An Interview with Cali and Jody of the Results-only Work Environment (ROWE) - Free Pursuits
A results-only work environment (or ROWE) is a radical new way of working that focuses on results instead of face time. ROWE in practice means “each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want as long as the work gets done.”
I recently traded in an HTC Vogue on Verizon for a Blackberry Storm. The Vogue was a very flexible/capable phone, with dozens of fun and useful applications for its Windows Mobile platform, but had four painful problems which I think are fairly common across the entire HTC/Windows Mobile line:
1) It was utterly unreliable. Three or four times every month friends and family would call me, hear rings, and leave voicemails. The phone would be sitting next to me at home, plugged in, powered on, connected (3 bars) and never ring. Checking my phone later, I would discover a new voicemail — but no record of the call in the call log.
2) The UI was atrocious. The best test for a UI is the wife test: Every time my wife had to use my phone in a pinch — she would scream in frustration as she couldn’t access common functions (such as the dialer) or couldn’t enter text accurately on the virtual keyboard. Windows Mobile is a disaster on touchphones. Eventually, I was able to workaround this issue by installing SPB’s Mobile Shell which is a remarkable product which Microsoft should buy and integrate.
3) GPS performance was horrible. Obtaining a GPS lock in Google Maps took 3-5 minutes where you had to remain completely stationary and away from tall buildings. You could drive (moving) for miles and never obtain a lock. It was so frustrating being lost/late and unable to obtain a fix. There was not–as far as I could tell–any “Assisted GPS” which uses cell phone tower triangulation to speed up the fix process. Various apps/tweaks which were supposed to improve GPS acquisition had no effect.
4) GPS was locked down. Google Maps, Garmin Mobile, and other applications could not access the internal GPS. About halfway through the life of the phone I decided to “flash” a new ROM onto the phone to remove this restriction. This was a complicated, warranty-breaking process and it was totally ridiculous that I had to go through it.
So, onto the Blackberry Storm! I would’ve preferred an iPhone, however I’m not willing to put up with AT&T’s poor voice coverage just for the sake of a snazzy device. It looked like the Storm was the best touch-based smartphone available on Verizon. It was a scary purchase, because of the thousands of Storm horror stories out there. After four weeks of Storm usage, I’m surprisingly satisfied! A few thoughts:
1) The SurePress click screen is serviceable. Based on peoples comments, I was expecting it to be a nightmare. Occasionally you can’t quite select a button or click where you want to, but 90% of the time it works fine. I do worry about dirt getting under the screen however.
2) The Blackberry browser is serviceable. Again, based on peoples comments, I thought it would be awful. It’s not. It’s a little pokey sometimes, but mostly it works and gets me around mobile-friendly sites without issue. I installed Opera but rarely use it!
3) The memory limitation is a real problem. The Storm has 128MB of memory which acts like “RAM”. The more applications you run concurrently, the less RAM available. Bizarrely, the more applications you install (even if they aren’t running!) — the less RAM available. Very quickly you begin to run low on RAM. When less than 10MB of RAM is available, the Storm begins to crawl. After a reset, I have about 20MB free RAM, by mid-day I’m down to 15MB, and at night I hit 10MB. Two applications make this problem manageable: MeterBerry — which monitors free RAM and notifies you when it drops below 10MB (so you can reset) and QuickPull — which automatically restarts your Blackberry early every morning (e.g. 4am) to clear the RAM out.
4) The camera is excellent! I can’t believe how much better the Storm’s camera is vs. my HTC Vogue. It’s an incredible difference… pictures of text in books and magazines are actually readable! Because of this — I’ve been using Evernote for Blackberry much more than I used Evernote for Windows Mobile.
5) Voice quality is excellent! The Storm is louder and more clear than my Vogue. The speakerphone is good. Thankfully, it doesn’t miss calls either.
6) GPS is amazing! I can’t get over how fast the Storm acquires a lock in Google Maps… 10 seconds at most. I love popping it out on a downtown street corner and knowing exactly where I am.
7) The virtual keyboard is decent. It’s not perfect, but its better than Windows Mobile. The landscape layout really shines. Thankfully, my wife can actually type on it with minimal frustration. I’ve gotten progressively faster in terms of typing speed.
Like Windows Mobile, RIM’s OS is not designed for touch devices. You see this in the long drop-down list menus and too-small buttons. RIM has done a *better* job than Microsoft of adopting to touchscreens, but there is definitely more work to be done.
Overall, my Storm experience has been good. Verizon cut the price to $99’s — so it wasn’t expensive either. Clearly, I’ve benefited here by coming to the party late: Early Storm users faced horrendous software/stability bugs with RIM’s OS. Most of those issues have been ironed out at this point. I wouldn’t buy a Storm for my wife, it’s still too rough around the edges, but it’s a great phone for tech savvy who are unwilling to go to AT&T.
jason
