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My $0 iPhone Data Plan

August 18, 2013 by Kosmo 5 Comments

I use my iPhone a lot.  I watch baseball games, view Netflix movies, catch the occassional American Pickers, read personal email, catch up on work email, follow baseball chatter on Twitter, listen to podcasts, read books, and much more.

I also have the world’s cheapest iPhone data plan.  It costs me $0 per month.  What’s my secret?

The phone

The iPhone 5 is the current iPhone model, with the iPhone 6 in the wings. [Editor’s Note: I think Apple is going with an iPhone 5S rather than 6 in this iteration.]

My iPhone is a 3GS.  When my wife upgraded to the iPhone 5, I got her hand me down.  It may not have all the bells and whistles, but it does all the things I need it to do, so I’m happy (but crossing my fingers that MLB.TV doesn’t drop 3GS support before my wife hands the iPhone 5 down to me.

The plan

I don’t actually have any sort of voice or data plan tied to the iPhone.  I just use it as a wireless device.  In theory, I could have sold the iPhone, bought an iPod Touch, and pocketed a few bucks in the arbitrage process … but I opted to avoid the potential issues of an eBay sale.

I’m on call 24 X 7 for my job.  I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.  I’m an IT guy.  The fact that the iPhone doesn’t make or receive calls does means that I have to carry two devices.  Obviously, this is less convenient than carrying one.  However, it does mean that I’m not going to drain the battery of my “real” phone by watching baseball games.  I don’t have to conserve any battery life – full speed ahead – and watching live streaming video does drain the battery a bit.  (Note: my “real” phone is a no frills Pantech Pursuit that features great battery life).

I know that some of you are jumping to the conclusion that I could just activate the iPhone and opt to not have a data plan … but most providers check the see if you have a smart phone activated, and will automatically enroll you in a data plan if you do.

WiFi

WiFi is the lifeblood of my iPhone.  I have two small kids, and spent a large chunk of my life trying to get then to go to sleep.  I can sit in their room watching the Rockies game as they drift off to sleep.  My wife likes to watch reality TV and occassionally wants me to be in the same room while she’s watching.  Again, baseball to the rescue.  I watch the small screen while she watches the big screen.  Doing the dishes?  Not a problem – prop up the iPhone and kill off the boredom.

When I’m not at home, I have to rely on the WiFi of others.  I have an ad hoc WiFi network set up on the in-laws’ Mac Mini (I provide free tech support for them, so it’s a good deal for them).  There are a lot of business that provide free WiFi these days.  McDonalds and Hardees have done this for years, and Target has been rolling it out in my local stores during the past few months.  A lot of mom and pop places also have free WiFi, as do many hotels, airports, stadiums, etc.

Naturally, sometimes I’m going to be without a WiFi signal.  That doesn’t make the iPhone worthless, though.  I can still read books on the Kindle app and listen to podcasts (a life saver on the 70 miles round trip commute each day).  If an internet emergency pops up and I’m with my wife, I can always have her pull up the info on her cellular-enabled iPhone.

Not for everyone

This plan isn’t for everyone.  If you absolutely need to have internet access 24×7, it’s not for you.  If you need to have the very newest smart devices, it’s also not for you.  But if you want to save a few bucks and don’t mind having to sniff out WiFi networks when you’re on the go, the Kosmo iPhone plan may be just the thing for you.

[Editor’s Note: If MLB.tv discontinues support for older Apple devices, I would highly recommend Kosmo get a 7″ Android tablet (maybe the first generation of the Nexus 7 that I recently got). That iPhone 5 should have great resale value (assuming they aren’t iPhone 7s out) and the bigger screen is great for watching video. An iPad Mini will do the same job, but it is even bigger and probably still going to be costly for awhile.

