Now that every Joe has blogged about the iPhone

Now that every blogger on the planet has reviewed the endless stories about the iPhone, I have decided to do a head to head honest comparison with HTC HD vs iPhone (I am sure this is done somewhere) but I couldn't resist putting this one in as my friends got HTC HD 4G and I am the lone iPhone player waiting in the wings to jump at the iPhone 4 but a wise man waits ...waits...waits and waits...and then writes a comparative review ...and then waits a little more...

I took eight sections concerned to me to make a good decision (Design, Screen Size, Cameras, Battery, Apps, Networking, Multitasking & Music)

The HTC HD known as HD on the widows platform, EVO as the android version at first look attacks the iPhone on the gorgeous screen size 4.3" compared to 2.32 inches of the iPhone of which you really only get 2.28, end to end screen and more real estate on the HTC makes it a winner when you want to fire up those YouTube videos and movies. Talking about movies HTC comes with two free Tranformers in HD quality ...IPhone (you got to buy them thru iTunes...bummmmerrrrrr...grrr!!) ---Winner - HTC

Design - Now this is a shady area (no offense aimed at you Glen!...(his nickname is Shady)) ...beauty is always in the eye of the beholder. The HTC sports a lot of plastic, but the new iPhone has lots of aluminum (shiny!!) like the first generations one's. Form form factor point of view iPhone clearly takes a win here, it is just better to hold, light weight flat glass surface. HTC HD & EVO though sleek in in its design, the hold  while conversing is not that good but the big screen makes up for it.

Screen Resolution

The HTC HD and EVO for android as mentioned earlier wins in the screen size but the iPhone resolution is higher with what they call as the new kind of display 'Retina Display'. Reso wise iPhone wins 960 x 640 vs 800 x 480. Personally on small screen higher resolution is not a big deal for me so I can live with the HTC's resolution.  Outdoor viewing HTC definitely has work to do... but I don't watch movies while driving or sitting on the patio....

Screen Size

HTC wins ...iPhone loses.

Cameras

HTC EVO has a 8 mega pixel camera, the widows HD version has a 5 mega pixel camera...I didn't understand the logic here though the android and windows versions have almost same specs except for the camera department. But the iPhone has two cameras...clearly a winner in this section, I want two cameras...with the future for video chat and skype, I wonder why no one thought of this one before....plus two points for Apple. The iPhone has a 5 mega pixel camera. (When will any one integrate a minimum 12 mega pixel camera with a zoom lens)

Battery

Battery life on head to head battle the Apple wins over in talk time, stand by time and even wi-fi internet browsing.  Though the HTC does well on the 3G network, Apple takes a stride here over the already strong 3GS network with first one to enter in 4G fray. It all now depends how AT&T pulls their end of the work. Apple wished it controlled the cell towers...! But the big advantage over the HTC EVO is the replaceable battery.

Apps

Apple emerges a winner at this moment with 200000 plus apps and a strong quality control against Windows Mobile 50000 apps and Android's 50000 apps. However this will change in the coming few months with the launch of windows mobile 7 and by the sheer volume of developers on the windows platform. The biggest win for the HTC HD is the integration of live and the access to all Microsoft Office live goodies...For this just one feature from an enterprise level point of view I will give the HTC to tie with the iPhone. But that said...iPhone has a lot of free apps a...lot compared to the windows marketplace.

Networking

HTC HD is a clear winner in this area. You can connect to all remote servers with remote desktop apps that come standard. The iPhone integration with Exchange seems to be seamless now,  connecting to servers is still a pain. The Apps are expensive in this arena for apple, unless Apple comes out with a free app that is easy to use and comes standard with the iPhone OS4.

Multitasking

We all know iPhone was late in this area but the way they implemented this feature from UI point of view is beautiful. The only addition I would like to have is a snap in feature where it shows me how much memory is being used by each app. From a UI point of view iPhone wins but from usage and historical point of view Windows mobile wins. So we have a tie here.

Music

Finally music! With 15000 plus songs in my iTunes, apparently iPhone ensures I will come back to them, but hmmmm though iPhone clearly wins in this area I know the nerds at the office always figure out a way to get free music and with expandable mico chip memories for the HTC that will flood the market they can go up to 64GB and 128 GB memory in the future. And the MACites can only hope the in the next year iPhone will come up with at least 64 GB memory for those music and video hogs. So the winner here again ....well I will give it a tie.

So we have three ties...4 wins for apple and 2 wins for HTC but I am guessing my friends will argue the three ties will have to go to HTC...well let the office arguments begin!!!

I am enjoying the wait.....

Sam Kurien

Yacht Design

One of my favorite yacht design and manufacturing companies is italian called CRN yacht. They launched a new web site and just like their yachts the user interface is really cool. Check out their website at http://www.crn-yacht.com/

Check out the 2D schematics of my favorite design in their line up - "Romance"

Employees First, Customers Second - Value Maximizers

I recently read a case study surprisingly coming from a little known (internationally speaking) hardware/software company from India called HCL.  Coming from India I knew HCL from its garage phase and followed its visionary leader Shiv Nader who was instrumental in taking this organization to good heights in spite of bureaucratic controls of the late eighties.

The management philosophy they follow is 'Employees First and Customers Second'. The attempt here was not to emphasize some HR satisfaction or motivate employees to do a better job by giving benefits or even just implementing good HR policies/practices but discover within the company how employees can add value to services. The ethos behind this thinking is brilliant because adding value to existing services or adding value to bring something new into the market encouraged innovation within HCL. Added value meant higher levels of achievement among employees translated directly to the end result being transferred to the market place as a company that brought value and innovation to customers.

'Employees first' was a indeed a revelation to me because I thought customers drive the company but its not that way, a customer will pay for added value, a customer is retained because of added value and employees are the one who are directly responsible to bring that added value.  Vineet Nayar has written a book on this theme and is worth reading and the catch statement is very true - "turning conventional management upside down".

My thoughts for the day.

Sam Kurien

Mind-blowing User Interface

The future of online magazines is here...Check out Time magazine's new iPad App




And btw HTML 5 can do all this...(so says Steve!)

Sam Kurien