I’m a huge fan of MsgFiler and have been using it since 2006. I honestly can’t imagine using Mail without it. It allows you to quickly and easily file emails by typing a few keystrokes instead of using the mouse to drag them to folders. Use it for an hour, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

I think that MsgFiler will be a huge success in the AppStore. Right now it has 42 ratings, 41 of which are 5 stars¹ and is already in the top 35 Top Paid apps! I bought a copy from the App Store even though I already had a copy I’d been beta testing for Adam, just so I could rate and review it.

1. The 1 star rating is actually a support request, put in the wrong place. [back]

I’m tired of fiddling to try to get it to work. I need to get a real day and a half of use from my mobile, especially when traveling. It’s a deal breaker.

Perhaps they will release a software update to the Pro that will help with whatever is killing the battery life; I’ll re-consider it then. I just hope that the Droid Pro is successful enough to show the Android hardware manufacturers that the form factor is worth pursuing in more devices.

1. Keyboard shortcuts are pretty useless if the keyboard isn’t accessible. [back]

Overall, the form factor works well – as I expected. The screen is a little smaller than the Droid 2 (and much smaller than the HD model screens), but it doesn’t feel problematic because you never use the virtual keyboard. There are a variety of keyboard features (quick launching applications, typing to search for contacts, mail folders, etc.) in Android and various apps that feel really natural and useful when there is a keyboard right there for you to use.

The keyboard itself didn’t immediately win my heart like I’d hoped, but isn’t bad. I find the placement of the period and alt key make them difficult to get to and the lack of space below it on the device makes typing and holding it a little cramped. It’s not as good as a BlackBerry keyboard.¹

The keyboard backlight on my unit appears to be broken as it only shines across 2/3 of the keyboard from the right. I’m guessing this is specific to my unit and I can probably exchange it for one with a proper working keyboard backlight.

The Droid Pro has a “convenience key” on the side that can be mapped to any application. This is so useful to me that I don’t know that I can properly explain it. Being able to kick into my email with a single click instead of two has a huge psychological effect on me – probably larger than it actually is if the speed difference were measured.

One thing that I miss about the Droid 2 is the cursor keys. I found them very useful to move between fields and for editing text. Android doesn’t have the loupe feature that the iOS sports, so setting cursor position via touch is simply inaccurate.

The Droid 2 is heavier than the Droid Pro. It’s also got a more solid feel with its metal body. That said, the lighter body on the Pro is probably better for its design even though it does feel more cheap and plasticky. Since you are typing on the bottom portion of the device it would feel strange to have a noticeable about of weight imbalance at the top.

On Friday night I decided to switch back from the Droid Pro to the Droid 2.² The Droid 2 and the Droid Pro use the same model battery (BP6X) but my Droid 2 gets a real 2 days of battery life on a single charge; with WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth on and moderate to heavy use. So far the Droid Pro can’t make it through a day. It also feels slightly warm to the touch on the back (even when it’s off), making me think something is running that shouldn’t be, or that the battery management isn’t working correctly (though I have them on the same “maximum battery” setting). I wonder if a software update is imminent.

I’d gotten pretty comfortable with the Droid 2 over the last month, I’m curious to see how I’ll feel about it this weekend after using the Droid Pro for the past few days. Will I be able to go back to a landscape keyboard? Have I managed to ruin both devices for myself by finding things I like about each that the other is lacking?

UPDATE: I found that I’d accidentally left push email enabled on one of my accounts. Turning that off has the Pro battery life on par with the Droid 2.

UPDATE #2: Turning off push email (in K-9 mail) helped, but was not a solution. I couldn’t consistently coax a day of battery out of the Droid Pro so I’m returning it and going back to the Droid 2.

1. I hadn’t realized that making a mobile keyboard was so hard, but it must be harder than it appears since RIM is about the only ones that can get it right. [back]
2. Kudos to Verizon for making this easy to do on their website. [back]

• This is my third Air. I previously had the first generation (SSD) and the second generation (also SSD) 13″ models.
• The size is really amazing. Perhaps more amazing, the machine doesn’t feel fundamentally compromised.
• The 11″ is a very capable replacement for the previous generation 13″ Air for everything except prolonged development, look for mine on eBay soon.
• When using the 11″ Air, I feel like I’m using a Mac, not a netbook.
• The higher resolution screen makes the Air feel somewhat like a previous generation 13″ MacBook.
• The smaller form factor increases your likelihood of crouching or slumping over the machine.
• I don’t know what the claims of “instant on” are about. This is just as fast and slow to start up and wake from sleep as my old Air.
• I can only assume that the folks touting the speed of the new Air hadn’t used an old one, or another laptop with an SSD. Performance is good, but consistent with previous Macs laptops with SSDs.
• I expect this to be the only laptop I bring while traveling, unless I’ll be somewhere for a longer period of time and doing more serious development.
• I am carrying the Air with me every day, it fits nicely in some of my iPad bags.
• I can’t believe that the fully loaded 11″ model is roughly half the cost of the original SSD Air; with twice the storage and RAM.
• Since laptops are not my primary development machines (I have a desktop at work and home), the primary feature of the for me is size Air. I wouldn’t consider a 13″.
• When unused and asleep, the battery drains pretty significantly. After a couple of days, it’s down to ~20-50% from a full charge.

