Friday, February 6, 2009 - John Greene
If you’re on the internet regularly, you’ve heard about Twitter, the microblogging service that lets you and your friends stay in touch. I’m on Twitter (I lock my updates and I won’t give out my ID here – more on that in a bit,) Wil Wheaton is on Twitter, MC Hammer is on Twitter, and most importantly, UltimateBet is on Twitter. Right now, we’re primarily using it to notify our followers of events that are coming up and blog entries, but don’t be surprised if it become more active as more people follow us.
I use Twitter in a very specific way – I use it to update my friends about what I’m doing, not just broadcast to the general public. I don’t have the thousands of followers that the former Wesley Crusher has, nor do I want to. I like that Twitter gives you flexibility like that, letting you have a circle of friends that keep tabs on each other, or a global network that allows your lunch updates (tomato soup, cheese sandwich, bottle of Sam Adams) to appear on anyone’s screen, anywhere. There’s also Twitter feeds from Amazon and other outlets, letting you know of deals, concerts, showtimes, and more. It’s a fantastic way to use the web, even if the vast majority of people limit it to using it as I do.
On my Blackberry, I use the Twitterberry application, and friends of mine swear by the ThinCloud Twitter for iPhone interface, which resizes the site for the iPhone really nicely and lets you get access to pretty much anything with a couple of taps. You can also (at least in the US) text updates to Twitter directly from any phone with SMS capabilities, which would be pretty much any phone out there at this point.
Of course, one day, they’re going to have to figure out how they’re going to pay for all this neat technology, but until then, start using Twitter and get the most out of the time you spend online. It’s pretty much replaced Facebook for me on that “great ways to waste time online” list I’ve had in my head.
Tags: blackberry, iphone, Twitter
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Sunday, December 28, 2008 - John Greene
A friend of mine loaned me his spare Blackberry Storm recently, knowing that I was eager to get my hands on what Research In Motion has appeared to designate its very own iPhone killer. While I like the iPhone’s interface and software a lot, my nerdy disdain for AT&T and their involvement in the illegal wiretapping scheme means that I won’t be getting one until their exclusivity deal ends, and the Storm looked like a nice hybrid of what I love about the my current Blackberry Curve merged with an Apple-style touchy-feely experience.
After about two hours with the thing, I handed it back to him and said “that’s enough, but thanks.” The Storm’s touchscreen feels, frankly, like a Chinese mp3 player’s interface, with slow, unresponsive buttons. I’m not exaggerating when I say it took a full two to three seconds for the Storm to acknowledge that I’d pressed one button or the other and even after twenty or so minutes of dicking around with the photo application, I still couldn’t figure out how to access the multiple pictures of the tabletop I’d accidentally taken. My gorilla-like thumbs can send emails and more with the physical keyboard on the Curve at a fairly fast clip, but the slow response time and general mushiness of the Storm meant that I sent messages that read like “Tihs is a tset mssage” or “Teh baclkberry is teh worst phoen i haev tried.”
More vexing than the slow response time was the strange choice to go with a full-screen, physical “click” that ensures that you’re always a bit confused. There were several moments where I honestly had no idea what I’d just clicked on or why, but I was suddenly at another screen. When combined with the clackity-clack typing sound that I could never figure out how to turn off (I’m sure it’s on there, but the sheer button overload meant I spent more time trying to find functions than I did, you know, doing things,) it’s a strange and unsatisfying experience.
If you’ve got some Christmas cash or poker winnings to burn and the Storm looks temping, I’m going to have to tell you to wait. RIM has proven repeatedly that they move forward and fix problems faster than almost any other company in their space. I’d not be surprised if the middle of this year saw a more perfect Storm.
Tags: blackberry storm, iphone, Ultimate Gadgetry
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