Roland Tanglao's Weblog

So the questions start:

1. Is there a bandwidth cap?
2. Are 3rd party applications like ShoZu and Qik (if ShoZu and Qik don't port to the iPhone others will) allowed?

IF

ShoZu-like and Qik-like applications appear on the iPhone 3G and they work well and Rogers allows them with a reasonable bandwidth cap (reasonable to my multi-media creation needs is 2GB YMMV :-) !!!),

THEN (it's not a r*poff, hurrah!) AND I'll get a 3G iPhone (since net-net, it's only about $10 a month more to pay than my current $50 per month grandfathered EDGE Fido plan).

The only thing that still gives me pause is the 3 year contract but I can live with it if the apps are there!

So I guess I don't buy one on my birthday but wait to see if the 3rd party apps that I want appear and if Rogers allows them.

From Wirelessnorth.ca » Blog Archive » Rogers iPhone pricing plans revealed: 3years $3440:

QUOTE

$199 + 36months x $90 = $3440 and that’s if you buy the cheap one. Don’t forget the GST/PST.

However, you’ll probably realize you are likely to spend at least that much on cellphone service in the next three years, no matter what your plan.

END QUOTE

As I feared the $7 "unlimited" data plan for the recently introduced N95-8GB and other Rogers approved devices restricts you to using the built-in apps. The built-in apps are *ahem* (to be nice) not that great with the exception of the web browser (and I fear that Rogers has somehow neutered the "great for Nokia" webkit based browser but not so great when compared to the iPhone browser). 3rd party apps, like ShoZu and Qik, are much better in my humble opinion.

Not only that, you are forced to commit to a 3 year contract if you wish to use the $7 plan.

At this time, if you are mobile enthusiast, therefore, I can't recommend the Rogers Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan or buying a Rogers N95 8GB. Instead I recommend buying an unlocked N95 8GB from Tiger Direct or other source and then buying the Rogers 1GB/month $65 'PC Card plan' which Alec Saunders uses with his unlocked non Rogers N95. As far as I know, this plan doesn't have a 3 year contract requirement. And it doesn't have the 3rd party app tax (Alec uses 3rd party app Qik to stream video live and doesn't pay 5 cents per kilobyte).

Anyhow, to end in a positive note, if any Rogers N95-8GB owners want to experiment with 3rd party apps and want to set them up in such a way as to avoid the "5 cents / kilobyte 3rdparty app" r*poff tax, and you are in Vancouver, please email roland AT rolandtanglao.com and let's get together in Gastown at lunch on a weekday and I'll show you how (it's not as intuitive as the iPhone). I've been using Nokia S60 smart phones like the N95 for four years and can show you how to use the powerful but not so intuitive S60 interface to your advantage.

From Rogers.com - Wireless Essentials:

QUOTE

NEW! Adding Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan* to your voice plan provides:

* Unlimited on-device mobile browsing access to your favourite social communities like Facebook & MySpace, news, sports and entertainment sites all on the go for one flat monthly fee!
* Access to search the mobile Internet with Yahoo! Search and Google
* Access to information sites like Yahoo! Canada, Canada.com, Windows Live, The Weather Network, Lavalife Mobile and more!
* Protection against high pay-per-use data charges while surfing the mobile Internet

Start saving on all your mobile Internet browsing with Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing* or pay per use at 5¢/ KB.

Plan or pay per use at 5¢/ KB

Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan
Monthly Fee Includes
$7 Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing*

For a limited time, customers who activate on a Voice Plan and add Vision Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing* on a 3 year term receive Vision Bonuses. Learn more

*Important: This plan includes unlimited on-device mobile browsing only and is only available on select phones (PDAs such as Blackberry or Windows Mobile devices, PC cards and non-Rogers certified devices are not eligible). Data usage incurred on ineligible devices or incurred while tethering (using device as wireless modem for computer) or incurred using non-Rogers (3rd party) applications downloaded to your device will be subject to pay-per-use charges of 5 cents/KB. A 3-year term service agreement is required for Rogers Vision devices.

What is tethering?

