AT&T: Our Network is Fine!

Yeah, umm, AT&T your network is not fine.

The network.

Yes, the topic was been raised and covered multiple times before, but the fact remains that AT&T’s voice and data networks are struggling to keep up with iPhone users. For a lot of people, especially those whose locations are well covered by AT&T, the number of applications available in the iTunes store will keep them on the iPhone or persuade them onto the platform.

It’s the Network, Stupid

But, for a lot of other people who currently don’t have an iPhone or are becoming exceedingly frustrated with:

• Dropped calls
• Delayed voicemails/text messages
• Dropped internet
• Slow internet
• Useful app rejection

the new open platform Android 2.0 phones that are being hyped right now seem quite tantalizing. There’s really a bare minimum of apps that I use on my iPhone (and a crucial one that isn’t available, unless you hack it, yes Terminal please). The network frustrations puts a damper on the excitement of having 85,000 applications in my pocket, especially since many of them rely on a solid network to work properly.

There’s No App For That

Out of the 85,000 apps on the iPhone, there’s not a single app that will improve AT&T’s clogged network. Having Yelp in my pocket is great, but if it doesn’t load or takes 5 minutes to return results it becomes relatively useless. Give me something that is 80% as good as the iPhone on a network that is reliable and consistent and I’m there.

Yes, the Motorola Droid is looking mighty tempting. I’m holding off until I can get my grubby hands on it to decide if it’s close enough to jump ship, but the 75,000 fewer apps won’t have any real impact on my decision. On an open platform, new apps can be written and guaranteed to be allowed. The network, on the other hand, is completely out of our hands. Deliver a strong network with a great mobile phone and the users and apps will come.

Photo credit: Stéfan | cc-nc-sa 2.0

This iPhone Can’t Tweet

Most Bostonians are familiar with his campaign, he’s got signs and advertisements everywhere comparing the incumbent Mayor Menino to old technologies and himself to new technologies. Like the picture above, where Meninino is an old-school blocky cell-phone from the 80′s, while Flaherty is a slick new iPhone.

It’s a really slick marketing campaign, but when you don’t back it up, you fail. It makes you come off as all talk and no walk, and worse makes your campaign seem disorganized and discordant. When you say you are new technology, but then fail to utilize new technology effectively, your proposed image and actual implementation end up contradicting each other.

How does Michael Flaherty fail?

In numerous ways, but for today’s example we’re going to focus on Twitter, something the “iPhone candidate” should be up to speed on, right? I mean, they do sort of go hand in hand. They’re both the latest hot piece of technology. The iPhone is a portable, handheld internet enabled computer while Twitter is one of, if not the, most popular online social messaging systems. Sure, every Twitter user does not have an iPhone and every iPhone user does not tweet, but the majority of the hardcore users of both likely have at least a base understanding of each other.

Twitter is for Communicating, not Broadcasting

There’s a huge misconception amongst many people that Twitter is for sending out inane updates about what you had for lunch or broadcasting your product to the masses. It is neither. While sending out tweets about your product or food choices can be effective at generating sales and showing your personality, if that’s all you do it shows a clear lack of understanding about the core of Twitter. More importantly, it likely won’t work. There’s exceptions, but for the most part, if you don’t engage no one will listen.

Let me break it down simply, for everyone, Twitter is a communication platform.

Twitter is not a:

• billboard
• lunch menu
• bullhorn
• something only web geeks do

It’s actually an immensely simple idea that got out of the way of people and allowed them to communicate quickly, easily, and freely.

When your Twitter stream has nothing but updates from you, meaning zero replies, zero ReTweets, zero interaction, and you’re following zero people, you fail. You come across as an automated yes-bot.

Take a look at Michael Flaherty’s Twitter stream:

Michael Flaherty's Events Calender/Twitter Stream

As you can see it’s basically his events calendar.

Wow Michael, you just got out of a city council meeting, that’s amazing! Thanks for informing us that you’re doing your job!

Let’s Talk, Not Stalk

The problem which Michael’s tweets, is that I don’t care about any of the information there. If I wanted to know where he’ll be, I’d check his web-page and look for an events calendar. Twitter is for communicating, and when used correctly could be a potential revolution in how constituents can interact with their government. When used to broadcast messages one way, it shows a complete failure for even the most basic of understandings about how the system works.

Don’t talk at me, talk to me.

You know what, that last sentence is so absolutely crucial to using Twitter well, and being a good Mayor that I’m going to repeat it and highlight it.

Don’t talk at me, talk to me.

Look, I don’t expect Michael Flaherty to ingrain himself in the Twitter community but I do expect him to bring someone in who gets it and to get advice before just throwing up random content (by the way Michael, if this article hasn’t completely turned you off, I am available for social media consulting sessions).

Now, if Michael didn’t brand himself as a candidate that is an improvement over the incumbent, then I wouldn’t care much. You don’t need to use Twitter, but if you brand yourself as the equivalent of an iPhone and do brand yourself as an improvement over the incumbent, then I would expect you to tweet well.

In this case, Mayor Menino’s Twitter stream is done well. Sure, it’s done by a staff member, but I could care less. If a tweet gets sent that needs the Mayor’s attention, the staff member can relay it on. I’d rather have an intermediary do it well than to have whoever do it poorly.

What’s worse, is that Flaherty doesn’t understand a relatively simple piece of technology like Twitter. What does it mean when the 80′s cell-phone uses a new piece of technology better than the iPhone?

