There is No App for That!

By Richard M. Sherwin

Every time I am with my business colleagues Bart and Mitch, I get slightly envious and remorseful that I gave a way my iPhone. While their AT&PS don’t seem to be better than my Blackberry or MY LG phone, these award winning industrial designers from Fuseproject seem to have the nimble fingers that bring out the best in the Apple product.

My gnarled hands and fingers from hockey and baseball have enough trouble pressing one button at a time on my Blackberry Tour and never got accustomed to the Blackberry Storm My iPod Apple envy lasts about 15 minutes whether I am in San Francisco at their office or in Central New Jersey visiting a client. Then Bart and Mitch start staring at their iPhone and I wind-up dialing the client because I can get through on Verizon’s 3G system and they are dead in AT&T neverland. My Blackberry’s APPs actually work because they are connected on a good service provider. Since I do business with both Verizon and AT&T, I really don’t have a service provider loyalty… just a get business done loyalty.

Blackberry Tour

Bart and Mitch tell me that AT&T is committed to improving mobile service in the Bay area, but alas, even when I am in Connecticut and Massachusetts, which is allegedly blanketed by AT&T, I find friends and business colleagues staring and swearing at their iPhones more often than not.

So can Verizon please cut a deal with Apple or at least bring out that secret Microsoft driven iPhone killer that they seem to be hiding in Basking Ridge, N.J.?

Slacker is no Slacker

Speaking of APPS, one of my top music playing services, Slacker, has once again trounced its big big rival Rhapsody with its Blackberry APP. The basic service is free and the deluxe service is faster, easier to use on the PC and way better than the Verizon version on a mobile phone. In fact the Blackberry version is so easy… just pick your artists and genres on your Blackberry and when you synch to your PC, its takes a few seconds to get a whole new (25) artist repertoire onto a micro SD card. Voila! you don’t even have to carry your MP3 player any more. Slacker’s portfolio of music seems broader than its other rival Pandora, but many of the best features of Slacker only come with the deluxe edition. Pandora, of course, is absolutely free and a terrific experience on the Blackberry and other mobile phones, but you can’t do the extra custom storage because it doesn’t support an external SD card. If you opt for Slacker’s deluxe version you’ll pay under $50 for a year’s service, but you will get No Audio or Banner Ads, Unlimited Song Skips, Complete Lyrics, Unlimited Song Requests and a nice graphics based Mini Player.

Because many Verizon phones now carry some version of Slacker or Pandora, reportedly Verizon is considering dumping their Rhapsody deal and looking at other music services or asking Real Network to vastly improve its VCast-Rhapsody music package.

If you are still one of those folks that have to have a portable radio with you, the Nobex Radio Companion APP lets you listen to over 4000 radio stations around the world and see the playlist of over 2700 radio stations. You can get Songs or Ringtones with a single click, right from your mobile device. Or, you can receive an email with links to buy the song on your PC, so you can always keep your music collection fresh!

Nobex

Like Slacker, you can see Lyrics of any song. Ever heard a song on the radio and wished you knew what the words were? Now you can see the lyrics of the song that is playing or was recently played. The lyrics can even scroll in sync with the song! You can read Song and Artist Info about the artist who sings your favorite song. Using the “Lyrics and More” screen, you can now see Artist and Song info too… Hear Song Snippets if you’re not sure if the song you just missed is the one you have been wanting to download.

The best part of this Blackberry APP is that if you have a favorite news, sports, talk or music radio station anywhere in North America, you’ll probably find that station on the Nobex platform.

Voice over IP shakeup

A few years ago, I dropped the disappointing Verizon Voice Wing voice over Internet service as my second line. And then Verizon dropped it too, killing Voice Wing. I used Vonage, which performed better and more reliably. Either way my cost for this second line was around $35 a month including tax. When I was overseas or in a hotel room with Internet access, I usually used Skype instead of my mobile phone because it was clearer and cheaper. So recently I tried using the venerable Skype service as my second line domestically to save a few bucks.

This is what I found. Surprisingly, many of my business colleagues and even some friends had the Skype service. Voice calls and video calls are free when you and the person you’re calling are both on Skype. When I was the host for a conference call, I could do the call with up to 10 people on Skype for free and, starting at $2.95/monthfor calls to non Skype customers, you can make unlimited calls to landlines and cell phones within a country, region or over 40 countries worldwide.

The following calling subscriptions are now available on Skype.com: Unlimited U.S. & Canada: Unlimited* calls to landline and cell phones in the U.S. and Canada. ($2.95 per month)_ Unlimited Country: Unlimited* calls to landlines to one country of choice. ($5.95 per month) Unlimited World: Unlimited* calls to landline and cell phones in over 40 countries.($12.95 per month) International calls – as low as 2.1¢ per minute lets you receive calls on Skype, from anyone using an ordinary phone.

While Skype does lack real customer support, you hardly ever need it. My GE Skype phone was one of the worst products I ever had… no wonder Thomson went out of business after buying the GE brand. But I did find an interesting thing… that phone DOES work with Skype’s arch rival, the ever-present on late night TV MagicJack. Magic Jack is even cheaper for some services than Skype, although it racks up an enormous amount of customer complaints, but it has performed well enough for me, enabling me to have an extra phone line at almost just the price of one.

