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It always strikes me as somewhat amazing how much SMS and MMS services have seamlessly integrated themselves with mainstream activities.  As an example (and no surprise to those who really know me!), I will use this afternoon's Ranger/Bruin hockey game as an example.  Before you send me lots of comments and e-mail pointing out that what I really wanted to write this blog installment about was the thrilling game, I plead 100% guilty.  I will try to at least give some lip service to mobile Internet services while I carry on about the thriller in the "World's most famous arena."

The Rangers and Bruins started the day separated by just one point in the standings, with the Broadway Blues holding the advantage.  The Eastern Conference is very tight this year, with only 6 points separating the top 7 teams! 

The teams traded excellent scoring chances in the first period with the Rangers testing the Boston goalposts, back boards and protective netting, as much as they challenged the Bruin goaltender. But with no pucks finding the twine of either goal, the period ended scoreless. 

The second period was similar to the first, with the intensity turned up several notches.  Jaromir Jagr powered by the Bruin defense on three occasions for close-in tries, denied on each by Jay Auld, the Bruin net minder.  The Bruins finally did put some sustained pressure on the Rangers, with Henrik up to the challenge.  The second intermission came with no goals.

A special shout-out at this point must go to a Blue Shirt faithful in the "Blue Section."  With exactly 1 minute and 5 seconds left in the period, he yelled out, "Hey, how much time is left in the period?"   The announcer of course then followed with "One minute left in the period."  The fan responded with a loud "Thank You!"   19,000 people laughed.  At least the tension of the game was broken for a bit.

The third period was frenetic.   Both goalies made acrobatic saves that seemed to defy the laws of physics.  At one point, Sean Avery made a great power move to the net and flicked the puck off the left post -- groan!   Both teams tried the old tried-and-true method of pushing the defenders and the goalie, along with the puck, into the net.  In both cases, the referees were close at hand to restore order.

 With about 7 minutes left in the game, Scott Gomez completely undressed a Bruin defensemen, stealing the puck in the offensive slot area.  Gomez came in on Auld totally uncontested ... and missed.

Both teams traded some good scoring chances in the 5-minute overtime, but it was obvious that this one would be settled "Mano a Mano" -- with a shootout.  After regular and OT play, both goalies had turned away a combined  64 shots.   That's a whole season of shots for a soccer team!

(If you've stuck it out this far in the blog, I promise to have something about mobile services at the end!)

(Also, if you've stuck it out this long, there is a good chance we share some DNA!)

The shootout -- a best of three -- was as nerve- racking as it gets in a big game.  Both teams missed their first shots.  Nigel Dawes, a Ranger rookie, took the second shot and ringed it off the left post and into the back of the net!   After nearly 3 hours, a puck finally entered the net!  The Bruins missed their final two shots and as Henrik stopped David Krejci, bedlam broke out at the Garden. 

Playoff-atmosphere hockey in mid-March.  Very nice.!

If you want to see video highlights of the game, follow this link:

http://rangers.nhl.tv/team/console?hlg=20072008,2,1037

So here is the wireless angle on this joyous day:

 At that start of the game, I updated my "microblog" with my whereabouts and the status of the game.  During the game there were three wireless polls taken of the audience.  I sent an MMS picture of my daughter to be displayed on the arena's Jumbo-Tron.  At one point, my daughter got lost in the arena (actually, she knew where she was;  I didn't).  She texted me her location, which was back at our seats. ( I can put this in here because my wife does not read this blog!)  And lastly, this entire blog was written on my BlackBerry on the train ride home.  A very full day indeed!

Sometimes you just need a little guidance.

Over the lifetime of Upoc, our subscribers have formed more than 40,000 groups. The topics have ranged the entire spectrum of human experience, from dating to religion, sports to politics, and everything in between. The question is, with so many options available, how does a new subscriber to the service get started? Where do they go? It can all be somewhat intimidating, similar to a kid moving to a new area and starting at a new school.