Filed Under: Spending Tagged With: iphone, nexus 7

How HP/Palm’s webOS Can Compete with Apple iOS and Google Android

January 21, 2011 by Lazy Man 4 Comments

When I created this website more than 4 years ago, I said that I’d write about technology about 5% of the time. Well I lied. I almost never write about technology. Today I’m going to cash in some of those credits and write about technology. If this is the kind of thing that interests you, you are in luck with one of my longest articles. If not, kindly take a stroll through the archives.

Before I get started on topic in the title, let me preface it with a few disclaimers. I have a degree in Computer Science from a top 30 (according to U.S. News and World report) University – so in a lot of ways technology is “my thing.” Secondly, almost every piece of technology I’ve own has failed on me multiple times. I’m have about 5% success rate with faxes. Scanners work about 12% for me because some mysterious driver conflict in Windows causes it to fail (seriously, you’d think Windows 7 would just work with all printers/scanners/etc., but it doesn’t). Sometimes I wonder if certain technology should just disappear. After all, if you spent as much time fixing your car as you did driving it, you’d give up on it too. There are a few pieces of technology that have never failed me. One of them is Palm. I’ve been using their operating systems and devices since the days of Handspring over a decade ago. If this makes me a Palm “fanboy”, so be it. They’ve earned it.

A (Brief?) History of Three Smart Phones

With that out of the way, I’ve been a loyal Palm Pre user since it launched on June 6, 2009. That make my phone around 200 in smartphone years. When the phone came out the only thing that was close to it was the iPhone. The iPhone had a big head start, perhaps one of the most loyal customer-bases on the planet, a virtual monopoly in MP3 players and access to songs in their music store, plus a quality device. I’m sure I’m leaving out a lot here, but clearly the iPhone had a lot going for it. Palm was a small company and didn’t have a lot of money, so it partnered with one of the troubled carriers, Sprint, in hopes that they could boost each other. Palm made some poor marketing choices with some creepy commercials that inspired spoofs. Despite what many considered the great operating system, webOS, the physical hardware of the phone was criticized for its cheap plastic feel. Within a couple of months, the market had shifted. Verizon starting its “Droid Does” campaign. Though the Palm Pre would be on Verizon in a couple of months, Verizon had chosen to back Google’s Android platform. Palm ran into some financial difficulty and started to look for a buyer. During that time Sprint decided it should ride on Verizon’s coat tails and the growing Android momentum. It makes a lot of sense, there are a lot of companies making Android phones in a lot of form factors. You can have any Apple iOS phone or Palm webOS phone you want as long as it is what those companies give you. With Google Android you get choices from Motorola, HTC, Samsung, etc.

Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android are the big players. Microsoft came out with a Windows phone late last year, but it hasn’t picked up traction. Some say RIM’s Blackberry franchise is where Palm was a couple of years when it had an aging operating system that needed a complete overhaul to compete with the new one of today (and RIM is working on that new OS). In the meantime, Hewlett-Packard, one of the world’s biggest computer companies bought Palm.

That’s pretty much led to the where we are today in the smart phone wars. A lot of people are claiming that it’s too late for Microsoft, RIM, and HP to compete. They say that software developers have already chosen sides. I’m not buying that. Apple was late to the game with the iPod and iPhone (there were already leading MP3 players and smartphones in the marketplace). Microsoft was late to the game with its Internet Explorer and Xbox – Netscape and Playstation were clear market leaders. Google was late to game with search – Yahoo, Lycos, and AltaVista had already concurred that market. If there’s one thing that we can learn from technology it’s that it changes constantly (that’s kind of inherit in the definition of technology). This especially true when big players have big money to spend as is the case with all the players in the smartphone market.

