Tag: cell phone

This is hardware week for me, with a new phone coming in the mail. This was a warranty replacement for one whose battery is dying. I can start the morning at 7am with 100% charge and by noon my iPhone is asking to go into Low Power Mode at less than 20%. Fortunately I have a warranty program with my carrier, so they just sent me a new one.

I was a bit amazed (again) at how easy it is to move and replace an iPhone. To be fair, my wife got a replacement for her Nexus, and it was about as simple. Both of us use cloud backups, and with an easy restore, the vast majority of our phones are back in service, icons, apps, settings the way they were. Switch SIM cards, and the new phone just works.

Of course there are some passwords to re-enter and new authentication, but it’s very minimal and once I get my password manager running, things go smoothly.

I wish it were as simple to upgrade a laptop. Instead there are numerous applications to install and get configured. Fortunately I’ve got a process that worked well last year, and I’m getting the chance to refine slightly this year. I’ll be posting a bit about that as I move forward.

Now I’m hoping that this phone works a little better than the last one and gets me through some of those long, SQL Saturday days.

Slightly off topic, but since I use a cell phone so much for data transfer and work, it’s important that my device works for me. This is my current thought and experience, so take it with a grain of salt.

I want to talk about my experience with Verizon and iPhone, other carriers, and T-Mobile in particular.

Back to Verizon

I switched back to Verizon this past weekend, from T-Mobile. Coverage and performance were just bad enough that I made the move back.

I had to trade in my iPhone6, but I got a new one from Verizon. I’ve had my phone 11 months, and with the $330 trade in from Verizon, I lose about $80 in cost to pay off the T-Mobile phone. I should have been able to keep my phone and use a new SIM, but carriers seem resistant to using devices from other networks on their own. No good reason, but that was the state of things for me.

I had performed a backup to iCloud before I left for the store. Once there, I had the plan I wanted selected in 5 minutes, and about 5 minutes of a little paperwork (can we call it that on an iPad?) before they turned off my old one and activated the new one. Inside of 5 minutes I had a live phone.

Since I was in a hurry, I did the restore at home. I had to update to iOS 8.4 first, since that was my old device, but once that was done, the restore started from backup and I could use my phone. As I went into music or photos, I could see everything downloading across an hour or so. When it was done, almost everything was back on my phone. Icons in the right places, all my music, even my photos taken right before the backup were there. That’s a fairly seamless upgrade.

Or almost seamless. Security isn’t transferred, so I needed to update logins for mail, spotify, twitter, etc. The hassle for me is I use Password Safe, with the Safes in Dropbox. That meant I needed to use another device to get my Dropbox password before I could access the rest of my credentials, but a small price to pay.

Two nagging issues: my Bluetooth settings were lost, so I had to reset my car, headset, Pebble, Fitbit, etc. Some of those apps don’t like losing settings and trying to reconnect. A few hassles there. Also, the Amazon app still had a few of my books listed, but they weren’t downloaded. I had to delete them and re-download to make them work.

That’s about a smooth phone transfer process as possible. Windows is getting better, but it’s not that smooth. I haven’t upgraded Android phones, so I’d be curious if that worked well.

Carrier Choices

There are five of us at the ranch. Across the five of us, we had a point this year where we had service on all four carriers in the US. My two boys have shared a Sprint plan for years. My daughter’s first phone a few years ago was a Windows 8 phone and that was only on ATT at the time, so she had them. My wife and I were on Verizon, until I moved to T-Mobile last year,.

The boys have liked Sprint, which has had good service and coverage. They get unlimited data, but no hotspot unless they are willing to pay (they aren’t, and neither am I). I was hesitant to go with Sprint, only for the potential issues internationally. They use CDMA and 4G here in the US, but I wasn’t sure how that might go overseas and decided not to experiment. Other than that, no real reason to not choose Sprint.

ATT is bad. My daughter’s coverage might have rivaled mine at the ranch for poor quality. She moved to Sprint this year, and is much happier, so I decided not to try ATT.

Verizon was decent for me a few years ago, but when they upgraded to a 4G network out in the rural area in 2013/2014, holes started to appear. It was bad enough that I got annoyed. However I found out things could get worse, so I went back. Traveling around the US, Verizon was very good, and even now I’m happy that I can make calls almost all the way home and usually all the way to the kids’ school.

We’ll see what happens in the UK. I may just purchase a SIM when I’m there, or just carry my iPhone 4GS (or take one of the kid’s old Androids) and use it there.

T-Mobile Issues

I really liked what T-Mobile did last year. They really changed the cellular industry in the US and have almost removed contracts. When I switched last week, Verizon didn’t even try to get me to use a contract. Just a monthly pay-off-your-phone charge.

I also like that T-Mobile allowed me to use my phone in Canada and the UK for no charge. I could get texts for free, which is most of the way I communicate with family. I got wi-fi calling for free, same number, no getting everyone on Skype. I also got 3G data for free, with reasonable costs for 4G data. That fit my life.

However the coverage was bad. At the ranch, I could get T-Mo in my bathroom upstairs, but not if I walked back to the bedroom. I could get it W of the barn, but not E of it. The other places I had a small, roaming carrier, which was OK. I did get voice and text while roaming, but I had big holes coming and going from the ranch, as well as on the way to the kids’ school.

I also had problems in buildings. In one school, one store, and numerous places I’ve traveled to in the US, I couldn’t get coverage inside buildings. I saw this reported, and T-Mo securing a different frequency in some cities to combat the issues. However as I’ve visited SQL Saturdays around the US, I had numerous issues.

