Damn you HTC...?

I've always been quite keen on keeping the firmware of my phones up to date, so as soon as a new ROM image is made available I tend to install it at the earliest possible opportunity. This doesn't tend to happen very often, and is made worse when the phone is operator locked, however you can normally count on three or four updates during the first couple of years as long as the phone remains a current model.

My old Nokia N95 was locked to T-Mobile, so many updates never appeared, and those that did usually appeared several months after the generic roms had been released into the wild. This time around, my HTC Touch Pro2 is a geneneric unlocked device, so I'm at the top of the list when it comes to ROM updates.

The TP2 was supplied with Windows Mobile 6.1, and soon after the 6.5 upgrade was released I updated to this. Everything was working very well and the phone was very stable, 6.5 looked fairly impressive. A few months after this another new ROM image was released containing a some bug fixes from Microsoft and an update by HTC to a later Sense UI featuring closer integration to FaceBook and a built in Twitter client, so I duly updated to this - and that's when my troubles started.

I suspected the new Sense UI was ported from the version written for the HD2 or similar recent Windows phone, as the whole responsiveness has became considerably slower than the original WinMo 6.5 Sense UI. I can't help thinking it was therefore aimed at the newer, faster devices, and just slung onto older models with few, if any, modifications.

The first thing I noticed was updating contacts linked to FaceBook. At first I though this just crashed, in actual fact it's taking several hours (even over a Wi-Fi connection) to update the few contacts (sub 20) I have linked to their FaceBook profiles. That's not really acceptable

The bigger problem I've encountered is a couple of times when making a call. What happens is I'll select my contact from the list, and the phone will report it's calling them... until a different contact from my list answers. When you hang up the phone history list correctly states you called the wrong number.

This is simply not acceptable.

Along with this, the phone has become very unstable, locking for minutes at a time or crashing altogether on a frequent basis, I've even missed a couple of calls due to this (and been unable to terminate calls on several occasions ). I can also forget about using the speaker-phone (although that may be yet another hardware fault).

As mentioned I suspected this wasn't so much down to the underlying OS as much as Sense itself. To prove this I turned the Sense UI off and for the first time tried to use the new Windows Mobile 6.5 UI instead. It's not as good, but I figured that if it works it will be bearable until they hopefully release another ROM update.

I'm now a few days in and whilst there's several things about Sense I am missing, the actual 6.5 UI isn't too terrible. Interestingly, I'm not yet sure if things have been made any better on the reliability front. The phone does now boot several seconds faster (as it no longer needs to load Sense), but I have had at least a couple of occasions where it has frozen for several seconds, so if it is better now, it's not by much at the moment (Apple fans please don't tell me this wouldn't happen on an iPhone, I know several iPhone users who regularly curse the reliability of the device, one even has to reboot his phone every time he travels from London City to Docklands for some bizarre reason. This isn't just an issue with Windows Mobile).

I'll probably try a hard reset at some point but since these problems started soon after a bare update, I'm not hopeful. I'll be sure to let you know how I get on.

Of course, the downside of all of this is that I'm now a little wary of getting another HTC phone. I was thinking of a Nexus 2 if that's out by the time my contract comes up for renewal in December. We'll have to see now, mind you if it is down to the underlying OS, I'm unfairly giving HTC the blame. Mind you, I don't suppose Android is flawless...

Is This the New Gameboy?

With the run up to E3 (which starts in the next day or two) there's a shed-load of news appearing about what may make an appearance, including this article doing the rounds on various sites: Is This the New Gameboy?

I do wonder if the hand-held gaming platform may be ending its life as a separate device. Looking at the games offered by the likes of the iPhone, Windows Phone 7 and unfortunately to a lesser extent Android and even NGage, I expect to see this market swallow up the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS devices, perhaps with iPod Touch like derivatives for those who want something a bit bigger to game on.

Of course, only time will tell, and the DS is still the daddy of hand-held gaming, but just as the smart phone has been cosuming, or is consuming devices in other areas (PDA, GPS, Cameras, etc.) so gaming is becoming absorbed too.

When, I wonder, will we see a Nintendo phone? I'm guessing within 5 years.

Apple Rules!

