button immediately following Michael Corleone’s pivotal showdown with Sollozzo and the corrupt police chief McCluskey. I’d just seen something I’ve never noticed before: a body on the floor blinked as the scene ended. A blinking corpse. It jolted me out of the moment, out of the fantasy, out of the 40s. Blu-Ray did that, it gave me too much detail?

I’ve since learned that McCluskey’s blink is a known quantity—a minor bug in continuity that’s charming in today’s world of computer aided post process. Apparently that blink is visible in other formats, but I’d never seen it until I had the restoration and the resolution to appreciate it. I would never have noticed it without this version. Therein lies the rub.

For me, details matter, technology matters, and I’m just anal enough to obsess about shadow detail and grain when I think it’s important, like in the case of The Godfather. McCluskey’s blink floored me because it reminded me that I’m watching something made 37 years ago and it looks as good or better than things produced today. I never lost anything by not seeing that blink before, and maybe it was actually detrimental to the experience seeing it now.

The blink could be the only thing I’m not crazy about in the Coppola Restoration, an otherwise perfect thing, but that’s not a fair critique. If anything it goes to show how caring, faithful and complete the restoration process was. It does make me wonder however, how frequently we’ll see Blu-Ray editions of classics that aren’t cared for so well. Perhaps those unfortunate reels are best left as they are…perfect with their flaws.

What’s conspicuously absent in Apple’s new lineup is any new matte screen option. Despite the fact that 17″ MacBook Pros and older Cinema Displays are still available, it looks like soon there won’t be a single Apple product without a reflective display.

Glass covered displays have brilliant color saturation and deep blacks, but I feel they have three major issues for use in my work:

1. Color Accuracy – I’m skeptical that even with hardware calibration that they can be as accurate as a matte display.
2. Glare – A notebook is a mobile machine, one that will undoubtedly find itself in a variety of lighting conditions. It can be a huge disadvantage to have a reflective screen, and certainly makes working outdoors nearly impossible.
3. Non Standard – Granted this is a pretty arbitrary issue, but it’s something I feel strongly about. When preparing work for web delivery – whether that be photography or general web design, I want to use the monitor that most closely represents what an average reader will be using. Glass covered displays might become the norm, but they aren’t now.

Only time will tell, and I’ll admit my experience with Apple’s newer glass displays has been limited to two days work on a current generation iMac. It’s possible my fears are overblown, but it seems just as possible that the next time I’m in need of a display upgrade Apple’s displays won’t even be considered.

The introduction of location based services – specifically social networking tools integrated into mobile devices – is leading toward new battle lines being drawn between consumers and social software developers.

(Read this NYT article from last year for background information, or check out this recent Information Week article about a related privacy kerfuffle.)

The basic questions here are ones that have been asked for decades, and certainly have been hotly debated in the midst of web services in the past few years. Everyone is concerned about what’s on their Facebook profile, but that’s still a representation of a person, a construction of their making, a personality meant for a special purpose hosted and shared via remote servers.

Contrast that with social services that connect people on the ground. All of a sudden, the buffer established by your web persona is non-existent. When you’re sitting in a bar and others have access to your location, they can walk up and chat with you physically, which is obviously much different than leaving a casual comment on a blog.

Unless software developers are very cautious about making privacy features that are self-explanatory and effective, there will be widespread concern. It’s happening already, and it will continue. (And what I really mean is, there will be media sensationalism and unnecessary panic en masse.)

The physical disconnect of social web communication is non-existent in meatspace, you don’t communicate with a constructed persona, but your own self in person. (Which is all well and normal, it’s what we all call humanity I believe.) But we now have the tools to receive information boosted by web, GPS, and cellular technologies that overlay a data layer upon that good old meatspace. There you have the power of interconnectedness and instantaneous information retrieval just like the web as a platform, but with the ability to reach out and touch someone physically.

It’s a problem that will be solved. Eventually, but not without a few bumps along the road. Most people today are more comfortable leaving tracks and signs, leaving data in their wake than they are broadcasting it in the flesh.

