One carrier is ready to support the Nexus One on day one: the U.S. arm of T-Mobile, a longstanding Google (GOOG) partner. The new Google Phone, built by HTC of Taiwan, will cost $529 unlocked direct from Google, at google.com/phone. It will cost $179 from T-Mobile online with a two-year contract that will set you back $79.99 a month.

Verizon Wireless (VZ) in the U.S. and Vodafone (VOD) in Europe will sell the Nexus One eventually at subsidized prices that haven’t yet been announced. All of this will take place on a Google-hosted Web site, a much easier way to buy a phone and service than is typical today, and one that promises to further weaken the power of the carriers.

The company also plans to sell the costlier, unsubsidized version to consumers in the U.K., Hong Kong and Singapore immediately. Like Americans who buy this unlocked version, these customers will have to purchase carrier service separately, something they should be able to obtain right away by just buying and inserting a SIM card from a carrier with compatible technology. (This initial unlocked phone won’t work with Verizon or Sprint in the U.S., nor on AT&T’s 3G network, only the latter’s slower network.)

The Nexus One has a larger screen than Apple’s phone, and is a bit thinner, narrower and lighter—if a tad longer. And it boasts a better camera and longer talk time between battery charges.

I’ve been testing the Nexus One for a couple of weeks and I like it a lot. It’s the best Android phone so far, in my view, and the first I could consider carrying as my everyday hand-held computer. It is a svelte gray device with a 3.7-inch, high-resolution screen; a thin strip of buttons underneath for home, back, menu and search; and a trackball.

The Nexus One finally has the right combination of hardware and software to give Android a champion that might attract more people away from their iconic iPhones and BlackBerrys. It has a larger screen than Apple’s phone, and is a bit thinner, narrower and lighter—if a tad longer. And it boasts a better camera and longer talk time between battery charges.

Also, because it will be available on the large, well-regarded Verizon 3G network, the Nexus One could tempt American iPhone users, tired of problems with AT&T (T), to switch.

The iPhone still retains some strong advantages. It boasts well over 100,000 third-party apps—around 125,000 by some unofficial estimates—versus around 18,000 for the Android platform. And it has vastly more memory for storing apps, so you can keep many more of them on your phone at any one time. On the Nexus One, only 190 megabytes of its total 4.5 gigabytes of memory is allowed for storing apps. On the $199 iPhone, nearly all of the 16 gigabytes of memory can be used for apps.

In fact, the $199 iPhone 3GS has roughly four times as much user-accessible memory out of the box, though the memory on the Nexus One can be expanded via memory cards. Apple also has a more-fluid user interface, with multitouch gestures for handling photos and Web pages.

As for the BlackBerry, its user interface looks older and clumsier with each passing day, but it has a beautiful physical keyboard many users love, while the Nexus One has a virtual, onscreen keyboard.

The Nexus One is packed with its own tricks. Its version of Android is essentially the same improved edition as the one that appeared on the Motorola (MOT) Droid back in November. But it has a few new features, including an experimental dictation capability. You just press a microphone icon on the keyboard and start talking, and the words appear. In my tests, this worked only adequately at best, and very poorly at worst, but Google insists it will learn and improve.

The phone also has handsome new visual features, including “live wallpaper,” with waving grass or pulsing colored lines; and a new zooming effect when you want to view icons that aren’t on your main screens. In addition, you can now view miniatures of your five main screens to help you navigate to the one you want.

The Nexus One also has all the key software features introduced in the Droid, including free turn-by-turn voice-prompted navigation.

In my tests, overall, the Nexus One worked very well. The latency I had seen in earlier Android phones is gone, due to a slicker version of the operating system and faster chips. The phone feels good in the hand and the screen is magnificent, with much greater resolution than the iPhone’s.

I like very much the way social-networking information, including status messages, is integrated into the contacts app. One tap on a person’s picture in Contacts lets you quickly choose whether to call, email or message her, or map her address—all without opening the contact card itself.

I also liked the pictures and videos I was able to take with the five-megapixel camera and flash, which I preferred to my iPhone’s camera. You can even view a photo slideshow or listen to music when the phone is in the optional desktop dock.

But there are some downsides to the Nexus One. Like all Android phones, it relies too much, in my view, on menus that create extra steps, including some menus that have a built-in “more” button to display a secondary menu of choices.

