Prop A: San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center Earthquake Safety Bonds, 2008
NO I agree that it is critical to rebuild San Francisco’s lone trauma center and I want to support Prop A. However, the opposition argument raises serious concerns, first and foremost that the new hospital building will be constructed between two brick structures not scheduled for retrofit before 2015, thus “a catastrophic earthquake could crush the new hospital.” The rebuttal does not address what strikes me as a very serious objection. I am further disturbed that the pages and pages of paid arguments in support are mostly underwritten by the same handful of unions over and over, as if the project is being railroaded through by determined interest groups. I believe that rebuilding General Hospital is a critical priority, and in the unlikely event that Prop A fails to pass this year, I hope a better proposal can be offered next year.
Prop B: Establishing Affordable Housing Fund
NO Affordable housing is a laudable objective. I do not see the need to write this priority in to the budget, rather than trusting the city with the flexibility to address budget priorities.
Prop C: Prohibiting City Employees from Serving on Charter Boards and Commissions
NO Avoiding conflicts of interest is a best practice. I can also fathom that a city employee could conceivably act on a board, bringing valuable perspective while avoiding ethical conflicts. The opposition argument is well put: “this is a solution in search of a problem.”
Prop D: Financing Pier 70 Waterfront District Development Plan upon Board of Supervisors’ Approval
— This sounds like a good idea but I have no feelings either way.
Prop E: Changing the Number of Signatures Required to Recall City Officials
YES Signature verification may not be strictly necessary but it strikes me as a best practice. Adoption ought to help head off potentially abusive recall petitions in the future.
Prop F: Holding All Scheduled City Elections Only in Even-Numbered Years
YES As a voter who bothers to read through the issues, every election takes some effort. I’m happy to do this every other year, saving me some homework and the city some expense.
Prop G: Allowing Retirement System Credit for Unpaid Parental Leave
—Zzzzzzzz.
Prop H: Setting Clean Energy Deadlines; Studying Options for Providing Energy; Changing Revenue Bond Authority to Pay for Public Utility Facilities
YES While I am wary of the power this invests in the government and PUC to screw things up, I do feel that Global Warming is possibly the biggest threat we face as a species, and taking bold, risky action to set an example in this crisis is worthwhile. The unending barrage of lobbying against this proposition on the part of PG&E implies that municipal power may even be a wise investment, not only for the environment but for city government and utility consumers.
Prop I: Creating the Office of an Independent Rate Payer Advocate
YES This sounds like a sensible check on the powers of a public entity, and a potentially wise investment to have made if Prop H passes.
Prop J: Creating a Historic Preservation Commission
YES This sounds like a sensible proposal with near-universal support. Hopefully such a commission can preserve and improve historical preservation in an iconic, world-class city that receives substantial benefit from tourism.
Prop K: Changing the Enforcement of Laws Related to Prostitution and Sex Workers
YES I am concerned that Proposition K eliminates the funding source for the First Offenders Prostitution Program, which funds diversion for sex workers to leave the trade. I am also concerned that K may allow pimping. I believe these concerns are overshadowed by the possibility that this will empower sex workers to report rape and other abusive situations to police, which I hope will open the system to more effectively target abusive pimps and Johns and ideally investigate and prosecute human traffickers. If Prop K passes I believe the city and private organizations must act to fill in the gap of the unfunded diversion program and work with sex workers to target abuse and trafficking. The comptroller estimates a savings of $1.6 to $3.2 million in annual enforcement costs, some of which could perhaps be redirected to cover the $250k presently available to diversion. The city also has a progressive, tolerant populace and numerous organizations that ought to do a fair job of supporting sex workers and helping them move on to better lives.
Prop L: Funding the Community Justice Center
NO The CJC sounds like a good institution, but this really is a Board of Supervisors issue to maintain funding that does not require voter intervention.
Prop M: Changing the Residential Rent Ordinance to Prohibit Specific Acts of Harassment of Tenants by Landlords
NO San Francisco is very strong on tenants’ rights. I don’t see any pressing need for this proposition.
Prop N: Changing Real Property Transfer Tax Rates
NO While I am sympathetic to solar energy I do not see the need to increase this tax. The solar energy provision sounds like a special-interest sweetener to pass an otherwise non-compelling revenue enhancement effort.
Prop O: Replacing the Emergency Response Fee with an Access Line Tax and Revising the Telephone Users Tax
YES This is a straightforward reform to 911 funding that replaces a “fee” with an equivalent “tax” to avoid a legal challenge, with updates to cover VoIP services and the like. Opposed mainly by Libertarians, so it must be sensible.
