Tag Archives: iPhone

Shoppers, Do Your Homework!

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Slick product packaging and marketing ≠ best products

mophie juicepackThis morning, while on Google+, I read an update by one of the people in my circles. He was recommending a product called mophie juice pack powerstation. This is a portable battery device that you can use to charge cell phones and tablet computers when you’re on the go and a regular charging source is not available.

Lenmar PowerPortI’m interested in devices like these. In fact, the other day, I’d added the Lenmar PowerPort Wave 6600 to my Amazon.com Wish list. At first glance, this product seems to do the same thing.

There is, however, a $30 difference in price, with the Lenmar being the cheaper of the two alternatives.

Making an Objective Comparison

I looked briefly at the two devices. The mophie was 4000 mAh; the Lenmar was 6600 mAh. I thought higher was better. So I queried the person who’d recommended the mophie. His response was that if based solely on power, the Lenmar looked better. He then talked about portability and battery quality, suggesting that the cheaper unit might not be as good quality as the other.

Of course, I had to dive in and find out. So I looked up the specs on both of them — the above links will take you there. What I found was that Lenmar’s rather plain vanilla site provided specifications that included battery type, voltage, capacity, unit size, and unit weight:

Lenmar Specs

The specifications info on mophie’s site, which was slick looking and modern with lots of trendy lowercase product names and headings, didn’t provide any details about the battery at all, although it did provide unit dimensions (it was a bit smaller) and shipping weight (which I suppose could be helpful if I wanted to carry it around in its original packaging):

mophie specs

To be fair, mophie’s features page did mention that its battery was 4000 mAh and it could output up to 2 amps.

I downloaded the user guides for both, looking for more information. Lenmar’s was a 3-page black and white guide with two of the pages in languages other than English. It provided lots of details on what the device could do and how to use it. mophie’s was a slick-looking 2-page color flyer with a first page that read like a marketing press release. (How else could you describe a heading that read “Here’s a rundown of why this is the perfect device”?) Nowhere did it say what kind of battery the device had or how much the device weighed.

Then I started looking at actual features. The Lenmar device had two power out ports: one at 1.0A max and the other at 2.1A max. They could be used together for a total of 3.1A max output. That means I could (theoretically) power an iPhone and an iPad at the same time. Or an iPhone and a GoPro. Or two GoPros. The mophie, by comparison, had just one power out port rated at 2.1A max. (This, by the way, contradicts what the website said — 2A — but it’s close enough.) That meant I could only power one device, like a single iPhone, iPad, or GoPro, at a time.

So here’s what I saw:

  • Lenmar had a basic Web site and ugly manual pushing a product that had a 6600 mAh battery and two ports capable of charging two devices at once. Price: $44 on Amazon.com.
  • mophie had a slick looking Web site and manual pushing a product that had a 4000 mAh battery and one port capable of charging one device at a time. Price: $80 on Amazon.com.

Which one do you think I picked?

Questioning Motivations

I started bring up these points on Google+ in comments to the original post about the mophie unit. I was very surprised that the person who posted the recommendation about the mophie didn’t seem the least bit interested in seeing whether the Lenmar unit was a better value for the money. Instead, he claimed he was familiar with mophie and that he knew their products were worth what they charged.

Period.

Then I noticed that the same person had made several other product recommendations recently and I began to wonder whether he had some motivation to push certain products — beyond his own experiences with them. And that’s when I realized that I was wasting my time trying to have an informed discussion about the two alternatives.

The Point

Yes, this blog post does have a point. A few of them, in fact:

  • Don’t take social networking product recommendations at face value. You can never be sure about the motivations of the people who push products.
  • Don’t make a purchase decision without examining alternatives.
  • Don’t let slick or trendy looking product design, websites, or marketing documents blind you to a product’s true feature set.
  • Don’t think that the highest priced product is always the best quality alternative. These days, price is not always an indicator of quality.
  • Do choose products that meet your needs at a price you’re willing to pay.

Is the Lenmar product better? I don’t know. It certainly seems to have a better feature set for nearly half the price. That’s enough to get me to try it.

Why Are We Still Powering Down All Electronic Devices on Airliners?

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There’s no real reason for it.

A Twitter/Google+ friend of mine, Chris, linked to an article on the New York Times website today, “Fliers Still Must Turn Off Devices, but It’s Not Clear Why.” His comment on Google+ pretty much echoed my sentiments:

I do all my book reading on an iPad, and it’s annoying that I can’t read during the beginning and end of a flight, likely for no legitimate reason.

This blog post takes a logical look at the practice and the regulations behind it.

What the FAA Says

In most instances, when an airline flight crew tells you to turn off portable electronic devices — usually on takeoff and landing — they make a reference to FAA regulations. But exactly what are the regulations?