This plan does not include any usage incurred while tethering. Tethering is when you use your phone as a wireless modem to connect to the Internet. The phone can be connected via USB cable or Bluetooth. Once connected, you can access the Internet wirelessly on your laptop using the Rogers Wireless network. While accessing the Internet wirelessly on your computer, data charges are incurred at a rate of 5¢/KB.
What are 3rd party applications?

3rd party applications are applications like Yahoo! Go or Google Maps. These are non-Rogers applications which may be downloaded to the device and incur data charges at a rate of 5¢/KB.

END QUOTE

UPDATE: Wireless North appears to have the N95 Rogers skinny. It will apparently cost 1.5 cents/kilobyte for 3rd party apps which means 300 MB of pictures uploaded via ShoZu/month = $4500/ month. Aaaaargh, I hope this is *not* true, if it is the r*poff continues! 

Yay! The N95 8GB North American is available from Rogers starting May 6th. Looks like the N95 8GB has WiFi (just paranoid that Rogers would ask Nokia to disable it so I checked the site) according to Nokia.ca! No sign of the N95 on the Rogers site (c'mon get with the 21st century Rogers and update your website with new products at the same time you issue a press release!) but I found the following worrisome fine print about the $25/month Rogers Vision dataplan that the N95 will be using as its data plan on the Rogers site:

QUOTE:

Rogers Vision Unlimited On-Device Mobile Browsing Plan includes unlimited on-device mobile browsing only. Plan is available on Rogers Vision handsets only (PDAs such as Blackberry or Windows Mobile devices, PC cards and non-Rogers certified devices are not eligible). Data usage incurred on ineligible devices, incurred while tethering (using device as wireless modem for laptop) or incurred using non-Rogers (3rd party) applications downloaded to your device will be subject to pay-per-use charges of 5 cents/KB

END QUOTE

Does this mean if I use ShoZu to upload 400MB / month over HSDPA that I'll have to pay 5cents per Kilobyte? Fingers crossed that this isn't true (it wouldn't make sense but carriers don't make sense (and for what it's worth i don't get dinged for using ShoZu over my Fido unlimited data plan). Could somebody please confirm?

From the Press Release blog post from Intomobile Nokia N95 8GB hits Rogers Wireless in Canada:

QUOTE

Well, it looks like Nokia isn't satisfied with taking the rest of the world by storm as the North American continent rests safely in ignorance. Nokia has launched the Nokia N95 8GB in Canada on Rogers Wireless. As expected, the Canadian Nokia N95 8GB is basically the same a the Nokia N95 8GB NAM (Nokia N95-4), and gives Rogers the pleasure of beating US wireless carrier-giant to the punch in rolling out the N95 8GB in North America.

END QUOTE

I love my iPhone (which I paid for with my own money and am still glad I did) because:

• it's beautiful and so is the interface
• the web browser is great, gmail and google reader work well
• the switching between WiFi and EDGE is seamless
• SMS interface is great, so it was great when I was out of Canada and didn't have access to affordable data and wanted to communicate with fellow SXSW attendees
• the voice call interface is great
  

I hate my iPhone because:

• the 2 mega pixel camera s*cks
• no video, i need video!!!!!!
• it's closed at the moment so there's no ShoZu, I need ShoZu! I am addicted to ShoZu's ability to post photos of the kid to my private flickr account and other pictures to my public flickr account

If the iPhone had a 5 megapixel camera and video and ShoZu was available for it, I'd switch in a heartbeat and use it all the time for everything. As it is the phone in my pocket is my N95-1 provided by the Nokia Blogger Relations program (thanks!) and the phone that i would buy with my money if I lost my iPhone and N95-1 would be one of the N95 North American versions.

