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Giz Explains: All The Smartphone Mobile App Stores
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VMWare For Mobile Devices Lets You Run Windows and Android Simultaneously
AT&T Wants All Its Smartphones Running the Same OS, Eventually

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DownfieldComa
04/06/09

In reply to Giz Explains: All The Smartphone Mobile App Stores
Is the apple developers fee $99 annually? Really?
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cduran02
04/06/09

@DownfieldComa: That's a typo. When I signed up last year it was a 1 time $99 fee. I haven't received any emails reminding me to renew or anything.
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John Herrman
04/06/09

@cduran02: Thanks for catching--fixed.
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Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
02/26/09

In reply to VMWare For Mobile Devices Lets You Run Windows and Android Simultaneously
This is impressive. I thought the 880's native Linux based OS was pretty good. If Nokia makes another rev. of this internet tablet I'd be interested in seeing them switch over to Android for the OS.
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BeautifulAgony
02/26/09

@Jrsy Devil's Food Cake®: This is definitely hot! But it's just sad that it's unlikely to make any difference in the phone market. But this would make mobile phone computing so much more versatile an dpowerful, perhaps bringing us an eensy-weensy step closer to Charles Stross's "mobies" from Halting State.
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Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
02/26/09

@BeautifulAgony: I know. A friend of mine got the N810 a few months ago. It was definitely very cool. If it had a SIM slot and I could make calls with it I wouldn't mind carrying it around and leaving my phone home once in a while. Otherwise I just couldn't justify spending the money on what essentially is half a netbook.
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BeautifulAgony
02/26/09

@Jrsy Devil's Food Cake®: Agreed. The other problem with a hybrid device is that if my battery dies while surfing Giz and Fleshbot, then I'm up a creek the rest of the day for getting calls or texting anyone.

It sucks carrying around multiple devices, but I'd put up with it if it was truly modular and supported multiple OS's (or OS upgrading) for better app support. WinMo devices have the caveat of becoming obsolete as newer OS revisions appear, or conversely, application development stagnates to accomodate older versions of WinMo.
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Jrsy Devil's Advocate®
02/26/09

@BeautifulAgony: Keeping our portable devices charged will always be a pain in the ass, at least for now. That's one of the annoyances I experience whenever I change phones. The chargers aren't universal and I end up buying extra ones so I can make sure I always have a charger available (home, work, car) in the event it's needed.

As it is I can usually do everything I want with my N95. It also helps for those occasional forays into FB when I'm at work...
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lpranal
12/05/08

In reply to AT&T Wants All Its Smartphones Running the Same OS, Eventually
Not to sound like the fanboy ass that i'll be written off as anyway, but almost all of my "support nightmare" here at work is windows mobile. people with blackberries have a learning curve, but they generally manage fine by themselves, mostly the same for iPhonies such as myself.
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OMG! Ponies!
12/05/08

@lpranal: RIM is a "set-it-and-forget-it" set-up. Type in the server info and you're ready to go.

It's not that my iPhone doesn't have that ease-of-use capability; I suspect that my company is running some older version of Exchange that the iPhone doesn't play well with. It's not an issue with RIM, though.
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sebas0069
12/05/08

In reply to AT&T Wants All Its Smartphones Running the Same OS, Eventually
I beleive ATT is asking for all smartphone to be like Apple's iPhone. Take care of your shit! I'll sell it for you but you fix your problems. I think it's a good strategy. Basically, all Smartphone will be third-party soon! I think it's a win win for Apple and ATT. Apple is already set up, so I expect more convert from other smartphone. And for the ones that won't convert, more bandwith left supported smartphones.
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Kaiser-Machead
12/05/08

@sebas0069: To hell with Apple. They make a dandy phone, but what say does a telco have in the kind of OS hardware vendors use? Shouldn't the decision be up to them?
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frigg
12/05/08

@Kaiser-Machead: Yeah, and the next thing you know, everyone gets visual voicemail. Is that the world you want to live in?!
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Kaiser-Machead
12/05/08

@frigg: He's a witch!
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Kaiser-Machead
12/05/08

In reply to AT&T Wants All Its Smartphones Running the Same OS, Eventually
Roughly translated:

We at AT&T harbor a strong and unmoving hatred for all who aren't part of our family. As one of the majority holders of the intertubes, we can now openly express our hatred for all of mankind, with confidence that you complacent, vapid cretins will continue to use our services, and stuff our gluttonous craws with your sucker money. Thank you.
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frigg
12/05/08

In reply to AT&T Wants All Its Smartphones Running the Same OS, Eventually
AT&T: "We will support 1 OS and 1 OS only. The only exceptions will be the iPhone, goes without saying, RIM, naturally, Google, of course, Nokia, can't say No to Nokia, Microsoft cause you don't want to get them angry, and maybe one or two others. But aside from those, it's 1 OS ONLY!!!"
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OMG! Ponies!
12/05/08

In reply to AT&T Wants All Its Smartphones Running the Same OS, Eventually
Sorry about the double but, the more I think of it, the more I suspect that RIM would get an exemption - or at least become the standard OS.

RIM makes BlackBerries and BlackBerries make the business world go 'round. Screw with the way a BlackBerry works and you'll spook the business customers. In a down economy where companies are making cutbacks, no company is going to want to have to increase its IT departmental spending because its phone provider has decided to change the way the company's equipment works.

Either RIM gets special treatment or T-Mobile and Verizon eat AT&T's lunch.
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OMG! Ponies!
12/05/08

In reply to AT&T Wants All Its Smartphones Running the Same OS, Eventually
I think if you look in the skies above Redmond, Mountain View, and Irving, you'll see a whole lot of lead balloons.
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sumocat
12/05/08

In reply to AT&T Wants All Its Smartphones Running the Same OS, Eventually
Sounds to me like they just threw down the gauntlet. Whoever wants to provide AT&T with their one official OS better step up the awesomeness.

As far as what defines a "third-party" device, since the concern is tech support, I assume that covers any device for which AT&T does not offer tech support. That includes the iPhone and (I believe) BlackBerries. If a device gets its firmware updates through AT&T, it's an AT&T device.
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IN THE FACE!
12/05/08

@sumocat: AT&T is just lazy, that's all this tells me...

Because, tech-support is one of their "Top" priorities.

lawl
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OMG! weatherman
12/05/08

In reply to AT&T Wants All Its Smartphones Running the Same OS, Eventually
This is the opposite of what Verizon is doing with their open access initiative. And it's a stupid move; bad for consumers and bad for business. It's an attempt by AT$T to pretend that wireless service isn't just a commodity, and try to retain their hegemony. Of course it will fail, the only question is how much money will AT$T lose before it realizes that.
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Anonymoose
12/05/08

In reply to AT&T Wants All Its Smartphones Running the Same OS, Eventually
support nightmare? there are only four OSes to learn. how hard is that? if need be, create teams specialized for each one. are people that inept that they can't learn how to troubleshoot for more than just one OS? i mean, this is their job. i have used multiple OSes and know my way around them enough to handle most problems and i havent received any training. this is ludicrous.
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cac67
12/05/08

@Anonymoose: Think how awesomely good you would be if you received a 2 hour training class but never got to actually see those operating systems in action. That's what att's training is like, all power points and screen shots. Occasionally they'll do a class with 1 phone to be passed around, but I've been there 5 years and have had that kind of training class on 4 phones. This is what att reps are using to support the various handsets. And the worst part is, we get a lot of calls from people who never spent a single solitary second trying to figure out how to operate their phone from the available resources before calling to find out how to turn their ringer up.
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Geisrud
12/05/08

@cac67: I went to the link you provided and found the page is down for maintenance. Something terribly ironic about that, no?
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something_unique_and_descriptive
12/05/08

@Anonymoose: You've never worked in a call center have you?

What you're talking about might be true for tier three, maybe even a competent tier two, but tier one, the numbskulls that you get first, are, on average, the stereotypical McDonald's employee... Minimum wage, Minimum intelligence. Sure there are always a few who actually know what they're doing, and some of them actually even give a damn about their job... those are typically the new guys who either have that desire to help snuffed out (by countless idiots who can't figure out that the phone needs to be charged) or they leave disillusioned with the whole technical support industry.
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