Prop P: Changing the Composition of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority Board
NO This sounds like a pissing match between the Mayor and Everyone Else.
Prop Q: Modifying the Payroll Expense Tax
YES A straightforward tax reform that closes a loophole, raises a tax ceiling for small businesses, increases city revenue, and upsets the Republican Party. Sweet!
Prop R: Renaming the Oceanside Water Treatment Plant
NO Fucking hilarious. But I’d sooner put Bush in the past than saddle critical public infrastructure with such infamy. This honor may be more appropriate to a superfund site or a toxic / radioactive waste storage facility. Nevertheless this cheeky proposition makes me glad to live in a city with a healthy sense of humor.
Prop S: Policy Regarding Budget Set-Asides and Identification of Replacement Funds
YES A sensible appeal by the mayor to have set-asides from propositions “clean up after themselves” after 10 years.
Prop T: Free and Low-Cost Substance Abuse Treatment Programs
NO Substance abuse treatment is a wise and righteous investment, but budget discretion is best left with the Board of Supervisors.
Prop U: Policy Against Funding the Deployment of Armed Forces in Iraq
NO This is a federal issue and a matter of conscience on the part of our elected officials.
Prop V: Policy Against Terminating Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) Programs in Public High Schools
YES The military should reverse its self-destructive discrimination against gay service members. The city of San Francisco should reverse its self-indulgent hostility toward the patriotic duty of military service. Just as openly homosexual people should be allowed to serve in our national defense, so to should high school students interested in military service be afforded the opportunity to enroll in JROTC.
For both the School Board and the Community College board, voters are allowed to select up to four candidates. My selections are presented in the order the names appear in the voter information guide.
San Francisco School Board
Marigrace Cohen has worked throughout SFUSD “in the trenches” for four decades. This should prove an invaluable perspective on how the district really works. Support for JROTC also stands out.
Omar Khalif is obviously a proud parent, whose focus is on the needs of students and parents striving to achieve within the public schools. His emphasis on school choice and freedom for students to access all available programs resonates with me.
Emily Murase brings diverse business and public policy experience to the table. A combination of being a public school parent and executive skills should serve the school board well.
Jill Wynns has served sixteen years. I am concerned that an “establishment” candidate may offer experience but may not facilitate needed changes. Her endorsement by my local supervisor, Carmen Chu, who should have a good perspective on the desires of local parents tips the scales for me to favor Jill Wynns.
San Francisco Community College Board
Dr Natalie Berg brings considerable experience, including three terms as board president and 30 years as a teacher.
Chris Jackson outlines a nice agenda that speaks to contemporary concerns. His experience working with various organizations and the state legislature hints at a flexible and energetic approach to getting things done.
Steve Ngo offers a moving personal narrative that underlines a bone-deep appreciation of vocational education. He comes across as a man with the drive, perspective and talent to tackle the job.
YES I love trains, and high speed rail between city centers is in every way superior to short airplane flights. Trains can be powered by renewable energy and California may serve as a role model for the rest of the nation in the post-petroleum age.
Prop 2: Standards for Confining Farm Animals
YES We should treat animals humanely. If this means increased food costs that is just what we pay for the privilege of eating other animals. Opponents claim that production will move out of state. This may be true in the short term. In the long term, I believe that food with the “California” brand will be regarded as food of superior quality. Further, industrial scale farming has a serious negative impact on the environment. If proposition 2 makes family-scale farming more competitive, we are all done a favor.
Prop 3: Children’s Hospital Bond Act
NO We have plenty of bond money already available for children’s hospitals. I see no need to solicit additional debt for the state government especially in a tight credit market.
Prop 4: Waiting Period and Parental Notification before Termination of Minors’ Pregnancy
NO Teen pregnancy and abortion troubles me. I believe that in most cases parents should be involved. Abortion providers ought to counsel that women make this important decision with the help of those who love them. I do not believe this is a place for the government to mandate personal behavior and choices.
Prop 5: Nonviolent Drug Offenses Sentencing, Parole, and Rehabilitation
NO I favor rehabilitation as a means to reduce the excessive imprisonment of our people. I feel that sentencing authority should rest with judges, and I am uncomfortable that this proposition “limits accountability to incarcerate offenders who commit certain drug crimes, break drug treatment rules or violate parole.”
