Rob's Rants

If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that I was one of the last holdouts using Windows Mobile on a smartphone. For about 18 months I have been using a T-Mobile Dash 3G phone as my primary personal device. I actually like the phone a lot. It was a great 3G performer and I like the form-factor. It was light and thin and easy to carry. The stock Windows Mobile operating system was terrible though – so I set about flashing a new operating system (still based on Windows Mobile though) that made the phone much better. All of that fun was chronicled in a series of posts and are among the most read posts on this site.

T-Mobile G2

But – it was finally time to upgrade the capabilities and move up to a real smartphone. I knew several things that would inform this decision:

1. I remain uninspired by my iPhone (my work phone). It works fine and there are great apps, but it’s just an OK phone with some quirks that I don’t really care for.
2. I was staying with T-Mobile as a carrier. I’ve been with them since around the time of the Voicestream acquisition and they have always been good to me. Their rates are reasonable (especially for data) and their customer service is the best.
3. I wanted a slide-out or other physical keyboard. One of the things I hate about my iPhone is that the on-screen keyboard is such a pain to use. I really like physical keys.

This really limited my choices. Basically, T-Mobile currently offers two phones with keyboards: the MyTouch 3G Slide, and the G2. Since the G2 is advertised as 4G (OK, 3.5 G on the HSPA+ network) guess which I chose.

That’s right – I went to my local T-Mobile store and the guy there hooked me up with a BOGO deal. With upgrade credits (my contract was up 6 months ago), loyalty credits, etc. I walked out of the store with two brand new G2s (one for me and one for my wife) for $200 with a new 2-year contract. How can you beat that.

I’ve had the phone for just over two weeks now and I’ve even traveled to Europe with it.

And I can say that this phone KICKS ASS. I love it. Expect more detailed information in the coming days, but if all you want is a basic recommendation, I say you cannot go wrong with this phone.

Over the last nine or ten months I have tweaked, upgraded, and generally overhauled my T-Mobile Dash 3G smartphone. I’ve learned quite a bit along the way. And after my most recent upgrades I think I finally have a really solid phone that I love. So if you’ve recently picked up a Dash, or are thinking about it, here’s all the information I have in one place.

The Basics

To turn your new phone into a lean, mean, communications machine, I recommend ditching the Windows Mobile 6.1 that comes on the phone and upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.5. Since neither T-Mobile or HTC has released an official 6.5 upgrade yet, you’re best bet is a custom “cooked” ROM. I use the latest version of ookba’s “3Volution” ROM. In the interest of full disclosure, modifying your phone with custom software will invalidate any warranty on the device, and most probably violates several copyrights. However, in defense of this practice, it has been well established that Microsoft is aware of, and its employees contributors to, the XDA-Developers community among others. And with all the resources at its disposal, Microsoft has not attempted to shut down the practice. So if you choose to do this, do so with an understanding of what you’re doing. (See sidebar for more info.)

To install it, follow these steps:

1. Install a \”hard SPL\” security fix, which allows non-official ROMs to be installed.
2. Install the latest version of ookba\’s ROM.

I’ve written a little about the upgraded ROM here and here.

Upgrade the Radio

Although I’m not sure upgrading the radio made a really dramatic improvement, it does seem to have helped a little. It certainly hasn’t hurt.

Install Some Useful Applications

I’ve made a couple of lists of useful software that I’ve installed. The main list is here and the second list is here.

Learn

There are many resources on the web for Dash 3G owners. Here are some good ones:

• XDA-Developers is the premiere forum for detailed inf0rmation about all HTC phones. The Maple forum is at: http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=499
• The official T-Mobile upgrade information is: http://www.t-mobile.com/WMupgrade/
• The official HTC info is: http://www.htc.com/www/product/snap/overview.html and the HTC upgrade info is: http://www.htc.com/www/supportdownloadlist.aspx?p_id=262&act=sd&cat=all

The other day I flashed my phone to the latest version of the 3Volution ROM which Ookba had released on XDA-Developers. It’s been three days now and I’m very happy with it. It’s stable and fast and, so far, everything woks as expected. Even the Skyfire ALT key bug has been fixed.

