iphone

My Brief Lusty Fling with the Galaxy S3 {7}

Recently my long time love, the iPhone, had been seeming a little distant.  We had fallen in a rut, the two of us.  We did the same things, never switched it up, and life became kind of boring. Maybe it’s a mid-phone release cycle-crisis, but I was yearning for something more, that spark, that sexiness that was lacking.  That’s when I saw her.

The Samsung Galaxy S III.

She was beautiful.  Thin, gorgeous face, lightweight, and curves and buttons in all the right places.  I’d never been in a relationship with an Android before.  Sure, I had a couple dates in the past, but never really committed.  So I thought that this time I would give it a shot.  I would go full on Android and see if the grass truly was greener.

At first, everything was new and exciting.  Connecting to my Google services was a snap, and installing Lotus Traveler worked like a charm.  Then as the courtship continued, we started to visit all of the same old haunts.  Foursquare, Dropbox, Foodspotting, Facebook, Twitter, Rhapsody, Yelp, TripIt!, and even 1Password welcomed us.  Everything was comfortable and familiar again.  A new coat of make-up perhaps, but everything worked as expected.  Getting them from the Google Play store was pretty decent as well.  Seemed easy to shop and find what I was looking for, and clicking them brought them right down to the phone nicely.

The S3 wasn’t afraid to mix things up either.  ”You don’t like the default launcher?  Let me try on something more comfortable.  I have an entire wardrobe I could switch into.”  And for role-playing, let’s just say she wasn’t afraid to be Chrome or Firefox or Dolphin if I really wanted her to be. Flexibility, oh yes.  She had some kinky new things she wanted to try too, like tapping other phones and swapping data.  And while hot, unfortunately it was hard to find many others in the crowd that swung that way. When we did, it was really exciting the first time we tried, but after that we would get disappointed when everyone didn’t want to play. It’s still kind of an underground community, but I think more people will become uninhibited as time goes on.

But some aspects of her personality really got to annoy me after awhile.  She kept notifying me of things over and over again, and I couldn’t easily convince her to only tell me about the things I wanted to hear.  She wasn’t a very good listener either as time and again she would screw up or ignore easy to understand requests. She also seemed to wear out more quickly than iPhone did.  I could spend marathon sessions with iPhone no problem, but Galaxy S3 got tired and always wanted to go to bed early. Even when she would stay up, I could never please her with only one hand.  She always required that I used both my hands on her tall frame.

Dealing with her schizophrenia Dissociative identity disorder about email was a nightmare too. It was a little too much with having to switch between mail, and a GMail client and a Traveler email client.  I mean, pick a mood and stick with it will ya? She even sported three different messaging clients by default. I just never knew what I was going to get. Lastly, she was inconsistent. Sometimes I would push her buttons, and how she responded today might be different than how she responds tomorrow. It sometimes became a guessing game trying to figure out how she felt.  It became tiring after awhile.

So as of today, I’ve broken up with Galaxy S3.  Sure, she’s sexy, and we had some incredible nights of passion, but quite frankly, iPhone really gets me better.  iPhone really knows how I like to work it, and will be there for me when I need her.  There’s a lot to be said about someone you can rely on, and iPhone has never let me down.  Despite our rut, I still love her, and probably always will.

All of that said, the Galaxy S3 might be your personal dream girl though, so feel free to date her, I won’t be mad.

Galaxy SIII Pros

  • Great Camera
  • Big Screen is gorgeous and easy to read
  • Light and Thin
  • Flexible Software Choices
  • Connects great to Google Services
  • Near-field communication features
  • Expandable storage

Galaxy SIII Cons

  • Big Screen is too hard to work one-handed
  • Multiple clients for email and messaging
  • Lack of consistency in apps (menus and such)
  • Battery Life isn’t quite as good as my iPhone
  • Plastic outer shell feels a little cheap
  • Lack of notification granularity
  • Default storage (without additional card) tops out at 16 GB
  • Back button was sometimes inconsistent
  • S-Voice was no where near as accurate as Siri

 

iPhone vs. streetsweeper {4}

Earlier this week an employee at my office couldn’t find his iPhone.  So we pulled it up on Find My iPhone and saw that it was at our office.  So we started looking around for it, and then a curious thing happened.  It started moving down the street.

