Signs That Say Nothing: #4

Originally uploaded by Snowbadger

Another unknown, rusty ol’ sign cluttering up the pavement.

It’s been a while since I posted nonsense up here. It’s not that I don’t have anything for you, I’m just mega super busy with the day job.

‘Day’ job. Hah.

That’s a laugh.

More curious sign antics seen at my local railway station..

Fosta might know this one.

Facebook v 3.0 was released for iPhone today and this update may actually get me using Facebook again.

From my point of view the best part of the update is the fact that the photo upload and management tools are as good as something like Shozu.

This makes it oh so easy to get pictures to your friends, browse, tag etc. It also enables uploading of video if you happen to don an iPhone 3gs about your person – that said, it’ll take a lot to break my love affair with Flickr.

With the new app it’s also much easier to move through friends pages, search for people and all that social lovliness. Just browsing through my list of friends now, I can see it’s easier to stay informed with what folks are up to. It’s the kind of snacky interaction that works well when you are waiting for a train or a bus and you can’t be bothered with your RSS feeds.

As an aside – This reminds me, I really must go on a Facebook friend cull, as I have no idea why I’m connected to some people as we haven’t spoken in 20 years and yet they can see pictures of my kids.

Infact, I don’t think I’ve ever properly engaged with Facebook since I joined because like everyone else I went on a friend gold rush in the beginning , collecting all those people I knew but don’t really know. It’s kinda stopped me really playing with it (aside from the fact all my other feeds are wired up to it giving the impression that I’m there lots).

If you get my meaning.

Back in the room.

While the Facebook update is a good one (they’ve also added a decent phonebooky type thing and events, popup notifications and the ability to ‘like’ items), I always start to worry when sites port their web based featureset to mobile.

This is largely because you have to design for a different mode of use (small screen, out and about, poor connectivity etc) and that you should only bother with the most mobile utility aspects of you offering.

I always cite MySpace Mobile as an example of failure to this regard because it appeared that they didn’t really think about the parts of their site that were best suited to mobile. They chunked the while thing over.

I haven’t looked at it in so long it may have changed. I certainly don’t feel it’s presence in the iPhone AppStore.

The good news for Facebook is that it has lots of mobile utility and this app has clearly been designed ground up from this point of view.

The notifications part is nicely done. If you are browsing someone’s photos and one of your friends pings you a comment or wall pot,the new app alerts you. Enables you to view and deal with it and then come back to what you were doing. So many iPhone apps disturb your workflow and reset you on stuff like this, so nicely done.

Sadly though, no privacy settings management which I would like to have seen.

the bottom line is mobile apps have to be useful else they just enjoy a bit of vanity usage and fade to grey.

They have to be useful.
They have to be useful.

So yay there. FB 3.0 is useful.

I’ve had my shiny new iPhone 3GS for over a month or so now and thought it was a good time to jot down a few thoughts for those thinking of buying one.

Of course there is so much to talk about but I’ll concentrate on the features new in the 3GS and try and steer away from talking about applications. One of the best things is the ability to customise your device through your choice of applications “solving life’s problems one app at a time” as I keep saying to my other half, but this is about the hardware and making the switch to it.

Blackberry users making the switch
I’ve been a keen Blackberry advocate for a few years now and sometime ago I wrote a post about getting one (concerned about being always ‘on’). For work purposes they are awesome and for a long while there simply was no better way to receive work mail on the move. Push email was how it should be an the Blackberry platform delivered.

Now I’m not about to write a review of the Blackbery, suffice to say that in reviewing the iPhone I should acknowledge where it is Blackberry users are coming from. The ability of someone to ‘learn’ an interface is somewhat predicated on why they have previously experienced on other devices.

The best aspects of a Blackberry are it’s connectivity, it’s qwerty keyboard and it’s battery life. User are well oriented in the UI with the use of the back-up and menu keys while there are also familiar green and red call keys. The red being particularly useful for ‘ejecting’ you from wherever in the menu system back to the saftey of your home screen.

Yes there are other great things to say about Blackberry, but these are the main ones you bring to the church of iPhone.

Set-up and first use
Of course it’s Apple. Everything is beautiful and ‘just works’ (sideways glance at Lorenzo). However there is this weird begining where you have to hook up with your laptop and iTunes. Having just bought my phone and being all excited and bathing in post-purchase afterglow I headed to a coffee shop to play with it. However this diversion would prove frustrating as I couldn’t start the iPhone without iTunes.

It’s obvious why they need you to hook up with iTunes, it is because you need to have the latest software, an iTunes account for apps and of course your media will need sideloading onto your handset. Of course, and while different this process isn’t hard and actually broadens the new users view of what is possible. Regardless this was still a little odd.

I can imagine there are a few new iPhone owners who didn’t have everything already and had to install iTunes and stack their library before starting which would make for a convoluted out-of-box experience to say the least.

