The future that everyone forgot
June 4, 2014 2:07 PM Subscribe
Apple's WWDC keynote showcased some of the upcoming advancement in their platform, but let's take time to reflect on The future that everyone forgot. Chris DeSalvo, formerly of Danger, talks about the Hiptop/Sidekick and what they did. Such as in 2004 they created a GameBoy Advance + Hiptop phone that never shipped. Chris also went onto Google, worked on Android, and penned another piece of phone-lore: The Day Google Had to 'Start Over' on Android
My sister has gone through several Android phones, mostly of the Galaxy variety, and says none are as good as her sidekick was.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 2:22 PM on June 4, 2014
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 2:22 PM on June 4, 2014
Well that's a blast from the past.
My sister has gone through several Android phones, mostly of the Galaxy variety, and says none are as good as her sidekick was.
I've got a recent and relatively high-end Android phone and there's still a lot I miss about the Palm.
posted by Zed at 2:27 PM on June 4, 2014 [5 favorites]
My sister has gone through several Android phones, mostly of the Galaxy variety, and says none are as good as her sidekick was.
I've got a recent and relatively high-end Android phone and there's still a lot I miss about the Palm.
posted by Zed at 2:27 PM on June 4, 2014 [5 favorites]
Such as in 2004 they created a GameBoy Advance + Hiptop phone that never shipped.
That's awesome. Their reason for not launching seems odd. Too much work securing rights and filling the app store? With even a handful of first party Nintendo games you would be miles ahead of the Razr or whatever most people were using at the time.
I wonder if it was cold feet due to the crushing failure of the N-Gage the year before.
posted by Gary at 2:36 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
That's awesome. Their reason for not launching seems odd. Too much work securing rights and filling the app store? With even a handful of first party Nintendo games you would be miles ahead of the Razr or whatever most people were using at the time.
I wonder if it was cold feet due to the crushing failure of the N-Gage the year before.
posted by Gary at 2:36 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
Nintendo traditionally makes money on gaming hardware and software. Why would they give up the hardware side to support someone else's business? Ten years later and you still can't buy Nintendo software for a phone. Either Nintendo is incompetent or (more likely) they were never really interested.
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:41 PM on June 4, 2014
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:41 PM on June 4, 2014
I KNEW that gameboy phone existed. I remember so clearly hearing rumors and stuff about it right around that time, but i had chalked it up to "nintendo 65" type schoolyard made up BS.
It's interesting they called it G1 too, because i feel like i remembered that... but buried even deeper in my brain as "nah" convinced i was just thinking of well, the htc dream/G1.
That definitely showed up on some websites, in like 2004-5.
Danger was way, way ahead of their time. Like 5+ years basically continuously.
Look at how futuristic the powerbook 100 looked when it came out, compared to every other laptop at the time. Similarly, how mindblowing the iphone was compared to all the cheesy keyboard phones on the market.
Yea, there had been nokia communicator type stuff before but it was REALLY expensive, huge(not that the sidekick was small, but still), had crap battery life and an awkward interface.
The sidekick felt like something completely new. It reminded me of the very first time i picked up a palm IIIc(the first color one, if you're not familiar) and thought "wow, this sort of thing is going to basically replace my laptop some day". The thing, is the palm phones and such felt like taking a PDA and bolting a phone onto it. The sidekick felt like taking a phone, and adding the stuff you'd actually want in an intelligent way.
Yea, there was some dorky stuff like the detachable camera and whatever, but they iterated fairly quickly and it consistently got better. I never owned one, but i knew people who did and stared at them with consistent lust. I'd play with them for ages whenever i had an excuse to kill time at a place that had a phone department.
I've got a recent and relatively high-end Android phone and there's still a lot I miss about the Palm.
I have a friend who consistently smarts off about how the treo 600 was in several ways, sort of an apex of smart phone engineering and design. He had one that he abused to a completely comical degree(since he knew there was a spare around). He threw it through a plaster and lathe wall, it was in humid bathrooms during showers and had stuff spilled on it, it was crushed, left in incredibly hot cars, dropped probably thousands of times. It worked PERFECTLY. Not a single thing ever screwed up on it. None of the ports ever got loose or went bad, all the buttons were perfect, the touch screen was perfect. The display was also, almost, unscratchable.
