Jerry Fahrni

Category: Mobile Computing

  • HP webOS dies a quick, albeit painful death

    hpTP_deathHP decided to discontinue the webOS, which means the TouchPad is no more. I can’t say that I’m totally surprised that it failed, but I am shocked at the speed at which the company pulled the plug. I thought this might happen. I even went as far as to say “the webOS died in 2010” in a post back on December 31, 2010.

    I have no idea why HP killed the webOS, but I’m sure we’ll find out more in the weeks to come. The operating system itself was awesome. I personally think it had the best user experience of all the current tablet platforms. I was looking forward to it’s maturation as a mobile computing ecosystem. With that said I think HP failed to offer the smartphone variety necessary to make the HP TouchPad meaningful.

    I considered buying a TouchPad, but ultimately decided against it. Like many others I have a host of tablets to chose from these days. Why did I baulk at the TouchPad? Basically it boils down to cost, lack of smartphone choice and the feeling that the TouchPad still had some growing pains to go through. These are the same reasons that lead me to hold off on purchasing many of the early Android tablets.

    Good-bye TouchPad. Your death was premature to say the least. Shame on you HP for destroying such a beautiful tablet operating system.

  • FrankenNook gets a facelift, suffers from identity crisis

    ScreenShotI’ve been using my rooted Nook Color, a.k.a. FrankenNook, for a couple of months now. Turns out that it makes a great Android tablet. There are a couple of things missing from my little lab experiment, the most glaring of which is a camera, but overall it’s given me a nice travel companion with great functionality and solid battery life.  

    The most common uses for the device to date have been:

    1. Games – hands down the activity that I use the tablet for most. Favorite games include Drag Racing, Pinball Ride and Peggle
    2. Reading – Pulse, Google Reader, etc.
    3. Interacting with social media – Google+, Twitter, Facebook
    4. Email, both work and personal
    5. Surfing the net – I don’t do this nearly as much as I thought I would. Most of my surfing is the result of following a link in Twitter or Google+

    One of the things I’ve been playing with is launchers. Throw in the fact that I’ve been recently considering converting to a Windows 7 smartphone and you can imagine my intrigue when I came across Launcher 7 for Android.

    Description from the Android Market:

      A Windows Phone 7 style launcher for Android.

      Unlike other current WP7 launchers (Windows Phone Android, Metro UI), this one allows you to properly modify your start screen. Just long press on a tile and drag tile where you want!

      I installed Launcher 7 and have been using it for about a week. I like it a lot. It does seem a little weird to be running a Windows 7 launcher on a Nook Color rooted to run Android.
      Overall I like the Windows 7 Phone experience. One thing that’s missing is widgets. Having widgets for Android is a real game changer for me. I use widgets for a lot of things; weather, Evernote, news, calendar, agenda, alarm  clock, etc. I’m not sure I want to live without them.
      Final verdict? I think I like having widgets enough to continue using Android for now. My new launcher of choice? Go Launcher EX. 

  • Is the HP Touchpad too little too late?

    Daring Fireball:

    To me, easily the most appealing iPad competitor. But I think the Pre is the most appealing iPhone competitor, and it hasn’t fared well. HP has matched the iPad’s pricing: $499/599 for 16/32 GB Wi-Fi models.

    I think the problem facing HP is summed up in the sub-head on this promotional page:

    The ultimate in entertainment with Beats Audio and Adobe Flash.

    That’s not a compelling answer to “Why should I buy this instead of an iPad?” I mean, who has even heard of “Beats Audio”?

    Update: Lots of feedback arguing that Dr. Dre’s Beats brand has good consumer recognition. I remain skeptical that this is a flagship selling point for a tablet, though, no matter how popular their headphones are.

    And Glenn Fleishman had a good quip:

    Whenever a hardware maker has to put the name of another company
    in its ads as a selling point, it may already have lost.

    via daringfireball.net

    I don’t typically agree with anything this guy says, but I can’t ignore this post. Unfortunately he’s spot on. The HP ecosystem is incredibly well designed and for all intents and purposes is probably the best tablet/smartphone UI on the market.

    While Dr. Dre’s Beats brand does in fact have a solid consumer following it won’t be enough to make the device compelling. And as I mention here, HP needs to expand their line of smartphones to compel consumers to make the transition; or at least design a device that people can’t ignore, i.e. like Apple and the iPhone.

  • Father’s Day gift becomes FrankenNook

    I don’t consider myself a technology geek, but I do consider myself a power user. I like technology, but I’m not typically the guy who goes rooting around in the assembly of an operating system.

    Recently I’ve been thinking, out loud, about getting an Android tablet. I’ve also been bemoaning the fact that I’ve never rooted an Android device. I’ve thought about rooting my Droid, but haven’t done it. I’ve also toyed with the idea of purchasing a Barnes & Noble Nook Color just so I could root it.

    (more…)

  • Physician mobile choice driving IT development

    imageamednews.com: “With an estimated 81% of physicians using smartphones (up from 72% in 2010), according to a survey of 2,041 physicians released May 4 by Manhattan Research, Albany Medical Center was not alone in feeling pressure from physicians to allow them mobile access. Hospitals and health information technology vendors are realizing that the way to sell physicians on health information technology is to make it mobile. Instead of hospitals and vendors telling physicians to adapt to their preferred ways of using technology, physicians are gaining the power to sway hospitals and vendors to their preferred way of using it.”

