mikepop meets hiptop
mike [at] bedope [dot] com | AIM: drjellyfish

Testing a hiptop is like having superpowers. Thoughts and comments below.
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Sorry for the lack of updates. For some reason, the procmail script backend that posts these messages is acting up and I haven't had a chance to set it straight yet. So anyway, last time we talked about phone hardware. This time, let's talk software.

First off, I should explain that I don't have a lot of experience using a cell phone, so I can't compare hiptop features vs. those usually found on other phones. To me they are all exciting and new and useful and if what I describe is old news to you, the experience cell phone user, please just skip this part.

Dial H for Hiptop
There are several ways of dialing the phone:

• You can simply enter a number either via the keyboard or via an onscreen dialpad and click "Send Call". Handily, if using the keyboard, you can enter letters along with numbers (for example, 1-800-FLOWERS)
• Select a number from the Recent Numbers menu
• Lookup someone from your address book. Click "Look Up" for a list of people with phone numbers you've entered into the address book. As a shortcut, if you simply start typing someone's name (first or last) or nickname, it will auto-match this to entries in the address book (or present a list in case of multiple matches)
• Speed dial. Set a speed dial shortcut key for fastest dialing.

Once on a call, it displays a running tab of call time. You can view all your calls in a call log (which you can clear at any time, just in case) which also easily displays subsets of incoming, outgoing or missed calls. Total call time is always displayed on the jump screen whenever you wheel over the Phone icon.

That's all on the phone for now. I need to get a local # before I can start taking calls and test out voicemail, etc.

i am still getting into using the phone. today, i entered a lot of contacts into the address book. i could not import them, because they were not organized on my PC, but rather scattered through emails and random pieces of paper in my wallet.

The sound quality on my end is excellent. Easily better than an old landline i had at once place i used to live. and the people i've called did not realize i was on a mobile phone, so the sound quality must be pretty good on their end as well.

i am using a little earphone/mic that came with my trial hiptop. this is my preference, since i became addicted to the convenience of using a headset back when i was training folks in customer service.

holding it up like a "regular" phone works pretty well too. someone asked if the screen was likely to get "dirty" in this mode. while the screen could possibly end up pressed to your face (thus picking up natural oils, etc.), in my testing it was just as comfortable to hold it at an angle where it did not touch my face - it is just a matter of getting into the habit of holding it that way. also, you don't want to press you hand flat against the back-center of the device, since the user manual says that is where the antenna is (more or less). Again, it is just a matter of getting used to it. in any case, i plan to use the headset most of the time.

more on the actual phone features later.

Google "hiptop" and you get about 134,000 results, yet it still asks you if you meant "hip hop"

The other night I was cooking a recipe I found on the web. Unfortunately, I have no printer at home and the kitchen is far from the computer. I emailed the recipe to my hiptop, eliminating a lot of running up and down the hallway.

(i got a pizza from this place once. the price was right, but when i got home and opened the box all i found were a few tomatoes, a block of mozzarella cheese, some flour and thirty man pages describing the various ways i could configure my pizza)

the camera accessory is a curious thing. the underlying question is, "can the low resolution of the pics be balanced out by other factors enough so that people will actually want to buy and use it?"

I think a lot of people will decide the answer to this question is "yes".

First, a note on the actual camera. it's a piece of translucent plastic that plugs into the side of the hiptop. initially, i thought it was awkward carrying around the hiptop with the camera attached - i was afraid of it being snapped off or some such thing that would probably never happen. then, when i went back and actually looked at the manual i learned that the little piece of plastic it came attached to was actually designed to go on your keychain so you could easily carry the camera bit around with you. Since in my initial rush of excitement i had simply thrown this plastic bit back into the box, i hadn't realized this. but it is a nice setup and a convenient way to carry around the camera.

