According to blogger Joey Hess, that is what’s happening. We know that whenever GPS is activated, data about our location is sent to and from servers in order to work with apps and WebOS. However, he is claiming that the Palm Pre is sending data on how often we use specific programs as well as our GPS location even when such items are not in use by an application – every day! Mr. Hess is an application developer and has dived right into the WebOS code. Palm commented to MSNBC today and stated the following:

“Palm takes privacy very seriously, and offers users ways to turn data
collecting services on and off. Our privacy policy is like many
policies in the industry and includes very detailed language about
potential scenarios in which we might use a customer’s information, all
toward a goal of offering a great user experience. For instance, when
location based services are used, we collect their information to give
them relevant local results in Google Maps. We appreciate the trust
that users give us with their information, and have no intention to
violate that trust.”

I believe there were similar concerns with the iPhone when it debuted. We have lots of consumer electronics that collect data these days. Take Tivo for example. They can and do track certain items on your PVR usually for advertising and statistics purposes. Honestly, I’m just happy my Pre works flawlessly!

According to Gizmodo, they’re now saying that the Apple tablet is indeed a 10″ tablet but that it will be running the iPhone OS and cost approximately $700-$900. The “grand” idea behind this tablet is that it can also act as a secondary display our touchpad for your Mac. I’m sure the geniuses at Apple know what they’re doing but it seems that $700-$900 for the iPhone OS is definitely not in line with the competition. Hopefully this is just a rumor and Apple will indeed release a complete version of OSX with integrated handwriting/speech recognition. The only reason to go with the iPhone OS is that it will be lightweight and probably have better battery life. Hackers, get ready!

T-Mobile has a new player in town and it’s called the myTouch 3G touchscreen handset. Available in black, white and merlot, the myTouch 3G is the successor to T-Mobile’s 1st (and North America’s first) Android based cell phone. The myTouch 3G was previously released in Europe as the Google ION and the HTC Magic. The best part about this phone is not even the T-Mobile service, it’s the integration with Google – free calls, free text? YES. So let’s take a look at this unit!

Hardware

The myTouch is very comfortable to hold in your hand. It has a 320×480 resolution touchscreen. It does not have the famous protruding “chin” that the G1 had (or some future HTC handsets will have). It is lightweight, feels solidly built and is quite slim. The unit comes with a built-in 3.2 megapixel camera (no flash), 512MB of ROM and 288MB 192MB ram and a trackball for navigation if you prefer that over the touchscreen. They also provide a built-in 4GB microSD card for your data needs. The downside to the hardware is that HTC has decided to incorporate a proprietary USB connection for the headphones and for connection to your computer. They do provide the correct dongle in the package. The unit comes with standard bluetooth (with support for stereo bluetooth) and 802.11b/g built-in. It is capable of running on GSM and UTMS frequencies.

Call Quality

T-Mobile has very good service down here in South Florida and definitely outclasses its GSM rival AT&T when it comes to call quality/dropped calls. Calls sounded excellent and voice coverage was extensive. There were no dropped calls while testing this unit.

Camera

No doubt that the 3.2 megapixel camera could be better as it produced pictures that were washed out and lacking detail (perhaps, in part, due to the lack of a flash). However, it’s definitely passable as a camera phone (personally, not a big deal to me – I like using full cameras for photos). Outdoor pictures did not suffer as much due to increased ambient light. The unit also has built-in video recording which was on par with other smartphones.

Battery Life

All I can say about battery life is that it’s awesome. After a full day’s use of reading emails, some phone calls, GPS and Bluetooth turned on, Google Maps and playing music I still have about 40% battery remaining at the end of the day. The manufacturer states 600 hours standby and 6 hours talk time. This is the longest lasting standard battery I’ve ever used in a cell phone.

3G Data

This is the area where T-Mobile still needs to grow. When there was 3G coverage available, the phone did an excellent job with transfer speeds while web surfing or sending and receiving e-mails. Speeds upwards of 1mbps were noted with an average 3G speed of 700kbps. However, as T-Mobile still continues to deploy its 3G services (while others like Sprint are deploying 4G services) they do seem a bit outclassed when it comes to coverage area. Unless you are within a few miles of their towers, 3G signal loss was very apparent when entering buildings/structures. Main streets and highways were no problem at receiving and locking onto a 3G signal, but all too often it would definitely jump from 3G to EDGE when not outdoors – and even sometimes when outdoors. That being said, I decided to call T-Mobile technical support and ask about this problem of jumping between EDGE and 3G. The very informed (note sarcasm) technical support representative told me that I shouldn’t worry about the myTouch jumping from 3G to EDGE since 3G is only 4 seconds faster than EDGE when loading webpages and watching YouTube. I admit I almost laughed at her, but to maintain decorum I just said “well that has not been my experience – so if 3G doesn’t matter then why not call it the myTouch 2G?” She didn’t answer.