I’m at once both loving and despairing over the spat between Apple and, primarily, Adobe.

In cutting off Adobe and other companies with their rules limiting of the source code requirements of applications (which as a developer strikes me as being quite strange) other tools apart from Flash have been affected. The nature of the development beat these days relies on a variety of tools to get applications delivered, not just a few chosen languages with massive do-it-all libraries.

Add to that the fact that Apple takes advantage of many closed APIs in the OS which other developers are expressly forbidden to utilise (for example the iBooks application uses closed APIs to do things as simple as adjust screen brightness, from what I’m lead to believe), and a lot of developers are getting… frustrated.

If the iPhone/iPad apps keep selling, then they’ll keep being developed, but as more and more competing operating systems rise through the ranks, the appeal will start to waver, developers who have been rejected or withdrawn from the App store will start to question where their time is better spent, and the flow of new apps may (just may) be directed to alternative devices.

Slowly the iPhone will be less appealing, sell fewer units, and the process will enter a cycle like Microsoft is now trying to get out of on their mobile platform (although this was for different reasons, mainly neglect of the OS at Microsoft).

I doubt there will be any measurable effect on Apple sales any time soon, it may not happen at all, but I suspect Apple may currently be sowing the seeds of its own destruction. That would actually be a bad thing as fewer players may lead to less innovation. Having said that, the mobile economy is so large at the moment that this is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Footnote: Don’t give me any rubbish about keeping the iPhone interface consistent over applications in the OS, have you seen iTunes on a PC? Even Sun introduced a Windows look and feel for Java.

Windows Phone 7 Burning The Boats

Joey deVilla has written an interesting article on the Global Nerdy blog: Apple, Windows Phone 7 and Burning the Boats (or: Why I Think Windows Phone 7 Doesn’t Have Copy and Paste)

It’s a thought, and I see the point, but the fact still remains that I want a phone that will let me do what Windows Mobile allows, so again I’ll re-iterate that I’m probably not the (initial) target market for the new phone. That’s a shame.

In semi-related news, I’ve been playing with Android 2.1 on my HTC Touch Pro2 to get a feel for it. So far the jury is out, but I haven’t given it a fair amount of time, it is, after all, a whole new OS to get to grips with and, for the moment at least, I am literally stabbing around willing things to work. Time will tell, but once I’m used to it (if I get that far) it will gain “likely points” on the “What new phone” decision that will take place at some point.

WPF Phone

I can already hear the iPhone owners: "Windows Phone 7 UI is a copy of the iPhone UI". I will understand this, but it's only looking at the UI from the perspective of an iPhone user.

I've not used an iPhone, primarily because I know that however good the OS looks (and it does look good), it doesn't offer the features I want (neither does Windows Phone 7, as mentioned many times before). However I was just browsing through a few screenshots of apps on the iTunes web pages and one thing repeatedly kept hitting me: "These apps look like they were written in WPF!"

WPF has been around since (AFAICR) the release of Vista, and at that time, as far as I was aware, Microsoft weren't trying to ape the iPhone UI to the desktop (although I dare say some inspiration was drawn from there, as is the nature with these things, although reading some of the documentation and tutorials on WPF I would say they were after a version of HTML for creating Windows clients originally).

WPF is the brother to Silverlight (with the alleged intention apparently to end up with a single technology at some point)

And  of course Windows Phone 7 is based on Silverlight and XNA.

I can see where this is going...

On an aside, several years ago there were hot rumours of Microsoft going into competition with the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. I can't think of any device they are scheduled to launch in the fall that may be doing this...

It's been argued before, but finally I can see mobile killing the likes of the PSP and DS. Perhaps it's a shame NGage never caught on after all.

Hard times in the job market.

Apparently the IT industry is getting back on its feet in a big way, at least in the US. I’ve not seen much evidence of this with the number of jobs being advertised online, certainly a few years ago my inbox was being crammed full of emails from job sites, many with several new and exciting opportunities. At the moment I’m subscribed to one list (…just to keep an eye on the market you understand…) and the number of jobs is currently running to about one every week to 10 days. I’ve changed my criteria since a few years ago, but not by much.

All this got me thinking about some interviews I attended at the Halifax when looking for a new job back in late 2006.

