The Small Wave.

The title says it all. This is not in any way, shape, or form meant to be a review. These are just some observations I gathered watching Blackberry usage last week.

On vacation I saw lots of iPhones and BBs (FYI, I don’t recall seeing a single Palm). On three occasions I sat right next to a BB user (once on a plane and twice in the airport), and it was very interesting to watch their interactions with the device. Certain things struck me:

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A week ago Thursday — just one day before leaving for a week-long vacation — I noticed my iPhone was not connected to my WiFi network. The other iPhone in the house was on it, as was the iPod Touch, iMac, and MacBook, so I knew the network was fine. 

Trying to connect to the network was flaky. It took a while for Settings to even open, and then it either wouldn’t find the network, or if it did I could “join” for a split-second before it reverted back to EDGE. 

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So Microsoft licensed FlashLite from Adobe for use in their Windows Mobile software. Not sure when it will be available in a mobile release, likely later this year.

Some have speculated this was to buy time until their own Silverlight product is ready for mobile use (with a few sites actually using it).

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I’m sure the Apple-bashers will be all over this one.

Starting in April you can get music tracks OTA on your BlackBerry. And they’re DRM-free. And you can transfer them to your computer. And all is right with the world. And iTunes is going out of business. And the iPhone is dead in the water.

Or something like that.

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From Paul Thurrott’s Windows SuperSite today, a shocking revelation:

In the second half of 2007, Microsoft’s partners shold [sic] 14.3 million Windows Mobile phones. This compares to 4 million iPhones that Apple sold in the same time period.

Put another way, Windows Mobile outsold the iPhone by over 3 to 1.

Most would compare iPhone sales to other smartphone sales, but not Paul. Windows Mobile is on many phones no one would consider “smart”. So, put even another way, non-smartphones outsell smartphones in general.

Thanks for the newsflash, Paul. Got any updates on the Hindenburg?

One of the video podcasts I subscribe to Mr. Deity, now in its second season. In the latest episode, Mr. Deity claims ideology is the problem with fundamentalism. When asked if ideology is bad, he replies:

It’s the worst. Are you kidding me? Look at all the great evils they’re all ideologically driven. You got the crusades, the holocaust, communism, no third-party apps on the iPhone. Never, never surrender yourself to an idea my friend, never.

So it is spoken, so shall it be done?

Philip Elmer-DeWitt rarely writes anything that makes much sense. He jabs at Apple, but his best shots are the kind Mohammed Ali would be throwing today.

Most of the time I just ignore the guy, shaking my head. Still, every now and then he exceeds a threshold and I feel like I should point it out.

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Carl Howe at the Blackfriars’ Marketing wrote a great piece on Wednesday refuting all the garbage about Apple having to slash prices and sell loss-leader products. It’s fitting the headline began “News flash to reporters and analysts”, because a few of them appear to have read it.

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OK, fresh from all the keynote blog reading, I plugged in my iPhone and the 1.1.3 upgrade was available. Install went without a hitch and I’ve been playing with it a bit. Overall this is a nice upgrade, and there’s a guided tour video for it. I really like Apple’s guided tour videos and think they’re a nice touch.

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Let’s face it, next week we’ll all be discussing Macworld news, so I thought I’d review some tech headlines from the last few days and get them out of my system before the real fun begins next week…

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