And convenience is one of the biggest reasons folks will get this camera in the first place. i take my digital camera a lot of places with me, but i don't take it everywhere. but i do take the hiptop everywhere. so now, if i see something amusing or interesting i can grab a quick snapshot. granted, it will be low-res, but it will be higher-res than not having a picture at all, which would have been the alternative. (an example is the photo and commentary above. it was always an amusing enough thought to me, but never quite amusing enought that i actually went to the effort to have my digital camera with me as i walked by this place)

Of course, the wireless connection and easy emailing of photos is another convenience which also ties into another benefit: fun. since it is easy to snap a photo and email it to others instantly, you can take all sorts of fun shots of people and places, where the quality really doesn't matter that much. these types of photos are not for the family album, they're just meant to capture a quick moment that will be irrelevant soon anyway. passing notes in class is a time-honored tradition; passing notes with pics wirelessly among classes going on at any school in the country is the next step up.

and of course since weblogs are currently on everyone's mind, you don't have to think to hard to realize that a wireless device with a little weblog app that will interface with your blog software/provider and easily take and send photos is a really attractive idea. (i know, this sort of thing can be done with other hardware and software tools, but the ease-of-use the hiptop bring to the process is amazing. an example scenario: take hiptop out of pocket: 1 sec. go to camera app: 1 sec. take three pics: 5 secs (less if i turned preview mode off). go to weblog software: 1 sec. type "hey we are at the club come on down": 5 sec. Send update: 1 sec. put hiptop away: 1 sec. Total: 15 seconds - a short enough time that will not interrupt the flow of what i am actuall doing.

which sort of ties in with another benefit of the camera: covertness. While the camera is far from tiny enough to go unnoticed, it is un-camera-looking enough to be passed off as something else: an antenna, a storage device, etc. Plus, once someone gets used to you typing on a hiptop all the time, they probably wouldn't give a camera sticking out of it a second glance. take pics in class, a boring meeting or just about anywhere else. added bonus: keep the camera on your keychain and the hiptop in your pocket and easily take your camera into places where you are specifically not allowed to take cameras. again, the pics won't be too high res, but they will be higher res than nothing.

enough rambling on that subject. i'll experiment with the camera and post pics here, naturally. hopefully with a lot less commentary :)

The Keyboard - the action is pretty good, and the spacing is good enough that even with my fat fingers I don't mis-key too often. however, any keyboard of this type is super-frustrating to a touch-typist who is used to typing 70wpm. but hey, there is not a lot you can do about that, i know. You're not supposed to write a novel on this thing, I know. But I find it especially hard in Instant Messaging, where it really slows the pace of conversation.

Most of the special characters are where they belong, with a few exceptions. Most of these exceptions are designed to speed up input. The @ has its own key down near the spacebar. there are > and < sings available with modifiers. There is no pipe | character, so that could be annoying to some (especially if a hiptop telnet client becomes readily available).

There are two modifiers, Shift and Alt. Annoyingly, Shift will work on any non-letter key that doesn't use both modifiers, i.e. Shift-, and Alt-, gives a "?" but Alt does not work on any keys that don't have an alt modifier, i.e. Alt-a gives "a" not "A"

There is an option that automatically capitilizes things first words in a sentance, the letter "i" used as a pronoun and some other things. It's not smart enough to not change http to Http, but I leave it on anyway, because it auto changes contractions (dont - don't) saving me an Alt-l stroke.

Some snapshots from today.

// mikepop via hiptop AIM: drjellyfish

-----Original Attachments Unavailable-----

After dinner we decide (we being Paula, myself and our 1-year old daughter Zoe (well she doesn't really do much deciding)) to take a short hike at the nearby Wells National Estuarine Research Reserve. This time I took the camear. I almost got a picture of a rabbit (see brown blob in picture of the trail) but Zoe decided to talk to it instead.

Here I discovered yet another use for the hiptop. Paula had to go back to the car for bugspray. Zoe is not fond of 1) being swarmed by bugs, 2) hanging out in the backpack carrier without actually walking anywhere. So after a bit she starts to squirm and complain.

Hmmm, I thought. How could I test the hiptop in this situation? Simple solution - go to the phone setup, crank the volume, and play the various ring tunes available while holding the hiptop over my shoulder so Zoe can watch the pulsating LED colors of the scrollwheel. Thus distracted, the complaining ceased.

My only question on the ring tunes is, how come Baron was not chosen to compose them??

