Cingular 8525 Received

Over the weekend, I finally received my Cingular 8525 (a.k.a. HTC Hermes) mobile phone. Here are some observations:

Navigating the phone with the touch screen is fast and easy. (The exception is the camera; I am still learning its touch screen interface.)
The touch screen dialing is convenient and straightforward now that I'm getting over my expectation of a separate numeric keypad.
Synchronizing contact, calendar, e-mail, and tasks with Outlook took me a long time to get working properly, almost exclusively due to problems with Microsoft's ActiveSync software.
The SMS synchronization software I installed works beautifully. Now copies of all of the text messages I send and receive automatically are stored in Outlook on my computer.
The speakerphone is clear and sufficiently loud.
The slide-out QWERTY keyboard is very handy for typing out text messages, e-mails, and Word/Excel documents.
Wi-fi initially seemed to work well, but now it seems flaky, and configuring it is a bit confusing.

Overall, I'm very happy with my purchase.

Comments

Chip said…

Do you know what the upgrades over the HTC Apache 6700 are? That's what I have and it looks very similar, but I couldn't tell what's different (other than Cingular support). Do you miss the tactile number pad at all? Of all the iPhone hype, I think that is the biggest risk-- that people aren't ready for touch screens (i.e. being unable to dial without looking).

Wed May 09, 01:18:00 PM 2007

rcauvin said…

The main differences seem to be:

1. 3G data speeds
2. 2.0 megapixel camera
3. Quad-band

I like the touch screen dialing and don't miss the tactile numeric pad. However, I didn't really make much use of the tactile aspects of the dialing experience in the past. (I almost always looked at the keypad while I was dialing.) I may be atypical.

Wed May 09, 01:33:00 PM 2007

Why Spreadsheets Suck for Prioritizing

The Goal As a company executive, you want confidence that your product team (which includes all the people, from all departments, responsible for product success) has a sound basis for deciding which items are on the product roadmap. You also want confidence the team is prioritizing the items in a smart way. What Should We Prioritize? The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. Melissa Perri makes an excellent case for a " problem roadmap ", and, in general, I recommend focusing on the latter types of items. However, the topic of what types of items you should prioritize - and in what situations - is interesting and important but beyond the scope of this blog entry. A Sad but Familiar Story If there is significant controversy about priorities, then almost inevitably, a product manager or other member of the team decides to put together The Spreadsheet. I've done it. Some of the mos...

5 Ways Companies Make Product Decisions

In the last blog entry, we reviewed the four problems that companies face, or are trying to overcome, as they make product decisions . Now we'll look at the ways that most companies make their product decisions. Companies that develop, market, and sell products and solutions make strategic and ongoing tactical decisions. They decide what features to include in their products, what messages they will use to communicate the value of their products, what marketing tactics they will use, what prospective customers they will target, and many day-to-day choices. Whether or not these decisions are deliberate or ad hoc, most companies use some combination of the following ways of making product decisions. (A downloadable "map" that summarizes the product decision landscape is included at the end of this article.) Customer Wants Product decisions based on feature requests, focus groups, and what prospects and customers say they want. Companies are selling products to ...

Is Customer Development Pseudoscience?

The “Science” of Lean Startup Lean startup practitioners embrace the scientific method, seeking the "truth" about what business model and strategy will lead to product success. We do so by: Formulating hypotheses Crafting and running experiments to test them Learning from the experiments Iteratively feeding our learnings back into revised hypotheses Sounds pretty scientific, at least in spirit, doesn't it? Yet this process actually neglects a key ingredient in the scientists' mode of operation. To identify what’s missing, let’s examine “customer development”. Customer Development Steve Blank is one of the pioneers of the lean startup movement. He introduced into the lean startup lexicon the term “customer development”. Customer development consists of sessions and interactions with customers to test hypotheses. For example, a product manager might interview a prospect, asking if she agrees with the product manager’s hypotheses about the problems she faces or the ...

Cauvin

Search This Blog