We decided that we needed some safe, friendly and familiar places for new subscribers to start within Upoc. Similar to a welcome mat. So, we started themed highlighted groups. This process began in the fall with groups for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza and New Year's. The response was overwhelming. Members flocked to these ready-made and monitored groups. Our customer service staff was very diligent in making sure these groups stayed on topic. The big win was that a large percentage of the group members in these themed groups had recently joined Upoc. Just like the first student who reaches out to the stranger in the school lunchroom to show him the way, these guided themed groups provide a familiar safe haven for new users to start to interact on common topics: "What are you giving thanks for on Thanksgiving?" "What do you want from Santa Claus this year?" and much more.

Web 2.0 is all about user-generated content, and Upoc has been at the forefront of this long before it had a catchy name and was considered universally cool. The purist would say, "Create the platform and let the users decide how it is used and provide the content." What our experience has found is that an unaided Web 2.0 environment can be somewhat foreign and scary to newcomers. Web 2.0 needs a friendly atmosphere and a way to ease users into the full freedom that they can enjoy in this new realm of social networking. Providing themed and monitored groups is one step in making Web 2.0 a more welcoming experience for the masses.

Flat Rate for Wireless: Is this the way of nature for all telecom services?

In the last couple of days, the major carriers have announced competing flat-rate wireless deals. No more counting minutes. These new plans might be as significant as the original AT&T one-rate plan that revolutionized wireless pricing. I say “might” because the price is still rather high and the plans all but eliminate the family plan users. For the heaviest of wireless users, this plan can save money and eliminate hassle, and follows on the heels of similar flat-rate plans for wireless messaging and data usage.

Mom, My book ran out of batteries!

In my never-ending quest for cool new wirelessly enabled devices, I have been trying out the Amazon Kindle. In case you are not familiar with the device, it is basically an electronic book that accepts downloads via the Sprint network (EVDO) for books and periodicals. I read a novel on this device over the weekend and finished it on the train while commuting this morning. Here are my thoughts on the pros and cons of this new device.

The screen is spectacular for reading text. Several people I showed off the device to thought that it was a demonstration model. The reason being, they immediately thought that the text/pictures on the screen were from a decal because they were so sharp.

 The classic example of why LBS services may not have reached their market potential yet is a story I first told at a CTIA event over 5 years ago. It happened to me about a week before the show and has the perfect metaphor for the state of LBS services. It has been re-told by pundits  and even published in trade magazines. Indeed many now tell this story as though it happened to them! So now without further pre-ample is the LBS story of the daughter, the wife and the doll. 

We were going “through the woods and over the hill” to grandmother’s house. In this case the woods were 180 miles of New York State Thruway and the hill was the Catskills Mountains. The car was packed for the weekend with me, my wife and three kids. 

 

Okay, I am not deterred, technology will get us out of this problem, I assure my increasingly skeptical family. All I have to do is figure out what zip code we are driving through, then call the 800 number again, navigate the 78 step voice system and voila!, I will have the location of the nearest Toys-R-US.

My Favorite LBS Services

This is the big travel weekend, so a short review of my three favorite LBS services seems in order. In the New York metro area there are four main destinations, each with its unique lingo. For the Labor Day weekend people leave “The City” and go either “Upstate” (which for City dwellers is anywhere that is more than 1 mile north of the Bronx!), “Out to the Island” (which is what you say if you go to Long Island but don’t have a place in the Hamptons), “Down the Shore” (that’s the Jersey shore), or “in the mountains” (either the Poconos or Catskills – Since there are no coal miners in the city – the phrase “in the mountains is curious)

Location Based Services – Ready for Primetime?
For years I’ve been bullish about the coming onslaught of mobile based location based services. Visions of personalized talking billboards , a la the movie “Minority Report”, seemed within our grasp.

 The requirements for wireless 911 location services seemed to be the necessary catalyst for infrastructure and device capabilities. Despite the hype the rollout has been disappointing.

Why?

 Maybe an analogy to the SMS market of the late 1990’s can provide some clues.

SMS took off as a service when three major events happened. First , and most importantly was inter- carrier cooperation and transport of SMS; Secondly, the emergence of SMS applications beyond user-to-user testing (such as Upoc, text alerts, banking, etc), and lastly a value chain that includes market and connectivity enablers such as mobile marketing firms and SMS aggregators. 