Candidates for office leave signs on the roadsides to advertise themselves, they don’t stand on street corners proselytizing. (There’s a certain stigma attached to standing on a street corner with a sign isn’t there?) Leaving information about what you’ve done and where you’ve been is much different than broadcasting your location. Layers of trust must be built into the interactive platform and utilized sensibly by the consumers. It will be fun watching the sparks fly.

I think it’s a term used to explain away losses of productivity or minor inefficiencies, or a scapegoat for whatever you choose to distract yourself with at any given moment. (I should know.) I don’t believe it’s an impossible phenomenon, but for the most part I think its manifestation is really a consequence of information flowing into your brain in the wrong context.

Today, computers are the hub of information retrieval in every home and workplace. A TV is good for information viewing, but it’s passive and not intended for fetching information based on a query, it just spits out what’s sent, whether you ask for it or not. When you want a specific question answered immediately, you always go to a computer.

Mobile devices are slowly cutting into this monopoly, albeit at a snails pace. What is really starting to work are mobile applications specifically designed for the context in which they are used. For example, you want a taco and use your phone for a location-based search of a Mexican restaurant. It’s a map-based interface, and the information is given to you based on your immediate location. That’s all well and good, and is technology widely available today. (App Store anyone?) You can also do that from your computer, but what’s important is that that information is available in the context that you need it in.

The proliferation of this type of information retrieval is the answer to information overload. (If there really is one, that is.) What is important is that there is information there, in the background, available and context-sensitive.

Cooking Up an Example
I’ll give you an example of what I’m talking about. I keep recipes on my computer. Not because it’s convenient or practical, but just because my computer is where I save everything. When I want to cook something, I either print or write down the recipe and take it to the kitchen for prep, or scamper off to the store for ingredients.

Here’s the dream scenario. Recipes are available on my computer, but they’re also available on my microwave, fridge, and above my stove. When a recipe is selected a shopping list is made available in my phone. Better yet, my fridge checks it’s own contents and lets me know what I need from the store. If I have all the ingredients maybe my stove starts preheating. You get the idea.

The point is a computer is more a gatekeeper, or even roadblock, today than ever before. With wifi chipsets becoming ever-more microscopic and flexible OLED displays starting to be practical, it’s nearly possible to have a genuinely useful information cloud out and about in meat-space. More seamless devices (don’t think phones and computers) with more connectivity spread out into their appropriate context could make a lot of sense.

Perhaps even….gasp…reserving your computer just for work. Wouldn’t that be novel?

The more information available in the correct context lets it blend into the background. If the retrieval isn’t a burden, yet another task to complete, that’s where it’s most useful. That’s the goal…providing information in context, perhaps that can make our current concept of computers and information overload slowly go away.

Wednesday morning, right on schedule, I received an email confirming the fact that there were two other folks in my proximity with the same plans as my own. I got the email addresses of Beth and Deepak and we began to exchange pleasantries and firm up the details.

Then there was the email from Brian asking if King 5 could tag along. Lunch with strangers isn’t nearly as awkward as lunch with cameras and microphones.

Thanks to Beth and Deepak for a great lunch. You can check out Noonhat here, and see King 5′s coverage here.

Hands On Review, iDay, 4 Days Hence

In short it’s exceeded nearly all of my expectations. It’s hard to keep the darn thing in my pocket it’s so fun to play with. The media functionality and Google Maps integration seem particularly well executed, but nearly every interface shows polish and attention to detail. The screen is not only extremely scratch resistant, (I was worried prior to getting it in my hands) but without doubt the best one I’ve ever seen on a portable device; the touch-based interaction is fun and intuitive. I even love typing on the non-keyboard.

My software experience did get off to a bit more of a rocky start. I had to reinstall iTunes even though I had the latest version, but after that I was off to the races with a smooth activation and transition to my new phone. (I was lucky apparently.) Syncing has been effortless, and I’ve got a full feature length movie, a few hundred photos, all my usual podcasts and a dozen albums loaded on my iPhone with plenty of storage to spare. (I, like most people, opted for the 8GB version.) Battery life has been much better than I expected, but that stat could always be better couldn’t it? With my current usage I’ll need to charge it every other day.

There are a few things I’ve found lacking however—divided into three sections—things I think should have been included from the get-go, apps I’d like to see on the device, and finally things that are most likely on the horizon but that’d I’d love to see in iPhone some day.

