My son has a nice Samsung Galaxy S “Vibrant” SGH-T959 that was replaced last year under warranty. The first replacement unit was lost, so T-Mobile sent a second one, which went to my son. Because the first one never turned up, I ended up paying $400 to T-Mobile for it – lost or not, they didn’t have it. Now I do.

Even though I am the ultimate late adopter – this is my first smartphone – I was excited to finally make the transition. Still brand new, but because it was a replacement, it was minus the back cover, charger and battery. So I went on eBay and got the missing accessories, got my old Nokia 5310 “dumb phone” deactivated, transferred my SIM and MicroSD cards, and activated this Samsung in its place; relegating the Nokia to briefcase accessory status, for when I travel internationally and want to use a phone with a local SIM card.

Now I’ve been living with the Samsung for a week and I like it (although – call me old-school – I do like to press a button to answer the phone, and not have to fumble with swiping my finger across the screen). So the other day, I found and paid $5 for an app that syncs this Android-based phone with iTunes on my Mac, which is appealing because it would eliminate the need for me to carry both my iPod Touch and the phone, which (superior iPhone usability aside) are functionally redundant except that one doesn’t contain a phone.

Because the ‘lost’ Samsung was about a year old, it had Android v2.1 installed. But the app I bought only ran on Android 2.2 (of course, the developer’s site did not specify this). So for the past 2 days, I have been trying to update this phone to Android 2.2. T-Mobile has no in-store technical support (in reality, it’s informal, if the employees happen to be up to speed, they often do try), so I went home dejectedly and went through three tiers of T-Mobile phone support. Even T-Mobile’s Level Three technician couldn’t figure it out.

So I went directly to Samsung, and I found them to be extremely helpful and very polite. I also had the impression that they were very well organized and well trained. As it turns out, T-Mobile required Samsung to disable the “over the air” software update function for this phone, and instead, requires that the update be done by downloading an installer called “Kies Mini,” and doing it via a USB cable.

First, I installed Kies Mini on my Mac, but it couldn’t see the phone. Then, the PC version, which also required drivers, driver updates and two Windows re-boots in order to function – and it couldn’t see the phone either (neither on the Windows 7 virtual machine running on my Mac, nor on my wife’s Windows 7 computer). In both cases, the phone saw the computer just fine.

I decided on my own that the problem was the cable, so I went back to the T-Mobile store on bended knees with outstretched palms, and they gave me a new cable. Still nothing. In desparation, I decided to turn off all other network connections on the phone, by invoking “airplane mode.” Eureka!!!

But not so fast: Kies Mini then put up an error message that said the phone didn’t have the right software version installed, and that the phone could not be updated via the cable, and needed to be updated “over the air” (Wait a minute – this was the entire and only purpose for this software in the first place, to do the update via the cable). Perfect!

So I called Samsung Tech Support back, gave them the case number that they gave me yesterday, and within 5 minutes, we had a solution. They gave me an RMA number, so I could return the phone for a full ‘re-flash’ of all of the phone’s software at no charge. Not only that, but it will be … not Android 2.1… not Android 2.2… but Android 2.3 !!! But I’ll have to be without my phone for a week, so I’ll reactivate my Nokia and stand by.

Then I’ll see if I can get that iTunes Android app I bought to work…

So, let me review. I’ve put at least 6 hours into this, between T-Mobile phone support, two trips to the T-Mobile store and two support calls to Samsung; not to mention the hour I just spent ventilating about this experience on my blog. I give T-Mobile a grade of D-, but not an F, only because they gave me a cable on my second visit. I give Samsung support an A for good intentions and effort, but a C for the information they made available to their support staff, which was incomplete. I give Samsung product development a C- (they make a nice phone, but the Kies Mini experience was very Alice-in-Wonderland).

If this was an iPhone, first of all, this would have worked. Second of all, it would have taken maybe 10 minutes from start to finish. If I’d known that I’d have this (hate to say it…) Windows-like experience with my new phone, I’d have put it on eBay and bought an iPhone (although I’d have to buy it unlocked direct from Apple, unsubsidized, because T-Mobile does not carry the iPhone in the U.S. T-Mobile’s network accommodates it just fine.

Now I know what the analysts mean when they say that “the Android experience is very fragmented.” Everyone’s experience differs. Your mileage may vary.