    There are a couple of take home messages from this article. First, the increased use of mobile technology is finally forcing healthcare systems to make changes to their approach to technology. It’s something that’s been needed for a long time. Second, the article clearly demonstrates that our healthcare system remains physician centric. It isn’t until physicians cry foul that changes are made. I first asked for “mobile support” in a hospital setting nearly a decade ago, and continued to ask for it until I left the industry about six months ago. Unfortunately I’m a lowly pharmacist. Even at the last facility I worked in, which considered themselves quite technologically advanced, it wasn’t until physicians began demanding iPad support that we got it.

    The more things change, the more they stay the same. Just sayin’.

  • An open letter to HP

    Dear HP,

    As I read about the release of the HP TouchPad on July 1st, I can’t help feel both excited and disappointed. The operating system on the new TouchPad appears second to none. The “card-view” multi-tasking offers a simple, yet powerful user interface. In fact, the user interface is so nice that RIM blatantly copied it for use on their PlayBook.

    In addition the TouchPad offers a dual-core Snapdragon processor, HP Synergy to provide a single interface for email, social media, calendars, contacts and more, just type, support for both Flash and HTML5, video calling on a beautiful 1024×768 multitouch screen, and so on. You’ve designed a tablet truly worthy of consideration even when compared to all other tablets currently on the market. 

    (more…)

  • No walls, mobility and modularity

    AMD blogs: “I can envision a future where we carry around a personal module and when we get close to any display, we can easily interact with our content and communicate with our loved ones. We are a ways off from that future. It will be driven by powerful CPUs, GPUs, APUs, wireless, HCI and software. There will be interim steps, of course, and I like to stay close to the bleeding edge as it is one of many indicators of where we are on the evolution. In this modular and extensible context, I’ve looked at the Motorola LapDock, the Motorola HD Multimedia Dock, and the Motorola Xoom as a notebook replacement.”

    The Author of the article, Pat Moorhead connected a BlackBerry PlayBook to a Samsung 21.5” LED Display, Apple Wireless Keyboard and Acer Ferrari Bluetooth mouse. You can see the setup here.

    (more…)

  • Opinion: why the Google Chromebook is not a bad idea

    Anyone that knows me personally or has read this site must realize that I like technology and think that the cloud is the future for a great many things. While I don’t necessarily think the cloud is ready for primetime for everyone, I believe that we have yet to realize the full power of moving away from the desktop storage model.

    Google recently unveiled the availability of its Chromebook, a laptop “optimized for the web”. I haven’t had an opportunity to see one in person, but I have every intention to purchase one of these machines and give the concept a shot. Based on internet chatter it may be easier said than done as I believe the Chromebook will be a hot commodity when it becomes available.

    (more…)

  • Laptop want versus laptop need

    marco.org: “The right laptop to get is the one that will be able to serve most of your needs, most of the time, with the fewest compromises on factors that matter to you.
    ….
    Almost everyone can point to a handful of situations in which a given Apple laptop is impossible, impractical, or frustrating to use for a particular task.
    …..
    Most people put far too much consideration on size and weight. There are situations in which this matters, such as the tray-table example, but evaluate your own situation before deciding based on that: How often do you travel on planes, how much time during the flight would you realistically be working on your laptop, and how bad would it be if you couldn’t?”

    I don’t personally use an Apple laptop, but the information in the article can be applied to non-Apple machines as well. While I don’t agree with the author’s conclusion that people put far too much consideration on size and weight, I can certainly relate to the problem with tray-tables on planes. I for one put a lot of consideration into size and weight when choosing a laptop. It’s important to me. Thin and light with good battery life tops my list of desirables when I’m looking at a new machine. I also prefer laptops with screens around 14” in size.

    Unfortunately my desired screen size directly impacts my ability to use laptops on planes. I fly in cattle-class where the seats are designed for petite women less than 5’6”. And for some reason the person sitting in front of me always wants to lie in my lap. Anyway, my 14.1″ Lenovo T410s laptop doesn’t fit on the tray-table comfortably between me and the reclining ding-bat in front of me; really irritating (that’s a totally different post).

    What’s the solution? Get a smaller laptop obviously. Just sayin’.

  • BlackBerry PlayBook impressions

    Mobile Health Computing: “I had a chance to briefly see the BlackBerry PlayBook at HIMSS 2011, but then I had a chance to spend some time and play with it recently when I was at the airport. The device is small and light and my first impression was: “this is simply too small.”

    The PlayBook is really slim and has a solid feel. You’ll notice that the device does not have a “home” button like the iPad. You’ll need to play around to figure out how to navigate back to the home menu. Try a few on-screen gestures and you’ll quickly figure it out. If you can’t figure it out, try swiping up, swipe down, swipe left, etc. The new mobile Operating Systemis not like your typical BlackBerry. This new OS is much closer to HP webOS (formerly Palm webOS).”

    I also had an opportunity to play with a BlackBerry PlayBook recently while at the airport (I wonder if it was the same airport). I found myself in a BlackBerry store, which I didn’t even know existed. I agree with much of what is said above, but I didn’t feel the device too small. I like being able to hold the PlayBook in one hand while controlling it with the other. I feel the same way about the 7” Galaxy Samsung tablet. It’s personal preference at this point.

    One thing I think BlackBerry did especially well was the OS, which I also think is similar in approach to the webOS. I found it a breeze to navigate through several open apps without having to jump out of any single applications. With that said, it may take you a second to figure out how best to navigate using “off screen” finger swiping. It wasn’t immediately obvious.

    The bottom line is that I’d like to have one.