What Should Have Been in the Box

• MMS
  Email is the only way to get photos off your device besides syncing. It’s a pinch to send email with photo attachments with iPhone, but why not be able to do it via SMS as well?
• Video and Audio Recording
  The 2MP camera included is performs well and has a great interface—but why no video capabilities? Why no audio recording through that mic?
• IM
  Text messages are organized just like iChat’s, but that’s no replacement for a true IM client. Why no iChat?
• Ringtones
  Custom ringtones tend to drive me crazy, but I know many people love them. Why isn’t there a way to purchase ringtones through the iTunes store? What happened to that tab? (It’d be great if you could create your own, but I know that’s never going to happen.)

What I’d like to See

• More Widgets
  More Yahoo! widgets just like the weather widget. Apple could release pre-approved widgets, and allow customization of the home screen without even offering a full SDK.
• Standalone RSS App
  I’d love a full RSS reader, as opposed to Safari and web-based solutions.
• Flash and Gears
  Safari, though it’s a great implementation, in general could use a bit more versatility. Flash would help. Gears could would too…allowing offline functionality in web apps.
• Games
  I’m pretty sure that DS thing—that other thing with a touch screen—is doing pretty well.

The above widgets, games and apps all could be realized with an SDK or some sort of an Apple controlled iPhone app ecosystem. (I brought up the “walled garden” question when the phone was announced.) Though Steve Jobs made the case at WWDC that web 2.0 apps address this need that’s at best just a stalling tactic. Right now I think they’re just nailing down the basics, and for all the fun games / apps / widgets we’ll have to wait a while. That’s what will really unleash the power of this device.

For the Next Gen?

• GPS
  Make those GMaps (and everything else) really location savvy. The possibilities are endless.
• 3G
  I’ve been pleasantly surprised with my EDGE performance. Then again, I haven’t used it much.
• A2DP
  Time to finally cut those white earbud wires? I think so. A firmware update could uncripple the iPhone’s bluetooth.
• SDK
  The aforementioned SDK would really open up the iPhone world. Once the platform is solid enough that stability isn’t an issue I think we’ll see widgets, if not full blown apps right behind.

Video Conferencing? iChat AV on the go?

Now I’m reaching a bit further. Initially the whole lack of a video camera and true iChat functionality confused me—but then it dawned on me—does version two have a video camera—facing the user—for live mobile video conferencing? If it doesn’t I think it should.

Conclusion

My initial experiences with my iPhone have been extremely good. For me it has completely lived up to the hype. I’ve peeked into nearly every nook and cranny of the device and really put it through its paces. I’ve had only one app crash thus far, and every person I demo it for is genuinely blown away if not stricken with pangs of jealousy.

I can part a crowd of techies with a marimba chime, but more telling I think was the incredible demographic diversity I saw at the Apple store on Friday when I made the purchase—a huge variety of people, all sick and tired of disappointing devices they have to use on a daily basis. For them, and me, Apple has solved a problem.

Similarly, the future looks bright for the platform as a whole. When an SDK, 3G , GPS and maybe even video conferencing hit this handheld it will be even more of a show-stopper than it is now.

What’s in an iPhone?

From a hardware perspective, the iPhone isn’t absolutely breakthrough in any one single way. It’s a GSM mobile phone, a music and video playback device and a portable computing platform. All of these are technologies taken apart are established if not mature, in the form of smart phones, iPods and laptops. But of course no one has ever come even close to combining all of them into one device, let alone demonstrating the requisite engineering, design, and user interface innovations necessary to make it an intuitive and effective experience.

At the end of this piece in TIME magazine, Apple’s Jonathan Ive said,

I think there’s almost a belligerence—people are frustrated with their manufactured environment…we tend to assume the problem is with us, and not with the products we’re trying to use.

Far too many device manufacturers have been taking people’s frustrations for granted. I’ve only tolerated mobile phones in my life, I’ve never genuinely enjoyed a single one. The iPhone may just be the device I’ve been dreaming of for 4 years: WiFi, bluetooth, high-speed mobile connectivity, a full OS, slick media playback capabilities and all in a sexy package. Perhaps I can finally put my broken-record complaints to rest, and a few lucky people with iPhones can stop blaming themselves for not “getting” poorly implemented technology.

