Sprint to cut 2,000 to 2,500 jobs

I went through a large telecom merger many years ago that resulted in my entire department being RIFed (Reduction In Force - aka - laid off). Let me tell you from first hand experience, this is no fun. In our case, it was a combination of a then failing economy (2001) and the economies of scale (too many people) caused by the merger itself.

This time? Well, Sprint has been bleeding subscribers and money despite management changes, attempts to field a killer phone (the Palm Pre), and, I'm sure, the hard work of a lot of people at the bottom of the corporate food chain. Yahoo! Finance shows Sprint as having 56,000 employees (this is probably higher than the actual current count). But, assuming this is correct, a 2500 head count reduction is about 4.5% of the current workforce.

As a former telecom guy, all I can say is "Hang in there folks!".

Microsoft Bing Gives WiFi Users Free Search

Here's how the campaign works according to MediaPost's article above...

JiWire's opt-in Ads for Access program at various hotspot sites around the U.S. will give you free WiFi access at that hotspot in exchange for performing one search using Microsoft's Bing search engine. This sounds like a pretty good deal to me. Microsoft's Bing search engine is pretty good (I've been using it regularly, though not exclusively, since its launch).

So, where can you find JiWire's opt-in program? I was shocked to see the large list of high profile access areas in the...

JiWire Partner Showcase

It includes what looks like most of the U.S.'s largest airports (JFK, Denver, Atlanta, O'Hare, etc.), hotels (Hyatt, Westin, Marriot, Sheraton, Hilton, etc.) as well as Starbucks and Barnes & Noble. It looks like this marketing program should be easy to find.

I'm really enjoying seeing the slow but steady trickle of more functionally sophisticated hardware accessories for the iPhone. The latest is the...

Gigaware In-Line Control with HD Radio for iPhone

...available from Radio Shack for $79.99. It works with the free...

HD Radio 1.0

...iPhone app that lets you tag songs playing on HD radio stations. My 5th generation iPod nano has a radio which I never use (except for testing right after buying the nano). So, I'm not the target audience for this hardware accessory.

Unfortunately, with 180 user reviews, the app (and presumably the hardware) has a 2 star (out of 5) average rating with 123 of the reviewers (68%) giving the minimum 1 star rating (ouch).

Via the Wall Street Journal: App Watch: HD Radio for the iPhone

The Motorola Droid isn't the only Android based phone in Verizon's lineup. The keyboardless HTC Droid Eris is a tier below the Moto Droid based on its subsidized price ($99.99 for the Droid Eris vs. $199.99 for the Droid) and specs (smaller lower resolution screen, Android 1.5 instead of 2.0, and 8gb microSD instead of 16gb)...

Verizon Droid Eris (product page)

On, the other hand, it is smaller and lighter than the Droid. And, it comes with HTC's custom Sense UI (user interface). One of the comments I heard frequently about the Droid when people handled the one I bought is that it is very heavy. So, the Droid Eris will appeal to people who may fing the Droid too large and heavy.

Oh yes, one more thing (to borrow a line from Apple's Steve Jobs)... The Droid Eris apparently supports the pinch zoom gesture unlike the Droid. This is a big deal IMHO.

The video embedded above is one of the first video recordings I made using the Motorola Droid this past weekend. The video file was uploaded unaltered directly from the Droid to YouTube over a WiFi connection (it doesn't allow uploading large files over 3G). The video looks reasonably good to me although I notice quite a bit of aliasing (jaggedness) in edges like the horizon and water's edge. The video also seems to be quite jerky. On the positive side, color saturation looks excellent. And, I don't see the "rubberband" effect seen in videos recorded on the iPhone 3GS and other smartphones.

I was surprised that the Droid saves video in a 3GP video file type. I didn't see any option to store video in some other format like MP4 or AVI.

I recorded video using the HTC Touch Pro2 at the same time I tested the Droid. Unfortunately, I had it set to the wrong mode (lower resolution H.264 3GP mode). So, it would be an unfair comparison. However, I plan on recording video comparisons using various mobile devices in the near future.

Back on October 12, I noted...

Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone: Nice Free Photo Editor with Disappointing Sketch Mode

I learned from Mashable that an Android version is available now...

Adobe Photoshop Mobile Launches on Google Android

Photoshop.com Mobile App for Android (product page)

So, I installed it on my new Motorola Droid. I had a problem signing in to my Photoshop.com account from the app. However, it might be because Adobe changed its terms of use since I used it last month. This required agreeing to it in the desktop browser. After getting through the agreement process on the desktop, I was able to login from the Droid.

The Android app doesn't to have the "sketch" feature that disappointed me in the iPhone version. So, it may be missing a few other features too. However, as you can see in the same photo above, I was able to take a photo on the droid, apply a black-and-white (grayscale) filter to it and upload it to my Photoshop.com account.

I take a lot of photos using various cameraphones. So, you can expect to see a number of my Droid photos tests in future blogs.

The...

Google EyesFreeAndroid YouTube Channel

...provides information and video demos of Google's Android speech-enabling efforts (see project page link below)...

eyes-free Speech Enabled Eyes-Free Android Applications

Ironically and sadly, audio for the various videos provided here is uniformly poor and difficult to hear.

Hey, Google, can you please use better microphone placement and maybe have an audio-engineer check audio quality before posting really useful and otherwise informative video segments? Thanks!

I bought my Verizon Motorola Droid from a local Costco store on Saturday. And, I'm glad I did. The firm behind the cell phone concession kiosk in the Costco store here usually throws in a couple of extras with phones purchased there. This was the case with the Droid too.