The only other phones i've seen built to that sort of standard are the very early blackberries with the sunlight readable screens. That phone was a freaking tank. Even the battery life was pretty great.
And then somehow palm went and made the cool, but completely flimsy and cheesy Pre. I looked at the OS and said "this is a winner, this is great". I held the phone in my hand and went "and they'll be out of business pretty soon". It felt like a mis-spelled chinese knockoff compared to my iphone 3g. Whereas every iphone feels like a flimsy bauble from a jewelry store compared to that treo 600.(similarly, the unibody macbook pros feel sturdy until you pick up a real thinkpad, like an old T40 or t21 or something)
That's awesome. Their reason for not launching seems odd. Too much work securing rights and filling the app store? With even a handful of first party Nintendo games you would be miles ahead of the Razr or whatever most people were using at the time.
Nintendo, like Sony seems to have a massive case of Not Invented Here Syndrome. It's only a great idea if they came up with it, or completely started from scratch and made their own "better" version. This isn't the first story like this i've read or heard of. I don't completely blame them either. Go look at what happened when they tried to partner with sony to make the N64, which started out as an upgraded SNES...
You could probably make an FPP with the timeline of nintendo "collaboration" projects like this that went down in flames after a lot of work had been put in.
What i really want to know though, is why and how hasn't anyone created a successful game system phone, or even really taken a serious swing at one? the most recent one i can think of was the xperia play, which was sort of cool but just got completely neglected. I had high hopes they'd do a full-powered PS Vita phone, but it just never happened. Why? Where's the windows mobile xbox phone? I mean, the PS Vita is basically just the guts of a strong phone or tablet minus the making calls part. They even sell an LTE/3g version for fucks sake.
posted by emptythought at 2:42 PM on June 4, 2014 [3 favorites]
It's interesting they called it G1 too, because i feel like i remembered that... but buried even deeper in my brain as "nah" convinced i was just thinking of well, the htc dream/G1.
That definitely showed up on some websites, in like 2004-5.
Danger was way, way ahead of their time. Like 5+ years basically continuously.
Look at how futuristic the powerbook 100 looked when it came out, compared to every other laptop at the time. Similarly, how mindblowing the iphone was compared to all the cheesy keyboard phones on the market.
Yea, there had been nokia communicator type stuff before but it was REALLY expensive, huge(not that the sidekick was small, but still), had crap battery life and an awkward interface.
The sidekick felt like something completely new. It reminded me of the very first time i picked up a palm IIIc(the first color one, if you're not familiar) and thought "wow, this sort of thing is going to basically replace my laptop some day". The thing, is the palm phones and such felt like taking a PDA and bolting a phone onto it. The sidekick felt like taking a phone, and adding the stuff you'd actually want in an intelligent way.
Yea, there was some dorky stuff like the detachable camera and whatever, but they iterated fairly quickly and it consistently got better. I never owned one, but i knew people who did and stared at them with consistent lust. I'd play with them for ages whenever i had an excuse to kill time at a place that had a phone department.
I've got a recent and relatively high-end Android phone and there's still a lot I miss about the Palm.
I have a friend who consistently smarts off about how the treo 600 was in several ways, sort of an apex of smart phone engineering and design. He had one that he abused to a completely comical degree(since he knew there was a spare around). He threw it through a plaster and lathe wall, it was in humid bathrooms during showers and had stuff spilled on it, it was crushed, left in incredibly hot cars, dropped probably thousands of times. It worked PERFECTLY. Not a single thing ever screwed up on it. None of the ports ever got loose or went bad, all the buttons were perfect, the touch screen was perfect. The display was also, almost, unscratchable.
The only other phones i've seen built to that sort of standard are the very early blackberries with the sunlight readable screens. That phone was a freaking tank. Even the battery life was pretty great.
And then somehow palm went and made the cool, but completely flimsy and cheesy Pre. I looked at the OS and said "this is a winner, this is great". I held the phone in my hand and went "and they'll be out of business pretty soon". It felt like a mis-spelled chinese knockoff compared to my iphone 3g. Whereas every iphone feels like a flimsy bauble from a jewelry store compared to that treo 600.(similarly, the unibody macbook pros feel sturdy until you pick up a real thinkpad, like an old T40 or t21 or something)
That's awesome. Their reason for not launching seems odd. Too much work securing rights and filling the app store? With even a handful of first party Nintendo games you would be miles ahead of the Razr or whatever most people were using at the time.