I have some specific criticisms of this case, but I was pleased and impressed by the response from Steve at Temple Bags. I’m looking forward to seeing their next offerings.

#

My conclusion: it’s nice, but a bit of a niche case (mainly due to cost).

#

Check it out if you’re in the market for such a beast.

#

This is the first positive review I’ve put up, which should make a number of folks who have been bugging me requesting this happy. Right guys? Anyways, check it out if you’re in the market for an iPad bag. I’ll shoot for having another review up in a week or two.

The BlackBerry App World is trying to provide a similar service for BlackBerry users, however BlackBerry developers are also able to distribute and/or sell their apps directly from their own sites and/or through other online etailers. I think this is a better model overall, but it’s far from perfect.

BerryWeather (called BeWeather in the App World) is a bloody fantastic weather application. I’ve been using it since September, and it was the first app I purchased through the App World (Sept. 9th, for $9.99).

$10 is a bit steep for a weather app – especially contrasted with the great free options for the iPhone, but it’s beautiful, works wonderfully, and I am happy to pay for good software.

About a month or two ago, right around the time I upgraded to OS 4.7, BerryWeather started getting times confused. Instead of showing the weather for the next few hours, the times were off and it was showing me nighttime weather in the morning. Very annoying.

I tried:

• reinstalling
• contacting support (even sent a screenshot, never received a reply)
• doing a reset

but nothing helped.

Then I saw that there was a 2.0 release on their web site – I had been running 1.5.x. I deleted my 1.5.x install and installed 2.0 and voila – everything was working properly again. According to the notes in 2.0, this version uses a new data source (WUnderground). It also had an upgrade price of $3.99.

Here’s where things got messy.

The 2.0 version was not available in App World (it is now). The 2.0 version was available from MobiHand, but since I hadn’t purchased from them originally I could only buy the 2.0 version at the full $9.99 price. Also, I just bought this thing less than 3 months ago, charging for an upgrade already is a bit ridiculous.

So in order to purchase the upgrade at the appropriate price, I had to wait several weeks for the App World to push out the update.

A bunch of things are frustrating here:

1. I had to buy an ugprade after 3 months because the old version stopped working properly. Paid upgrades should be to add features, not to fix problems.
2. There is no set of rules about how pricing is done – no expectations that the user can feel comfortable with.
3. I got no response from Bellshare’s support.
4. The App World didn’t have the newest version available for purchase while other etailers did.
5. I couldn’t purchase an upgrade from a different etailer (one who had the latest version).

So there you have it. Another app store, but still plenty of problems. For all it’s problems, the iTunes App Store delivers on a consistent set of expectations for its users. The App World may be a better model for developers, but it doesn’t deliver the same simple experience to end users.

I’m not entirely convinced we’re making progress in the mobile arena. There is lots of churn and activity, but I’m not sure things are getting better. Hopefully all of that churn and activity will be better channeled and directed as people learn and understand the space better.

The only complication with this is that I got the info on Monday and my free trial was expiring on Tuesday. If I bought MobileMe from Amazon on Monday, I wouldn’t receive the activation key until Tuesday at the earliest. This was a concern because I had no idea how MobileMe would handle it when I canceled my account, then tried to re-activate it without having ever had a paid account.

In the end I chose to cancel mainly out of curiosity, and ordered the MobileMe subscription from Amazon (with free 2-day delivery via Prime). It’s really annoying that they didn’t offer digital delivery of the activation key, but they didn’t so I waited until today to receive my little box with a piece of paper in it with the activation key. I was without MobileMe for a day, but that was hardly a concern as I only use it for contact sync.

When I received the MobileMe activation key on Wednesday, I went back to me.com and signed in with my old account credentials. I was allowed in, then shown a note saying I needed to activate my account. I followed the steps, clicked the “I have an activation key” button, entered the key and that was that.

I was pretty sure something in this process would break. My experience with software, especially sync, is that edge cases are not well handled. I really thought it would break.

It didn’t.

I was able to activate the old trial account, and my sync just started working again. I didn’t get dozens of duplicated contacts or have to do an “overwrite this machine on next sync” or anything. It just worked.

Nice job, Apple. I’m impressed.

I tried hard to avoid this, having tried pretty much every other solution out there, but none of them worked properly across several Macs plus a BlackBerry.

In the end I just need contact sync that works, and so far MobileMe is the only one that hasn’t failed me. My 60 day trial is almost up, and I’m going to go ahead and let it bill me and stop wasting time trying other options.

There are two major exceptions to this.