Having said that I also have a love/hate relationship with my N95-1

I love my N95-1 because:

• It runs ShoZu which has literally changed my life. The ability to "photo-document" my life in real-time has been and continues to be amazing. And if ShoZu ever integrates with Twitter and gets Facebook status updating working, I'll never have to use SMS again when I am in Canada which would be no big loss since I am not a fan of SMS (or paying for messages, I just want to pay for the bandwidth I consume, SMS rates are a ripoff.)
• It runs Qik and similar 'live from the phone videocasting' apps. Qik, flixwagon et al are killer apps over WiFi and 3G!
• It's "open" (since you can only develop 1st class applications using Carbide which only runs on Windows and uses the archaic and silly C/C++ combo, it's not fully open in my book; the whole certificate model and the fact that the amazing hardware on great devices like the N93 is crippled by missing certificates for Python so you can't really access the full power from more modern and dynamic programming environments like Python means Python et al are second class citizens on S60)

I hate my N95-1 because:

1. S60 is not truly open (see the Python problems mentioned above). Hoping for a re-focus around a Linux core e.g. using Maemo from the N770, N800 and N810 Internet tablets.
2. S60 is clunky, hard to use and a maze of twisty little menus and apps are constantly moved around each firmware release. I have taught many people who just got their S60 phones how to use their devices. you don't have to do that with an iPhone which while not perfect is much, much easier to use.
3. It doesn't have enough RAM so ShoZu occasionally hangs and a reboot is required (granted this has become a lot better in the latest N95 firmware updates thank goodness!)
4. The display is too small. As big as the iPhone or VGA please!

Flickr finally added video today.Yay! Only 90 seconds and 150MB per video (and requires a pro account to upload videos) but you can tag, geo-tag, add videos to sets and use the flickr privacy system (and there will be a video upload API, yes!). Other than taking videos at conferences and events like DemoCamp and Mobile Monday, I really use video for family stuff which is on my private family flickr account (for those of you who care about my public flickr account, don't worry, i will soon have many videos of me bicycling through Vancouver :-)  to join my 36000 and counting photos!). So having flickr support video will be a great way to share videos via flickr's guess pass to my non-flickr-using family. Now if only you had access to the original video, flickr video would be complete! Feature request to the ShoZu folks: support upload to flickr once the API comes out and support the full 150MB over 3G and WiFi!

So far so good. The only bug I can see is that I can't seem to update my Facebook status from ShoZu 4.0. Everything else works (e.g. I can see the last few status updates from my 341 ShoZu "friends"). I am sure the ShoZu folks will make it work pretty quickly; it'll be cool to use my unlimited EDGE for updating my Facebook status for free (rather than SMS which would cost me $).

Here's what I did:

1. Set Nokia's camera app on my N95 to take a photo every 10 seconds
2. Took over 200 photos on my bike ride in today
3. Deleted about 50
4. Selected the remaining 150 and tried to upload them with ShoZu to flickr

Here's what happened:

1. Phone started repeatedly complaining about low memory
2. ShoZu "crashes" every time (by crash I mean doesn't display the ShoZu main screen and just sits there, rest of phone is functional)

Here's the software that was installed on my N95 (all installed on my main memory):

1. A funky theme I got from SiMo
2. YBrowser
3. ShoZu
4. Bambuser
5. Flixwagon
6. Qik
7. Google Maps

I guess uploading 150 photos at a time is not a normal :-) use case for ShoZu. Or maybe it's a bug. Or maybe I have too many apps installed. Looks like I'll have to hard reset my N95 and start over again, aaargh (how many times have I done this? about a dozen! oh the joys of early adoption)!!!

ShoZu is a killer app for any phone with WiFi or unlimited mobile data and Qik is a killer app for mobile phones (I have tested on Nokia's N95-1, it supposedly will be available for non Nokia phones some day) with unlimited mobile data. Why? Because mobile data reaches almost everywhere in urban centres and you never know when you want to live stream. Qik + unlimited Mobile Data gives you the freedom to stream anywhere, WiFi doesn't. The amazing thing is that Qik is only in alpha and for an alpha is high quality. It can only get better. Unbelievably it works at 320x240 over EDGE (for short videos anyway, long videos require you to plug in or you will run out of batteries); I can't imagine how much more fun and fast it is over 3G where it works at 640x480 on the Nokia N95 and N93. See some sample videos cross posted from my RCS blog after the jump.

