Oct 24, 2008

Mobile Data – An Arm and a Leg?

Jon Lim bandwidth, data, iPhone, Mobile, Rogers, YouTube Mobile, Technology 1 Comment

I’m a customer of Rogers Wireless and I have always been deprived of a mobile data plan, and there’s a good reason for it! I found this article while Googling for data plans in Canada. Sure, it was written in April 9th, 2007, so things have had to change since then right?

Well, here’s what Rogers is currently offering in terms of data plans, with a breakdown of cost per megabyte:

$15     2MB        $7.50/MB
$25     500MB    $0.05/MB
$30     1GB        $0.03/MB
$60     3GB        $0.02/MB

Seems pretty reasonable right? Well, 6.9 million iPhones were sold in Q42008 globally, and the iPhone is a rather data-intensive device. It’s advertised to play streaming videos with ease, play games, and keep you connected.

But streaming videos can be one of the greatest consumers of bandwidth – just ask YouTube. So I decided to test it out – just how much data would YouTube consume? To do this test, I measured the amount of data used in one minute (1:00) of a YouTube video. Here are the raw results:

Start       End        Difference
418.40    424.00    5.60
428.00    433.80    5.80
440.20    446.20    6.00
447.10    453.20    6.10
454.20    460.20    6.00
461.40    469.60    8.20
469.60    479.10    9.50
480.70    484.50    3.80
485.50    491.50    6.00
493.30    499.30    6.00

The most left hand column represents the total amount of bandwidth transferred to my computer (Apple Macbook), which started at 418.40, so I merely recorded the difference. The middle column represents the total amount of bandwidth transferred to my computer after a minute of a YouTube video playing. The last column is the difference of the first two columns, giving you the amount of data used up within one minute.

I eliminated the two outliers and came up with an average of 6.21MB/min. Sounds like a big number, eh? Well, here’s what that means for you:

On a 500MB/month data plan ($25) – you will run out of bandwidth after approximately 80 minutes of just watching YouTube videos. Even sooner if you use your data elsewhere. ($0.31/min)
On a 1GB/month data plan ($30) – you will run out of bandwidth after approximately 160 minutes of just watching YouTube videos. ($0.19/min)
On a 3GB/month data plan ($60) – you will run out of bandwidth after approximately 483 minutes of just watching YouTube videos. ($0.12/min)

Doesn’t this seem expensive for you? We’re in an age where data should be at our fingertips, without restrictions, 24 hours a day, 7 days aweek. Yet here in Canada, Rogers has the ability to place bandwidth caps on the Internet, remove features that compete with their services from mobile phones, and create very expensive data plans.

Are we going to continue paying an arm and a leg in order to receive a mediocre service? Digg this.

Oct 21, 2008

Will Google Android fade into mediocrity?

Jon Lim Android, Calendar, Gmail, Google, mediocrity, Mobile, product, Talk Mobile 0 Comment

Earlier today, it was announced that Google Android would be going completely open source. A move that will hopefully shake the very foundation of mobile phones world wide… maybe?

Taking a look at Google’s track record, they’ve created top notch products which make life on the web much easier. Unfortunately, none of these fantastic products ever gained enough market share to become the household name that Google achieved with their search engine. Let’s take a look at some of their products which made a huge splash but fizzled off into mediocrity:

Gmail

Gmail first burst onto the scene on April 1, 2004 as an invitation-only online e-mail service which competed with the likes of Yahoo! Mail and Hotmail. Users raved about Gmail’s speed, ease of use, and large storage space. Gmail opened up to the public on February 7, 2007 and continues to increase the storage space offered to users, currently up to 7254MB as of this writing.

Google Calendar

Google Calendar opened up to the public on April 13, 2006 as a web-based calendar and contact manager. It’s everything that a calendar should be: lightweight, flexible, easy to use, and accessible anywhere you have an internet connection. It synchronizes with Microsoft Outlook, which personally allows me to have my calendar on my Samsung Jack (Using Windows Mobile 6.1), my desktop PC with Windows XP, and Google Calendar.

Google Talk

Google Talk was released on August 24, 2005 as a Windows and web-based instant messaging application. Like the above two applications, it is lightweight, easy to use, and accessible anywhere you have an internet connection.

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What do all three of these Google products have in common? They’ve never left “beta” status. What does this mean? Google can essentially make enormous changes or large errors without being at fault. Will Google Android become another “perpetual beta product”?

I sure hope not.

But Google is doing something completely different with Google Android, which may create an entirely different animal. Here’s the short list of approaches that Google is using that may lead to success with Android:

Fully Open Source – Releasing the source code of Android allows everyone to see what makes it tick. This can result in fully customized versions of Android being released by users (a la Linux), and security issues and bugs to be solved by Google developers and community alike.
Third Party Developers – Apple made a great move by selectively allowing third parties to develop applications for the App Store, Google made an even better move by allowing any third party to develop applications for its own App Store.

Will Google Android fade into mediocrity, or will this be the first product since it’s ubiquitous search engine to become a mainstream product?

Only time will tell.

Oct 20, 2008

Mobile Devices – Smaller is better?

Jon Lim Apple, consumer, device, experience, iKIT, IMOVIO, iPhone, Jack, keyboard, Mobile, Samsung, tactile, touch screen Mobile 2 Comments

Introducing the iKIT – a new product by IMOVIO that is being called a ‘sub-subnotebook’ which makes subnotebooks look enormous in comparison. This little device is 95mm x 65mm x 15.5mm, which is tiny even compared to my Samsung Jack’s 110m x 57mm x 15mm frame, especially considering it has a clamshell design.

Which brings me to the main point: is smaller really better? I’ve never been one to claim that size does matter, but as devices and electronics shrink, are you – the user – in for a better experience?

Take for example, my Samsung Jack. It’s a rather small device that is very thin and has a full QWERTY keyboard which is fantastic for sending SMS messages. Unfortunately, my thumbs are rather stubby, which results in sending more typos than I care to admit.

Another example is the iPhone, which did away with the tactile keyboard entirely and utilizes an on-screen keyboard input which I have not had the best of experiences with. I have to use my pinky – the thinnest finger I have – to enter any sort of word properly.

And now we have the iKIT, which appears to have much bigger keys than my Samsung Jack, and a tactile keyboard which won’t give me the same problems as the iPhone, seemingly solving my problems with such devices.

But you have to wonder – is this the direction the mobile device market is headed? Does the consumer experience increase as the size of the device decreases? Are those of us with stubby fingers forever cursed to send typos?

Let me know, I’d love to know.