Apple

Apple Computing hardware

The Trouble with the iPhone 4…

| Richard

So Apple’s new iPhone 4 was announced yesterday and no doubt all the Apple fanbois will soon be getting their sweaty mitts on them. I mustard mitt that I watched the video late last night and started to give getting one some serious thought.

Looking at the tech specs, it’s lighter, thinner and shorter than my present Nokia N97 but wider. So a guarded thumbs up there. It’s heavier, taller and wider but thinner than my current choice for upgrade, BlackBerry’s Pearl 3G/9105, so the scales tip away again. And of course it’s a touchscreen with all that goes with that in terms of minor irritations.

The first couple of minutes of the promo video focus on the video calling capability of the iPhone 4, but then this does depend upon both the caller and the recipient having iPhone 4s and being set up and using WiFi. The guy in the hotel room is clearly luckier or wealthier than me, because I almost always find hotel WiFi hit and miss and hideously expensive. And of course this is nothing that an average laptop user can’t accomplish with a cellular, wired or wireless connection and Windows Live Messenger, Skype or whathaveyou. So the main feature is nice, but expensive.

Multi-tasking makes it to the iPhone 4, something that both the Nokia and the BlackBerry have been doing for yonks.

So it looks like the choice is probably still going to be the BlackBerry, but we’ll see.

Apple iFad, sorry, iPad

| Richard

So Apple has unveiled its new iPad, a tablet of around the same size as a netbook PC but at twice the price, as usual, because people who like Macs are prepared to pay for the pleasure.

What you get for at least $500 – so £500 in the UK, then – will be a glorified ebook reader with the ability to look at photos or browse the web and send e-mail … provided you’re at a WiFi hotspot because it doesn’t ship to start with with any 3G connectivity (and won’t at that price either).

What’s worse is that, like an ebook reader, it’s not exactly pocket sized either.

Now if you’re in the market for an ebook reader that’s twice the price and that brings the option of web browsing where there’s a WiFi hotspot – and with no USB ports a 3G dongle is not an option – then you might want to consider it. For me, I’ll make do with a 3G phone for portability and the ability to look at photos, play music or films, and send e-mail and browse the Internet, or I’ll use a cheap netbook like the one I already have that does a similar job for half the price.

Thanks, but no thanks, Apple.

The Trouble with Macs…

| Richard

So with the move to London happening soon, one of the items I had to sort out was my Internet access. Here at home – working for myself from my office on the side of the house – I have a business broadband package from Demon with fixed IP addresses for all the computers and printers. When I’m out and about, I usually use a 3G USB dongle from Vodafone which is more often that not either a regular 38Kbps service or on occasion nothing more than a pretty white plastic thing for decoration only. Where there is good coverage, it’s supposed to deliver 1.8Mbps with the promise of 7.2Mbps in parts of London though annoyingly Rotherhithe doesn’t appear to be in the Promised Land but just outside – I’ll check when I get there.

So anyway, with 5GB/month I thought that might make it easier: no need to get a phone line and a broadband package, just use my allowance for a change.

But Mrs RHM then suggested I should get a webcam for my laptop so I could help the kids with their homework if need be and also keep in touch with her. Fine, I thought, though alarm bells started ringing: she uses our venerable iMac while the rest of the family have PCs.

So what’s the problem with the iMac?

Well the iMac and OSX Leopard has iChat which promotes its video chat features. To use it to its best, you need to have a .Mac account – which is expensive for what you actually get which is why I abandoned my .Mac account after a couple of years – as does your friend and .Mac is pretty much a waste of time for anyone on a PC. “Never fear”, says Apple, “you can always link up with AIM.” What?

“iChat works with AIM, the largest instant messaging community in the U.S. You and your buddies can be either AIM or .Mac users. Text, audio, and video chat whether your buddies use a Mac or a PC. Sign in with your AIM account, and all your buddies appear in your iChat buddy list.”

Great! No-one in the UK – OK, I exaggerate a tad – uses AIM: AOL Instant Messenger. The client software seems to have issues here on this PC, by the way, which comes as no surprise to me having once used AOL software for testing purposes. Go on: ask any of your connected friends what they use for instant messaging and they’ll say “MSN” (or “Windows Live Messenger“, to give it its proper name).

You can, of course, download the Mac Messenger client, but the ‘usual’ home user version does not support video messaging. Not really a surprise as I think Microsoft doesn’t really bother with Mac users as they’re lost causes as far as “the Beast of Redmond” appears to be concerned.

Maybe this is another reason not to get a Mac? Until Apple comes up with an instant messaging client that supports video messaging with Windows Live users, you’d otherwise be partially cutting yourself off from the majority of computer users, at least here in the UK.