8.02.11: WiFi Day in a Wireless World

If you asked my wife, she'd tell you I put wireless access as a higher priority above practically any other essential element key to life, with the possible exception of Diet Coke. The need for always-on anywhere Internet access, essentially, a key to connecting you to the rest of the world at all times from any location, is so strong that as bleeding-edge humans, we've come to expect ubiquitous wireless access on all our devices.

It's no longer a question of whether places we go have wireless, but if it's open, and if it's fast enough to satiate our immediate need to get connected rapidly. Barring WiFi, God forbid, the expansion of 3G and 4G-connected smartphones and other devices helps fill in the gaps. With today's date amusingly spelling out 8.02.11 for those Roman Calendar toting, Western Hemisphere inhabiting people, it's  interesting to remember just how far we've come from a world of tethered Web connections just over a decade ago to this expanding world of mobility.

I wasn't the first to note the day on Twitter, but many folks noticed.

My first real view of WiFi, after curiosities like the cellular-based Ricochet wireless network on the UC Berkeley campus, came with Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller's debut of the first iBook in 1999, a G3-based tangerine colored consumer notebook which came bundled with pokey 802.11 wireless and held a Web connection, loading pages even as Phil jumped from a tall ledge and later passed the laptop through a Hula Hoop to demonstrate its true wireless capability. While Apple was the first major laptop manufacturer to jump headfirst into wireless, others soon followed, to the point that Dell and other PC makers took the lead in consumer awareness, until eventually having wireless wasn't a differentiator but commonplace. I remember arguing with my fellow Macheads at the time on Web discussion boards that this was a battle lost through not fighting.

Regardless of brand bias, our wireless world extended to laptops, tablets, phones, wrist watches, scales and all sorts of other items. Wireless networks got faster and faster, and homes, offices, buildings, campuses, stadiums, and even entire cities gained free wireless access that was open to visitors. Hotels that once could charge $15 a night for you to tap into their mediocre and filtered Ethernet port now have to contend with smart visitors packing their own Web and remote employees are bringing their own hotspots.

I've told my wife, much to her chagrin, that even our holiday spots need wireless, or I'll go nuts. Previous trips have been marred by subpar Web access, even to the point where those shortcomings were more notable than the experience itself. The truth is, high speed wireless is critical. We're just a few years away, I believe, from pervasive, high quality wireless anywhere, and I hope we can scoff on the minor issues we see today with congestion, slowness and even pockets without access. We've come a long way, but have much further to go.

My 2012 Plan: Full Home Automation, System Integration

Image via HomeSystemIntegration.com

If you're anything like me, you've got a ton of gadgets from different sources that should talk to each other well and interoperate, but often don't. From laptops to cell phones to video game systems, TVs, stereo equipment, wireless hubs, DVRs to the more mundane home electronic systems, you probably wish things worked together a lot better - with fewer remote controls and less regimented ways of getting things done. As for me, I'm great about buying the best stuff, but terrible about optimizing it. I know my strengths, and that's never been one of them. The good thing is that other people are, and I've teamed up with a good friend of mine to help get my house wired - the right way - over the next year.

Tom Abell, who runs the great blog Home System Integration (subscribe now), is focused on making all the devices in your home work together. So when I told him that I'd moved into a new place last summer and hadn't even taken the baby steps like putting our flat screen TVs on the walls, he knew I would be a long-term project. So I put my trust in him, and between us both, we've completely revamped my home entertainment system, both downstairs and upstairs (in my office, which doubles as a den).

Starting downstairs, with our family room, we added a Denon amplifier as the centerpiece to the system, plus a Dolby surround sound 5.1 theater system with an amazing subwoofer. The front speakers are wired from the TV, with the rear speakers getting audio wirelessly via bluetooth (from Rocketfish), suspended off our walls, masked by molding that matched the room so their connections are inconspicuous.

We then connected it all with a Logitech device that lets us control the TV, TiVo, DVD player, Apple TV and Nintendo Wii from a single screen. And wherever we could use HDMI, we did. Last night, the rumbling during Inception was enough to make my wife ask if we had an earthquake. So consider that a success.

Upstairs wasn't as big a job, but a place where I spend a lot more hours, so it had to be solid. As with downstairs, Tom and I posted the TV on the wall with a new wall mount and we also got a new entertainment center that matches my desk and is capable of locking to keep my kids' fingers out. We again leveraged HDMI everywhere, and now have the TiVo, Wii, DVD/VCR combo, Airport Extreme, Apple Time Capsule and Sonos ZoneBridge all in one place, neatly cabled. The difference is incredible. We also salvaged the Bose subwoofer and speaker setup from downstairs and brought it upstairs, so the sound is great up here too. In time, I'll probably purchase an all-in-one remote from Logitech to run the place.

Now that the entertainment side is in great shape, I wonder about being able to manage the rest of my home by computer or by any one of my mobile gadgets, be it via iPad or Android phone. Between Tom and me, there's got to be a good way to mess with the thermostat or turn off lights around the house without leaving my seat. I lust after Google Powermeter, but haven't seen that widely used yet. There should be a Web interface for the dishwasher to see how full it is and set a regular schedule. Same with the sprinklers in our front and back yard, or the lights that come on by our driveway that should start at dusk, but usually come on around midnight and stay lit until four a.m.

So yes, there is work to be done. While I may be more focused on mobile apps, trends and Web services, Tom has put together a number of solid pieces on the connected home, the home theater PC (HTPC), and Windows Home Server. He's also a contributor to Hometoys.com, which I started reading the last few months, and is on Twitter at @home_integrate.

If you're in the Bay Area, and suffer from gadget glut or just want to get them connected, it's my pleasure to recommend Tom. He promised to use me as a guinea pig, and our entire family has benefited from his strategy and physical labor, without a question. For the rest of you outside the area, make sure to check out his blog to get caught up on the world of home automation. I'm hoping to become more of an expert myself in the next 12 months, and filling some of my own knowledge holes in this space. Should be a fun challenge.

Tablets Have Great Battery Life. Everyone Else? Not Really.

Despite my consistent begging for true wireless power (since 2007, at least), as ubiquitous as WiFi, only baby steps have been taken in the last few years to divorce us from our dependence on power cords to satiate our hungry electronic devices. As our devices become more capable, and we are seemingly constantly connected, incremental improvements in battery capabilities seem to be offset by parallel technology advancements, including faster, hotter, CPUs and features like multitasking, push notifications and real-time updates that drain the batteries of even my most advanced devices like a thousand pin-pricks to a taut water balloon.

There has become a dichotomy in my home between the power haves and the power have nots. Try as I may, my every trip requires careful planning of packing of power cords, overnight charging of some devices, and continuous charging of others, via adapters in my car's cigarette lighters or fruitful discovery of power outlets in restaurants, cafes, airport terminals and practically anywhere I can find them. To illustrate how obvious my issues are, one highlight of Christmas 2010 for me was my wife's purchase of a dual USB charger for the car, so I could charge both my phone and a tablet at the same time. Yes, it's that bad.

(Also on this topic: Charge Me Up: No Batteries Are Good Enough from June 2010 and line of site: Next Gen Batteries, where art thou?)

On the good side of power consumption, one finds obvious winners. The iPads go days without needing to be charged, assuming only infrequent use. The Barnes and Noble NOOKColor holds its charge for more than a week's time, if you are not reading every day. I've been absolutely comfortable taking Google's Chrome CR-48 notebook with me without packing my power cord, and can see eight hours of continual use before searching for a solution, and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, so long as its brightness is not at the highest position, simply needs to be charged each night, after a full day's work.

In contrast, I need only look up every few minutes at my MacBook Air's battery percentage to see the numbers slowly decrease. After a good two hours' effort, even without streaming music or Flash games, I'm well under fifty percent. And the pain in terms of battery life for my Android phone (the Epic 4G) is as bad, if not worse, than my experience with the HTC Evo, and before it, my iPhone 3G. Even with all sorts of work to turn off WiFi or GPS when unneeded, and using BlueTooth only in the car, the phone seems to live a mere four hours, whether I use it or not - and I'm not even getting close to mentioning talk time. At CES, I even bought an external battery extender, that supposedly gives a charge and a half, but it too seems to serve only to make my phone hot to the touch before both die.

The issues with keeping my phone up and running have become something of a laughingstock with friends who see the issues firsthand. Barak Hachamov, my partner at my6sense, sees my dance with electricity as we go meeting to meeting, and my wife knows I leave my phone plugged in at all times when I am not using it. There's no doubt I would probably make more phone calls on the device, if I wasn't constantly glaring at it sideways, or wondering why the battery seemed possessed. Trust me, I've been happy with Android from day one, and love it on my Galaxy Tab, but the Epic's great keyboard hasn't been enough to outweigh the battery problems and iffy GPS. It's enough to have me asking every Googler and non-Googler I know how well their own Nexus S devices are working, to see if I should stomach an early termination fee (ETF) and switch again.

(If you prefer iOS, note the same issues on iPhone from July 2009)

The gulf between what I see as fantastic power managers like the CR-48 and the tablets versus my other laptop and my mobile phone experience is mind-boggling. On one hand, you see things that seem to run forever, while on the other, things are feeling like they are going backward, teasing me into thinking I should just marry up a simple feature phone for calls with a plan-free Android device that lives on WiFi. But that's crazy talk.

At a panel in the first half of 2010, I was asked about what I thought would be hot markets to invest in, and I quickly mentioned two places - the first being teleportation, and the second being true wireless power. I stand by those demands. If Google can build self-driving robot cars, surely there's a department in the back finding a way to solve power consumption issues on Android phones, or finding unique ways to tap into static electricity, solar energy or something. Maybe I'd even accept a nuclear-powered laptop in exchange for going sterile. After all, with 3 kids under 3 already, I'm not exactly hurting for a full house.

Power cords are a menace to convenience. Crappy batteries are significant hindrances to us getting the full capabilities out of our laptops, tablets and mobile phones. From my experience, the tablet manufacturers are doing a great job, and the CR-48 is a fantastic first volley into the less-demanding laptop sector. But if there's any revolution I want to see in tech, it's this one. No more widgets and doodads until you solve this very basic thing for me - for all of us. Please.

Seidio Triples HTC Evo Battery Life, Adds Some Bulk

One of the more consistent knocks against the HTC Evo, the Android-powered phone I've been using every day since my switch from iPhone is that it's battery isn't fantastic. Some found it so poor as to completely recommend against buying it, despite all the other features it does have which make it one of the more intriguing smartphones to debut in 2010. Just behind the concerns about its battery? Issues with its size - leading some to say it's just too big, mocking it with comparison's to Gordon Gekko's cell phone in the epic 1980s film Wall Street.

I have found a battery which really does let the Evo go all day. But guess what? It actually makes the phone even thicker, meaning for a few more hours of talk time, you're jamming a phone reminiscent of the size of a Sony PSP into your belt holster.

One Day's Use Shows 17 Hours On Before Recharge

For just over $60, you can purchase a battery designed for the HTC Evo, from Seidio, called the Innocell 3500 mAh Extended Life Battery for HTC EVO 4G. The standard battery for Evo is 1500 mAh, so it's no surprise the larger battery gives the phone a lot more power for a lot longer.

Somewhat nervous about the bulk of the device, but more curious about how long I could use the phone, I had to get one. (Remember, no battery is good enough) While previously, I had scared up a full day's worth of use of the phone while running the stock Android UI, the return of HTC Sense following an OTA update in 2.1, and continued Sense through 2.2, has drained the capability of the device, forcing me to be around chargers all day. Most Evo owners have perfected the art form of avoiding draining the phone's battery, or have just resigned themselves to being plugged in often. Having the new battery means this is no longer an issue.

A battery's capacity seems to flow downhill. Once out of the full "green" state, it isn't too long until an Evo battery can get to half-full, less than half full, and start to go amber, followed by red, and periodic warnings of low battery at 15% and 10% capacity. But with the Seidio battery, green lasts a very long time, and I don't have to think about micromanaging my own use. The first day I used the battery, it easily went the full 17 or so hours I had it active, before settling in for the night, and I don't chase power outlets any more. I don't worry about lengthy phone calls, or tapping in to Advanced Task Killer to reduce drain.

The thicker Evo is amusing. The new battery comes with a specialized case that replaces the standard Evo backing. Take the old one off and put the new one on, and you can easily see it's both thicker and heavier, even though it surprisingly feels good in the hand when using to talk, or when turned horizontally to send e-mail, browse the Web, play videos or games.

After using the Evo when I first got the device, it made my old iPhone 3G feel like a cheap toy. Add this battery in the mix, with its extra heft and thickness, and it reinforces that feeling of brute strength. You may not win any fashion awards with this backside growth, but the availability of all-day power cannot be overstated. I'll take the extra ounce for all-day access.

Review: Spotify, Sonos Partner for Wireless Music Nirvana

With Spotify making seemingly infinite music available on every device on demand, as well as sharing my friend's playlists, through Facebook-connected social profiles, it's a rare time that I even open my old standby music library, iTunes, except when I need to plug in my iPad and sync up. I take Spotify with me in the car when I play music via Android on my HTC Evo. I have Spotify on my laptop, and yes, on the iPad. Until a few weeks ago, just about the only missing place I couldn't get Spotify was through the three Sonos S5 systems I have in my home. That the two services would eventually come together was a near certainty, as one has the most promising on demand music library in the world, and the other has the best setup for playing music sourced from the Web.