Operating System

The Android operating system is definitely the phone’s biggest asset. Android is a pretty young OS that was first released on the G1 last year. With a thriving app store it is becoming more and more popular within the developer community. So what makes it so special? Well Android is based on Linux (as is the Palm Pre and Apple’s iPhone) which is always a plus. The phone was highly stable during our testing, requiring only one reboot. Can you say that about Windows Mobile? Hmm….

Coming from using my regular daily phone, the Palm Pre, I can’t help but make comparisons. Multitasking on a cell phone has become a very important part of my daily routine. Until the Pre came along, I really could not accomplish everything I wanted to accomplish. Android does indeed have multitasking capabilities. Unlike the iPhone, you can have many different applications open at the same time. The system will decide when its time to close an app that you are not using in order to conserve memory. There is no official “close app” selection on most applications so you must select the “Home” button to return to the main screen and select another app. In a way, it’s transparent to the user where you don’t have to decide what to close and when. However, I must say that I prefer the Pre’s card system when closing apps. There are a few apps you can download from the Android store that will close apps on command.

Let’s talk about the keyboard. I think that the G1 had an advantage with a hardware keyboard and not just the virtual one that was released with the Android 1.5 update. I tried to type on the stock Android keyboard and found myself pulling out my hair. It’s definitely not an iPhone virtual keyboard (which I think is the best out there). I was making big mistakes and the autocorrect was not working properly. I tried installing a few different virtual keyboards until I came across TouchPal. TouchPal, which was just released on the Android store, is simply amazing. You have many ways to use this keyboard (T9, full qwerty, compact qwerty, etc..). I have become a huge fan of the compact qwerty keyboard with the auto-correction dictionary turned on. The only downside to this keyboard (or perhaps it’s a hardware limitation) is that I tend to type faster than it displays and has trouble keeping up. Hopefully this will be fixed in a future software release.

Android 1.5 also lets you integrate other email address you might have (POP or IMAP) through another dedicated email application. During testing, I found that they are not completely stable in terms of connection status. I was getting time out errors constantly after having setup a few IMAP and POP accounts. Whether this is a T-Mobile problem or an Android problem is yet to be seen. However, when using the built-in Gmail application, email access was flawless. On a side note, the Android operating system also has a modern built-in photo viewer and multimedia player. The controls are standard and work quite well. Also, the usual YouTube and Amazon MP3 Store applications are in place.

Another excellent feature is Android’s notification bar. This bar is located at the top of your screen and displays the latest email messages, text messages along with any other messages you need to be made aware of. You can access this by pulling down the menu from top to bottom. The only other system I’ve seen that works similar to this is the Palm Pre notification system. Overall the OS is snappy and has incredible potential.

Google Integration

Google Voice

I believe that Google Voice will probably be one of Google’s greatest achievements (even though they purchased it from Grand Central – but they’ve developed it beautifully). Essentially Google Voice allows you to have one phone number that you distribute (you can even choose which number you receive) that will contact all of your normal phones in order to reach you. The service provides free voicemail (with transcription), free texting and a host of other features. You have complete control on when and how your phone(s) ring. (For a detailed explanation of Google Voice, head on over to google.com/voice and get an invite.)

Google Voice is integrated into the myTouch incredibly well. After you download the free app from Google, you can basically tell the system to always make calls using Google Voice or only when you want to. So what does that mean? Well, all of your outgoing calls will be made through your Google Voice phone number and that number will display in the recipient’s caller i.d. (maybe you don’t want everyone to have your personal cell number or your home number, but you do want them to reach you). The Google Voice application also includes visual voicemail in order to directly access the messages you’d like to hear. You can text for free within Google Voice to any number in the U.S.

So after some testing, here are the instructions on making free calls and free texts using Google Voice on T-Mobile (please note I’m not telling you to do this, but if you want to try, try at your own risk):

1. If you have T-Mobile service with an Android phone, then you need to select a MyFaves plan which lets you select 5 phone numbers that are totally free when you call them or they call you (the minimum is $34.99 for 300 minutes). You also must select a data plan for Android (the minimum is $24.99). So add those up and you have $59.98.