What HP/Palm Needs to Do to Compete

I’m going to pretend that I follow Microsoft’s or RIM’s strategy (other than RIM is stealing Palm’s user interface for it’s new tablet). I’m going to concentrate on what HP/Palm needs to do. From the very solid rumors out there, they are already doing at lot of it. We’ll find out for sure on February 9th when Palm holds an Apple-style unvieling of its products. In no particular order, here’s what I see:

Top of the Line Smartphone Hardware – I’ve never seen a bad review of webOS – in contrast every review is glowing. The hardware has receive the complaints. HP/Palm needs to commit to putting the latest processors, cameras, screens, etc. on their devices. People like what they can quantify and that means gigahertz, megapixels, and pixels. You can’t catch up unless you are at least on par with other leading phone’s specifications. In addition to this, they should continue to have a version with a keyboard and a slate-like version to compete directly with phones like the Evo and the iPhone. The more form factors they put out there the better. It’s working beautifully for Android.

A Top of the Line Tablet – Tablets are getting the buzz in the marketplace. Who knew? My old boss in 2004 was onto something when he started selling Windows tablets. Today, I see entire subways covered with iPad advertisements. Palm has hinted that there will be a tablet announced on Feb. 9th, but rumors are dictating there might be two – a 9-inch and a 7-incher.

What will those tablets need?

  • Screen Resolution – The tablets are expected to have the same resolution as iPad (1024×768 pixels). That would be a good start for Palm if they can get it out soon. Everyone knows that the iPad 2 is coming soon. Some say that will have better resolution, but most signs seem to show it will not. HP/Palm’s 7-inch tablet with a 1024×768 resolution is rumored to be coming in September. If the iPad 2 steps up the resolution, the 7-inch tablet would counter it well by upping the dots-per-inch over the 9-inch and being more portable.
  • Great Hardware – Like the smartphones, the tablets need dual cameras (video conferencing is a crucial selling point) as well as the latest and greatest chips. It has to look as sexy as the iPad too.
  • Easy Out-of-the-Box Tethering – If you have an iPhone you should be able to use it’s data connection via bluetooth for the iPad. It my understanding that this can’t be done (due to an agreement with AT&T) now, but will be coming to Verizon. If HP/Palm can make this happen, it would be a big leap as no one wants to pay for double for data (once for their tablet and once for their phone).
  • GPS – I would want to be able to use my 7-inch tablet for GPS navigation. These devices should be converging over the next couple of years. It would be easy to do that now. It should work for wi-fi only versions of the tablets (GPS in phones typically requires access to the network). Wi-Fi versions can come with enough memory set-aside for maps (just like any of the stand-alone GPS navigation systems you see today).
  • Other features – See below for more things that could be integrated into all their devices.

Data lives in the Cloud and Every HP/Palm Device is Connected to it – This is one area where HP/Palm can separate itself from the pack. HP bought cloud computing company 3Par for 2.3 billion dollars in a bidding war with Dell. If my phone, tablet, netbook stay in sync that would awesome. They can push the limits by using webOS’ biggest advantage, its focus on web technologies such as HTML and javascript, to create a browser-based version of WebOS. Just pop it out like a chat window and be able to drag web pages, music, video, etc. to the cloud… then access it instantly on your tablet/phone. This would be the kind of “Wow feature that people would love.” It is very likely this is where webOS is going… one of the strong rumors is that it comes with “tens of gigabytes” of cloud storage. Not everything can live in the cloud though, users may want read books in the park where wi-fi isn’t available (and with a tablet that doesn’t have a 3G contract).

“Bump” Information to Other Devices – It is rumored that you’ll be able to transfer files by just bumping two devices together. Bump your cell phone to your tablet and you are just where you left off. I wouldn’t have mentioned this feature, except that one of the credible rumors says this is a likely feature. Sounds pretty cool to me.

A Netbook – HP/Palm can go a couple of different ways with this one. They could sell a stand-alone netbook running on webOS. If they implement ideas here that could be quite successful. However, they could pull a Motorola Atrix. The Atrix is getting a lot of attention following it’s unveiling at the CES earlier this month. Essentially it is a phone that acts as the brains to a notebook. It can be docked into the notebook providing the user with a full-size keyboard and a full-size screen. This is the vision that Palm had years ago with its Foleo product. Looks like the technology with phone processors has caught up enough to make it a reality. If they go this way, the phone should dock into a television like the Atrix too.