For $199.99, my Droid came with the following in the extras pack:

- Wired stereo headset with remote controls
- Leather carrying case with wrist strap and belt clip
- Car charger

And, as usual (I purchased a bunch of Sprint phones from the Kiosk before they vendor dropped Sprint and replaced it with T-Mobile), the Kiosk staffer was courteous, professional, and extremely helpful. All the paperwork was filled out for me including the instant rebate (I paid just the $199.99) and the mail-in activation fee waiver. We activated my phone there and went through the configuration to make sure everything was working properly before I left.

I'll be detailing my impressions of the Droid extensively over the coming week. But, let me start by saying this: The Droid is not even a small threat to the iPhone. On the other hand, Nokia S60 and Microsoft Windows Phones have a lot to worry about. That said, there is a lot to like about the Droid and its Android 2.0 platform. I'll talk about both pros and cons in blog items here in the days and weeks to come.

For an interesting negative blow-by-blow analysis, take a look at Robert Scoble's blog item...

The Droid fails AS A PRODUCT when compared to Palm Pre and iPhone

After over a year of being unable to use WordPress for iPhone with my personal blog, I was happy to say on October 30...

Success! WordPress 2 for iPhone Works with my Blogs

The WordPress for iPhone blog now reports that...

20,000 downloads of WordPress for iPhone 2

...a week after its release. This blog item also has a brief Q&A section related to the 2.0 release:

1. Why is this a new app? (shift from contractor to Automatic)
2. Why was landscape mode removed (it is not)
3. Can't login

You can find a video overview of WordPress 2 for iPhone embedded above.

Unlike the AirGraffiti project mentioned in the previous blog entry here, this AT&T Research project sounds novel and interesting...

Laser tag with mobile phones or help for disaster victims w/ network down. AT&T researching GeoCasting

Mobile devices (like phones) that support the GeoCast protocol developed by AT&T can receive and propogate messages without cell towers serving as an intermediary. In the example described in the video embedded above, a first responder with a command device (like a notebook) with the authorization to send out a GeoCast query could request information form GeoCast capable phones to get position location of disaster victims.

Hmm... Interesting... But do we really want virtual tagging?

AT&T researchers testing AirGraffiti concept. Leave a location-based message that others can find in air

AT&T's research project lets people attach media (video, photos) to a location that can be accessed by other people who may be in that area at a later time. It doesn't sound much different from many other location based services such as Yelp that lets you see what other people may have said about something in that area.

Note to AT&T: Could you please spend some research time to figure out how to get your network to the point where iPhone tethering service can be turned on for a reasonable price?

10 of my iPhone apps were updated in the past week. Updates 1MB or larger are noted in parentheses. You may note that some of the apps listed were on one of my booted apps list. They are shown as updated because they were unsynced with my iPhone rather that completely removed from my iTunes app library.

Apps that do not have comments in the list below indicates that the update is simply a bug fix release or an iPhone OS 3.x compatibility update with, perhaps, some bug fixes.

1. 170,000 Recipes - BigOven 1.2 (1.9m) Improved interface. Leftover wizard

2. CameraBag 1.6 Colorcross filter. CameraBag Desktop for Mac available ($19)

3. Epocrates 2.90 (3.4m)

4. Free Translator 1.0.20 Translattions can be emailed from within the app

5. Japanese Phrases FREE 2.0.2 (16.7m) 40+ sound files added. Family words lesson added. More Flashcard & quiz pages.

6. NetNewsWire 2.0.2

7. Now Playing 3.12 (1.9m)

8. NYTimes 2.3.1

9. Quicksheet 1.5.0 (8.2m) Supports Microsoft Excel password protected files

10. Yelp 3.1.1 (3m)

I used DSLReports' non-Javascript dependent speedtest since Windows Mobile 6.1's web browser doesn't work with DSLReports more commonly used Javascript based speedtest...

http://text.dslreports.com/mspeed

I used a 1MB download payload for each test. Here's what I found based only a single test for each phone/carrier:

AT&T
iPhone 3G
613 Kbps
0.473 second latency

T-Mobile
HTC Touch Pro2
671 Kbps
0.539 second latency

I'm calling this a "tie". It surprised me since I thought I was seeing better throughput on the Touch Pro2. I should probably run more tests and in a variety of areas (including outdoors) to get a better picture of my local 3G situation.

PicTranslator 1.0 (iTunes App Store) is a $1.99 iPhone app with an interesting premise. It can translate European written language in the real world from one language to your native language by capturing the image with the iPhone's camera and then presenting a translation to you. Additional languages can be purchased in-app for 99 cents each or an "All Language Pack" for $1.99.

PicTranslator (Product site)

Ribbit Mobile

...sign up for their beta service again. I don't expect to hear anything back from them given their previous track record. But, who knows? So, why am I interested in a service that looks like will have a $30 per month fee associated with it (based on their "Try it Free - A $30/month value" web message)? To be honest, I'm not quite sure why I found it interesting. It appears to essentially duplicate services already offered by the free Google Voice (voicemail on your existing phone number, text transcription of voice mail, easy management of voicemail.

Note, if you look at Ribbit's pricing plans, you'll see they do plan to have a free offering with no business grade transcription service as well as a $10 per month plan with a limit of 40 transcriptions.

Some people (many?) might find an accurate "business grade" voicemail transcription service worth $10 or $30 per month instead of using Google Voice's free but error prone transcription service.