Matt Galligan

Years ago we heard AT&T’s pitch: “more bars in more places”. Their campaign was to let everyone know that they had the best signal around. Sure, that may have mattered then, but the definition of signal is even variable. Just a few years ago, Apple and AT&T changed how the iPhone displayed the signal bars to appear as though people had better service. Signal is just one of the indicators that the carriers give us to understand a device’s connection to the network.

With Apple’s update to iOS 5.1, the story gets even more confusing. If you’re on an AT&T network and have an iPhone 4S, you might be seeing a “4G” symbol now where a “3G” symbol appeared before. But here’s the kicker: the speeds are the same. AT&T claims that this is the right way to do it because they want to distinguish the speed of their network from what Verizon calls “3G”. Add in one more level of confusion: AT&T’s “4G” network is referring to their HSPA+ network, not their LTE network. That’s going to be called “4G LTE”. Following me still?

The last few days while I was at SXSW, my iPhone was indicating that it was on AT&T’s “4G” network with a full five bar signal. Yet, when I tried to do anything at all it failed miserably. When I finally got SOME signal I did a speed test and that same network AT&T claims is “4G” gave me a 0.25Mbps downlink speed. Abysmal. Without a doubt it’s not the brilliant future of crazy speeds everywhere that the mobile carriers promise us.

What current indicators mean

It used to be that signal actually mattered when the network density was low. And sure, it still matters a bit in rural areas. But most of the time, I’m seeing at least 3 bars, which should be a decent enough network connection. Here’s a couple definitions on what the indicators mean:

• Signal bars: These show how strong the signal is between the tower’s broadcast and your device

• Network indicator: This shows which network band your connected to: this could mean you’re connected to GRPS (1G), EDGE (2G), UTMS (3G), HSPA+ (3G but AT&T calls it 4G), or LTE (true 4G).

So even if you have a strong signal (signal bars) to the tower, and you’re on one of the specific network bands (network indicator), it’s still possible that you’ll have degraded or no actual service. This happens when the network itself is overloaded (concerts, festivals, conferences, rush hour, etc.) with usage.

We need a new indicator

What we need is something that indicates network quality. This would be a third indicator (or replacing the two previous ones). It would indicate the level of service that one could expect while on a cellular band. This might account for data connectivity and speed, as well as voice and SMS connectivity.

These days, what network I’m connected to and how strong that signal is to that network means relatively nothing to me. I’d much rather see something that indicates simply what I’m going to expect when I want to use the network itself. Signal and network mean something far less important than just knowing how good the service will be.

It’s going to matter even more in the coming years as the network density actually gets better (more towers in more places) and all the while data consumption will keep skyrocketing. Signal will always be high, and you’ll always be connected to the “4G” network, so then the only thing that actually matters is how GOOD the network actually is.

Staying hopeful

I’m extremely hopeful that the Apple, other mobile device manufacturers and the carriers will wise up to this. It’s unfortunately a shot in the dark because if carriers were to use actual network performance instead of bullshit marketing terms, then they might be held accountable. I’m of the mindset that something like this might need to be legislated for it to actually be put into place. That’s unfortunate. Too bad the carriers can’t be honest with us and give us the service that we’re paying for. I’ll still keep my fingers crossed.

When iMessage was announced, I immediately thought it was brilliant. Not only for getting away from the ancient SMS protocol, but as a method of delivery of messages across multiple devices. Now that plenty of people had both an iPhone and an iPad, how great would it be if I could message friends, and receive messages on all of my devices? The intention of the feature was to be very fluid, and it does perform nicely whenever a message is sent from a phone to phone through phone numbers and gracefully degrades to SMS when no data is available.

Now that iMessage is finally in the wild and thanks to iOS 5 upgrades, available to most everyone with an iPhone I was able to test its functionality.

Man, was I disappointed in the user experience nightmare that followed.

