City Life in a Black Hole (for Wireless Voice services)

sprint.jpgIf you follow me on столовеTwitter, you know that I do have opinions. When appropriate I’ll post long-form rants on LAist. My latest is about how pathetic it is that I can’t make a wireless voice call from my house no matter what the carrier is. And it’s been that way since I moved here four years ago!

Oh yeah, the data coverage is fine. I’ve been spoiled by AT&T’s 3g data coverage since 2006 and never turned back. Did it bother me to only have nine keys and #0* on my LG CU500 and a small screen? No. It was 3g. Did I at least use T9 predictive text or would I actually make 10 entries on the keypad just to spell “s-h-i-t?” Hell no, I became the fastest texter in town. Why? Because no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t hear more than scratchy sounds and broken words coming from the other end of the handset. Didn’t matter where or how I stood in the house or on the block. I was in a black hole. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile. You can’t NOT lose. It’s 2010, and I still find myself going to the mall just so I can have a coherent phone conversation with Mom.

Read the full article at LAist.

iPhone 2.0 Falls Short

iphone 2.0 falls short no video supportI’m not gonna say sorry Steve Jobs, but I”ve established long ago that I won’t play your games. All I wanted in the second generation iPhone was 3G and video support. Well today Jobs announced a slim, 8GB iPhone with GPS, 3G and a host of 2nd party applications at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference.

But I’ve had a phone for two years that works on AT&T’s 3G HSDPA network and shoots video that could be immediately uploaded to the internet. The iPhone tries to be a fully operational mini computer but does not even allow for simple cutting and pasting.

Sorry fanboys and girls, this is a joke. Jobs is just working his strategy and playing consumers for tools — I can only hope he adds video support this year, but chances are it will be longer than that, in an upgraded model that would inevitably carry on the sales model of buy-an-iPhone-every year, you fools.

Now to seriously research and purchase either the Nokia N95 or Blackberry Bold 9000. Is there something else I should be looking at? Should I just stick to my LG CU500-v?

For not-such-bitter coverage of Jobs’ keynote, see: VentureBeat, Engadget, TechCrunch, NYT Bits Blog, iPhone Alley, CNET.