Yelling in my Ear in Real Life

At the Dorchester Day parade, Flaherty’s campaign was the only one that brought a truck out that had a guy inside yelling loudly into a bullhorn:

VOTE FOR MICHAEL FLAHERTY FOR MAYOR OF THE CITY OF BOSTON FOR 2009. MICHAEL FLAHERTY MICHAEL FLAHERTY MICHAEL FLAHERTY

I get it. Your campaign thinks Michael Flaherty is a swell guy, but here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter. Personally I could care less about the candidate, his attributes, his personality and his accomplishments. Frankly it doesn’t matter because at the end of the day, it’s not about the candidate, it’s about the constituents.

Michael Flaherty may be a god amongst men, but what does that mean for me, a citizen of Boston? Whether Flaherty wins or not, we won’t be living in Flaherty land, we’ll still be living in Boston. Whoever wins will not be managing the entire city, their staff will. The direct impact of the person who’ll have the title will be minimal. How he interacts with his staff and how both interact and work with the citizens of Boston will determine how effective the mayor will be.

Someone who talks at me, not to me, does not sound like a team player. Someone who thinks it’s all about him, not about me and the other citizens of Boston, will fail. Someone who doesn’t realize it’s a good idea to ask someone with expertise in a field before diving in sounds like an egomaniac who will refuse to listen to outside ideas. That, to me, is not a mayor, it’s a dictator.

With the rush of new Google Voice users (I’ve been using it for a while, since I got moved over to Google Voice when Google bought GrandCentral), I thought I’d share a quick video Google released letting users know that you can use Google Voice from your mobile device.

Currently, you can only download the Google Voice mobile application if you’re on a Blackberry or Android powered device. A third party developer has released an iPhone app called GV Mobile or, iPhone and non-Blackberry/Android users can just browse over to the Google Voice web-site and access the features there.

This way, you can share your Google Voice number with everyone, and also call them from the number wherever you are. If you haven’t yet, sign up for Google Voice. It’s free!

Oh, and if you’d like to call me, just scroll down to the bottom of this page and you’ll see a Google Voice call me widget. Talk to you soon!

That means all your columns from your home computer will also appear on your iPhone. The syncing is done in the background to reduce the processing strain.

Growl Notifications

Upon opening up Tweetdeck, you’re greeted with a few notifications in the top left of the screen, showing you the tally of latest tweets.

Welcome Screen for TweetDeck iPhone

You can access this tally via the updates menu at anytime in the bottom left corner.

Updates menu in Tweetdeck

Columns

You can switch columns via the left and right arrows in the top left and bottom right corners (respectively).

Switch columns from within a column.

Column view lets you flip through columns similar to flipping through windows in Safari.

Use column view to switch columns.

You can add a new column in the iPhone app and sync it to the cloud server to have the same column on your desktop. Create a user group, search, all friends, mentions, or direct messages column.

Add new columns and sync with the cloud

Settings

Both versions of Tweetdeck now come with full support for multiple accounts. It’s a very welcome feature and is implemented via adding more columns. Tweetdeck now supports unlimited columns, allowing you to add tons of accounts and scroll or flick through them.

Multiple accounts!

There’s a few cool general settings in the iPhone app. Settings include auto-correct, growl, choice of twitpic or yfrog, show real names, and option to shake to refresh the screen.

Tweetdeck general settings

Quick Follow

At the bottom of the Tweetdeck screen, there’s a row of icons. They include updates, refresh, add column, settings, and more. The more button pops up a screen with two options, sync columns and quick follow. Clicking sync will check the cloud for updates and allow you to then sync your columns.

Quick follow pops up a screen allowing you to type in someone’s Twitter handle and follow them with a quick click.

Quick Follow (handy for tweetups)

Tweeting and Bios

Creating a new tweet takes you to a relatively standard window allowing you to type up your tweet. There’s options to shorten a link, upload a photo, and update your profile location. You can also send out a map link to your current location. Cool tool for sending out directions.

Update bio location and add a map link (works on non-GPS too)

You can also look at individual tweets, which gives you options to reply, retweet, send a DM, favorite it or email the tweet.

The individual tweet window

From the individual tweet screen, you can also check out the user’s bio. Mostly standard stuff, but if you scroll to the bottom there’s an option to block/unblock the user and add them to a group.

The bio page, add to groups, follow, @, DM, or block

So far, I’m really digging the new Tweetdeck application for the iPhone. Up until today, I’ve been a staunch user of Tweetie and didn’t even bother looking for anything else. Tweetdeck has crashed a few times on my iPhone, but that’s to be expected for a first release (which is also free).

It might be due to my original (non 3G) iPhone or a few bugs they need to work out. But it’s happened rarely enough to not be a huge detriment so far. Aside from the couple of crashes, I love everything about this app. It’s a really intuitive interface for the iPhone and the columns translate really well to the smaller touch screen.

Read more about the new Tweetdeck desktop and iPhone applications on their blog. If you’re all set and ready to try out the update and new app, install Tweetdeck for the iPhone or Tweetdeck for the desktop.

Have given the new Tweetdecks a try? What do you think?

So to any of my friends who’ve tried reaching me by phone, send me an e-mail instead. Hopefully, Apple does me right and gives me a new iPhone. Surely they can spare an old model with everyone lusting for the 3G iPhone now!

Have an awesome weekend everyone!

Credit for the iPhone optimization goes to the great team over at contentrobot and their iWPhone plugin and theme.

Here’s a few screenshots of how the blog now looks on an iPhone:

What do you think? If you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch, this plugin should make reading this site a lot easier and nicer of an experience. Let me know if you have any suggestions, issues, or any other thoughts!