Good

RIM has bridged the gap between feature phones and smartphones better than anyone else. You get a near perfect PIM setup, class leading communications, super fast performance and stability and still there is room for great call quality, signal strength (despite what some may say) and data input the rest can only dream of. I am writing this article in a coffee shop after taking a train from Gatwick Airport; the number of BlackBerry phones I witnessed being used by people going on holiday and the suits is astonishing. They are everywhere and have taken on an air of coolness over the past year or so. They fit the transition from feature phone to smartphone better than any other platform and this is why the ‘kids’ and the ’suits’ are all using them.

Bad

The third party software market for BlackBerry is without doubt limited in terms of volume and quality. The current OS limits what can be done and this may push some towards Android and iPhone. OS6 may change this, but I am expecting no more than a mild improvement over the next year. There are some brilliant apps like Ascendo Money and Tether, but these are the exception rather than the rule. I you do not need a ton of good looking third party apps the BlackBerry platform is still the best in my view for helping you to get on with your life.

I’m still a huge fan and will no doubt continue to be for some time to come.

It is very early to judge where the digital newspaper will be heading in the future, but the start has been somewhat turbulent and many changes are needed to bring it to the masses.

Pricing

The Times has had some problems so far, in particular with the quality of the iPad offering, and this has resulted in 2 free months of subscription to early purchasers. In defense of it I must say that I never had a single problem and that it was the single most used app on my iPad while I had it. The layout was well thought out, the content excellent and overall I felt it was value for money. The problem is that not too many feel the same way I do.

At the same time the main website was pushed behind a paywall and users had to start buying a subscription to view the daily content. The price is £2 / week or £1 for a 24 hour pass and again the presentation is excellent. I do feel that this represents good value, but early reports suggest that almost 90% of its online readership has disappeared over night. Financially this is not a problem because more than £1 million will be generated each year on the above figures, but I would have thought that online newspaper sites should be designed to bring in more newspaper readers and not to push them away.

It’s going to take some time for people to adapt to the idea of paying for online content because the idea of a free internet is still very much an overriding state of mind. Apps, like the iPad options, should do better, but initial figures suggest that people are struggling with the concept here as well.

It’s not there

The fact that there is no paper involved means that buyers are not getting anything physical for their money. This is still a concern for some music buyers who want the CD, film buyers who want the DVD and book buyers who want a book to hold. We are a long way down the road in digital music and still there are many who want the physical product so a long road needs to be travelled for newspapers to reach out to the majority.

A dwindling industry

The fact is that newspaper readership has been dwindling for some time because of the Internet, Satellite TV and many other competing factors. We lead busier lives and the time available for content consumption has reduced over the past decade. This should offer the digital newspaper a slim advantage over the paper version, but you still need to spend time reading it to enjoy it. Making a dwindling industry digital will not make it grow- it just makes it digital.

I personally think there is a future for digital newspapers, and potentially a very big one, but we will have to wait sometime longer for the readership to match the potential.

Sadly Ivy passed away today at the grand age of 104. RIP, and thank you Ivy.

APPLE

The Good

There is little doubt that the iPhone is a stunning piece of kit. From the materials used to the way the OS interacts with the owner, there is nothing quite like it on the market today. It is a little bit of luxury for the ordinary person and Apple should be commended for bringing this level of design completeness to everyone. Some argue that the price is high, and indeed it is for a phone, but in comparison to the competition and for the level of build quality it isn’t at all when you really think about it.

The number of apps available is crazy and when we hear numbers in the region of 100,000’s it is an irrelevance. What is not irrelevant, however, is the quality of the apps and the rate at which they are being released. Yes, there is a lot of rubbish on the app store, but that does not hide the fact that almost every mobile app and game from the past few years is now available on the iPhone platform. The big developers are on board and the rate of development and innovation does not look like it will slow anytime soon.

Apple’s control over the software, hardware and distribution creates an environment that works seamlessly (almost) and this leads to much better software reliability than is seen on some other platforms.

The Bad

We are starting to see some small chinks appear in the iPhone eco system and this is demonstrated by the way that iOS 4 works on the iPhone 3G and to a lesser degree the iPhone 3GS. Let’s be honest and realise that the 3G should have been classed as incompatible with the new OS because it has a huge impact on performance. iOS 4, even on the iPhone 4, has some problems; the well documented proximity sensor issue is just one, but some users are also experiencing small slowdowns and freezes when running multiple apps. The experience is still better than most others, but the flawless OS feel is not there in the way that it was before.

The control over the entire eco system has lead to some strange pricing decisions, of which iBooks is the best example. Many books are priced very high to the point that it is likely to strangely sales and some films and TV programmes are also priced at a point where it is much cheaper to buy a physical DVD. Music is not immune to this with the likes of Amazon generally being cheaper so hopefully Apple will realise that they also need to compete.

The final downside is something that you will either not understand or fully agree with. The way Apple markets its products is in many ways remarkably good and is largely responsible for the upturn in fortunes it has experiences over the past decade. For many people, however, it is annoying.

