This review is the culmination of a 2 year saga I’ve experienced with a potentially game changing product called Peek.  It offers unlimited email and text messaging using an always on cellular network for between $10 and $20 per month with no contract.  Unfortunately, the whole operation may go down in flames because of a total network shutdown due to poor operational planning.  First some history on how I picked this device and service.

I have access to a very bucolic, but remote mountain cabin, which I use for 3 months out of the year.  It’s a great place to get away, but there are times it would be nice to have access to modern technology, especially email.  For years I used dialup, but that tied up the phone and was very slow.  I could also run down to the library 10 miles away to connect my laptop using Wifi.  Also, cell service at the location is non-existent, except for one small spot where I could get a 3 bar AT&T signal most of the time.

The Peek intrigued me because it operated on the T-mobile cell network which has a roaming agreement with AT&T at the remote location.  I was also impressed by the cost of entry, being the $9.99 I paid for the device and the $20/month charge which didn’t require a contract.  Here’s what was promised:

The Peek device itself is solidly built and small enough to fit into a shirt pocket.

The color screen is easy to read.  The qwerty keyboard is acceptable considering the size of the unit and the unit feels very solid.

On the right side you have a scroll well that moves a cursor through the text and when pressed brings up context related menus.  The square button is the backup key and pressing it repeatedly will bring you back to the inbox which is considered the home screen.

On the left side it the port for the power connector which uses a micro-USB plug.  The port is also used to attached the upgrade cable needed to update the firmware.

The back cover is metal and conceals the removable battery.  The sim card is also behind the cover, but is not made to be removed.  You can find the pertinent serial and IMEI numbers under this cover.

When I first bought the unit, I didn’t realize it was a Peek Classic, which limited me to scanning 3 email accounts and it didn’t have the push email of the Peek Pronto.  No problem however, because the good folks at Peek offered to upgrade any Classic units to Pronto for no charge.  Well, no charge if one has the upgrade cable ( $14+) and the ability to perform a tricky install.  I opted to send the unit to Peek and have them do it for the cost of the postage and loss of use of the Peek for a week.

When it returned I had a full-fledged Peek Pronto which, had I bought it, would have cost me several times as much.  By the way, the differences between the Classic and Pronto were mostly a function of Peek’s servers determining which service they assigned to your device.  The upgrade was for the firmware to be able to talk to the servers correctly.

Now that the hardware was up to snuff, I began the learning curve to understand how to operate the device.  Unfortunately, at my main residence I have very poor T-Mobile signal, so I wasn’t getting connected very frequently with the Peek.  I did drive to a location with better signal and was able to set up my Peek with 5 of my email accounts and the stuff just started flowing in.  Reading the mail was intuitive, but writing and sending took some research which turned out to require web access because there are no instructions with the device.  You’ll have to search through the Peek website FAQ’s to figure out the keyboard commands.  For example, to move the cursor horizontally in text you are writing required holding down the shift key while turning the scroll wheel.  I did spend a fair amount of time on their web site getting to know the Peek.

Once I got the hang of the Peek, I initially found it very useful.  At the cabin home I was able to set it in a window where the cell signal was strongest and received emails.  I carried it with me everywhere and people I showed it to were impressed.  I even got my wife to like it and was able to cancel the dial-up internet access which cost more than the Peek monthly charge.

Shortly however, cracks began to appear in my enthusiasm and limitations of the device became apparent.  Getting the emails in a timely manner was great, but many of them couldn’t be read because the device is text only and the HTML and graphics only display as a link.  The device is supposed to be able to display PDF and .doc files, but they never were readable.  It is possible to send txt (SMS) message to cell phones and this did work, but for someone to send a message to the Peek, you would have to send to them first and they could then reply.  This is because the Peek, while operating on the cell system does not have a phone number associated with it.

I could accept the above shortcomings, because I could understand enough of the email messages to determine whether I needed to head to the library with my laptop to see the parts not displayed, but when system and hardware reliability issues increased, I began to have second thoughts.

Sometimes the Peek would do unusual things like spontaneously reset.  This would often lockup the device which could only be rectified by removing and reinstalling the battery.  No I’m not making this up.  It is one of the suggestions for clearing problems listed on the Peek web site.  This became more and more frequent over the months and was becoming rather annoying.  There are also issues of slow response of the unit itself.  Sometimes the scroll wheel takes a long time to respond to input, and when it does you’re in a screen where you didn’t intend to be.  During this time, multiple firmware revisions were issued that may have fixed some of the problems, but I didn’t have a cable and Peek removed the offer to upgrade the firmware at their offices.

The biggest issue was the downtime of the service.  It started out as only an hour here or there, but on several occasions complete weekends were without service.  Last July 4th weekend there was no service until the holiday was over.  The sad part is that Peek appears to be a 9-5 company working only Monday through Friday.  I’ve tried calling for support on the weekend and a recording said I should call during their work week.  There’s a bunch of comments on the Peek forums about this lack of support, so I’m not the only one who has this issue.

The latest fiasco involving Peek service is that one of their service providers recently shut them off, making all Peek Classics and Pronto’s paperweights.  To Peek’s credit they have offered to send all current Classic and Pronto users a free (in Peekspeak the $7.95 charge = free), Peek9.  This new device  does not require the “bum” (Peek CEO’s term) service provider to operate.  I have received mine after 2 weeks, but am awaiting activation.  The device looks exactly the same as the Pronto.

I haven’t totally given up on the Peek.  I have too much vested in the product and would like to see it succeed, but I have my doubts.  I can’t imagine a corporate user would be too happy about the situation.  I also see competition sneaking up on the benefits of the Peek in the form of new data plans from the wireless providers.  I’ll be looking at some prepaid data plans for a USB dongle for my laptop.  If I were newly looking at the Peek, I would probably wait 6 months to a year to see how their problems play out.

Filed in categories: Reviews, Wireless

Tagged: Email, Messaging

Peek 9 Mobile Messaging Device Review originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on October 28, 2010 at 10:09 am.

Tired of plain old texting?  With social networking app developer Brightkite‘s GroupText, you can text up to 25 of your friends for free at once, making it quicker and easier to do things like getting all your friends together at one pub to watch the Final Four.  And from any type of mobile phone, they can “reply all” to the group without needing to even download the app.  Also allows pic attach and location updates and a history of the session is recorded on the web.   Available free for iPhone at the iTunes App Store.

Filed in categories: iPhone, iPad, iPod related, News

Tagged: iPhone App, Messaging

Add party line to your texting with GroupText app originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on March 24, 2010 at 4:29 pm.

Ringggggggggggggg!
Julie: “Hello?”
Caller: “Hello, is this Julie?”
Julie: “Yes.”
Caller: “This is Columbus Regional Hospital Breast Health Center. We found something on your mammogram and need you to come back in to get it rechecked.”
Julie: “….ok.”
Caller: “How about tomorrow at 8am? We will do another mammogram, and then possibly an ultrasound. You will be here for a few hours, but will know the results before you leave.”
Julie: “….ok.”
Caller: “See you tomorrow.”
Click.

Not exactly the kind of phone call that any woman wants to receive right? For the most part I put it out of my mind that day, but by the time I arrived at the doctor’s office the next morning, I had all types of bad scenarios flashing through my mind.

The first thing they did was show me the area on an X-ray that they were concerned with. It looked like a pretty large round circle with defined edges. Scary. Then they did a regular mammogram, squishing me every imaginable way. Once that was finished, I was sent back to the waiting room to … wait. Of course after seeing that X-ray image my anxieties had ramped up a bit.

The waiting room was quiet and full of other women, so I didn’t feel like talking on the phone. Flipping through old copies of Good Housekeeping magazine didn’t particularly interest me either. So I pulled out my iPhone, thinking I would play a game to pass the time. While I was flipping through the pages of apps, I saw the icon for Pinger. I had been sent the application and asked to try it out before it had even hit the App Store, but never got around to it. I thought that this was as good a time as any, so I fired it up to take a look.

Pinger is an application that let’s you keep up with social network apps such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

The Friend News screen gives you a scrollable list of the current posts from your friends. If you want to see more of their posts, you just tap their picture.

The Contacts screen will let you find people in your address book and easily text, IM, email or call them.

The Favorites screen is like the favorites screen in the phone app. You can add people for an easy way to text, IM, email and call them. There is also a keypad that you can use to dial a number just like you do in the phone app.

But the feature I played with most that day was the multi-network IM (instant messaging) feature.

Pinger supports Yahoo!, AIM, MSN and Google Talk. You have to add your user id’s and passwords for each one and then you are presented with a list of your contacts that are online, mobile or offline. It reminds me of Adium on my Mac

As soon as I put myself online, people started chatting with me, which was a great way to take my mind off of what I was waiting on.

When you’re typing your message, you can use a popup keyboard which even has a smiley picker.

About 30 minutes passed by quickly as I was popping back and forth between pinger and regular SMS messages that were coming in. Then the nurse walked in the waiting room and told me that they would have to do an ultrasound next. Oh boy, that didn’t sound encouraging… I  was led into another room and as I walked in, my phone buzzed with another message that I had to read. The technician was telling me to sit down on the table as I was reading the message and laughing at what it said. She probably thought I was nuts

After what seemed like an eternity of being scanned with what I was told was supposed to be warmed gel (it wasn’t), I was led yet again back to the waiting room. Out came the iPhone and back to pinger I went to take my mind off what news I might soon receive. I joked around with Jeanne, Judie and Claire while I waited. Yeah, it was a girl thing…

Finally after what seemed like forever, I was taken to a room where I was told that everything was fine and that I just have cysts. To say that I was relieved is a huge understatement. Later that day after I returned home, I started thinking how that simple pinger application on the iPhone really did help make my stressful day a little bit easier.

So tell me, have any of you used a gadget to help make a bad situation better? If so, please share your stories.

Filed in categories: Uncategorized

Tagged: Gear Diary, iPhone, Messaging

Can an iPhone App Calm Your Fears? originally appeared on The Gadgeteer on January 5, 2009 at 8:08 pm.