There was really only one last thing to tackle on this device: the cellular radio itself. In a cellphone, there are really two sets of code that make things work, The Phone’s Operating System (OS) and the radio software. The OS controls all of the functions that you can see, while the radio software controls the way the phone communicates with the network. The OS and the radio can be installed separately.

Users on various message boards have reported that their phones seem to drop their 3G data connection back to EDGE speeds whenever they end a phone call. And a few people have complained that their ability to capture a 3G signal in the first place is suspect. Some people hope that an upgraded radio software package from the manufacturer will address some of these issues. In fact, it probably won’t, since connection speed decisions are made by the network and not the phone, but at any rate I figure that if HTC released a newer version of the radio software, there must be some improvement in it….

My Dash 3G originally shipped with radio version 3.44.25.30 (check yours by going to START/SETTINGS/ABOUT). The manufacturer (HTC) released a Windows Mobile 6.5 upgrade separately from the T-Mobile upgrade, and the HTC version had some updated radio code in it. Ookba managed to extract this package and build it into a stand-alone update, with version 3.47.25.29 in it. And that’s what I installed.

The Verdict

Well … the flash worked perfectly and everything installed in about a minute of work. Did it change the way my phone behaves? Not that much that I can see. It certainly doesn’t seem to have hurt anything, but there is no dramatic improvement either. I think that I am able to get better signal on my normal commute, but this could also very well be the result of T-Mobile’s ongoing network upgrades too. I don’t get any faster speeds when my laptop is tethered. I’m not sure yet whether actual phone performance is enhanced (I haven’t made enough calls).

So my recommendation is this: if you are comfortable flashing your phone, go for it. You might see some marginal improvements. But if flashing makes you nervous, then there’s no reason to suffer through this – the improvements aren’t dramatic.

Posted via web from robhavasy’s posterous

Yesterday I wrote a quick post about how Google had figured out how to integrate Google Voice voicemail with an existing mobile phone number. I activated it last night – here’s the scoop.

As many people figured, what this does is set up forwarding of your phone to Google Voice. There’s there’s little real integration here. Google simply figured out the dialing strings you need to enter into various carrier’s systems to forward your cellphone to your Google Voice number. And they built a little wizard to guide you through the setup. That’s about it. The only integration seems to be that if the mobile phone forwards a call to Google Voice, and the Google Voice rules are set to ring the mobile phone when that caller calls, it ignores that rule and only forwards the call to other phones on the list.

This setup has pluses and minuses, depending on your carrier. The main drawback is that most carriers charge minutes for forwarded calls, with the exception of Sprint based on their recent announcement. And, your callers will have to endure a long ringing sequence, waiting for your cellphone to forward and then for Google Voice to pick up. But the upside is that you can get Google Voice functionality with people before they clue in and start calling your new number.

My advice is that you should keep a close eye on your minutes if you enable this and get a lot of calls to your cell. Because even if you have your Google Voice set to whatever your carrier calls free numbers you can dial (your Circle, your Faves, etc.) they might still charge minutes for calls forwarded to that number. But, since you can turn this feature off at a moment’s notice, you can just give it a try and see how it works for you.

The other day I wrote about an inconvenience with Google Voice – having Google Voice calls going to multiple voicemail systems. Well, apparently Google is coming through with a fix! This morning on Tech/MobileCrunch I read the announcement that Google had figured out a way to have Google Voice take control of your mobile phone voicemail.

And sure enough, on my own Google Voice screen, I saw this. Note the “Activate Google voicemail for this phone” link next to my mobile number:

Take Control of Mobile Voicemail

This is an interesting development … because this really solves two problems. First, it prevents my mobile from picking up a Google Voice call and taking the message. Second, it also sends messages from people who call my cell number directly into the Google Voice voicemail system. So I get the benefits of transcription, and custom messages, and centralized voicemail management without changing my phone number.

I will take the plunge tonight after I get home from work and see if it works. But it sounds promising!