Fortunately, we can read them for ourselves. Indeed, the Times article links to the actual Federal Aviation Regulations (FAR) governing portable electronic devices on aircraft, 121.306. Here it is in its entirety:

121.306 Portable electronic devices.

(a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, no person may operate, nor may any operator or pilot in command of an aircraft allow the operation of, any portable electronic device on any U.S.-registered civil aircraft operating under this part.

(b) Paragraph (a) of this section does not apply to—

(1) Portable voice recorders;

(2) Hearing aids;

(3) Heart pacemakers;

(4) Electric shavers; or

(5) Any other portable electronic device that the part 119 certificate holder has determined will not cause interference with the navigation or communication system of the aircraft on which it is to be used.

(c) The determination required by paragraph (b)(5) of this section shall be made by that part 119 certificate holder operating the particular device to be used.

So what this is saying is that you can’t operate any portable electronic device that the aircraft operator — the airline, in this case — says you can’t. (Read carefully; a is the rule and b is the loophole.) You can, however, always operate portable voice recorders, hearing aids, heart pacemakers (good thing!), and electric shavers (?).

So is the FAA saying you can’t operate an iPad (or any other electronic device) on a flight? No. It’s the airline that says you can’t.

Interference with Navigation or Communication Systems

In reading this carefully, you might assume that the airline has determined that devices such as an iPad may cause interference with navigation or communication systems. After all, that’s the only reason the FAA offers them the authority to require these devices to be powered down.

But as the Times piece points out, a 2006 study by the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics found no evidence that these devices can or can’t interfere. Sounds to me like someone was avoiding responsibility for making a decision.

In the meantime, many portable electronic devices, including iPads, Kindles, and smart phones have “airplane mode” settings that prevent them from sending or receiving radio signals. If this is truly the case, it should be impossible for these devices to interfere with navigation or communication systems when in airplane mode. And if all you want to do with your device is read a downloaded book or play with an app that doesn’t require Internet access, there should be no reason why you couldn’t do so.

And can someone really make the argument that an electronic device in airplane mode emits more radio interference than a pacemaker or electric shaver?

And what about the airlines that now offer wi-fi connectivity during the flight? You can’t have your device in airplane mode to take advantage of that service. Surely that says something about the possibility of radio interference: there is none. Evidently, if you’re paying the airline to use their wi-fi, it’s okay.

What’s So Special about Takeoff and Landing?

Of course, since you are allowed to use these devices during the cruise portion of the flight, that begs the question: What’s so special about takeoff and landing?

As a pilot, I can assure you that the pilot’s workload is heavier during the takeoff and landing portions of the flight. There’s more precise flying involved as well as more communication with air traffic control (ATC) and a greater need to watch out for and avoid other aircraft.

But in an airliner, the pilots are locked in the cockpit up front, with very little possibility of distractions from the plane full of seat-belted passengers behind them — even if some of them are busy reading the latest suspense thriller or playing an intense game of Angry Birds.

Are the aircraft’s electronics working harder? I don’t think so.

Are they more susceptible to interference? I can’t see how they could be.

So unless I’m wrong on any of these points, I can’t see why the airlines claim that, for safety reasons, these devices need to be powered off during takeoff and landing.

It’s a Control Issue

I have my own theory on why airlines force you to power down your devices during takeoff and landing: They don’t want their flight attendants competing with electronic devices for your attention.

By telling you to stow all this stuff, there’s less of a chance of you missing an important announcement or instruction. Theoretically, if the aircraft encountered a problem and they needed to instruct passengers on what they should do, they might find it easier to get and keep your attention if you weren’t reading an ebook or listening to your iPod or playing Angry Birds. Theoretically. But there are two arguments against this, too:

  • You can get just as absorbed in a printed book (or maybe even that damn SkyMall catalog) as you could in an ebook.
  • If something were amiss, the actual flight/landing conditions and/or other screaming/praying/seatback-jumping passengers would likely get your attention.

But let’s face it: airlines want to boss you around. They want to make sure you follow their rules. So they play the “safety” card. They tell you their policies are for your safety. And they they throw around phrases like “FAA Regulations” to make it all seem like they’re just following someone else’s rules. But as we’ve seen, they have the authority to make the rule, so it all comes back to them.

And that’s the way they like it.

How Cell Phones Fit Into This Discussion

Cell phone use is a completely different issue. In the U.S., it isn’t the FAA that prohibits cell phone use on airborne aircraft — it’s the FCC. You can find the complete rule on that in FCC regulation 22.925, which states (in part):

22.925   Prohibition on airborne operation of cellular telephones.

Cellular telephones installed in or carried aboard airplanes, balloons or any other type of aircraft must not be operated while such aircraft are airborne (not touching the ground). When any aircraft leaves the ground, all cellular telephones on board that aircraft must be turned off.

There are reasons for this, but an analysis of whether or not they’re valid is beyond the scope of this discussion.

