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Entries in iphone (7)

Monday

Jul052010

My next phone

Mon, July 5, 2010

I’m due a new phone in October. So as you’d expect, the new iPhone was of particular interest to me. We have a 3GS, but the wife uses it for the most part. I promised myself an iPhone 4 this time around, with a view to retiring my trusty BlackBerry/iTouch combo.

I’ve been a BlackBerry user for years. But with the phone now on Vodafone, a sharper camera and system spell checker, the iPhone 4.0 is just too tempting. And anyway, my wife is getting pissed off with me testing apps on her phone all the time…

But if I were buying a new phone today, I’m not sure I’d have the confidence to buy an iPhone 4.0. I’m not flush these days. Any new phone will be around for the length of the contract. So the concerns over the iPhone antenna, are making me wonder about plumping for the first iteration of a major redesign.

I’m no fanboy. I know Apple get it wrong sometimes. The Wi-Fi on my last 15” MacBook Pro (pre-Unibody, Intel model) was utter shit. It would regularly drop my connection and was incredibly frustrating to live with. If my new iPhone has similar problems, I wonder how long my BlackBerry will sit in its drawer?

Also, I’ve always been very positive about Android. The recent acceleration in iPhone hardware evolution is down to stellar competition from Google and its hardware partners - chiefly HTC, Motorola and now Samsung. I think the best is still to come from Android, so come October, who knows what handsets will be available — there seems to be a new “Best Android Phone” every month.

Can you see why I'm so uneasy about selecting the phone I'm going to have to live with, every day, for the next 2-years? I know this is very much a first-world personal drama... but still, indulge me. :)

We’ll see how all this plays out. I would probably buy a rubber bumper/case anyway. And it’s possible that a firmware update could correct the problem (antennas can, I understand, be programmed to adjust frequency when the antenna length changes - i.e. someone bridges the two sections).

And it’s not for the hardware that I use Apple. I use the Mac because the independent development scene on OSX is light years ahead of Linux and Windows. My favourite Twitter client, word-processor, blog editor, project management software, video player, RSS reader and photography applications are all on the Mac. I use Windows and Linux every day, but it’s the Mac where I feel most at home.

It’s the same on the iPhone. I love Reeder, Tweetie (now Twitter for iPhone), TaskPaper, TuneIn Radio, Instapaper, and Night Stand on my iTouch (not to mention loads of cool photography apps on my wife’s 3GS — we share an iTunes account). I know Android versions of these apps - and potentially better ones - are coming thick and fast, but the talent and creativity that OSX-based platforms attract just blows me away. That’s why, regardless of a dodgy antenna, my next phone will still probably be an iPhone.

Sunday

Jun062010

Wired FAIL

Sun, June 6, 2010

From Wired:

The iPhone, introduced in 2007, arguably created the modern smartphone industry. The template pioneered by the iPhone — a roughly 4-inch slab with a touchscreen interface offering quick access to thousands of applications — has become the standard for Web-surfing handsets.

I'm sorry, but attaching the prefix "arguably" doesn't excuse the author for such ill-informed crap. I'm sure the millions of BlackBerry, Treo and N-Series customers would disagree. And modern? WTF? This is the cell-phone industry - it's all twatting modern!

Ass-helmets.

This is what happens when a supposedly tech-savvy publisher farms out content production to Reuters

Wednesday

Apr212010

GTD with TaskPaper

Wed, April 21, 2010

One of the most useful things technology can do is help organise your life. For two decades professional people have used PDAs, Treos, BlackBerry's etc. to hold contacts, notes, appointments and email. But in my experience, prior to the BlackBerry at least, these devices were more of a time sink than an actual productivity tool.

Take the Sony P900i. I paid around £500 for one back in 2004. At the time it was the dog's dangly bits and was regarded as one of the most advanced smartphones in the world. It had contacts, documents, calendars and all that jazz. It was also monumentally shit. I hate the Symbian OS at the best of times, but I really hated the P900i. Doing anything on the phone was a massive ball-ache. Nothing was intuitive and every time I tried to live with it I returned sheepishly to my Filofax.

Symbian was no better when I returned with my N95. Sadly Nokia make great hardware running shit operating systems.

I like the BlackBerry. I had an 8800 and still use an 8900 Curve. They're great phones and genuine productivity devices. The menus are easy to use and simple, email handling is second to none, and every time RIM revs the OS it gets better. I do actually store notes and use the calendar on the BlackBerry.

BTW. I was never a Palm user. My uncle is. He's always used Treos and currently has the Pre, which I tease him about (it's a girl's phone, it even has a mirror on the back for applying your lip gloss). Palm devotees swear by their devices, but I can't comment.

My point, if I ever get there, is that finally smartphones are useful in getting things done.

One piece of software I like a lot is TaskPaper - for both Mac and iPhone. It comes from the excellent Hog Bay Software, who are, last time I checked, 103 different kinds of awesome. WriteRoom, Hog Bay's no-frills text editor is where I write everything (I'm writing this post in WR), and now TaskPaper is also a "use every day app". In fact, TaskPaper is one of only two applications (the other being Tweetie) that I launch at login on my Mac.

TaskPaper is a sort of text editor with smarts. It creates simple to-do lists.

