A few weeks back, I wrote a post, asking which the laggiest handset you have used is – this was following a try-out of the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre, and my own suggestion that the Nokia (NYSE: NOK) N96 I used a good while back didn’t seem to be too fast at the time either!

Well, it generated some responses, and I thought I’d just take a quick look over what the responses were – here they are, in all their glory:

• Nokia N95-3
• HTC Fuze (HTC Touch Pro)
• HTC Imagio
• Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) P990i
• HTC Mini S

Wowzer! Did anyone see three HTC devices in there? Ponderously, there’s a mixture of new AND old handsets, from Mini S, right through to the Imagio of today. But what’s more interesting is that they are all packing Windows Mobile – hmm, could that be the cause of the lagging?

Well, from my own personal experience of running an HTC TyTn, I can definitely say that it wasn’t the fastest thing ever, that’s for sure – and reviewing the Toshiba (OTCPK: TOSBF) TG01 recently (with a  1GHz CPU in it!), I was still seeing bad lagging issues in the WinMo camp. But all the fault can’t rest at the hands of the O/S (probably) – often if there’s a poor implementation on the hardware, that can create real issues too.

Fascinatingly though, HTC have been getting great reviews recently for their devices – and those have been packing both Android and WinMo – so apart from the Imagio, which is perhaps an anomaly (can anyone else confirm?), then maybe they have sorted the issues out…

Certainly I don’t think HTC are the only vendor out there with handset lag issues, there are some worse offenders for sure – so if you’ve got an opinion, hit us up for a comment and let us which device’s UI felt like swimming the wrong way in a river of treacle when you were using it!

Just the other day, I was in the local O2 (NYSE: TEF) shop, playing with the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre – having heard so much about it, but no opportunity to get hands-on, I was keen to see what the device could do.

Initially, I was really pleased to see an excellent implementation of both the capacitance screen sensitivity, but also of the UI – it really does look that nice, and in my mind at least, is a competitor for the iPhone UI for sure. A couple of swipes across the screen later, and I’d found the right way to control the UI for flipping between,  and closing Apps.

Of course the next logical test was to see what the keyboard was like, and so I decided to add a new contact, called “bob”. Leaving aside what I thought of the keyboard for a minute (hint: not great), my main surprise came when I went to store the handset – there was an appreciable lag, as compared with the rest of my usage of the handset to that point.

To test what I immediately surmised could be the problem, I then opened a video, and also made a calendar entry – this confirmed my initial thinking that substantial read/writes to the memory, via the O/S, were being hit with a  bit of a lag. Usage of the UI in general was super-smooth, but as soon as you called down to the OS (particularly if writing to memory), then there was definitely some slowdown.

Now I should put this in perspective: I’m used to being spoilt by the iPhone, which is incredibly fluid in it’s use, and rarely lags – only occasionally have I tripped it up. The Palm Pre was 90% good in this respect, and maybe just that 10% bad (slow) across certain invoked operations.

But that got me thinking – I have used some devices previously that were really not great in terms of the lag when you selected certain apps, or wanted to do certain things. And I bet the IntoMobile readership have had the same experience – therefore, can you remember the worst handset you ever had for lagging? And can you remember why the lag occurred (opening app, re-skinning etc)?

I’ll put forward the N96 as pretty laggy during general use…. I’m not sure  it is the worst handset that I’ve ever used for lag (that title surely belongs to one of the WinMo devices I had in early y2k!), but I’m open to suggestion from our readers! So it’s:

• What was the handset – make, model, if you can remember
• What were you doing with the handset that made it lag – keep it clean!

Answers on a postcard … (or at least in the comments on this post!)

This isn’t the first time I’m writing in praise of Sony’s small and stylish Vaio P notebook/netbook. And I’m not doing so only to get the attention of Sony’s PR folks who by now should send me a single unit free of charge for all the publicity they got at IntoMobile.

I really, really like its form factor. The Vaio P is a super small laptop, yet it’s perfectly sized. The problem is in the software – Vista runs slowly on it and I also want the instant-on option on such a small computer. On that note, I’m hoping that Sony Ericsson (NYSE: SNE) could launch a similar product which would have pretty much everything the original Vaio P has, plus it would be capable for instant-on. In that sense, instead of using the Intel Atom CPU, that kind of a device should rely on some ARM-based processor like Qualcomm (NSDQ: QCOM)’s Snapdragon. Just imagine – you press a button and you can instantly start writing, browsing the web, playing music, video and so on. Instead of the Sony logo, the new device would wear Sony Ericsson’s colors, and that’s about it. Nothing too complicated – just use the winning form factor and if possible, make the device more affordable!

