G-What?

So one of my co-workers came to work today with a brand new G1 - the T-Mobile Android phone by HTC. I was quite interested in how it would compare to the iPhone. I tried to take an honest, fair approach to reviewing the phone. Having used an iPhone now for 3 months, I am quite familiar with it and so that was the bar that I compared it to. For the most part the G1 did the same things that the iPhone does. In general, though, I didn't find it as intuitive as the iPhone. It also did not see like "cutting edge" technology. The phone felt bulky, was thicker than the iPhone, and resembled a small brick. Any time you want to type, you have to turn the phone sideways and slide the screen up to reveal the keyboard. The screen sliding open was not a very smooth operation. It "snapped" open rather harshly to the point that sometimes it felt like the screen would fly off of the rest of the phone. The scrolling works the same way as it does on an iPhone with the touch screen. It lacked the two-finger multi-touch functionality that the iPhone has. I believe that Apple has the pinch to zoom in/out patented, which is why I'm guessing that's why Android does not support that. It still wasn't that bad - there was a + and - button at the bottom of the maps screen that allowed you to zoom in and zoom out. When searching for Dunkin Donuts nearby, it found them, but rather than dropping pins in a very pleasing visual display like the iPhone, it displays a text list of them. You can click on one of them and then it takes you to that one on the map. With the use of left and right arrows, you can scroll through all of the locations, and the map pans from one to the next. In order to get a good visual view of where they were in reference to my location, I had to do a zoom out with the minus button. The GPS was able to quickly locate my location rather nicely.

There is something similar to the app store on the iPhone called the market. From what I understand, anyone can publish apps to the market - truly tapping into the open source community. This is a great feature. At the same time, though, what risks come of this? What's there to stop someone from publishing malicious code into what seems like an innocent app? An innocent looking pac-man could collect personal data and send it off to who knows where. Just because much of it is open source doesn't mean that someone who chooses to publish an app to the market has to make their code available for public scrutiny. As much as I love the open source market, one thing that I think is great about the iPhone app store is that every application goes through a code review with Apple before being published. Now, many people have problems with that, and the fact that Apple to some extent will restrict new apps that compete with theirs, but I've got no issues with it. Overall it makes for a very stable environment. Knowing that Apple is code reviewing all of the apps to ensure that there is no malicious code in there adds a sense of security. In case something sneaks by, Apple does have an internal kill switch that allows apple to kill an application that is running on the iPhone. Many gave Apple crap for this, but the other week it was revealed that Android has the same thing. Ha - suckers!

Now, down to the value of the G1. If the G1 was a ton cheaper than the iPhone, I might be able to overlook not having some of the eye candy on the iPhone. But, the G1 is by far a worse deal. The G1 is for $179. The ently level iPhone is $199 - $20 more. The G1 has only 1 GB of built-in memory. If you want more memory, you can purchase separately a SD card, which currently only goes up to 4 GB in size. The iPhone for $199 comes with 8 GB of internal memory. 8 times the amount for $20 more. After you bought a SD card, it would be about the same price as the iPhone. You can get a 8 GB microSD card on newegg right now for $30, so that would put the phone+memory at $210 - $10 more than the iPhone. The G1 monthly charge is $25, whereas the iPhone is $30 (on top of whatever voice plan you have). In my opinion, the iPhone wins - cheaper base price, more intuitive, sleeker form factor, more secure apps, and cheaper - and only $5 more per month. After using both, it is worth the extra $5/month.

Finally - 3rd party notifications on the iPhone!

I can't wait for the 2.1 software upgrade for the iPhone:

"Apple just released iPhone 2.0.1 as bug fix and stability release, and is working on an iPhone 2.1 feature update aimed for September. The second update is expected to deliver support for background notifications for third party apps, as well as significant improvements to GPS location services that should be able to provide reports on your current direction and speed, information required to provide turn-by-turn directions."

If they can get that out in September, it would seriously close one of the biggest shortcomings of the iPhone in my mind - the inability for 3rd party apps to provide notifications. Now, if they'd just start working on the copy/paste ability.

For anyone thinking about buying a smartphone, you should really read this article first:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/08/05/inside_iphone_2_0_iphone_os_vs_other_mobile_platforms.html

Weezer - Pork & Beans

So Weezer has a new album (the Red Album) coming out on June 3. You can listen to "Pork & Beans", one of the singles from their new album that they've recently released at their website - http://www.weezer.com. Pork & Beans is as close to the Blue Album style that we've heard in a while from Weezer. I'm excited for Album #6. They still hold the top spot among my all time favorite bands.

Travis

Travis' teacher told Allison when she picked him up from school today that Travis had his best day that he's ever had. I decided to take him out on a daddy-son night out to reward him for having such a good day at school. We went to Steak-n-Shake together. Travis requested that he listen to his favorite song on the way there, Weird Al's "The Saga Begins". It's the song that follows the tune of Don McLean's classic "American Pie" but instead follows the story line of Star Wars Episode I. Travis thinks it is so
funny when it says "Maybe Vader someday later now he's just a small fry."














Here is a hilarious YouTube video with Lego guys set to the tune of Weird Al's "The Saga Begins":

Oh Kinsey, Kinsey

Last week Allison and I went to lunch together with Kinsey (Travis was in school). On the way back to drop me off at the office, Kinsey fell asleep in the car. I looked back there and this is what I saw:



She apparently had taken her socks off of her feet, put them on her arms, and then fell asleep. Oh, and by the way, I took this photo with my new BlackBerry Curve that has a 2 Megapixel camera on it. I was quite impressed with the quality of the picture, considering it came from a phone. At the highest resolution it churns out 1600x1200 pictures. This one was resized to 480x360, so you can't get the full effect of the quality of it. Anyway...socks off to Kinsey for giving us another laugh.

Truck Commercial

Ok, this has got to be one of the worst truck commercials ever made. It will definitely make you laugh, though. What's even funnier is that another truck dealer nearby made it's own commercial making fun of it.
Bad commercial:


Commercial making fun of the bad commercial:

Mike Gundy Coors Light commercial

The Mike Gundy rant is old new now, but if you haven't read about it or watched his post game meltdown, you really should. Some guys made a fake Coors Light commercial that is absolutely hilarioius. It won't be funny unless you watch the actual Mike Gundy rant first. Here is the order to watch things in:
1. Read the article by Jenni Carlson of the Oklahoman:
http://newsok.com/article/3131543
2. Watch the post game meltdown by Mike Gundy

3. Watch the fake Coors Light commercial on Youtube: