Telstra have actually released some very attractive plans for this phone, with fair amounts of data and calls, not as far as optus, but still fairly good. The phone can also be bought outright for around the $700 mark.

I was very interested in getting my hands on one of these phones, to give it a try, and see how the Android OS goes, and how the UI / UX compares to Apple. Also very interested in how Android talks with Google Apps for Contacts, Mail etc.

At the Toowoomba Telstra store, I played with one a number of times and my initial thoughts where;

• Wonderful, sharp screen
• Very snappy web browser (based off Chrome engine I’m guessing)
• Responsive touch screen
• Not too big, nor too small

However, after further investigation, talking to some people who own the Desire I don’t think I can justify the device.

The Android is super customisable, so much so, it can become overwhelming for a novice – but that’s not really an issue for me.

The biggest things that would make me consider switching would be;

• Battery, better
• Does it make my life EASIER

Every other aspect of the iPhone 3GS I am happy with. Sure, it drops out here and there, is that to blame Optus or Apple? Both point the finger to each other. Coverage isn’t wonderful, but that’s an optus issue, not an Apple one. I am happy with my OK amount of coverage, as the compromise is 1GB of mobile data for next to nothing, Vs better coverage, but not having the freedom of big amounts of data, lots of calls, etc.

So based on those two criteria, to make me switch, no. The Desire doesn’t do either.

Battery

From mixed reports I’ve heard the battery life is the same, and or is worse than the iPhone, depending on how much you use the thing, and I for one use my iPhone quite heavily.

Make life EASIER

Now, maybe all iPhone / iPod users have played into Apples hands here, but ever since my first iPod, I’ve switched to iTunes as my media player, and would die if I had to move all my media over to a different system, re create play lists, etc.  And I’m not sure if the android has any good iPod killer apps. Nor, the ability to plug in the device via USB so it both charges, displays music on the screen and allows me to change songs via the steering wheel.

One of the biggest draws my iPhone has, is that it’s both my iPod + my iPhone. I sync / charge one device and it’s always current.

What use to drive me insane, back in Nokia days, was buying some new music, but not syncing my iPod as it was in the car, and leaving without the new music, or forgetting the iPod at the office.

Whatever the case, the iPhone has eliviated this problem and made my life much easier.

What’s also great, is that my iPhone syncs music from my office PC, and Syncs my Podcasts from the iMac at home. Not sure if it is meant to, but it does, and I couldn’t be happier.

So, nice work HTC, but I think I’m best waiting for the iPhone 4G. If it has a better battery, I’ll be happy.

I’ve been following Mark Pesce’s dedicated HTC desire blog, which has been quite interesting, in both the pros’ and cons’ of the gadget.

Now, after changing my primary email address I have been able to migrate all my data to the Google Apps Pro service, which is something I have referred many people to over the last year or so after google really got moving on Google Apps.

Setting up the Google Apps, it was as simple as installing the Google Apps Sync client on the Win7 PC with Outlook – and that was all up and running with Contact, Calendar and Mail Synchronisation, Installing it on the iPhone was even easier, and with Push support it was even more appealing!

And, for everywhere else, there is the total archive of everything on the Google Apps website. I am really happy with google Apps.

My thoughts without trying this mouse, are that Apple have jumped over that line of Style and Practicality.

They have now eliminated their side button on the mouse, and no scrolling wheel, scrolling is done by just rubbing your finger up the mouse. As a person who works on computers all day, I couldn’t handle the Mighty Mouse as it was too low to the ground, and the scroll ball was to small and annoying when scrolling large websites.

On my iMac at home, I use a 5 year old Dell Logitech Mouse, as it is simple, practical and better user experience.

The Folks at ZDNet seem to agree too..

In the life of a computer tech, I see very often, and try to work out data structures, or the way people save / file things on their computer, and it just beyond me how people come up with naming conventions and saving setups.

Seeing some terrible examples of people saving things here there and everywhere, I try have a uniform system that keeps everything together- this makes life easy when it comes to Backup / Restore time, or just day to day surfing and trying to locate files etc.

Backup is the biggest concern of mine, and should but isn’t a worry to most people. What is your contingency plan, if you were to loose your main computer that you have everything saved on? Or your server where it’s stored? Even to the extent, what would you do if your building burnt down, and your computer, along with it’s backup drive was destroyed? For some people it MAY not be so important, this would just mean their collection of emails with funny cat pictures would be lost (and who really cares about that) but for people who do their business online it is a critical resource.

So far we’ve established, a) We have a lot of data, b) we need to sort it neatly and c) it needs to be backed up.

