the andyautomatic blog
Should be mildly interesting.Archive for iphone
My Favourite iPod Apps
Its been a month-ish since I started playing with applications on my glorious iPod so I thought I should round up which are proving to be the most useful and entertaining. The majority are free, which is a great start but is slightly worrying given the number of previously free apps which have recently had a price tag added by their developers. I have no doubt that apps from the big developers (Facebook, Google etc) will remain free but the chances of some of the most treasured free apps, particularly games, staying free aren’t looking good. For now though, I’ll look at apps before posting about games later.
Facebook – whatever has been said about a lack of features in the first version of this one, we’re already seeing big improvements. The ability to chat with your Facebook friends is fantastic, especially for iPod Touch owners like myself who don’t have the luxury of the iPhone’s texting app. Interface issues still need ironing out, though access to photos is great. Well worth the download – and free!
Ambiance – a new one purchased (yes, for all of £0.59!) on the back of a TUAW review, and well worth the money. I’ve always wanted a ’sound box’ to help with sleep but hated the idea of paying hundreds for a box that plays trickling water at me so this, along with my trusty £15.99 iPod speaker dock from ASDA, is a fantastic alternative and amazingly it works like a treat!
Remote – probably going to change my listening habits for good. I’ve got sick of dragging my laptop round with me or trying to plug in/find batteries for my speaker dock but Remote now comes to the rescue by letting you control your iTunes library and player from your iPod via WiFi. With the help of my previously neglected AirPort Express, imagine a Sonos system for a fraction of the price with the added ability, if you invest in a little bit of shareware called AirFoil, to stream any audio from your PC/Mac to any remote HiFi in your house. Genius – and free!
Last.fm – I’ve had an account for this for ages and never used it, until now! I’m in love with the free streaming, usually accurate recommendations of what you likely want to hear and flexibility to customise your own radio station. Very cool, particularly with a speaker dock – and a good net connection – and, of course, free!
iShape – another new one which is changing my life! Having entered a few details about weight/height/age/sex etc it calculates your BMI, optimum weight and sets you a timetable and calorie count to stick to in order to reach your goal within a specific amount of time. I’m so impressed with the way you can record and track what you eat to make sure you don’t have the wrong type or amount of food and its so easy to use! Loving it and can’t wait to see if it works! At £5.99 it isn’t the most expensive app I’ve invested in so far, but its certainly been the best value for money even after only a few days.
Not to be missed also is the new BBC iPlayer web app which is a vast improvement on the initial clumsy implementation. The design is great, the quality is fine and I’m so impressed that the BBC is really leading the way in providing decent streaming video to the iPod/iPhone. If you haven’t already tried it you really should!
Perhaps to be saved for another post are the most disappointing apps – Flickr app ‘Exposure’ (for being too obsessed with advertising) and accelerometer harnessing ‘Steps’ (for simply not working!) being two of the worst. At least I didn’t pay for Exposure, but the farce that is my £2.99 copy of Steps just shows why some developers must be thanking their lucky stars that there isn’t a try before you buy option available through the AppStore yet. Be careful of reviews in the store itself though because Apple doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job of moderating them and some are clearly being used as a clever form of marketing – as I found with iShape, the best option is to trust in Google and do a search for ‘iPhone Apps’ and the type of app you’re looking for or a specific app’s name.
3G iPhone? The man from O2, he say yes!
Well as a loyal (yeah right) customer of the oxygenated bubble lovers I am of course going to take notice of this one. Engadget has it via the Guardian that O2 CEO Matthew Key has confirmed the launch within the next few weeks. Rather ominously he said that when we should expect an actual launch is ‘a question for Apple’ but at least we know its almost guaranteed we’ll have a WWDC announcement. Keynote! June 9th! Woo!
Does this mean that the handheld games console will have to wait then?
iPhone + .Mac = Integration for the Nation
I suggested this earlier with the rumour that .mac push email will be available with iPhone 2.0 and now TUAW has further information leading them to believe that the tired service will be getting a major revamp in time for the new firmware/hardware release. It now seems that calendar and contact support are likely also as is Windows syncing (great for us tragic wannabe-Mac-owners). Still with a suggested price tag around the £50/year mark, can Apple really expect it to compete with the Google offering? Toughie.
In other iPhone news, yet another six million countries have been promised the device ’soon’ including Latin America, Poland and Spain – my costa lovin’ uncle will be happy – adding further weight to my suggestion last night that a global launch is imminent. Woo!
Apple, with this barrage of hints you’re really spoiling us
Well if we needed any more confirmation today we seem to have it. O2 (the clever chaps) have replaced their iPhone page with a notice informing those who might be stupid enough to snap up an old model that the ‘8GB & 16GB iPhone [are] no longer available’. So have O2 decided to either end their deal with Apple early, or maybe, just maybe, has someone mentioned that a shiny new iPhone will be available soon? Maybe they’ve been reading Engadget even more than me recently, though thats more than can be said for Apple retail who are still quite happily shipping the old timers to unsuspecting consumers. I can see another rebate on the horizon…
The beauty of this announcement however is that, unless Apple are happy to lose out on hardware sales for a few months, the June launch is now looking to be almost certainly global in scale so we could see the 3G beauty in stores within a matter of weeks. On the 3G score, El Reg are reporting that Apple is hiring ‘iPhone Field Validation Engineers’ in Australia, Germany and the UK. Crucially they are looking for “technical understanding and experience with GSM/GPRS, Edge, CDMA and UMTS” – yes, you read it right, UMTS. All we need now is a launch date and we’re set.
What’s that now? WWDC Keynote? Second week in June? Hmm…
I HATE Australians!
But there is a very good reason why, I promise.
TUAW are reporting that the iPhone (2.0 I’m assuming) will be carried by three (count em, 3!) networks in Australia, adding to the announcement that at least two will offer it in Italy. Rumour has it that unlocked iPhones will be sold through Apple stores suggesting that no network will be getting exclusivity and giving the impression that Vodafone’s recent announcement that it will bring the wonder-phone to about a squillion different countries may simply be down to the fact that anyone will be able to buy one of em.
Should the Brits be jumping for joy at the the thought of being able to spend a little bit more than we would on a new iPod for the added benefit of a glorious phone, and crucially without having to change our pesky contracts? I’m not convinced O2 will be over the moon about that prospect, unless of course the exclusivity was just for the original and not the if-it-doesn’t-arrive-in-June-we’ll-all-have-a-heart-attack 3G update, but this seems unlikely.
Speaking of the Holy Grail, TUAW also has news that .mac push email looks likely to be available with the next firmware update, though calendar and contact syncing looks to remain as an Exchange feature. I adore Gmail, particularly with IMAP, but the thought of unified address book, calendar and email… god I need to get out more! If the rumours of a Google/Apple collaboration over the future of .mac are true however who knows what will happen.
To round off a bumper iPhone post, even MORE supposedly leaked pics of the beauty have appeared on, you guessed it, TUAW. Bearing a remarkable resemblance to the shots Engadget spied online last week, except that now its white (please, please, please – I’ve been waiting for white to be the new black again!), it certainly appeals to me more than the original. At the end of the day, a touch screen is just a big black-ish expanse when switched off so I’m looking for something inventive, such as the HTC Touch Diamond (could I switch back to WinMo… could I?) or ridiculously beautiful such as my iPod Touch. Could a more svelte frame and gloss white finish tempt me to get my wallet out… only time will tell, so hurry up June!