For LBS service we need carrier location transparency, location aggregators and applications that go beyond driving directions and kid finder services. (More on those in later blog). There are, of course, privacy concerns with providing location information to third party application and content providers. The ability to turn location sourcing on and off on the handset should have helped ease the fears. The ability for carriers and/or consumers to blacklist LBS service providers that misused the information would also be necessary.

It seems as though the technology, policy and legal concerns should be easily overcome. So, I ask again, why have these services not developed in a timely manner?
One possible depressing conclusion might be that there may not be the pend-up depend for LBS services that many of us in the wireless industry have predicted and assumed to exist. While I have to acknowledge this as a possibility – I am still strongly in the pro-LBS camp.

Another possible reason is that the policy and legal issues have strangled the market of LBS. Wireless Carriers are conservative by nature (and necessity) and are likely to move at a “prudent” speed for such a service. Since there is real economic incentive to deploy services that increase ARPU, I want to believe, also, that this is not the case. We are seeing lots of navigation and enterprise applications being introduced throughout the market.
Therefore, that leaves the lack of a developed cross-carrier LBS value chain that enables innovative application providers to capitalize and a well-oiled economic and technological model.

Will this model come from within the wireless carrier business model, or outside? It is possible that in handsets will have the capability to provide GPS information over a data channel that is outside of the carriers’ control. How might that business model look for the industry at large?

 Markets and technology do have a way of emerging, either as a controlled introduction from within the existing value chains, or as a disruptive technology that supplants the existing market. It will be interesting to watch which path LBS services take.

 
In my previous blog I presented a slice of the diverse life we have in New York. Living and working in New York provides a Mobile company such as Upoc Networks an advantage in providing innovative services that reach a diverse marketplace.

 

 

 

Many companies spend endless hours training and talking about diversity in the workplace; we live it, at work and at home.

When I think of diversity I add other factors such social-economic background, age, education, work experience and sexual orientation. My awareness of our total diversity is obviously incomplete, but I would venture to say that we would be hard pressed to find more than a couple of employees who were similar in all aspects.  This is the workforce we draw from, this is the city where we are headquartered, and most importantly , this is representative of the marketplace in which we compete.

We did not sit down as a Management team and place various diversity hiring goals, it has been not necessary. I have observed throughout my career that if your existing organization has diversity, it will attract and retain diversity.

There are obviously many companies and regions that have diversity, but no city has the history and the reputation of being the world’s melting pot.

New York is a city with over 100 nationalities, every major religion (and probably more than few that are not so “major”), every ethnicity, culture, race, creed, sexual orientation, political affiliation and social/economic status. 

What is perhaps truly amazing is that this patchwork quilt of cultures co-exist in relative harmony within New York.

Moslems and Jews, Blacks and Whites, Japanese, Chinese and Koreans, Catholics and Protestants , Serbs, Russians, Hispanics, the list goes on and on. In other areas of the world the same groups might be at war, but in New York they seem to blend and even feed off of each others culture.

It must be something in the water!

New York, New York.

Just another weekend in New York-

While this entry has little to do with mobile applications – I decided to share a slice of the uniqueness of New York.  It does , however go to the heart of why New York, with all of its diversity and culture enables mobile companies to be competitive.

Last Sunday my family decided to go to “The City” to see a Broadway Matinee play.    On our way in we got caught in traffic and the usual 90 minute (20 mile) drive stretched to over 3 hours.  We missed our play but decided to hang out in Manhattan.   We walked two blocks from the theater parking lot and were greeted by approximately 500,000 joyous parade goers.  This Sunday was the Dominican Republic day parade.   The music was as much felt as it was heard.  The cheers were deafening and the parade floats and marchers seemed to stretch forever.  You did not need to speak Spanish or be Dominican to just enjoy the Mass celebration.  

After about 30 minutes we walked the two blocks to the Madison Avenue street fair.     Madison Avenue was closed for approximately 20 blocks (over a mile) and became home for food vendors with the  cuisine of Mexico ,Italy, , China , Thailand, Poland, Israel, France,  Greece,  ;  and various American flavors from New Orleans, New York (where else can you really get a Knish?) and Southern BBQ.   Needless to say, we did not go hungry.  Music form every ethnicity played from stalls that sold anything and everything.   We stopped along the way to listen to a Klezmer Jazz band that was outstanding.