Take Advantage of Exhibition Mode – When you have a webOS docked, it enters what is called “Exhibition mode.” In that mode it is very much just a display of information while it charges. Typically you get a clock and a calendar… and the phone knows to go into speaker-phone mode on incoming calls. For a tablet it would make sense to double as a digital photo frame. Because Exhibition modes can be customized, I can imagine an application that delivers a rich widget-based experience on a tablet. For example, it could fit a clock, calendar, weather, stock ticker, news feed, etc.

Inductive Charging – One of the unsung features of the Palm Pre was inductive charging. You just set it on the Palm Touchstone and its charging. There’s no cords to mess with. Magnets in the Touchstone keep the phone orientated and angled towards the user, so at the office you have a second screen in Exhibition mode.

Focus on Driving Experience – I would love to have a 7-inch GPS.

Premium Audio – The rumors say the tablet will come with premium audio. HP has a partnership with Beats by Dr. Dre. From what I’ve heard these headphones and speakers are Bose-quality. That’s a nice advantage over the iOS and Android tablets.

Partner with Amazon – The former CEO of Palm John Rubinstein joined Amazon’s Board of Directors late last year. Perhaps HP/Palm could leverage Amazon’s deals with music to create an iTunes competitor as well as have webOS power a color Kindle (like Android powers the Color Nook for Barnes and Noble).

Subsidize Applications, Especially Quality Ones – Apple iOS and Google Android have a hundreds of thousands of applications. While HP/Palm doesn’t need a bunch of flatulence applications, it does need to have a lot of them – people like what they can quantify. However, they also need to have the quality ones. They need to partner with banks to get the “take a picture” check deposit. They should get a Netflix Instant Play app on there. Hulu should be subsidized join the party. There should be apps for watching all the major sports in real-time (as long as users pay for the subscription service).

Compete on Price – I’m sure that HP/Palm doesn’t want to hear this, but they need to be a loss leader for a while. They need to get devices into the hands of people and win back all the fans they had from the Palm V days.

Pull in the Partnerships – HP has many business distribution channels. It’s time for HP to start pushing this out to the enterprise customers.

Ship it Soon – Every day that the goes by without a device being available to people is a day that webOS loses mind-share. HP/Palm needs to get things in people’s hands quickly.

Can HP Pull it Off?

They can if they want to. They have to be hungry and willing to go “all-in” with it as they said they’d do in the past. They have the money to hire developers and can take the hit to compete on price. The technology exists to do much of what I’ve outlined here… and they’ve certainly had the time to build a lot of them.

Will they pull it off? I can hope so. The market could use more competition. I’m trying not to get my hopes up. It would be nice to have a webOS printer/scanner/fax so that it will actually work as it is supposed to.

Filed Under: Technology Tip Tagged With: android, apple, google, hp, ios, ipad, iphone, palm, webOS

Does Materialism Breed Unhappiness?

March 27, 2009 by Lazy Man 10 Comments

Below is a guest post from LAL from LivingAlmostLarge and LAL Musings. I’ll let her introduce herself: “I’m a twenty-something DINK, living in the northeast searching for financial freedom. I hope to one day live large and be financially free, but it’ll only happen one step at a time. I admit to not being the most frugal or smartest financial blogger, but I think I’m giving a real perspective on the challenges faced by many other young adults. So please stop on by. I have a couple of giveaways going on including a 1 year subscription to Money Magazine if you subscribe to my RSS or Email feeds.”

This week I read this post called “Materialism breeds unhappiness, ” by Embrace Living. The writer suggests that as a society we use material possessions to value ourselves. Thus it breeds discontent and unhappiness because we are constantly wanting the newest fashions, etc.