Nintendo, like Sony seems to have a massive case of Not Invented Here Syndrome. It's only a great idea if they came up with it, or completely started from scratch and made their own "better" version. This isn't the first story like this i've read or heard of. I don't completely blame them either. Go look at what happened when they tried to partner with sony to make the N64, which started out as an upgraded SNES...
You could probably make an FPP with the timeline of nintendo "collaboration" projects like this that went down in flames after a lot of work had been put in.
What i really want to know though, is why and how hasn't anyone created a successful game system phone, or even really taken a serious swing at one? the most recent one i can think of was the xperia play, which was sort of cool but just got completely neglected. I had high hopes they'd do a full-powered PS Vita phone, but it just never happened. Why? Where's the windows mobile xbox phone? I mean, the PS Vita is basically just the guts of a strong phone or tablet minus the making calls part. They even sell an LTE/3g version for fucks sake.
posted by emptythought at 2:42 PM on June 4, 2014 [3 favorites]
What i really want to know though, is why and how hasn't anyone created a successful game system phone, or even really taken a serious swing at one?
Gaming is already hugely successful on smartphones. It's just that most of the games are cheap or free-to-play, and almost none of them require buttons or joysticks. One game last quarter, Candy Crush, made more money than every Nintendo game combined. And it wasn't even close. The list of mobile companies that that make more than traditional gaming companies is growing: GungHo, King, Supercell and others on the rise I've never heard of.
Phones don't need to become gaming machines, game companies need to figure out phones.
posted by 2bucksplus at 3:03 PM on June 4, 2014 [8 favorites]
Gaming is already hugely successful on smartphones. It's just that most of the games are cheap or free-to-play, and almost none of them require buttons or joysticks. One game last quarter, Candy Crush, made more money than every Nintendo game combined. And it wasn't even close. The list of mobile companies that that make more than traditional gaming companies is growing: GungHo, King, Supercell and others on the rise I've never heard of.
Phones don't need to become gaming machines, game companies need to figure out phones.
posted by 2bucksplus at 3:03 PM on June 4, 2014 [8 favorites]
People always seem to forget about the Sidekick these days. It was an insanely "God damn, we live in the future" device to me. Full featured web browsing, etc. Except for its "all photos taken automatically uploaded to a users Sidekick profile site" feature, that didn't turn out to well for some people..
posted by mediocre at 3:06 PM on June 4, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by mediocre at 3:06 PM on June 4, 2014 [2 favorites]
Go look at what happened when they tried to partner with sony to make the N64, which started out as an upgraded SNES...
IIRC, the original name for the Sony/Nintendo 32-bit project was "PlayStation", which Sony subsequently ran with after the collaboration fell through. It was only afterwards that Nintendo regrouped and decided to go Sony one better with their cart-based 64-bit system. I still wonder what the Nintendo PlayStation would have been like, especially with a designed-by-Nintendo controller instead of the frankly terrible PS1 pad.
posted by Strange Interlude at 3:14 PM on June 4, 2014
IIRC, the original name for the Sony/Nintendo 32-bit project was "PlayStation", which Sony subsequently ran with after the collaboration fell through. It was only afterwards that Nintendo regrouped and decided to go Sony one better with their cart-based 64-bit system. I still wonder what the Nintendo PlayStation would have been like, especially with a designed-by-Nintendo controller instead of the frankly terrible PS1 pad.
posted by Strange Interlude at 3:14 PM on June 4, 2014
My wife still misses her Diane von Furstenberg Sidekick.
posted by infinitewindow at 3:18 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by infinitewindow at 3:18 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
Just don't use an iOS device if you protest anything :
"So DROPOUTJEEP, so you can see right there. So, SMS, contact list retrieval, voicemail, hot microphone, camera capture, cell tower location. Cool. Do you think Apple helped them with that? I don’t know. I hope Apple will clarify that. I think it’s really important that Apple doesn’t."
