Showing posts with label Mobile Phones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mobile Phones. Show all posts
iPhone 3G Impressions
Sunday, 13 July 2008
So the iPhone 3G has finally been released and 30 hours (give or take) after I picked mine up it has finally registered on the O2 network and I am good to go with all my mobile internets. Now even though I haven’t had 3G for the last 30 hours, I was able to unbrick the device via iTunes and have been playing around with it on Wifi.
A while ago I ventured into an Apple store to try out an iPod Touch but it isn’t a perfect experience, as you are having to use it in the store and without your email, contacts and calendar setup, so it isn’t an accurate test of the device. On that day I only really had a chance to test the iPod functionality and web browsing, which were both excellent but the device had been well used, so the screen was fairly irresponsive and the accelerometer was a bit off.
The experience itself has been incredibly simple. Like any iPod owner will know all you need to do to sync an Apple device is plug it in and let iTunes do all the hard work and thats exactly what happens with the iPhone 3G, which uses iTunes as its hub. Plug in the USB cable and iTunes springs to life and is ready to sync anything you need (e.g. musics, contacts, calendars, emails, applications etc) directly to the device. The process is incredibly simple and is made even simpler by some nice graphics that break down what is taking up all of the space on the iPhone.
With all the data uploaded it was time to test out some of the mobile applications. One of the first things to point out is that the iPhone will detect all available internet connections and use the quickest one, in my case that meant sizing up 3G and Wifi and realizing that Wifi was the way to go. All the standard applications are available; Mail for email, Safari for web browsing and the iPod software for listening back to some tunes, or watching some videos. The really impressive aspect of all of this is that they run just like they do on a Apple desktop or laptop. Obviously they are running at a smaller resolution and without a keyboard but they look identical, they run just as quick and the touch screen controls are so well designed and implemented that it shortly becomes second nature to pick up.
One of the key selling points for me was the MobileMe integration, which promises Exchange like push email, contacts and calendars for the iPhone. It is fairly simple to setup- just sync the mailbox details then browse to email settings and turn on push email, push contacts and push calendar and you have Exchange in your hand. Any changes that are made get sent back to “the cloud” and updated on your laptop and/or desktop and back to the web interface on me.com. Incredibly simple doesn’t do it justice.
I’ve yet to use my iPhone long enough to see how much of an issue battery is but it looks as though it does a good 5 hours of talk time, which should be plenty, assuming I’ve always got a charger to hand. I don’t intend to watch hours of video on the device, in fact the only videos on there at the moment are a couple of podcasts that only last for 10 minutes or so.
A while ago I ventured into an Apple store to try out an iPod Touch but it isn’t a perfect experience, as you are having to use it in the store and without your email, contacts and calendar setup, so it isn’t an accurate test of the device. On that day I only really had a chance to test the iPod functionality and web browsing, which were both excellent but the device had been well used, so the screen was fairly irresponsive and the accelerometer was a bit off.
The experience itself has been incredibly simple. Like any iPod owner will know all you need to do to sync an Apple device is plug it in and let iTunes do all the hard work and thats exactly what happens with the iPhone 3G, which uses iTunes as its hub. Plug in the USB cable and iTunes springs to life and is ready to sync anything you need (e.g. musics, contacts, calendars, emails, applications etc) directly to the device. The process is incredibly simple and is made even simpler by some nice graphics that break down what is taking up all of the space on the iPhone.
With all the data uploaded it was time to test out some of the mobile applications. One of the first things to point out is that the iPhone will detect all available internet connections and use the quickest one, in my case that meant sizing up 3G and Wifi and realizing that Wifi was the way to go. All the standard applications are available; Mail for email, Safari for web browsing and the iPod software for listening back to some tunes, or watching some videos. The really impressive aspect of all of this is that they run just like they do on a Apple desktop or laptop. Obviously they are running at a smaller resolution and without a keyboard but they look identical, they run just as quick and the touch screen controls are so well designed and implemented that it shortly becomes second nature to pick up.
One of the key selling points for me was the MobileMe integration, which promises Exchange like push email, contacts and calendars for the iPhone. It is fairly simple to setup- just sync the mailbox details then browse to email settings and turn on push email, push contacts and push calendar and you have Exchange in your hand. Any changes that are made get sent back to “the cloud” and updated on your laptop and/or desktop and back to the web interface on me.com. Incredibly simple doesn’t do it justice.
I’ve yet to use my iPhone long enough to see how much of an issue battery is but it looks as though it does a good 5 hours of talk time, which should be plenty, assuming I’ve always got a charger to hand. I don’t intend to watch hours of video on the device, in fact the only videos on there at the moment are a couple of podcasts that only last for 10 minutes or so.
Posted byMichael at 10:34 View Comments
Labels: Apple Mac, Internet, Mobile Phones, Software
Bringing Back Skype
Saturday, 22 December 2007
Remember Skype? Yeh, that's right it's VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) done as it should be. Skype provides an excellent service and it helps that it's wrapped in some really stylish and easy-to-use software. The only problem is that no one is using it and that is a problem because it means that I don't use it.
So why is no one using it? Well obviously because you need to be at a PC ready for a call or be near a WiFi hotspot, with a laptop and a headset, which are two situations I never find myself in. Of course that was until they produced those Skype phones that had 1 minute battery life and still required a WiFi hotspot to work. Oh wait they weren't good...
Fear not concerned reader because Skype have hooked up with those good fellows at Three and produced the 3 Skypephone, which is a mobile phone with Skype built in.
Now on the surface this is nothing new because other companies (including Three) have already brought Skype to other mobile phones. However this phone is different because this phone has full Skype integration, meaning that your Skype contacts will be displayed alongside non-Skype contacts in the address book. Or if you want to just access the Skype software all you need to do is the click the big Skype button in the middle of the phone.
The other great thing about this phone is that it is good value on either contract or pay-as-you-go. On pay-as-you-go it costs £49.99 for the phone and then to access the Skype content it costs £10 a month, which gives you 4000 minutes of incoming & outgoing calls and 10,000 instant messages per month. On contract the phone is free and packages start at £12 and come with a range of standard minutes and texts as well as all the pay-as-you-go Skype content.
In terms of functionality you can call Skype users on PC for free, you can call other Skypephone users for free and you can join conferences, although admittedly you cannot host them. All of this means only one thing- it is time to start using Skype again so that I have a good reason to buy one of these when my contract expires in June 2008.
Posted byMichael at 20:32 View Comments
Labels: Internet, Mobile Phones, Software
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