Motorola Droid for Verizon Wireless – Product Review

Another "iPhone Killer" is Not Ready for Prime Time

It seems that the biggest kiss of death that could ever hit a mobile phone is "iPhone Killer". My wife is a Verizon die hard and refuses to switch to AT&T to get an iPhone. With the much ballywhooed release of the Motorola Droid, we were both excited for her to actually get an awesome phone for herself. I told her on Saturday morning that I was taking her to the Verizon store to buy her a Motorola Droid. I know, I’m kind of an awesome husband.

Hardware

Let’s make this short and sweet. When we got to the store, and tried the phone out, we were soooooo disappointed. Everything about it was just such a let down. The device had more jagged poking edges to scar a hand for life. It feels kind of flimsy and cheap in your hands.

Software Interface

The interace and user experience on this phone are horrendous. Everything you try to do is flakey and jumpy. Menus (if you can find them) are unintuitive and confusing. Stuff seems to mysteriously open and close as if controlled by some spastic prankster. Yikes!

The applications were even more confusing. I’m a huge user and fan of most of Google’s applications and thougth that this would really be cool. Well, I was wrong. The calendar is just a confusing affront to the senses. Ugly, confusing, and bad. Adding an appointment or contact was very frustrating. The maps application that I heard so much about was dreadful. You can’t figure out how to do anything in there. I can just see my mom and dad in the car trying to find a restaurant and just screaming at one another. Not good.

Video Review of the Motorola Droid

I took a few minutes to put my thoughts on video to express my disappointment in this product.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for an iPhone killer, keep looking. This thing is a Verizon/Motorolla Killer. The iPhone is supposed to be coming to Verizon in 2010, do yourself a favor and wait until then.

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WordPress 2 – iPhone Application Review

The perfect tool for bloggers on the go

I just downloaded the Wordpress 2 iPhone application. I had the previous version, but I never found it that useful. What a difference an upgrade makes!
The interface is actually very good. You can even write small posts (like this one) entirely on your phone.

Features

You can manage multiple blogs.
You can write, post, and read articles.
You can edit existing posts (title, tags, categories, text, and even images).
You can post photos and screen captures from your phone.

Reccomendation

If you need to write quick articles on the go, then this FREE handy iPhone app is definitely for you. Check it out!

Wordpress 2 iPhone app writing interface

Selecting Categories for your Article

Selecting Articles to View or Edit

This article was written entirely on my iPhone using Wordpress 2.

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iPhone Photoshop Application Review

Just What You Need to Make Your Pictures Pop

If you have ever taken pictures on your iPhone, you realize that they seldom turn out just right. A little off center, too dark, not vivid enough, whatever. Sure, you can sync them to your computer and edit them, then sync them back to your phone. If you have like 4,000 hours to kill. Well, Photoshop.com Mobile’s iPhone application is just what you need. You can take any picture on your iPhone and make quick, simple, effective edits in seconds just using your pointer finger.

Photoshop on your computer has millions of filters, effects, and features that are great for pros, but the Photoshop iPhone application has just what you need to clean up your phone pictures. Did I mention the price? That’s right, FREE!

Get it at Photoshop.com and give it a whirl. Direct download link.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

See the Photoshop iPone Application in Action

Take a look at the video below to see why I love it so much.

DropBox for iPhone – Your Files Truly are Everywhere Now

Awesome Desktop Application Moves to your Phone

One of my favorite desktop applications of all time is Dropbox. Dropbox allows you to sync important files between multiple computers. You just install the software on your computers and set up a dropbox (folder) and place files in it. The files will instantly appear on all of your other computers.

While this is amazingly convenient if you are at one of your computers, what happens when you are at someone else’s house or out on the town? Well, the contents of your dropbox are not only on your computers, a copy is also available on the dropbox website. (They are securely protected by your ID and password.)

Well, they just released an iPhone application that will let you view and open the entire contents of your dropbox in the palm of your hand from anywhere. Once you install and log in to the iPhone application, you can see all of the files and folders just like they appear on your computer.

Just touch one of the files and view it on your phone. (View only, no editing.) You can view any file that the iPhone can handle:

• Office files like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDFs
• Audio files like MP3s, WAVs, AACs
• Video files like MP4s and M4Vs
• HTML files

Cool Features

Using the iPhone has its own set of constraints and capabilities that make it a unique user experience compared to your desktop computer. There are a few really cool features that make this a great iPhone application.

Alphabetical File Browsing – You can quickly scan through your files by name using the alphabetical browser bar running down the right side of the screen that works just like like the Contacts application. If you have a lot of files, this really helps speed things up.

Favorites – You can mark important files as "Favorites" and they will be saved locally on your iPhone. Now, the file can be opened locally without having to wait for it to download over AT&T’s amazingly slow 3G network. If the file is edited on one of your computers, it will be updated to your phone. 

Photos – You can add photos taken on your iPhone directly to your dropbox. This doesn’t sound like much, but previously I had to sync my phone and pour through my pictures to move the right one into my dropbox. This is so much more convenient, especially if you are out and about and see something that you want to remember.

Wish List

While Dropbox is 98% awesome, there are always a few things that could be improved. Since the iPhone does not support many common media formats (Quicktime, AVI, WMV, WMA, MPEG, etc.) it would be cool if they could build in a simple media player that would allow me to view these files. Yeah, I know that this is an iPhone problem, it’s just that I’ll take help from anywhere I can find it.

Why you should use Dropbox

If you’re still not sold on Dropbox, watch this video and you just might be.

See this complete tutorial on using Dropbox to sync files across multiple computers.

Music Services with the Best Third Party Integration

The Best Music Services Part 5

This is the fifth article in a 5 part series on the Best Music Services on the Internet. See the rest of the series:

1. The Most Reliable Online Music Services
2. Online Music Services with the Best Suggestion Quality
3. The Best Music Discovery Service
4. Best Community Driven Online Music Services
5. BBest Third Party Integration among Online Music Services