However, maybe the easiest way for a novice to get the best out of using an Internet phone is the Skype-supported Belkin Desktop Internet Phone, which allows you to make unlimited free phone calls to other Skype users without a computer. It also lets you call people who use traditional phone systems – using SkypeOut – at a drastically reduced rate compared to standard phone services. The other feature of the Belkin Desktop Skype Phone is the terrific quality of the reception from both ends of the call. The Belkin Desktop unlike the GE, is also a very easy to install and remembered for you Blackberry fans the Verizon Smart phone Skype APP is only a month away.

The Belkin Desktop Internet Phone

There’s a more than a Remote Chance that my 9 remotes will act in Harmony.

About 20 years ago I dazzled a whole bunch of friends and relatives with a $29 Remote control device from Recoton that operated all 4 devices in my living room. After the novelty wore off I just used the remotes that I scattered all over the living room. The main reason was that I never could find a universal remote that could integrate all the functions to my satisfaction. I tried the Monster remotes but they did not have all the devices listed easily. I tried the “All in one” remotes now available at many retail stores and alas, they could turn on one device, maybe two, at a time but not coordinate my receiver, Blue Ray Player and TV, while shutting down the Nintendo Wii and turning off the lights at the same time. And then turn off the Blue Ray Player, amplifier, and stereo and turn on the TiVo, cable box or cable card and lower the sound on the speakers. But now I have at least 9 devices in the living room and more in my den. My family doesn’t use all the devices and what they want running doesn’t always jive with each other. I recently tested the new and improved Harmony remotes from Logitech and all did all the things I ever wanted a universal remote to do…under the most confusing situation I could put them through.

From the high end Model 1100 (around $350), which looks like and acts like something that could control a space ship but easily, to the more down to earth model 700 (controls six devices under $99) the secret to Harmony’s success seems to be that they have the codes of 5000+ brands and 225,000+ devices, so you know it will work with what you have today and what you’ll add tomorrow. In addition, you should you make a mistake and program the stereo to go off instead of on when you turn the Blue Ray player on, the Harmony’s all seem to have the right order and, with one more command, can make the change instantly.

No More Blu Ray Blues… And a lot more for your Electronics Dollar from LG

Other than people who own Play Station 3s, I am always hearing the complaint that, even with the most expensive Blu Ray players, the boot up time to use the device is like a bad old computer. Then I hear the other refrain that I want a Netflix streaming feature, a digital photo viewer, maybe a Vudu high resolution rental system but don’t want five boxes atop my TV. I have been using last year’s LG’s integrated Internet enabled Blue Ray player model 390 and voila! I have eliminated several set top boxes and, for the first time, I have a device that challenges my beloved TiVo in doing many things from one platform. It took me about 2 minutes to set up my Netflix and Vudu accounts. It took about half the time of my other Blue Ray players do to boot up and play a Blue Ray DVD. Other Internet features like YouTube, Cinema Now and more to come are just the icing on the cake of this terrific player. Just make sure you have a decent Wi-Fi router…and or if you are one of the 17 people in North America who have their router or modem in the living room, it’s very easy to get this connected to the Internet and to actually use all these features right away.

Print This! Epson does it Quickly and Accurately

I had so many calls and emails about recent problems with Brother’s All-in-One printer, fax copiers and even the legendary HP line of All-in-One home office multifunction printers, that I decided to go back to square one and try the Epson line of home office printers. The complaints about the two leading printer makers ranged from burning out the cartridges too quickly, to unmanageable paper jams to incompatibilities when you change PCs.

So tried a Epson, a brand I had used nearly 15 years ago, the Epson model 610 (now Wi-Fi enabled and Internet networkable) but the basic functions were what I was looking for. For under $200, this multi-function Epson unit performed all the chores of some of the better laser printers (fax, copy, scan, print fast, print vivid colors) and was faster, more reliable than its rivals. So those of you who forgot how good Epson printers were, rethink it. My only caveat is that (like 15 years ago), the Epson 610 is slightly more noisy than its competition, but maybe that’s why it’s faster. Like its rivals it has all the requisite card slots for printing without a computer, an easy to read color screen to guide you through any feature and Epson’s tech support is very good.

Embrace Web Browsing, E-Shopping, but forgot how to argue?

A very reliable source told me at a business writers luncheon the other day that some major home appliance makers, consumer electronics makers and computer makers were toying with the idea of removing telephone contact numbers on their websites…a la eBay, Yahoo, MSN and many other Internet based firms. Some companies like Dell, HP and Samsung actually already hide them well enough that they are virtually invisible. And of course, if you’ve purchased almost anything on the web, you have already experienced that helpless feeling of not getting an email answer from technical support or customer service…and not finding a telephone number to call. Making matters worse, the venerable Consumer’s union, publisher of Consumer Reports, now sometimes only gives you an email address for complaints or questions. I think we should all do what the late Peter Finch yelled in the movie Network. Open your window and yell: “I’m mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.” Or overload the offending websites with email.