After we satisfied our palette, we started to walk back to 6^th Avenue and decided to stop by St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  They were having a special Spanish Mass that we watched for a couple of minutes before we continued our walk. 

Before we got back to 6^th avenue, the gravitational pull of the Nintendo flagship store attracted by teenage son.  We successfully extracted him without monetary damage to any credit card.  We showed the family Rockefeller Plaza and then walked the last block back to the DR day parade.

After another hour we left to go home.   Where else could you go through such a diverse range of the DR parade and the Madison Avenue street fair by just walking 2 blocks?  New York New York , it is unique.

My next blog will go deeper into the competitive values of a diverse community and employee base.

Guest iPhone review from The Doc

This blog entry is from my brother.  He is a Doctor who recently acquired an iPhone.  I asked him to write a review from his point of view. And here it is …

As a physician (anesthesiologist), I have tried using both a Blackberry and a Palm Treo with only varying success as a useful tool for me; then along came the iPhone ...

The needs of physicians and different specialties vary, so our needs are different from a businessman.

Everyday,  I was carrying three devices to work: my cell phone, my Palm Pilot, and my iPod. Now, I carry one device.

The cell phone has long ago done away with the need for long-range pagers. My office or a nurse can call or text messages me on my cell phone at any time. This is true on all devices.

The Good:

The iPhone is great, yet I still use my old iPod in the operating room. Yes, we play music in the operating room. Patients enjoy listing to something familiar during their procedures. The operating room is my “office”;  I spend 80+ percent of my time in an operating room during the day. Myself,  the surgeon, the scrub and circulating nurses all enjoy listening to music during the day.

Because the operating room is truly my office, as I spend 7–10 hours per day in the OR, my “connectivity” needs are different than someone who has access to a laptop or desktop computer during the day. This is the area where the iPhone excels. I can get my e-mail, text messages, phone messages, etc. very easily on the iPhone. The other area which I find the iPhone to be far superior to its competitors is in its Web-browsing capability. Our hospital has an EMR (electronic medical record). I can access this from the OR by using my username and password. The ease of expanding the screen and point and touch (instead of point and click) is great. I can check orders, test results, check EKG's physician consultations, and radiology reports online very easily. This was not possible, or very difficult, on the Blackberry and Treo. I can also do online physician order entry and “electronically sign” my orders with the iPhone. Even though I cannot download a medical application, like the drug database epocrates, onto the iPhone, I can access it online very easily using my username and password.

The iPhone has really made my life much easier. Instead of scurrying around in-between cases to get to a computer to get info, I do it with ease. If there is something missing or awry with my next patient, I know about it ahead of time, can call the nurse in the preadmissions unit or consulting physician, and get clarification before the patient is ready to go to the OR.

The Bad

What comes on the iPhone is what you get. I cannot download medical applications, like drug databases or text material onto the iPhone the way I could on my Palm Pilot.

Why did they make the headphone jack too deep – so that I need to buy a $15 extender??

The iPhone is not friendly when answering a phone call in the car. It takes too many steps. First, I have to slide the unlock button, then answer the phone, then tell the iPhone whether I want to answer it by my Bluetooth, the speaker phone, or the regular phone. This is a 55-mph wreck waiting to happen, and I’m too young to be an organ donor!

 It also doesn’t have the one-touch “Call my brother at work” voice commands. With all the bells and whistles that this well-designed device has, it should have voice-activated calling!

The phone function works well and the quality is good, just not in the car!!

The name on my locker was “Spence.” My coach did not know my real name! He had to ask me so they could print the program for the upcoming games. The other players on the team all had their own “team” names: “Moose,” “Sparky,” “Mole,” “Mud,” “Scooter,” “Sticker,” “Blade,” etc.  It was the persona we each adopted within our social network.

Years later when I played “beer league” hockey, we had a social network that would have only existed in the context of creating a team. The team had some corporate types like myself, blue- collar construction workers, several criminal defense lawyers, and many of their clients! This was a collection of 18 guys that would never network together in “real life.” Like my college team, we only knew each other by our team nicknames. We played together for almost 15 years and won 12 championships.