Why the iPhone Really is Revolutionary

Every mobile phone in existence today has a marginal interface at best, marginal controls, and a feature set that’s crippled. Even Windows Mobile I find frustratingly constrictive in use on modern devices like Qs and Treos.

A Re-thought Interface
Apple has broken down the walls of conventional mobile phone building by starting with an interface not built on buttons—nearly every bit of it is touch based. They call it Multi-touch. Multi-touch is unproven in the hands of the consumer, but it demonstrates the lack of real innovation in the mobile device market in the past three years. Handsets are progressively slimming and increasing in power, but the most popular mobile in the country, the RAZR, is novel only for a appealing form-factor.

The interface concepts demonstrated by the iPhone will haunt the thoughts of mobile device manufacturers for years.

A Full OS
Apple has promised a full OSX implementation. This doesn’t mean an identical interface of course, but the OSX kernel will be running on the iPhone. Conventional thinking was that this couldn’t (and shouldn’t) be done with a small computing device, considering limits in processing power and battery life. A complete operating system opens up the functionality in robust applications, not just miniaturized utilities that have become the norm on many handsets.

A Full Browser
The biggest benefactor of a full OSX kernel on an iPhone is undoubtedly Safari, Apple’s web browser. Safari on an iPhone allows full page web browsing. If it truly allows easy scaling and the device can process complex web applications smoothly, in one swoop Apple may have called into question the entirety of WAP, the protocol that allows internet access in many conventional mobile phones.

Again, this one new device calls into question the way web content has been delivered to millions of phones every day for years. How’s that for revolutionary?

Will the iPhone be a Walled Garden?

Before I’m accused of chugging the Cupertino Kool-Aid, I do have to bring up what I believe is the single biggest question left outstanding on the iPhone: Will it be open?

Many mobile experiences today are defined by content provided by specific vendors through fixed channels. No choice, no flexibility. Verizon’s Vcast comes to mind, like AOL all over again. We already know the iPhone will be an iPod, and even though an iPod is still the exclusive player for iTunes Music Store protected AAC files, it will still play standard MP3s and properly encoded un-DRM’ed video (H.264).

But what about applications on the iPhone? Will users be able to install non-authorized widgets, or create their own without delivering them to an iPhone with Apple’s blessing? Will 3rd party games and applications make their way into the Apple ecosystem? I believe the iPhone can still be an effective device even if the OS is constrained, but that it would be a much more compelling tool as an open system.

My hope is that Apple will offer a route for user-created widgets (as they do now for OSX), and create an application delivery mechanism for 3rd party programs. Any game or productivity app could be verified/registered through Apple, and Apple could take a cut of any proceeds. It may lessen the burden of support that would undoubtedly increase on an “opened” OS, but still have the power of user-created projects and 3rd party development—all while creating an additional revenue stream. It seems a decent compromise.

Make a great device, open up the platform, and watch the world of mobile technology scurry to keep pace. June has never seemed so far away.

Like most lists of Macworld predictions, mine will no doubt prove at least 50% dead wrong in little more than 12 hours from now, but that’s all part of the fun.

Here’s my list, in order of likelihood, from sure thing all the way down to wishful thinking:

1. iLife & iWork Suite Updates
   This is hardly even a prediction; both suites have seen regular updates demonstrated at Macworlds of the past. The spreadsheet question may be answered, for those mac users that love Excel, I know there has to be at least two or three of them in the world, just dying for *shudders* spreadsheets.

2. Leopard Ship Date, Fancy New Features
   On the latest MacBreak Weekly, Leo Laporte postulated that Leopard would be ready to ship at the Expo, so Apple could beat Vista’s January 30th launch date. I think that makes a lot of sense, but other than bragging rights I’m not sure if the rush to ship 10.5 would bring Apple a considerable amount of extra sales. I’ve always thought Macs sell OSX, not OSX the seller of Macs. Since I don’t see a ton of significant Mac hardware upgrades at this Expo, why rush to ship Leopard without a spiffy new piece of aluminum around it?

