iPhone vs Android

My current phone is a HTC Desire running Android.  I would like to share the following anecdote as it governed my choice of tablet!

Last year I was in the market for a new mobile device, and after a tiny amount of deliberation I plumbed for the shiny and new iPhone 4.  It had just come out, and there was a lot of hype surrounding it.  Aside from the hype was a change in way data contracts were structured by the telco’s that meant unlimited data was no longer on offer for the iPhone, however having fallen in love, I did not take flava flav’s advice and I totally believed the hype!  I joined the queues and begged for a phone from Orange who after making me sign away my soul finally handed me my shiny new object of my desire.  In the following two weeks I had several problems with my new love including the phone dropping calls, and the sensor that was supposed to turn of the touch capabilities during a call not always working and cutting me off. 

Unwilling to suffer 18 months of worrying about how I was “holding” a phone, and having been burned by being tied to a crappy handset before, I traded up for the HTC Desire running Android which seemed to be the phone of choice used by my peers. 

As a previous iPhone owner and a big fan and the HTC had a lot to live up to.  So first looks the HTC as good, not only did it have apps, but also had widgets, functional items that could be added to the UI.  Trouble is the HTC comes with pre-installed apps and widgets that not easily be removed which is crappy.  Several of the widgets are “faulty” the clock does not stay current and takes a moment to refresh, friend stream does not work and bizarrely Google's OS does not connect seamlessly to their cloud services such as docs, reader, chrome bookmarks etc.  I find the interface clunky and ill thought through.  Some say this is a lack of familiarity, however the iPhone set the bar for new interfaces exceptionally high, and Android just does not meet this bar.

Despite my rant about the AppStore, I have never been confident enough in the security of the various android stores to make a purchase using my credit card.  This is not something I can "put my finger on", I just do not trust it.  One thing I would say is that while the concept of “Apps” is a successful one that people seem to enjoy, allowing the ability to find small cheap and simple applications, I am unsure that it should be the only way of purchasing applications, especially “proper” applications.  Having been a windows guy since windows existed, I use utility sites like ZDNet and Download.com to discover and download or purchase functional apps as I need them.

Apple really have created something with the iPhone and to me Android seems like a poor imitation.  Because of this I decided to swerve the honeycomb tablets that were being launched.  This may be something I regret…

iPad 2 Review

While I am a technologist and earn my money designing software and solutions, I have never liked Apple as a company.  I have never liked their dictatorial attitude to computing. and their lack of or limited support for anything non-apple.

This attitude was changed the moment I picked up an iPhone 3, and I would challenge anyone who picks one up not to be impressed by the device It is obviously a sexy gadget, but once you see past the striking good looks you realize it is so so simple to use.  It passed my “mother test” with flying colours and I found it a very workable phone.  It certainly kicked the ass of my previous smart phone, a windows 5 HTC that sucked soo badly I had to purchase a new phone!  Anyway this is about the iPad 2.  Basically the iPad is a large iPod Touch with a camera and a few other bells and whistles. So it looks good, I think we can all agree that.  It is light, has good battery life, is easy to use.  My previous blog I mentioned the criteria I would be using to measure the tablet. Surfing the internet The iPad makes a fair job of this.  I like the browser, it is simple and finger friendly.  I do not like the lack of browser choice and the fact that Silverlight and flash are not supported. Take Notes The iPad has a few note taking apps and you can purchase a pen for it.  It does not support “inking” or any pen technologies. Edit Photos and Video iPad has some great photo and video editing Apps. Games The iPad does have a lot of games some very good, especially those that are purchased.  Ignoring Angry birds, (which sounds like a Friday night where I live), the touch interface makes for an engaging and new way to game. In summary the iPad is a content consumption device.  Not supporting flash is really really REALLY shit. You need an app for every site that you visit which makes consumption bitty.  I use a variety of streaming sites such as bbc, soundcloud, ted, channel9 etc etc as part of my browsing, and my daughter uses a load of flash based sites such as habbo and mathletics.  Very limiting Apple, get over yourselves and implement this. In short it is pretty and light and great for users with light to regular demands.  Much of the really cool features come through the Apps that make use of the touch-ability.  Apps that simulate drum machines or sequencers or that add image effects.  There is little doubt there are some really cool Apps out there, however without the ability to do serious content creation and move files around it seems to me the iPad is un-necessarily limited.  I have high demands from my personal devices and I feel that the iPad will not measure up. I understand that any negative review of the iPad is never received well by iFanatics who will defend their camp till the bitter end. iRant 1 : iTunes I hate the reliance on iTunes is the main way of loading information.  The software blows.  I have never known something that needs updating so often (other than the Windows os, which is an OS). iRant 2 : No access to file system I hate that you can not simply dump a file on the device and use the file system.  This is something I do a lot with my work, and to not have this simple function available irritates me iRant 3 : The App store Now I write software.  I have had a few great ideas for comedy apps that I would have developed had I not had to worry about being vetted by apple and then giving them 30% of any money I might make for the pleasure.  The app store is the reason you can not use flash or silverlight as they could circumvent Apples money machine. I get that it is not all bad.  Your app will be marketed and published to a large number of potential consumers, but I love the freedom windows gives that allows you to develop any thing you like.  Less regulation Apple, that's what I say. iRant 4 : Functionality Dribble Apple seem to not deliver devices that can contain everything that they could for reasons unknown.  For example why when implementing video calls did they plum for “face time”  this is bullshit.  There are loads of IM clients that will do this job well.  Copy paste took several releases to exist… why why why…

iChoose

I have recently been in the market for a new laptop. My old laptop was beginning to limp along, and it did not take well to the 9 month journey around Asia and India that I took it on. Using a laptop on the beach may well sound like a nerdy dream, but the reality is that sand and salty air do nothing but reduce a computers lifespan!