On the Mac you just hit ⌘ ↵ and you have a new task. Hit ⌘ D and the task is marked done, struck through and dated. Simples. The iPhone app also has a great UI.

Like all the best software, TaskPaper is clean and simple but actually quite powerful. Tasks can be structured in "projects", which allow you to filter the UI to your specific requirement. Also everything can be tagged, which adds an extra dimension for effective search/filtering.

TaskPaper will basically be whatever you want it to be. You can ignore tasks and use it as your main notepad if you want. Since using TP I've hardly had need to open Notational Velocity/Simplenote - my usual Mac/iPhone note taking solution.

Oh, did I mention that (also like Notational Velocity & Simplenote) TaskPaper will sync beautifully between your Mac and iPhone? Just install Hog Bay's free SimpleText software to your Mac and then make sure your TaskPaper or WriteRoom (it works too) document is saved in the SimpleText folder. Login using your Google account and bingo - your iPhone tasks/notes are synced between devices.

At work everything uses Outlook Exchange. All meetings, projects and tasks are managed in Windows, so I'm stuck in a Microsoft hell when it comes to GTD. But at home - whether it be writing projects, planning a photo shoot, jobs around the house, or getting my personal shit together - I use TaskPaper. And yes it works beautifully. :)

Monday

Apr192010

Thanks, but no thanks Gizmodo

Mon, April 19, 2010

There are three certainties following Gizmodo's scoop of the iPhone 4.0:

1. Nick Denton, owner of Gawker Media (Gizmodo's parent company), will be creaming his pants over the fuckton of hits the tech blog will be enjoying today

2. Engadget's Nilay Patel would have written this post through gritted teeth

3. And finally, you wouldn't want to be Steve Jobs' dog this morning

This is a massive scoop. But you have to wonder what revenge Cupertino is going to take. Gizmodo would have earned MAJOR brownie points by quietly turning the hardware over to Apple.

Kudos, I guess, for risking Jobs' wrath and splashing Apple's secret device all over the internet. According to Gruber, Gizmodo swapped the iPhone for a brown paper bag full of cash a week ago.

I expect whoever "lost" the handset will be in for a serious shoeing. Although, as again reported on Daring Fireball, Apple considers the device stolen property, which of course puts Gizmodo on a sticky wicket.

So what do I think of the hardware?

It's basically everything I wanted from the next iPhone. A new design forgoing the dated curves of the previous model, a better camera with a flash for low-light indoor pics, a better screen and (we think) more battery life.

We picked up a 3GS earlier in the year, but knowing a new model was due in the summer, I happily let the wife have it. I'm glad I did.

There are still some unknowns. The actual screen resolution is guesswork, as is the camera lens. And there are no performance benchmarks, because unsurprisingly, Apple has remotely bricked the handset.

To be honest, while I'm delighted that Apple plans to rev the form factor and develop the phone's camera capabilities, I'm equally pissed that the excitement of a big iPhone announcement has been diminished several months early.

Half the fun of being an Apple user is the anticipation of every Jobs keynote, and knowing that something is ready only when Steve says it's ready. Looking at the Gizmodo pictures is a bit like seeing a pie being made. I want to see the pie when it's perfectly cooked, sprinkled with sugar and carrying the Jobs seal of approval.

So thanks, but no thanks Gizmodo.

Monday

Mar292010

Opera Mini iPhone video

Mon, March 29, 2010

I'd missed this, so I know it's a week old, but it's...

...scary fast. Doubt it'll ever see the light of day of course.

Monday

Mar292010

iPhone RSS Update: Reeder 2

Mon, March 29, 2010

Wow. After penning my post at the weekend on RSS readers, I have noticed a couple of other bloggers have written on the same subject.

At the beginning of the month Shawn Blanc wrote a similar piece, lamenting the lack of a perfect Google Reader client (he actually reviews a wider selection, and is vastly better informed). And this morning, a TechCrunch post by MG Siegler appeared in my reader giving a glowing recommendation of Reeder 2, the recently launched app from Silvo Rizzi, which is also my latest try at finding the perfect RSS app.

I'd first heard about Reeder 2 last night, when I received an @reply from the very cool Justin Hileman (twitter @bobthecow, do follow), recommending that I try Reeder 2.

Justin also pointed out that it's the fastest app he's tried when it comes to downloading too. I downloaded Reeder immediately and was blown away.

First, may I say, Reeder 2's GUI is gorgeous. Better than Byline and NNW. The interface is off-white, with a sort of worn paper feel to it. It also bunches posts by source, and there is a floaty banner that remains fixed as you scroll through the posts - it looks great.

And Justin is right - it's really fast.

But remember those caveats from my last post?

As with many solutions, I want something from two different applications. I want Byline’s off-line caching option and NetNewsWire’s seamless integration with the rest of my workflow.

Well, guess what? Reeder 2 has article caching and integration with twitter and Instapaper. In fact, as you can see from Reeder's website, it has pretty much every service I could wish for.

My search is over, Reeder 2 is -- for now at least -- my perfect RSS app for the iPhone. The bar has been raised, and Byline V3 (which will have twitter/Instapaper support) will have to be mind-blowingly good to beat the new champ. Even Shawn agrees.

Cheers Sivo, you're so many different kinds of awesome.

Sunday

Mar142010

GTD fail

Sun, March 14, 2010