The Firehouse

Reading an article in The Register by Bill Ray, he thinks the Apple iPhone will fail, actually, fail badly. I somewhat doubt his conclusions.

The main argument to support his analysis is that since network operators have to like the phone, then Apple has to do a good job convincing them. Remember the ROKR? It was rather a failure due to the fact it could only be loaded with iTunes music over cable, and thus mobile operators were left out of attractive data chargers levied when buying music directly from the phone. There was even speculation that Apple allowed it to launch on purpose, to protect their audio player market.
Where Bill goes wrong in my opinion is that the handset market is heavily controlled in the US, but not in Europe – go to any shop in the latter and you will have a very large variety of handsets to buy unsubsidized. Why? Because a lot of people value the ability to switch operators as they see fit, without having to enter into contracts involving their soul. In the US, there isn’t a culture of operator hopping, but rather of staying with one just to get a phone $50 or $100 cheaper.

One thing I have never understood is why people get themselves tied into a two year contract for a $50 saving. If they worked out how much they could save by moving operators taking advantage of special offers, they may think twice.

There is a very large number of paths Apple could follow, first, they have a nice distribution network with excellent shops placed in key areas, second, they have a large and loyal crowd of followers, who would probably not mind paying an unsubsidized device, and third, there are already a number of MVNOs and fixed-line operators that are willing to take a bite from the large networks. As for the subsidy, I wonder…are iPods subsidized by anyone? Apple costumers are used to pay for quality, and in my view, the iPhone will be no different.

Picking up the Register’s story, it seems Linksys has done a really neat PR coup – they have launched their own WiFi phone, and called it iPhone. As you know, there has been a lot of hubbub in the Macosphere the last few weeks about a supposed mobile phone to be launched by Apple, even with rumors of large orders to Taiwanese OEMs. It looks like Linksys beat them to the punch!

The Register reports that BitTorrent has come to deals with three consumer electronics manufacturers in order to develop devices with an embedded BitTorrent client, thus bypassing the PC and freeing it to do other tasks. This would be specially useful to laptop users, who don’t want their mobile computer immobilized by a large download.

A few days ago, while looking for a new mouse, I stumbled upon a game controller, which consists of a seat and a wheel styled in Formula 1 fashion. Right now, Fernando Alonso is looking as the candidate to win this year’s World Championship with Renault, and so he has become a coveted prize for any advertiser worth anything. Now, picture the box of the game system:

Can you spot the cheeky part? Yes, the device is designed by none other than the world-famous…Fernando. Not Fernando Alonso, but the great Fernando. I feel sooo compelled to buy this thing right now and give it a place of honor in my house. Besides, the guy in the picture looks like he is about to hit a bridge head on.
The second piece of totally wrong design is this:

So, how am I supposed to use this Bluetooth GPS receiver, which came with the Route66 Mobile package, without voiding the warranty? The ‘void if broken’ label is placed on the wrapping, not covering a screw hole as usual, to prevent opening of the actual device. If one could switch it on without opening the wrapping, it would still be viable, but the battery that comes with this module, is an external LiIon that needs to be installed prior to use! So, if you buy Route66, beware – you will not be able to use the product without voiding the warranty, which makes it kind of useless…

What do you do when you need to embed WiFi into a project really quick? You look for OEM modules – one of the best manufacturers being Digi. They make, amongst other variations, the Wi-ME, a small box that has a RTOS chip (it can be made to run Linux apparently) and the WiFi adapter, with a serial interface and GPIOs that go to your application. In essence, you can bridge a serial port to a TCP or UDP port and stream data to the internet, all without messy wires!

After looking at the ordering page, I duly contacted the spanish distributor Matrix. I needed two modules by this last Monday, and so I requested to have the devices shipped by Friday last week. It all turned out into one big mess, with vague excuses about not being able to ship due to warehouse problems, or that the proforma could not be generated – and so I could not pay, and they could not ship…to cut a long story short, I got the units on Tuesday.

It usually is not a problem to have a shipping delay, but in this case, I arranged a meeting with the mechanical engineers working on the project, in order for them to see the device and fit it into the 3D plastics project. They actually measure the parts, as they say working from datasheets can usually spell trouble, so ideally they would take them away after the meeting. Had Matrix simply said “we cannot send it until Monday”, I would have arranged the meeting on Wednesday – no worries. But, as it frequently happens, they wanted to look good, without having the solid ground under their feet to do so.

When a company makes a commitment, whatever it may be, it has to stick to it. And when the costumer calls, obviously pissed off at the poor performance and the mount of problems he has landed on, you have to be hellbent on fixing the situation. If the person answering the phone cannot handle the situation, he/she must be trained to transfer the call to someone who can.

What did I do? I emailed the CEO, Joseph Dunsmore. His email address is not published on Digi’s site, but if you look on the Management Team page, and scroll down a bit, Jan McBride’s email is displayed. It was a case of formatting Joseph’s name in the same manner as Jan’s email, send the diatribe, and wait. The next day, I got a reply from Joseph, telling me he would follow up the case with Digi’s Managing Director in Europe. Not three hours had passed, and I got a call from Digi’s top man in Spain, who was very supportive and understanding. By this time, I had been so smoothed over, that I really didn’t want to complain anymore! The conversation ended up very well, with Digi offering their full support on our development, and a visit arranged sometime next week.

Would I recommend Digi to anyone deciding about whether to use their products? Absolutely!

Sometimes, I feel like a human GPS navigator. And there are probably many more of us out there. Ever get a call from your wife, asking you to direct her to some remote place she is trying to drive to? My solution was to get a TomTom 500 navigator for her birthday. It comes with the maps for Spain in full detail, and a basic map of Europe, with main roads and cities. It can also be used as a Bluetooth handsfree for your mobile phone, so it’s quite a convenient device.

We set about trying it during a trip to visit my mother – since I knew the way, it would be a good sanity check on the navigator’s ability to lower our phone bills. When I told it where we wanted to go, and it told us to turn west instead of east, I started imagining what would happen. After a few minutes of following the navigator’s instructions without even looking out the window, this is where we ended up:

Yes. It wanted us to go up a dirt path that only horses (and fit ones at that) can manage. Take a close look at the full-resolution picture, and judge by yourself.

After turning around, and following the route we always take, we had to turn off the sound for almost half the trip, as it kept insisting that we should “turn around as soon as possible” so we could take the easy-going dirt track.

GPS navigator manufacturers only make the devices, but not the data that’s in them. There are a few companies, such as Navtech and TeleAltlas, who take care of that, and license the use of the data. In this case, it seems that overzealous cartographers had simply taken anything that looked like a road in survey maps, and turned them into navigable paths. The result is my unfortunate experience. The collateral is that my wife doesn’t trust the device, unless it’s for navigating within city limits – thus limiting it’s usefulness, and not limiting my phone bill so much.