I’ll also say that at times when I’ve switched in and out of the T-Mobile network while driving, I will have a period of time when I can’t make or receive either calls or text. That’s maddening. The final straw for me was last Thursday, leaving school, with T-Mobile LTE on my phone, being unable to send a text to reply to my son. He could text me and I’d receive it, but was unable to reply.

Maddening.

It’s a bit sad, because I like T-Mobile overall. The performance was amazing, getting me 35Mbps in Parker, CO. Overseas coverage was good, and I used less data as music streaming was free.

However I also used less data because it wasn’t available. Including a trip to Sioux Falls in July where I had 2G, Edge network coverage from T-Mobile. That was maddening.

Spotty Coverage

I tend to be in less populated areas for much of my travels. Not rural, but I ski, hike, travel to smaller towns in the US, and I find coverage really spotty. In Custer, SD, Verizon and T-Mobile were the best, but Verizon was by far better.

The era of ubiquitous coverage is not here. I know Google tends to expect this in their philosophical view of the world, but many of us don’t have this type of coverage. We have lots of holes and slowdowns.

In fact, I still think software needs to account for this, and I’m hoping that people learn to write for the cloud and understand that it’s not just Azure or AWS, but really any service could be interrupted and allow for that. Degrade or fail gracefully.

I’m hoping this changes over time, but for now, I decided to go with the best coverage I can find for most of my work. That’s Verizon and my fingers are crossed it works as well as I used to.

I’ve been intrigued by Windows Phone as a platform. I’ve never owned one, and while I considered getting one, the dearth of apps led me to an Android instead. I really tried to get down to a list of core apps that I needed, which was 12 or 15 at the time. However 3 or 4 weren’t in the Windows App Store and I decided against Windows phone.

My daughter really wanted a Windows Phone and got one a few years ago. She loved it at first and almost made it a year before she got annoyed by missing apps and moved to Android (which she loves).

I have been hoping that WP would continue to improve, not only in it’s internal quality, but also with more apps and users. I read a piece about the issues with Windows Phone (The End of Windows Phone?) and while I’m not sure I think it is dying, the author brings up some good points that I worry about.

Apps

Apps are critical. I know plenty of people think that a couple calculator apps, and a few password apps, etc. are good enough. People can choose from a few. However that’s missing the point.

People like diversity. They like choice. They like looking for apps. There are a few places I get news from that publish new and cool apps, or apps that are free for a limited time every week.

Every week I get a list of 5 or 10 apps, some new, some old. Periodically I’ll download one. Sometimes I’ll buy a paid version. The point is, I’m interacting with the app store and my phone, changing it to my liking on a regular basis.

My phone is something I’m always tweaking a bit, like my early PCs. However Microsoft seems to almost want to treat the phone like a network router. I set it up and forget about it, just using it. That’s not what’s going to grow the store.

I checked this week and there isn’t a native Starbucks app. That particular app has become somewhat a strong desire for me, so no Windows Phone for me. There are others, and I think that’s an issue.

As I’ve noted to many people before, I think the big failure from MS here is not just building more apps. Certainly it takes third parties to provide some diversity, but spending $10mm on developers as salary to build apps, and not as incentives, would be better. Paying interns to work with Starbucks and MLB and many other places to build native apps, would be a wise move.

Windows Everywhere

I had a Windows 6 phone. I was excited about the idea of Windows everywhere. Over time I realize that model doesn’t work. The whole way I work on a desktop or laptop, with it’s semi-designed interfaced (it’s more evolved) isn’t how I want to work on a tablet or phone. It just isn’t. The idea of Windows everywhere, with apps running on all platforms without being rebuilt doesn’t make sense. The buttons, flows, controls, actions, etc. on a desktop aren’t practical elsewhere.

The reverse is also true. The way I use a tablet doesn’t work on a desktop. I’d have hoped Windows 8 taught you that.

I really want my data everywhere, not my apps. Stop fighting this. Make native Office apps for iOS, Android, WP8, separate from those on Windows. Don’t try to force things to work well and be highly engineered. We saw that fail with the CORBA architectures, with OS/2, etc. You’re better off worrying about data, not apps.

The Future

Windows 10 doesn’t really excite me on the desktop, except for one thing: Copy/paste in the command prompt. That’s it. What else do I need Windows to do? A better Start menu? Please, I spend seconds a day in the start menu. Even on a laptop, it’s very few interactions. Perhaps more on a tablet, but to get me to move to a Windows Phone or tablet, I need something compelling over the iPad.  What will Windows Phone 10 do?

Cortana is interesting, but I still hesitate to speak to my devices. I’m in too many public places and it’s not an interaction I’m looking for. I’ve seen some people that use speech to text heavily, and successfully, even in louder environments. However it still feels silly, and an interruption on life for me. Perhaps if Cortana does more reminders, prediction, and analysis of my interactions on the device, I’ll try it.

The movement towards limiting switching between apps is good, especially for messaging. The quick respond on iOS hasn’t caught on for me, for some reason, and switching apps is annoying. The link to my desktop makes some sense, but if that’s going to happen, then one thing better be ready:

Undo.

I make mistakes all the time. I will continue to do so, and any actions I take better have an easy, quick, and intuitive way to "undo" things.

I don’t have great hopes for Windows Phone unless the app situation is resolved. If it is, then perhaps there’s a low enough bar to just switch to try a new OS on the phones. However I’m not sure any other features you could build into a phone would overcome the app deficiency.