I was fortunate to receive an invitation to today’s AT&T 2012 Developer Summit, where AT&T made a number of significant announcements:

• Cloud Architect, a cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering for developers to host the operation of their apps.
• An AT&T API Platform that opens up AT&T’s service platform to HTML5 mobile apps and provides tools to develop multi-screen apps
• AT&T AppCenter, which provides a consumer-facing go-to-market merchandizing resource for HTML5 and Android apps.
• AT&T Application Resource Optimizer (ARO), a diagnostic tool that helps developers reduce device battery drain from inefficient use of device memory and processing resources, and to bundle requests from apps to the AT&T network.

The event was keynoted by an all-star cast, including Ralph de la Vega, president and CEO of AT&T Mobility and Consumer Markets; Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer (who ended with his trademark cry of ‘Developers Developers Developers!’); and Nokia president Stephen Elop (who is positioning Nokia’s upcoming Windows Phone-based Lumia as Nokia’s re-entry into the U.S. market). My personal favorite moment was toward the end of HTC CEO Peter Chou’s presentation, when he trailed off into “This is my personal device. It’s really really good!” while showing off HTC’s new Titan II LTE model. Senior executives of Sony, Samsung, and Pantech each introduced a variety of new smartphones and tablets that run in AT&T’s LTE mobile network; some of which established new form-factors.

Toward the end of each presenter’s pitch, it was mentioned that “oh yes, we have an SDK.” It left me wondering what the “Uber-SDK” might be for all of this, given that each vendor’s environment has proprietary elements, and surely no developer wants to enter into ten or more separate parallel developer streams (which is really the situation today). AT&T’s announcements represent one step in the evolution toward “One Ring to rule them all,” where, in this case, the AT&T network is the common denominator.

Although the event was predominantly oriented toward mobile, lo and behold, there is also an AT&T U-verse Enabled SDK! This was what convinced me to stay beyond the keynote session for the breakout sessions, and I can report that the SDK is a good first step. Like the rest of the solutions at this event, the U-verse Enabled SDK was oriented toward mobile application developers, so functionality was somewhat limited. Developers can create mobile second-screen apps that associate devices and apps with individual U-verse receivers (set-top boxes), issue commands (such as channel-change), detect state-changes (such as acknowledgements that the command was executed).

The ability to develop or modify the TV UI itself was out of scope, as that is the domain of Microsoft Mediaroom. Left unsaid was the notion that separating the U-verse Enabled SDK from Mediaroom provides AT&T with the flexibility to use it for other TV middleware platforms. (Apple was also absent from this event; AT&T directs Mediaroom and iOS developers to their respective vendors’ own programs).

Having been around IPTV since its infancy, I still have to pinch myself when I see all the advances. In October of 2011, AT&T introduced four new social TV apps for its U-verse IPTV service:

• Miso, which enables U-verse TV users to follow what one another are watching, and leveraging U-verse TV metadata so the user doesn’t have to type in the name of a show with the remote control
• Buddy TV, a U-verse remote control replicated on a second-screen device
• Splat Interactive’s TV Foundry, an app that uses program metadata of the show you’re watching to retrieve related content from the Web, such as trailers, previews and reviews; and share them with friends via Twitter and Facebook
• Wayin, which presents polls, games, and trivia that is associated with a program that you’re watching, so you can opt-in and play

These apps were built by independent developers in collaboration with the AT&T Foundry, a network of development centers in the US and Israel that’s currently hosting more than 100 active projects with third-party developers. After today’s event, more developers are likely to join in. It will be interesting to see what these projects produce as they come to market, especially as it further enriches the IPTV and multiscreen experience.

It’s a step in the right direction, although, according to a 2010 study by Oxford University, funded by Cisco, the U.S. still ranks just 15th worldwide in broadband. The study cites the leader, South Korea, as having 100% broadband penetration at an average speed of 35mbps.

In today’s American political climate, we can only hope that common sense prevails in the broadband arena, and that this modernization of the Universal Service Fund holds up. The old Bell System chartered itself to serve only urban areas, which is why rural residents can thank the U.S. government for mandating funding – a program with roots in the 1930s – to help ensure rural service. But, like today’s health care debacle, many rural people are likely to be hoodwinked into voting against their own self interests and oppose universal broadband as a wasteful socialist program.

Mea Culpa note: I posted a blog entry a few weeks ago when it began to circulate that Intel had pulled the plug on its Atom (CE4100, CE4200) chip sets. In fact, only the marketing team was dissolved and reassigned. According to reliable sources, the chips themselves are alive and well, and the next-generation 51xx dual-core series are in the hands of outside developers, with the first new products coming in the CES 2012 time-frame. That’s what I get for succumbing to sensationalism.