We figured that someone picked it up and made off with it, so a couple of folks jumped in a car and started after the blip on the GPS screen.  When they finally caught up with it, they found a Chicago City street sweeper vehicle.

The iPhone had fallen out of a pocket, was swept up by the street sweeper and then dragged for blocks.  The entire time it was still giving out its signal for Find My iPhone despite the fact that the handset itself was fairly destroyed.

So Find My iPhone is a pretty cool feature, and can stand a beating to the phone itself.  Good to know.

Lotus Notes Comes to the iPhone {0}

Intranet Journal has just published my latest story, Lotus Notes Comes to the iPhone. I go through all of the features and touch on some of the limitations of iNotes Ultralite mode. If you’ve had any questions on what Ultralite can do for you, hopefully they’ll be answered after reading this article. Enjoy.

Best place for iPhone feedback to Apple {1}

In addition to all the things in the last post, a poster on the Apple forum’s pointed me to a place to give Apple feedback on their products. This seems like it might be the best place to get information directly to the iPhone team. So, please, if you want to Apple to hear your request, go to:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

This is the last post I’ll make about Lotus Notes / iPhone. I don’t want it to consume the blog, but I do think it’s important for Notes as an “enterprise platform” to be recognized as such on the biggest handset phenomenon recently seen. At this point I’ve requested it and complained to both IBM and Apple. Let’s see if something can get done.

iPhone call to action – Please contribute {11}

Well after the previous post where I displayed my dismay at the lack of any Lotus Notes “enterprise” support for the upcoming iPhone, I was (rightly) chastised by famed Lotus defender (and friend of mine), John Head for just bitching and not doing anything. I was also informed by Ed Brill (like he states on his blog) that we, as customers, need to let Apple know there is a demand for this. So fine. I’m doing something.

I posted Please Support Lotus Notes as an Enterprise Platform on the Apple forums. Please jump in and add in your two cents if at all possible.

Next, I signed the petition that Nathan set up asking for Lotus Notes support on the iPhone.

Also, for the heck of it, email Steve Jobs. It may do nothing if one or two of us do, but if 500-1000 do, maybe so. sjobs@apple.com is the address. Have fun, and BE NICE about it.

Happy now John?

Don’t forget IdeaJam either!

iPhone Enterprise Support {11}

Enterprise support: as we explained earlier, full Exchange support. All secure VPN, everything everyone’s asked for is built-in. We’re on exactly the right track, we can now check off enterprise support.

-Steve Jobs 6/9/2008 on the announcement of iPhone 2.0

Interesting, they can now “check off enterprise support.” That’s wonderful news, wonderful news indeed… [sigh]

IBM? Anything? I know I’m being a Mac fanboy here, but c’mon…

Nice headline: IBM to Sully iPhones and iPod Touches with Lotus Notes {0}

Wow, the writer of a blog at Wired really seems to hate Notes. Just thought I’d let you know in case you wanted to comment in defense of our beloved.

Here’s the end quote, emphasis mine:

The client will supposedly be free for those who are already stuck with a Lotus Web-access license, and will start at $39 per year for new users.

WOW!!!!!! Notes mail on IPHONE!!! {0}

Okay, a lot of the blogs are buzzing about this, but how f’ing cool is it that Notes will be available on the iPhone!!! I’m absolutely stoked!

Read all about it here: IBM to add software for Apple devices

And when I went to read it, I thought they were just going to talk about 8.0.1 on the Mac. What a surprise!

THANK. YOU. LOTUS!!!