if connected

I’ve just written a new entry on the day job blog about Nokia’s announcements at Nokia World and why the most important story is about mid-market mobile Internet and mobile data. Read the piece here.

That Jupiter blog doesn’t allow comments, so please add them below, and I’ll reply here.

Quicktime video playback wasn’t working at all within Firefox on the Mac. Safari was fine. I did the usual thing and Googled the problem — always a good idea with any tech issue — and found lots of people had the same experience. But I couldn’t see a fix anywhere.

I found Adblock (original add-on) was the cause. I uninstalled it and I switched to Adblock Plus instead, and Quicktime now works fine in Firefox.

Every time I set up a new computer it seems to take ages. I’ve wondered how much of that pain were subjective perceptions caused by the number of clicks / restarts vs the actual time taken.

This time I kept note.

The new laptop has both Windows XP and Mac OS installed. I can make comparisons as both Mac and Windows are using the same hardware.

Scorecard Windows XP, using bootcamp. (Note, this could have taken longer: I downloaded Windows updates on an above average speed connection (12Mbps), apps had been downloaded ahead):-

• Windows = 23 minutes for XP itself (SP2).
• Windows updates = 42 minutes. Included four reboots to install and update Windows.
• Drivers = 14m… another reboot
• Windows applications = 124 minutes, including a further two reboots.

Windows total = 203 minutes, or 23 minutes over three hours, with seven reboots. But I’ve not still not migrated across all my data yet or tweaked all the numerous application preferences. The worst of it was that I had to be present for every minute.

Mac OS = Unsure exactly, as I didn’t need to do much and left it running, probably about three hours in total.

The Mac ‘migration assistant’ is one of the Mac’s best kept secrets. It will transfer everything from either another Mac or a Time Machine backup. For me, it copied across all my applications (including third party ones, both paid and free), preferences and documents. I left it running which made it feel painless.

I fell of my chair when I realised what it had successfully done and how much effort it saved me.

Migrating to a Mac is about as painful as migrating from one PC to another. But migrating from an old Mac to a new one is absolutely simple, provided both run Leopard.

Back in the day, Nokia had religious zeal for one-handed use and an aversion to touch screens. Now, with the just-announced N97 and the 5800, everything changes in Espoo. But there’s still a real need for mobile handsets to be usable one-handed.

I used to think the best test was to walk down a busy street with a bag in one hand, phone in other, while making calls, sending texts and reading emails.

With a baby in the house I’ve realised that isn’t a sufficient exam. Using that measure, here’s my take on some popular devices:-

• Nokia N82 – Pass, mostly. This is a fairly standard pre-touch screen Nokia phone. It has some one handed rough edges: Opening the lens shutter cover and rotating the device to use the camera is hard. The byzantine S60 menu structure requires too much thought to pass the baby test easily, except for pro users, although it’s fine in less distracting situations.
• Google G1 phone – Fail. The handset is too big. Plus, the asymmetric bump at the bottom makes juggling the phone in one hand very hard when using the keyboard. Typing requires two hands or at least two thumbs.
• iPhone – Pass, just barely. It’s almost great, but the software routinely places buttons in all four corners of the screen, making large hands essential for full one handed use. If that’s fixed, it would be A1.
• HTC Windows Mobile QWERTY slide phones – Fail. There are many examples of these phones, often they have operator branding. The Windows Mobile software is almost impossible to use without a stylus, which means two hands. The sideways slide is also a two hand task.

There’s still enormous room for improvement. I hope that Nokia hasn’t forgotten the basics in the rush to compete using touch screens.

There is something deeply wrong with the world when I feel better connected at home than I do at work:-

1. My home broadband connection is faster than the Internet in the office by a factor of five.
2. Actual mobile broadband speeds are much better here in west London than they are in the centre, where the operators have spent more to build lots of base stations (and yes, I know why this happens, it’s still not right!)

Mobile broadband and mobile Internet isn’t ‘always-on’ whatever the industry may tell you.

Mobile network signals vary. Inside buildings the 3g signal often drops out. Underground on London’s tube, there’s no signal at all. Worse, when a phone has a weak signal applications go treacle-like and waste users’ time rather than offering a clear error message. Phone GPS satnav receivers virtually never work indoors and often struggle on city streets with tall buildings.

3G mobile phones and USB modems drain battery power to such an extent it effects use patterns. The more mobiles are used to go online the more the battery is hit. Heavy users temper and reduce their use of push email, downloading large files, and so forth to reduce the power impact. The result is that they’re never fully online.

It’s not mobile ‘always-on’ but mobile ‘almost-on’ most of the time. Even when battery and network signals do hold up, the design of mobile devices alters the net experience so people behave differently when mobile. Small screens and poor text input results in email triage. Longer efforts wait until when people are back at their PC. Noisy locations and sunlight make music and video a poor experience compared with home.

People are not, and will never be always-on, even if the technology manages to catch up. If people go into a meeting, they are effectively out of touch (reading email still isn’t acceptable behaviour however much people do it). Similarly, people are offline during the morning shower, when asleep in bed, or when out for a run or out for dinner in a restaurant even if the tech folks swear the mobile phone is online.