(Original Post: October 13, 2011) It’s interesting and unfortunate that Intel seems to have (suddenly) exited the Atom STB processor business – The CE4100 ‘Sodaville’ and CE4200 ‘Groveland’ chips. You’da thought it was a healthy business, given the effort and expense Intel put into promoting it just last month at IBC. A sizable booth, and about a half-dozen commercial implementations on display – and if it’s true, this move likely left these implementations in an awkward position.

It’s strange timing, just as the platform was beginning to get some market traction. The Boxee Box uses it. Logitech and Sony built GoogleTV devices around it. Amino built its Freedom product line around it, including a custom–built an Atom-based box for Telecom Italia. Not to mention Comcast and DirecTV and their upcoming Atom-based set-tops. But these chips were much more expensive than other STB chips and never got to real volume as a result.

From the initial news reports, it has not been clear if Intel has stopped taking orders for the chips altogether, or has only ended proactive marketing for them. Intel’s apparent exit follows in the tracks of (a couple weeks ago) Intel pulling out of MeeGo, which is the environment that Intel had been pitching to STB co’s for these chips. Now MeeGo has been merged with Limo, to expand its scope and shift it toward HTML5 (not a bad thing, but disruptive for developers).

Just goes to prove my old theory. In the end, so many companies always revert to “safe” businesses when the chips are down (and that’s literally, in the case of the Atom line). For Intel, it’s always been about the chips – the money they put into vertical markets such as TV are tactical marketing programs, not strategic.

Then there’s Cisco, which buys S-A and later sells its Mexican STB factory to Foxconn. Nobody’s quite sure what the story with Cisco’s Videoscape is, but its lead executive resigned. Cisco always goes back to its core networking businesses.

Google and Google TV? The Google TV platform was also implemented on ARM-architecture chips, so that platform itself is not in jeopardy with Intel’s exit. But (without going into the tangent about what Google might have planned for the platform after the Motorola Mobility acquisition), Motorola’s IPTV set-tops are Broadcom and Sigma (MIPS architecture) based. So (correct me if I’m wrong), wouldn’t GoogleTV have to be ported to MIPS in order to run on these Motorola boxes, if it hasn’t been ported already? That could make it a long wait.

An excerpt from Steve Jobs’ 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

He was an inspiration for us all.

'Thanks Steve' by Jonathan Mak Long

Here’s what I mean:

• Microsoft’s Xbox 360 TV initiative is ‘device-centric,’ independent of service or content provider,
• DISH’s Blockbuster Movie Pass is ‘service-centric,’ independent of content provider or device,
• Then, there’s ‘content centric,’ as in HBO GO or Max GO or WatchESPN; where the content can be just as easily delivered to an app – independent of service provider or device – as it can be to a TV set.

On the surface, ‘Xbox 360 TV’ doesn’t sound like such a big deal, but it is. On one hand, Xbox users can already get on-demand online video content through the Zune on Xbox Live marketplace, which, according to IHS Screen Digest has 16.4% market share for online movies – not to mention Hulu and Netflix.

But on the other hand, it’s live TV. This is of strategic importance for Microsoft: its ability to provide live multichannel TV instantly differentiates the Xbox 360 from other online video devices like Apple TV, Google TV, Boxee, Roku and seemingly dozens of other little boxes that have come and gone over the past couple of years.

Which brings us to DISH. Interestingly, DISH seems to have looked at their Blockbuster announcement more as a way to counter the threat of online video from Netflix, Comcast and DirecTV, when in reality, the chart that DISH published at announcement underscores – did they mean not to mention this? – what’s missing from Netflix and Qwikster: multichannel TV itself as the differentiator.

(Source: DISH Network)

[ Note: 5 days after this blog posting, Netflix decided to cancel Qwikster, which would have separated Netflix' DVD rental business from its streaming business - but the point I make still remains. Just combine the two rightmost columns of this table. ]

Add in DISH’s Sling technology, Move Networks’ online video codec, the fact that DISH bought three satellite companies this year, and now owns a Telco? Hmmm…something is brewing at DISH, and I bet it will have more impact than ‘Xbox TV’

It just goes to show how much navel-gazing there is about online TV. Consider how much our industry has ruminated over OTT and cable TV cord-cutting, when in fact, the percentages (and the revenues) are still very low. The other standout stat on the chart is the fact that it underscores how many titles are not available online, compared with what’s on DVD.

