Blog: TiVo

Internet: I signed up for cable modem access from Earthlink (via Time Warner's cable infrastructure). Previously, my only Internet connection at home was BroadbandAccess (EVDO) service from Verizon ($80/mo for unlimited). It's fast enough for email, not quite fast enough for video (when viewing YouTube videos I usually have to pause and wait for it to load, then come back in a few minutes). I got by with that for the first six months of living here, but my consumption of video is increasing, so it was time to upgrade. Plus, I disapprove of Verizon's tactics in trying turn the Internet into a walled garden, like it has with its wireless service.

TV: I don't subscribe to cable, since I don't want to watch a lot of TV. But there are a few shows I like, and I'm rarely home at the right time to watch them, so (now that I have Internet at home) I bought a TiVo. Way back when I was working for Tellme, (then) CEO Mike McCue was such an evangelist of TiVo that he bought several employees TiVos, including my roommate Mike.

Like Tellme, TiVo was a great idea that encountered some obstacles, but it's still far superior to the crappy DVRs that cable companies provide. And modern TiVos can transfer recorded shows to your computer or iPod - a great example of a feature that's terrific for consumers and scares the heck out of media companies, so much that they blocked the feature in the new HDTV-enabled TiVo Series 3.

Phone: I haven't had a landline phone since 2002; it would have been longer, but back in the foothills of Cupertino mobile phones didn't work, at least at the time. For the last two years I've had, and loved, the Treo 600, but I'm just out of contract with Sprint and so it was time to consider phone options; in addition to the many advances achieved by new phones, the Treo sound quality was deteriorating due to age. My requirements were: a phone that could be used as a modem, ideally one with EVDO, so I could dump Verizon but still get online while on the train; a phone that could use the new Gmail Mobile application, Google Maps Mobile (which did work on the Treo), and ideally the snazzy new Google Talk for BlackBerry.

I considered the Treo 700p (many reports of crashing problems, and doesn't have the Gmail app yet), BlackBerry 8703e (a little wide, some concerns about battery life), and the Sanyo SCP-8400 (maybe I don't really need a PDA phone). But I decided to stop in the T-Mobile store and loved the new BlackBerry Pearl. It has the form factor of a regular phone, but the keyboard makes text entry much easier, with a 5-key wide keyboard that has only two letters per key arranged in the same pattern as on a QWERTY keyboard (the top row is QW, ER, TY, UI, and OP, etc.) SureType technology allows you to press one key per letter, and does a remarkably good job of figuring out what word you are typing (unlike on phones with three letters per key, there are few words that are ambiguous). I was able to import my database of contacts using the sync function, getting 242 contacts into the phone in one swoop. The Gmail, Maps, and Google Talk applications work great, and I was able to set up the phone-as-modem functionality.

There are just a few downsides. Using the phone for Internet only uses the slower (2G) GPRS network instead of the 2.5G EDGE network, which is itself slower than EVDO (3G) which I could have used if I'd stayed with Sprint. (Here's a good guide to all the different G's of wireless technology.) The modem won't work over Bluetooth, at least not yet. And I can't get Google Calendar, but this is Google Calendar's fault, not the phone's, because mobile access isn't available on any phone.

Now with a fast cable Internet connection, TiVo, and a phone that can easily access email, chat, and maps as well as make quicker calls, I've got voice, text, and video zipping around everywhere!