A note on taking pictures: flip them when you take them if need be, because you can't go back and do it later (or at least I haven't figured out how). It's cool how after you take a couple of pictures, these images show up on the jump screen when the Camera app is highlighted. There are a lot of subtle touches like that.

While hiking I thought of a couple of useful features I'd like to see in the hiptop:

1) some sort of "location stamper" where with some keyboard shortcut your location as determined by GPS is included in your email or note. Useful for testing: "I had strong reception here: [insert GPS info]" As it is, I will resort to maps in this journal to record where I take the hiptop: I had full wireless service here: Wells Reserve

2) a sound you could play constantly that was simply one note at whatever frequency it is that drives away mosquitos (if such thing actually work).

// mikepop via hiptop AIM: drjellyfish

(This was Tuesday). I wake up and get ready for work. Turn on the hiptop - wireless network found without delay. Check some websites while walking the dog. Looking under Settings, it seems I have no phone number. Seems odd.

At work, I configure my main email address (mike at bedope.com) to forward to the hiptop. This brings the number of places it forwards to three: to my ISP mailbox, to a hotmail mailbox so I can have access to email on the road, and the now the hiptop. (If I actually owned this hiptop instead of just having it for some unknown (to me) amount of time, I would dump the hotmail acct. since I could use the hiptop and hiptop web access). I get all my regular, personal email there and not too much spam, so it will be a nice real-life level of testing for the device.

Unfortunately, I have actual work to do at work, so mostly I just watch the scroll wheel light up as email arrives. Then, I have to meet in the DBA's office with my boss about something. I bring the hiptop, and attempt to look all nonchalant about it as I hold it while we discuss some database stuff. Luckily the DBA notices it, and I get to start a little hiptop demo. I cruise our website with it, demo the phone, flip the screen to reveal the keyboard, etc. He makes me do the demo again for the other IT guys, who are suitably impressed. That's about it for tech people in our office, but one of the IT guys implores me not to let the CEO see it :) It turns out that they had got him a Blackberry, but they couldn't get it hooked into any wireless service here in Maine. He asks about Outlook integration, of which I don't think there is any. It turns out I can access my Outlook mailbox via the Outlook Web Interface, but since that uses Javascript a lot I don't have the ability to compose mail (among other things).

Interesting side note: not only had our DBA heard of BeOS, he actually made a nice bit of money off of BeOS stock. That makes one of us.

Going out to lunch, I lose connection in the car but it is re-established by the time we get to the restaurant.

Back at my desk, I strike up a IM with Baron (look how much richer the hiptop is making my life just on the second day!). I keep it going as I walk down to the lab for a meeting. The person I'm supposed to be meeting with is busy, so I chat with Baron some more. He tells me they will work on getting me a Maine phone # for the device.

Throughout the day I IM and send some emails. I start setting up this weblog. I didn't bring the camera attachment to work - I knew I had to get at least some work done ;)

I am writing this Thursday, after the T-Mobile Sidekick (aka hiptop) arrived Monday. Thanks to dbort for his weblog scripts and help in setting up this weblog.

Monday: The Hiptop Has Landed

I return home from work to find the FedEx package from Danger waiting for me. Had I known it was arriving Monday, I would never had made plans to go out that evening. I make the best of it and quickly unpack it, pop in the SIM and plug it in to charge up while I'm gone.

While out, the hiptop keeps coming up in conversation somehow. Here is an actual conversation transcript from that evening:

---

MIKE: [some hiptop comment]

MIKE'S VERY UNDERSTANDING AND FORGIVING WIFE PAULA: You're really going to annoy me with this thing, aren't you?

MIKE: Probably

PAULA: At least tonight you'll be busy setting it up

MIKE: Yes, but I will annoy you by ignoring you.

---

Got home, and was bummed to find a SIM not found error. Popped it out, reseated it a couple of times and it was found. Then I had a heart attack for a half-hour as no carrier network could be found - they were going to take this thing right back from me! Finally, a connection was found and stuck. I picked a username, etc. Test the phone. Test the email. Everything works. I walk around the apartment with it. beep beep beep. Play with the ringtones and beeps. Too soon I am forced to drag myself away and get some sleep. Can't wait to take it to work the next day.