Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

This is where we call out the tech moves that seem odd, out of touch or just plain straight up smokin’ crack.  This week sees posturing, positioning and flat out insanity. 

Here’s what I am calling out this week as whack:

• AT&T wants Symbian on every phone?
• Sprint points out Instincts weaknesses for us
• Verizon gets all paranoid about Omnia’s pricing
• Nokia’s nutty new entry

AT&T’s one OS world

Sure, supporting all these OSes isn’t easy.  Your tech’s knowledge has to be limited by all the myriad of OSes they’re supposed to know. News came today that you blue-sky-guy says Symbian would be good choice for a company-wide one OS to offer and support.  But consolidating down to one OS?  And you think Symbian is that OS?  Really?

Whispering sweet nothings into Symbian’s ear isn’t going to get you anywhere.  Stop worrying about a Nokia take over of the US market, that train isn’t leaving the station.  A much better idea, at least in my mind, is to convince Apple to license its software onto other devices.  Hitch your train to that engine, crackheads. 

Sprint says, “Hey, did you know the instinct couldn’t support your work calendar?”

Sometimes, all that is needed is an email to customers.  Something quiet in the night that says, “hey boys, go here and download this and you get Outlook Calendar support, sweet huh?”.  But no, you had to go and issue a press release telling everyone our out-of-the-box expectation of calendar syncing was off.  Thanks for pointing this out, as I’ve not made fun of the Instinct in a while.  I feel better now.  iPhone killer? LOL.

Get the Verizon Omnia price ticker gadget on your desktop?

I watch the stock market.  I watch the price of light sweet crude.  And now, I am watching the daily price of Verizon’s Samsung Omnia.  This thing is more volatile than a barrel full of gasoline next to a Sony laptop.

Jump beside me in the way back machine, we travel back to 2008, a cloudy November day, the 25th if you are taking notes.  The shiny Omnia is introduced at $249.99 after a lame $70 mail in rebate.  Now, as we are chased by the bizarre inhabitants of November 25,  we land on Dec 2nd of the same year.  Here we find the same Omnia, now priced at $199 after the same lame mail in rebate.  Nervous much?

Did you wake up, presumably strung out, in December and say to yourself, “Holy cow!  Have you heard about this economy stuff?  And this Apple phone, who knew about that?  Quick, slash the price before these phones end up at Odd Lot!”  Lay off the dope.

Nokia disappointments with the N97

I believe we all keep expecting someone else to “get it” with phone software and it clouds are judgment and/or enjoyment of an otherwise snazzy phone.  The new Nokia entry is beautiful, well-built with lovely screen resolution.  But.  And then things start flowing.  The biggest “but” is Nokia refuses to update its OS for the touchscreen times. 

HTC gets it.  Their Windows Mobile skins walk the line of needed Active Sync support mated with something actually functional and close to fun to use.  But not Nokia.  And the N97 is a bit brickish.  Keep at though, your getting warmer.  Appletell’s Josh Holat, while espousing his love for Apple’s device sums up his look at the N97 with:

“Although companies like RIM and Nokia can try to beat out Apple, I don’t see it happening anytime soon, that’s for sure.”

That’s my list for this week.  Let me know in the comments what crazy things I missed and stay off the crack kids.