Still, we had all but forgotten about the invention until we were walking down the aisles of our local Target and saw one on the shelf. A bit stunned and confused, we engaged in something of a dare match to buy one until, lo and behold, I found myself walking out the store with my very own Smart Clip.

So, here I am, a “proud” Smart Clip owner wondering how I got in this position and trying to defend a product that I have no idea why I bought.

Still, since it is American to occasionally give in to useless crap, I’ve decided to review this product and find out just how useless it is.

About the Smart Clip

For those who do not know, the Smart Clip is a plastic hook. You stick it to the back of your cell phone and then clip it to whatever you want. This way, you don’t have to carry it in your pocket or purse. This, theoretically makes it easier to get to and safer.

In addition to the hook, it also provides a very small LED flashlight that you can use. Theoretically, this gives you both your phone and a small light on your belt loop, meaning you never have to fumble for to answer a call or see in dark places.

Beyond that, there really isn’t that much to it. This piece of plastic and adhesive will run you about $10 at most places and comes with a free sticky hook that lets you hang your phone wherever you can find a suitable surface.

The Good

I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised to find out how well the devise worked.

Affixing the Smart Clip to your phone is fairly simple. The unit comes with an alcohol-based swap that you use to clean the back of your phone and then stick it into place. With phones that have cameras on the back, you need to be careful not to cover up the lens, something that can be difficult to do as the plastic on the ring is fairly wide, but I was able to do it easily.

The kit also comes with a series of transparent stickers that you place over the battery seam in your phone. Since, most likely, your Smart Clip is affixing to the battery itself, this is supposed to prevent the battery from coming out unexpectedly and causing the phone to drop.

The adhesive is surprisingly strong. Though I wouldn’t trust it to hold up an eight-pound bowling ball, something the commercial demonstrates, I definitely feel that it is solid enough for my phone. I’ve pulled on it fairly hard in a controlled environment and have not been able to break it. It seems my belt loops might give first.

That being said, it is worth remembering that twisting the clip is how it is designed to come off so that could have a different reaction.

Speaking of the clip, the hook also holds securely. The first few times you try to use it you’ll likely think that it’s stuck. It’s tricky learning how to reliably open the clip as the gap is so small that fabric barely passes through it. Still, once you get it down it does become second nature.

It’s just hard to imagine a clip with a learning curve.

Still, it is sturdy and does its job very well, it is perhaps the first “As Seen on TV” item I’ve owned that lived up to even a large part of its claims.

The Bad

The first piece of bad news is that the flashlight really does not live up to expectations. Though it is extremely bright for such a small, battery-powered LED light (I was able to light up most of a small bedroom with it), the button is much too stiff. If you have any keys on the front of your phone most likely going to press those keys instead of your light.

To use the flashlight, you have to use a careful and awkward grip on the sides of the phone while pressing down. It isn’t easy and it defeats much of the purpose of having it there. Furthermore, it hurts my hand to hold it for more than a few seconds.

The other, probably larger, drawback is the simple dork factor of it. Do you really want your cell phone dangling from your belt loop? I suppose a purse, especially a large one, wouldn’t be too bad but a belt loop seems stupid. Luckily, I wear long shirts and sweaters so that no one can see it.

Traditional cell phone holders are bad enough but this looks even worse.

Still, I have to say that it is remarkably comfortable. Though it doesn’t “move with you” as neatly as the commercial hinted, I do forget when I am wearing it and don’t notice it unless I sit down suddenly.

If it didn’t look so ridiculous, I probably wouldn’t mind it so much.

Final Thoughts

Truth be told, I can actually think of many situations where I would find such a device handy. Travel, for one, instantly springs to mind. Running through airports with electronic equipment is always a recipe for disaster, this at least removes one item from concern.

Likewise, on vacations they could be useful as well or any place that you are running around worried about losing your phone. Don’t want to lose your phone at the beach? Clip it to your bag, pretty simple.

But most of the situations I can conjure up are temporary ones. The Smart Clip, however, is permanent. Once you stick it on, you can remove it easily but you can’t re-apply it. You have a $10 piece of junk at that point.

Is it really worth $10 for something you’ll likely use for a weekend? You have to decide that one. There are other cell phone holders that you can actually take off, for not a lot more, that could do the job reasonably well too.

