Continue with Windows Phone?

I've been using a Samsung Focus since November 2011.  I bought it used and it was already released for a year.  It was missing a front-facing camera which I didn't think of much use until I wanted to have grandpa see my son using video calling.  I came from a pairing of a Windows Mobile 6 phone plus a 4th generation iPod Touch.  In retrospect, the WM6 device was awful but I hung onto it for almost 4 years due to the initial cost of $400.

So what are the options now:  iPhone 5S, Moto X, Nokia Lumia 1020?   The iPhones prior to iPhone 5 have a screen that is just too small for reading fixed-format PDFs and the like but the iPhone 5 has a decent-sized screen and iOS 7 is intriguing.  Moto X is also interesting and has some subtleties that I probably would like; it's Leo Laporte's current phone of choice.  Lumia 1020 is too camera-centric and too expensive at this time. 

Well, I'm one to watch my budget so I'm considering the almost year-old Nokia Lumia 920.  Yes, possibly another Windows Phone. 

Evaluating Mobile OSes

My Windows Mobile 6 phone continues to perform erratically (rebooting itself now and then) although the battery life is now reasonable due to battery replacement.  So still wanting to replace it and then give my iPod Touch to my wife.  The article Mobile OS Showdown: Android, BlackBerry, iOS, and Windows Phone 7 provides several slants for comparing features of the mobile OSes.  Some criteria and considerations that sets the mobile OSes apart:

• Two-way sync with multiple Exchange-protocol (e.g. Google) calendars
• Customization, e.g. different virtual keyboard or home screen
• What security granularity and warnings when installing new app?
• SSL connection when connecting to retrieve email, calendar?
• Voice control of device and extent
• Turn-by-turn navigation 
• Important:  Does default browser support Flash?  HTML 5?
• How are email attachments handled?  Can choose application to open them?
• Open file system structure
• What formats can default media player handle?
• VoIP calling
• Multi-tasking for third-party apps? 
• OS-specific features:  WP7 Live Tiles and Android's Notification pane

The hardware of a particular mobile device is another story.

Some thoughts:

• Apps - is developing a WP7 app that integrates well with the OS so different compared to the other OSes that developers will avoid offering a WP7-version of their app?
• Office suite - how good is Android's native Google Docs app?  How well does it work offline? 
• iOS seems to marry data and application together, that is, data resides in one application and to access it, you have to use that application.  Another way of looking at it:  You can't choose which application to open a piece of data.  Generally this is not a problem which seems to be iOS's design philosophy

Waiting for next cool gadget (definitely not like waiting for prostrate surgery appointment)

While I continue to suffer with the battery life of my 35-month-old Windows Mobile smartphone and look forward to getting an Android 2.2 device, I find it interesting that although members of our society feels like they are caught in a rat race, simultaneously we cannot wait patiently for the next new device. 

For tasks that need to get done, weeks seem to fly by while we are preoccupied with other things or procrastinating.  Outside, in our backyard, vegetables and weeds alike grow bigger with each passing day.  My wife's tummy is getting bigger.  On the other hand, I have a hard time keeping on top of all the things that need to get done.  And therefore the launch date of the next cool gadget will be here sooner than we think.

Here's to Android 2.2 in Canada, here before I'm ready  :-)

Listened to TWiT 261: Abandon All HPOA

• Netcast
• Economics of privacy have changed.  Before it used to be becoming public (well known) was expensive: You were either Marilyn Monroe or a shmoe.  Now, to stay out of the lime-light (keep your personal details private), you have to pay extra or make an extra effort 
• Is the reason that Android phones are selling more than iPhones is that iPhone is still restricted to AT&T in the US?  And AT&T reception is relatively poor?  And that people are still locked into contracts with other carriers (that don't have the iPhone for their network)?
  

Listened to This Week In Google 54: Wave Bye Bye

• Netcast
• Potential malware in Android apps 
• Vulnerabilities in the Safari browser in the iPhone, iPod Touch, etc. that also enable jail-breaking
• Need for firewalls (controlling outgoing traffic) and UAC for these devices 
• A certification process for Android apps, paid by developers of apps
• As with so-called free applications available for Windows, Linux, etc., any type of code that is not from a trusted source is installed at your own risk.  An application may not wipe out your data but perhaps worse, it can send your data to malicious users for their purposes.  Code to be wary of include Firefox Add-Ins, GreaseMonkey scripts, etc. that may not normally be viewed as "applications"

Listened to Windows Weekly 166: Revenge Of The White Icons

• Netcast
• Windows Phone 7 integrates your various accounts to services, e.g. your Flickr photos, Facebook photos, etc. all live together.  Contrast this with the need for a separate Flickr app, separate Facebook app, etc.  that you start up and exit, start up and exit.
• This drive in the marketplace to have apps for everything is a throwback to when we had desktop apps for everything rather than using online services.  That is, the pre-Internet age.  E.g. CIBC now offers a Blackberry app for online banking--why?  Why not have a web site that is optimized for smaller screen devices so all mobile devices can use the web site.  Google seems to be able to design decent mobile device-optimized web sites (Gmail, Google Calendar, etc.) so why can't other organizations?  Native apps seem better suited for those applications taking advantage of or accessing the specific hardware of the device, or intended for offline use/don't need constant internet access to function adequately

Listened to TWiT 256: The Shirtless Page Turn netcast

• Netcast
• Innovation happening in smartphones that happened earlier with PCs, then Internet
• Consumers seem to want what is intuitive (touch) rather than what is fast (keyboard or mouse or other hardware)
• Google Search has to overcome flotsam created by search engine optimization, scraper sites, associated content (created by companies such as Demand Media)
• Funny Bing commercial 
• algorithms can be "gained"
• Facebook has real people (your "friends", people in your network) providing recommendations/Likes (aka search results).  These are the "curators"
• but how large is your circle of "friends" and how diverse are they?  Because people like people like them, what is truly new that you would learn from them?
• other social bookmarking services such as Delicious may be the answer