Author: way0utwest

A few days off, with family in town, so the blog will be quiet.

I saw this blog about a report from CITA (wireless industry group) that people tend to use their cell phones more for data (text, email, etc.) than for phone calls.

I know that I do a lot more data, primarily through wi-fi, than I do phone calls on my phone. At least on a daily basis. I have some long calls to my business partner and family at times, but most of the communications that I do through my phone are data comms (sending pictures, Twitter/Facebook, texts with family, etc.)

In my mind this means that data is becoming more important, and that as data professionals, we ought to be aware and finding ways to integrate or read these data streams. Things like StreamInsight, to me, are going to become more important.

I also think that the wireless industry needs to figure out new models of business. Rather than trying to change habits of data consumers or incenting them to use less data, they ought to embrace it and build their networks to deal with it. They need to plan for, and charge appropriately, for data usage.

And in some sense, I think that means warning people about their data usage. I know I can check what I’ve used, but I don’t know what that means in terms of “what” I do. When I check tweets, what does that mean? Or send a series of emails. Better reporting and education for people, and perhaps warning them of large transfers, rather than trying to stop it.

The cost of making a trip differently in the US, in terms of time, effort, and driving habits, is small. For any individual trip, I’m not sure how many people will change their habits. My wife doesn’t, and the Prius is great because she just drives and gets 40+mpg. I pay more attention and can usually get over 50MPG.

So will people use the new technology from Ford that shows a more economical route? I don’t know. I think if there’s very little personal cost in terms of time or hassle, they will. If it’s annoying, has more traffic, takes more time, etc., they won’t.

Still, it’s a step in the right direction.

I liked Android, I really did, and I thought my G1 was the best phone I’d had to date when I got it. I’ve had Motorolas, Nokias, Sidekicks, a Dash and another Windows Mobile, but out of the gate, the  G1 and Android was better. But there were 2 things that weren’t polished on it and didn’t work well for me.

• Reading
• Music

Those might not be important for most people, and certainly aren’t for this ZDNet writer. But they are for me. I used my phone to do these things, primarily in this order:

• Read
• Music
• Social Network
• Text/email
• Games
• Phone

Kind of funny, huh? It’s a PDA for the most part that makes phone calls. It converges, and it allows me to do a lot when I’m in motion, which seems to be constantly. Despite the fact that I work at home, I’m not always at a PC, and a cell phone needs to do these things for me.

The iPhone does this, and that’s why I switched. It just works better overall. Not at multi-tasking (it doesn’t) and not necessarily with some things I would use more, like calendaring, but it does things well enough for me.

That might be changing with Amazon finally moving the Kindle app to Android. If that had been done last year, I might have stuck with my G1, or upgraded to a MyTouch, but it didn’t, and I didn’t.

Now if there were a good music sync app, I’d be interested. As much as I’d like to say that I’ll keep the music on my phone, I have a lot ripped to my PC, and I often manage my playlists and get organized on my PC. Same for apps. Some things work in a pinch, but they aren’t what I want to do on a regular basis. Sometimes I just want a larger screen to work with, and for organizing music and photos, I want a PC to help.