arts & ego interactive

Comparison of handheld computers

route — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 05:46:50 +0000

I keep a few mobile phone numbers, for Belgium, the UK and Ireland, and had a couple of plain old mobile phones to service them. Both phones inconveniently started to fail at roughly the same time.

Now, as a computer professional, I have to keep up to date with changes in technology, and the new handheld computers have become very signiﬁcant. I’ve had an iPod Touch for a while, so I replaced the failing phones with a Windows 7 and an Android phone. Ironically, about a week later, the suppliers of my British phone number oﬀered me a free Blackberry. So I’ve ended up with two phone numbers and four handhelds.

This puts me in a good place to compare them. But there are a couple of diﬃculties.

First of all, I’ve had the iPod for a while, and am very familiar with it, so I’ve held back writing this review until I’ve become familiar with the other computers too. All the same, the comparison will be weakened by my diﬀerent levels of familiarity.

Secondly, it’s not a like-for-like comparison. The Blackberry is an old, cheap model, so old that British phone companies are giving it away. The iPod, being an iPod, isn’t a phone.

So with those in mind, lets compare the computers.

Input: the Blackberry wins hands down. It has a keyboard. It may be weenie and a bit awkward to use, although not nearly as awkward as it would seem given its size, but it is a keyboard and it is much much better than typing on a touchscreen. On the other hand, the Blackberry also has a horrible pointer input mechanism. The other machines are all touch screen, and the cursor goes where you touch. The Blackberry uses a gloriﬁed nipple, and the cursor goes where it will. I do not like it. But the keyboard more than compensates. If I buy another handheld, which is years away now, I’ll probably get one with a keyboard.

Resources: You pays for whats you get. As someone who listens to music, but doesn’t like ﬁlm, I’ve found I’ve never ﬁlled any of them.

Screen: you pays for whats you gets.

Music: all work, all sound ﬁne to my ears, but I listen to the music, not the sound.

Video: you pays for whats you gets.

Phone data: the three phones all make phonecalls perfectly well. But when it comes to data, and the internet, the Blackberry is very weak. But, again, you pays for whats you gets. Just don’t bother to get a cheap Blackberry if data access is important to you.

Wiﬁ works on all of them. The worst phone for viewing the net is the Windows 7 phone, mainly because its output just doesn’t look quite right some of the time. That could be my taste not agree with its decisions, rather than any real problem.

Email: the blackberry has no email. Email works reasonably well on all the other three phones. Android, though, has an annoying idiosyncrasy. To make email sync on the Windows and Apple computers, you hit sync in the email program. The Android machine makes you leave email, go to conﬁguration, select email conﬁguration, and hit sync from there. Sync really should be in the email program, not in a completely diﬀerent place.

OS Appearance: Windows 7 is by far the most beautiful of the operating systems. Metro, the interface, is based on type, not pictures. The point here is that icons of familiar images work very well, but icons of unfamiliar images are meaningless. It is quite possible that I’ve become overfamiliar with an icon based interface, having had an iPod touch since they ﬁrst came out, but, whatever, not only is Metro’s type based interface fresh, it also conveys more information.

App stores: they’re all useless. They waste space with icons rather than presenting information about the product being sold. They’re a sod to navigate. They force bad design on products in them. It’s no bloody wonder to me that so few people use them, they say in glorious technicolor they’ve no content. FFS, let someone who knows something about retailing products design them, rather than someone who has a ﬁxation on icons and no clue about visual presentation or navigation. They’re a total mess. And they’re all a total mess because they’ve copied the Apple model, and the Apple model doesn’t work, for the reasons I’ve said. They make money, not because they’re any good, but because they’re monopolistic.

Politics: both Windows and Apple force nationalism on users. I’m British. I live in France. Neither Microsoﬅ nor Apple will permit me to use my choice of language in their app stores. They presume, like good little nationalists, that because I live in France, I speak French. They won’t let me use my British credit card to pay for things: they presume that, because I live in France, I must have a French credit card. They’re making nationalist presumptions. They’re making a political statement. They don’t understand how Europe works. It’s backward, and insensitive to the history of Europe.

Functionality: the blackberry is missing some essential functionality, such as email access to non-blackberry websites, SFAIK. You have the use a browser, and this isn’t always possible. Apart from that, they’re all a muchness. But none are much good. All four are very weak when it comes to installing your own soﬅware. Despite the fact they’ve all got a magnitude more computer resources than machines of the time of Windows 95, etc., those ancient smaller computers win hands down for capability. Windows 7 has a version of oﬃce, and so far as I can see its a pretty version with the same capabilities of the oﬃce that was shipped on 128K Psion handhelds. WTF! This is absolutely bloody silly; these machines are far far more powerful than 20 year old handhelds, but they oﬀer much the same functionality when comparing equivalent programs. This is absolutely fucking bonkers.

Programming: I’m excluding the blackberry from this, I haven’t explored it. In programming terms, without exception, the others are all dire. They all force you to use proprietary programming languages, and they’re all incompatible with each other. It’s nuts. Having said that, my understanding is that both Microsoﬅ and Google are going to oﬀer facilities to program in languages that are independent of corporate fuck-ups, so there’s hope. Once there’s a common language, they’ll be a common framework. Once there’s a common framework, people can write one program to run on all computers. Then, perhaps, handhelds will catch up with the home computer market of 30 years ago.

