NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Why simultaneous mobile voice and data matters
Two points worth making just to clarify matters:
1) Verizon LTE phones will have the ability technically to do voice and
data simultaneously. Depending on the person telling the story, the
Verizon version of the iPhone was "rushed" to the market, so LTE support
was not designed in by Apple, or else Apple "refused" to put LTE on the
iPhone to avoid annoying its partner ATT by putting out a phone that in
all dimensions worked "better" than the ATT iPhone. Take your pick.
Thus it is likely that the first voice/data-simultaneous phones from
Verizon will be Android-based.
2) While Apple finally has "multitasking" in iOS 4, it still doesn't
work as well as the Android multitasking that has been there since day
1. To be really *useful*, you need multitasking to benefit from voice/data.
The most obvious use of multitasking and simultaneous voice data that
all of us Android users enjoy is the ability to use the Google
Navigation feature (which uses the Internet for data like traffic, etc.)
while using the phone hands-free. I have to snicker when I listen to my
iPhone-centric friends tell me that Apple is "far superior" to Android
today. There are a range of Google-specific apps on Android that work
*far better* than Apple apps.
I learned long ago that when a systems designer or a programmer (read
Apple or Verizon here) says: "but no user will ever want to do that",
usually there is a great deal of innovation that will matter to users a
lot, but the systems designer and programmer just is kind of lazy and
unimaginative - or maybe enormously *arrogant*. Apple's CEO, or ATT's,
or Verizon's, would never be accused of being arrogant... nah.
They all just are humble servants of their customers... :-)
[ Google Maps Navigation running simultaneously with a hands-free
voice call is very much a "killer app" demonstration of why
simultaneous voice/data (and true multitasking) are nothing to
be sniffed at! I've done this many times myself, and of course
it just *works* -- which is the whole point.
-- Lauren Weinstein
NNSquad Moderator ]