The Xbox 360 gives content providers another channel to market, putting their content in front of people via a device that’s new to many of the content providers. [ Notice, by the way, that several TV programmers are going to the Xbox directly, including HBO, ESPN and SyFy. We'll see how much leverage this gives them when it comes time for pay TV providers to renew carriage agreements with them. ]

As a set-top box substitute, the Xbox 360 stands to reduce CapEx for service providers (although AT&T, BT, Telus and other service providers have deployed using the Xbox as a set-top, and none of them are are saying how widely adopted it has been). We’ll see about that too.

My own belief is that open networks are critical in the cloud world (which is the position taken by Google, the FCC and others). Consider this parallel everyday example: a friend of mine uses Verizon Wireless and is therefore defaulted to Bing for search. To him, an annoying inconvenience – but what would happen if suddenly VZ blocked access to Google altogether? Interestingly, it appears that Verizon may challenge the new Net Neutrality rules once they go into effect.

Of course network owners want to monetize their networks. And they can (and why not!), by charging content providers for transport, and by taking revenue splits from advertisers. But please, not by charging the consumer, or enacting bandwidth consumption caps, or by otherwise penalizing the consumer in some way. As is their wont, consumers will find a way around it and have no qualms about bypassing or changing service providers.

A service provider’s networks are a sunk cost that it already bears. It can sell transport services and consumer access to content providers at prices equal to or below what a data-center-based third party CDN provider charges – an incentive for content providers that want to save money. At the same time, the service provider stands to make incremental revenue that likely wasn’t planned for when these networks were designed and budgeted.

Prediction: the average budget-minded consumer will be enraged if they couldn’t access content in the cloud that they had already paid for, and they wouldn’t stand for some service provider talking in code about capex and opex.

This year was at once evolutionary, revolutionary, and anticlimactic. A lot of people that I spoke with thought there was nothing “big” at this IBC. I beg to differ: multi-screen TV is real, it’s here, and it has moved through the science project, trial, and first deployment stages – into mainstream deployments and refinement – in less than a year.

Sure, we saw the beginnings of it a few years ago with all the buzz about video content delivered ‘over the top’ (OTT) via the open Internet – as something separate, experimental, a vague threat to pay TV, something to monitor from a distance. In fact, just nine months ago, I was involved in a project with an industry organization that was trying to encapsulate for its membership whether OTT represented a threat to pay TV operators or an opportunity.

Yet now, OTT and multi-screen delivery are simply two ingredients of ‘this complete pay TV breakfast.’ In my book, this rapid transition from ‘what is it?’ to ‘it’s table stakes!’ has been pretty revolutionary. As a result, virtually every TV middleware, encoder, and video security company had something ‘multiscreen’ to show at this year’s IBC. And the primary driver has not so much been the maturation of the enabling technologies – it has been social media. Vendors were sorted into two camps: those using IBC to announce pending or actual commercial multiscreen deployments, and those who were still talking about product roadmaps.

What was evolutionary? Although the first multi-format video encoders started showing up nearly a decade ago, their time has finally come with the multiscreen opportunity. It’s actually a very active area, as vendors race to support adaptive-rate streaming, multiple screen formats and aspect ratios, and to improve video quality – all while reducing energy consumption. In some American political circles, it still may not be cool to talk about ‘green’ technology, but if a company can cut thousands or even millions of dollars from its power bill, the ‘let the marketplace decide’ crowd should sit up and listen.

Competitive wins were another evolutionary phenomenon. One of the biggest was the announcement by Ericsson that it had won the IPTV business of Chunghwa Telecom, the Taiwanese incumbent Telco, which has nearly a million IPTV subscribers in service. For some years to come, Ericsson will operate alongside Alcatel-Lucent, where ALU was the sole incumbent vendor previously. As the TV world transitions from the living room to multi-screen, and as service providers outgrow their first-generation IPTV platforms, we will continue to see this from service providers of all sizes, worldwide.

Another evolutionary area is the now-mainstream recognition that the semiconductors residing in consumer devices – particularly in set-top boxes – are a key part of the end-to-end pay TV ecosystem. This stems from that fact that video security now resides on shipping chip-sets and that these ‘security blocks’ are now integrated with TV middleware and CAS systems, to control access to content and for output control. This situation stands to reduce costs for operators that can move from card-based to software-based video security.