Sending and Receiving using iPhone

First off, let’s cover how iMessages are sent and received. On the iPhone, you have the option of using your phone number (of course), but also the Apple ID (or iCloud ID) to which your device is registered. We’ll call that an iMessage address for simplicity’s sake. This allows iMessages to be received at either the phone number or iMessage address. When you send a message however, one of those two has to be the sender. This is known simply as the “Caller ID”.

The gist is that if I send a message from my phone (using my number as caller ID) to another iMessage device using a phone number as the recipient it starts to send as an iMessage over data. This is represented by the “send” button being blue, and the subsequent message background as blue too. However, if for some reason the message can’t be sent via data, a phone number-to-phone number message will fall back on SMS.

However, if I set my “caller ID” to my iMessage address and send a message to another phone number things start to get hairy. Let’s say I send a message as I just described - iMessage addy to phone number. The recipient now wants to send a reply to that message - it will be replying to the iMessage address, not the phone number. Now, in the event that my phone drops out of data coverage (which can be quite often while traveling), I won’t receive that message. Nor will it fall back on SMS.

iMessage on iPad

The promise of iMessage - receiving messages across devices - doesn’t quite work as smoothly as one might think.

In the event that someone sends me an iMessage to my iPhone’s phone number it will not show up on my iPad. Furthermore, if I’m identifying my iPhone’s caller ID as my phone number, it will never get to my iPad. However, if I change that to the iMessage address, I can begin to receive messages across both devices. Though as I described above, if I use an iMessage address as my caller ID, in the event that data is not available, it won’t fall back to SMS.

I’ve made a chart to help explain this insanity:

Click to enlarge

iMessage in Practice

Some might think these are edge cases to which I would answer “absolutely not”. Sending messages to phone numbers is what people are used to. Changing that behavior will probably prove quite difficult. Knowing that a message won’t arrive to me if I’m not on data and using my iMessage address as Caller ID disturbs me a bit.

I recently sent some iMessages back and forth with a friend of mine who was traveling. He happened to be on a plane with WiFi and was sending messages with his iPad. Robert was excited that he was able to send these messages but I was getting confused when my messages to him weren’t arriving. Later when I looked back, I realized I had four separate message groups from him: an iMessage address, second iMessage address, Google Voice SMS and iMessage (but sent from a phone number Caller ID).

To illustrate the confusion when he wasn’t receiving certain messages here’s our correspondence:

Clearly this makes for some incredibly confusing and disjointed conversations - not to mention the potential of not seeing messages at all.

The Solution

Apple could have easily avoided these problems with a few very simple processes:

• When authenticating an iMessage address (or multiple), the phone number from one (or more) iPhones get added into that account. This way, regardless of what device someone is using one could receive a message to a phone number via an iPad since it’s working through the iMessage protocol first, then SMS.

• Allow me to send messages from the iPad using the Caller ID of my iPhone. This way, whenever someone receives the message, even from my iPad, it identifies as my phone number, not an iMessage address.

• Fall back to SMS any time a message is not confirmed as received including when a message is sent to an iMessage address. Considering my first point, when confirming iMessage addresses and phone numbers together, this shouldn’t be hard.

Conclusion

Apple has a really interesting product with iMessage. The problems described above make for a very poor user experience currently, but the solutions are primarily technical and definitely not insurmountable.

There has been some rumor that Apple will begin to include iMessage in iChat or another messaging app on Mac OS X. It’s imperative that they clear up some of these issues before that happens or there will be a lot of confusion around where messages are delivered and why they’re not received when data’s not available.

I can only hope that Apple has already figured this much out and is working on a solution. But until that solution is shown, I’ll continue to be harping on why iMessage has such an incredibly poor user experience. Come on, Apple. You’re better than this!

This morning I received a call. It looked odd, so I took a screen capture. It looked like this:

Here’s the reason it was odd: I had no idea who this person was. I also noticed that the typical “mobile” or “home” or “other” wasn’t below the name. After further investigation, this person was not in my phone book, nor has the name ever existed on my phone ever. So I ask myself “What the hell?”.