Prop 6: Police and Law Enforcement Funding
NO The state budget is in a big mess without me setting budget priorities: this is a decision that should be made by the legislature.
Prop 7: Renewable Energy Generation
NO I support renewable energy mandates but this proposition is confusing.
Prop 8: Eliminate Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry
HELL NO The state should not be in the business of eliminating rights.
Prop 9: Criminal Justice System Victims’ Right. Parole.
NO I do not see the need for this.
Prop 10: Alternative Fuels and Renewable Energy
NO I like alternative fuel vehicles and renewable energy, but I do not favor putting the state further in hock to subsidize certain vehicles.
Prop 11: Redistricting
YES I am sick of gerrymandering.
Prop 12: Veterans’ Bond Act of 2008
YES This is a bond to expand a self-supporting benefit for veterans, placed on the ballot by a unanimous vote of the legislature.
We were talking about on-call at lunch today, and many of us recounted that on more than one occasion we had woken up immediately prior to receiving a page that would have woken us up. I recounted an experience where I dreamed that a server was crashing right before I received a page about a server crashing. These could be random anecdotes, or perhaps premonitions. Maybe we understand the patterns of outages on some really deep inarticulate level, or maybe we just wake up a lot or dream of computers crashing but we are only apt to remember these incidences if the pager brings us to full consciousness. Who knows?
As I was sitting here with my headphones on just now not listening to anything I heard the blit blit blit blit blit of radio interference, probably my mobile device exchanging data. I had a fanciful idea that maybe, just maybe, people can actually sense radio waves in some manner and that those of us who have developed a strong Pavlovian response to a paging device might be able to connect a particular pattern with a particular outcome. When the pager near the bed starts to chatter at 2AM maybe there is some part of the human being that can see that pattern.
I have long thought the Internet needed a tip jar. I felt so strongly about this that back in 2003 I spent some time building my own online feed aggregator, which had the ambition of collecting feedback (like Digg) and later monetizing by allowing users, should they desire, to “share the wealth” back to site authors. Say, if you’d marked 50 pages that you like, and decided to chuck in $5, the site could take your $5 and try to give, say, 10 cents to each site. In this way people could gain some modest remuneration for the Internet publishing efforts.
Of course, that was a bit ambitious for me and the project was scrapped when I scored full-time employment.
Briefly, the idea is you can earmark sites for tips of various sizes, then send in a few dollars via PayPal. Tipjoy will then pass the tips along to site authors. They profit by collecting a 3% transaction fee, and I assume they get some float off their PayPal balance as well. At this time authors “cash out” via Amazon.com gift certificates or by sending the money off to charity. That is for legal reasons though it sounds like they hope to traffic in cash in the future.They recently added the ability to cash out via PayPal as well, and deposit to a checking account is a planned feature.
I added a tip jar down in the feedback section below. I set the default to a modest 2 cents. I’m more curious than anything as to how many folks would bother to spread the karma.
I was just mulling over proposition 8 and how happy I am to see that Google and Apple have each taken a public stand against it. So, I figured I’d shoot a brief message off to upper management suggesting how proud I would be if my employer were also to take a stand in defense of civil rights.
Then I wondered that other people may have similar sentiments and similar inclinations to share their feelings with their management. I’m not holding my breath that my company will take a stand, but it doesn’t hurt to share the idea.
I consider it a hard-won blessing that I work in an industry where I can feel comfortable openly expressing my support for the rights of homosexual people.
UPDATE: Due to multiple requests, a “sample text” that folks should feel free to steal / adapt for their own purposes:
Boss,
I think it has been great that both Google and Apple Computer have both publicly stood in defense of the diversity of their employees and their community and made a public stand against Proposition 8.
I have been a Sidekick user since the black and white days. Prior to receiving my G1 on Tuesday evening, I had used my Sidekick 2 pretty heavily for nearly four years. I loved its solid feel and the membrane keyboard. The applications mostly worked together pretty well, though the web browser was butt-slow. I have high hopes that as the spiritual reincarnation of the Danger team, the Android team will spawn a worthy successor to the Sidekick 2, which I regard as a peculiarly satisfying pinnacle in the evolution of the mobile phone.
I have been playing with my G1 for three days now. Here’s how it has been so far . . .
Setup
I fault the Quick Start guide for going over what the buttons do and the user interface, then half way through the booklet it tells you how to put the battery inside the phone. That was somewhat annoying because the very first thing I wanted to know is how do I get the battery in the phone and turn it on. Transferring the SIM card was easy enough, and the “tap the Android” process worked rather well.