Those videos showing Ive and the gang explaining how the new product is beautiful and how it will change your life just beg to be spoofed. The queues of people lining up to buy a new iPhone or iPad (sometimes for days) and then receiving applause and cheers for having spent $100’s with a company worth billions just seem weird to me. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but the extreme marketing tactics Apple uses put me off rather than make me feel that I am a part of something special. I am British, and admittedly more cynical and reserved than most, but it is perfect for the American market and the trend seems to be spreading to other countries as each new product is released.

Conclusion

Unusually the bad points I raise about Apple do not centre on the hardware which is why I use an iPhone 4 every day. The outside areas such as company perception and media pricing are an annoyance rather than something that is inherently wrong with the products and this bodes well for the future of the platform. Apple has done almost everything right since the first iPhone release, but now needs to ensure that the small cracks do not open any wider and that it can get back to where it was 3 years ago. I have to say though that, in my opinion, the iPhone platform is currently some way ahead of the rest.

Tomorrow, the good and bad of BlackBerry smartphones.

On a smartphone you tend to use the home screen for almost every interaction and this changes depending on the platform; on an iPhone it is mainly used to get to your most used apps, on Android and Windows Mobile it is also used to check calendars, widgets and to open apps and on Symbian and BlackBerry it can be a mixture of both, but not always an efficient mixture.

Some people go to extraordinary lengths to make their home screen personal to them and it can become an obsession trying out new themes and colour schemes until they are happy. Ultimately they are never happy though and the process of tweaking the home screen becomes more important than the result. I too have gone through this strange process in the past, but the iPhone has cured me thanks to its lack of customisation abilities. Here is what I currently have set up-

My home screen is made up of 10 apps that I use most often plus 4 more in the dock. These are essential to me every day and thus are not hidden away in folders. Within the folders are specific sets of apps that I also need regular access to, but admittedly some are not absolutely necessary- for some reason I have 10 apps in my Photography folder. My News/Books folder has a wide selection of eBook readers, news gatherers and specific news apps and then there are the Social Networks and Utilities. It’s a never ending collection of apps that attempt to manage every possible thing I do and trying to keep them all at hand is far from easy.

I’m not really sure why I wrote this article, but am curious as to how you manage your home screen and if you have ever obsessed over getting it just right.

For me it is Leonard Cohen, Queen, Ween, Violent Femmes and Muse…

But, like most others, I would certainly recommend trashing the earbuds that come with your phone! They are universally 3rd rate, and if you care about your music at all, you deserve better buds or cans. I’m not real keen on earbuds because they never stay in my ears and they let too much sound escape. My favourites are definitely IEMs like my IE-40’s, but the danger in these is that they block out all sound, so you definitely don’t want to use them while engaging in activities that require your attention – like driving or walking! Also, because they go directly into the ear canal, you need to ratchet the volume back quite a bit to avoid hearing damage.

BUT for the ultimate in listening experience, IEMs are the way to go when used sensibly and safely. They literally fill your head with sound and you hear all the nuances (and flaws) of your recorded music. The best IEMs are expensive – my IE-40s cost $400 when I bought them (although I believe both they and the UE Triple Fi Pros, of which the IE-40’s are a clone, are a bit cheaper now), but you needn’t spend this much. You can get decent IEMs for about $100 (sorry about using $s but I’m American and don’t know what the equivalent in Pounds is).

Second best, in my opinion, are open cans like my Senns and Grados. The Grados cost $60 and equal the sound of cans that cost double or even triple that amount. The sonic clarity of these phones is absolutely astounding. They do lack on the low end in “thump” and if you’re a basshead, don’t even consider them. The low end is there, it’s just not inflated by any stretch of the imagination. The Grados are also HUGE and, frankly, ugly. But the sound is divine. On the other hand, the Senns cost me $110 (and I think they’re cheaper now, as well) and they’re lightweight and quite attractive. They almost equal the Grados in sonic clarity, but have much more of a low end presence, although again, not inflated. I prefer the Grados particular for classical, orchestral and acoustic music because of their clarity and they don’t distort at all. The Senns I prefer for their superior comfort and better low end, although they don’t match the Grados in the high end for clarity. The Senns tend to be a bit too sibilant and bright on the high end for my ears.

It’s hard to describe the clarity and “aroundness” that open cans bring to music, but I find the soundstage of open cans to be fantastic. Downside – everyone around you gets to enjoy your music with you! There is no real isolation with these cans and they’re best used in quiet environments where you won’t disturb anyone!

Phones are a bit of a challenge for finding good ear/headphones because of the way we use them and the fact that they are go everywhere devices. Personally I think that anyone that owns a smartphone and cares about his/ear music quality should have two sets of cans: one for home/stationary environments and one for out and about. Spend your best money on your home cans. Consider IEMs or earphones (but not earbuds) for your out and about cans. There are many good brands and both categories, and no matter what you spend, you’re almost certain to find something better than the ones that came with your phone!

Donald