Macopinion

How To Have iPhone Functionality Without An iPhone

I have to cop to being a bit of an iPhone skeptic. Maybe it's because, being conservative by nature and temperament, I'm never in the vanguard of those rushing to embrace new innovations. Indeed, I resisted the personal computer for half a decade before being skeptically brought aboard by a cousin who supplied me with a surplus Wangwriter word processor from his employer. I got my first Mac in 1992, and have never looked back.

And when Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod back in October, 2001, my first reaction was something like: "Whaaaaaat?! - a digital jukebox? But Apple is a computer company...."

Obviously, I came to appreciate the incredible usefulness of the computer as a tool, and I soon came around to appreciating the genius of the iPod as well, so maybe the iPhone will grow on me, but at this point I can't perceive it as being the revolutionary device that the hype surrounding its release would imply. I am resigned, however, to the fact that six years after the iPod intro., Apple is much more than a computer company.

On the other hand, cell phones have been around for more than a decade, and I still don't really get the obsessive passion that vast numbers of people seem to have for them. I appreciate the utilitarian value that unwired communication offers, especially in business for people who spend a lot of time out of the office and away from their desks, and their advantages in an emergency are obvious. It's not that I dislike the concept; just that I perceive it as a commodity device.

I of course use telephones for business. And with a daughter living and working in Japan, it's nice to be able to check in by voice from time to time. However, land lines serve my utilitarian telephony needs very satisfactorily, and for a reasonable tariff. One of the things I really don't get about the cell phone's undeniable popularity is apparent enthusiasm about a service that hoses you for both a hefty subscription fee and tolls on both outgoing and incoming calls - plus long distance charges. My thrifty (OK, cheap) nature balks at it all. But whatever floats your boat.

Which brings us back to the iPhone, which, ahem, will set you back $499.00 for the base, 4 GB version, after which AT&T will siphon your wallet for another $59.99 - per month for service. That's all way too rich for my blood. It's also academic for me at this point, since I'm in Canada, and the iPhone will not be offered here for some time yet. One news report last weekend said that Rogers Wireless (the iPhone's rumored Canadian service carrier) personnel were telling customers that it might be two years yet, although I suspect that's an exaggeration. Regardless, I'll not be lining up for the Canadian iPhone launch, whenever it comes.

Now, all that said, I do appreciate that the iPhone offers some very cool functionality that vastly transcends it's telephone role. I don't think it's the future of personal computing, but aside from the cost issue, I would certainly relish having one.

And there are workarounds for both the cost and the current lack of availability outside the U.S. Indeed, you may be able to graft a lot of the iPhone's rich feature set onto the mobile phone you already have, or failing that, on a non-Apple but less pricey device.


For example, Motorola's SLVR L7 ( pronounced "sliver") is the latest iteration of Moto's RAZR "iPod phone,"and will work with AT&T, T-mobile, Rogers, or Fido wireless services, The SLVR L7 incorporates integrated Bluetooth and a VGA cameras with up to 512 megabytes of expandable flash memory, and sports an integrated miniSD-slot, so you can record photos and short videos to a miniSD card for easy transfer to a PC. Moto also offers a SLVR L6, with no miniSD slot.

Motorola SLVR's Bluetooth support provides hands-free connections and Push-to-Talk (PTT) connects you to work groups and friends easily.

SLVR L7 FEATURES:
• Super-thin design
• PTT with icon presence indicators for one-touch connections
• Integrated VGA camera with 4x zoom and video capture and playback
• Bluetooth Class 2 for hands-free connectivity
• MP3 player to store, repeat, shuffle and play favorite tunes; 22Khz polyphonic speaker
• Up to 512 MB or removable TransFlash memory
• WAP 2.0
• Downloadable wallpaper, screensaver and MP3 ringtones
• J2ME MIDP 2.0
• Integrated hands-free speakerphone
• Messaging via MMS, IM Wireless Village and email (POP3, SMTP)
• Motorola's SCREEN3 technology solution featuring zero-click access to news, sports, entertainment, and other premium content

Not a shabby package at all, and while the SLVR L7's list price of $399.00 is not radically lower than the base iPhone's, I've found them offered by third party resellers as low as $136.00.