Unfortunately, the night I tried to first use the phone there was a bug that surfaced in Google’s internal systems so I could not log on to the phone through my hosted domain account. It tossed out a bizarre error code and as usual Google’s support was no help: another customer with Premier hosted domains was incorrectly informed that the G1 didn’t support domain logons.
In retrospect, I should have tried T-Mobile technical support, who have through the years done a solid job at escalating Sidekick issues appropriately. I give the device an extra bonus point for putting the “factory reset” feature within the options panel, rather than making it a voodoo process that involves a paper clip.
Hardware
I wish the Android could be incarnated within the Sidekick 2’s hardware. The Sidekick 2 is built like a tank, with a solid feel and rubber bumpers. You could bash a fool in the skull with a Sidekick 2 if you had to, wipe off the blood, and get back to writing an email on that awesome rubber membrane keyboard.
The G1 is smaller in each dimension, and feels more rickety. It is solid enough, but it is no Sidekick 2. My biggest gripe is that the keyboard, while not truly awful, leaves something to be desired: there is little tactile feel and it took a little retraining to hold my right thumb further out over the keyboard in order to clear the right-side wedge. I am not sure how that will do for prolonged typing. The space key is also narrowed and at least once I have typed an ‘@’ instead of a space.
I like that it charges through the Mini USB port. Yes, I would prefer if it had a proper headphone jack, but that’s not a huge deal for me.
I really look forward to the day that the screen rotates based on how you are holding it.
Gmail
The Gmail client is very nice: it integrates really well with Gmail on the web and my contacts list. If you compose a new message it can check not only your contacts list but also other addresses that you have corresponded with, which is nice. When I read a message on the phone it is marked as read in Gmail and vice versa. It is also easy enough to switch between tags.
Camera
The Sidekick 2 takes muddy pictures on a good day. The G1 has a 3 megapixel camera that takes some pretty nice photos under decent lighting conditions. Unfortunately, the G1 fails a few things the Sidekick 2 got right: the lens is right where I’m apt to put my thumb, there’s no flash, the shutter lag is substantial. The Pictures application is decoupled from the Camera application, so you need to switch from the one to the other to review your photos.
Contacts
I was at first disappointed that there is no practical way to export my contacts from the Sidekick 2. I went through my Gmail Contacts list and cleaned everyone up, integrating phone numbers to email addresses. I had a lot of fun finding pictures of everyone on the web and cropping them into my contacts list. There seemed several instances where updates I made on the phone or on the web didn’t make it across. And one contact I swear got eaten and had to be re-added.
One feature lacking from the Sidekick 2 is the ability to put friends in groups. At the very least it is nice to be able to pull up a group of coworkers versus the rest of your friends. Maybe there is a “tag” feature I have overlooked, or things will improve in the future.
Another unfortunate bug is that in the Gmail interface, you can not add a photo to a contact who has only a phone number.
Web Browser
The Sidekick 2 web browser was horribly horribly slow, and would tend to get upset if a page had too much JavaScript. The G1 web browser is fairly zippy.
That said, the interface can be extremely frustrating: wide web pages require a lot of dragging up and down and back and forth. Sometimes columns of text will be shrunk to page width, but not always. You can not easily resize text. (You couldn’t do this on the Sidekick 2 at all.) The Google Reader app works well enough but there is no way to make the font larger. (I hate squinting.) I am not yet used to the zoom feature: you need to hold your finger down on the screen, without clicking a link or scrolling, then you need to go catch the + or – button that appears and hold that down . . .
The Sidekick 2 allowed for bookmark folders: the G1 web browser has no folders or even a provision to reorder the bookmarks. This is really frustrating because one of the great features to me was to have a folder of Nextmuni bookmarks so I could quickly pull up information on approaching transit vehicles. I look forward to this being fixed. It would be even more awesome if bookmarks could be synced with say a Firefox subfolder on my computers.
The web page links are often quite tiny, and my big beefy man fingers are constantly clicking on the wrong thing.
Messaging
The G1 data plan includes I believe 400 SMS, whereas the Sidekick data plan was $5 cheaper and included unlimited SMS. I like that the SMS application groups messages by sender as in Gmail: tapping a thread brings up what amounts to a conversation with a contact. Deleting SMS messages is a little annoying: you get to confirm that you will delete an entire thread.
