Wireless Muse: Reiter's Wireless Internet Weblog

Apple iPhone needs new package for typing, mobile computing

Now that Apple has proclaimed its intention to get its iPhone into the enterprise (see above), the company needs to offer a hardware/software package that provides a much better typing and document management experience.

Despite the fulsome crowing of Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs and other Apple executives about the wonderfulness of the iPhone’s virtual keyboard, it’s not that good, even with the predictive text. 

Instead of trying to compare the keyboard in a more favorable light to Research in Motion’s BlackBerry keyboard (see below) — which is a joke if you’ve ever used the superior BlackBerry physical keyboard — Apple ought to transform the iPhone into a significantly better portable computing device for enterprise users.

Based on the state of technology, the iPhone’s virtual keyboard will remain inferior to good physical keyboards on cellular phones.  Also, the iPhone’s current lack of good business software, especially office suite software, is a big problem.

Creating a great MID

I believe the iPhone can be one of the best so-called “Mobile Internet Devices” (MIDs) without a great deal of effort.  Today’s MIDs are computing devices — either without keyboards or with keyboards that are small, cramped and difficult to type on. 

Here’s what Apple needs in order to blow these MIDs out of the water:

1.  End the iPhone’s crippled Bluetooth profiles (and people complained about Verizon Wireless crippling Bluetooth functionality in its phones!) so they support, among other things, external keyboards.

2.  Offer a great office suite for the iPhone — at least Apple’s iWork ‘08 and, preferably, Microsoft’s Office 2008 for Mac.

3.  Take advantage of Apple’s brilliant industrial design capabilities to develop the best Bluetooth portable folding keyboard.

4.  Again taking advantage of its design expertise — create a beautiful and functional carrying case for the iPhone + keyboard, including the ability to prop up the iPhone.

5.  Then, sell this hardware/software combination as a brilliant mobile computing solution:  Prop up the iPhone in its carrying case, unfold and pair the keyboard to the iPhone, launch the office suite and you’ve got a great lightweight (under two pounds) package for typing long documents, creating spreadsheets, entering long e-mail messages, etc.

One more thing….

And while Apple is enabling the iPhone’s Bluetooth profile for external keyboards, it should also enable it for tethering as a modem.  I assume AT&T would demand users pay an extra fee for the modem function.

Many business users would love to use the iPhone as a modem with their laptop computers, especially once the pokey EDGE phone is replaced later this year with a 3G (HSDPA) version. 

I sometimes use BlackBerry EDGE phones on T-Mobile, connected to my laptop via a cable.  EDGE is okay for downloading most e-mail and browsing most Web pages.  It’s far inferior to 3G or WiFi, but good enough when they — or an Ethernet connection — aren’t available.

I prefer to use either a regular 3G data modem, preferably Sprint or Verizon CDMA Rev. A because it’s much faster and more reliable than AT&T’s current HSDPA implementation.  Or, I’ll connect a phone as a modem with a cable rather than using Bluetooth because it’s typically easier, faster and more reliable.

New York Times profiles wireless e-mail pioneer

It’s been a rather nostalgic couple of weeks as I have been reading about and touching base with pioneers in the wireless data field.  The New York Times recently profiled Geoffrey Goodfellow, who founded RadioMail, a pioneering wireless e-mail company.

John Markoff, the reporter who wrote the article, has written about Geoff a few times, and also has interviewed me a few times about wireless subjects.

The article reports how Geoff helped establish the wireless e-mail business, but didn’t patent his idea and, thus, hasn’t reaped millions of dollars that he might have obtained with a patent.

No regrets

“Geoff Goodfellow is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who came up with an idea that resulted in a $612.5 million payday,” the Times says.  “But he will never see a penny of it.

“He remains little known even in Silicon Valley and, perhaps most surprising, he doesn't really mind.”

That $612.5 million payday is the sum NTP will receive from the patent dispute agreement Research in Motion negotiated.

Patent issues

The article says, “For legal and technology experts, the tale of Mr. Goodfellow's pioneering work is evidence of the shortcomings of the nation's patent system, which was created to reward individual creativity but has increasingly become a club for giant corporations and aggressive law firms.”

Geoff isn’t particularly bothered by not having patented his ideas, the article says.  “’You don't patent the obvious,’ he said during a recent interview. 