But the SLVR L7 is just one of many mobile phoine products to which a great deal of the iPhone's capabilities can be added.

Phone features a stripped-down version of the Safari web browser, which displays web pages at full-window, but also zooms in to expand any section by tapping on the multi-touch display with a finger, while surfing the web over Wi-Fi or EDGE. iPhone Safari can automatically sync your bookmarks from a PC or Mac, and includes built-in Google Search and Yahoo! Search.

However, Opera offers their Opera Mini mobile device browser for a wide variety of cell phones, and I happen to like Opera better than Safari anyway.

With Opera Mini 3.1 you can surf the Web and get RSS news on your phone, share photos using Opera Mini's photo sharing feature, download files directly to your mobile phone from the Web, safely use secured sites, such as your e-mail, bank site, online stores, and so forth.

Opera Mini uses a remote server to pre-process Web pages before sending them to your phone. Web content is compressed to reduce the size of data transferred, enabling handling on simpler phones and creating fast browsing at low costs.

For more information, visit:
http://www.operamini.com/

Does the iPhone's iSync compatibility appeal? There are actually many iSync-compatible mobile phones. You can find Apple's list here:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/isync/devices.html

Also included in the iPhone is support for Google Maps and iPhone's own maps application, with which users can view maps, satellite images, traffic information and get directions.

However, you can access many Google features from anywhere, anytime on a mobile device that doesn't have to be an iPhone. Google's Local for mobile service is a stripped-down version of the web-based Google Local that puts a particularly emphasizes maps and driving directions.

The service allows you to search for specific addresses, businesses or business categories in the United States. Unlike the web-based Google Local service, results are minimalized, featuring maps or satellite imagery.

Locations you enter are stored, and up to 20 recent locations are accessible by scrolling and clicking the "OK" or other confirmation button on your phone. Google does not store information that can identify you personally, but does associate a unique identifying number with your phone. See Google's privacy policy for more information.

With Google Maps on your mobile phone you can get:

Real-time traffic reports - See where the congestion is, and estimate delays in over 30 major US metropolitan areas.

Detailed directions - Whether you plan to walk or drive, your route is displayed on the map itself, together with step-by-step directions.

Integrated search results - Local business locations and contact information appear all in one place, integrated on your map.

Easily movable maps - Interactive maps let you zoom in or out, and move in all directions so you can orient yourself visually.

Satellite imagery - Get a bird's eye view of your desired location.

Google Maps is available on hundreds of mobile devices.

For more information, visit:
http://mobile.google.com
or
http://www.google.com/mobile/

iPhone's "Visual Voicemail" will let you look at a listing of your voicemails, decide which messages to listen to, then go directly to those messages without listening to the prior messages, similar to the way you manage email. Want access to your voice mail on your non-iPhone cell phone? Check out SimulScribe.

SimulScribe utilizes cutting edge voice recognition technology to convert your voicemail messages into text. It delivers your transcribed voicemail, along with the original audio, to your mobile phone, PDA, and/or email account.

SimulScribe converts your voicemail into text messages and then sends them directly to your mobile phone, Blackberry, Goodlink enabled phone and/or your email account.

You can instantly see who has called and what they said, whether you are sitting in a business meeting or traveling on the road. Your voicemail functionality does not change; it can still be listened to and stored for later use. You can use the SimulScribe online user interface to search, sort, archive and delete voicemail like email

SimulScribe Mobile Voicemail Integration pricing starts at $9.95.
For more information, visit:
http://www.simulscribe.com/

For podcasts and other online media delivery to your mobile phone, check out Melodeo, which offers a selection of on-demand audio and video programs for the Web and mobile phone.