  
Three Sonos S5 Players, Linked, Featuring Spotify
(Screenshots from iPhone app on iPad)

A few weeks ago, before today's more official announcement, I got access to new firmware that updated all my Sonos S5 systems, bringing Spotify support, complete with playlist integration, and search. This combination means, if I want, I can group together these systems, from the family room to the living room, and my upstairs office, have all of them playing the same music, and I can pull practically any music out of thin air.

Pulling ABBA from Spotify on Sonos

Search for a track on Spotify, or an artist or an album, and hit "Play Now" or "Add it to the Queue" and the music in the cloud becomes the music in your home - wherever you have speakers, be they small, on your phone or computer, or larger, now embedded in Sonos.

Searching Depeche Mode on Spotify Via Sonos

Demoing Spotify and Sonos connectivity wirelessly on the iPad is almost like magic - with a futuristic feel whereby I can, with a few taps, summon any song from any era and have it filling my house with music. A swipe to the right, and my entire home rises in volume, all players at once, turning an otherwise domestic venue into an understated dance club, with the sound echoing from room to room.


   Playing Spotify Playlists and Searching Underworld On Sonos

After the quick firmware update to my Sonos machines, all linked together by a Sonos SoundBridge attached to my wireless network, Spotify was added as a service to each device, adding on to previous support for Internet radio, terrestrial radio, localized stations, satellite radio through Sirius XM and also Last.fm. I didn't have to update every single application, but every Sonos app, from the iPad to my desktop, could see Spotify supported.

As existing Sonos owners know, one of the more futuristic bits about owning one of the company's S5 players is the complete lack of physical media. The devices feature simple up/down volume buttons and a mute button atop the unit, looking more like a speaker than central music hub. There's no spot for CDs, no radio dial, no vestigal digital clock, and clearly no cassette deck. Just pure music and attention to serious aural detail. Bringing Spotify to this physical media free wonderland just makes sense.


   Searching for New Tracks on Spotify And Adding to My Queue

For those, like me, who own multiple Sonos devices, you can also set different players to feature different songs at the same time, should that strike your fancy. You can play rock and roll upstairs and lounge music downstairs. Similarly, you can tap into Spotify to point that music library toward different devices. One source, but two musical streams at the same time.

Spotify only acknowledged the partnership with Sonos a few hours ago, and for most people in the US, waiting for Spotify to launch officially in this country is still a dream, but for those of us who have gotten early access, thanks to generosity from the company's head of special projects, Shakil Khan, whom I interviewed at LeWeb 2009, we're already living the digital dream. It works, and the combination of the two offerings is amazing. It's no wonder I'm not buying music from iTunes at all.

Funneling The Web's Firehose of Data Through a Thin Pipe

For the past several years, much like many of you, the fastest Internet speeds I have enjoyed have been at home. Very often, corporate networks, be they those at headquarters or client sites or shared networks at events and public settings, lag well behind my own home experience. For me, considering my devotion to being always-on, fast Internet is practically as important, if not more so, than good food or other more traditional human comforts, and any interruption of said flow is personally trying.

That would explain why when moving the family to our new house last Friday, getting access to high speed Internet again as soon as possible was a major priority, and finding a stopgap for the interim was just as critical. Luckily, Comcast took care of us Wednesday, bringing fast WiFi to our new home at great speeds, and for the five days previous, the HTC Evo did the very best it could, making the extra $30 a month I pay for its Hotspot capability, powered by Sprint, worth every penny.

In contrast to AT&T's sloth when it has come to empowering tethering and letting my previous smartphone reach its full potential, Sprint has been leading the charge in letting phones be as much about data as they are about voice. In the same month that AT&T eliminated their unlimited data plan and set their highest end plan at 2 GB, I not only flew past that point, but 3 GB as well. This is because, as I mentioned at the end of last month, I am using the wireless hotspot often - at client sites, at cafes, restaurants, shopping centers, and yes, in the last week, as the sole provider for Internet at our home. It might not have been the fastest Web ever, but it sure got the basics going.

If you have experienced full-speed always on Internet, only to have that taken away for a longer period, the available narrowband becomes much like a triage situation. YouTube viewing has to go away (much to my own kids' consternation and much iPad banging). Streaming music services (like Spotify) are a non-starter. Downloading movies or apps from iTunes was a pipe dream, and as great as the Hotspot is, only two computers can share at one time, so we found ourselves disabling one iPad to let another device - be it laptop or tablet - onto the Web. Survival of the fittest.

Sprint reported more than 3 GB pulled down on the Evo in June.

As someone who refuses to be out of the loop on information, despite such data hurdles, I found myself making time to get the most critical data and skipping out on more frivolous activities. I still powered through Google Reader, gnashing my teeth at photo-laden entries, and browsed Twitter mostly by phone, but activity on social networks was reduced - especially on Google Buzz, where the prospect of waiting for Gmail to load before getting to the network itself was too much to consider.

The good news is that Comcast not only turned on our Web access Wednesday, but the speeds are fantastic. After about 5 days of strained narrowband, we were more than happy to turn over our iPads to the twins and have them back to surfing YouTube - and it only took seconds for me to pull down the 40+ megabyte download for Safari 5.01 yesterday. In fact, SpeedTest.net shows 20 Mbps around the clock, so our broadband is back and kicking. I'm glad we have the HTC Evo ready for a backup, but it's not going to replace the full-speed stream any time soon. I love my broadband.

Mobile Employees, Consultants Need Mobile WiFi Hotspots

One of the quirks of being a full-time consultant is scheduling one's day with multiple clients in multiple locations, with multiple technology environments. Just as one might consider who they are meeting with when selecting a morning's outfit, one also has to think about which offices have which capabilities, and just which devices or cables should be carried. Oftentimes, thanks to security reasons, or simply imperfect setups, a company's wireless network (or an alternative network) is not available to third parties. While in the past, that would mean working "without a net", one can now bring WiFi with them, through MiFi cards, portable wireless hubs, or mobile WiFi capabilities on leading smartphones. For me, the new capability has greatly increased my productivity at client sites where previously I've felt like a second class citizen.

The opportunity to use my HTC EVO device, powered by Sprint, as a mobile hotspot, has, for me, further widened the mental gulf between it and its comparable cousin in the iPhone family, even as the newest offering doesn't allow for wireless hotspotting unless you jailbreak the device. Even for those who find Apple's offering superior, the iPhone cannot deliver for me while the EVO does.