"Here’s a problem. I don’t really believe that Apple didn’t help them. I can’t prove it yet, but they literally claim that any time they target an iOS device, that it will succeed for implantation. Either they have a huge collection of exploits that work against Apple products, meaning that they are hoarding information about critical systems that American companies produce and sabotaging them, or Apple sabotaged it themselves. I’m not sure which one it is. I’d like to believe that since Apple didn’t join the PRISM program until after Steve Jobs died that maybe it’s just that they write shitty software. We know that’s true." (previously)
posted by jeffburdges at 3:22 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
"So DROPOUTJEEP, so you can see right there. So, SMS, contact list retrieval, voicemail, hot microphone, camera capture, cell tower location. Cool. Do you think Apple helped them with that? I don’t know. I hope Apple will clarify that. I think it’s really important that Apple doesn’t."
"Here’s a problem. I don’t really believe that Apple didn’t help them. I can’t prove it yet, but they literally claim that any time they target an iOS device, that it will succeed for implantation. Either they have a huge collection of exploits that work against Apple products, meaning that they are hoarding information about critical systems that American companies produce and sabotaging them, or Apple sabotaged it themselves. I’m not sure which one it is. I’d like to believe that since Apple didn’t join the PRISM program until after Steve Jobs died that maybe it’s just that they write shitty software. We know that’s true." (previously)
posted by jeffburdges at 3:22 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
Gaming is already hugely successful on smartphones. It's just that most of the games are cheap or free-to-play, and almost none of them require buttons or joysticks. One game last quarter, Candy Crush, made more money than every Nintendo game combined. And it wasn't even close. The list of mobile companies that that make more than traditional gaming companies is growing: GungHo, King, Supercell and others on the rise I've never heard of.
Phones don't need to become gaming machines, game companies need to figure out phones
I don't know. I'm still strongly of the belief that you need some kind of physical controls for gaming if it's going to be outside of a certain band of potential game types. A lot of popular touch-only games are either fairly simple tap and tilt affairs, or suffer from serious gorilla arm issues if you actually want to play them competitively(see: fruit ninja).
I polled a bunch of my early 20s, nerdy techy peers(and quite a few not as nerdy, but same age bracket people) and they all agreed with the idea that buttons for games were important. As were serious games.
You don't really need buttons for something like pokemon, but it's not there. However, i don't think you can make a good game like new super mario bros without buttons that isn't kludgy and annoying. This isn't a "developers need to figure it out" problem, it's a problem that you can only really get away with certain game types without buttons or venturing in to weird, somewhat gimmicky, cute to look at but not actually seriously that great control schemes like real racings "tilt the phone" routine. How was that a joke when nintendo made that wheel, but totally serious and fine when they did it?(both of which were widely stated opinions online).
Obviously apple recognized this is A Thing, or they wouldn't have made this API and everything it entailed hardware and software wise.
The thing is, it's still being treated as a niche thing that people don't seriously want. That's what's holding it back, not developers "not getting it".
There's a lot of gameplay concepts and ideas that only really work well with real buttons, and that isn't some curmudgeonly old man thing like a lot of the touch screen keyboard whinging was. It's like telling people who want to use some of the various very good iOS music apps that they're old fashioned grandpas for wanting a real synth keyboard, or a real DJ controller or whatever instead of the on-screen stuff. Sometimes you really need physical buttons and feedback to do things accurately.
Touch screens have gotten really good, but they're not the be-all-end-all.
Just don't use an iOS device if you protest anything :
God, i wish people would give this a rest. It's total loose change conspiracy theory junk. I think this sums it up pretty well. And yes, i'm aware that's an apple fanboy blog, but it makes a good point with relation to how far you're willing to take this sort of train of thought into what-if land.
A LOT of people have a vested interesting in cracking iOS. I'd argue it's one of the currently most targeted platforms on the entire planet. Did you follow the story on a company paying massive piles of money for an ios 7 jailbreak?
Similar to the PS3 jailbreak, the bajillions of windows zero days, and countless other similar situations... you can't really win.
You put one group of guys in a room and say "Here's a bunch of money, make the best most secure OS you can". You put another group of guys in a room and say "Here's unlimited money, break this".
Who is going to put in more effort, and have more time to do it? The iOS cracking team is basically infinitely large now. People know they can find a good 0day and sell it now. Possibly for a life changing amount of money, especially if they're in a less developed country where that money will go way further.
I think "someone cracked it because they had an incentive, whether it was the NSA or just a skilled blackhat" is totally realistic, whereas "ZOMG APPLE COLLUDED" Is just a good headline.
