Hardware

Computer hardware

Watch Out!

| Richard

So Apple has today announced its new Apple Watch.

Now previously, I’d said I was going to get one when they came out, pairing it with my iPhone 6 to do all sort of smart watch stuff but with the added health and fitness features. But I’ve changed my mind.

Instead, I’ll be upgrading my Garmin Forerunner 410 to the new Garmin Fenix 3.

Why? Well the Apple Watch isn’t capable of acting as a standalone fitness device as it relies on a Bluetooth connection to your iPhone for WiFi (understandable) and GPS (no, just no). Add to that the battery life of the Apple Watch being “up to 18 hours” (yeah, right) as opposed to the Fenix 3’s 6 weeks (!) and it’s a no-brainer. On my run-commute, linkage to my iPhone 6 isn’t a problem, other than battery life for any devices, but on a fitness/general run, I don’t want to have to have the iPhone strapped to my arm. No, I’d rather rely on the watch’s own GPS noting my distance.

And the Fenix also links via ANT+ to my footpod, heart rate monitor and bike cadence to measure a range of metrics. And the Apple Watch isn’t even waterproof!

Price? Well like for like (ish) you’re looking at £899 for the Apple Watch and £450 for the Fenix 3 Sapphire. Half the price.

The Thing About Weekends…

| Richard

… is that they’re always over too quickly.

Having come back from Venice, we were out a couple of nights later for the Fields of the Nephilim gig at the O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Great gig it was too plus we had Vietnamese food beforehand at the nearby Westfield shopping centre. And then the weekend.

As it was GT’s birthday a few days afterwards, I popped out to the Apple Store whilst I was up in Norwich seeing Norwich City beat Stoke and bought her a MacBook Pro to replace her ageing laptop, which I set up for her the following weekend … when we weren’t spending Sunday messing around the countryside paintballing!

Epic weekend. Especially singling out the Competitive Dads – what is with Surrey? – for slaughter!

Meanwhile at BlueCo, I was up to Glasgow training a Client which I decided to do with my replacement iPad. That still leaves me with my old iPad at home which Jack suggested I give him. And GT didn’t help by asking why I needed two and pointing out that I could always buy myself another one later.

Another gig the day after – Seether at the Electric Ballroom up at Camden – which was quite different from the Neph one due to the demographic of the audience, shall we say…

Jack led me astray after a great weekend this weekend – Manchester United getting beaten by City! – and gradually wore me down into saying yes he probably could have my old iPad and yes I probably should order myself an iPad mini. So I did. Two weeks’ delivery but somehow that translates in Cupertino to delivery on 10 December. After I go to Fuerteventura, when I was hoping to use it on the flights. Ho hum.

Bit of a weird time at the moment. A colleague and friend at work died the week before last with a heart attack. I’d guess he was early to mid-50s? Scary stuff, especially as he was into mountain-biking and wasn’t unhealthy. And last week an old and dear friend died from MND.

Makes you re-evaluate your life and think about those who mean the most to you.

Live Out Loud!

| Richard

Well since I last updated this blog, a lot has happened. Obviously the main event was my trip along Route 66 on an Electra Glide (posts syndicated below and on my Big Trip Blog). Breathtaking!

A week back in the UK – missing the States a lot – and I was off to Paris for a couple of days again with one of our Clients.

Back in London and the weather was wonderful at last, making walking home from work lovely if challenging – trying to avoid pubs!

Silhouette
Silhouette

Paralympics were on, bringing with it the Mayor’s fun: a big screen on Potters Field between County Hall and Tower Bridge with stalls selling all sorts of food and a bar. Made walking home and indeed lunchtimes different and bringing out the crowds.

Tower Bridge Adornment
Tower Bridge Adornment

GT got us tickets for the weekend’s Paralympics so off we went for a look around and to be awestruck.

Coca-Cola "Bubbles"
Coca-Cola “Bubbles”

I think GT’s favourite part of the Olympic Park was probably the champagne and seafood restaurant where we spent a pleasant hour or two!

Then the following week, it was my daughter’s 21st birthday, so she came down to stay at mine for the weekend, with a trip to the West End shops for a dress and a champagne afternoon tea at Harrods’ Georgian Restaurant (after we’d had the Best Milkshakes Ever!).

Shake It Baby!
Shake It Baby!
'Arrods
‘Arrods

My 21st birthday present to her was a vanity plate for her car: 1991 AM (her birth year and initials). This was the end of the weekend that I’d spent with GT shopping in Kingston for an LBD for a do coming up with a lovely vegetarian meal on the Thames.

The following week saw more meals out plus a trip and stay in the Midlands to train a client’s staff. Great fun as always, but hard work.