The Sidekick 2 supported AOL instant messenger and you could add a Yahoo instant messenger application. What it did do well was to proxy the connection through the Sidekick service so that if you lost reception temporarily messages would queue on either side and be delivered asynchronously. I do not know if the G1 does this.
The G1 supports Google / Jabber, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL within a single IM application. I prefer the way Pidgin works where contacts are grouped together regardless of their protocol. This IM application seems to require a lot of navigating up and down the hierarchy: I have no idea if it will be much fun if you are chatting with a friend through Google at the same time as you are chatting through Yahoo. Anyway, I don’t intend to use instant messaging much.
Maps
The Sidekick 2 had no navigation features. The G1 Maps application so far has been slow, inaccurate, and unstable: it crashed once and other times it would take a long time to inaccurately figure out its location. GPS is disabled by default to conserve battery power. There’s no turn-by-turn navigation. The first time I tried to grab directions the service was down, and the next time it took some fidgeting to figure out how to tell it that I wanted directions to the destination from my current location. (Click on the destination label on the map and then hit Menu > Directions.) Another frustration is that if I go to my location and then switch to Street View, I still have to click on the map near my location, and then figure out how to navigate the street view back over to the original location.
Map searches are very slow (often 10 seconds or more) even on the 3G network.
The Maps app could use some polish. I also need to get used to it. I am very disappointed that there is no transit support.
Calendar
Yay! My mobile phone now syncs with my calendar! I can not really offer a thoughtful review of the Calendar application, because whenever I launch it the user interface makes me want to vomit. I guess it will take some getting used to.
EvilFidgety Touchschreen
The “desktop” pans across three screens, which offers some possibility. It is easy enough to trash the analog clock widget on the middle screen. Alas, the touch screen takes some getting used to. For example, the first dozen times I tried to trash the Google Search widget I failed and concluded that Google had hard-wired it so that I was required to keep that widget on my desktop. I didn’t want the widget, and I hated having it forced upon me: how evil! After ranting about that here I gave it another try and successfully trashed the thing. I’m sorry I doubted your integrity, Google! Unfortunately, the wide Google search bar on the right screen can not be trashed. I google-search from within the web browser. I do not need nor do I want a Google search bar widget on my phone “desktop”. Forcing it upon me is evil and Google should apologize.
Android Market
Both phones have a marketplace where you can shop for and install additional applications. The Android Market is new and somewhat sparse. Apps download and install in the background, and have ratings and reviews so you can avoid the schlocky ones. The “Translate” app is kinda cute and potentially handy. And “cab4me lite” promises to help you map out your location and then call a local cab company, which sounds awfully neat.
What I really want is a nice note pad–I was always scribbling notes on my Sidekick. I also want an SSH client: preferably one that supports key authentication. Give it some time. I guess if I urgently desire a notepad I should jump on the developer tutorial.
Summary
People ask me what I think of the G1. I answer that it is okay and it will get nicer with time. the conventional wisdom that it is “good for a 1.0 device” works for me. If pressed I say that I miss the solid feel and membrane keyboard of my Sidekick 2. I like to think that in the next two years the Android platform will mature and someone will release a model with a form factor more to my taste.
My happy joy toy arrived today. So far, no love. It ties in to your Gmail account, see? But I have a hosted Gmail account. Rumor has it that hosted gmail accounts work, but when I try to log on I get this error message:
Sorry…
This account cannot be used on the phone because it is missing the following application: cl. Please contact the domain administrator for toldme.com or sign in using another account.
Alas, there is no information to be found on the Internets, and since I have a mere “standard” hosted gmail account I am not entitled to contact Google about the problem. So, I posted a message to their web “help forum” and we’ll see if someone knows. Meanwhile I guess I switch back to my old Sidekick and figure out how to migrate all the data I have stored on that device to the new thingus. With any luck I can shake down some Google employees for some technical support. I hope this isn’t another general case of “eff you hosted domain losers!!”
NOTE: A Google employee has already offered the guess that “cl” may be the Calendar application, so I’m seeing if I can make something happen . . .
UPDATE: According to a reliable source, there is a bug related to registering G1 accounts on hosted domains that surfaced this evening, October 21. They are working feverishly to fix this issue, and I hope we’ll be online tomorrow, October 22.
UPDATE:dannyman@toldme.com is now using his G1 as intended. Yay!!
