Mumbling Again

Using the Motorola PEBL with a Mac

This is not a generic review of the PEBL but rather one that is geared towards using it with a Mac. Check out Mobile Review if you want the full details, I don't want to be redundant.

This is the most beautiful phone I've ever held and it feels great in your hand. The rubberized metal shell is rugged but warm and somehow soft. The keypad is a little awkward at first but I easily adjusted to it and the subtle textures and raised divisions make it easy to operate without looking. Unfortunately the directional rocker with select button in the middle is very uncomfortable for me to use with my large hands. I've started holding the phone so that the bottom when flipped open is above my ring finger. This is slightly more ergonomic for me and doesn't hurt my thumb as much while using the rocker/select area. However this area is still very small and slippery compared to the other buttons and its easy to hit the wrong function.

Connecting to the PEBL
I was able to pair the PEBL with my PowerBook and PowerMac very easily through Bluetooth. The PEBL supports most of the Bluetooth profiles that are necessary for the operations I was interested in performing.

• Voice Gateway (HSP)
• Handsfree Voice Gateway (HFP)
• OBEX Object Push (OPP)
• OBEX File Transfer (FTP)
• Image Push (BIP)
• Dialup Networking Gateway (DUN)

There are some menus on the phone that hint at the Basic Printing Profile as well, though the Bluetooth preference pane does not list it. Notably missing was the Synchronization Profile (SYNCH), though just as Printing wasn't listed, this might be included but not listed too. We'll have to wait and see what happens with the iSync update.

Connecting a mini-USB cable from the Mac to the PEBL allows the phone to charge but does not mount the phone's storage as I expected. I assume that the Motorola Mobile Phone Tools 4.0 package would contain the drivers and software but it looks like Mac users are out of luck. The listing on Amazon clearly states that Windows 98SE/2000/ME/XP is required. Unfortunately the Motostore does NOT list this requirement.

OBEX File Transfers
I was able to browse the files successfully from the Mac. There are three root directories on the phone's storage:

• audio
• picture
• video

However only user added files show up there. I couldn't pull a wallpaper off the phone to the computer nor could I push the wallpaper to the computer from the phone either. I'm not sure if you can add J2ME applications without using the t-zones paid service from T-Mobile. It might be possible to get specialized software from Motorola through the Motocoder program that would allow more access to the phone.

Sending Contacts to the PEBL
Unfortunately there is no iSync support yet for the PEBL. However a future software update will probably fix this problem. For now I was easily able to send vCards from the Apple Address Book to the PEBL. Just open Address Book and from the "Card" menu choose "Send This Card..." Unfortunately the first and last names get reversed on the phone. I even tried changing the display order in the Address Book preferences to no avail. If you're using Entourage, Thunderbird, Mailsmith or another email client to manage your contacts I'm not sure how you could do this easily if at all.

Setting up Dialup Networking Under OS X
The only Motorola modem script under 10.4 that would work for using the PEBL as a Bluetooth modem was "Motorola iR TimePort (7089)." This got me a 9600 baud connection. Not sure if it's possible to hack the modem script to get a faster connection. There's a chance that the speakeasy.net modem I logged in to was just low baud, though I doubt that.

Customizing the Phone
Sending over new wallpaper was pretty easy. You can push the file through Bluetooth and the phone will figure out where to put it. Otherwise if you upload the file while browsing the device. You should put it in the "picture" folder. The dimensions of wallpapers are 176x220 and the format is JPEG. I also sent an MP3 and successfully set it as the ringer. I believe that the PEBL also supports AAC format but of course songs purchased through the iTunes Music Store (files ending in .m4p) will not work as they are protected by the FairPlay DRM system.

Interface Faux Pas and Annoying Limitations
I searched for a long time before I found the details of used and free space for the phone's memory. It's a huge over sight that the Motorola software engineers did not include a menu to access this under Settings > Phone Status. I finally found this info under the soft menu from within Pictures, Videos or other media section. There you'll see a menu selection titled View Free Space. I can see the reason for placing it in that location but this should be secondary to the logical hierarchy I stated earlier.

There is a 7 second limit on a video capture at high resolution despite space available in memory. The phone will tell you that you have room for 45 videos but there seems to be no way to extend the recording length.

Conclusion
Overall this phone plays very nice with OS X. If you're looking to sync PIM data with Microsoft programs you're out of luck since the Motorola Mobile Phone Tools are not compatible. But this isn't a smart phone and if you need this functionality you should get a Treo or a phone with Windows Mobile. The major shortcoming is that iSync is still not supported. However, at the time of writing this phone has only been sold in stores for a week and you have to expect these type of kinks if you're an early adopter of technology. An amateur hacker came close to spoofing the PEBL as a RAZR and using iSync. This is encouraging news and I assume it should be easy for Apple to get this working in a near future version of iSync.

Further Exploration
There are many features of the phone which I plan to explore in the near future but here is the short list:

• Sending or Receiving a fax with the phone through Bluetooth
• Exploring more inside the device memory over USB with a specialized tool
• Testing AAC support and file size limits of audio files.
• Trying to increase the recording length of video clips
• Keep an eye on attempts to hack an iSync profile for the PEBL or official iSync support

Technorati tags: motorola pebl, pebl, howto, how to, tutorial, user guide, review, bluetooth, mac, osx, dialup, os x, isync, mobile phone, cell phone, mobile, wireless
Posted by joshua at February 8, 2006 12:04 AM | TrackBack