If you can justify the expense for a short duration or can find a place to hang it that doesn’t make you look like an idiot, I say go for it. Just don’t count on that flashlight or the little hook they give you (I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t comment).

Of all of the “As Seen on TV” inventions I’ve handled, this is by far the best. It just isn’t saying a whole lot considering the other crap I’ve had the pleasure of crossing.

But despite my dissatisfaction with the Fusic, it does what I need it to for the most part. Call quality is good, battery life is within reason and it is capable of mobile broadband speeds. If it had a bigger screen and a full keyboard, I’d doubt I’d care too much about its flaws.

The truth is that, realistically, there are only a few apps that I use. However, the most important, by far, is the Gmail Mobile app. It is the one app I use multiple times a day and something I’ve come to rely upon.

The first version of the app was great, a flawed gem perhaps, but solid. I would use it whenever I had a few minutes to flip open, check my mail and close it back up. It was so simple to use, it almost became an obsession, causing me to check my mail any time I found myself idle for longer than five minutes.

When I heard that Google had released a second version of the app, I was excited. Already a Gmail junkie, I thought this was my chance to get an even more robust mobile experience.

Boy was I wrong.

Though most people seem to be singing the praises of the Gmail Mobile, I am singing the blues. For me and my phone, this app has been a total disaster. Maybe when I upgrade my handset my song will change, but right now there is simply no excuse for how bad Gmail Mobile has become.

What went wrong? Well, I’ll tell you?

Offline Access

photo credit: heiyo

Nearly 90% of the problems I have had with the new Gmail Mobile have stemmed from its new offline access feature. It sounds like a great idea and an awesome feature, but it really isn’t that useful and it comes with a series of headaches.

The first problem is that offline access is an attempt to solve a problem that I almost never have and wouldn’t care if I did. Though I’m not fond of the Sprint network, I’m almost never without at least some cell signal.

Thus, I can always get my email and don’t need offline access. When I am without one, the ability to see my old email is almost useless so I don’t even think to open up the app and, usually, have my cell phone completely off. I’ve never once used my phone to look for old mail, just to check new ones and do very quick replies.

If you don’t live some place super-rural, I doubt you’ll get to play much with this feature.

However, the worst part of this feature is that it messes with my standard email check. Here, for example, are the steps that I took to check my email on the old Gmail Mobile:

1. Open Up Phone
2. Press “Favorites” and then “3″
3. New Mail Pops Up

Now, here is my series of steps with the new phone.

1. Open Up Phone
2. Press “Favorites” and then “3″
3. Old Mail Pops Up
4. Press Refresh in Gmail
5. Wait as Gmail Connects to the Web
6. New Mail Pops Up

In short, the new app simply pulls up with the old mail, whatever was in the inbox the last time it refreshes, essentially starting in offline mode every time. Once you press refresh, it pulls down the signal and starts the updating process.

Sure, it is only one more key press, but it is still one I didn’t have to do before. Still, it wouldn’t be that bad if it weren’t for the fact that this new version of Gmail loads slower than the old one, despite the fact that it isn’t pulling any data from the Web, and the refresh takes longer too.

In short, what was once a quick email check has now become a painful ordeal. I’m almost to the point of simply bookmarking my respective mobile Gmail Web pages and using the browser to handle all of my Gmail work.

Crashes, Crashes and More Crashes

Of course, what really irritates me is how often the new app crashes. Sometimes it will freeze on start up, necessitating a reboot of the whole phone. Other times it will crash when checking mail, making it necessary to restart the application. Still other times it will crash when opening an email and other times it will even crash when I try to archive a message.

I used the first version of the app for well over a year without a single memorable crash. In about week with a new one, I’ve had dozens. For my phone, it is a very flawed app and it is a miracle that I haven’t thrown the handset in a fit of rage while waiting for the entire thing to reboot.

Still, this isn’t to say that I don’t have a few nice things to say about the new app. When it isn’t crashing or frustrating me with its needless connections, it does have a few things going for it.

Some Mild Praise

Before I finish up my thrashing of the new Gmail App, I do want to take a few moments and offer a few items of praise for it. After all, there were at least a few things that the Gmail team got right.