If i had a ton of money, i'd say "ok, you take X amount of money and a team of the best netsec/dev guys you can find and make the most hardened piece of complex software you can that has to meet this huge list of feature and expandability requirements. Now i get to seed this to all of defcon and offer a 10 million dollar bounty if its cracked by Y date. After it's done you get to keep auditing it, and issuing one update a month. But you have to add Y or Z features every other update".
That shit would be cracked in a couple months, at most.
They're facing a lot more money, and a way larger talent pool than that with even more motivation. Do you get what i'm saying here?
There's also a whole other point to be made for how big an OS like this is. How many modules, included in the shipping package apps that have unusual system access beyond what third party apps are allowed, a fucking web browser which is essentially the front door lock of a house as far as computer security is concerned, i could go on. "They got 0wned" just makes sooo much more sense than "They handed them the keys" unless you have an agenda.
posted by emptythought at 3:44 PM on June 4, 2014 [6 favorites]
Phones don't need to become gaming machines, game companies need to figure out phones
I don't know. I'm still strongly of the belief that you need some kind of physical controls for gaming if it's going to be outside of a certain band of potential game types. A lot of popular touch-only games are either fairly simple tap and tilt affairs, or suffer from serious gorilla arm issues if you actually want to play them competitively(see: fruit ninja).
I polled a bunch of my early 20s, nerdy techy peers(and quite a few not as nerdy, but same age bracket people) and they all agreed with the idea that buttons for games were important. As were serious games.
You don't really need buttons for something like pokemon, but it's not there. However, i don't think you can make a good game like new super mario bros without buttons that isn't kludgy and annoying. This isn't a "developers need to figure it out" problem, it's a problem that you can only really get away with certain game types without buttons or venturing in to weird, somewhat gimmicky, cute to look at but not actually seriously that great control schemes like real racings "tilt the phone" routine. How was that a joke when nintendo made that wheel, but totally serious and fine when they did it?(both of which were widely stated opinions online).
Obviously apple recognized this is A Thing, or they wouldn't have made this API and everything it entailed hardware and software wise.
The thing is, it's still being treated as a niche thing that people don't seriously want. That's what's holding it back, not developers "not getting it".
There's a lot of gameplay concepts and ideas that only really work well with real buttons, and that isn't some curmudgeonly old man thing like a lot of the touch screen keyboard whinging was. It's like telling people who want to use some of the various very good iOS music apps that they're old fashioned grandpas for wanting a real synth keyboard, or a real DJ controller or whatever instead of the on-screen stuff. Sometimes you really need physical buttons and feedback to do things accurately.
Touch screens have gotten really good, but they're not the be-all-end-all.
Just don't use an iOS device if you protest anything :
God, i wish people would give this a rest. It's total loose change conspiracy theory junk. I think this sums it up pretty well. And yes, i'm aware that's an apple fanboy blog, but it makes a good point with relation to how far you're willing to take this sort of train of thought into what-if land.
A LOT of people have a vested interesting in cracking iOS. I'd argue it's one of the currently most targeted platforms on the entire planet. Did you follow the story on a company paying massive piles of money for an ios 7 jailbreak?
Similar to the PS3 jailbreak, the bajillions of windows zero days, and countless other similar situations... you can't really win.
You put one group of guys in a room and say "Here's a bunch of money, make the best most secure OS you can". You put another group of guys in a room and say "Here's unlimited money, break this".
Who is going to put in more effort, and have more time to do it? The iOS cracking team is basically infinitely large now. People know they can find a good 0day and sell it now. Possibly for a life changing amount of money, especially if they're in a less developed country where that money will go way further.
I think "someone cracked it because they had an incentive, whether it was the NSA or just a skilled blackhat" is totally realistic, whereas "ZOMG APPLE COLLUDED" Is just a good headline.
If i had a ton of money, i'd say "ok, you take X amount of money and a team of the best netsec/dev guys you can find and make the most hardened piece of complex software you can that has to meet this huge list of feature and expandability requirements. Now i get to seed this to all of defcon and offer a 10 million dollar bounty if its cracked by Y date. After it's done you get to keep auditing it, and issuing one update a month. But you have to add Y or Z features every other update".
That shit would be cracked in a couple months, at most.
They're facing a lot more money, and a way larger talent pool than that with even more motivation. Do you get what i'm saying here?