1. Invisible Shield – For every mobile device I’ve had in the last 3 years or so (including digital cameras), I’ve used an Invisible Shield screen protector. I just put one on my BlackBerry Tour – I actually didn’t feel comfortable using the device without it. I think the longest I’ve used one is 3 years, and they last just like they claim to – never had a problem with one.
2. ShaggyMac Laptop Screen Protector – I got my first one of these when I got my black MacBook in 2006 and have had one for every laptop since. They prevent key marks from appearing on your laptop screen and fit and wear beautifully.

If you damage your screen, it’s going to drive you crazy using the device – at least it does for me. When I put in the order for a new device, I order one of these at the same time. Both are highly recommended.

Yes, the same laptop bag I’ve been carrying for over a year.

Incidentally, this is by far the best MacBook Air bag I could find.

It’s the Timbuk2 Blogger, 2007 model. I had to do some looking to find the older model, which has an internal laptop compartment rather than the more rigid external zipper laptop compartment.

For the Air I was looking for something that would hold the laptop vertically¹ and not have that stiff “this is a box at the end of a string” feel to it. I tried a number of bags including the STM Alley and the Coder. Both were returned because the laptop fit too snugly in them. This made the bag stand away from your body instead of being more compact against you.

The Blogger has been a great “briefcase” for me. It compresses well when mostly empty but will hold a surprising amount of stuff. And of course it has the famous Timbuk2 quality – so you have to choose to replace it rather than it wearing out. After a year of daily use, mine still looks new.

1. This vertical style laptop bag must be gaining in popularity as some looking around now shows a lot more options than a year ago. [back]

Things to like:

• Great browser.
• Great integration with Google Calendar, Gmail, etc.
• Fast Sprint 3G network.
• Crisp screen.
• Very nice maps/driving directions app which keeps working in the background – could have replaced my TomTom easily.
• Background processing and multi-tasking.

There were also some things not to like:

• It feels slow/underpowered.
• The keyboard is the first physical keyboard I’ve used that might be worse than the iPhone’s soft keyboard.
• It gets very hot during extended use (like with the driving directions).
• Form factor, while compact, was a little thick and the plastic body scratches easily.
• Lacks 3rd party apps – we’ll see how that changes in the future.
• Copy/paste is a bit hard to use.

Ultimately, I’d choose the BlackBerry Bold or iPhone 3GS over the Pre; but if I had to use the Pre for some reason, I think I’d be just fine with it. I’m interested in developing for the webOS platform, but am a bit in “wait and see” mode right now.

I basically narrowed my choices to the Dell Mini 9 and the Lenovo S10, after reviewing the available choices and reading up on the process of getting Mac OS X running on them. I decided to order both so that I could try them out – the major difference I expected was going to be the form factor, and you can’t really go to a store to test them out.

My initial reaction after receiving them was that the Dell was much more pleasing to hold/touch. It was a little more compact, felt more balanced, and I was surprised to like the taper effect (thicker in the back). The Lenovo feels heavier, less balanced, etc.

The specs on the machines were about the same, except the Lenovo had a 160GB 5400rpm HD while the Dell had a 32GB SSD drive. I’m a big fan of SSD drives after having a MacBook Air for about a year, so this was a big plus for the Dell in my book.

I tried to get the Lenovo running on OS X first using the great video tutorial here (with follow-up here and here). While the videos were great, I wasn’t initially able to get the USB drive working properly and thought I’d bricked the machine. Turns out, removing the battery for 30 seconds or so brought it right back.

After a few more attempts I was still unsuccessful, so I decided to try getting OS X running on the Dell. This was dead simple. Follow the instructions here – they worked great for me. That night, I happily took home the Dell Mini and used it a bit. That was when the honeymoon period started to wane.

The Dell form factor is smaller and feels nicer, but at the expense of reasonably sized keys. Some of the guys in the office couldn’t type on it at all. I was able to – but not that easily. Some of the key positioning was awkward as well – particularly the apostrophe/quote (‘/”) key being on the bottom row with the spacebar instead of the home row of keys. It was usable, but not comfortable.

After a day of using the Dell, I decided to try the install on the Lenovo again.

The Lenovo keyboard is far superior to the Dell. I can touch-type on it with few mistakes and little concentration. That ended up being the killer feature for me. The Lenovo isn’t perfect – among its problems are:

• A small trackpad, with uncomfortably stiff buttons.
• No SSD (which I’m solving by getting a 3rd party drive).
• Poor battery life (which I may solve with a 6 or 9 cell batter from ebay).
• A bigger power brick/cord.

On the plus side, the Lenovo doesn’t experience the “0″ issue on wake (acts like the “0″ key is being held down, hit any key to snap it out of it) that the Dell does.

I brought the Lenovo with me to SxSW and was really pleased with it as a conference machine. Easy to get out and use in cramped quarters – easy and light to carry in a small bag (no backpack or messenger bag needed). It’s not replacing my Air anytime soon – I don’t see myself doing development on it – but it’s great for quick communication needs, browsing and note taking. I’m looking forward to getting the more stable SSD drive to make it a real “take anywhere” machine.

I’m probably going to put the Dell Mini 9 on eBay. If you’re in the market for one with 2GB RAM, a 32GB SSD and OS X already installed, let me know. No longer available.