Last week was fun: GT came with me to a champagne drinks reception at the Spencer House in St James Place, hence the new Karen Millen dress and Jimmy Choo killer heels! Driving in the back of a cab over Waterloo Bridge, we saw a huge ride at the Southbank that we decided we had to go on, so plans were hatched for coming back last weekend to ride on Priceless London Wonderground’s high-spinning swing ride, the Star Flyer, the tallest travelling ride in the country at 60m tall, with amazing views of London (especially when we went back later, after dark.

That was a weekend of film too, seeing “Killing Them Softly” (slow-paced but well done) on the Friday night and “The Sweeney” (which was an enjoyable romp if paying only lip service to the original series) on the wet Sunday afternoon.

Quite pleased too, recently, with the release of iOS6 and the iPhone 5 which is a lovely shiny thing!

And finally, Esther, I’ll leave you with my favourite track during this period which sums up a lot of things (more of which later):

iPhone Date and Time Failing to Update?

| Richard

One of the good things about my two iPhones – three if you count the work one – has been the way the time gets updated whenever I turn them on in a new country I visit.  Indeed, when I was in Vienna last week, I was saying just that to a colleague.

And then I got back to the UK and they wouldn’t change back to UK. They were both set to automatically adjust the time zone and the Apple Support pages were suggesting contacting my cellular comms. provider, 3, in case of issues. I tried lots of things, turning them off, going back to “Airplane Mode”, turning off WiFi, etc., before I stumbled across the fix:

From Settings, choose Location Services, then scroll down until you see System Services:

Then you may well see that Setting Time Zone is off, for some reason: in mine, I had turned it off to keep the battery life up, yet it still changed when I was in Vienna; just not changed back.

 

Siri Arse Lee

| Richard

So when I first got my iPhone 4S I wrote:

“I see it really being of use to me when I’m in the car and a text message comes through: Siri can read it out and send a dictated reply. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s done through my Mazda RX-8′s Bluetooth sound system or the iPhone’s loudspeaker.”

Well there’s some good news and there’s some bad news.

The good news is that yes, it works through the car’s Bluetooth sound system, so it mutes any music and reads out the text messages.

The bad news includes:

  • “Uh-kay” being said before most things it does.
  • If you haven’t got a web connection it’ll say it can’t do anything right now, like reading something stored locally.
  • The voice recognition at anything other than walking pace is pretty poor, actually, and I’ve now started simply sending bizarre text messages in reply to people rather than spending hours arguing with Siri when it comes up with gobbledegook instead of what I actually said, thinks that I said “danger” rather than “change it” and claims not to understand danger (big, brave Siri!)  and sometimes even picks a track from my music library to play in an attempt at being ‘helpful’.
  • Won’t perform a web search because I’m in the UK and using proper English.
Close, but no cigar.
Oh and another thing: to be fair to Apple, they claim different sets of services from Siri on their US site to those on their UK site.

“It Just Works”

| Richard

Yesterday, I was reminded about just how good technology can be when it all works together. This can, of course, be a rare thing and nothing is more frustrating than kit that doesn’t work as it should.

But two things – OK, three – reminded me of how lucky we are these days.

It started with iTunes Match: I updated the iTunes software on my work laptop and then enabled iTunes Match and watched as it increased the number of songs from simply those I’d previously purchased from the iTunes Store (available since a previous release of iTunes) to all of my music collection currently stored on my iMac back at home but now backed up to iCloud.

I was then able to download a track I wanted on my laptop from my music store back home.

I’m working away from home at the moment and saw that there was nothing much worth watching on the telly. So I fired up my iPad, tethered it to my iPhone – thanks to 3’s All You Can Eat data plan – and did a bit of social networking before starting up Sky Go.

I then watched a couple of films from Sky’s Anytime+ feature: new or classic films that are available to you, depending upon your Sky TV package. Streamed over 3’s network at no additional cost to me.

“It Just Works”…

Apple iPhone 4S

| Richard

I decided that I wanted another phone to replace the aging Sony Ericsson W595 I use for my photography admininstration – to use as a mini iPad – and also to refresh my present iPhone 4 (and yes, I also have another iPhone 4 from my day job!).

More or less in line with the normal product evolution for the iPhone, Apple had recently released its iPhone 4S.

iPhone 4S

iPhone 4S

As you can see, the form factor’s not really changed too much: the volume controls have been shifted a little downwards but other than that, it’s more or less the same size (I’ve not got the micrometer out to check).

What has changed is the processor and it does feel much snappier, a feeling borne out by the benchmarking on CNET UK’s iPhone 4S Review.

The camera is supposed to be much improved with a few new gizmos: we’ll see.

The killer app or at least the headliner is Siri: a more intelligent voice recognition and command app. At first, it looked as though this was somehow missing and I initially thought that the way I’d set it up (see below) was to blame. It wasn’t: it just needed enabling in the phone’s settings. First impressions were good, but other than the novelty factor I won’t be using it at the office, for instance, though I see it really being of use to me when I’m in the car and a text message comes through: Siri can read it out and send a dictated reply. It’ll be interesting to see if that’s done through my Mazda RX-8′s Bluetooth sound system or the iPhone’s loudspeaker.