I also found the four buttons etched into the phone’s bottom panel sticky and hard to press. In addition, although the Nexus One claims seven hours of talk time versus five hours for the iPhone, most of its battery-life claims for other functions are weaker than Apple’s.

For instance, Google claims just 6.5 hours of Wi-Fi Web use per charge, versus nine for the iPhone, and 20 for music playback versus 30. Google claims this is because, unlike Apple, it allows the simultaneous use of third-party apps, which can drain the battery faster.

In addition, the Nexus One, and other Android devices, still pale beside the iPhone for playing music, video and games. The apps available for these functions aren’t nearly as sophisticated as on the Apple devices.

Finally, the iPhone is still a better apps platform. Not only are there more apps, but, in my experience, iPhone apps are generally more polished and come in more varieties.

But, with its fresh phone and bold business model, Google is taking Android to a new level, and that should ramp up the competition in the super-smartphone space.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Write to Walter S. Mossberg at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091230/no-file-no-icon-litl-is-a-big-idea-but-still-cloudy/ http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091230/no-file-no-icon-litl-is-a-big-idea-but-still-cloudy/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 02:31:29 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1130 One of the hottest ideas in the digital world now is the notion of dumping the traditional personal computer, where most programs and data are stored locally, for a stripped-down device that would operate primarily as a gateway to servers on the Internet, where your programs and data are accessed remotely. This approach is often called “cloud computing.”

In fact, the original netbooks, the small laptops that have become very popular, were designed around this concept of relying mostly on the Web. They used low-end processors, shunned Windows, and had very little internal storage. But a combination of consumer sentiment and industry maneuvering pushed them back into the fold, so that today, most are simply cheap, small conventional Windows laptops.

Now, a small Boston company, called Litl, is taking another shot at this idea, with a different twist. It is selling online a highly unusual laptop it classifies as a “webbook,” which attempts to meld cloud computing with a TV-like viewing experience—for the home. This shiny, colorful computer, named the Litl, is larger and more expensive than a typical netbook. It’s about the size of a small standard laptop, with a 12-inch screen and a weight of 3.4 pounds. It costs $699, or about twice the price of a netbook, at litl.com.

Yet the Litl doesn’t use Windows, or directly run word processors, email, or photo or music programs. It can only perform those tasks via Web sites and services like Gmail or Flckr, Google Docs or Pandora Radio. About the only local program it has that can run without an Internet connection is a virtual egg timer. It has no hard disk or any other way for a user to store anything locally.

The Litl’s user interface is a radical departure. There is no task bar or dock, no folders, no icons for files and programs; no traditional desktop. Instead, the Litl’s screen is filled with small cards that contain various kinds of Web content, from photos to news headlines, Facebook status and favorite Web sites. Click on a card, and its contents fill the screen.

The Litl webbook

And the Litl has another big difference from standard laptops or netbooks: something called “easel mode.” You can flip it around so the machine takes the form of an inverted letter “V,” with the screen facing outward. In that position, the machine can be used like a small Internet-based TV to display headlines, the weather, photo slideshows or videos from the Web. The company sells a $19 remote for controlling the computer in easel mode. You can also control it with a wheel built into the hinge.

I’ve been testing the Litl and I have mixed feelings about it. Some of the bold concepts behind the machine are refreshing, including the cloud-computing idea and the very simple interface and operating system, which demand much less work and attention from the user than a traditional PC does. The company also is promising many improvements, delivered via frequent over-the-air updates, including iPhone-type apps developed by third parties. It even offers a two-year money-back guarantee.

I was able to set up cards for Gmail and Yahoo Mail, and to send and receive messages. I also set up a card for Google Docs and was able to create and edit documents. I tapped into my Flickr account and could view slideshows of family photos I had previously uploaded. And I was able to watch TV shows via Hulu, both in easel mode and on my big-screen TV, once I connected the Litl to it.

But, in my tests, I found the device a bit clumsy and unsatisfying to use. For instance, as you add cards for your favorite Web sites or headline feeds (called channels), it becomes more difficult to scroll through screen after screen to find the one you want. There is no easy way to organize things.

In easel mode, when you see a headline that interests you, there is no way to click on it to read the whole story. Videos in easel mode too often stuttered. Worse, if you’re watching a video in easel mode, or through a TV, the Litl’s remote doesn’t let you pause, fast forward or back up. And the Litl doesn’t allow you to upload photos or videos to the Web.

The battery life is awful. The company claims 2.5 hours. In my tests, it conked out in less time. The company says that isn’t a problem, because the machine is designed for home use and will likely stay plugged in.

