Archive for the 'Expensive Stuff' Category

iPhone 4… My 2 Cents…

Published on July 13, 2010 in Apple and Expensive Stuff. 0 Comments

Right…

Well, its been a couple of weeks (and a 5 hour queue) since i got my hands on the latest and greatest (arguable) mobile technology, the iPhone 4 ! Within the last couple of weeks iv already kinda decided that i prefered my old 3GS based on the following reasons…

1. Reception… Yea, this one has been discussed in length by many many many people, especially lefties… I cant say iv had the worst problems in the world with the antennas, granted if i hold the phone in my left hand and try to cause the issue, then yes it happens, the same way that if i try and drive my car into a wall, i know it will break also… So, not really the biggest issue, but non-the-less im still a little concerened that Apple didnt think of this one in their testing department.

2. Design… Not really a fan, yes it looks a little more sleak, looks more professional, more futuristic… BUT (Yup, there is a hairy but involved), when you handle the item, which is uniform in shape front and back, am i the only one that keeps getting it out my pocket and trying to answer a call on the rear of the phone… id love to know im not the only person doing this :)

3. Bumpers… Has anyone really thought why this piece of cheap-ass rubber costs £25… ouch… and still wont protect the rear of the phone (and does nothing to help with issue number 2 hehe)…

4. Proximity sensor… I, as with many people im guessing use the iPhone as a PHONE!!!! so, why after 2 previous revisions of the iPhone design that worked perfectly well, has apple decided to move the proximity sensor from the top left of the phone to the center (above the speaker)… It was perfectly happy where it was, and successfully, on many occasions managed to determine my head was next to the device. Its new position seems to ignore my head quite a lot, and decides the screen should be on, and hence controls enabled… Thus, in the past 4 days, iv hung up on several people and had to repeat myself to half a dozen because my cheek has muted my conversation… im just waiting for it to conference call me with my parents and and a random stranger from Romania…

5. Background Processing… Does anyone else think it would be nice not to have some apps running in the background, aka tomtom… around 10 or 20 times after completing a journey recently iv parked my car, locked up and walked away, only to hear a familiar voice coming from my trouser pocket telling me to “turn around when possible”… Granted this is most likely a tweak for TomTom to make, but i can think of a few other apps you might not want sitting in that tray-bar… (AKA, some app’s of adult nature, you know who you are)

6. TomTom Dock… Would it kill these people to make some kind of small adapter which fits into the cradle to make the button stick out a little more, this comes back more to point 3, if the shape weren’t broke, dont fix it…

7. Micro-Sim… Explain that one to me… iv seen the inside of one of these things, there is tonnes of space left over for a full size SIM, why get all us “SIM-FREE” buyers to hack our sims to pieces to fit your new bloody sim-tray… Grrrr

BUT… Besides all these little annoyances, Apple got a couple of things right…

1. Battery… FANTASTIC… My old 3GS would have around 20% battery left after a day at work, iPhone4 75% easily after a 9 hour day (based on very little use i have to say, but the comparrison stands, because my 3GS and the 4 both get around the same workout during my daily job).

2. Screen… Gorgeous, makes me wanna cuddle it for hours.

3. Front facing camera… This is a little crap though, given the facetime application only works between iPhone4’s and only works on Wi-Fi… but countless female iPhone4 users are loving the pocket mirror app :)

4. Noise cancellation… nice touch.

5. Background processing… I know i moaned about this earlier a little, but its a dam good feature, it just needs an “off” switch for certain applications.

6. Speed… Dam, what was that….

In conclusion, nice phone, but Apples design process of “Throw away good ideas and start again from scratch” seems to of sneeked a few annoyances into the mix… lets see if Apple can really fix them, or is this a fix for iPhone5…

WWDC – Nothing special, eh !

Published on June 8, 2009 in Apple, Expensive Stuff, Gadgets, Random Rant and Tech World. 0 Comments

Well, another WWDC over and out (is it just me or does that name conjour up images of Hulk Hogan smashing iMacs over someones head in a cage match… okay its just me then :)

well, all things being equal, i cant say i really cared about much that was announced at the WWDC, new macbooks (their just faster, whoop), built in SD card slot (sorry, but i prefer the ExpressCard slot, had some options what i could stick in there, extra firewire, external graphics, Memory card reader, my finger, etc)…

The biggest shout out in my opinion had to goto the official notice of Snow Leopard, looking really nice for a quick release, with its built in exchange support (watch out Windows 7, not even you do that lol, and its your software hehe), and full 64-bit architecture we might finally see a apple kicking into the business workspace for real (cus lets face it, Microsoft entourage is a piece of sh*t… memory sucking sh*t)… and at the price of Snow Leopard, it might even be worth ordering a nice shiney disk instead of the casual download (words of anti-piracy advise for all you nasty pirates out there ;)

and not onto my new pet peeve, iPhone 3G ’s’… yup, this little puppy is kinda annoying, for all the nice features of the new iPhone, lets throw some consideration towards those poor iPhone 3G users (ME) who have just been told that they can have copy and paste, and a rotating keyboard, but if they want the nice new ‘cool’ feature of voice control (which i used to use quite a bit on my old Sony K800i) then i gotta start looking to the bank balence again…. Apple are inevitably gonna say the same thing they did with the gesture pad on the macBooks, ‘its a hardware based chip doing it’, WHY… if my touchpad understands they im giving it the old two fingers, surley it can understand how im moving them, do it in software you shmuc’s, we got RAM and processor cycles lying around doing squat, your telling me we cant spare a couple of hundered to monitor what im doing with my touchpad…