The years we lost were when some players violated probation! After each season we invited our wives or girlfriends to an end of year dinner. This dinner was always an interesting exercise in social networking. As you can imagine, the female companions of the team members had about as much in common as the players, but easily bonded around the topic of men chasing a small frozen piece of rubber around cold, damp arenas.  My wife always got frustrated when I would introduce her to the other players. The reason was simple – I did not know their real names!! It was always, “Hi, Dear, this is 'Stinky'; 'Stinky,' this is my wife" and “Dear, this is bone-crusher ...."  and she would reply, “Hi, Mr. Crusher!” This group was very tight in the context of ice hockey, but once the season ended, so did our association.  No context equals no social networking. That is the lesson I learned.

Many of today’s social networks have an explicit (such as LinkedIn) or implicit (Facebook) networking context. With a context that is understood by its members, a social network has longevity. If you remove that context, the network will cease to exist. If a network forms (like my earlier comments about CB radio) around a weak context, then the fade will become big, then die.  

My hockey network had context that bonded the group. When the context was removed, that social network became a collection of nice memories, and a few trophies.

Here is the list:

Immediate family, extended family, school friends, religious network, sports team members, high school friends, college friends, work colleagues, business networks, and neighborhood friends.

One observation I made was that the number of active social networks was at the highest and potentially most volatile in my teen years and early 20s. These are the social networks that set the foundation for adulthood. How I related to each social network was slightly different. 

Sometimes the social network would define who I was, and sometimes the opposite was true. Even the name I was (am) known by in the different social networks varied.

 The obvious example are: Steve (Parents and Family), Dad (Kids) and Spence (School, High School and College Friends).  

Thinking about Web 2.0 in real life social networking terms yielded me an epiphany. You can imagine how difficult it is in anyone’s teen years to be labeled and categorized within a particular social group. The virtual social networks are a way out of that dilemma for teens. They permit high school and college students to take more direct control of defining who and what they are. 

It allows them to redefine themselves at will. It grabs control from the mass network at large and creates a better sense of ego. It is no longer the roll of the “in crowd” to define the social network and status of others. 

The virtual social networks are the great equalizer in the social status game. This is a game that is most important to high school and college age students.  

Next installment is the most interesting social network I ever belonged to …

How many social networks are you a member of?

There are two perspectives you can use to answer this question. You can answer the question by number of commercial virtual social network services: AIM, MySpace, Friendster, Dada, LinkedIn, Upoc, Blogger, Match.com, etc. The second perspective to answer this question are non-electronic (i.e., traditional) social networks: friends, family, schoolmates, church or synagogue members, work colleagues, etc. 

My question is what is the intersection of the virtual with the real?

In my view, when real connections are reinforced with electronic social networking, the bonds of both are stronger. How often does this happen? We have seen many examples of real social groups using Upoc as a social networking tool. That is, a tool for facilitating already existing relationships (church groups, teams, work groups). This is mobile Internet technology facilitating the real world. We have seen many companies form Upoc groups to coordinate staffers at conventions; sales teams use text group messaging for pricing information; and teams have used the service to send scheduled information.

One trend we are now seeing is families using group messaging within the family calling group to communicate via text.

As social networking crosses the chasm to become the facilitator of traditional social networks, its already significant usage will explode by many orders of magnitude. This is a good thing for all the players in the market of social networking.

In my next installment I will share some interesting social networks I have belonged to and what they taught me about the nature of this new medium that everyone is buzzing about.

There are several reasons why the CB radio phenomenon died out. Here are my top reasons and why they relate to today’s big social networks:

The stated motivation for entering the social network was not consistent with the activity of the network. Uh? Let me explain. Most people bought into the commercial promotion that the CB was a safety and security device. You could somehow contact help if you broke down on a lonely deserted road. Help was just a “breaker, breaker, good buddy, please save my butt!” call away. So, you would tell your friends and family, “I’m getting this to be safe!” 

Of course that was a total lie.