While speeds over the EVO's 3G (or 4G) network are not as fast as standard 802.11 based connections, the mere opportunity to get on the Web, rather than sitting dumbly or asking for the client to look at a Web site on their computer, is a lifesaver - and no doubt is worth the $30 a month it takes to enable the functionality in addition to standard Sprint service.

As more people are turning to consulting roles, or hoping to bring value to partners, one should not always expect free unencumbered WiFi available. While yes, it's fun to turn the phone into a Hotspot and enable Wireless access to the whole family while riding in the car, it's actually bringing the Web to clients that makes the feature a requirement. So Apple, if you want to be considered as a real corporate solution, you have to bring this functionality soon, or you're not even an option.

Charge Me Up: No Batteries Are Good Enough

My Laptop Loves Being Connected. Batteries Don't Measure Up.

Just over a decade ago, Apple ushered in the wireless networking phenomenon with their new iBook consumer laptop, and accompanying Airport base station. Prior to that, Web access always required a hard-wired connection, be it through Ethernet cables or modems. Today, WiFi has practically become ubiquitous, a must-have for any new computer purchase, and one assumes it available in many homes and commercial buildings. Yet we continue to lug along with us a wide array of cords and connectors for all our devices, be they tablets, laptops or mobile phones - not for networking, but for power. The more powerful our devices have become, and the more capable they are, they seem to be just as hungry as ever in terms of sucking down electricity, no matter the manufacturer, no matter the OS and no matter the model.

Back in early 2007, when this blog was in its infancy, I said it was time to make power wireless and battery-free. While PowerMat has some solutions for mobile handhelds, the tipping point has not yet occurred where we can trust our batteries to run for days, and continue working after hours of peak load. And despite the occasional talk of new solutions that harness kinetic energy, solar energy or something else entirely, there have been no notable revolutions in this area that change the game.


   One Would Have You Think the EVO Eats Batteries For Lunch(Note 45 minutes elapsed between 1st warning and 5% warning)

Last week, Michael Arrington of TechCrunch aggressively said the HTC EVO was "seriously flawed" and said not to buy the phone - the same I've been using since Google I/O. One major reason cited was the battery life. It's the major knock against the device I hear in most reviews. My experience hasn't been so brutal, but it, like the iPhone before it, and my laptops, and every digital device I've used, has required me to bring power along, for fear of going dark. In fact, practically the only mainstream computing device I've used that has a battery to be celebrated is the iPad. Whatever Steve Jobs and team did to get that bad boy up and running for a few days is fantastic - but it is the exception, not the rule.

When using the EVO or iPhone or laptop, I plug in whenever possible. It's become as old hat as hitting Save every few minutes any time I use a Microsoft application. Old habits die hard. Today, I chose to use the EVO as I have been, but to keep it unplugged and let it run down to zero. Turns out, despite warnings out there that it's toast after about three hours, it was unplugged for more than 9 hours before spouting warnings, and I can't even guarantee it was full when I started. Interestingly enough, the EVO (and other Android phones, I assume) features the option to find out just what it is that is driving the battery downward.

What's Consuming My Battery Anyway?

According to the device, the hours of phone calls I made sapped 29% of the battery. Cell standby took another 17%, Bluetooth 17%, 15% for idling, and 13% for the Android OS itself. Good to know. But even though I had made hours of calls, and other activity on the device, it rivaled my experience with the last generation iPhone, which similarly was notorious for draining the battery, whether I used it or not. And while many people have pointed to needing to use a Task Killer to reduce drain on the EVO, Apple's helpful guide on preserving iPhone battery life isn't all that different - saying to fetch data less frequently, avoid Push notifications, or even to go into Airplane mode whenever possible!

Needless to say, companies like Apple wouldn't have to go into such details about preserving battery life if the phones were designed for always-on behavior. Meanwhile, laptop batteries are about the same they were more than a decade ago. In 1998, Apple introduced the PowerBook G3, claiming five hours of battery life, ostensibly enough to watch a DVD through fully, twice. The newest Apple MacBook Pros say they can last from eight to ten hours, though I don't know of many people who can claim having reached that threshold. So in 12 years, assuming truth in marketing, battery life has improved about 60-80 percent, while Internet speeds have improved much more dramatically, and CPUs have morphed from hundreds of megahertz to a few gigahertz. Batteries continue to lag the market, relative to most other measures.

It seems the best way to preserve battery life on laptops or mobile phones is to simply not use the devices or reduce activity on those devices. But today's machines are being built for multi-tasking, and for ever-increasing demands via Web browsers and high octane Office or rich media editing apps. I'm happy we're now seeing the first real products that leverage wireless power, but they are so limited as to not even be intriguing to this early adopter. I want real wireless power, just like 802.11, or I want an alternative that lets me charge up on the go, without cords. In this case, it's not about jousting between phone models, it's about making the same leap we did in networking. Fewer wires. More functionality. How can we get there?

Thoughts On AT&T (What Steve Jobs Should Have Written)

Inspired by: Thoughts on Flash

Apple has a long relationship with AT&T. In fact, we share 1984 as a rebirth of sorts for both companies - us with the introduction of the Macintosh, and them with their government-forced breakup into eight companies, thanks to intervention by the U.S. Department of Justice. By 1986, we saw AT&T rise to the #3 position in computer sales, while we held the #2 spot, behind IBM. In the early 1990s, we asked AT&T to design Hobbit, a high-speed low-power chip for our Newton project. While we later chose ARM for the Newton, we respected AT&T's efforts. I could keep going, but just trust me when I say the two companies have long worked closely together to pioneer the world of telecommunications and computing and there have been many good times. More recently, in 2007, Apple chose Cingular as our exclusive provider of cellular phone service for the iPhone. We chose Cingular because it was the best, and the most popular. After this time, Cingular purchased AT&T Wireless, and became the new AT&T. Our old friend, back again. Today, the two companies - Apple and AT&T - still work together to serve customers cellular phone service and 3G mobile Internet access - but beyond that there are few joint interests.

I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on AT&T's wireless service so that customers and critics may better understand why we should soon be moving away from exclusivity with AT&T on our iPhones and iPads in the United States. AT&T has characterized our relationship as strong, and heavily leans on revenue they have received from Apple iPhone customers to show the company's strength - but in reality, this relationship is falling apart based on technology issues. AT&T claims that they have the strongest 3G wireless offering in the country, and that almost all Americans have access to their network, but in fact the opposite is true. Let me explain.