I just want to be able to read books on my iPad from the moment I settle into my airliner seat to the moment I leave it.

Lesson Learned: Don’t Update an iOS Device on the Day the Update is Released

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I learned it the hard way — and won’t forget.

Yesterday, I spent about 3 hours in an Apple Store. It was not pleasant.

It all started when, in preparation to update my iPhone and iPad 2 to iOS 5, I synced my two iOS devices. I got an error message. Thinking that was probably not a good thing before doing an OS update, I made an appointment at the local Apple Store — which is walking distance from our Phoenix place — with an iOS Genius. An hour later, I walked over with my iPhone, iPad, and syncing computer, a MacBook Pro.

The “genius” (and this guy definitely deserves his title put in quotes) looked at the situation and told me that because the error message appeared on my Mac and not on my iOS device, he couldn’t help me. But he could make an appointment for me later that day.

If there’s every a way to piss me off, it’s to tell me I’ve wasted my time and need to come back later in the day to waste more time. I gave him a lot of grief, which he deserved. It gave me a really good idea about the quality of management at the Biltmore Apple Store: it sucks. It was the first time I’d ever left the store angry, without my problem resolved.

I went back to my office and started troubleshooting on my own. That’d when the iOS 5 update was released. Since the problem had been resolved on my iPhone, I figured I’d update that. Things went smoothly — on our fast Internet connection, I was able to get the download in less than 15 minutes. But the upgrade kept failing.

So I showed up at the Apple Store again for my second appointment of the day. This time, they put me with a Mac expert. He listened to my problems, looked at his watch, and told me he had to go to lunch in 8 minutes.

What was I saying about Biltmore Apple Store management? Oh yeah. It sucks.

He started out by using Software Update to look for updates. I’d done that first thing in the morning and there weren’t any. But now there was — Mac OS X 10.7.2 — making me look like an idiot. He began the install and while it was working, left for lunch.

Another genius stepped up to fill his spot. I told her that since the process would take some time, she should help someone else. I’d try to resolve it on my own and let her know how I did.

I got the Mac OS update done and then tried again to update my iPhone. No joy. By this point, everyone was tweeting about server problems. I didn’t think this was server related, but when I realized that some kind of verification was going on and that’s where it was failing, I agreed that was the issue. I kept trying.

Connect to iTunesMy phone became “bricked” — completely unusable — with a “Connect to iTunes” image after the fifth try.

Now a small seed of panic began growing inside me. My iPhone is my only phone. It’s for personal and business use. It’s the only way I can be contacted by voice communication.

After trying a few more times, I talked to the new genius they’d assigned to me. (I hadn’t moved from my stool at the Genius Bar.) He tried updating from another computer. When that failed twice, he took it in the back of the store somewhere.

I sat with my laptop and iPad, researching possible solutions on the Web and Twitter.

After 20 minutes, he returned with my phone and some bad news: he wanted to replace my phone.

Now if he was offering to replace it with a factory new iPhone 4, never touched by human hands since leaving China, I would have gone for it. But he was offering a reconditioned phone. And I have terrible luck with previously owned devices. The idea of using a phone that once belonged to someone else — who may have dropped it in the toilet for all I knew — really wigged me out. I told him I’d keep trying.

He set me up with an Ethernet connection to the Internet and a power cord.

And I did. I kept trying updates and failing. While that was going on, I kept searching for troubleshooting tips. @singhpanther on Twitter suggested Lifehacker. I found “How Do I Fix My Bricked iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch?” and worked my way through the instructions, including the DFU mode stuff. I kept trying updates…and failing.

All the while, people kept coming in with iPhone 4s showing the same “Connect to iTunes” icon I had. I counted about a dozen of these people, all looking lost and bewildered.

Finally, after spending a total of about two hours on that damn Genius Bar stool, it worked. My phone was recovered and working properly with iOS 5.

I don’t think it’s anything special that I did. I think I just managed to squeeze into the server queue at the right time for success.

By that time, the lunching genius was back at his place. I showed him my phone. “Got it working, ” I said.

“Of course,” he said smugly. “What do you think we were doing back there?”

You were doing nothing that worked, I felt like snapping back to him. After all, they hadn’t fixed it. They wanted to replace it and put it back on iOS 4.2. It was my perseverance and refusal to let them take the phone away that had resulted in success.

But as I age, I’m realizing that it just isn’t worth arguing with smug assholes like him. So I just got up off the stool and left.

What was I saying about the management of the Biltmore Apple Store? Oh, yeah. It sucks.

The lesson I learned from all this is this:

With millions of iPhones and iPads out in the world and a rabid user base that’s willing to wait overnight in long lines for new devices, it’s not a good idea to update iOS on the first day of its release. Wait a day or two — it’ll all go more smoothly.

And yes, iOS 5 is worth the wait.