I swear that for the last few days my 3G signal has been getting better on my train ride home. I can hold a solid three or four bars of 3G from South Station all the way to West Natick. At least as far as I can tell. I’ll try to pay closer attention over the next few days to confirm.

I finally broke down after waiting four weeks for my Google Voice invitation and bought one on EBay. So after salivating for a month with two separate e-mail addresses on the waiting list, I dropped a whopping $3.29 on a “buy it now” Google Voice invite from the seller with the highest feedback on the first page of listings. And I got my invite and had my account set up less than 20 minutes after hitting the pay button on Pay Pal. It was worth every penny – because I really hate to wait for things.

Now the question is, what the hell do I do with it?

My Phone Habits

The first thing I realized is that no one calls me — which is the result of a carefully crafted strategy of hiding from people for close to a decade. Seriously – T-Mobile must hate me because on any given monthly bill at least 90% of my cell minutes used are 3 of the 5 numbers in my My Faves plan. And two of those numbers are my wife! On average, looking at the last 6 months worth if bills, I made or received 4 non-Faves calls a month. And even then several were dentist and doctor appointment reminders.

As for my home phone — well, I’m rarely there and even when I am I don’t answer it for anyone except my wife and a select few friends. And they usually want to talk to my wife anyway.

So now what?

Google Voice promised to solve one of the problems I have: integrating my work life and personal life in the same equipment, for a low (read nearly free) cost. And if I actually needed my phone much for work, Google Voice should make this integration easy.

Work/Life Balance

I work for a rather progressive (at least in the IT sense) healthcare organization. And I also commute 1.5 hours each way to work, usually by train. My employer would be more than happy to provide me with a company laptop and cellphone or Blackberry or Smartphone (heck, even an iPhone), but I have chosen to use my own equipment instead. Why? (Most of my friends think I’m nuts BTW.) Because for at least 3 hours a day I don’t want to feel guilty when I do my own personal stuff using my laptop. And because, as progressive as they are, I can keep my own laptop on the cutting edge installing whatever productivity software I want. A company laptop would be open for me to install things, but they are still building them with Windows XP and Office 2003. Office 2003, 6 years after it was released! That’s just not acceptable for me. As for the cellphone, you can see by my Dash 3G posts I love to tinker with my own phones. And I don’t want to be the über-geek carrying two phones everywhere. So I decided to use my own Windows Mobile phone for corporate e-mail since linking through Outlook Web Access is so easy.

But how to deal with the cost of phone calls (in either minutes or dollars) when I’m away from the office? Like when I’m working from home since my job allows me great flexibility to do that when needed. I could just give people my home number since I have an unlimited digital phone plan through my cable provider — but who wants all kinds of people calling your home number.

Skype to the Rescue

So I turned to Skype. With a cheap (currently costing me ~ $4/month for a SkypeIn number) subscription and SkypeIn number, I have a real telephone number that isn’t my home number for people to use. To get clear calls in my home office, I bought a Belkin F1PP010EN-SK Desktop Internet Phone for Skype, and assigned its MAC address to the highest priority queue on my internet router. And no one has ever suspected it wasn’t a regular landline.

For my mobile phone, I can use the Skype client, at least when a Wi-Fi or 3G connection is good. But on a mobile, the call quality deteriorates very rapidly as the signal changes.

The Problems

Thus my problem. I needed a solution that would allow me to give a “mobile” number to work contacts which would ring my Skype line when I was home in my office or my cellphone (via a regular cell call) when I was out. It would also be nice if I could prioritize co-workers from other work calls. Google Voice seems to fit the bill nicely. It’s routing functions allow me to direct calls to different phones at different times, and I can set my Google Voice number as one of my Faves so the calls don’t take up minutes. Perfect! Now I can use my cell phone like a cell phone for work calls without eating up my personal minutes, and also direct those calls to my home Skype line when I’m working at home (because my cell phone signal inside my house is sketchy, that’s why — otherwise I wouldn’t need Skype at all).

And that’s the way it’s currently set. Now I just need to get my Google Voice number into circulation so I can see how it works.

And it’s awesome!