Melodeo's current products and projects include:

• Mobilcast, which provides on-demand access to over 150,000 programs covering music, news and much more (now in HiFi!)
• A joint venture in China with Sony/BMG and Warner Music Group
• A video product for launch in Q2 2007

Melodeo has strong relationships with a range of key partners, from major content providers to wireless carriers.

Melodeo's Mobilcast client supports a variety of Motorola, Nokia, and Sony Ericsson phones, allowing you to stream podcasts or to download them for listening later.

For more information, visit:
http://melodeo.com/

Of course, Apple's iTunes support is elegantly integrated into the iPhone experience, but Tea Vui Huang's Mass Storage Synchronizer is an Windows-based iTunes Add-on for Sony Ericsson Walkman Phones, Sony Clie PDA and Sony Ericsson P900/P910 Smartphone (Sony Devices). Sony Ericsson Walkman Phones presently include the w800, w600 and w550. Not unlike the Motorola ROKR, this add-on enables Walkman phones to be a virtual iTunes Mobile. This combination of iTunes and Mass Storage Synchronizer allows Sony Walkman Phone users to use iTunes to manage their songs, and sync/update the songs to the phone. It can used in place of the bundled Disc2Phone.

You can use Disc2Phone software to search for music on your computer or audio CDs, convert your existing audio tracks to MP3 format, and copy tracks to a Sony Memory Stick for listening on your Sony Ericsson phone.

The following audio files can be managed from iTunes to the Walkman Phone via Mass Storage Synchronizer:
MP3
MP4
M4A
3GP (Audio encoded in AAC or AMR)
AMR
WAV
G-MIDI

For more information, visit:
http://www.teavuihuang.com/massstorsync/

Another third-party iTunes mobile phone tool is nuTsie, which allows you to access your entire iTunes music library from your cell phone, and it's free.

You can also use the nuTsie Web player to listen to your music wherever you have a connected PC, at work, at the library, at your friend's house, or wherever you have access to an Internet-connected computer even though you're away from your iTunes collection, and you can share your nuTsie page with others so they can listen to your music too.

nuTsie compares the list of the songs in your iTunes library and playlists with all the music already stored on nuTsie's Web servers, and then streams those same songs to your mobile phone. It plays all the songs in a shuffle mode. nuTsie pays the artists and recording industry based on your listening to their music..

There are several phones the nuTsie folks have actively developed on and tested to make sure nuTsie works well on them. You can find a list of featured phones and accessories which that the developers think provide the best nuTsie experience here:
http://www.nutsie.com/main/whats_nutsie

For more information, visit:
http://www.nutsie.com/main

iPhone is of course also a widescreen iPod - essentially the top-of-the-line iPod nano. However, instead of a scroll wheel, users "touch" their music by scrolling through lists of songs, artists, albums and playlists with a flick of a finger. Album artwork is also presented on iPhone's display with Cover Flow, with which you can browse your music library by album cover artwork. When navigating your iPhone's music library, you are automatically switched into Cover Flow by rotating iPhone into its landscape position. iPhone's 3.5-inch widescreen display features touch controls for play-pause, chapter forward-backward and volume.

iPhone supports all of the usual iPod content, including music, audiobooks, audio podcasts, video podcasts, music videos, television shows and movies, and syncs content from your iTunes library on your PC or Mac.

However, if your other-brand cell phone doesn't support digital jukebox capability, there's a case to be made for buying a separate iPod, especially if you already have a cell phone and are using a service other than AT&T, and save several hundred bucks compared with switching to the iPhone. Apple will be happy to sell you an iPod nano 4 GB for $199.00 or an iPod nano 8GB for $249.00. The thrifty iPod shopper should also check out what's available in Apple Certified Refurbished iPods at the online Apple Store. ACR iPods have the same 1-year warranty as new iPods.

***



cmoore@macopinion.com


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