And the same really goes for this new iPhone voice control, i GUARENTEE that within 3 months of the 3.0 iPhone launch, some developer will of made an iPhone app (available within CYDIA) which will allow iPhone 3G users to do exactly that (the same as my MMS app which is doing exactly what apple cant do, for the mere few pounds it cost me)… id bet money on that, it might not look as pretty, or have some apple monkey on stage talking about it, but it will do the job, it will most likely be free and will prob be much more customizable !

Sorry Apple, I have a MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, iPhone 3G and you still consistantly dissapoint me at times, stop trying to reinvent the wheel, if another business who has been doing this for years (Nokia, Sony, Siemens, etc) have features such as MMS, Copy and Paste, good cameras then why was has it taken you this long to think they might be worth incorporating… Rule of development for revolutionary product [Everone elses good ideas] + [Your brilliant ideas] + [Industry standary technology (3G, MMS, Copy/Paste, Camera, Flash, Long Battery)] = YOUR NEW PRODUCT… Apples way of doing things [Our brilliant ideas] = somewhat lacking product !

Well, thats enough ranting, only to add one last thing, has anyone else noticed that the estimated battery life on the new iPhone 3GS is virtually identical to the old one, whats the bet that this one is gonna be just as crap on battery (aka, JuiceBox requirement) or they actually got it right this time… personally i think with the new higher power processor were all still gonna be looking to get some solar pannels stuck on the roof of our cars…

Over and Out….

P.S taking bets now that the tom tom is more expensive than the phone lol… and i love the ‘enhanced GPS’, that is a classic statement… read between the lines ‘tom tom said our GPS was shit, so they made their own’ lol

UPDATE : Looks like their is already an app out there (http://www.adelavoice.com/voicedialer/) so lets just give a shout out to apple for still not letting backgroud apps do the work they wanna charge us more for !

CES – Viva Las Vegas – 2009

Published on January 6, 2009 in Expensive Stuff, Gadgets, Hardware and Tech World. 0 Comments

cesWell its that time about, CES 2009 is about to kick off….

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) represents one of the years largest tradeshows where some of the biggest badest Gadget producers all come togeather to show off what their R&D departments have been cooking up behind hidden doors…

Among this heavyweight collection is Apple, who are rumored to be releaseing all sorts of new goodies, including the long awaited new Mac Mini (whoo, thats my birthday presant sorted out hehe)… and a new 17″ Macbook Pro !

Engadget have been awarded the illustrious title of official blog site for the CES event and have set up a newsubdomain on their site to detail out the latest new and reviews as they happen, check it out at http://ces.engadget.com/

If your lucky enough to be in the vacinity of Las Vegas over the next few days and have some money, and time free… head over and check out some of the goodies, opening times below !

Sands Expo and Convention Center/The Venetian*
Thursday, January 8, 2009 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Friday, January 9, 2009 8 a.m. – 5 p .m.
Saturday, January 10, 2009 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Sunday, January 11, 2009 8 a.m. – 3 p.m.
*The Venetian Tower Suites open same hours as the LVCC and Hilton.

Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas Hilton
Venetian Tower Suites
Thursday, January 8, 2009 10 a.m.* – 6 p.m.
Friday, January 9, 2009 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Saturday, January 10, 2009 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sunday, January 11, 2009 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
*South Hall opens at 9 a.m.

UK building Big Brother Data Silo

Published on August 19, 2008 in Expensive Stuff, Hardware, Networking and Tech World. 0 Comments

Okay, iv often wondered how much it would take to build a massive database system capable of storing every text message, voice call, email, website visited and data transmitted for a two year period, the maths in my head said the government couldnt do it (and still there is a hint they might not be able to)…

But in the mean time, say hello to Big Brothers new Personal Privacy Killing Database ;

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/19/ukgov_uber_database/

Now, try telling me this isnt a little but creepy !

Ice on Mars, Phoenix has no Memory

Published on June 20, 2008 in Expensive Stuff, Random Stuff and Tech World. 0 Comments

Now most os us IT guys know their isnt a hope in hell of getting a system implemented without testing the hell out of it, so can someone please explain to me why NASA kinda forgot to test how much their Phoenix lander could save in its little memory cells before transmission back to Earth. Persoanlly i think that might be one of the first things that came up, ya know on the list of things to check;

  1. Make sure it lands
  2. Make sure we can talk to it
  3. Make sure the ice dispensor works

Well, despite the minor problem witht he data storage on the lander, its kinda big news that it’s unearthed (or unmars’ed, hell if i know what the correct expression is in that circumstance) ice under the surface of Mars.

“It must be ice,” said Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson. “These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it’s ice. There had been some question whether the bright material was salt. Salt can’t do that.”

check out Phoenix Mars Mission for details !