blog.ulfw.com

Yes. It is all true. The numerous reports you were able to read on the web:
- iPhone 3G signal and reception complaints pour in
- iPhone 3G: What’s the frequency?
- Some Customers with iPhone 3G Connection Issues
- iPhone 3G Reception Problems? You’re Not Alone - Continued
- 3G iPhone Signal Problems…Post Here!
- or just do a Google search.

I really TRIED to like my white 16GB iPhone 3G, but I just couldn’t. The phone is completely incapable of doing a 3G->2G handover, resulting in 1 to 0 bar coverage and subsequent call drops or ‘No Service’ notifiers. Never in my life had I seen more ‘Call failed’ or ‘No Service’ notifications on any phone (even back in the day on my Ericsson T28 nearly a decade ago).
At home? No possibility to hold or make a call reliably. 0-1 bars reception. No 2G fallback.
At work? No reception.
On the 5 mile stretch to work? Reception, but 2-3 times the call is dropped.
Essentially I had a phone with ‘no bars in more places‘.

Also when the phone was on 3G it barely even lasted till the afternoon, let alone a full day. If there ever was reception, download speeds were barely twice that of EDGE. Most of the time they were pretty much the same.
So I ended up having 3G deactivated the lasts two weeks. Now that I was nearing my 30-day return window, I did the only sensible thing I could do and returned my 3G. This in itself was a horrible multi-hour experience at The Grove Apple store in LA and subsequently the at&t store on Beverly and things are still not worked out right (e.g. they haven’t reverted my 2-year contract extension, even though they should). AT&T says I need proof I returned the phone to Apple. Apple says there is nothing they can do. Their system should automatically do it. So now I’m on a 2-year extension without getting a cheaper or free phone. Just to show my love to ma’bell at&t.
Speculation is running wild on whether it is at&t’s bad network (though other 3G devices allegedly work well), Apple’s secrecy behind developing the phone and thus limited testing or Infineon’s 3G chipset.

Hi guys,
I’m looking to grow my team and hire a new Product Manager, Mobile for MySpace in Beverly Hills, CA. If you know about good candidates, feel free to reach out to our recruiter Cari Gilbert.

RESPONSIBILITIES:
• Invent or enhance new mobile products and features to improve user experience and promote inter-site interaction.
• Write concise functional requirements for each new product or existing product enhancements, including business justification and operational impact.
• Create preliminary design concepts and mock-ups.
• Lead the relevant teams to efficiently implement and rollout each product or enhancement.
• Work with business and marketing teams to find the best way to monetize and promote new products and features.

SKILLS/QUALIFICATIONS:
• Internet or mobile product design or product management experience.
• Experience with and deep knowledge of the mobile industry and landscape
• Exceptional interpersonal skills including the ability to communicate with both technical and business experts across multiple parts of the organization.
• Experience managing simultaneous projects and demonstrated team leadership abilities in a fast-paced environment.
• Proven ability to manage direct and indirect teams
• Ability to balance technical and business issues
• Strong organizational skills.

Maybe it’s just me and no one else has a problem with this. But apparently it is a fact that I am too stupid to read CAPTCHAs like this and type it right:

Whenever one of these dreadful things shows up on a website (e.g. to add a user on MySpace or change your user info on Yahoo! or change your password on Google etc.) I have to give to between two and three tries on average before I get to the next screen. No matter how thoroughly I try to read them for some reason I always get the wrong at first.

I mean, come on. What do these really mean?

Last time I came back from my (one and only) vacation I took during my Google days, the stock jumped 21% the day I came back.
Now that I’ve left the company, the stock is going nowhere but down after not as high-as-expected Q2 earnings announcements.

Coincidence?

