I've just got back from the Tug-Of-War National Championships in Manchester. Slightly sunburnt and quite knackered. The competition was good although the Ladies team didn't seem to be able to keep it together to get a win, the Junior team achieved one gold medal and two silvers, and the Senior team even managed to move some opposition, but like the Ladies didn't manage to convert to a win. More information should be coming on the club website at http://www.dealtugofwar.co.uk soon.
This issue I take a slightly derogative view of the fanboy movement and am running out of ideas for articles that should get feedback, so someone please comment.
Fanboy - Spamboy
Fanboy (n) - A person who has an unshakeable belief that the team/show/thing he/she is a fan of is the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Fanboys have existed for years in various guises, and the most obvious place to find them is sports competitions. In recent decades they have appeared in the computing sphere, and now in the phone & PDA areas. The problem with Fanboys in technology is that they generally ignore all the flaws in their machine and put forward it's good points to all and sundry, even those who have better machines in an attempt to persuade people the equivalent of the sky being green.
The more recent Fanboy things in the symbian world I can comment on now are the Pocket PC Thoughts people and their belief that M$ invented the Smartphone, and even have the technology that's been standard on phones for years. Arguments such as the SPV being better than a Cray Super Computer are the sort of thing that wouldn't be unexpected in some cases as people seem to forget all the reasons why the SPV isn't selling. Closer to home we've received lots of mail regarding Ewan's review of the P800, not saying he's spot on (even though he is and more important people than the Fanboy's agree) but the Fanboys have responded in force defending their Smartphone in the face of adversity and a review pointing out what's wrong with it.
The major problem with a Fanboy is that dispite the ability to talk the hind legs off of a horse, they cannot accept and objectional review of their chosen device, it's superb in every respect and they refuse to listen to bad points or just suggest what is good about it to take your mind off of the problems. I cannot stand innocent of this either, in the late 80's early 90's I was there for the Atari vs Amiga Fanboy wars, staunchly telling Amiga owners how crap their systems were for their lack of a MIDI interface, the fact that the computers despite minor differences were on a par with each other was neither here nor there, it was justifying that yours was BETTER. A lesson learnt here was that Fanboys can help increase sales by convincing the people on the fence to buy your product, but you lose your Fanboys when something is blatently better than what they had, which happened when the IBM Compatible PC discovered sound cards and high-res high-colour graphics cards, and the majority of Amiga and Atari people jumped ship.
Personally I'm dissapointed with Fanboys now, I realise I was the same, but we need to listen to arguments against as well as for devices. The only way the companies can get good feedback from us is if we tell the truth rather than gloss over the bad sides. Because some people think the P800 is the greatest thing since sliced bread with no faults they should have presented a counter argument for the letters rather than saying that Ewan was wrong. Arguments from the pro-M$ camp that their devices are better because of the MP3 and video playback, seem to forget that people may wish to do something useful with a device, but their only argument is silly features and not usefulness. At the end of the day Fanboys need to realise that although they support something wholely that there are flaws and that by acknowledging them they can help companies by explaining problems, they can stop themselves sounding like idiots arguing that black is white, and they can allow people to give opinions that may lead to people looking at things in a new light and possibly solving a problem.
I'm not too good at this website malarky, I'm rushed off my feet for a week doing allsorts of things, not having time for the site. And then when I do have free time I spend it being lazy. Laziness culminated by spending some time in the sun, cleaning and polishing my car so it's all nice and shiny looking. Other preparations are in place for going to the Tug-Of-War National Championships in Manchester next weekend. I shall be putting finger to keyboard to pen the backstop for YS9 tonight during free moments at work and with anyluck and some free time next week update here more.
This issues backstop looks at the infighting going on at the moment that's attempting to define the Smartphone arena while (in some cases) not actually doing anything productive for it.
Since the falling out of Sendo and Microsoft there have been various other niggling things. Sendo are now taking Orange to court over patent infringements in the SPV. Palm and Handspring are combining. The first watch PDA is being released. And the mobile phone doesn't just make calls anymore.
Various players are currently marking out their patch in the smartphone world, Symbian have the biggest patch at the moment with the major phone manufaturers licensing their OS. Microsoft are marking their teritory with hot air, and using an odd tactic of using the network operators to make a device by farming out the production to companies that already make PocketPCs. Palm are not seeming so much to be pushing the smartphone market, but more keeping their PDA market ticking over while other manufacturers see fit to combine Palm PDAs with mobile phones. Linux mobile phone cum PDAs are also hitting the market and although may not be hugely popular to start with should pick up in sales.
It seems the people making the most noise about the smartphone revolution are Microsoft. It also seems that the people making the least headway into the market are Microsoft. Microsoft are repeatedly telling us how good their Smartphone OS is, yet phone manufacturers seem to be crawling over each other to avoid it. Whether this is a follow on from how Sendo got burned or a look to what happened previously in the PC market is anyone's guess, but according to Microsoft they have the best software, just no-one wants it.
On the flipside most mobile manufacturers have looked at or are releasing a Symbian based smartphone, or PDA phone. Linux is mostly taken on by Asian companies and Palm's effort is pioneered by Handspring adding phone capablilities to one of it's PDAs.
You could assume that the Smartphone industry is a 2 horse race, Microsoft vs Symbian, US vs UK, although personally I wouldn't rule out the others yet. Although for the time being Symbian build up a marked dominance while Microsoft talk the talk. Looking to the future, the idea of wrist based communication devices has seemed a bit StarTrek until recent years, but now the size of modern phone techology could allow just this, the last week has seen a Palm based wrist PDA be released in the US and although it's primitive by modern standards of the PDA, it's not hugely more limited than a smartphone, so in a few years we may see a combining of these technologies. Linux is hugely modifiable and cheap as chips to base an implementation on, and as the Sharp Zaurus proves it's possible to create a very well featured PDA with, as well as the smartphones circulating in Japan.
Dispite the current state of play, there's plenty of running left to do and the race is far from over. Most companies have staked their claim, and with wildcards like Sendo keeping a very careful watch on their IP, and the opposition the race could be set to become more interesting.
Gwa-ha-ha-ha-ha! I've passed my test now, the car is on the road, and I'm driving on my own. Be afraid, be very afraid...
Nothing interesting to report apart from that really, the 9210 died recently, but I was able to restore it to life with the power of a screwdriver. I also have Codewarrior for the Series 60 which should lead to some fun.