The company claims it is working on improving the Litl’s shortcomings. For instance, it plans a photo-uploading function and smoother video playback. So, it will likely get better. But, as of now, for $699, my feeling is that a standard laptop could perform many of these tasks in a more familiar, more versatile manner.

Cloud computing may one day be the standard way of doing things digitally, but the Litl, at least in its current form, isn’t the answer.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091230/no-file-no-icon-litl-is-a-big-idea-but-still-cloudy/feed/ 6 http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091216/diabetes-meter-mates-with-pc-to-track-trends/ http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091216/diabetes-meter-mates-with-pc-to-track-trends/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 02:04:33 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/?p=1110 This week’s column was, in a sense, written in blood. It’s a review of a new consumer medical device, and to test it, I had to prick my fingertips several times a day to produce a droplet of blood that the gadget could analyze.

The product, called the Contour USB, is an interesting new computer-savvy blood-glucose test meter for diabetics, made by the big pharmaceutical company, Bayer. As a diabetic myself, I’ve been using a more traditional version of such a meter to test my blood several times daily for years. So do millions of others.

What makes the $75 Bayer Contour USB different from typical meters is that it looks and works like a common USB thumb drive, so it was born to integrate with personal computers. It plugs right into a PC or Mac without the need for any cables, and contains—built right in—software you can run on your computer for analyzing your test results. That’s helpful for both diabetics and their doctors, who need to understand the trends in the amount of glucose in the blood to make decisions on medication, diet and exercise.

After testing the Contour USB for five days, I found it worked pretty well and consider it a promising step in diabetes care. More information is at bayercontourusb.com, and the meter can be purchased at the Web site of the drug chain Walgreens and at drugstore.com.

But I am neither a doctor nor a diabetes expert, and I am not advising anyone to switch his or her meter without first consulting a medical professional.

The Contour USB is a compact, rectangular device with a USB connector on one end and a slot for glucose test strips, which collect the blood from the droplet, on the other. The face of the device has a color screen and three buttons that allow you to navigate simple menus.

Bayer’s new Contour USB blood-glucose meter

Loaded inside is a software program called Glucofacts Deluxe that runs on either a Windows PC or Macintosh once you pop the meter into a USB port. It launches directly from the meter’s internal memory, which also contains your test results plus free space for anything else you wish to store on it.

The software reads the glucose results from the meter, and displays them in various logs, charts and graphs, which can be printed out or saved as a file on the computer. The user can provide the printouts to the doctor or email the files containing the data.

This mating of a glucose meter and a computer isn’t a new idea. Many brands of meters can be used with computer programs via extra-cost cables. But because the Bayer device builds in both the USB connector and the software, it makes this process easier than it has typically been. (Another new meter, called Myglucometer, is on the same path. It uses Bluetooth wireless technology to beam results to a PC.)

In my tests, the Contour USB proved quick and easy to use. When you’re actually doing the blood testing, it works pretty much like any other meter, and a computer isn’t involved. The meter’s color screen does, by default, ask you to designate whether the reading was taken before or after a meal, an extra step that can make the results more meaningful. But this feature can be turned off. And there’s an option that allows you to add a canned note, like “Sick,” or “Stress,” to any reading.

The real payoff comes when you plug the meter into a computer and launch the software, which helps you see the trends in your glucose levels over time. For instance, it can plot in various ways how often you stayed in a target zone and when you deviated. I tested this on Windows and Macintosh computers, and it worked. But there were some downsides.

For one thing, to launch the Glucofacts Deluxe software on your computer, you have to click on an obscure-sounding file name. It’s supposed to run automatically in Windows, but I never could get it to do that.

Also, on Windows, the software required me twice to install a new component. And the program is incompatible with Apple’s latest operating system, Snow Leopard. Bayer says it is working on solving the problem.

Another feature some may see as a downside is that the meter’s sealed battery can’t be replaced. But the company sees the freedom from buying batteries as an advantage for heavy users, and claims that even a one-minute recharge session will allow for several tests.

My biggest disappointment with the Contour USB was that it doesn’t provide any way to upload your results to an online repository, where you and your doctor might view them. And the new meter doesn’t tie in with online medical portals from companies such as Google (GOOG) and Microsoft (MSFT). Bayer says it plans an online component for the Contour USB.