Anyway, boasting aside, I have been in the market for a new device.

Now given the advances in touch screens, the release of the iPad 2 and given that this is driving force of this blog, I decided to go for a tablet of some sort. My sister in law has an original iPad which I have used, and I have previous experience of the HTC Windows, iPhone3 & 4, and Android mobile devices, I figured I would see what was on offer and purchase myself something.

As all good IT people know, before you even begin to look at buying something, in order to prevent the pure lusting for shiny new things taking over and driving your purchasing decisions, one should create a list of things that we would intend to do with the device.

Often I have been caught in the moment, and days later realised that what I have purchased does not do what I need, and been lumbered with a crappy but shiny device that will gather dust until it is past its use by date and is filed in my ever growing technology museum in the attic.

So here are the requirements

• Internet Access: Got to be the no.1 requirement really.
• Take Notes : I take a lot of notes and scribble a lot of designs. Since I stopped smoking, I have no fag packet and carry a pad into most meetings. I would love that pad to be electronic!
• Editing images and videos : As a keen amateur, I would like to edit photos on my new device, I use Photoshop elements for this.
• Games : I would like to be able to play games, simple as that…

So those are my requirements. Next post is what I may buy

Home computers get the finger

In the eighties the battle for the home computer market was alive with interesting contenders like BBC Micro, Acorn Electron, Commodore 64, ZX and Spectrum all competed for market share. None of these computers shared architecture, processor instructions or languages, mostly the only thing they shared was the keyboard layout! None of this mattered as the age of the enthusiast had begun, and people across the world began making their own programs (mostly games). Computing had come home

This first generation evolved into more powerful machines such as the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST which began to bring more variety to computing applications used in the home. I remember playing with Octomed when I was 18, making dance music from some basic beats and bleeps! Alongside this, was the advances in games consoles. Starting with the bat and ball paddle games, then onto the Atari console generations, Nintendo and Sega's first LCD handheld games, then the evolution onwards and upwards. As gaming moved more towards consoles and as advances in the world of business computing brought forward the first “Desktop” personal computer that crossed over into the home. The x86 IBM PC was born. This computer swept away the competition. It had expandable and replaceable hardware, with a revolutionary internal hard disk and a flexible os (Disk Operating System) that could adapt to hardware changes and allow installation of new complex software that allowed the creation of all sorts of complex content. And so the battle was over and the war was one and peace reigned for the next decade or more. This meant the home computer market hardly changed. Long live the new and boring King.

In the late Nineties, early 2000’s there were 2 significant developments, the internet became widely available and mobile communications exploded. Both these technologies followed the Gartner hype-cycle, and have taken root and matured. These technologies have given rise to new markets and new developments that are causing the current revolution that to me looks similar to the initial gold rush of the eighties.

This revolution has been building for the past 6 or so years. Mobile phones, mp3 players, digital cameras, increased bandwidth, small cheap storage, smaller batteries, cheap lcd’s, advances in touch screens, all this has come together into the lovely smart phones we use today. In addition to this, the face of pc’s and laptops have also changed. People no longer view pc’s as a thing on a desk in a room of the house that does everything. Who really uses a home PC for writing letters or doing spread sheets? Things like netbooks and net pc’s have whittled a pc down to a reduced set of use cases that cover the needs of most home users, while cloud services can provide document creation in the few occasions a letter needs writing. No longer are x86 and Microsoft the only game in town, in fact the old windows OS is really looking rather, well, old. We are moving away from conventional computers. Mobiles and computers are merging, the rulebook as been ripped up and once again innovation is changing the ways we interact with the digital world. I really like it. For a long time I have watched tablet devices evolve as a backwater technology. Motion computing has been in this space for ages, windows tablet has to date been a bit of a sideshow and Wacoms groovy input devices are well, groovy, but while these are all exquisite gadgets, they have always been expensive with specialist uses. I am glad to see that now touchy greatness is crossing over to the mainstream. There is something fundamentally right about prodding the computer withe your finger and using gestures to control applications. Finger friendly OS’s are being honed and there are several viable devices and operating systems offering alternate takes. iPads, Kindles, Gingerbread tablets and Windows Tablets. One only has to look around to see people prodding and poking devices in all sorts of situations. NOW, add to this the really exciting sci-fi style developments that exist today in 3D, augmented reality, ubiquitous computing, cloud services, and the even further afield quantum computing and cryptography, terabyte fibre networks, digital paper, nano tech and intelligence being built into everything and things really start looking really really exciting…. The next 10 years will be amazing for technology, get involved…