There's also a whole other point to be made for how big an OS like this is. How many modules, included in the shipping package apps that have unusual system access beyond what third party apps are allowed, a fucking web browser which is essentially the front door lock of a house as far as computer security is concerned, i could go on. "They got 0wned" just makes sooo much more sense than "They handed them the keys" unless you have an agenda.
posted by emptythought at 3:44 PM on June 4, 2014 [6 favorites]
If I recall, Veronica Mars used a Sidekick, as if it needed to be any cooler.
posted by Rock Steady at 4:24 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Rock Steady at 4:24 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
I worked on every hiptop that shipped. Working at Danger still ranks as my best professional experience. (The Microsoft acquisition phase, eh, not so much.)
posted by ceej at 4:33 PM on June 4, 2014 [6 favorites]
posted by ceej at 4:33 PM on June 4, 2014 [6 favorites]
@ceej I agree—and for the record, YOU were one of the folks that made it the best in mine (well—the current gig is coming close, so will probably have to snatch you soon).
posted by changoperezoso at 5:06 PM on June 4, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by changoperezoso at 5:06 PM on June 4, 2014 [2 favorites]
I loved my Sidekick. And the 2 and the 3.
Then I don't know if it was Danger or Microsoft or T-Mobile that banged the dog, but the ones after that just did not catch my interest at all. They lost something and I can't quite verbalize what that was.
posted by mephron at 5:49 PM on June 4, 2014
Then I don't know if it was Danger or Microsoft or T-Mobile that banged the dog, but the ones after that just did not catch my interest at all. They lost something and I can't quite verbalize what that was.
posted by mephron at 5:49 PM on June 4, 2014
One aspect of our developer program that remains unique is the level of testing we did of third-party app submissions. We had an army of extremely skilled software QA folks who would give each submission hours of testing....It cost us a lot in manpower but I think it was a better developer experience than what you see on Android now (zero testing, tons of malware), or iOS (some testing, no visibility into the process).
Angels in Heaven, please Google do something like this. Maybe make a higher level store (the Lexus vs Toyota of Android shops) where developers have to pay to have their app tested by Google to get in. Maybe you could grandfather in the top-selling apps after testing them for free (just to make sure no malware slips through). Maybe make a deal with Nintendo to get some of their games in there. They may be more willing to listen nowdays.
One of the things that destroyed Atari was when it allowed so much garbage software onto its system when Nintendo had theirs under tight control.
And, please, clean up the basics. One of the things mentioned about the Hiptop, and which the Palm Pilot, which came out 17 years ago, did well was syncing data.
Google to this day doesn't get it right. I have contacts on my contact list on the web that the Google syncing software, for whatever reason, refuses to sync to my phone. I do nothing complicated. Everything I do is very simple and basic. Yet this doesn't work. There are apps in the Google store that do this right. Google engineers, are you listening? Why are their apps in your store that do syncing of Google contacts and get rated highly? Do you know why? Guess. Maybe you should just buy one of these companies and throw out your software and use theirs.
I can only guess that not all the best Danger engineers made it over to Android. Definitely some of them, just not all of them.
posted by eye of newt at 9:26 PM on June 4, 2014 [2 favorites]
Angels in Heaven, please Google do something like this. Maybe make a higher level store (the Lexus vs Toyota of Android shops) where developers have to pay to have their app tested by Google to get in. Maybe you could grandfather in the top-selling apps after testing them for free (just to make sure no malware slips through). Maybe make a deal with Nintendo to get some of their games in there. They may be more willing to listen nowdays.
One of the things that destroyed Atari was when it allowed so much garbage software onto its system when Nintendo had theirs under tight control.
And, please, clean up the basics. One of the things mentioned about the Hiptop, and which the Palm Pilot, which came out 17 years ago, did well was syncing data.
Google to this day doesn't get it right. I have contacts on my contact list on the web that the Google syncing software, for whatever reason, refuses to sync to my phone. I do nothing complicated. Everything I do is very simple and basic. Yet this doesn't work. There are apps in the Google store that do this right. Google engineers, are you listening? Why are their apps in your store that do syncing of Google contacts and get rated highly? Do you know why? Guess. Maybe you should just buy one of these companies and throw out your software and use theirs.
I can only guess that not all the best Danger engineers made it over to Android. Definitely some of them, just not all of them.
posted by eye of newt at 9:26 PM on June 4, 2014 [2 favorites]
Color screens on a portable device serve no purpose except to deplete the batteries faster and inflate the price.
posted by kindall at 8:22 AM on October 2, 2002 [+] [!]