Now that my N95 is SIM-less, everytime I try to upload photos with ShoZu or use the WiFi on the phone in general, I get the useless S60 "Create WLAN connection in offline mode?" message. Nokia: this message has got to go please! If I say yes to this once, then remember it forever (cf. the iPhone which does this properly). ShoZu feature request: please work around this useless S60 "feature".

Richard said I have until January 15 :-) so here goes some randomly ordered predictions which are worth what you paid for them!

1. Social Media microniching and microcontent-fication continues to grow rapidly. Twitter and Seesmic are just the beginning. Old skool bloggers like myself continue to blog and to write large pieces but even for us it's the exception rather than the rule.
2. Drupal fervent, creativity, acquisition and expansion continues because Drupal 6 will unleash the creativity of the world. Go Acquia go! Go Raincity go!
3. Apple introduces 3G iPhone not at Macworld but in the spring. Rogers finally brings the iPhone to Canada in time for Christmas 2008. They won't be onboard for the Apple Spring announcement because they still don't "get it" , but they will have no choice for Christmas 2008 since all of the 3G handsets Rogers sells s*ck and nobody will buy them since unlike the iPhone they are unusable and no better than non 3G sets feature wise. [Hope I am wrong about Rogers!]
4. Speaking of "get"-ting it. Translink (or whatever they are called now), start to get it. True feedback comes from BOTH their old very slow 20th century skool approach (e.g. Translink Listens is a farce for the Internet Generation because you a) never see the results or b) know anything about the people behind the very vague and not useful polls but ok for the old fogeys) AND from social media like an official blog, a flickr account and facebook (heck maybe even twitter and Seesmic: e.g. twitter-ing system outages and delays or facebook statusing them would be a lot better than their current very slow 20th century haphazard way of telling us the SkyTrain is down or buses are delayed). The unofficial Translink Attendance at Transit Camp was very encouraging; I'm predicting this type of stuff will become officially supported in 2008.
5. Apple sub MacBook. It won't be the return of the Newton and it won't be a big iPhone, it'll be cool (small, instant on and useful) and again it won't be introduced at MacWorld. [Again hope I am wrong here! Hope it comes sooner]
6. The era of dumb non presence aware "high ceremony" audio and video is over. Go SightSpeed, go Lypp, go Iotum! All three will prosper in 2008. Skype will too since they are ubiquitous for both.
7. Nokia will continue to have the best hardware for mobile devices but unfortunately not the best software. An awesome N93 video cameraphone successor will be introduced that again only early adopters will use and find usable.
8. No usable mobile interface that is nearly as usable as Apple's touch interface emerges in 2008. Fingers crossed for 2009 [hope i am wrong about this one too]
9. Truly Open Hardware combined with truly Open Software - the trend started by Open Moko, Chumby (I've bought a chumby and am mulling some fun but extremely bogus hacks for it :-) !) and Bug Labs continues. Hopefully someone will introduce something like The Bug that is less clunky and uses a more malleable dynamic language like Ruby or Python (I am sure somebody will hack The Bug to use Ruby or Python or some such but it's not the same as having something designed from the ground up to use Ruby or Python as its development environment rather than clunky, "strait-jacketed by typing" and verbose Java). [and yes even though it's "clunky" and Java, I am saving my pennies for my own Bug! ]
10. Canon introduces an ISO 25600 camera to compete with the Nikon D3 and a 5D replacement with sensor cleaning and clean, usable ISO 6400. I'm saving my pennies (coz I'll never like flash photography although I love the Strobist).
11. Nokia or somebody smart buys ShoZu. The rest of the world will start to see the advantage of a "straight to the web from the camera" workflow that ShoZu pioneered (Eye-Fi is inferior to ShoZu because it doesn't suspend/resume upon connectivity interruption/resumption but it's good enough and it works everywhere and I am getting one of their cards pronto! See my earlier Eye-Fi plug). Why not build ShoZu into micro SD cards ? Just a thought :-) !
12. 3G and WiFi are now mature enough for a "straight to the web from the camera" workflow for video too. Why should you have to wait? Why can't video be uploaded directly to the web from your camera like you can with photos with ShoZu and Eye-Fi? There really is no reason other than file size and early adopters will start doing that in 2008.