To be fair, there is some kind of instant-on function on the Sony Vaio P, but you can run only the limited number of applications. What I want to use the device is for writing and I can’t do that.

We’ve seen that Wistron’s smartbook prototype which is powered by Snapdragon and I like it. The problem, however, is that it’s not as portable as Sony Vaio P, and I’m not sure it has the so-much-needed (and so much repeated in the text above) instant-on capability.

I don’t care about the operating system. It could be Windows Mobile or something Linux-based (Android, Moblin, etc), whatever. I do care about the screen size – it should be able to display at least 1024 pixels in width (current Vaio P goes even further), and it should allow for WiFi connectivity. 3G is a plus, but not a must…

Am I asking for too much? It should be my portable writing device, which could also be used for Skype calls, web browsing, email, etc. Any thoughts?

A really great post has found its way to reddit from Jamie Zawinski, who’s a big name in developer circles (known as jwz), about his rough ride in trying to get a free tip calculator into the webOS App Catalog. Since I’ve been playing with Bell’s Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre for the last week and trying out homebrew applications, it really caught my eye. Here’s The Short Version of this particular programmer’s complaints, but I encourage you to read the whole thing if you’re packing a Palm Pre or developing on webOS.

• Inability to natively install applications from outside the market
• Requirement of a verified PayPal account and potential fees, even for free apps
• Forfeiting rights to post submitted applications anywhere other than the App Catalog

Let me preface my reply by saying that I’m not a developer, and don’t pretend to fully empathize with their wide-ranging plights and challenges when dealing with manufacturers, carriers, and end-users. However, a lot of this post raised some flags.

If you don’t want to play by Palm’s rules to get into the App Catalog (however reasonable/unreasonable they may be), don’t whine when your only option left is homebrew; making apps “off the grid” is not a bad starting spot for someone learning the webOS platform. Palm is in dire financial traits, and they need to harness their app market in order to stay in business – that entails some level of quality control, dealing with PayPal, code tweaks, and all that jazz that might come off as personal affronts to the more quixotic developers out there. How do you think Elevation Partners would feel if, when asking about third-party software strategy, Palm said “Developers can do whatever the hell they want! Woo, open source!” and cracked open a Bud? Instead, Palm saw what a financially successful player, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), was doing right (taking control of the application stream) and doing wrong (making draconian app submission decisions) and built their strategy around that. Sure, it might not be the supposed open-source programming Nirvana found in Maemo 5 or even Android, but it’s a balanced approach that helps everyone win at least a little. If you’re writing free apps and you don’t want to jump through the hoops, homebrew is not that complicated for end users.

1. Enter dev mode
2. Get Quick Install and your recovery ROM (Sprint, Bell)
3. Install fileCoaster

There, you’re set. You have a second on-device app store that Palm doesn’t control. Go nuts. Is that really an insurmountable barrier for entry? Will an app really have that many fewer eyeballs on it than if it were in the App Catalog? And if the software is free anyway, why would the creator care?

If developers want to support the webOS ecosystem with a free app, or make a buck with a premium one, they should be ready to make some compromises, including small code changes for the sake of QA. It’s not like Palm is turning into a bunch of Nazis; they aren’t taking shots at the homebrew scene, like Apple does with jailbreakers – in fact, Palm encourages the homebrew scene. The exclusive rights to the code is simply Palm’s way of ensuring the official market remains valuable. Why would anyone use the App Catalog if the homebrew scene had all of the same apps plus others that didn’t make it though the hoops? Sure, end users would get their apps, and devs could do whatever they wanted, but Palm wouldn’t get their cut, which ultimately is bad news for the whole platform and anyone developing on it.

As for the $99 annual developer fee, someone has to handle the submissions; even if your app is free, that someone answering the e-mails has to get paid. If you can’t be bothered to manage a ubiquitous and widely-accepted payment method like PayPal to handle that tiny bit of bureaucracy, then why should they be bothered to look at your submission? The thing that probably set me off most on jwz’s post was the insinuation that Palm was dead because they’re abusing webOS developers like a bunch of naughty puppies. First off, the phone has been out three months, and as I’m sure you can imagine, it takes a lot of manpower to make an app store ready for primetime – calling the time of death at this point is ridiculous. Secondly, this is the harshest amount of discontent I’ve heard from a webOS developer so far, and I’m tempted to think the majority are still willing to stick with Palm through the official App Catalog launch. Let’s hear from other developers who have tried their hand at the submission process, and see who has been satisfied (or at least understanding), and who has been pushed to another mobile platform. Feel free to comment with your own personal experiences.