Despite these flaws, I consider the Bayer Contour USB to be a welcome move toward integrating home testing with the digital world.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20091216/diabetes-meter-mates-with-pc-to-track-trends/feed/ 10 http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090812/taking-software-for-older-drivers-on-a-quick-spin/ http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090812/taking-software-for-older-drivers-on-a-quick-spin/#comments Thu, 13 Aug 2009 01:02:03 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090812/taking-software-for-older-drivers-on-a-quick-spin/ If your driving is getting a bit worse as you grow older, it may be because of a natural decline in the brain’s ability to process visual information.

Some scientists believe that, as people age, their capability to rapidly grasp and act on what their eyes see can degrade. And one of the activities most affected is driving, a task that demands you simultaneously track multiple moving objects, often at the edge of your field of vision.

The decline of this capability may be one of the reasons the elderly have to stop driving. But this problem doesn’t affect only the oldest people. Some experts say that the speed and accuracy of the brain’s visual processing can begin to gradually decline in middle age or even earlier.

Now there’s a software program, for both PCs and Macs, that claims it can “train the brain to think and react faster on the road” by putting a user through brief, repetitive exercises aimed at bolstering his or her visual-processing prowess. It’s called DriveSharp, and is from a San Francisco-based company called Posit Science (positscience.com), which also produces other brain-training programs.

DriveSharp isn’t a driving simulator, but a pair of simple-looking visual memory games, plus assessment tests, that Posit Science says are based on published scientific research. The company says it purchased a training technique that researchers have proven to be effective at improving visual processing.

Posit Science makes some strong claims for DriveSharp. It asserts that people who use the program as directed (at least three times a week for 20 minutes at a time) can cut their “crash risk” by 50% and stop their cars 22 feet sooner at 55 miles per hour. It says these users can expand by 200% their “useful field of view,” the area within which you can take in details with a single glance.

And the company adds that, if you use DriveSharp as instructed for a total of 10 hours, its positive effects can last for several years. To back up these claims, Posit Science cites a number of scientific studies and articles published in well-known journals.

I’ve been testing the DriveSharp software, which costs $139 at the company’s Web site, or $99 from participating AAA Clubs. (The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has endorsed the product.)

My verdict is that it was easy to use, and it did indeed work on my ability to rapidly recall the color and position of multiple moving objects and of objects on the periphery of my vision. It intelligently adjusted to my performance, and gradually presented me with tougher tasks.

However, two major caveats are in order. First, I am neither a scientist nor a doctor, so I can’t vouch for the company’s claims about DriveSharp’s benefits or even the underlying problem it aims to alleviate. Secondly, I wasn’t able to test DriveSharp long enough to know if it actually made me a better driver.

When you first install the product, you are required to set up an account so your progress can be tracked. The software checks your computer’s video capability, suggests a distance you should sit back from the screen, and changes your screen resolution to one it deems optimal for the training. It then plays an introductory video explaining how it works.

Your first step for each of the two exercises is to take a tough assessment test to establish a baseline from which your progress is measured. DriveSharp doesn’t tell you how you’re progressing after every session, only after you take another assessment, which isn’t recommended until you’ve put in a few hours of work with the software.

The first of the two exercises in DriveSharp is called Jewel Diver. This game aims to train you to divide your attention so you can track multiple moving objects at once. Your goal is to locate colored “jewels” that have been covered by identical opaque objects and surrounded by decoys, all of which then move around. Over time, you have to find more jewels, and they move faster, for longer periods and over larger areas.

The second exercise is called Road Tour and is designed to expand your useful field of view. The exercise involves correctly recalling a car displayed in the middle of a circle and also a particular road sign, among many, near the edge of that same circle. These objects flash in front of you very quickly and are then hidden. Again, the test gets harder over time.

Both exercises are sensitive to your progress. If you’re doing well, they get tougher faster. If you’re struggling, they revert to simpler challenges for a while. I saw both of these behaviors in my tests.

I did encounter a few annoyances. For instance, a bug fix required me to re-install the entire program, not just a patch. And the company automatically emails you “newsletters” once you establish your account.

