Google announce the G1 Google Phone

Today Google announced the G1 Google Phone. The good news is that it will be available in the UK from T-Mobile in time for Christmas. I had anticipated that like many other devices, that the G1 Google Phone would be available in the USA first and a few months (or even a year later) it would appear here in the UK. If you recall Apple’s iPhone arrived in the US in June 2007 and did not appear in the UK until November!  However it is looking like that it will be available in the UK within weeks (if not at the same time) as the US version.

Not totally impressed with the look of the device, it does not exude style and class like the iPhone, but it does come with a touch screen and I am sure the qwerty keyboard will be useful for many.

Incidently why is it that I need to stop and think about how to spell qwerty?

I do have a T-Mobile phone and I hope that I might be able to upgrade to the G1 when it arrives in the UK later this year.

App issues

It would appear that upgrading Apps on the iPhone (and in my case the iPod touch) is not as simple and straightforward as Apple would lead you to believe.

Over the internet tubes there are quite a few reports about using the in-built App store on the device itself to update doesn’t always work as expected.

Personally I have had a similar issue myself when upgrading the iDrops game on my iPod so much so I had to follow the advice given on the iDrops website.

Following the release of v1.2 of iDrops, a lot of users have reported problems with Apple’s less-than-ideal application update process in iTunes.

To help with the upgrade process, we would recommend trying to uninstall iDrops, and then installing it again (this is easy to do).

You can do this in iTunes if you manage your installed applications manually. Uncheck the iDrops application, and sync with your iPod or iPhone. iDrops will be removed from your device. Check the iDrops application again, and sync with the device again. iDrops will be re-installed. It should now launch with no problems.

So though it is possible to add and update apps on the fly, starting to look like you should avoid doing it on the iPod and if you can add and remove Apps on the computer and then sync to your iPod touch or iPhone.

Weird iPhone Error

I got the following weird iPhone error in iTunes on my iMac.

Weird iPhone Error

It’s weird (very weird) as I don’t have an iPhone and have never connected an iPhone to my iMac. I have connected an iPod touch, so that might be it!

Weird.

Evernote on the iPod touch

43 Folders has posted a short review of the Evernote application for the iPhone (or the iPod touch).

I need to do a full post on Evernote here some time soon, because it really is a nifty little application for collecting, storing, and organizing practically any kind of information you can throw at it. The iPhone version is a stripped-down, all-business version of the app that will scratch an itch for Evernote fans who are fatigued by having to email everything to the mothership.

Having used it myself, it works quite well.

 Evernote on the iPod touch

Evernoted

I have been using Evernote for a while now.

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

Now what I like about Evernote, is not only can you use it online from any web browser, they also have clients for OS X and Windows. If you have a Tablet PC you can even use your “Pen” to make notes too.

They also have a Windows Mobile client and one should also be available for the iPhone (and so the iPod touch) soon.

There is this video which helps explain things a little better.

Evernote was until yesterday an invite only site, it is now in public beta so anyone can now sign up.

Find out more.

iPhone SDK

iPhone

Took the time (and the bandwidth) yesterday to download the iPhone SDK (eighth beta), all 1.25GB of it.

The eighth beta version of the iPhone SDK includes Xcode IDE, iPhone Simulator with Open GL ES support, Interface Builder, Instruments, frameworks and samples, compilers, and Shark analysis tool.

I have not installed it yet, in the main as I am still running Tiger on my iMac, so I need to connect up an external drive with Leopard on it.

Download it.

iPhone 3G available 11th July

Apple announced iPhone 3G on Monday in a keynote by Steve Jobs at the WWDC in San Francisco. It will be available in the UK on the 11th July via O2.

New features include:

  • 3G-capable. 2.8 times faster than EDGE.
  • GPS built-in
  • Thinner
  • Better battery life – 300 hours of standby, 2G talk-time 10 hours (as opposed to 5), 5 hours of 3G talk-time (competition is 3 hour 3G talk time), 5 to 6 hours of high-speed browsing, 7 hours of video, 24 hours of audio.
  • Flush headphone jack

Other new features are:

  • contact searching
  • complete iWork document support
  • complete Office document support (now includes PowerPoint)
  • bulk delete and move for Mail
  • save images you receive
  • scientific calculator in landscape mode
  • parental controls
  • language

I wonder if the Keynote (iWork) and PowerPoint support also allows you to show the presentation via an AV cable in the same way you can do at the moment with video and images.

It will be interesting to see also if iWork (or even Office) support includes editing and creating support, or is it just going to be reading, I suspect the latter.

Of course there are also all the features announced when the iPhone SDK was released earlier this year which include:

  • Exchange and ActivSync support
  • Applications
  • VPN

Downside is that you now need to activate the phone in store, so now unlocking just became a lot more expensive as you will have to buy into a phone plan as well as the phone.

Though O2 do say they will be offering it on a Pay As You Go contract in addition to the Pay Monthly contract they had with the old iPhone.

Overall I am tempted by the new iPhone, it’s certainly a much

LG Viewty growing on me…

My T-Mobile LG Viewty is growing on me.

Okay this is no replacement for Apple’s iPhone, but the more I use it and the more I get use to the touch interface, the more I quite like it.

Where I think it is starting to win me over, especially over Nokia phones such as the N73 and the N95 is on text entry input, especially when in landscape mode.

In landscape mode when browsing I have a full QWERTY keyboard which makes typing entries into Twitter or Jaiku so much easier than trying to use T9 on a numerical keyboard.

There are still a few downsides, it still crashes on me for example. I don’t like how to scroll down in webpages – on menus you use the dial on the camera lens, but on the browser the dial on the lens works as a zoom function! The touch interface is nowhere near as good as the iPhone (or the iPod touch) but is still quite nice once you get use to it.

I even managed to upload a photograph to Flickr today, not using Shozu, but the mobile Flickr interface – thought this won’t work if you use Vodafone.

Overall I am growing to like this phone.

Oh will there be a 3G iphone?

Macrumors reports:

Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney claims to have heard “from sources in Asia” that Apple has placed a 10 million unit order for 3G iPhones, according to an interview by the iPod Observer. This order for 10 million 3G iPhones would reportedly be above and beyond the original 10 million Apple had planned to sell of the initial version of the iPhone in 2008.

Read more.

For me one of the downsides for the iPhone was the lack of 3G, it had EDGE, but for most purposes that can be really too slow. I decided not to get an iPhone as it did not have 3G. So will I get one now when they release the 3G version? Probably not, in the main as though it will have 3G it probably still won’t be able to be used as a 3G modem with a laptop which is another reason why I didn’t go for the iPhone.

Oh and the price as well…