3. “iTV” Media Extender Introduced
   I have to admit whether or not the “iTV” has a hard drive, whether or not it allows 3rd party DVR integration, I’ll buy one of these instantaneously. I’ve been waiting years for a great media extender for my TV that doesn’t require a huge box in my living room.

4. New Cinema Displays. + Really Big Ones.
   Cinema displays and iSights have been disappearing from retail stores, so at least we’ll see new displays with built-in iSight cameras, just like iMacs and MacBooks already sport. Further, I think Apple will rebrand even larger LCDs, perhaps up to 50 inches and larger equipped with HDMI and more versatile I/O than their current displays.

5. 6G, Full Screen iPod
   Long overdue. Give me a 16×9 touchscreen or give me tears.

6. Refreshed Airport Express
   A draft-N unit, for streaming video. When this is released firmware upgrades will be passed out to Mac owners with newer units to bump up their Airport cards to draft-N as well.

7. MobileMe / iChat Mobile
   Ah yes! The notorious “iPhone.” I highly doubt Apple will go the path of MVNO as many people have claimed, but instead selling GSM or CDMA phones directly to the customers on behalf specific carriers. (Locked units.) Apple’s hardware, Apple’s lightweight OS, Apple’s walled-garden & features—the device will be more iPod than Treo, 4 and 8 Gigabytes of storage and priced in the neighborhood of $299 / $399. I was formerly quite convinced we’d be able to purchase these immediately, now I’m a bit more reserved.

8. Pro App Updates: Logic, Final Cut, Aperture
   All these are begging for an upgrade—true Aperture just hit 1.5 just a few months ago, but development seems to be progressing very rapidly, and it’s not an impossible dream for v.2 in the near future.

9. Mac Pro Goes 8 Core
   Back in September AnandTech confirmed that two quad-core chips work just fine in a Mac Pro. I wouldn’t be shocked to see this new configuration available.

10. MacBook Pro Updates
    Admittedly, this is just a selfish desire. I’d love to see spec. bumps and a 12 or 13 inch MBP, but I think it’s unlikely.

11. GPS and Proximity Importance
    One last bit of complete conjecture. Apple will announce at least one device with integrated GPS capability. This could be a phone, iPod, or other portable, but the potential for creative and functional uses for geo-specific data creation and aggregation are far too huge to be passed up. Look at geo-tagged photos and location-specific blogs. Location-based searches are exploding, and news will soon be able to be filtered by proximity. We need more devices that are smart enough to gather, and create, the data layer that’s beginning to cover the globe. Google’s going to be putting these services on handsets, so Apple had better team up with them or build their own.

Today I read your Q & A with Newsweek posted on MSNBC. Though it was brief, I very much enjoyed it.

When you were asked about Microsoft’s Zune however, your response didn’t quite sit right with me, even as an avid OSX and iPod fan.

Microsoft has announced its new iPod competitor, Zune. It says that this device is all about building communities. Are you worried?

In a word, no. I’ve seen the demonstrations on the Internet about how you can find another person using a Zune and give them a song they can play three times. It takes forever. By the time you’ve gone through all that, the girl’s got up and left! You’re much better off to take one of your earbuds out and put it in her ear. Then you’re connected with about two feet of headphone cable.

I agree that the first generation versions of the Zune aren’t a threat to the iPod. The iPod and the iTunes Store are great experiences—they are market leaders for a reason—top to bottom sensational lifestyle media products. However, when (note I do not use the word “if”) wireless purchasing is enabled on the Zune, and there are a decent amount of them floating around (C. 2008), the 3×3 try n’ buy scheme will be an appealing feature. (Despite being nastily DRM-laden, which as you know is currently the sad reality we all live in.)

I appreciate that adding wireless purchasing capabilities to the iPod could negatively impact the UI experience. Save the heavy lifting for iTunes, don’t rob Peter to pay Paul, Peter Paul & Mary are still .99c per track on the iTunes Store. Gotcha.

But iPods need WiFi too. You might as well come out and say:

We can’t currently make a larger iPod screen and offer seamless wireless features without disastrously compromising battery life in our current form factor.

Now I know you’d never say that, and I know that battery life and technology is really what’s holding you back, but as an iPod/OSX user I hate to hear you say that headphones are the only good way to connect people around music.

