Back in October 2007, while we wandered around at the mall (in San Jose, I think), a colleague told me: buy iPhone, it’s cool! One week later, I showed my son’s picture (printed one) to my cousin. He just simply replied: see, it’s gonna be easier if you use iPhone. It costs around 300 dollars or something. But you need to be AT&T subscriber. Anyway, iPhone was released at that perfect time, and some friends bought it for fun.
Last month, another colleague who sat behind me bought a new iPhone. It still looks cool. He plays around with his toy, accessing something, sms, call someone. It’s big, and it is meant to “replace” your palm with a nice-display. It’s like mini computer that can be played with just a finger. A bit difficult for a first user, but once he gets used to it, it’s just easy (he said). Then he rotates the phone, picture follows, stays horizontal. Accelerometer works well.
I knew he loves this phone very much. But I tend to say, despite the fact that it’s just expensive for me, the monitor is meant for display, an interface that has to look clean and nice. If we just touch it over and over, it will be dirty. Monitor is too nice to be disturbed. Then, I ask: what you do not like about this iPhone? He was quiet. Nothing, I guess. But then he quickly reckons: oh, it is unable to do MMS; it has no infrared, bluetooth, so you need a cable to transfer data. The rest it’s just OK, but looking cool. Don’t forget to pay the bill (plus the data packet) which is quite expensive too.
Not more than two quarters, other companies released iPhone-like gadgets: mini iPhone from China, Samsung Omnia, BlackBerry Storm, etc. Even a camera maker also released a display with touch-sensitive screen. Nice. Touch-the-monitor becomes a norm.
People start to compare iPhone and BlackBerry (well, maybe it’s just me). It’s not comparable, but since it’s consumer goods, so I compare them anyway.
I’ve been thinking to get an BlackBerry. But it’s just too expensive, and I am not sure I would use the best of it. I am not a gadget guy, not a mobile person, not a 24-hour-message freak. Reasons tell me that I can’t buy this thing unless … unless what? :p
I dreamed of it last nite. I sold all my phones, and top up the money to get BB Bold. Great stuff! But then I woke up this morning: my god, my shoulder has got a muscle ache. Warmer temperature. Fever? Not really. Just a bad dream he he …
Then I went to my bookshelf. I took one book, given by a good friend last year: “Founders at Work – Stories of Startups’ Early Days”, and open page 141. It’s about Mike Lazaridis, a cofounder of Research in Motion, a company that produces Blackberry! Only ten pages, and I found Lazaridis was a humble but amazing guy. Projects in wireless network, that’s what he’s doing initially. They accumulate and grow bigger, and in 1999, BlackBerry went into the market. He disguised BB with a two-way pager.
One interesting thing in the book is this:
Sean O’Keefe, a former director of NASA, was on the way home. He got driven home, and he does his work on his BlackBerry on his way. He gets email from someone that he recognizes and it’s asking all this questions about the space shuttle. He’s answering them, and he gets more questions and he’s answering them. And he says, “This name is really familiar.” He looks it up, and it turns out that the sender was an astronaut on duty on the space station. NASA uses BlackBerries to communicate with the International Space Station.
Not sure when NASA is going to use iPhone on their space dock?
Random Notes 