My new toy is due to arrive on Wednesday. This morning I asked myself “where is my G1?” I cast about on the ‘net for answers. T-Mobile’s web site explained to look up the tracking number on at UPS’es web site, so I wrote them and asked where’s my tracking number? Then I peeked at the forums and saw that I can use my cell number as my tracking number! Pretty slick!
The next thing I did after that was to get my real tracking number from the UPS web site, stick that in Google, then bookmark the link to that page so I can just check that bookmark over the next couple of days to see if my widget has arrived yet in the mail.
In terms of spelling, I favor “colocation” or “co-location” to describe the facility where the servers go. My mind says “colocation is the fruit of cooperation.”
A lot of people use the word “collocation” which is a linguistic term to describe the frequency of word sequences. I believe this term is favored by sales and marketing people because when they type it in the word processor it appears without a red squiggle underneath.
What annoys me the most about “collocation” is that the pronunciation is different:
colocation: “KOH-location”
collocation: “COW-location”
For what it is worth, Google implies that the Internet is still 3:1 in favor of “colocation” when searching for a “colocation facility”:
The Linguists responsible for the word “collocation” have another term for people who use the word incorrectly: “hypercorrection.” Hypercorrection is when someone who aspires to greater social prestige will attempt to use what they regard as more prestigious language, but they end up getting it wrong.
I tittered at this comic last month, where the Android phone defeated the iPhone in a brag-off by claiming “we’ll have porn apps.” It is all about the open platform, right?
Unacceptable Content. Google has listed practices that are unacceptable, prohibited and will result in having your account banned. They are: Nudity & Sexually Explicit Material, Violence/Bullying/Threats, Hate Speech, Age (must be 13+), Impersonation, Private Info, Copyright Infringement, Illegal Activities, Malicious Products, Prohibited Products.
Way to go, Google! Of course, I think you’ll be able to install applications from outside of the marketplace, and besides I hear that social networking is now more popular than pornography.
I should receive my first new mobile phone since 2004 on October 22. I don’t really need a new phone: the old Sidekick 2 is built like a tank and shows no sign of giving up the ghost any time soon. But I went and pre-ordered a G1 for three reasons:
1) I have a friend on Google’s Android team.
2) To annoy the iPhone weenies.
3) My employer made its targets, so I spend a little of my bonus check.
One crucial improvement over the iPhone: a Menu button. It summons a panel of big buttons for functions related to what you’re doing. It’s the equivalent of right-clicking a computer mouse.
“Right mouse button!” HA!
Where Android really falls down is in the iPod department. There’s no companion program like iTunes to sync your photos, music and videos to the phone; you’re expected to drag these items to the phone manually after connecting via USB cable to your Mac or PC. More time-consuming fussiness.
This is a win for me: I hate iTunes. Dragging and dropping files is just the ticket, in my book. I’ve been dealing with that interface metaphor for fifteen years and its more comfortable than dealing with the quirks of some new software package. (Back when I had lots of issues with iTunes doing stuff like copying my library over twice.) That, and I run Linux desktops.
Some of the goodies in Android will reward the iPhone holdouts: voice dialing, picture messaging, built-in audio recording and the ability to turn any song into a ring tone are all included — no charge.
Voice dialing? That should be nice. And audio recording might be fun, too. Too bad the camera is supposedly crap, and no video. But that’s why I have my Canon.
The big news is the physical keyboard. It’s not pure joy, though. The keys don’t click down much. Worse, you have to keep turning the phone 90 degrees from its customary vertical orientation every time you need to enter text. That gets old fast. And it’s bizarre that, even though the phone contains a tilt sensor like the iPhone’s, it’s not hooked up to the screen. Turning the phone 90 degrees to get a wider look at a photo or Web page doesn’t rotate the image. You have to do that manually, using a menu or by popping open the keyboard, which makes no sense.
The keyboard is my biggest concern. I think the Sidekick 2 keyboard is nearly ideal and it is a big reason I shun the iPhone. Software bugs (sounds like the e-mail client is a mess) can be addressed by future patches or possibly third-party applications. I like to think rotation can be sorted out down the road.
Overall, it sounds like the G1 will be the dowdier, more adaptable PC to the flashy smugness that is the iPhone. And, I have to admit, while I love the turtleneck sweater I bought in France, I am a PC guy. (I think that’s the point of the new Microsoft ads: Bill Gates is as big a schmuck as Jerry Seinfeld or any one else.)
Lastly, this is just sad:
Finally, there’s no headphone jack. (Hello?!) If you want to use headphones, you have to buy and carry a special adapter that connects to the USB jack.