But, even though I am not endorsing Posit Science’s claims, I can say that DriveSharp was fun and challenging, and that it makes sense to this layman that it could help you notice and track things you see more accurately.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090812/taking-software-for-older-drivers-on-a-quick-spin/feed/ 0 http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090527/little-laptops-with-linux-have-compatibility-issues/ http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090527/little-laptops-with-linux-have-compatibility-issues/#comments Thu, 28 May 2009 01:06:06 +0000 Nick Wingfield http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090527/little-laptops-with-linux-have-compatibility-issues/ When the cheap laptops known as netbooks first came out over a year ago, computer makers were able to offer them at low prices in part by shipping them with the free Linux open-source operating system, rather than Microsoft’s Windows. Since then, Windows netbooks have taken over most of the market after Microsoft began pushing Windows XP aggressively to netbook makers and consumers realized Linux netbooks didn’t work well with some popular applications and devices.

Linux on netbooks isn’t going away though. In fact, software and hardware companies have been making big investments to improve Linux netbooks. For the past week, I’ve been using several flavors of Linux running on netbooks — Ubuntu, Hewlett-Packard’s Mi (which is based on Ubuntu) and Moblin, created largely by Intel and not yet available commercially. In all cases, the Linux netbooks failed at some basic functions that any laptop, no matter how tiny and inexpensive, should be able to handle, like working with printers. At the same time, Mi and Moblin have impressive graphical user interfaces well-suited to the habits of typical netbook users, like checking email and accessing social-networking sites, as well as the small screens and low horsepower of tiny laptops. In addition to Linux, all of the computers shared the standard features, or lack thereof, common among netbooks, including compact keyboards and no DVD drives.

H-P’s Mini 110 Mi Edition

The most polished of the products was H-P’s Mini 110 Mi Edition, a new model with a 10.1-inch screen that H-P will begin selling on its Web site for $279.99 on June 10. That’s nearly $50 less than what H-P will charge for the Mini 110 running Windows XP, which will come with a 160-gigabyte hard drive instead of the 8-gigabyte solid-state drive that will come with the Mi edition.

The striking thing about this netbook is the slick graphical user interface created by H-P that runs on top of Ubuntu and first began appearing on H-P netbooks early this year. Instead of a traditional desktop like that found in Windows and the Mac, Mi (pronounced “me”) arranges commonly used applications and content on a screen called the “dashboard,” which looks like a personalized Web page and lists recently received emails, fresh thumbnail images of favorite Web sites, and a Web-search toolbar.

The Mi home screen is a clever way to make the computer seem alive with on- and off-line content, which is fitting since netbooks are designed for on-the-go Internet activities. It’s also tailor-made for the small screen size of netbooks.

A more eye-catching iteration of Linux is Moblin, which I tried out in test form on an Acer netbook; it is expected to ship on netbooks by the end of the year. Moblin has a menu of icons at the top of the screen, the most interesting of which leads to the M-Zone, a home screen that displays calendar appointments and favorite applications alongside snapshots of recently visited sites and a continuous feed from the user’s Twitter network.

An icon called “People” leads to a list of instant-messaging buddies, while another, called “Zones,” let me organize all the applications I had launched into different virtual workspaces, which is useful for hopping between various tasks on a small-screen device like a netbook.

The look and feel of the standard Ubuntu system, without the Mi interface, is more commonplace. I tried out a Dell Mini 10 with a 10.1-inch display and 160-gigabyte hard drive that sells for $349 on Dell’s Web site. The Mini 10 ships with version 8.04 of Ubuntu, which resembles Windows XP, with its desktop, taskbar and pop-up menu system. Ubuntu, in some cases, seemed to overestimate the size of the Dell Mini’s display: A window for configuring wireless-networking capabilities was so large it bled off the screen, and I couldn’t access all the buttons on it. I also installed on the Dell a new version of Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which works better on small screens. Since a Windows XP version of the Dell Mini 10 sells for the same price as the Ubuntu, I can’t see a compelling reason to choose the Ubuntu option.

All the netbooks I tried had compatibility problems with other external devices. The netbooks couldn’t load the software drivers to let me print to my Canon and Dell printers. I couldn’t load pictures over a USB cable from my Canon PowerShot SD750 digital camera. I was able to get my pictures on the machines by plugging a storage card from my camera directly into the netbooks.

Canonical, the London company that oversees development work on Ubuntu, says it is improving the system’s compatibility with various devices. Intel says it is unfair to judge Moblin until it is commercially available.

Some key applications currently don’t run on Linux, like Apple’s iTunes, which makes it difficult to load music files onto iPods from the netbooks. While the Linux laptops didn’t run Microsoft Office, they came with OpenOffice, a free package of word-processing, spreadsheet and presentation applications that allowed me to open and modify basic Word and Excel files.

