Brian's World

Lets talk tech

Ok, so the IPhone is coming out today. I have mixed feelings, I really don’t want or need the phone part of it. My Motorola V325 places calls and text message’s fine so there no real big issue there. I also have a Dell Axim x30 which was great for keeping my calendar and todo list in high school. Recently I haven’t touched it. It has wifi and all which is great, but it just doesn’t do what I want it to do. I don’t want to sync with Outlook, my calendar is in Google Calendar and my Todo list is my Gmail inbox, but the Windows Mobile 2003se device is only compatible with Outlook. For a time it was great, specifically the time I wasn’t syncing it. The device had Wifi, which sorta worked well where there was wifi, but you can’t “upgrade” the device to the current versions of Windows Mobile. If I could upgrade to Windows Mobile 2005 or whatever the lastest is I would be much more pleased.

I wouldn’t mind having an up to date PDA that kindly runs Google Calendar and my Gmail, for some reason Windows Mobile 2003 feels like Windows 95, everything is very blocky, square, nonfunctional. If getting the Wifi to connect was easy I would be fine with it, but it doesn’t work with the RPI wifi (I don’t believe the Iphone will work either, tho Mac OS X does support the 802.11x).

Another point that I have mixed feelings about is the IPhones ability to jump onto Wifi very easily. With Windows Mobile this was a pain, but I feel uneasy knowing people with the Iphone will randomly be able to connect to my internet. Yes, I do run a secure AP and stuff, but I also have a public one which is more or less for that purpose, but if they are paying so much to connect, I’d like to see a return. (This also applies to the T-Mobile phones). I feel like bringing out my Fonera and having it actually work as a Fonera. Maybe I’ll just setup a Radius server for general use, oh wait, I’m working on that.

I dislike the monopoly over Mobile phones, when it comes down to it you can’t change 99% of the setting, you are stuck to X number of supported devices, in the PC world (note how I didn’t say Mac) if I want a new hard drive, I go buy it. If my internet is slow, I can tweak some settings or disable applications, with cell phones you can… umm.. buy a new one?

This dislike probably extends to all large telecoms, but thats just me.