I even posted a tweet:

Quick investigation

I’ve never seen this happen before, on anyone’s phone. I did a Google search and came up with nothing about anyone experiencing this. In fact, recent calls I’ve received have still shown the phone number, and not a name. So I tried one more experiment: Call from my Skype account that has a phone number attached to my iPhone. What does it do? Show up as “matt.galligan”, my Skype name. Here’s the proof:

Full Caller ID on the iPhone (at least on AT&T)

I also called a friend’s iPhone (on AT&T) with my Skype account with the same results. So it appears that, at least for AT&T, the iPhone now displays “Extended Caller ID” information. I don’t know how many people have this activated yet, as I’m getting reports from friends that it still doesn’t work. But in any case, this is awesome. SO much more useful than before.

Today, my friends at Path launched their debut app in the App Store. Path is built around the idea that people have a certain network of friends that they trust, which is to say, in contrast of a lot of how social networking currently works on the web. On Twitter, anyone can “follow” me. On Facebook, I have over 1,000 “friends” though I would admit that 80% of them are likely just acquaintances. With Path, I’m actually limited with the number of people that I can connect with. And connections actually work in a different way, too. Rather than “friending” someone, or allowing someone to follow me, I explicitly share my photos with close friends. Think of this as a reverse follow mechanism like you’d see on Twitter.

The closest comparison that people have drawn initially are to Instagram, and while I won’t gloss over that comparison, I will say, the intention is different here. There are no filters, no mass “friending” mechanisms, no real “ego” play at all. Path is about sharing your most important moments with your closest, and most trusted friends. They actually limit the number of people you can share your “Path” with to just fifty. This is based on some research that Robin Dunbar did years ago. His research led him to the conclusion that humans really only have the capability of being true friends with 150 people, and only trust somewhere between 40 and 60 people. This is where Path draws its limited sharing capacity from. The forced limitation means I’m much more careful about who I connect with, since it’s like spending some kind of social currency every time I let someone see my Path.

Features and psychology of the app aside, it’s by far one of the most gorgeous in the App Stores to date. I’ve known their CEO, Dave Morin for a few years now, and have always known him to have an incredible attention to detail. That same attention to detail really shines in this app.

I’ve been really impressed with how well they’ve been able to keep it stealth for so long. I’m very proud of my friends at Path, and look forward to see what they’ve got up their sleeves next.

Photo credit: TUAW

The iPhone has been looking more and more dated to me every day recently. Let’s run down the laundry list:

• Screen: The Motorola Droid now has a FAR superior screen. Upping the resolution from 480px by 320px to 720px by 480px (almost doubling pixel density). If you’ve seen this one in person, you know EXACTLY what I’m talking about. The Droid’s screen is dramatically more impressive.
• Home Screen: Again, Android 2.1 beats out iPhone here. Fully customizable with widgets, etc. I could really care less about customizability so long as I at least had new SMS, Mail and today’s Calendar on the home screen. This would eliminate MANY app opens
• Camera: Looks like Google’s new baby, the Nexus One trounces the iPhone here, with a new 5MP camera and Flash, while the iPhone comes in at a modest 3MP and no flash. Come on guys, even Photo Booth on the Mac has a pseudo-flash.
• Background Apps, App Switching: This has become a huge pain after seeing even far inferior phones like the Palm Pre destroy the iPhone’s workflow. Some may argue it’ll destroy battery life, and while I would mostly agree, I think it backgrounding should be on an app-by-app basis. All the iPhone OS has to do is ask if you want to “allow background processing” on an app as it opens. Then you’re volunteering for worse battery life. I’m cool with that, if it means I’m more efficient.
• Better App Distribution: Palm OS wins a gold medal award here for originality. They have a similar application store to Apple, but if you don’t want to pay the fees and wait for approval, you can still release your app, but on your own website instead. That means that the app store itself is not endorsing your app, and it takes a user’s direct navigation to make it to your website, and thus, download your app. This allows developers to get releases that would otherwise not be endorsed by app stores out there.