Tools I Can't Live Without (Part II)

Is your cell phone a phone that does computer things or a computer that does phone things? I actually have a Blackberry Storm (first generation)... So I have a computer phone that does annoying things. Well, sometimes, for the most part it is a decent phone. There are plenty of phones that do computer things, including even letting you post to your FaceBook account. Usually these phones are pretty proprietary in nature and have an extremely limited choice of applications. By contrast there are a range of devices that are actually computers that also happen to make calls. These are your Droids, iPhones, Pres, and Storms.

Thanks to Denise Carbonell for this Creative Commons picFor my area, the best service in my opinion is Verizon. The network coverage is the best, and I almost never have a dropped call. This, of course, is the most fundamental use of a cell phone. It's like a car with no wheels, you would not buy it off the lot. If it can't do this well, it's a no-go.

By the way, this is part 2 in a series of Tools I Can't Live Without. Part 1 is here. 

My relatively few complaints about the Storm aside, it's still something that I would not give up for an inferior device. Compared to the iPhone or the Droid, the apps selection is small, but the basic need of synchronization of mail, calendar and contacts is met. Automatically, all the time with my Google Apps account. This is huge. This means that my computer, my phone, and Google Apps are always in sync. No cables, no fuss, it's just done, no matter which device is used to edit.

Some other items my phone does that aren't as critical:

• Update my Twitter and Facebook streams. I use the BlackBerry Facebook app for Facebook. For Twitter, I simply have the service forward tweets from the important people in my life to my SMS. This keeps me in the loop with family, friends, etc. It also updates my GoogleTalk stream, but I have a very limited number of people on that service. 
• Listening to Podcasts: I use PodTrapper to stay up on my podcasts. It's a good program, but has the annoying propensity to start playing while the phone is in my pocket. This usually happens when I've paused a podcast but not exited the program and the "play" button is depressed while it's in my pocket. You'd think that wouldn't be a frequent occurrence, but you wouldn't know me well if you thought that.
• Basic web browsing - if you need the information and there's absolutely nothing else to browse the web on, this will do. Usually.
• Google Maps is very useful in my business, particularly when meeting new clients. I can easily find the address and the directions to it.
• YouTube App - If you can't wait to get to your computer to see a clip of some guy suffering trauma to the groin, this is a must have.

These things are all great, but the phone is a bit underpowered in RAM and storage. The phone does crash more than I'd like, though nowhere near as often as other Storm owners. I keep my app list fairly streamlined. 

For my next phone, I will be looking for the following:

• Even tighter integration with Google Apps. I would like it to give me a clean, seamless experience like it is on my computer. Easy transition from one Google App to another - email to docs, email to calendar, calendar to maps, and so forth. A clean experience of opening attachments is a must.
• Much much more RAM and storage.
• Tight integration with Facebook, Twitter, and others. 
• Definitely must have a thriving application development community. I cannot forsee everything I will want to do with this phone over the duration of its life, so I would like to have developers thinking of that for me.
• Rich web browsing. I mean RICH, baby. This means the phone will have to be fairly fast.
• Tight integration with QuickBooks Online - I want to create invoices from my phone.

So far, I've got my eye on the Google Nexus One when it (reportedly) comes out on Verizon later this month.

That's my wish list... What's yours?

Update on Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 12:08AM by Chuck Colby

Since writing this post, my wife was kind enough to trade my BlackBerry Storm for her Droid. Her reasoning was that I was overtaxing the Storm and she was severely underutilizing the Droid. She is quite right. I think a number of the problems I was having with the BlackBerry were directly connected to the amount of stuff I was trying to make it do.

So I got the Droid, and here are a few things that I was able to make it do:

• Timedroid Pro - This application connects directly with my Freshbooks account. It will download the projects and clients, and upload time entries I make from the phone. I can even use the built in stopwatch to record time. This application alone makes the case for having this phone - My phone is now a timeclock for projects.
• Messaging - All modern phones have it, but it bears mentioning. Scheduling would be a major pain without it.
• Google Maps - Half the fun of doing work for clients is getting there. This removes much of the excitement of getting there... Which is a good thing.
• Expensebooks - An application designed to interface with Freshbooks, but with the focus of adding expenses that you incur on behalf of your projects.
• Calendar - My Google calendar, right on my phone. I wouldn't be able to function without it.
• Call Log Calendar - This is subtle, but very useful. This app is designed to place an entry in my calendar for every call I send or receive. It can do the same for SMS, which makes a handy searchable SMS archive.
• Mint.Com - An online bank account aggregator. You can also set budgets and alerts when you approach or pass your budgets. And all of this is at your fingertips on your Droid.

Oh, and it's much more stable, since it's not being pushed beyond its limits.