1. Multiple Accounts: The ability to check multiple accounts is pretty cool. Previously I had to have two versions of Gmail Mobile on my phone, one for my Google Apps account and one for my vanilla Gmail one. So, having the ability to check both from the same account is pretty neat.
2. Better Scrolling and Movement: I have to admit that the way this version of the app scrolls through messages is much better than the previous version. Much more smooth for me. It makes it easier to find the messages that you want and gives you a little extra piece of eye candy.
3. Search Works: I don’t use the mobile search all that often, but it does work better in the new app. The few times I do use it, I will be glad it is there.

All in all, it is pretty clear that the Gmail mobile team had their heart in the right place, trying to smooth out some of the quirks and problems with the application. However, the execution outright stinks and it makes me want to downgrade to the previous version.

Conclusions

A bad application being released is unacceptable no matter who is releasing it. However, having it come from Google makes it downright sacrilege. Google is supposed to be the best, period, and in this case they dropped the ball and are getting completely owned by third party apps that have no business competing with them.

Maybe when I upgrade I’ll have a different tale to tell, but it seems pretty clear to me that this version of the application was not intended for my piddly phone.

It’s sad though, Google clearly worked hard to include people like me, those that got screwed on their cell phone purchases, when designing the original app and now it seems that we are all left behind.

Oh well, at least I have another good reason to look forward to my “Freedom from Sprint” day.

I have a deal with myself that when my contract with Sprint expires early next year, I’m taking my phones and throwing them into the Mississippi River (or finding some other elaborate means of destruction that I can video tape). I’ve been with them four years and have watched them deteriorate from a forward-thinking and “cool” provider to the Pabst Blue Ribbon of cell phones.

But what amazes me about Sprint is not that it seems to blow the hard stuff, but how badly it messes up the easy things.

Let’s say, for a second, that you took a quirky picture of your beloved family dog on your Sprint phone. You wanted to send it to your good friend but knew she doesn’t have picture mail on her phone (or, in my case, suffered from bad reception). So, you decide to email it to her and, being the lazy sort, you decide to do it from your phone directly rather than download it to your machine and then email it yourself.

Let’s change perspective and take a look at what you just put your good friend through and the steps they have to complete to get the image.

Step 1: Open the Email

This step seems straightforward enough, we open the email and take a look at what is inside:

The astute among us will immediately spot three problems with this email:

1. The image is not attached, in fact, there is no attachment at all.
2. The email is in HTML format, something many cannot read and others actively block.
3. The email loads up a low-resolution copy of the image you want to send but makes room for a nice big Sprint logo

Great, my friends on dial up really love this already.

From here you are given five options. However, only one of them, “View Picture”, has anything remotely to do with downloading or seeing the full image. So, inevitably, we click that link.

Step 2: View Picture

Ok, we’ve clicked on the “View Picture” link, sat there while our browser opens up and then loads this excruciatingly heavy page (taking longer than 30 seconds for me to load on a DSL connection).

The image is now slightly bigger but still nowhere near its full size. Even with my cell phone camera, I can capture images twice as big as that.

However, what is most asinine about this page is that it loads up a heavy JavaScript gallery/slideshow viewer for ONE image. This kind of gallery system is a waste on multiple image messages but looks completely ridiculous when you only send a single one.

But then comes the question, where do you go from here? You can right click to save the image, but it isn’t the original. However, there are no other options, no download button, no “view full size” option, nothing.

As it turns out your next steps is completely counter intuitive, you have to click “Done”.

Step 3: Click Done

“Wait a second,” you say, “I’m supposed to click ‘Done’? But I’m not done. I haven’t actually done anything. I’m nowhere near finished, I want to download it, I want to view it full sized. I’m not done.

But according to Sprint, you are, at least with the slideshow.

Clicking done will take you to this page.

Now things start getting really stupid. You go to a page where you get to select the image you want. Nevermind that, once again, we only have ONE image. You get to tick the images you do and do not want.

But what do you get to do with them? Well, the biggest button tries to take you back to the slideshow and you see a drop down where you are presented with the option to “Order Prints”.

But you don’t want to order prints, you have a printer. You want to download the image, the actual full image that was sent to you.

Well, you’re in luck, you can do that here, you just have to click on that dropdown and you’re given the option to download the image or “view original”.

