John C. Bland II

I’m overly bored with antennagate to start with but these response videos are annoying me. Yes, I could not watch them but the tech dude deep inside, well…maybe not that deep, is interested in the technology aspect of it. What annoys me is when someone shows the now infamous “death grip” but they are showing the “grip” in a not so normal way. On Twitter I mentioned it looked like they were getting ready to “throw a rock” and after watching a few more…I still feel this way.

I think what bothers me most is folks like @gruber are eating this up and using it as a bullet point to say “see…Apple was right, others suck too” but they are only half-right. Apple was correct about other devices, the industry knows this, but the iPhone is by far worse at exposing the fault.

Just watch some of these videos:

• Droid Incredible Antennagate
  (who holds their phone at the bottom that tightly?)
• Palm Pre Death Grip Attenuation OMG
  (admittedly held it wrong to force the issue but didn’t mention it in the video…just in the comments; pfft!)
• iPhone Death Grip Tested on 7 New Handsets
  (ridiculous grip on some of these phones; he at least seemed objective though; Evo  4G, which is what I have, passed with flying colors, lol)

Notice how they have to hold the device to make it happen. People…this is not the same thing as the iPhone 4 where you can use 1 finger to destroy your call quality.

The point is…Apple blew it. No matter how many crappy videos show other devices with “death grip” problems…the iPhone 4, as Jobs stated, put a big X on it to which they can’t take away a free bumper will take away. I’m pleased with Apple’s response (free bumpers; not just us…everyone) as a business person. I thought they did a great job of deflecting but the issue still stands.

Either way Apple will continue to make boat loads of dough but I am willing to bet Apple makes significant changes in the antenna design next year. To save face, I bet the overall structure is exactly the same but they do something to prevent attenuation when held the “right way” this time (different external material around it?).

I have contemplated this blog post for a couple weeks now (and worked on it for longer), since I first started using my new Evo 4G. The title may read that of a new convert going fanboy over a new toy but trust me…I’ve seriously spent time considering both sides of this coin and I’m thoroughly convinced: Android blows away iOS. Don’t believe me? You don’t have to but I’ll still explain my points. Keep in mind, while reading, this is my opinion and is 100% based on an iPhone 3G vs the Evo 4G.

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Ok…maybe it isn’t 1:1 in terms of skills/knowledge but consider the age of today. 5 years ago mobile stylesheets were the rave and were dang near required for every mobile device out there. Now? Nope. With Webkit running rampit on smartphones and smartphones becoming the normal end user phone, with the surge of iPhone and Android devices on the market, there is a shift from doing strict mobile development to making sure your site works on the web and Webkit.

This is pretty key and very interesting in terms of the direction our industry is heading right now. Mobile dev’ is not gone though. You still have a need to provide a scaled down version of your site, depending on what it is and depending on whether you’re using some device that can’t deliver the “whole web” or not (lol; yes, that’s a jab), for mobile devices. I much prefer not having to load non-mobile optimized ads or a two-mile navigation when attempting to load a simple blog, hint hint…mine.

Either way…the point of this post is to have web developers now consider the market and device changes bringing more mobile to your web experience. Consider mobile when building your sites.

Yep…that’s right. “Intel is helping bring Adobe AIR to the mobile phone.”:http://softwareblogs.intel.com/2007/09/19/adobe-integrated-runtime-on-mobile-internet-device/

While in a meeting (at work with Adobe FMS guys there) I read an email from Intel. I was blown away at Intel sending the email and not Adobe…that’s HUGE, IMO. Intel is “backing” the AIR “movement” and in a big way. I love it!

So, what can you do with AIR and mobile? Well, nothing now. Intel has a lot of information on “Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs)”:http://www.intel.com/products/mid/ and, from what I can tell, they have fully embraced and are even pushing Adobe AIR.

I tried to find an online link but I couldn’t so I took the email from Intel and put it online. I DID NOT CHANGE ANY TEXT OR INFO (other than deleting my unsubscribe link).

intelMIDs.html