How times have changed! Though I remember when I bought my original GameBoy 2-3 years after it was released and had to decide between $100 for a GameBoy, with the Zelda title! and GB titles were the SNES quality bar at this point, leveraging the allure of SNES mechanics and sprites and the low requirements required to render a 4-shade gray scale display, or the $200 Sega Game Gear, which did similar things, using previous-gen hardware like the GameBoy (like the iPad Mini was an iPad 2 clone in the iPad 3 era) but presenting a Genesis-like experience.
Ultimately what swayed me to the GameBoy was a theoretically 38 hour battery life on 4 AAs vs. something like 3-6 hours on the GameGear with yet 2 more batteries, 6AA. No thanks!
I had to pay for everyone one of those out AAs of my 13 year old pocket, and the rechargeables sucked then...
posted by aydeejones at 11:11 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by kindall at 8:22 AM on October 2, 2002 [+] [!]
How times have changed! Though I remember when I bought my original GameBoy 2-3 years after it was released and had to decide between $100 for a GameBoy, with the Zelda title! and GB titles were the SNES quality bar at this point, leveraging the allure of SNES mechanics and sprites and the low requirements required to render a 4-shade gray scale display, or the $200 Sega Game Gear, which did similar things, using previous-gen hardware like the GameBoy (like the iPad Mini was an iPad 2 clone in the iPad 3 era) but presenting a Genesis-like experience.
Ultimately what swayed me to the GameBoy was a theoretically 38 hour battery life on 4 AAs vs. something like 3-6 hours on the GameGear with yet 2 more batteries, 6AA. No thanks!
I had to pay for everyone one of those out AAs of my 13 year old pocket, and the rechargeables sucked then...
posted by aydeejones at 11:11 PM on June 4, 2014 [1 favorite]
And yes, in the world of sync, I still use the $20 TouchDown Android app on every device I obtain over the years. Sure, Exchange sync has improved across the board, but every time there's some glowing "So and So Device is Really Enterprise Ready!" I be like "TouchDown is enterprise ready, bitchezzz." I've been burned every time I've tried to go without it on a new device, from Motorola to Samsung to HTC from GingerBread to, well, JellyBean...just got KitKat and not really concerned about messing around with a known good at this point.
My favorite things about TouchDown:
Solid sync, always reliable, you throw it on any crappy Android device from the 256MB LG turds 5-6 years ago to the new shit and it makes your Android phone an Exchange beast.
Awesome rules definitions for notifications -- "bother the shit out of me relentlessly if I get an email from this person or with this subject or blah blah..."
Setting my Out of Office from my phone without dinking around -- maybe this has improved elsewhere, but TouchDown never leaves me wanting to be able to do something, but fundamentally it's all about the sync, and with low battery life no less. If someone is otherwise happy with their Exchange sync but their battery is on its last legs, I'll recommend a 30 day free trial of TouchDown just to fall in love with it and enjoy the minimal battery drain.
posted by aydeejones at 11:17 PM on June 4, 2014
My favorite things about TouchDown:
Solid sync, always reliable, you throw it on any crappy Android device from the 256MB LG turds 5-6 years ago to the new shit and it makes your Android phone an Exchange beast.
Awesome rules definitions for notifications -- "bother the shit out of me relentlessly if I get an email from this person or with this subject or blah blah..."
Setting my Out of Office from my phone without dinking around -- maybe this has improved elsewhere, but TouchDown never leaves me wanting to be able to do something, but fundamentally it's all about the sync, and with low battery life no less. If someone is otherwise happy with their Exchange sync but their battery is on its last legs, I'll recommend a 30 day free trial of TouchDown just to fall in love with it and enjoy the minimal battery drain.
posted by aydeejones at 11:17 PM on June 4, 2014
And, it's the same Exchange app on every device...no goofy new ways of changing the number of days worth of email you receive, new fun limitations on what folders you can access when you upgrade to a new phone, etc.