Now let’s pause a second here. That is two options for doing the exact same thing. The only difference is that viewing the original takes you to another JavaScript-heavy gallery page where you view the image full size.

Why are there two options for the exact same function and why does one require me to load a ton of JavaScript when it doesn’t even do anything to the image? It doesn’t make any sense

Still, knowing that “View Original is a useless trap,you decide to download the image.

Step 4: Download the Image

You select download and hit “Go”. A dialog box appears that tells you that your download should begin soon.

Note that there is no way to start the download manually should something go askew and that the best advice Sprint gives you should your download dialog not appear is to “try again”.

Once your browser pops up to download the file, you notice something else amiss. The file isn’t a jpg or a png, but a zip.

Bearing in mind, once again, that we are downloading just one file, there is no reason to zip it up. According to my Mac, the zip file is less than 10k smaller than the 200k image file.

So now you have a file on your hard drive, but, alas, you are still not done.

Step 5: Extract the Zip

Ok, extracting a zip file is not exactly rocket science, but it is an extra hassle, especially when you’re just trying to get at one file.

But when you finally get around to extracting the zip file, you’ll notice that there is something odd about the file itself. The extension is not a .jpg, but rather, a .jpeg.

That means, as one last step you have to rename the file.

Step 6: Rename the File

Finally, in order to make sure that every image editor and other program will recognize the file for what it is, you need to remove the “e” from the file extension.

Though .jpeg is a perfectly valid extension for an image file, it is both extremely rare and not universally recognized. For one, many people have never seen a .jpeg file and might think it’s a virus. Two, many applications only open files with a three-letter extension. Three, I, after years of being on the Web, can count the number of .jpeg files I’ve run across on my fingers.

There is no reason, no reason at all, that the file could not have just been .jpg. It would have avoided confusion, ensured compatibility and even saved a byte in transmission.

And I’m not even commenting on the insane naming conventions for the zip and image files (Zip files are sprintpictures_longnumber.zip and images are longnumber_ORIG.jpeg). However, I could probably write an entire post about that alone.

This whole process is stupid and, at every turn, it finds new ways to reach for the sky in the black art of facepalming. The very people who say they are trying to make our lives easier have devised a system that, along every step, finds new ways to make it harder.

Thank you Sprint. Thank you.

How it Should Have Worked

This post should have gone something like this:

1. Email picture to friend
2. Friend gets image as attachment
3. Friend goes “awww” at the cute dog

But no, that wasn’t what Sprint went for. I have no idea how other companies do it (feel free to send me picture email to jonathan at plagiarismtoday.com, I’ll happily review your carrier) but it is hard for me to imagine a more inefficient system.

Imagine, for a second, rather than sending this image to my tech-savvy, though rural, friend I sent it to my grandmother. How is she going to cope with this? She needs reminders to update her antivirus. She’s not going to be able to jump through more hoops than a circus tiger without some serious coaching.

This solution took six steps, six steps, to achieve what could have been done in one. The worst part of all, the elegant solution is the easiest. You send an image, it gets sent as an attachment. It would have taken moments to set up for Sprint.

Granted, Sprint’s setup seems to be geared for those who send multiple images, but even that fails. A) I’d wager most people send one image at a time and B) You could still zip up multiple images, so long as the total size was under a megabyte or two.

If you’re worried about attachments bouncing, I understand. So how’s this for an alternative, just email a link to a direct download, exactly like what Yousendit does?

Some very smart people solved the problem of sending large files on the Web years ago. It literally took Sprint hours and hours of work to find a way to screw it up all over again.

Great job Sprint, you just set the Internet back about five years.

Conclusions

I have a theory. The reason most companies fail is not because of market shifts, lousy marketing or even bad mortgages, but rather, because they do stupid things.

Sociology has shown us that when people try to work together a cloud of collective stupidity forms known as “Group Think”. This also explains Congress.

This stupidity causes a large group of intelligent human beings to believe something that even a newborn monkey would see through. This, my friends, stinks of group think.

There is no way a human being, without being under the influence of some kind of collective stupidity, could look at this system and call it the best available.

But if this is the best that Sprint can do, well, it is no wonder why they’re a sinking ship.

I wouldn’t have much business either if all I did was screw up simple tasks.