Let me give you a speciﬁc example of how the app store model fails and reduces the usefulness of these computers. I’m a poet. I’ve lots of output. I want to keep a copy of my work on me. My masters are in web format. This makes it very convenient for updating my website. There’s old, established, and very good soﬅware around for supporting websites. All I need do is put one of these old established programs on the phone. None of them work. Because phones don’t use standard languages, you can’t use a standard program. Now, as it happens, someone has written a web server to run under android. Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually work. The whole app store phone set up is a total mess. Now, in defence of the operating system manufacturers, I must mention that its the phone manufacturers who are the main problem here. They don’t permit their phones to be rooted; that’s like car manufacturers making it illegal for professional car mechanics to open a bonnet. All the same, the whole set up is a mess, it seems that a combination of corporate egos are getting in the way of the engineering, and in consequence preventing perfectly simple and normal and long-since-solved things to be done.

Overall: Windows 7 looks the best, and is the nicest operating to use. Android, despite being much older, isn’t quite there. There’s too many things that don’t quite ﬁt together. It doesn’t so much feel a compromise as a rush job. Apple’s iOS is good to use, and works well, but it’s a little clunky in places. The blackberry’s adequate, but it’s dismal compared to the others – but you pays for what you get, etc..

So, as a soﬅware engineer, which one am I going to explore in much greater depth? That’s a damn good question. I’m actually going to look at three of the four APIs, before I decide where to concentrate. I’m excluding the Blackberry now, because it clearly needs completely refreshing, and I want to see what refresh arrives before I consider it any further.

And which one will I use the most? Forget the niceties, there’s one fundemental: I’ll use whichever lets me access & maintain my poetry whatever the phone connectivity.

corrupt press

route — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 06:46:54 +0000

Over the last couple of months, I’ve been setting up corrupt press, a small poetry publisher. Preparing books for publication is a lot of work! Anyway, please do go have a look, there’s four great books (although I’m ever so slightly biased), with more to come.

The Paris launch is on May 10th at Poets Live.

App Store continues to be useless

route — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 00:07:04 +0000

Right now, I’m being reminded Apple’s restrictions make their App Store, and in consequence their products, pretty useless.

I want a copy of my website in my pocket, so I always have access to my work. I sometimes have the unexpected opportunity to read: I need full access to my work if I’m going to select poems appropriate in the context. Furthermore, I like to be able to revise, and see the results of the revision. For all of that, I need the webserver.

I used to own a Sharp pocket computer, a Zaurus. It did the job perfectly well: it ran Apache, and I’d have my website in my pocket whenever I needed it.

Apache is a perfectly good product, long etablished, highly reliable, which does exactly what I want. Indeed, Apple so like it they ship a copy on every iMac. However, their incomprehensible restrictions prevent it’s installation on my iPod. In consequence, I cannot keep a copy of my website on my iPod, so I cannot have a copy of my current work on me.

Of course, you might pretend, you can use the iPod’s wiﬁ to browse the web when you need to do this. But anyone who’s attempted to use public internet connectively will know how unreliable it is. Connectivity remains uncommon, and is rarely free, let alone reliable and eﬀective. I cannot depend on having access to my online website whenever I need access to my work.

Apple’s anti-web art attitude is very disappointing. For me, it makes their product pretty useless for much more than playing music, admittedly it’s core purpose. I’ve previously pointed out their app store is laid out to prevent comparison of product details … well, evidentally, that’s because you can’t buy products with useful details anyway.

All I want to do is run up a webserver that can manage SHTML so I can exploit my poetry. It’s not rocket science, but it’s contrary to Apple’s mistaken paternalism.

My main mobile is falling apart; I need to buy a new smartphone soon. Guess who’ll carefully check Microsoﬅ and Android. Gosh, you know, it took Google two seconds to show that you can run a webserver on a Windows 7 phone.

Vingt Magazine's 20 Questions

route — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 07:15:09 +0000

Vingt Magazine have published my answers to their 20 questions. I was asked because of my involvement with Poets Live. I made some new self-portraits for them.

I’m currently prooﬁng the ﬁrst two books for corrupt press, and they’re very good ﬁrst collections too. Of course, I would say that, wouldn’t I – but I mean it. You’ll be able to judge for yourself within a couple of months.

Wow … it’s a long long time since I’ve written a dear diary. Apologies, such things can be incredibly yucky.

revisited

route — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:04:55 +0000

I’ve revisited my old ﬁlm photos again. When I ﬁrst did so a couple of years ago, I presented the images I wanted to see when I took them. I soon reinterpreted, since the best turned out to be those damaged by mold, subsequently published in the smoke.

This time, I’ve reinterpreted the photos with my contemporary eyes. In particular, I’ve returned to old ‘experimentals’, and looked again at failed images. I didn’t have a chance to work with them when I ﬁrst took them: I remember being extremely frustrated that commercial printers refused to print the things, oﬅen despite my instructions (it was a major reason why I moved to slides). Now, ﬁnally, I can work with my experiments of thirty years ago.

But I’ve long forgotten many of the ideas behind the experiments: I’m no longer the person who took the images. So I’m presenting them damaged with the ﬂuﬀ of time—literally—they’ve covered in dust, hairs and other horrible gunk.

The ﬁﬅeen sets in revisited are 2G1, 2G2, 2G3, 2G4, 2G5, 2H1, 2H2, 2H3, 2H4, 2H5, 2I1, 2I2, 2I3, 2I4 and 2I5.

revisited (xii)

route — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:09:10 +0000

revisited (xii).

revisited (vi)

route — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:07:07 +0000

revisited (vi).

revisited (i)

route — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 20:05:13 +0000

revisited (i)

cité

route — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:32:14 +0000

More cité.

glass

route — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:30:09 +0000

More glass.