Essentially I had sat three interviews, the first a standard technical test which went very well (I vaguely recall this was one of those occasions where I found a problem in the question I was being asked that the interviewer, a question he’s been asking for several years. I’ve done this a few times in interviews, Goldman Sachs being another example*).

The second interview was with the team manager. Apparently several people had passed the technical round, but during the managerial interview she had turned down all the candidates so far. It’s an important step, if you don’t get on with the manager there can be no working relationship of value, and if they think you won’t fit into the team the role becomes very difficult for everybody.

To the delight of the agent (and he really did seem pleased) she liked me and I made it through to the HR round.

HR started off well. The small talk went OK, I’ve done a few of these and generally if you tell the truth, and that includes failures and achievements, then you don’t get caught out and they appreciate your honesty.

Then she asked me the next question on her script: “What projects have you worked on that have failed?”

I’ve worked on an array of software development projects over the years in various roles from development, management and analysis. Some have been more successful than others, but I can’t remember any that you would class as a failure.

There have been difficulties, things that were promised by sales teams which proved ultimately impossible to achieve ‘as sold’, issues getting information or client buy-in required to complete a task, and problems with implementing the ultimate solution. In all cases these have eventually been resolved, usually by consultation with the client. Most clients are reasonable if you demonstrate to them that you are not trying to rip them off.

The upshot has always been a happy (or at the very least, satisfied) client, even if the delivered product needed to deviate from the original specification, such is the nature of the beast.

Often the ultimate solution was more practical and beneficial than the original proposal. Problems encountered often highlight a misunderstanding in the requirements, unrealistic expectations or just plain faulty analysis.

That wasn’t the answer HR wanted to hear. She wanted a failed project from me.

I thought for a moment, what project could I spin into a failure? Some took much longer than expected. Some were canned before completion (or even before we started) due to changing priorities or requirements (but usually because the client “thought” they wanted one thing when they actually wanted something completely different, or nothing at all).

Neither of these satisfied Ms HR. She wanted a failure, and she wanted one NOW!

We had reached an impasse.

I don’t remember much after that, frankly I knew the damage had been done. For all I know she may have shown me ink blots (and I hope if she did I responded with “It looks like a man biting the head off a bunny”, but I know I wouldn’t).

I left dejected. I’ve screwed up plenty of things in my life, but apparently not enough for her.

Needless to say HR advised the team not to take me on as I didn’t have enough experience (the role specified a minimum of 2 years, at this point I had 15 years commercial on and off, 12 years solid).

The agent was astounded, and suggested “the manager was impressed with you, would you like to chase this up?”

I decided against it. By this point I no longer wanted to work with the company. What was the point arguing?

You can probably tell I’m still a little perplexed by these events, possibly more so because the company I ended up going to was so terrible (but I can’t legally tell you about that, well, not in any way that you could use to identify them).

Oh well, you live and learn… although on this occasion I’m not sure I actually learnt anything.

iPad Mobile 7 [Series]

I've just been reading Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either) on BoingBoing, and it seems to me much of what Cory Doctorow is saying will apply not only to the iPad but also to Windows Mobile 7 phones, with the exception of the non-replaceable battery.

Yes, Microsoft are giving away some wonderful tools to create applications for the device, but whilst they give this with one hand, the other hand takes this benefit away by restricting distribution channels to one vendor. The way I see it is that this is not a million miles away from the comments Cory makes on the Comic Book application, only in my case applied to software.

I've made this point before, so I won't harp on, but I just thought this was a nice perspective on the iPad/WinMo7 problems.

I was wondering why the iPad was being launched so close to the next revision of the iPhone OS, but I imagine it's so Apple can say "Hey, those gripes you had about Multi-tasking, and x, y, z, we've fixed them already! Look how cool and responsive we are", and thus keep the hype going a little longer and help people "forget" the remaining flaws.

For the record, My current stand on Windows Phone 7 is looking like this:

I'm not interested in getting a phone until some of my concerns are addressed (Multi-tasking, App Marketplace, Copy/Paste, SQL Server CE)

I'm very interested in writing some experimental apps for the device, which will possibly never leave the emulator (proof of concept?), but which I see as helping in my quest to master .Net development.

Time will tell what happens.