“’The way you compete is to build something that is faster, better, cheaper.  You don't lock your ideas up in a patent and rest on your laurels.’”

Remembrance of things past

A couple of days ago I wrote a little bit about the early days of wireless data.  A Canadian author is writing a book about Research in Motion and I provided some information to him this morning.

I did not get involved in the RIM/NTP patent dispute, even though I was asked, and don’t intend to start now!

But I have been involved in wireless, including wireless e-mail, for almost 28 years.  Geoff truly was a pioneer in wireless e-mail.

E-mail postage

I wrote a fair number of articles about RadioMail and RIM in my Mobile Data Report newsletter in the late 1980s through mid 1990s.  I remember Geoff saying that e-mail should be charged like postage:  Something like $.25 per message, the way stamps were $.25 per letter.

Or, at least, I think that’s what Geoff used to say!

I believe Bill Frezza (whom I also mentioned in the previous weblog article) thought wireless e-mail wouldn’t take off until the cost was $.01 per kilobyte.

Perhaps Geoff and Bill were both wrong.  Wireless e-mail in the United States seems to have taken off with flat rate pricing, but it takes more than the right price to create wireless data industries.

Update (4-24-06):  Geoff discusses the early days of RadioMail and his philosophy in an audio file on The New York Times' Web site (see left).  I don't know if there's a direct link to the file, but so far you may find it on the "Technology" section of the site.  It runs somewhat over eight minutes and comprises six sections. 

It brings back lots of memories for me.

Award-winning Canadian author writing book about RIM

Rod McQueen, an award-winning Canadian author, is writing a book about Research in Motion and has established a weblog to, in part, chronicle his research for the book.

McQueen writes in his weblog, “At the moment, one of the happening times I’m focusing on is the pre-BlackBerry days of the mid-1990s, when Research in Motion (RIM) founder Mike Lazaridis was developing a two-way pager and looking for a market.

“RIM struck up a relationship with BellSouth Wireless, which had spent $300 million on building a network.  The two needed each other: BellSouth wanted products to sell to consumers; RIM required a network on which its pagers would operate.”

The Frezza, Reiter connection

Among the wireless data experts McQueen already has communicated with is Bill Frezza, now a general partner at the venture capital firm of Adams Capital Management, but previously the director of marketing and business development for Ericsson’s wireless data division.

I’ve known Bill for years — even before he joined Ericsson, and worked for Agilis (you have to be an old time wireless data person to remember that company).  Agilis wanted to create a drop-dead great wireless computer that included different wireless radio “slices.”

At Ericsson, Bill came up with the idea for the a wireless data “package” that included in a leather zip-up case:  The Ericsson one-pound wireless data “Mobidem” modem connected via a cable to a Hewlett-Packard LX95 palmtop computer that ran RadioMail’s wireless data application over Ram Mobile Data’s Mobitex network.

(More about RadioMail in another posting soon.)

Wireless geeks

If you were a wireless geek you carried the package and could be seen at conventions and elsewhere typing on the tiny — but usable — HP keyboard.  Everyone (or just about everyone) who used the package loved it.

It was a great packaging idea.  There was nothing like it for wireless e-mail.  Research in Motion originally created wireless data middleware but realized that hardware + service was where the money was, not middleware (a critical component of wireless data, but no one wanted to pay for it).

I started the world’s first wireless data newsletter, Mobile Data Report,” in 1988 (and the first wireless data conference in 1989).  Bill sent several years of the newsletter to McQueen.

In fact, McQueen writes in his weblog that, “For me, reading the newsletter by Executive Editor Alan A. Reiter, has been like traveling in a time machine complete with gossipy bits about the wireless world that was just a-borning.”

BlackBerry today

I’m going to speak with McQueen on Tuesday as part of the research for his book. 

I’ve been using RIM’s products since before they created the BlackBerry, including the “pre-BlackBerry” — a very large flip-top pager that was the first product before the slimmer BlackBerry pager that ran over Ram’s network.

I typically carry two cellular phones:  One is always a BlackBerry because of the superior keyboard and excellent push e-mail capabilities and another is a feature-rich multimedia handset that I’m testing. 

It’s not unusual for me to carry three and sometimes four handsets since I test them.  But when it comes to plain ol’ e-mail, the BlackBerry remains terrific.