iPhone

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.

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…

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.