MattSnodBlog

Okay, the title is a bit misleading, because the reason I'm sick of this certain iPhone game, FlightControl, is because it's so addicting.

I bought this game on a whim and then got into a friendly competition with a friend of mine who also got it. We went back and forth with high scores until we realized that there would be no end to it. We decided that when one of us reached 1,000 points (planed landed), we'd quit the game. Well, he got there first, but I kept at it until I reached that score. And then I reached 2,476 planes, and he felt compelled to try to beat it. (He has yet to.)

The game has a stats screen that shows you the total number of planes landed. When I saw that I've landed more than 71,000 planes since playing the game, I did some math and realized that I've been playing this stupid game for nearly 17 days!

So now I have to make a touch choice. Do I keep the game, trying for a higher score? Or do I delete it and get nearly three weeks of my life back ... as well as my iPhone battery?

In case you hadn't heard (he said with a fair amount of sarcasm), Apple announced its tablet PC, the iPad, the other day. Since we're drowning in post-announcement commentary, the likes of which we've not seen since we found out who shot J.R., I'll just stick to the top-line stuff here.

Overall, I like it. It's sleek, simple, and ... Apple. While some of the negative post-event buzz has been that it's an "oversized iPod Touch," I say, is that a bad thing? The iPod Touch (and iPhone) is awesome. Why not have a larger version of these mega-hit devices for bigger browsing, bigger e-mail-checking, and bigger content-consuming? The iPad seems like the perfect "schlep-around-with-you-everywhere" device.

PROS:

• Super thin and super light
• Touch keyboard that's like the iPhone/iPod Touch, only full-sized
• Expect some pretty cool iPad-sized apps coming down the pike
• Really good battery life
• Great new iTunes experience
• Cool print content experience, like the NY Times they showed
• Fingerprint-less screen

CONS:

• No SD card slot built-in
• No USB (not even USB micro)
• No built-in GPS
• No camera
• No drag-and-drop file management
• No file creation -- only viewing (I'd love to be able to edit documents and presentations with it.)
• No OLED screen (seemed an obvious choice at this stage of the game)
• No 16:9 aspect ratio for viewing wide-screen movies
• Touch keyboard (for those of you who won't give up your Blackberry-style keyboards)

Let's face it, at this point, Steve Jobs could have taken a dump on stage, and people would be ooh'ing and aah'ing, their stock would have gone up 5%, and David Pogue would be fawning all over it. In the end, Apple does do these product innovations pretty well. They haven't stumbled in a long time. Bottom line ... I want one, and so do you.

Can you smell it? A storm's a brewin'. You can almost see on the horizon that something ugly is headed our way. It's an all-out, knock-down brawl between Apple and Google.

Business Week ran a great article last week on this, and it's evident that something's gotta give. Let's face it, as the years progress, each is encroaching on the other's sandbox.

• Apple comes out with a phone OS, Google comes out with Android.
• Apple releases the iPhone, Google releases the Nexus One.
• Apple develops their Safari Web browser, Google comes out with Chrome.
• Google acquires mobile advertising company AdMob, Apple goes after Quattro Wireless.
• Apple works with TomTom on a for-pay GPS app, Google offers their turn-by-turn directions for free.
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down as Apple board member last year.

Expect more tough back and forth between these two as the phone carrier wars heat up later this year when Apple's exclusive contract with AT&T expires.

Just as I was about to write a scathing post about AT&T's ever-worsening service -- seriously, it's getting awful -- I heard about "Operation Chokehold" the other day. The popular FakeSteve (Jobs) blog is leading this charge for all disgruntled iPhone users to overwhelm AT&T's capacity by running data-intensive services on their iPhones for one hour starting at 12:00n PT / 3:00p ET today.

Will this immediately improve our horrid service? No. However, as a stunt, this should further shine the spotlight on AT&T's shortcomings. Look to hear about this in the news tonight.

There have been many complaints about Apple's review process for approving third-party iPhone apps. The arguments have been that the process takes too long, it's inconsistent in its approval or disapproval, and they've been accused of nudging out apps that would compete with the phone function.

As reported on the MacCast, some top iPhone app developers are abandoning the platform over their frustrations with the review process. They include Facebook's Joe Hewitt, Second Gear's Justin Williams, and Rogue Amoeba's Paul Kafasis. And some smaller (often times one-man-band) developers who are banking on their app being approved have had their hopes dashes when they receive the denial notification from Apple.

These are all valid arguments for a flawed system, but they pale in comparison to the prospect of an open-platform where one flawed or malicious app could render your iPhone inoperable. Imagine the public outrage that would arise if even a few hundred iPhones were "bricked" because of a third-party app. Stories of iPhones catching fire have swarmed the Internet, despite the fact that occurrences of battery fires are extremely rare (emphasis on "extremely").

Remember that, despite the fact the iPhone has come to be known as a killer smart phone (or app phone), it is a phone. All jokes about AT&T's service aside, when you need to make a phone call you need to have that phone working. If a wonky application or game caused your iPhone not to work, you'd be terribly upset when you're trying to call in to a business conference call.

All things considered, I'd gladly have Apple at the gates, warding off apps that don't pass muster, even if the process is slow or somewhat flawed. The alternative is a potential disaster, of which we don't fully conceive the consequences, because it's only a hypothetical. However, BlackBerry owners -- myself included -- experience this to some degree every time they have to pop the battery out of their device when it crashes.

And to concede on the phone service point, remember ... with AT&T, you never have to say goodbye, because every conversation ends with "hello?"