Too often when I am driving between IntoMobile Towers and other destinations, do I still find people in the UK holding phones to their ears (for those of you that don’t know, that’s illegal over here!). It is absolutely infuriating, because it is so dangerous, and yet people flaunt it on a regular basis. I’m not sure who is more dangerous, the school mom with kids in the back (!), doing her make-up and talking on the motorway, or the businessman in his ‘pimped’ 4×4, not paying any attention to what’s going on in front of him, but shouting furiously in to his work phone….

At any rate, TAKING ONE HAND OFF THE WHEEL, AND DISTRACTING YOUR BRAIN AT THE SAME TIME, AT 80 MPH ON THE MOTORWAY, TURNS YOU IN TO A VERY POORLY GUIDED (BUT VERY HEAVY) MISSILE.

I can’t even reason the logic out as to how people end up still doing this – do they think they need to be caught once to make them aware, is it because they think they are a good enough driver to compensate, or do they just not give a S**T?

Not very often to I get to the point where my blood boils over something, but this is one of those rare occasions – particularly now since I have two kids, transporting them around should be a relatively safe process – except now I get to play Russian Roulette on the roads, and hoping I don’t come across that one runaway vehicle – chances are, if I do, the driver won’t even have time to brake before they hit me as they’ll be too distracted – and that IS going to hurt – maybe even kill.

PLEASE PEOPLE – GET A HEADSET, A CAR KIT, OR DON’T TAKE THE CALL – IT’S NOT WORTH IT.

I’ve written before on Dr. Jim’s blog posts, because they always provide lively and stimulating commentary on various tech-related areas – recently culminating in a great piece he wrote on social networking (see my post on his post here).

Now Dr. Jim has turned his attention to Web Ads. Quite apart from listing an impressive array, he also delves in to the area of intrusion that some of these Ads crossover over in to.

Of course from a Mobile perspective, Advertising has been touted as the next big thing for a very long time – whereas the reality is that massive volumes of lo-value transactions are needed in order to generate any significant Ad revenue – but with Mobile becoming so capable that they can display even fairly complex Webpages, more and more of the Web Ads we know and love on the PC, might be coming to a Mobile device near you soon!

Find Dr. Jim’s original article here – well worth a read.

[Via: Fuzemobility.com]

Can I have a portable one of these please? Oh, and can you put the screen and remote inside the box please?

Okay, so Apple (NSDQ: AAPL)’s Rock ‘n’ Roll announcement was very nice, and had some good updates and new products. Particularly the new little Nano with video capture – very cheeky, and perfect for the ‘gimme now’ generation…!

But Apple’s announcement disappointed a lot of people on many levels – that in itself doesn’t matter so much you can bet one or another announcement over the next six months will hoover up all the requests that people are making  – but in the meanwhile people will continue to ask for stuff – inlcuding me!

I’m not Kerr-azy with the scope of my requirements – in fact, I have only one requirement – I want a portable Apple TV please.

Now this portable device should surpass the features found in the current Apple TV, but also be thin/light enough to be portable (and useful) – and don’t tell me it ain’t possible, people thought the iPhone couldn’t be done until Apple rolled it out!

The Apple TV has (oddly) turned out to be the device that Apple hasn’t focused on – for reasons unknown to many. But it has the potential to be something great, if it were re-packaged as a Mobile device. That Mobile device could even take the form factor of the Apple Tablet that many are talking about, but it would need to have some key features:

• HD Video playback – 1080p please
• Nice big screen
• HDMI out
• Video Capture – perhpaps not 1080p, but passable
• Multiple Connectivity options – so that streaming is an option
• Nice big rack of solid-state storage – 32GB+ please
• Other secondary features – touch keypad anyone?

I suppose in some respects I might be making a case for an Apple Tablet, but then again I wouldn’t want the Tablet primarily as a device that you could email/browse on. Instead I primarily want a multimedia hub that I can take with me, and plug in to a TV anywhere.

So will Apple give me one? Well I’d bet on an HD iPhone within the next year, so maybe that will do most of what Apple TV does – only time, as they say, will tell!

Okay, now before anyone launches in to a tirade in the comments, this was an unscientific test. Very unscientific. But the results were rather interesting, so I think.

As I mentioned, I’m travelling this weekend, and have had the great pleasure of air travel within that. Waiting to get off the plane, during what seemed to be longest disembarkation ever, I was fascinated to listen to the variety (read: cacophony) of mobile ringtones/message alerts/start-up tones that formed some kind of freakish orchestra, as people turned their devices back on, in the plane (isn’t there some kinda rule on that….).

As I heard the tones, I realised I recognised them – and that oddly, they fell into three categories, at least in from the multiple tones that I could hear in the surrounding 40 or so seats.  So what were they?

• RIM BlackBerry (NSDQ: RIMM) Message Alert & Ringtone
• Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone Message Alert
• Nokia (NYSE: NOK) Start-up Tone

Bizarrely, all the tones I heard fell in these three categories. Now admittedly, this is totally unscientific, but could we make some guesstimations about the kind of users?

• Well it was mostly business travellers on the flight – so could we say Businesspeople use mostly Nokia and RIM, apart from the tech-rebels who use iPhone?
• Could we say perhaps that Apple, Nokia, and RIM are the brands of the moment for Mobile devices?
• Or could we perhaps say Apple, RIM, and Nokia devices users are the most keen to get their messages?

Probably none of the above – but perhaps we can say that users of these brands have their devices turned up the loudest- any maybe ought to think about a bit of silent/flight-mode/power-down modes for their devices

Ben

I’m travelling this weekend, at an Exhibition somewhere in Europe (where and what ain’t that important) – and I’m getting killed for sound on Mobile calls to/from people by the background noise!

I’m sure many of you have experienced this incredibly frustrating trend, whereby either you are trying to talk to someone (in which case the person you are speaking to can’t hear you), or you are taking a call from someone in a relatively noisy environment, and in fact all you get is warped background noise invading over the audio that should be the person’s voice!

I find it’s particularly band when you have:

• train station or airport announcements
• constant background noise e.g. the hubbub of people talking
• traffic passing nearby e.g. street full of cars

The culprit in the main is the condenser mic, that works on the principle of gathering sound from the surrounding environment, of which in theory, your voice should be the loudest.

However, due to the frequencies captured, the technology used, and also the limitations of GSM/UMTS voice carriage across networks, what you can often get is capture of the situational audio around you, leading to some nice audio FX in your/your recipient’s call!

It’s an incredibly frustrating, and one that hasn’t been too well addressed by Mobile device makers. Ironically, some Bluetooth headset vendors have had a go at solving it, but the leaders here appear to be Digital Video Camera makers, who have found a way to isolate the noise of the wind for example, if you’ve strapped your camcorder to a bike, and are riding along! Okay, that’s an extreme use-case, but you get the general idea of removing the extraneous audio…

The thing I am wondering is why no-one has made a better stab at this on Mobile devices to-date. At some point we’ll move to networks that include “HD Voice”, and when that happens, having background noise washing over the foreground voice in a call won’t be acceptable. Time to start on a better solution methinks, and what better place to start than that wretched condenser mic!

Ben

I’ve already ranted about Palm and why they should revive the Foleo concept. I felt like I need to do it again – because I want one. But I don’t want the original Foleo, it was too bulky and way underpowered. What I want is something lighter and smaller, something that resembles the Sony Vaio P, yet it’s cheaper — just like I mentioned in my rant against the Nokia Booklet 3G.

In a nutshell, here’s what I want from my next netbook/smartbook:

• OS *must* be Linux-based to run/load faster. The OS used in the Foleo I’ve seen seems quite decent.
• CPU could be either Intel Atom or some ARM-based. Snapdragon is a good idea for the latter.
• Sufficient amount of RAM is required in order to multi-task.
• Palm (NSDQ: PALM) needs to get developers on board. Skype is a must-have, Evernote would also be nice, though I could access it via web browser. Some WordPress and Twitter client would also come as a plus.
• Speaking of web browser, make it Webkit-based (Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Chrome?) – it will be faster, or at least me thinks so.
• WiFi is a must, GPS not that much.
• 3G should be optional, not a must-have feature that would drive the price through the roof.
• Battery – 4 hours of autonomy is enough, meaning 3-4 cells is all I need.
• Size – please, please make it not larger than the Sony Vaio P. I can’t emphasize this enough!
• Instant on is also a plus. Scrap that – it’s a must!
• Forget the touchscreen, it will drive the cost up.
• And make all this available for $500, maybe $600.

Have I missed something? Any thoughts?