She says that there is something within that is wrong with you that causes you to want material possessions. That we have to investigate what it is, work on it, and become happier. I guess she’s preaching the idiom “Money can’t buy happiness.”

Honestly do I think that? Well let me say this, money can’t buy happiness, but it can certainly make you feel better. And anyone who says money can’t buy happiness hasn’t been poor. I am not knocking this chick, I don’t even read her blog. But BTDT [Editor’s note: is it a sign that I’m old that it took me three minutes to realize that this is “been there, done that”?] about being poor and HELL NO I’m not going back.

I believe money buys me freedom and peace of mind. It allows me the freedom to choose where I live, how I live, and what I buy. I honestly like having new clothes that fit instead of used hand-me downs. I like having better wine than $2 chuck. I like eating fresh fruits and veggies instead of canned. I enjoy playing my Nintendo Wii and having two dogs. Luxuries all of it. My DH definitely lusts after an iPhone or iTouch. Will it make him happy? Yes. Will he want something more? Doubtful, he’s been lusting after the iphone since it came out and still hasn’t gotten one. Think of it as delayed gratification

Are we materialistic? I guess so. Are we unhappy? Not really. Do we desire to earn more money? HELL YES. But I have very specific goals in mind. I want to be independently well off enough to quit my job if I hate it at the drop of a hat. I want to be able to pay for my children’s college, and maybe even a home down payment or wedding. I want to be able to drive a car without worry that it’ll break down all the time. I want to be able to provide for my parents (and in-laws) in case they need financial support.

So yes I’m materialistic. I’m also realistic. Money may not buy happiness, but it sure helps. Being poor doesn’t mean you are any happy. One could argue you are even more unhappy because you struggle to get out your circumstances. That you would love to new clothes, fresh food, etc.

So maybe over materialism breeds unhappiness. People who just spend for the sake of spending. People who are thousands of dollars in debt and need to go to debtor’s anonymous. Or perhaps those rich people who can spend money like water and never run out. Then perhaps materialism breeds unhappiness.

But to me it’s not materialism that breeds unhappiness. It’s the person themselves. It’s not about material goods. You can have no material goods and be unhappy. Happiness is from within and wanting material goods doesn’t make you a bad person.

Thanks to Lazy Man for allowing me to do this guest post. Please stop by my blog, I enjoy tons of feedback.

Filed Under: Psychology Tagged With: discontent, dogs, Financial Freedom, iphone, materialism, money magazine, nintendo wii, unhappiness, wii

Dear iPhone: I Love You and Your New Great Price, but…

June 13, 2008 by Lazy Man 14 Comments

… I still won’t buy you.

I love the screen. I love the software. The ability to have GPS in my pocket is especially near and dear to my heart. (I once developed software for GPS on cell phones). Finally with the fast data connection, you can do what my Treo 700P did two years ago. At $199, you are a better value than iPod Touches… but you lock me into AT&T’s service.

Alas it’s that last thing that will prevent us from being phone mates. By affiliating yourself only with AT&T, you have told me that my business isn’t important to you. AT&T charges $30 a month for data access – the same amount that Sprint charges me for nearly all it’s services. Granted, I do have a special grandfathered plan with Sprint… it shouldn’t come between us. To get the equivalent level of service with AT&T, I’d have to pay nearly $85 a month. That means it will cost me an extra $660 a year.

As much as I love having the latest and great phone, I realize that I’m around a computer more often than not. I only take advantage of my Treo’s advanced capabilities once every few days. When I do, I usually call up Google Reader which comes in a mobile form that doesn’t require iPhone’s greatness.

IPhone, I would love to be able to talk myself into buying you (and be able to justify the cost), but I simply can’t. If/When you reconsider your relationship with AT&T, perhaps we could do dinner together sometime.

Filed Under: Technology Tip Tagged With: apple, cell phones, gps, iphone, sprint, treo 700p

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