First, there's "The Best 3G Experience"

AT&T says they have the "best" 3G experience. This is true, assuming you live in one of the few places in the United States that has access to 3G. The reason it is the best? Because they have access to the iPhone and the iPad. It's not the network that makes the 3G experience so good. It's our applications and our hardware. While AT&T says their 3G network is widely available, that does not mean you can get access to it - even in major metropolitan areas, such as San Francisco and New York. By almost any definition, AT&T's "best" is a level of mediocre so horrid we would never allow it to have an Apple brand associated with it.

Apple has many products we also call the "best". Our laptops are the best in the world. Mac OS X is the best operating system in the world. Our digital devices are best in class. They are practically works of art that belong in a museum, and you would leave your significant other to have one. Apple defines what is best because we are the best. We have set the standard in every market.

Second, there's "The Nation's Fastest 3G Network"

AT&T has repeatedly said their network offers the fastest 3G experience - and their commercials highlight benchmarks that show quicker download speeds than Verizon. What they don't say is that this only happens in 3 out of the top 100 metropolitan areas in the country, and when you are actually sitting within 40 feet of an AT&T access point, provided nobody else is using the network at the same time you are. With the iPad and iPhone presenting perhaps the best content discovery and viewing experience ever, you will be frequently challenged to find a place where you can consider AT&T's 3G network "fast".

This is evidenced by the recent news that the 3G experience on our new 3G iPad is crippled, stuck at an embarrassing 64 Kbps when streaming video on AT&T's network. The only way this is the fastest is when it comes to how quickly our customers are giving up trying and hitting stop, only to wait until they don't need to rely on this slow 3G network, and can tap into trusted WiFi. There are more videos, songs and game titles available for iPhone and iPad than for any other platform in the world, but AT&T's "fast" 3G network isn't fast enough.

Third, there's "Talk and Surf at the Same Time"

AT&T recently highlighted the network's ability to talk and surf the Web at the same time on a single device. We know first hand that AT&T can make this claim only because they drop so many calls automatically, customers are still looking up the data on the Web before they realize the conversation has been interrupted. AT&T's fine print shows you can surf the Web and talk at the iPhone at the same time, so long as you are only talking with yourself. We don't want to reduce the reliability and high customer satisfaction of our iPhones and iPads by sticking with AT&T.

In addition, AT&T has promised network upgrades every year that would withstand the high demand from our customers. We have routinely asked AT&T to deliver the ability to tether iPhones to laptops or iPads, or any mobile device, to provide Internet access, for a few years now. We have never seen it. AT&T publicly said that tethering would ship in late 2009, then the first half of 2010, and now they say the second half of 2010. We think it will eventually ship, but we're glad we didn't hold our breath. Who knows what level of mediocrity they would ask us to accept?

Fourth, there's HTC and BlackBerry and Nokia.

To achieve a long partnership when working in mobile, companies need to be working together as one. But despite our exclusive agreement with AT&T for them to be the sole wireless carrier for our devices, they never returned the favor, offering to sell only Apple mobile devices - despite the fact ours are the best. Many of AT&T's alternative partners, including HTC and Nokia, are actually in the middle of deep, intricate lawsuits with us, and we cannot abide with a "partner" who makes deals with these other companies behind our back.

Although AT&T claims to be offering a wide family of devices with a family of mobile operating systems, at Apple, we recognize that it is support of all these other devices which is slowing their network down, and reducing accessibility for the only customers who really matter - Apple customers, who have proven themselves as valuable and more intelligent customers because of their computing device choices.

When carriers open up their networks to competitive products that are infringing on our patents, which we will defend tirelessly, we cannot trust that those clients are not reverse-engineering our hardware and software by intercepting our wireless signals. We cannot risk the security and trust of our customers by spending another day sharing the spectrum with cheap knockoffs such as these.

Fifth, there's Sex.

Apple is sexy. I famously once asked a job applicant at Apple, "Are you a virgin?" Some of these AT&T drones, and their entire business, have absolutely no sex appeal. There is nothing sexy about telephone wires, counting minutes and pixelated video. Apple's revolutionary multi-touch interface and hardware doesn't need to be made impotent by being tied to such a soulless and emotionless corporation who cannot deliver in the boardroom, let alone the bedroom.

Even if AT&T were to redesign their sterile Death Star-like logo to be hot pink and they started every commercial with electronic house music, it would not solve the problem that their access is terrible, their leadership is poor and they are pulling us down like an oil slick takes down a seagull.

Sixth, the most important reason.

Besides the fact that AT&T does not offer fast 3G access practically anywhere in the country, constantly drops standard voice calls in every place in the country, cannot handle our current demand from its elite Apple customer base, and cannot be expected to upgrade their network or deliver basic features, such as MMS or phone tethering, on a schedule that is even close to its competition, and that they lack loyalty and sex appeal, there is a more important reason we do not want to move forward with the AT&T relationship with iPhones and iPads. We have discussed the many downsides of this AT&T contract, and how it has crippled our revolutionary devices, but AT&T wants you as consumers to pay more for the privilege of getting screwed.

We know from painful experience that bad customer service does not always return an inexpensive price. After all, look at Microsoft Office or Adobe Creative Suite for two examples of hugely expensive products that stink. AT&T must have gone to the same school of price gouging and marketing to come up with their strategy to charge Apple customers, because many of you are paying triple digits each month just to get your phone to see two or maybe three bars a few hours every day.

This becomes even worse if AT&T tricks you into purchasing an unlimited data plan for your iPad or your iPhone. You are paying upwards of $30 a month for data alone, only to find you can't download hardly anything over AT&T's network, because you can never get to it. Again, we cannot accept an outcome where our customers are blocked from using our innovative devices because their downstream Web services and applications are inaccessible on the network.

Our motivation is simple - we want to provide the most advanced and innovative platform for our customers, and we want them to pay a fair price for high quality. At Apple, we aren't shy about asking customers to pay the most if they are getting the best, and we will always deliver the best the world has ever seen. We want to continually enhance our offerings so everyone wins. AT&T is standing in our way and yours, and we want to delight you in the way we know we can.

Conclusions.

AT&T was created in the 19th century for a time of operator switch boards and later, rotary phones. Wireless is a successful business for AT&T and we can understand if they don't understand this new world of 3G, high speed data and next generation mobile devices. This new era is all about instant access and real connections - calls that complete, downloads that actually happen, and openness for the best hardware platform in the world - all areas where AT&T falls short.

The avalanche of wireless carriers begging to be associated with Apple's mobile devices demonstrates that AT&T is no longer necessary for Apple's iPad and iPhone to move forward. The millions of phones we have in consumers' pockets around the world show that our ecosystem is thriving, despite having AT&T as a boat anchor in our home country.

