iPhone 2.0

Steve Jobs announced a new iPhone today. Sleeker, faster and cheaper than the prior version. One of the biggest changes has nothing to do with the phone. Apple has changed its financial relationship with the carriers. They will not have to share their monthly revenue with Apple, this will allow them to subsidize the new phone for end users as they currently do for most of their other phones. Apple’s plan is that the iPhone will become a mass market item that will propel sales of their computers.

Other changes:

• It supports 3G networks – though it will cost you more to use it (EDGE is a bit pokey, but it’s cheap).
• GPS support – new apps take advantage of interactive maps.
• Longer battery life – This is an accomplishment considering that 3G uses more power.

Blackberry Or Palm Centro?

Considering a smart-phone? Two major competitors in this area are the Blackberry and Palm. One question I’ve been asked is “what is the difference between the two?” Aside from technical differences it might help to think of the devices as having different lineages that affect them.The Palm was originally a PDA (personal data assistant). This means it was an attempt to replace your paper address book, calendar, notepad, and to-do list, with an electronic device. It didn’t have a phone or internet access. These were later additions.The Blackberry was originally a strong email and phone device. It had an address book and other PDA software, but its software wasn’t as sophisticated as the Palm in that area.For example, one major difference between the two devices is that the Palm Centro has the Palm OS support for categories in the calendar and contacts. The Blackberry does not support this feature. If you make an appointment on your palm you could assign a color based on whether it is a personal versus a business appointment.The Blackberry, on the other hand, because of it’s longstanding support for email, is incredibly easy to configure for a new email account. The Blackberry OS also does little things that show how it has been refined over the years. If you are typing in an email address, you only need to type “name” space key “server” space key “com” to enter name@server.com because the software knows that a “@” goes after the name and a “.” goes between the server and com.So if comparing a Blackberry versus a Palm Centro, It might help to think about how these devices were originally conceived. Do you do live by email? Or does color coding your calendar excite you?.Update: Please consider visiting my new site at palmpre.digitalblade.com

Verizon Buys Alltel

Verizon wireless buying Alltel which will create the largest wireless carrier in the U.S with 71 million subscribers. Total cost is $28.1 billion.

Vista Memory

Are you running Windows Vista? Did you know that it has substantial memory requirements? If you’re running it on a computer with less than 2gb of memory you are probably experiencing delays and slow performance that you don’t have to. Memory is cheap, call us today to discuss an upgrade.

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