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Monthly Archives: April 2011
Take your iPhone back to the 1970′s in style
When I was a child my Father owned a turntable with a cassette player on the right, radio on the front and two stonking big speakers that seemed to take up half the living room. I want those times back and if the concept from Yanko Design below ever becomes reality I’m in.
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Sort of proper satellite navigation comes to webOS
NDrive has released the first real satellite navigation solution for webOS. The US version costs $49.99 and maps for other countries are available, but it does seem a little basic. precentral has written up a review of the product and with little other choice around it may still sell quite well.
“We’ve been testing the nDrive beta for some time, and while earlier versions of the app were somewhat rocky and had not yet adopted webOS UI conventions (especially gestures), the app has come a long way. The release candidate, while still looking unlike most webOS applications, incorporates enough standard interface elements that it will be easy enough to use. Another potential challenge is file size. nDrive maps can be quite large (the U.S. map alone is 2.3 GB) and take a long time to initially download especially on a cellular data connection, and storage space used for maps will obviously be unavailable for photos, videos, music and the other types of files users may keep on their webOS devices. Then again, the same is true for the homebrew Navit solution; it’s just the nature of an on-device versus streamed navigation solution.”
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Captain CupCake and the Donut Disaster for iOS
It’s got food, it’s got a hero and it’s free. Why would you not get Captain CupCake and the Donut Disaster for iOS? Released today by Astraware and jolly good fun. Check out the video below for a demo.
What’s so special about white?
People are queuing up for the white iPhone 4. Not just resellers looking to make a quick buck, but real people who seem to feel that there is something special about a phone that is white.
The white iPhone 4 is a black iPhone 4. A white phone is surely designed for girls because men don’t carry white phones. OK, shoot me down- some men do carry white phones, but some seem to have developed a fascination with the white iPhone 4 because it hasn’t been available for a year. This has created an irrational longing for a product that is already available, but in a different colour.
Even more worrying. Why does a little part of me, just a little part, want a white iPhone 4?
QOTD: App updates?
Do you update your mobile apps whenever they are available? I must admit that I do every single time, but know others who have more than 50 updates waiting and they are not fussed at all.
No notes, just email
I have over 900 notes synchronised between Evernote and Awesome Note on my iPhone and they hold a huge amount of information that is useful to me or just nice to keep. It is a system I have been wanting for a long time, but it still doesn’t fulfill a task that has alluded me for many years which is reminding myself of information that I can use later in the day.
Excuse the spelling mistake in the image…
To do lists, note apps and everything like them just don’t work for me. I forget that the information is there and it just stays there never to be viewed again or acted upon as it was meant to be. There is, however, one place that I go to multiple times a day and that is my email account. Email has been such a part of my life for so long that it is the natural place for me to view information and so I have been copying links and tweets and emailing them to myself for a long time now. The process is clunky and fiddly to say the least, but it does work.
What I needed was a method to automate the sending of notes to myself and the discovery of One Minute Idea Memo just exactly what I wanted. You copy some data (URL, a Tweet or whatever) and open the app and paste it in. Tap ‘send’ and an email will pop up pre-formatted in a logical way. That’s it- the email will then appear in the email account you have already set up. You can also type in a reminder to yourself and it will do the same thing. It is so simple and completely free.
Despite all of the excellent note takers available for smartphones today some of us still need the data to be presented up front and centre and in my case email is central to everything I do. This simple tool has saved me lots of time and made me a lot more organised than I ever expected.
Is SMS dying? No.
“Experts predict the number of texts sent in the UK will drop by 20 percent in the next two years.”
That is an extract from an article over at IOL which talks about the increase in popularity of IM over SMS. I have to say that I find it highly unlikely that SMS will lose popularity any time soon and full expect it to become even more popular as time goes by. It is the ONLY universal method of mobile communication that everyone uses.
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What does a white iPhone 4 really need?
Today is the day that the white iPhone 4 should finally arrive and I can think of no better accessory for it than the new iMagnum leather case from Piel Frama. Looks fantastic!
Compatible with all versions for iPhone 4.
High quality cowskin leather.
Sync through travel cable.
Rotable and completely removable Ultra Belt Clip (the knob is also removable).
Polypropylene inner structure.
Soft leather lining.
ABS inserted protection.
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How Google’s Freewheeling Ecosytem Threatens the iPhone
Interesting article at Wired suggesting that Android will one day seriously threaten the iPhone. Some of you will agree, others won’t, but only time will tell.
“Andy Rubin needed a hit. It was January 2009, three years since Google had bought the company he cofounded, a little startup called Android.
Rubin had created a slick operating system for mobile phones that allowed customers to surf the web, send email, play music, and install apps. He had hoped that Google’s money and power would help turn Android into a major force in the burgeoning smartphone industry. Instead, Android had been a disappointment. Despite months of press buildup, the first phone to run the system, HTC’s T-Mobile G1, was greeted with tepid reviews and lackluster sales. Rubin had tried to find a bigger wireless carrier that would agree to partner with Android—he and his team, including Android cofounders Rich Miner and Nick Sears, had lobbied Verizon for the better part of a year—but without success. And then there was Android’s biggest competitor, the iPhone. Introduced in 2007, it had become an instant commercial and cultural phenomenon. Unless Rubin could come up with a breakthrough Android phone, and quick, he might have to concede the entire business to Steve Jobs…”
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Today’s news: Apple comes clean, Nokia cleans out…
Nokia has issued a press release detailing its plans for Symbian in the near future and the restructuring of its workforce. “Earlier today, Nokia announced plans to form a strategic collaboration with Accenture that would result in the transfer of Nokia’s Symbian software activites, including about 3,000 employees to Accenture. In addition, Nokia also plans to reduce its global workforce by about 4,000 employees by the end of 2012, with the majority of reductions in Denmark, Finland and the UK. In accordance with country-by-country legal requirements, discussions with employee representatives started today.”