Now these three points aren’t too complex, if you were to buy an Apple computer, save your files where it recommended, and plug in any external hard drive, and run it’s built in backup manager, “Time Machine” you’d have everything pretty much covered.

If only I was running something THAT simple.

Lets bump up the intensity and say our computers we regularly used were, an iMac at home, a Macbook Pro here and there, a PC at work and an iPhone everywhere else.

Over the last year or so I’ve been constantly tweaking things, and here is what I have for each problem.

Shared Files

MobileMe has iDisk included in it’s package, which allows you to sign in to your MobileMe account on your mac and it will automatically sync your iDisk files to your mac and it will 2-way sync – so everything keeps updated.  This takes care of the iMac and Macbook Pro.

The iPhone has an iDisk App – so now I can fairly quickly browse through my folders and files and even open most file types, word docs, pdfs, images etc.

Getting my shared files / iDisk to work on a PC was a little harder, when you map a network drive to the iDisk service, it becomes very laggy as you’re accessing a live server over the internet – what I got to work well was, setting up a directory in My Docs called “Synced Docs” and running Sync Toy (A Free Microsoft App) that can do a 2-way sync with my mapped iDisk drive and the local file directory in the background so performance isn’t affected.

By using the “Cloud” or Online shared files, my documents are automatically distributed to my Office PC, my Home iMac and my Laptop on the run, along with being saved / backed up on Apple’s server.  This type of system is good for smaller files, ie, Documents, PDF’s and so forth. It is NOT good for saving your iPhoto or iTunes collection onto as it will just jam everything up.

Shared Contacts

When you buy a new mobile phone and you lost your old one, there is that task of “Oh Hey, I lost my phone, can you send my your numbers” as you’ve lost all your contacts. And the same applies to email as well.

My solution to syncing contact out of Outlook was via the MobileMe system, as they have a nice task bar application that does nothing but sync’s contacts and calendars (I’ll talk about Calendars shortly) and so my contacts are now sync’d off my PC to “the Cloud” and back down to my other Macs and iPhone.

When I bought my last 2 iPhones, all I had to do was sign-in to MobileMe and within 5 mins, over 700 contacts where pulled down onto the phone.

Now when I create a new contact on the run, with my iPhone, the new contact will appear on my other computers.

Shared Calendars

This has been the most annoying element of my sync’ing trials over the last couple of years. I started using MobileMe to do this, and it has been nothing but trouble.

I think the biggest problem has been, that my Calendars where all originally Office ones, and Office names it’s calendars differently to iCal on the mac, and over the last 1.5 years, I’ve completely lost my calendar about 3 times.

What I now use, is Google / Gmail to sync my Calendars as Google have developed a small app that sync’s calendars nicely. I hope a Contact one comes too.

Gmail also allows you to then sync with push to your iPhone any new Calendar updates and vise versa.

My first, and to what I thought was the most logical step, was to ring Optus and enquire about upgrading an iPhone mid contract.

As I was only very early into a 2 year contract, I knew there was going to be a cost involved, which there was, Approximately $600 – which was fine.

I was told that there was going to be a 5 day delay for shipping, so I rang my local ‘YES’ (Optus) Store, and asked if they had any 3Gs’s in stock, which they said they did.

I asked the Optus Sales consultant if I could just go into the store and get the phone, as I don’t really want to wait that long.. I was told, to just wait for it to come, as it’s easier that way, and will just be easier for everyone..

Taking the consultants advice, I agreed to the terms of the contract re-negotiation, and was told that the phone would be delivered to me on Monday  (Being told this on a Wednesday).

I then sold my 3G iPhone to someone, and swapped that phone over on the Friday before I got the new 3Gs. Monday, expecting my phone, I got a text from Optus, saying that there would be a 2 – 3 week delay on the new phone..

In the mean time, I was using a Pocket PC – HTC Diamond, which was a good phone, 12 months ago, but compared to the iPhone, it’s just useless.

After about 3 days of fighting with the HTC Diamond, I was at the local Optus store and asked if I could do the upgrade there, they said Ofcourse.

The next day, I rang up Optus, Canclled their upgrade, went back to the store, got the deal done, handed over the phone, and hey presto, DONE. That hour.

This whole dilemma was rather concerning to see that the Online/Phone consultants at Optus would rather keep me waiting from 1 to 3 weeks, for a new phone, when right at the onset of the investigation into the upgrade, I could have been advised that the upgrade was possible in store, and saving me, the customer a lot of time. The Optus YES store, representative told me that it would have most likely been because Optus make a greater commission if they do the sale online / over the phone.