Setting it all up was something I thought would be a nightmare, but I followed Apple’s instructions, backing up my ‘old’ iPhone 4 and then when setting up the iPhone 4S, restored from that backup. I just needed to enter all my passwords again – good security touch that – and then sync the songs, films and photos, etc. One last step was to reorder all my Apps the way I like them and resync and I was there. A couple of hours tops.

What took longer was the download of the IOS 5.0.1 update, but that was a necessary evil. I left that downloading whilst I went out for the evening and when I got back I did a quick update and was there.

So was upgrading worth it? For me, yes: I now have the ‘old’ iPhone 4 working for my photography side and everything sync’d with the iCloud. I was running out of space on my iPhone 4 32GB and so the increased storage – I went for the 64GB version – is welcome, even though you only get around 58GB available for some reason. The feeling of a speedier interface is nice too. There’s not so much of the wow! factor I got from moving from IOS 4 to IOS 5, though, but it is a nicer phone overall.

What next? Well what can they do with the iPhone 5? It can’t get smaller or screen size will be reduced. If it’s thinner, it would surely be easier to break as it became a wafer in your pocket. Maybe they’ll just cram more features and storage and speed into it?

As for battery life, I discovered this little tip:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/29/iphone-4s-battery-location-services-bug

Worth reading and acting on? We’ll see. I like the way the time zone is updated when you’re abroad, but I suspect that’s overridden anyway with your cellular provider – Vodafone seems particularly dodgy in this regard from my experience.

Apple iTunes Match and iCloud

| Richard

To be honest, I’m feeling a little let down: when IOS5 was released for the iPhone and iPad, Apple introduced iCloud and a new feature, called iTunes Match:

iTunes Match

If you want the benefits of iTunes in the Cloud for music you haven’t purchased from iTunes, iTunes Match is the perfect solution. It’s built right into the iTunes app on your Mac or PC and the Music app on your iOS devices. And it lets you store your entire collection, including music you’ve imported from CDs or purchased somewhere other than iTunes. For just $24.99 a year.2

Here’s how it works: iTunes determines which songs in your collection are available in the iTunes Store. Any music with a match is automatically added to your iCloud library. Since there are more than 20 million songs in the iTunes Store, most of your music is probably already in iCloud. All you have to upload is what iTunes can’t match. Which is much faster than starting from scratch. Once your music is in iCloud, you can stream and store it on any of your devices. Even better, all the music iTunes matches plays back from iCloud at 256-Kbps AAC DRM-free quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.

This I decided was a ‘must-have’ feature, so when I installed IOS5 and was prompted to set-up iCloud, I religiously upgraded to 50GB of storage for an additional £70 a year, thinking this would include iTunes Match.

I was misled.

iTunes Match was due to be rolled out by the end of October 2011 but Apple has missed this deadline. Oh and compare and contrast the US iCloud features site and the UK version. See what’s missing? Yes, that’s right: no iTunes Match.

Apple. Epic. Fail.

iPhone 4

| Richard

Well as I mentioned over at Crass Stupidity, I’d been considering an iPhone 4 after it was announced and given it a guarded ‘maybe’, so I’d registered an interest in it with 3 and indeed Vodafone.

Recent searches had also indicated that 3 might well be offering free tethering, whereby you use your phone’s data package with other devices like laptops and indeed an iPad to save you having to splash out on a separate data contract. And yes, I am beginning to be tempted by the thought of an iPad as well, having had a photographer friend extol the virtues of his and having played with one at Meadowhell last weekend.

Merely having expressed interest, I’d been surprised to receive this text from 3 on the 22nd June:

“Great news: You’ll get an iPhone 4 upgrade and we’ve already reserved one for you…”

I didn’t even say I wanted one yet!

Then on the 24th June:

“Update. Your iPhone 4 is still reserved. Due to high demand we’ll contact you when we can process your order. View tariff details at three.co.uk/iphone”

The next day, I received this text:

“Great news. Your iPhone 4 will be available w/c 19 July. We’ll contact you between 1 & 7 July to process your upgrade…”

Well I’ve just received that call late this afternoon. They’re offering me a 16GB iPhone 4 on a 24 month contract with a one-payment to start with. In other words, it’s the same offer as anyone else would get, except that:

  1. I wouldn’t want a 16GB one as I’d intend to actually use it and fill up the phone with music, video and of course work.
  2. Why the hell would I want a 24 month contract when Tesco are offering a 12 month one?
  3. Why the hell would I want a 24 month contract when my current one is a 12 month one?
  4. Why the hell would I want a 24 month contract when Apple tend to launch a newer, better iPhone every year?
  5. Why the hell would I necessarily want to stay with 3 when I have two pay monthly phones and want to combine the two into one?

Time to talk to 3’s customer retention department, I think…