New standards for download speeds, connectivity and real-time application response will win on mobile devices like the iPad and iPhone. Perhaps AT&T should focus more on creating access points and any connectivity at all, rather than criticizing Verizon and other mature carriers for delivering good products. Apple is going to leave the past behind. You just wait.

May, 2010

What Makes More Sense: iPhone Tethering or a Wireless Card?

This week is Apple's annual Worldwide Developers' Conference (WWDC). Widely anticipated to be part of the week's festivities is the roll-out of an upgraded iPhone, and of course, its use of the long-awaited iPhone 3.0 software, which will contain a number of solid features, not the least of which is Apple-approved tethering, which would let you use your iPhone essentially as a wireless modem for your laptop, giving you Web access at 3G speeds.

Tonight, while driving back from the Sacramento area after a weekend at my parents, I got in the passenger seat, as my wife drove, and popped open the laptop to queue a list of e-mails, in an attempt to make sure I hadn't overlooked anything in the in box. But, like on an airplane with no WiFi, I couldn't check new messages, and my responses had to wait until the next time I was connected.

Meanwhile, I could always close the laptop, and look instead to my iPhone for the latest e-mails, and surf the Web, but on a smaller screen.

And that all seemed silly. My iPhone had the Web, and the laptop didn't. If the iPhone and computer were set up for tethering, I could leverage the iPhone's Web connection and use the computer's larger screen, its desktop applications and file archive.

And there's the second option - purchasing a dedicated wireless card.

I always had a tendency to mock the wireless cards I've seen added to other's laptops. My Macs have always had 802.11 embedded, and I try to stay close enough to WiFi, but if I had that wireless card in my MacBook Pro, I wouldn't ever really have to think about it. I could have surfed the Web in the car, and I could take the laptop to the park, making that my home office.

Both solutions have their positives and negatives, if I think too hard about it. I am already paying for the iPhone's unlimited data plan from AT&T, so cost would not be an issue, while, I would no doubt sap the iPhone's battery life. Also the clumsiness of making sure the two devices were connected, when I would like to remove wires, and not add more, would be annoying.

But I also don't want to set up yet another recurring monthly payment to fuel my technology addiction, so getting a wireless card that goes virtually anywhere seems like overkill.

We will find out on Monday if we are any closer to having an Apple-approved solution for iPhone tethering, and of course, if it works for the iPhone I have now, not just the next generation. If I have it, I'll try it out, for sure. But as I know a number of my contacts, such as Jesse Stay, have already sprung for the wireless card, what would you recommend? Should I just follow Apple like an unthinking sheep?

File Magic Syncs Files from Desktop to iPhone, Including Wireless

The more I add applications to the iPhone, I have to ask myself if there is anything this Cupertino-born handset can't do. With the newest introduction of File Magic, from SplashData, I can now leverage available storage space on the iPhone to synchronize any kind of documents, videos, music or graphics, through the power of drag and drop, or even wireless syncing. Even after trying out dozens of different apps, I still find myself getting excited about seeing the iPhone learn new tricks - even if it's the relatively simple task of getting data from my computer to the phone and letting me view it directly.


File Magic On the Desktop Syncs With iPhone
File Magic 2.0 comes in two parts - a free desktop application, and the iPhone app, available on the iTunes Store for $4.99. And the combination lets you escape out of iTunes as the file manager, and add all sorts of Microsoft Office document types, including .doc, .ppt and .xls, as well as .pdf files, impossible through iTunes. These files can even be opened in the iPhone app itself, which makes for a cheap eBook reader, should you want to go that route.


File Magic Connects Your Desktop to Your iPhone
Back when I had a first generation Handspring Visor Deluxe, the "in" thing was to beam your data, your applications or your documents to another user by infrared. Surprisingly, the iPhone hasn't let you do such a thing (even when Microsoft Zune made a big deal out of it... to little success). File Magic not only lets you share files from iPhone to iPhone, but you can e-mail the files to anybody in your address book, and yes, send files wirelessly from your PC or Mac.


As You Add Documents, You Can Browse Or View Them
I have gotten so used to my iPhone being connected to my laptop via USB that I was actually surprised to see how fluid it was to drop a new file on the desktop File Magic application, and see my iPhone start to receive it across the room. Given I get e-mail and Web updates on the iPhone wirelessly, that shouldn't have been a shock, but I'd accepted the "you must transfer files by USB" standard of late.

In my testing, I transfered over Microsoft Word documents, PDF documents, graphics files and folders containing images and documents. I transfered over a 32 megabyte .mov movie, and then watched it in perfect clarity on the phone.

It's like having a little desktop to go. My iPhone, so far, has largely been limited to running file data from Apple's iLife suite of apps. Photos, Movies, Music, and E-mail all are standard. But Word, Excel and PDF are now just as available thanks to File Magic, which is pretty darn cool.

You can find out more about File Magic on their site. The product is available for both Mac and Windows for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The Love/Hate Relationship With My Bluetooth Earpiece

With the state of California recently making it illegal to drive while using a cell phone that has not been equipped as hands-free, finding a bluetooth earpiece I was happy with was a must. A friend of mine passed along a top name-brand product, thanks to his having one too many. And while when it works, I have few complaints, just getting it to connect to my iPhone and stay connected is a multiple times a day struggle. Sometimes, it even seems like I spend more time getting the two products to talk than I do talking on them myself.

I don't want to throw the vendor under the bus, so I'll leave them out of it. But in my opinion, technologies should be able to auto-recognize one another, stay paired, and then work as expected. Instead, I find that the iPhone and the earpiece drop each other's connections any time I separate them by more than say, 10 feet, at any point, when I connect them they don't always stay paired, and I need to pair and unpair them multiple times a day.

The iPhone's setup for BlueTooth is relatively simple, I would think. Click on the Settings app, choose general, choose Bluetooth, make sure it's on, and then add a device to connect. Got it.

But what I'm finding is that the iPhone is a liar. It says it's connected, but if I try and make a call, it doesn't show the earpiece as an option. And on the flip side, if I pick up the iPhone to speak into it directly, it will flip the audio source to the earpiece without my asking. Grr.

The result is that I find myself charging the earpiece all day at work, overnight, and going through a multi-step process to keep them connected by brute force. Every time before I get into the car, I make sure I have both devices in close proximity. Then I clear whatever connection the iPhone thinks it has, I go back to the home menu and open up the preferences again. Then I force a new connection. And then, I still might find myself driving along the road, close to cursing, doing the dual device reconnection dance.

Given I often want my hands free at home as well - to type and take notes during an interview, or just to take care of the twins, getting the iPhone and earpiece to play well together is critical, and the flakiness is driving me nuts. When it works great, yay, but I'm not exactly set up to write an amazing testimonial.