To me this offers the final nail in the coffin for Symbian- without Nokia, it really isn’t even worth considering now. It is a real shame for the 4,000 who will lose their jobs, but I guess we could all see it coming.
Apple has come clean on the iOS location tracking issue by posting a Q&A on the subject- “Sometime in the next few weeks Apple will release a free iOS software update that:
- reduces the size of the crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower database cached on the iPhone,
- ceases backing up this cache, and
- deletes this cache entirely when Location Services is turned off.
In the next major iOS software release the cache will also be encrypted on the iPhone.”
RIM has acquired Tungle which will potentially offer the ability to share calendar data over different platforms on PIM hardware. That would be more than useful on the PlayBook… “This is exciting for you too as we expect the Tungle service to only get better. Our plan today is what it has always been – for Tungle to become integrated with your daily activities and be ubiquitous within the applications you’re already using. When you think scheduling, Tungle should be at your fingertips.”
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Charlie Stross essay on eBooks
Do you want to understand more about eBooks and the way the industry is moving? Read this then. Thanks to Paul.
“There is no topic in the publishing industry this decade that is the source of as many misconceptions, superstitions, lies, plausible untruths, and idiocies as ebooks.”
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Will mobile operators ever learn?
“Leading European telecoms companies want to levy significant charges on Google and other online content providers through an overhaul of the regime governing how data travel over the internet.
Operators in Europe complain that they are contending with an explosion of data on their networks, much of which comes from US sites such as Google’s YouTube video service.”
The above comes from an article in the FT and you would now expect me to have a rant about it. However, I will leave it to Ewan in this post of which the highlight is “Well, no, actually. What we’ll do is this. Anyone requesting Facebook.com from your piddly little operator IP range will get a 500 byte HTML file in return, explaining that the content is unavailable from your bollocks network. That’ll solve your data crunch nightmare overnight, won’t it?”
QOTD: The most beautiful mobile phone?
What, in your opinion, is the most beautiful mobile phone ever made? Jump to the next article for my choice.
Retro Review: Motorola RAZR
2006 was a very good year for Motorola. It produced a phone that became the ultimate must-have mobile for anyone who… actually anyone. The specifications were not great by today’s standards. 10MB of internal memory, 750mAh battery, 2.2″ screen with only 176 x 220 pixels. The internal software was not great either, but it was functional and just about did the job it was intended to.
The specifications were irrelevant. Look above, that is simply beautiful. No phone before or after has come close to reaching the level of acceptance the original RAZR received and it was all down to the aesthetics. From the one-handed opening mechanism to the subtle speaker grill to the metal built it was, and still is, the nearest we have come to the perfect mobile design.
It made me feel good long before mobile technology was supposed to. It felt like luxury at a price point that most people could afford and Motorola truly struck gold by selling more than 110 million RAZRs over 4 years. The main problem for Motorola was that it didn’t move from the original design, but merely tweaked it with various new models and has never recovered since. The company is starting to come back, but the RAZR remains the highlight for a company with the longest tradition of all in the mobile industry.
This isn’t a long review because there isn’t much I can say about the RAZR except that it is still the pinnacle of mobile beauty and will be for as long as the touch screen smartphone dominates.
How much for a new iPhone 4 in the UK?
You would think that in a mobile market as competitive as the UK, the iPhone 4 would be priced similarly on each network. You would think wrong then.
A colleague at work has been considering upgrading his iPhone 3GS to a 4 on O2 now that his contract has expired, but O2 wanted close to £200 to upgrade on a £35 / month contract. This seemed high to me and so I had a look around at the various pricing options. I am using a 32GB iPhone 4 as the example on a £35 / month (approx.) new 24 month contract and this is what is on offer-
Update: it seems that the Carphone Warehouse price is for the 16GB iPhone 4- 32GB not available.
I admit that I have been on a bit of a love-in with 3 over recent months, but the reception has been near perfect everywhere I travel, the customer service has been exceptional and the pricing (£15/month on PAYG offers me lots of minutes, thousands of texts and truly unlimited data) is unbeatable.
Looking at the table above, it is only 3 who breaks ranks with the monopoly that is smartphone (and in particular iPhone) pricing in the UK. I haven’t included Tesco because the only tariff options available are £25 and £45 / month and this skews the pricing completely although they do offer good value.
If we move away from the pricing alone, it is hard to see value when 4 providers offer 14,400 minutes over two years and 12,000 mebabytes of data over the same period.
3 offers 48,000 minutes (+ 120,000 3 to 3 minutes) and truly unlimited data over the same 24 month period.
I recognise that different parts of the country have different coverage patterns, but I know a few people who found 3 to be poor 2 years ago and who are amazed with the difference today. If you have good 3 coverage where you live and travel and want an iPhone 4 there really is only one choice.