The CB was a social networking toy! You could play at creating and honing a new persona every time you pushed the transmit button. You could be Southern (which was the favorite, especially of Northerners, or you could be "the boss" or the man "the man"). Women were treated with equal status (especially if they knew the 10-20 of "smokey and his camera"). While there were no doubt illegal or immoral activities, the norms of the community and the total openness of communication served as a self-regulation. It gave the user of CB radio freedom to be however they wanted to be. It was the first mass social network with anonymous communication that created its own social norms.

The times that I actually discovered who I was really talking to, well, became kind of boring.

The main usage as a social networking device let to that need being more powerfully filled by the explosion of instant messaging in the late 1980s and 1990s. Social networking was no longer limited to 5 miles of random road, but the whole world. 

Strike One for the CB  

The consumers who actually used the CB because of safety reasons probably discovered that relying on random strangers to help you in your hour of need is as likely to bring “bad guys” as it is “good guys” to your rescue. Another device was now being marketed as the safety device you should have in your car – the mobile phone.  The mobile phone is of course a social networking device with one-to-one precise communication. It was better to call the AAA to fix your car than rely on “Cruisin' Cougar,” “Lusty Lady,” or “Bandit Eye.”

  Strike Two for the CB

 The CB Social networks were random and without context other than you were traveling somewhere and didn’t want to get a speeding ticket. This is not the form of social networking that creates “sticky” bonds. No one really grew attached to their “Good Buddies.” It was rare that you would find the same person twice, and if you did, it could just be another person with the same handle. In general, you did not care – no context means no passion about a topic and no ties amongst the members. Thus, when alternate means of random social networking emerged, or safety devices became available, there was nothing underneath all the hype of the CB craze to sustain it. 

 Strike Three for CB.

 Some more thoughts on today’s social networks in my next installment.

I am a believer that basic social needs change very slowly, if at all, over time.  What does change is the way individuals, groups, families and society in general fulfill their needs and the options that technology presents.  Given this thesis, it is interesting to take some social networking learnings from an earlier mass explosion in social networking: the citizen band radio.  

During the late '70s through the '80s, it was cool to have a CB radio in your car.  These radios used to be the exclusive domain of the truck driver social network.  They were used to find the best food, gas, and probably companionship on the road.  They were also used to avoid speed traps.   The public awareness of this social network took a giant leap with the popular movie “Smokey and the Bandit.” 

The CB social network crossed the chasm from truck drivers to millions of personal automobiles. Semingly overnight, people all over the country were imitating the twang of southern trucker accents --  “That’s a 10-4, Good Buddy?” 

The CB channel was similar to the chat room of our Internet era.  Your participation in that channel with that particular set of people lasted as long as everyone was within about 5 miles of each other.  Users made up anonymous handles – similar to the IM and chat names.   My handle was “The Referee,” a reference to my hockey playing and amateur referee profession of the time.

The problem was finding someone a second time.  Unless you shared some personal information (which carried the same perils as today), your interaction on CB were quick and fanciful.   

“Hey, good buddy, what’s the 10-20 on Smokey?”  

Truck drivers must have been both annoyed and humored at Wall Street brokers imitating them in their BMWs.

So why did it die out and is there a lesson for today’s social networks?  That discussion will be in my next blog entry.

Jeff Pulver gives a clue to my next entry in his blog:

http://pulverblog.pulver.com/archives/006721.html

During the cruise we experienced three hurricanes, which caused many deviations from our itinerary and extended our stay at sea by 4 days.  Our only reliable connection to change our flights home (from Florida to New York ) were half a dozen low-speed Internet terminals that used a satellite link.  With over 1000 passengers, the waiting time to use the Internet was long and tempers were short.  I remember when we were off the coast of Florida we went to the side of the ship that was closer to land and tried to get a cellular signal to call our travel agent.  It was a comical sight.  I was with about 200 other passengers, most extending their arms an extra two feet towards land, as though that would make the signal just strong enough! 

 Picture taken with AT&T BlackJack and transmitted via MMS from the ship

Another blog with a shout out to Carnival Cruise Lines and their wireless service:

http://solokay.blogspot.com/2006/07/carnival-cruise-fun-ships-offer.html

iPhone -- First Days, First Reactions: The Good, Bad and Ugly!

