Good Day, BWIA is a light compendium of news, items of interest, irreverent commentary, and occasional light analysis relating to Broadband Wireless Internet Access (including WiMAX, public access Wi-Fi, etc.).
Just a few snippets of semi-significant BWIA-related news today, but again, to do the predictions / trends, it's a short-shrift day for the news:
- Three Northern-most counties in New Hampshire to build a Broadband Wireless Internet Access network
- Wi-Fi access on Washington State Ferries completed on heavily-traveled routes
- "Colonel Dave" Hughes retires from providing Broadband Wireless Internet Access
- This slipped by me when it happened in November, but the Junxion Box, which I've written of before, has been updated (PDF link)
2007: Not a Typical Year for Wireless, by the ever-entertaining Andrew Seybold. Key quote - To my thinking, the saddest thing for wireless in 2007 was that the Internet community did not come any closer to understanding the bandwidth differences between the wired Internet and wireless high-speed networks. Their vision is still for the Internet as we know it to become wirelessly enabled. I believe that the wireless Internet should be a different type of Internet based on smart networks and smart devices and not nearly as dependent on browsers. Seybold doesn't get (in fairness, almost no one in the wireless telephony industry does get it) that it's the Internet "dog" wagging the wireless "tail"... by far, not the reverse. This is why Mobile WiMAX will succeed at the expense of the wireless telephony networks, because Mobile WiMAX will be able to deliver the "Internet, made mobile" experience that my daughter's generation wants to use.
Continue reading "Good Day, BWIA - BWIA Predictions / Trends For 2008 (Part 3)" »
Impressions Of The iPod Touch - 1 update
Apple, Inc. has done it again - a great new portable device, called the Apple iPod Touch. Essentially it's an iPhone without the phone functionality. Oh, and no email subsystem. And no ability to update your address book on the device. And, no doubt, other de-featuring by Apple to subtly persuade you to spend just a bit more money, and monthly fees to AT&T (of which Apple gets a perpetual cut), in order for you to get the full "iPersonalComputingDevice" capabilities (experience).
In my opinion, the one great feature of the iPod touch is that it has built-in Wi-Fi and a decent-enough web browser in Safari. In one handheld device you can have your music collection, all your key info such as address book, calendar, and you can browse the web whenever you're in range of Wi-Fi.
The big new feature for the iPod Touch (and a new capability being added to the iPhone via software update) is that when either device is connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi, you'll be able to browse and order music directly on the iPod Touch and iPhone.
But, only music. Not video content. Not podcasts.
That's just dumb!!! As are the other restrictions that Apple is building into the iPod Touch and iPhone.
(Click below to continue the story.)
Continue reading "Impressions Of The iPod Touch - 1 update" »
Posted by Steve Stroh on December 22, 2007 at 20:28 in BWIA Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)