The companies behind Linux netbooks have made great strides in improving user interfaces, but until they can achieve similar breakthroughs in how the machines work with other devices, Windows netbooks are still a better deal.

• Email nick.wingfield@wsj.com. Walter S. Mossberg is away and will return next Thursday.

]]> http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090527/little-laptops-with-linux-have-compatibility-issues/feed/ 4 http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090415/latest-mobileme-takes-out-glitches-and-eases-syncing/ http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090415/latest-mobileme-takes-out-glitches-and-eases-syncing/#comments Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:02:04 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090415/latest-mobileme-takes-out-glitches-and-eases-syncing/ Apple Inc. last summer brought out a promising new service called MobileMe designed to synchronize email, contacts and calendars among any combination of its own Macintosh computers and rival Windows PCs, plus Apple’s iPhones and iPod Touch devices. It also offered online email, contacts and calendar, online photo galleries, syncing of Web bookmarks and 20 gigabytes of online storage.

The main idea was to replicate for consumers the kind of seamless, over-the-air email, plus contact and calendar updating, available to corporate users via systems like Microsoft’s (MSFT) Exchange.

The only problem was that MobileMe, which costs $99 a year after a 60-day free trial, and is available at MobileMe.com, was so buggy and ragged that I couldn’t recommend it. Apple (AAPL) pledged it would fix MobileMe. So, I have just spent a few weeks testing it again on multiple Windows and Mac computers, and an iPhone.

This time, my verdict is different. Apple has fixed all of the speed and reliability issues I encountered last year. In my new tests, MobileMe’s email was prompt and reliable. I was able to add, delete or edit a contact or calendar entry on one device, and see these changes almost immediately on all the others, and on the MobileMe Web site. The Web-based photo gallery, which can also house videos, worked fine on both Windows and Mac, and I was able to upload photos to it from my iPhone. The file storage also worked well, and now has a feature that allows you to share files too large to email. And each MobileMe account works with an unlimited number of computers, iPhones and Touches.

But there is one major caveat. While MobileMe works with Windows, it works better with Macs. The main reason for this is that, as I noted last year, its synced calendars and contacts show up in an odd manner in Microsoft Outlook, the most popular calendar and contact program in Windows.

Apple acknowledges the Outlook problems, which show up only in a mixed environment of Macs and Windows PCs, and pledges they will be fixed by the fall. The company says that if you are using MobileMe solely on Windows PCs, with or without an iPhone, the Outlook problem shouldn’t appear in most cases.

Apple’s MobileMe

There are other drawbacks for Windows users. While the Web version of MobileMe works fine on Windows in the Firefox Web browser, or with the Windows version of Apple’s Safari browser, Apple warns that it might not work properly in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7. The site worked well in the new Internet Explorer 8.

In both versions of IE, my tests showed that another MobileMe feature, bookmark syncing, didn’t work as advertised. Some bookmarks didn’t appear at all; others were listed alphabetically instead of in their original order. Apple is promising to fix this problem as well.

Some features are available only on Macs. For example, you can upload photos and videos to your MobileMe galleries directly from Apple’s iPhoto and iMovie programs. On Windows, you have to upload these using the MobileMe Web site.

The Outlook problem works this way. If you have a mixed group of Macs and PCs, and your Mac’s calendar isn’t named Calendar, its information won’t sync with the main calendar in Outlook. It will appear as a separate calendar that requires extra steps to make visible. Worse, if your Mac or iPhone address book contains subgroups of contacts, these appear as separate address books, which require extra steps to make visible and may not properly sync up the same names as the Mac contact groups.

However, MobileMe now finally does a fast, reliable job of syncing calendar and contact items. In my tests, I was repeatedly successful in doing this in a variety of scenarios. I added a new phone number to a contact on my iPhone and, a minute or two later, it was added to that contact in Outlook, in the Mac’s Address Book program and in the Web-based MobileMe address book. I then changed the contact again in Outlook, and again in the Web-based address book, and the changes appeared everywhere else.

The same process worked with calendar items. None of this required cables (though, for Windows computers, you must first download and install a MobileMe control panel that runs in the background). The only glitch I ran into, which Apple is promising to fix, is that when I switched my iPhone to sync with MobileMe, it wiped out all the custom ringtones I had assigned to particular contacts.

Apple’s $99 price may seem high, given that you can get some features for much less, even free. And MobileMe lacks some obvious features, like online backup or automatic syncing of all files. Also, there’s no way to create limited access to allow an assistant or family member to use just your MobileMe online calendar.

