Thursday, August 15, 2002
Random XDA musings, part 1
Posted by Jason Dunn in "THOUGHT" @ 07:59 AM
I've switched over to using the HTC Spaceneedle (XDA) as my full-time device, but rather than trying to give you a long review, I wanted to keep track of my findings by having discussions around concepts and issues unique to a connected device. This is part one, and XDA and non-XDA owners alike are invited to participate. For some of you who have had your devices connected for a while, these musings may seem almost simplistic, but to me, it's all new. 
The SIM card I borrowed from a friend currently is data-only. I have a voice & data SIM on the way, but for now I'm using it as a connected data device only, not voice. Last night I was in a shopping mall with Ashley, and I was chatting with pt via Messenger. I wanted to stay connected and available, but I noticed that as soon as the power saving settings kicked in, the device would shut off and I'd lose the GPRS data connection. The only solution seemed to be to override the power saving setting and tell the device to never turn off. Yet that is dangerous to your data - if you forget to turn the device off even once, you may lose everything after it stays on for a whole day.
It would seem logical to have a per-application override of power settings, or have the power settings be connection-aware: if a data connection was present, it wouldn't shut the device off. A similar problem exists with IR - if you're sending someone a large file via IR, the Pocket PC will simply turn off in the middle of the transfer. It almost makes you wonder if the people testing the OS really put it through all its paces, doesn't it?
Considering the Pocket PC 2002 OS was designed to be very "wireless friendly", I find this issue to be rather glaring. Let's hope Microsoft takes note of this and fixes it for next time. What's the solution here? How do you deal with this limitation?
(By the way, I've named my XDA "Tanto". A Tanto is a small dagger worn by Samurai as part of their three-piece set of armaments. It seemed fitting.)
The SIM card I borrowed from a friend currently is data-only. I have a voice & data SIM on the way, but for now I'm using it as a connected data device only, not voice. Last night I was in a shopping mall with Ashley, and I was chatting with pt via Messenger. I wanted to stay connected and available, but I noticed that as soon as the power saving settings kicked in, the device would shut off and I'd lose the GPRS data connection. The only solution seemed to be to override the power saving setting and tell the device to never turn off. Yet that is dangerous to your data - if you forget to turn the device off even once, you may lose everything after it stays on for a whole day.
It would seem logical to have a per-application override of power settings, or have the power settings be connection-aware: if a data connection was present, it wouldn't shut the device off. A similar problem exists with IR - if you're sending someone a large file via IR, the Pocket PC will simply turn off in the middle of the transfer. It almost makes you wonder if the people testing the OS really put it through all its paces, doesn't it?
Considering the Pocket PC 2002 OS was designed to be very "wireless friendly", I find this issue to be rather glaring. Let's hope Microsoft takes note of this and fixes it for next time. What's the solution here? How do you deal with this limitation?
(By the way, I've named my XDA "Tanto". A Tanto is a small dagger worn by Samurai as part of their three-piece set of armaments. It seemed fitting.)
