Category: iphone

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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

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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.

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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…

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Downloaded iPhone SDK

I have managed to download the iPhone SDK, but so far have left it alone. It does require an Intel Mac running Leopard and my iMac is still running Tiger (for a while).

My Mac mini is running Leopard, but it’s a G4 PPC Mac so no luck there.

Ah well out with the external Leopard drive and boot up the iMac.

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iPhone SDK Released

Today Apple announced and released the SDK for the iPhone (and iPod touch).

iPod Touch

Lots of other sites have covered the event and the SDK is now available to download…

Well at this point in time. no it is not possible to download, obviously everyone else is trying to download it!

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Make mine an Americano…

Imagine going to Starbucks having already ordered your drink from your iPhone?

Cafe

Engadget reports on an application for the iPhone which allows you to place an order for a drink so it’s ready when you get there.

Quickorder, as you can probably imagine, would enable iPod touch users to swing by their local Starbucks, order up their favorite drink and avoid a good deal of that always questionable human interaction.

Just demonstrates how useful/useless an application for a mobile device can be.

Photo source.

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Silver or Black

After my personal mobile phone gave up the ghost I decided it was time to get a new phone. I have a Nokia N73 through work though so haven’t been entirely phoneless. But I need a phone for personal use.

I discounted the iPhone almost immediately, in the main as a) the phone was expensive at £269; b) the phone plans were expensive with the cheapest one at £35 per month; c) you can’t use the iPhone as a Bluetooth modem which means that I couldn’t use it with my laptop; and finally d) it uses EDGE and not 3G which means that even if I could use it as a modem it would be very slow and internet on the phone would be slow.

I quite like the Nokia N73, but I have one of those and I don’t really want two!

I did consider the N95, but with rumours of an N96 and wanting something with a slightly better battery life, I decided to go with a different phone.

After much thought and looking, I decided to go with the LG Viewty. I went with T-Mobile as they are one of the few UK mobile phone service providers which allow you to use the phone as a modem with your laptop and I wanted that over a separate USB 3G Modem.

Alas when I went into the shop they were out of stock. So I ordered online, only to make a mistake with my bank details so when they made the charge to the card it was refused! After phoning and correcting the mistake I found out that the phone was now out of stock, but would be back in stock soon.

Ten days later I get an e-mail saying that the black one would be back in stock soon, but the silver model was available now.

Silver, I didn’t know it was available in silver.

A quick internet search revealed that the silver model was newer, hmm, choices, silver now or black later.

Well after thinking about it for a couple of minutes I decided to go with the silver model. Phoned T-Mobile to let them know, when they told me…

“the black one is back in stock”

Aaarrrgh, silver or black, silver or black.

Decisions.

Choices.

In the end I decided with the silver one, as it was newer.

Hopefully it may arrive today, but it should be here by Monday. Only problem I have is I will need to get another memory card format as it uses Micro SD whereas my other phones have or use Mini SD or Memory Stick Duo.

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Mobile Web

BBC’s Click has a nice article on the mobile web.

It is estimated that just one in five people with phones that are able to connect to the net actually do. But the iPhone, however, is having a profound effect on the willingness of its users to go online.

Read more.

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What no 3G?

What no 3G?

Though you may think I am talking about the lack of a second generation iPhone with 3G, no I am talking about the lack of 3G on the MacBook Air.

Yes it has 802.11n, but how many 802.11n wifi hotspots have you seen on your travels? Also from an internet perspective, 802.11n is a bit of overkill for a typical internet connection. Not everywhere has wifi hotspots, they never seem to be available when I am out and about or they fall over a lot from too many clients.

So there you are with this beautifully thin MacBook Air and either you need to use a Bluetooth to a 3G phone, which kills the battery both on the MacBook Air and the phone, and a lot of mobile phone providers in the UK now no longer allow you to use your 3G phone as a modem (or they charge you a fortune) they all now seem to want you to use a USB dongle.

Now an USB  dongle though has less of an impact on battery life on your laptop (and no impact on your phone’s battery life) is a dongle and it dangles from the beautifully styled and thin laptop you just bought!

All of this could have been avoided if Apple had provided 3G functionality with their beautifully thin MacBook Air.

I’m not the only one thinking like this, as you can see here and here.

I think Apple missed the boat on this one, though maybe they didn’t want to get into bed with another phone provider!