bridleman.org

Google Latitude now works on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Nice.

Seen at my local Meijer store.

If you look to the left you’ll see that either I’ve not moved in 2 weeks or I’ve stopped using Google Latitude. While I liked Google Latitude I just couldn’t use the device I had been using it on, the Blackberry Storm 9530.

I’ve never dropped a phone so fast in all my life. I only had it 7 months. And while it did have some fine features it just never made it as a phone. You know. Being able to make and receive phone calls. It got to be that whenever the phone rang I could just feel myself tense up. I just knew it was going to be a bad experience.

When I first got it I was understandably patient. After all it was brand new, and brand new for Blackberry. But it was really slow and prone to locking up. So, I did what any respectable geek would do – I went to the all knowing Google.

From some of the Blackberry fan sites I could tell that Blackberry was fairly responsive to users needs. Most of the information was of course for the “normal” Blackberry phones. The Storm just seemed to be the bastard stepchild.

I’d find nice add-ons I’d really like to run, only to find out they were for the Bold or Curve. Definitely not for the Storm. But I did see where they were working on a firmware update. There were actually several leaked firmware versions but I was waiting for the official update.

It finally came and it did make the device better. It was faster, didn’t lock up as much. Overall a fine improvement. Call quality didn’t improve though. So I went looking again for solutions and again there was talk of an upcoming updated firmware. I’ve come this far so I thought I’d stick it out.

Well, the new firmware did come and while it did make the device better the phone quality was getting worse. It got so bad that I was now refusing to answer the thing and Judie just never bothered to call me on that number. So now the Verizon-Verizon calling was out the window as it was costing us minutes to talk. Something needed to be done.

We started looking for solutions and Judie came up with a good one. We’ve been totally cellular for a couple of years so why not use the home phone?  We could just swap the home phone for mine or better yet we could get a cheap phone and move that to the home number. Well, Alex had an old phone so we moved the home number to that phone, moved the home phone to my number and get rid of the Storm. (Helpful hint: Always keep at least one spare phone)

So that’s what we did. I’ve been on a Motorola W385 for the last couple of weeks. I’m back to almost enjoying having a cell phone. It actually makes calls and receives calls. And no more dropped calls.

What about the data plan? Not missing it. I don’t need to get that email right now and I carry my MacBook most everywhere anyway. Plus it’s $30 less a month.

Sweet.

So it’s been a week or so since I updated my Storm with the latest (approved) firmware (4.7.0.148).

It’s a slight improvement. The phone “feels” faster in some areas but it’s still slow overall. For instance, when rotating the screen there is still and incredible lag. Sometimes 4 to 5 seconds. Sometimes it just gets confused and displays the wrong orientation.

It’s also rebooting on it’s own more often. At least once every two or three days. That’s if I forget to reboot it myself. I’ve got an application on it called QuickPull that allows you to reboot it yourself. It has an option on it to do it at a specified time. I guess I better just set it up to do it once a day.

Overall I’m rethinking this “smart phone” option. The browser on that size screen is marginal at best. Emergency use only for me. The calender and email are OK. I guess if you really needed to get that email right now then it makes sense. The syncing with Google apps is pretty seamless. I blame that on Google though and not RIM.

As a phone it totally sucks. I really can’t emphasize that enough. Almost every call ends up getting dropped. Either that or it sounds like I’m in the bottom of a swimming pool. I’m getting to the point that when the phone rings I cringe.

Can anyone tell me why the cheap Motorola phone we have for the house gets better signal than this Blackberry?

Nothing new in a while. Sorry.

I’ve been using Google Latitude for a while on my POS Blackberry Storm. I’ll try and write a post on that later.

Anyway, the fine people at Google just announced that you can use Latitude on your blog. So,  I added a Google Latitude box to the right. Notice how it doesn’t move? That’s cause I stay put most of the time!