But MobileMe finally does give consumers the main email, contact and calendar convenience corporate users rely upon daily.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090415/latest-mobileme-takes-out-glitches-and-eases-syncing/feed/ 9 http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090325/some-favorite-apps-that-make-iphone-worth-the-price/ http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090325/some-favorite-apps-that-make-iphone-worth-the-price/#comments Thu, 26 Mar 2009 01:02:03 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://ptech.allthingsd.com/20090325/some-favorite-apps-that-make-iphone-worth-the-price/ Despite all the economic misery, the past nine months have been a little like the heady days of the early 1980s when the personal computer was just getting rolling and new software programs were popping up like weeds.

That’s because we have a new computing platform, the modern hand-held computer, which is also attracting new software and new functions in droves.

The leader in this phenomenon has been Apple’s iPhone, though I expect that this year a few competitors will also begin to attract loads of apps, or widgets. These are small software programs, easily downloaded and purchased, that often connect to the Internet to perform a specific function.

We’ve seen this before, on a smaller scale, with third-party software for the original Palm (PALM) platform, for Windows Mobile, and, to a limited extent, for the BlackBerry. But these new apps can be far more sophisticated, and they are appearing at a much faster rate.

iPhone’s App Store logo

To give you an idea of the scale of this phenomenon, in just the nine months since Apple (AAPL) opened the iPhone App Store, around 25,000 apps have been published for the iPhone and its close cousin, the iPod Touch. And there have been 800 million downloads of these apps, according to Apple. That’s impressive.

So, this week, I thought I’d present minireviews of some of the apps I find myself using most often, in no particular order. You may have an entirely different list of favorites. I am not saying these are the best apps on the iPhone, only that they do their jobs and make the device much more useful for me. All can be found in the app store, by searching on their names.

Tweetie ($2.99): There are many apps for using Twitter, but I use this one. It not only does a great job of showing me the social network’s short, but numerous, postings, but also makes it easy to track topic trends, to post my own entries, and to conduct and save searches.

Facebook (free): This official iPhone app from Facebook covers the core functions of the full Web site. It allows you to view and upload status messages and photos, to check in on your friends, to manage friend requests, and to handle the service’s internal email and chats.

Kindle (free): This is Amazon’s iPhone software version of its $359 Kindle e-book reader. It lacks some of the fancier features of its hardware counterpart, like the ability to create notes or to look up words. But it gives you rapid access to any Kindle e-books you’ve bought, helps you buy new ones and makes the e-books easy to read on the iPhone. It can be used without a hardware Kindle, but if you have both, Amazon (AMZN) will synchronize the two devices so each knows the exact spot where you left off reading on the other.

ICE (99 cents): This app, whose name stands for In Case of Emergency, puts a big Red Cross-style icon on your iPhone’s screen. When the icon is tapped, the app displays your name and contact information; the names and info for your doctors or other emergency contacts; and lists of your medical conditions, allergies and the medications you take. I keep it on my iPhone’s home screen.

Easy Wi-Fi ($2.99): If you hate typing in all the log-in information for the commercial Wi-Fi hot spots to which you subscribe, this app is for you. It automates the process so you have to press only one button. For each of the networks you use, you have to type in your log-in info only once. After that, Easy Wi-Fi will do it for you.

ReaddleDocs ($9.99): A number of iPhone apps allow you to synchronize files with a PC or Mac, but ReaddleDocs stands out. It has too many features to list here, but my favorite is that you can simply send an email with an attached file to a special email address Readdle provides and, very shortly, that file will appear on your iPhone. There, it can be stored and read (though not edited). You can organize your files in folders, and even send them to others. The app works with Microsoft Office files, PDF files and more.

Quordy ($2.99): There are thousands of games for the iPhone and Touch, but Quordy is the one I turn to most often. Much as in Boggle, it requires you to form as many words as possible from a random screen of letters in a set time period. You can challenge others, either nearby or over the Internet, to play the same game board you did and compare results. Or you can just play solo.

Google Mobile (free): Sure, the iPhone has a fine Web browser with a built-in Google search box, but this app makes searching in Google (GOOG) even easier, with instant search suggestions, searches based on your location, and even the ability to enter search terms by speaking them rather than typing them, though I find the voice feature unreliable.

If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, the App Store is what makes your device worth its price. It’s the software, not the hardware, that makes these gadgets compelling.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

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