And perhaps being a billionaire allows one a slightly more flexible window of what is deemed socially acceptable today, but I’m pretty sure if I walked up to a strange woman in a coffee shop and asked her, “hey, can I put this in your ear?”

That the answer would be NO.

The T616′s spectacular exit wasn’t completely unexpected or undeserved however, as it had taken to rebooting spontaneously mid-conversation and mysteriously would drop individual button functionality randomly, obviously out of pure spite. “You’d like to check your voice mail eh?” the Sony would taunt me, “remove my battery and reboot me three times, then we’ll see if I’ll let you get your precious messages, moo HA HA HA.” Clearly the phone had gone bad, and with our relationship deteriorating I don’t feel too wrong about giving it one final ‘long distance connection.’

I’ve been shopping for phones for a few months now, and have mostly been completely underwhelmed. The entire industry (or at least U.S. incarnations of such) seems to be lagging badly in mobile development. Perhaps consumer techno-demand just isn’t as fervent here as it is in Korea, Japan, and Europe, but look at my situation: Two and a half years ago I bought the T616, which was a pretty hot phone for its time. It had a full OS, simple browsing capability, a camera, POP access. At that point I was assuming that for my next phone I’d have a plethora of superior options, all located on next-gen high speed networks. The networks are here—kind of, but the phones are not. I don’t want a full on Treo or anything nearly that bulky, and anything less than that doesn’t have much of a suite of features superior to my 2 and a half year old phone. Already I’m disappointed even before making a purchase—I’m so jaded I get buyer’s remorse even before whipping out the credit card.

Motorola SLVR Review (MOTO-SLVR-REVW)

Enter Cingular’s SLVR (pronounced “sliver”), the follow-up to the ubiquitous RAZR (Motorola apparently despises excessive vowels), which is slightly slimmer, but in my beloved candy-bar form factor. Laser etched keypad with a copper sheen, sleek black case with brushed aluminum highlights—this phone makes all others ugly.

Also of note is the ever-so-controversial iTunes integration. Now I didn’t buy the SLVR for iTunes, but I have to say that I am very pleasantly surprised at how much I’m enjoying the convenience. The software integration is excellent, and the sound quality is superb—I can say with confidence it is easily superior to my nano in audio reproduction. There is a rather annoying 100 song cap, but for bus-commuting-tunage that limit doesn’t bother me one bit.

What’s disappointing about the phone is that, well, it’s a Motorola. Which means the OS is mostly crap. I’ll never understand why you can’t apply more than one phone number to one contact. This has always seemed a too device-centric or location-centric approach to storing contact information to me, as opposed to a more human-centered approach. Unlike my old Sony, with the SLVR I have 4 potential avenues to make contact with one person (home, office, mobile, fax, for instance) instead of one person with 4 ways to contact them. It’s a personal preference admittedly, but a fundamental one that I feel is important; have you ever seen an address book that doesn’t have more than one line for phone numbers?

Also a drag is the fact that the headphones connect via the USB port, not an additional standard headphone jack. Moto does supply an adapter to use your own headphones, but when doing so you have to remove the USB plug before you can answer an incoming call. When using the included headphones receiving a call with music playing is a seamless experience; I’m always entertained by watching my shadow resume dancing once my caller has hung up.

So why the SLVR in the end? I’d love to get a Sony W600 or W800 but I don’t like the look of either of them, and the W800 decent chunk of change. I don’t want a slew of features if it compromises the form factor, which eliminates a lot of other phones. (I don’t even feel the SLVR in my pocket.) I don’t care about cell-phone cameras, as I’m usually packing around my SLR. If the W810 gets announced before my 30 day money-back window is up I’d be very tempted to jump on that device, but I’m sure it’d be quite a bit more costly than the SLVR, and for my purposes I’m not sure it’d be worth it.

The Goodness

• Killer looks
• Great sound quality
• USB plug charges the phone; no proprietary charger
• Full Bluetooth functionality
• For short trips, iTunes playback usurps an extra device (iPod)

The Not So Goodness

• Motorola contact manager; SUCKR
• No headphone jack
• Unimpressive battery life
• iTunes 100 song cap
• USB 1.1