No iPhone 3G for me this month:
Not that I am missing TOO much. After all, (nice but still buggy) Firmware 2.0 brought most of the feature enhancements of iPhone 3G to the old iPhone (except GPS, which is somewhat pointless without navigation) and faster speeds (though how much faster remains to be seen).
The kicker for me though is the arrogance that Apple and at&t show to their loyal customers. Not only have I seen looooong lines everywhere the last couple of days. But no. Apparently Apple/at&t are not willing to sell to me. Period.
Some background info: I am on at&t’s ‘Premier’ discount for Stanford. Essentially you get a 15% discount on your bill. Now, I even forgot I was on that - considering - well - that I haven’t gotten ANY discount the last year or so (’Sorry iPhone is ineligible’). Now that I am still technically on this ‘discounted’ contract though, at&t corporate stores are the only places I am allowed to buy the new iPhone 3G at. Apple will not sell to me (’sorry - no Premier contracts. It’s an at&t rule.’), while at&t continues to treat it’s customers like crap. I have been to three stores today. What I heard was:
- Store A in Palo Alto: No reply. I stood there 10 mins without anyone bothering to talk to me. Then when I asked a store clerk who passed by he said: ‘oh we got only 9 devices in. They are all sold’. 9 devices. Btw - this store was the highest grossing at&t store in the country in 2006/07!
- Store in Belmont: Wouldn’t even let me into the store. ‘Sorry no devices. You can pay NOW and then come back to the store in 10 business days to pick it up’. Same story at store 3.

Now, I am moving in 12 days (9 business days) and the fact is:
- Apple is not willing to sell to me even though they have plenty of devices in stock
- at&t is not able to sell to me directly, only by order and PICKUP instore
- I have to be physically at the store I ordered the phone in (i.e. I can’t order in LA now as I am not in town yet, and I can’t order in SF as I will be in LA by the time the devices get here)
- No mail order. Period. You HAVE to be PHYSICALLY at the store even though they don’t actually HAVE any ACTUAL phones to sell to you.

So - no iPhone 3G for me. No $300 for Apple, no $375 for at&t (the ridiculous $15/month price increase over 24 months). For some odd reason, I don’t feel so bad about this now.

It turns out, my silly Mobile Trick video made it to Germany’s largest newsmagazine and website DER SPIEGEL. See here.
Of course, DER SPIEGEL (The Mirror) being German there had to be a slight negative angle to the story:

which translates into:
“Scrolling-Display

In the video titled “Mobile Messenger” you’re not seeing fantasy functions as before. But the messages in large scrolling type, which can also be read across the meeting room table are bringing true high school behavior into a meeting.”

Whatever… I’m on DER SPIEGEL! Woot woot!
Original video is here.

After the big bomb has been dropped, here is part 2 of the story. Where am I heading?
I have always been interested in social networks, having signed up for a Facebook account right when they came out (and when they were restricted to just Harvard, Stanford and a few other universities) and used MySpace and LinkedIn for years. So I concentrated my search on social networking and video companies (a second big area of future growth in my opinion). Having gotten multiple offers, I finally decided to go with… MySpace.

For me, it basically were three reasons that drew me to them:
- I genuinely liked all the MySpace folks I met throughout my interviews, from the SVP of Engineering to Products and many in between. Thanks for inviting me to your pizza Friday, guys!
- MySpace is a massively used product, in scale with Google, Yahoo or Facebook.
- The opportunity is just awesome. I am fortunate enough to be on the intersection of Social Networking and Mobile, THE future area of growth for social platforms.

So I am happy to announce that starting August 4th, I’ll be joining MySpace as their new Product Management Director for Mobile!

MySpace is coming up with a lot of new products and features, for example last week a new homepage design launched:

Here is a look at the current MySpace mobile website (m.myspace.com):

This is MySpace’s current building with Fox Interactive Media in Beverly Hills 90210:

Apparently a parking nightmare is awaiting me there.

Starting in June 2009, we’ll be moving to a new campus in Playa Del Rey though, as Techcrunch already reported recently:

All FIM companies in Southern California will move to the new facility starting from June to December 2009. The site will house over 300,000 square feet of commercial space and is part of a development called Horizon at Playa Vista (a rendering of the development is above). The area is quickly becoming LA’s media hub, with EA, Rubin Postaer and others now with offices in the area.

Today Effie and Lawrence organized a little going-away meeting/party in our Building’s microkitchen. Effie baked an awesome chocolate cake that looked like an iPhone with the sneezing Panda video on it while Lawrence set the whole thing up and took a video or two as well.
Creative as Googlers are, we organized a little round of Four Square to keep us occupied:

Effie’s super awesome cake:

A funny Saturday Night Live skit I found on hulu:

Setup your MySpace page at the Learning Annex

I’m liking the recent speed upgrades from Comcast in my apartment. I hope I’ll find something similar at my new place. They only started this after AT&T started running out their Fibre-to-the-curb U-Verse service in my area. Best example on how competition can be a good thing.