I have been using my iPhone as my main mobile device for the last 5 days.  I did this by having my main mobile number forwarded to my iPhone.  During this time, I used the phone at "work," at “play” and while traveling to Florida.  Here are my initial findings:

  First, the Sexy non-phone aspects: 

+++++++++++++The Pluses+++++++++++++ 

If you want to attract a crowd – just whip out your iPhone.  I have gotten lots of  “oohs, aahs, wows and omgs.”  It enhances your sense of self-worth and may even make you more sexy. (Although you have to read my wife’s blog to find that out!) 

I downloaded the movie “Miracle” to watch on a plane.  I chose this movie because I can watch it a hundred times and not got bored.  It is a classic – almost as good as “lap Shot”.  (But that’s the subject of another blog)

Watching movies on the iPhone is spectacular.  It is a very good (not great) personal movie player.  The movie player would be better with a few more DVD-like controls such as slow-forward and back, frame-by-frame, etc.  You can slide the time forward and back, but not with much precision. 

The Safari Web browser works well once you get the hang of it.  The Edge network is okay, not great.  3G would be much better, probably at the cost of battery life.

The photo viewer with position sensing is a real “showy” feature.  The ability to flip through an album on the iPhone, as you would a real album, is nice.

The music player is a latest-generation iPod.  I really like the carousel album selector.

The So-So features:

 The e-mail function is cool.  It would be cooler with a Blackberry client or activesync for corporate e-mail.

The camera is okay, but not the best feature.

   Google Maps gets a so-so from me because it lacks the killer feature: GPS. 

 It does however make for a great game to kill time.  Try this: Without typing in the address, try to tap into each Major League stadium and check out if there is a game!  You get an extra point if you can tell who is playing, and 10 points for the score!

Keyboard:

I have to admit that it is better than I expected, but nowhere near that of a real keyboard.  I am able to type using one finger (my pinky).  My letter accuracy is about 70%.  If I try the normal two-thumb method that I have used on Blackberrys and Blackjacks, my accuracy falls to near 0%.  So, I would say that the keyboard is slightly better than triple-tapping phone keys, and far less than a real keyboard.

 --------Some Negatives:------------

 The headset plug:

I was eager to watch a movie on my recent plane trip using my noise-cancelling headset.  I plug them into the iPhone and they canceled out ... everything.  After a moment, I figured out that the plug on the supplied iPhone headset is not standard.  I am sure there will be many adapters available.  This served as an annoyance on my first movie experience. 

 The phone features:

The phone features, surprisingly (or perhaps not), are the least-impressive features of the iPhone.  The voice quality seems very suspect.  People I called really noticed a reduction in voice quality.  Several relatives were not able to recognize my voice!  To verify that this was not the network, I called them back with my AT&T Blackjack, and there was no problem.

I still have not figured out how to download ringtones. 

Where is the MMS?

I sent an MMS message from a VZW phone.  The message arrived as an SMS that instructs me to go to a website (www.viewmymessage.com) with a specific login and password to view the multimedia message.  This is a great solution for 1997, not 2007, and certainly not on the most advanced piece of mobile gear ever produced!!

 Interestingly, MMS messages I sent  from AT&T phones never arrived on the device.

 It appears to me that the phone features were given low priorty,

 Battery Life: 

The battery life – as I predicted – seems to be an issue.  I used the iPhone to watch my movie for about 105 minutes, made 34 minutes of calls, browsed the Internet for 57 minutes, listened to music for 25 minutes,  viewed photos for about 30 minutes and had about 5 hours of standby time.  This started around 7 am. By 6 pm, my iPhone was dead.

I am confident that if all you did on the iPhone was make calls, the battery life would not be an issue.  But if that is all you are going to, why buy an iPhone?

 We will have to see if this a big issue in the market.

 Lastly:  The Nana Test  

As the true test of these features, I gave my iPhone to my 70-something mother.  She was able to use many of these features without issue.  This is the real miracle.  She is not the most technically oriented person.  She has a Web TV from 1997.  The UI was intuitive enough for someone who has trouble mastering her simple Nokia phone.  This is a thumbs-up for the Apple UI engineers.

More on my iPhone trial in a couple of days.