What experiences have you found? Did I get a bum device? Does the iPhone just not take to Bluetooth all that well? Is it user error? I'm listening (as soon as I can get my earpiece in).

My iPod Touch is Rarely Used for Music

Almost three months ago, we welcomed the iPod Touch to our family.

At the time, I was looking forward to taking videos with me on trips, for surfing the Web via WiFi, and for listening to scads of music. After all, Steve Jobs once said the iPhone, and ergo the iPod Touch, had the best iPod experience ever created. But it's been interesting to see that while my first iPod was all about music, the iPod Touch hardly ever gets used for that purpose.

So what am I doing with my iPod Touch? The overwhelming majority of activity is to browse the Web via WiFi, whether just away from the laptop, or at a friend's home with WiFi. Given the iPod synchronizes its bookmarks with my Safari Web browser, and with the addition of widgets for e-Mail, stocks and weather, just about anything I need is a few "touches" away. And the iPod Touch, to be honest, is the best device I can think of for taking the Web into places where a laptop wouldn't make sense. Ever take a PowerBook into the men's room at work? Didn't think so. But an iPod Touch fits right in your pocket...

As expected, I have used the iPod Touch for viewing movies and TV shows, especially on plane flights. Before my flight to Boston last month, and for this shorter trip to Phoenix, I made sure to rent one or two films before taking off. While Apple hasn't gained the fullest of movie libraries for rent yet, I've found a number of titles worth watching, especially when my alternative is craning my neck to see whatever United or US Airways has on tap. (My latest iPod Touch movie? Punch Drunk Love... and you can skip it.)

With Web access and TV or film, the need to play music is fading. While on my laptop, I almost always have iTunes going, but for my iPod Touch, iTunes is almost a forgotten app.

Recent Apple advances have made iTunes music even less important since I first got my iPod Touch. I've added custom icons to my home screen for Facebook, louisgray.com, FriendFeed and Twitter, and each offers me one-click access to where I'm most frequently engaged and communicating. I'd have added buttons for TechMeme and SiteMeter as well, but so far, I've chosen appearance over functionality, as neither site has a good custom icon. (Here's a great "how to" from Webomatica.)

Gaining the new widgets now puts .Mac and GMail in my pocket, with send and receive functionality. It's not quite able to replace the Blackberry yet, but I've grown quite adept at touch typing on it, more so than I had originally expected. Adding movie rentals to iTunes also made going to P2P networks for films much less inviting.

I'm near my laptop at home and work so often it's a rare time that I need to use my iPod Touch for music. I'm glad it's there if I ever need to tap into it, but over time, it's becoming less and less. Now it's a lot less about finding the right playlist, and a lot more about finding the best open wireless hotspot. That's more than I would have expected when Apple first debuted their original iPod years ago.

In the Future, Everything Electronic Must Be Wireless

Last week, Apple made rumormongers a bit excited when word of MacBook Air prematurely leaked. With silence from Apple in advance of MacWorld, excited Mac fans speculated the new laptop would not only get rid of the optical drive (which it did), but also get rid of power cables, as well as adopting WiMax, delivering pervasive high-speed wireless Internet access from any location. (Rumors like this have been out for years...)

While Apple didn't deliver on these dreams, this time, I believe we stand on the cusp - where developers find new ways to eliminate wires - delivering wireless power, wireless Internet and wireless connectivity between devices, bringing us to an unconnected, truly mobile, future. And it can't come too soon.

In our home, we have ubiquitous wireless Internet. Our Airport Extreme provides wireless access to my laptop, my wife's laptop, our Nintendo Wii, and our TiVo HD (with optional wireless network adapter). We play our Nintendo Wii with wireless controllers. And we use remote controls to interact with many of these devices.

But everything else is wired. We need cables to deliver power to each device. We need cables to deliver television content to the TV. We need cables to transmit audio and video from the DVD player to the TV, from the TiVo to the TV. From the Wii to the TV. The tangled wire jungle once seen only in corporate datacenters is now commonplace in living rooms and bedrooms everywhere, as we add more and more digital devices - and this is entirely the wrong direction.

When you see commercials touting high-definition flat-screen televisions, you always see them flush on the wall, without a wire in sight. When Apple advertises their breathtakingly designed computers, they are shown, again, without wires. Wires are ugly. Wires get tangled and are cumbersome. The companies that make these devices know that, but they aren't solving the problem.

Soon, our living room will feature our 50-inch Samsung on the wall. Our bedroom will have a 42-inch plasma TV on the wall. But where do my wires go? What kind of design is achieved when the TVs are adorned with an array of spaghetti-like strands dangling awkwardly toward the power strips and components below? I can't exactly take an axe to the wall between the two rooms and build out an electronics closet.

In my mind, not only do we need wireless Internet, and wireless power, but we also need to enable our digital devices with BlueTooth or 802.11 capable addressing, so the TiVo can talk with the DVD player, the Apple TV, the Nintendo Wii and the TV itself, without dragging cables between each machine. I shouldn't have to battle for open ports and connectors, and untangle a veritable rat's nest of wires just to enjoy the entertainment or information I've brought into my home.

The issues of wireless power and wireless device connectivity are in my mind more important than higher bandwidth speeds, higher disk drive capacities or improved video and audio resolution. I want my data and my connectivity to be pervasive. I want high-speed Web access anywhere, without wires. I want my devices to be wire-free. Now.

See also:
It's Time to Make Power Wireless and Battery-Free
The Power to Set You Free (of Power Cords)

Take Your Blog or Web Site Mobile With Wirenode

One of the big drivers behind RSS syndication is the ability to publish once and distribute anywhere. A single posting to a blog is now not only posted on your main site, but through software RSS readers, e-mail applications, widgets and the like. Your content is also being taken beyond the Web browser and PCs to mobile phones, often with unpredictable results. One new startup, Wirenode, based in the Czech Republic, is looking to help you optimize your site for mobile access, so you can be sure it looks the way you would like.

I first met Tomas Zeman of Wirenode at the Plug and Play Expo in Sunnyvale in September, where he gave a demonstration of the company's product, and how you can easily create a mobile-optimized version of your site, confidently knowing it will display well on mobile phones, no matter the brand or carrier. Today, I got a follow up note from Tomas saying he had done me a favor and mobilized my blog, at http://louisgray.wirenode.mobi/.

(You can see a screen capture of what that mobilized site looks like on the right)

The promise of Wirenode is that publishers can take their presence beyond the browser, and modify the way mobile consumers access and view their content. Content owners can login to the site to modify the way it's displayed or make edits.

But, while Wirenode is working on optimizing your Web site for mobile access, mobile providers are optimizing their hand sets for what's seen as "the real Internet", Apple's iPhone included. Are people really going to go to my mobile Web site instead of louisgray.com on their handheld? I'm not sure. But we'll see where their technology is headed.