Another IBC highlight was the inaugural ConnectedWorld.TV Awards, which were given in association with IBC, and for which I was one of the judges. We evaluated well more than 100 substantial entrants across 19 categories, and it was not merely a popularity contest. James Cameron and Vincent Pace (The Cameron Pace Group) were given a special award for their contribution to the broadcast industry.

Yet at the same time, 3D – a technology inextricably linked with James Cameron through his movies Avatar and soon, a 3D version of Titanic – seemed a bit anticlimactic. For the past few years, there has been at least one 3D feature on the bill at every movie multiplex. Cable, satellite and Telco (IPTV) providers alike trumpeted 3D sporting events. Set-top companies announced 3D software updates and published lengthy white papers. The past two IBC (and NAB) shows were full of companies demonstrating 3D video technologies.

But as I compared notes with others – both at the Awards dinner, and at IBC at-large – there was some irony in the fact that none of us seemed to notice 3D quite so much this time at IBC. Even the circular glass projected 3D TV demonstration that’s between Halls 1 and 7 every year was missing. (Did you see it? I didn’t). You would get a flash of recognition from most people – ‘Wow, I hadn’t really thought of that, but it’s true!’ – when mentioning the lower profile of 3D this year. Yet Mr Cameron insists that the best years of 3D are yet to come. I hope he’s right because I, for one, enjoy it – and the industry has put a lot of time, effort and money into placing 3D into the mainstream. Maybe it’s that 3D is now so commonplace that we don’t notice it as much anymore.

So, what’s going to be big next year? In my opinion, it will be home gateways. Although service providers have talked about establishing a ‘beach-head’ in the home for many years, the compelling reason is finally emerging: the need to transcode commercial and home media content for consumption across multiple device environments while maintaining content protection for the commercial side. Multi-screen may be the catalyst, but it remains to be seen whether consumers will accept such a camel’s nose in their home tents.

Can anyone say which company has the record for “shortest product life in an emerging category?” The old record-holder was Microsoft’s Kin smartphone? (Remember the Kin? Didn’t think so). The Kin was discontinued quickly, as has happened with the TouchPad. Both the Kin and the TouchPad had fairly good initial reviews, but cooler heads must have prevailed in those companies.

The ghosts of Bill and Dave must be having a chat right about now in their old Silicon Valley garage about what The HP Way might mean these days

The 30-year-old “PC vs Apple” war has gotten as nasty as American politics of late, as boomer-age computer geeks transition from vitality to curmudgeondom. They should take a minute, step back, and think about the impact that Apple and Mr Jobs have had. Not just on computing but on society. No, I don’t think that’s hyperbole.

Interacting with a computer would have been very different, had Apple not commercialized Xerox’ windows-and-mouse user interface. Smartphones would probably still be limited to corporate enterprises. There wouldn’t be Blackberrys without Apple’s Newton, which – being 3 years ahead of the Palm Pilot – failed for being ahead of its time. People wouldn’t be watching TV on tablets.

We’d likely have MP3 players and perhaps even a media content ecosystem resembling iTunes, but it probably still wouldn’t have the media industry’s blessing and piracy would probably still be rampant. Publishing would not have been desktop until years later. Just as Twitter was part of the Arab Spring this year, desktop publishing was part of the fall of the Soviet Union; allowing Boris Yeltsin to circumvent the state propaganda apparatus – 2 years before the Web was even proposed. You’d still be getting floppies in the mail from AOL, because we’d probably still be using them. Plus, everything would still be as difficult to use as Windows. Think about that.

On January 22nd, 1984, Apple Computer ran a TV ad during the Superbowl that became instantly famous and changed advertising.

The end of an era.

[ Postscript: A Windows 7 user in my household installed a new toolbar in Internet Explorer the other day, which carried something nasty that crashed the laptop fatally. Fortunately I had run a backup of this computer in July. After reinstalling Windows, the suspect toolbar had somehow reappeared in the IE browser and neither Firefox and AVG antivirus would reinstall, nor would the firewall activate. A waste of an evening, and for what? Over the course of many Macs since the 80s, I have NEVER had a virus. Kaspersky found about 12 on my Mac last week but they were all in the Windows 7 virtual machine that I sometimes use. What does this have to do with Steve Jobs, you might ask? Well, his company has surely saved me countless hours not having to scour my Mac for ka-ka-ware every time I start the thing. I guess that makes me a clueless Mac fanboi. ]