Ipod Reviews: Making Money With Options

The Yankees and Derek Jeter are making a big mistake with the way they are handling the negotiations for a new deal. After Jeter’s agent, Casey Close, referred to the Yankees negotiating position as “baffling”, GM Brian Cashman responded with this gem of a quote:

"We've encouraged him to test the market and see if there's something he would prefer other than this. If he can, fine. That's the way it works."

It wasn’t exactly a “thank you for all you’ve done, Derek” and it made the Yankees look small. But, not to be outdone, word leaked from Jeter’s camp that the shortstop was seeking a six-year/$150 million deal. That was later amended down to somewhere around four or five years for “only” $23 or $24 million. Pretty good money for a guy coming off a year where he hit .270/.340/.370.

The fact is the Yankees need Derek Jeter at shortstop in 2011. There are no in-house candidates, Eduardo Nunez didn’t exactly set the world on fire at AAA this year, and the free agent pool is weak. Throw in the fact that barring injury, Jeter will become the first Yankee to get 3,000 hits in 2011 and his return should be assured.

But the Yankees’ problem is beyond 2011. Maybe Jeter’s 2010 campaign was an aberration and he will return to his prolific hitting ways next year, but what if he doesn’t. What if he is like 99% of the shortstops who came before him and plays progressively worse after age 36?

And Jeter is rightfully looking at all the mega-deals the Yankees have handed out and wondering why he isn’t worthy of one. He has always played hard, played hurt and he has never embarrassed the franchise. For fifteen seasons, Jeter has been a great ballplayer on the field and a great ambassador off of it.

What the two sides need to do is find the middle ground. A series of team and player options, triggered by certain performance levels would make the most sense. That followed by a personal services contract after Jeter’s playing days have ended would also probably ease the turmoil. Whatever approach they take, they would be smart to erect a “cone of silence” and keep everything out of the press from this point forward. Neither side will look very good if the current rhetoric continues.

I started a new full time job at about the same time that my 2-year AT&T contract ended. My new job provided me with a Blackberry Bold 9700, to chain me to the corporate teat. I opted not to renew my personal AT&T contract, officially retiring my iPhone 3G, as it didn’t make sense to carry two smartphones. The Blackberry is not a perfect device, but I’m wholeheartedly convinced that it’s a terrific smartphone, whereas the iPhone was a neat little computer that could make phone calls.

For the most part, my transition to the Blackberry has been pretty smooth. Say what you will about the perils of “living in the cloud”, but apps like Evernote, Dropbox, PogoPlug, and TripIt have made the bulk of my transition relatively painless. I’ve given all my friends and family my Google Voice number, which rings my Blackberry, so no one really needs to know I’ve even changed platforms.

And speaking of Google, the Google apps for Blackberry reveal just how depressingly myopic Apple’s walled garden approach to apps really is. I know Apple spends a lot of time and money making things work simply and beautifully, but their continued arrogance toward knowing how best users want to use their consumer devices is mind-boggling. I installed the Google Voice for Blackberry app and was absolutely delighted to see two new menu options when clicking on a contact: “Call with Google Voice” and “SMS with Google Voice”. There’s no need to go to a dedicated Google Voice application, as is required with iPhone, because the app perfectly integrates with the native software stack. That, my friends, is what makes a smartphone a smartphone.

I know that I’m late to the Blackberry game. I moved from a Palm Treo 700p to my iPhone in December of 2008. I’d never used a Blackberry, so I was mostly ignorant of the strengths of the platform. For those of you who, like me, haven’t used a Blackberry, I can say without equivocation that they absolutely nail messaging. Email is brilliantly fast. Launching the email application on my iPhone 3G, even when it was brand new and not bloated with apps, was a sluggish operation. Not so on the Blackberry.

The unified inbox is another brilliant aspect of the Blackberry platform. Emails, SMS and MMS all end up in the same inbox. The need to launch a separate dedicated app just to read or respond to a text message often made using my iPhone more of a nuisance than a convenience. Loading the SMS app took time. Tapping on an individual conversation took time. Tapping in the text input field took time as the phone thought about bringing up the on-screen keyboard. The Blackberry, on the other hand, makes sending and receiving texts as fast and as simple as it’s stellar support of email.

Lest this sound like a paid endorsement for Blackberry, let me say that I’m not altogether thrilled with the device. The browser is absolute rubbish. The organization of options is confusing and complicated. I do often miss a touchscreen interface. The blappworld has an anemic selection of apps.

But the more I think about it, the less I care about the selection on blappworld. The core apps I need — Evernote, Dropbox, etc — are there and work great. I don’t need two dozen flatulence simulators or a guide to sex positions or any of the other absolute crap that fills up the Apple App Store. The app selections, I think, perfectly highlight the fundamental differences between Blackberry and iPhone: the former is a smart phone, and the latter is a neat little computer that can make phone calls.

Of course, all of this is just my opinion. If you’re happy with your phone, that’s great! No, really, it’s great. I don’t have a dog in this specific hunt, so you don’t need to justify or explain your happiness to me. If, on the other hand, you’re ignorant of Blackberry, as I was, consider giving the platform a shot.

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Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Making Money With Options

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