After all, how could you not root for a company whose "about us" page was written in ComicLife, and whose blog marvels at the wonders of the San Francisco Bay Area on a recent visit?

Want to get your blog or Web site optimized for mobile phones and get your own wirenode.mobi address? Start at www.wirenode.com.

We're Back Home In the Bay Area

Some quick notes after our week (plus one day) away:

* We DID have some impact from the earthquake, which was evident immediately. Some of our pictures and picture frames on bookshelves or stands had been knocked over. In one amusing example, one of my two fantasy football trophies looked like it had been flung three feet from the bookshelf. More likely, it fell and bounced, but still, pretty impressive. Also, one plaque on the wall is now at a 30 degree angle, when I swear it was straight before. Despite that fun, no damage, and nothing broken. I looked throughout the house.

* Although I had thought I adjusted well to the switch to Standard Time, I forgot all about it before going to bed last night. So when I thought I was going to get up early (at 6 a.m., according to the alarm clock), I was actually getting up at 5 a.m. No rest for the wicked, I guess.

* Our 18 year-old beagle, Molly, is home from my mother-in-laws, and doing fine. She seemed out of sorts last night, disoriented, and likely a bit miffed we abandoned her for longer than I can remember, as this trip exceeded even our honeymoon. Combined with the fact Molly goes to bed at 9 p.m. when at "Grandma's", and we had her up past 11, it's no surprise she seemed to be a bit in a fog. Don't worry though, by the time I served her breakfast kibble this morning, all was well.

* There's something to be said to coming home to a technology haven. We drove all over Denver and Aurora yesterday looking for WiFi, until we found it at an Aurora Barnes and Nobles, helped by my looking it up via my Blackberry on Google Apps. Now at home, we confirmed our WiFi works, the TiVo recorded all the shows we asked it too (including this year's Halloween Simpsons episode), and we're back in the swing of things. There's also the matter of our WiFi being faster than the hotel, although it was admittedly pretty good.

Now, I'l have to avoid the typical post-break doldrums and not feel like I need more time off right away.

The Power to Set You Free (of Power Cords)

In February, I stated one of my biggest tech wishes is to find a wireless power solution for my laptop or other devices. While we've grown accustomed to wireless Internet in most major locations (home, work, airport, hotels, etc.), we're still required to lug around power supplies which present issues themselves, as cords fray and connectors get bent or misaligned.

I've suggested the first company to make wireless power simple and affordable will have a major hit on their hands. GeekWhat's Tony Chung agreed.

Now, it appears others are waking up to the potential for wireless power to become a reality. A company called Powercast has developed a way to power low-voltage devices wirelessly, and Philips will be bringing it to market, according to Mathew Ingram.. Chris Pirillo is similarly excited, saying "Finally, a piece of technology that nobody will be able to live without."

Powercast has a major write-up in the upcoming April issue of Business 2.0, which any good geek should be subscribed to, BTW. Business 2.0 says the technology isn't any more sophisticated than AM or FM radio, as it converts radio waves into DC electricity.

The biggest drawback I could find in this early access product? It only charges to distances of 3 feet, for now. So it won't power large devices, and it won't power them over the distance of a room or a house, so there's still a lot more work to do, but I really like the direction this is going. I can't wait to ditch the power cord.

Hotel and Airport Internet Access a Must

I've ranted and raved here before on the number of times I've checked into a supposedly swank hotel, only to find the hoops I need to jump through in order to get a quality Internet experience can negatively impact the whole trip. For some reason, it seems that the more I pay per night in a hotel, the more I end up paying per day, and the less I pay per day for the hotel stay, the more likely it is that my access will be both fast and free. Being budget minded doesn't mean I have to give up something I believe to be a requirement.

In this weekend's trip to Phoenix, we stayed at the Doubletree Guest Suites, and had great wireless Internet access. I could turn on the laptop and get high speed Internet anywhere in our suite. But it wasn't perfect. Not only did I have to pay $9.99 a day for the privilege, but I had to call the front desk every day to turn on my access, as the password changed every day at noon. This made us have a daily ritual where I called the front desk around 12:02 p.m. to get the new day's codes, only to call back 24 hours later. Even the front desk said they were annoyed by the policy, but there was nothing they could do.

It could have been worse, for sure. In the last few years I've gone to hotels that didn't feature any kind of Internet in their rooms, but only in the lobby, I've gone to hotels that promised high speed wireless, but I could only get a fraction of the signal if I placed the desk chair and laptop in the closet or huddled next to the door, and I've found others that required me to run Microsoft Windows. I've paid anywhere from $4.95 a day to $19.95 a night, regardless of how much activity I had online.

I see the hotel Internet access issue as being graded:

A: Free high-speed wireless access in hotel rooms and the lobby
B: High-speed wireless access in hotel rooms and the lobby for a fee
C: High-speed access in hotel rooms via in-room Internet cable
D: High-speed access in the lobby or business center
F: Anything less than high-speed access

This issue is even worse when it comes to airports. For some reason, the Silicon Valley's major airport hubs, in San Jose and San Francisco, demand you pay ten bucks or so through T-Mobile for the privilege of synching up before the flight, whether you are just catching up on e-mail before boarding, or find yourself stranded for a day changing from airline to airline. Oddly enough, other airports, in Las Vegas and Phoenix (where I am now) don't ask for diddly squat - only that you agree not to do anything nefarious on their network. Given their courtesy, I promise to be good at least for an hour or so.

To ensure highest productivity, I need to have immediate access to Internet on all my travels. Those vendors which solve the access issue will get my business. Those that don't will find themselves passed by as the more technology-oriented of travelers choose alternatives.

New Apple Airport On Its Way Early

While it wasn't as exciting as learning my new AppleTV had shipped, or if I had somehow obtained early access to the iPhone, I received a pleasant message in my e-mail today, as Apple let me know they had received clearance to offer their newest 802.11n-capable Airport base stations, and they were set to ship immediately, a full two weeks ahead of schedule. Now, instead of expecting my new wireless experience in March, it's looking a lot more like I'll be zipping around wirelessly a lot more quickly come Valentine's Day or so.

Below is the text of the e-mail.

  To Our Valued Apple Customer:

  Apple today began shipping our new AirPort Extreme Base Station (802.11n). We
  are delighted to tell you that we plan to ship your AirPort Extreme Base
  Station (802.11n) two weeks earlier than we had anticipated. We now plan to
  ship your product on or before Wednesday, February 14. No action on your part
  is required.

Silly Apple. Don't they know that the way to dominate the market is to announce delay after delay and increase anticipation?