2. Go to your MyFaves control panel and make your Google Voice number one of your MyFaves and also make 347-234-5001 another MyFave number (Why you ask? Well Google Voice uses this number which is located in NY to place outgoing calls from your Google Voice service. It dials up the number, tells it what number you want to call, and then places the call. The person receiving your call will not see that NY number, they will indeed see your Google Voice number. But since this is a MyFave number, it will be free. Please note that this number may change in the future!)

3. Log into your Google Voice account and make sure that your Google Voice number is displayed in your caller i.d. when someone calls you (don’t worry about not knowing who’s calling you – the system will tell you who the caller is before you accept the call)

4. Text messages are always free to and from the phone using your Google Voice number and using the Google Voice application. There is a slight delay in text messages, but Google is looking into fixing that in the near future. No text messages are counted against your plan as Google Voice uses data.

So for $59.98 you’re essentially getting a totally unlimited plan. (Please note that it is unclear at this time if this violates any of T-Mobile’s policies so attempt it at your own risk. They may make changes in the future to disallow these services)

Overall Impressions

I think that T-Mobile, HTC and Google have a winner with the myTouch 3G. Although not as flashy as the iPhone (relating to multimedia) or quite as productive as the Palm Pre (when it comes to multitasking) it definitely gives T-Mobile users the opportunity to use a modern smartphone with excellent services. Android has the potential to really blow the competition away as it continues to release updates in the future. If I didn’t have the Palm Pre as my daily phone, I would definitely choose the myTouch (or another Android phone) over the iPhone due to the multitasking capabilities and, yes, the carrier. The myTouch is available for $199.99 with a two year T-Mobile contract or for $399.99 without a contract.

What we love:

Android – the operating system rocks. It’s stable, quick and easy to use.
Google integration – Google Voice, GMail, Google Talk, “G-Everything” works incredibly well
Excellent call quality
3G data is snappy (when available)
Beautiful bright screen
Android app store

What we hate:

We would like to have seen a hardware keyboard option
T-Mobile 3G service not as stable as competition
Some issues seen with POP and IMAP accounts using email application

Google has been working on the optimization of their search engine (perhaps keeping an eye on Microsoft’s Bing) through a project codenamed “Caffeine”. Announced on their blog, you can see a preview of this technology. The system will help with accuracy and indexing speed but will remain transparent to the user. They are still working on this project and I did not notice any big differences between searches through google.com and their test site http://www2.sandbox.google.com/.

After the continuing drama between Google, Apple and the FCC pertaining to Apple’s denial of the Google Voice app to their app store, Google has found a way to bring the service to iPhone users. Google is currently creating an iPhone friendly web based app for Google Voice. Similar to the Google latitude web app (another app that Apple rejected) the Google Voice web app will have most, if not all, the features of the original application (admittedly not as convenient or as quick). This specific incident has opened up the even greater discussion about software, hardware, cellular companies and monopolies.

This ad speaks for itself, but Jonathan Mann won a $500 gift card from Microsoft for creating a jingle for Microsoft’s new Bing search engine. It’s so bad it’s good. This makes me long for the creepy Palm Pre girl.

Sorry for the lack of updates folks! But we’ve been working on a review of the T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Android phone. Of particular interest is how you can get unlimited calls and texting through Google Voice and this handset (with only subscribing to the minimum T-Mobile plan). Lots of interesting tidbits!! Stay tuned.

CNET has posted a review of Windows 7 (Microsoft’s latest operating system due later this year) with mostly positive results. I think we can all admit that anything would be better than Vista. Ironically, it is noted in the review, Microsoft has definitely taken cues from the Apple OSX operating system in many regards (as they did with some features in Vista). Windows 7 seems to combine the “stability” of Windows XP and enhance the visuals of Vista. Stay tuned in the next few weeks for our review at TechStooge.

Nikon has jumped on the bandwagon of micro or “pico” projectors with its latest digital camera, the S1000pj. The “pj” stands for “projector” as the camera actually has a built-in 10 lumens projector (suitable for a dark room) that can project an image between 5″ to 40″. The battery will last for approximately 1 hour while it displays your digital photos or movies. The video resolution comes in at 640×480 and the camera has a built-in SD/SDHC slot to expand on its 36mb internal memory. Digital photos are snapped at a maximum of 12.1 megapixels. The camera has an MSRP of $429.95.