But ultimately: your employer can't wipe your whole device if your phone is lost for a week or you jump ship, etc. That's huge. Your whole Exchange experience is sandboxed and encrypted (unless you save email attachments to unencrypted storage) and your employer has every right to blow it away (or you can with an SMS "secret code") without deep-sixing your entire device's storage. Google's personal / consumer sync isn't noticeably bad IME, but Exchange sync has suffered from the diversity of fractured implementations. Then again, Google would rather you just switch to Postini :D
TouchDown gets cosmetic updates here and there but I stick with classic mode and it's just familiar, everywhere you go. If Google wanted to solve Exchange sync they would buy it out and ban all other Exchange integration from the next Android release. Keep Exchange and personal email separate, in separate apps. It's OK if they function and look somewhat differently. They should.
And then have some UX / UI experts polish up the advanced features a bit, because it does get admittedly deep, just like Outlook, when you want to find certain things buried in the menus.
posted by aydeejones at 11:25 PM on June 4, 2014
But ultimately: your employer can't wipe your whole device if your phone is lost for a week or you jump ship, etc. That's huge. Your whole Exchange experience is sandboxed and encrypted (unless you save email attachments to unencrypted storage) and your employer has every right to blow it away (or you can with an SMS "secret code") without deep-sixing your entire device's storage. Google's personal / consumer sync isn't noticeably bad IME, but Exchange sync has suffered from the diversity of fractured implementations. Then again, Google would rather you just switch to Postini :D
TouchDown gets cosmetic updates here and there but I stick with classic mode and it's just familiar, everywhere you go. If Google wanted to solve Exchange sync they would buy it out and ban all other Exchange integration from the next Android release. Keep Exchange and personal email separate, in separate apps. It's OK if they function and look somewhat differently. They should.
And then have some UX / UI experts polish up the advanced features a bit, because it does get admittedly deep, just like Outlook, when you want to find certain things buried in the menus.
posted by aydeejones at 11:25 PM on June 4, 2014
Except for its "all photos taken automatically uploaded to a users Sidekick profile site" feature, that didn't turn out to well for some people..
Paris Hilton, most notably.
I'm not particularly nostalgic for the Treo. Yes, it was good for its time, and at least better than the Zires that I had before it. (I used Palm devices for a decade; the first five years of that was a Palm III, then a couple of Zires, then a Treo for about two years. The Zires were cheap, but also cheap-feeling; with the Tungsten/Zire model lines, Palm seemed to be saying, "Here's a personal organizer for the executives, and here's one for the rest of you assholes." I was a bit dismayed when Apple seemed to go the same route with the 5S/5C, and amused when the 5C seemed to not be a big hit.) But then the Treo stopped syncing, and nothing that I tried, including replacing the syncing cable, would fix it. My contract was almost up anyway, and Apple was about to come out with a new iPhone (the 3), so I went ahead and for the first (and probably last) time, did the waiting-in-line-in-front-of-the-phone-company-storefront thing. Since I didn't camp out overnight, there were already a lot of people there, and the last phone in stock went to the person in front of me, but mine came in about a week later, and I haven't looked back since.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:08 AM on June 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
Paris Hilton, most notably.
I'm not particularly nostalgic for the Treo. Yes, it was good for its time, and at least better than the Zires that I had before it. (I used Palm devices for a decade; the first five years of that was a Palm III, then a couple of Zires, then a Treo for about two years. The Zires were cheap, but also cheap-feeling; with the Tungsten/Zire model lines, Palm seemed to be saying, "Here's a personal organizer for the executives, and here's one for the rest of you assholes." I was a bit dismayed when Apple seemed to go the same route with the 5S/5C, and amused when the 5C seemed to not be a big hit.) But then the Treo stopped syncing, and nothing that I tried, including replacing the syncing cable, would fix it. My contract was almost up anyway, and Apple was about to come out with a new iPhone (the 3), so I went ahead and for the first (and probably last) time, did the waiting-in-line-in-front-of-the-phone-company-storefront thing. Since I didn't camp out overnight, there were already a lot of people there, and the last phone in stock went to the person in front of me, but mine came in about a week later, and I haven't looked back since.
posted by Halloween Jack at 5:08 AM on June 5, 2014 [1 favorite]
Speaking of the Sony Xperia Play, Razer are releasing a very Xperia-like accessory for the iPhone 5/5s using Apple's game controller API.
Now for Nintendo to port their library of classic titles ...
posted by seraphine at 7:16 AM on June 5, 2014
Now for Nintendo to port their library of classic titles ...
posted by seraphine at 7:16 AM on June 5, 2014
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posted by cashman at 2:17 PM on June 4, 2014 [2 favorites]