This is just a quick post to confirm what a number of people already know — the 3volution ROM for the Dash 3G is solid. I’ve used and abused the phone for 3 weeks now and it is still fast, clean, and stable. The only bug I’ve found so far is that the Fn key doesn’t work in the Skyfire browser, if you’ve clicked a link in an e-mail to launch it. It works fine if you start the browser on its own. Weird.

But otherwise I can say that Windows Mobile 6.5 looks and performs great. The other day I realized that as I was walking to work, I was running Pandora, connected to my bluetooth headphones, Google Maps was running with Latitude turned on, I had Nimbuzz and GV Dialer running in the background, and I was sending and receiving e-mail on an Exchange account and a Google Apps account. And the phone didn’t even slow down when I switched screens. I am impressed. Together, the Dash 3G and the 3volution ROM are a fantastic pair.

[Update: I've flashed my phone to ookba's 3volution ROM. See this post for the flashing procedure and this post for my initial review.]

Closely watching XDA-Developers member ‘ookba’ who has been cooking some new ROMs for the Dash 3G based on the Windows Mobile 6.5 core and his “3volution” design. (The Dash 3G ships with a Windows Mobile 6.1 core.)

ookba is on his second release as of today (Build 3VO.1.00.082609). I usually wait for the early adopters to find the most critical bugs (like a white text on a white background problem in the first release on the caller ID pages so you couldn’t see who was calling.) But I think I’ll be flashing my phone soon.

ookba’s released ROMs for the HTC Maple (T-Mobile Dash 3G) found here and for the HTC Cedar (Sprint Snap & Verizon Ozone) found here.

For those not familiar with cell phone software, here is a very basic primer, at least for Windows Mobile / HTC phones.

Operating Systems

Like any computing device, a cell phone has an operating system or OS. For the Dash 3G, that OS is Windows Mobile 6.1 Standard.

Unlike regular Windows XP or Vista, when a cell phone manufacturer and carrier decide to release a Windows Mobile phone, they have the ability to customize the OS to a great extent. Think of T-Mobile’s “My Faves” application as an example — this is something T-Mobile builds into the phone’s OS.

The OS for a cell phone resides in a memory chip on the phone that the phone itself can not change or write information to. So it is called Read Only Memory or ROM. The copy of the computer code that resides in this memory is called a ROM Image, or also simply a ROM. So, in the lingo of cell phone hackers, the terms ROM and OS are interchangeable.

Almost anyone can use a  Software Development Kit (SDK) (called a Kitchen) to build their own ROM (called “cooking” a ROM). Getting it installed on the phone is the hard part.

Protection

Cell phone carriers and manufacturers are notoriously protective of their OSes. So every cellphone is locked in multiple ways to prevent people from changing the software. The two most common locks for GSM phones (like the Dash 3G) are CID locks and SIM locks. The SIM lock prevents a SIM card from another carrier from working in your phone, so you can’t move to another carrier easily. More important to the OS is the CID (Carrier ID) lock, which prevents software ROMs not “signed” by the carrier from installing on your phone. This is why you can’t normally change the OS on your phone.

Luckily, there are some very talented people out there who are able to break this lock for most phones.

Bootloader

Every cell phone is equipped with something called a bootloader, which is a program that is designed to take the ROM Image from its memory and load it into the working memory of the phone (normally, this resets the phone to its factory settings, and can be invoked on the Dash 3G by powering the phone off, then turning it on while holding the volume up button).

This bootloader also verifies that the image its loading is a “signed” or authorized image. It does this with an SPL program (no idea what SPL stands for).

In order to replace the ROM on a phone you need to defeat this security check. One way is to defeat it permanently (a Hard SPL break). Another way is to change the routine so it can be bypassed as needed (Soft SPL break).

Updating Sequence

So, this means that the basic sequence to changing your phone’s ROM is this:

1. Change the SPL security.
2. Load or ‘flash’ a new ROM image to the Phone’s ROM.
3. Engage the bootloader to load the new ROM to the phone.

Of course the devil is in the details. A very good primer on flashing ookba’s ROMs is: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=551959