Actually as I write this it occurs to me that a prerquisite to using the iPhone is to also have iTunes. As I take it for granted, I wonder how new users respond to this idea of phone + iTunes?

Battery Life
Frankly this sucks. Big time, as I need to charge about twice a day on current usage. You simply can’t use it in the field for a day, you’ll need to get to a plug somewhere along the line, so much so that if I were going out for a whole day with it, I would have to think about taking the charger and even a back-up handset.

In this regard the iPhone is a victim of it’s own success. Because of what it does and how it does it, you tend to use it more than you regular handset.

I’m a fairly heavy data user particularly on the way in and out of work. Generally I read RSS, use Twitter, mail and IM. I often snap photos or shoot small videos on my way in and ping them to Flickr using Shozu. But for someone who does what I do for a living and probably anyone interested in this review, I guess this is fairly normal behaviour.

What isn’t normal is draining a third of the battery on 1 hour of this kind of usage! I’m writing this on my way to work and without pinging the server I’ll be draining the battery. It’s clearly a screen thing but I wonder how much searching for wi-fi and 3G it does?

I’ve worked out to switch off some of the push services respective settings because I don’t need all apps making server calls. But lets just say my mum wouldn’t be dealing with this stuff easily. There is push, then there is pull, seek and ping ping ping.

As I walk through London using the phone, moving between hotspots but not wanting to connect to them, I frequently get the ‘do you want to join this network’ pop-up which can be annoying. Yes I could turn WiFi off for a bit, but this isn’t that quick a task to do. It’s far from hard, it’s just not designed as a tier one function giving users ready access.

Last week I went to a gig and wanted to Twitter and send photographs to Flickr. I didn’t use the handset much on the way and arrived wih about 80% battery after being unplugged for a few hours. When at the venue there was a full O2 signal showing but alas no 3G would work.

Without going into details it’s fair to say that trying to connect to the network for voice was fine but anything trying to use data was not happening. We’ve all been there on New Years Eve trying to make calls only to see the network overloaded, well this was like that but data related. And then, specifically iPhone related.

I was having trouble while my friend had no issues on his Blackberry Curve. The iPhone obviously has some data hungry packets about it’s person and this nukes my battery in a few hours.

Tethering (using iPhone as a broadband modem for your laptop)
One of the great things (theoretically for most folk) is the fact that you can connect your laptop to your 3GS and use it as a broadband access point. However I wont find out if this waorks automagically with my MacBook because I wont be setting it up.

Why?

Well the problem here is O2, as they want to charge you to use this service.

I mean. Come on guys. Why is it that I can have uimited data access on my iPhone but as soon as I choose to view that data on a larger screen with a keyboard (and Flash installed ahem) you want to go and charge me £10??!!??!!

Seriously, what difference does it make to you? This service has never cost before, I’ve never paid specifically for the ability to hook up my laptop to my GPRS handset and attain exspense per kilobyte slow ass access so why now?

Robbing bastards.

Push Services
Not much to say here other than finally! Now I can sit back and let it come to me.

What I will say is that while it’s nice knowing that things will pop up on screen when they are good and ready, I have to say I’m not massively confident that it’s all happening when it’s supposed to.

I guess I should run a comparison test and send stuff to both my Blackberry and the iPhone. But really, this means little.

Applications
It is oh-so-easy to spend money in the App Store and on iTunes. Too easy.

Of course, when you get a new shiny handset beware the excited kiddy in a sweet shop mentality that will see you load your handset with lots of shiny new apps. Of course you will load up the musthaves, but be prepared to spend some dough.

What Apple have got right here (inevitably) is making it super friction free for you to part with your cash using micropayments Adding apps is a key way to make your iPhone a) useful and b) personal an it’s very simple to do, just make sure you have WiFi

Camera/Video
The poor camera was one of the reasons I didn’t buy the first iPhone. I’m an amateaur photographer (why does that statement always conjur up seedy images?) and having a decent pocket snapper is a key must have of mine.

Yes I have a decent SLR, yes I have a decent pocket camera but I still want a decent camera in my phone. It doesn’t have to be 10 megapixels, but it does have to have a decent sensor, take pictures when I press the button (and not 5 secs after) and it needs to have good connectivity for uploading.

Phone cameras warrant a post all of their own, but the main issue is always shutter lag, the time it takes between pressing the button and actually capturing the image. This is always complicated by the fact that the flash units on cameras run a red eye reduction feature which pulses the flash before the main flash in order to dilate the pupils. This has the effect of making your subject thinking that th the shot has been taken resulting in the blinky half eye shots that we all know and love.

Anyway, I. digress as the iPhone has no flash so this is not an issue.

What is an issue is that it’s utterly useless for taking pictures on nights out. Shame. Big shame.

Yep. That’s right no flash. Why oh why doesn’t it have a flash? The 3.2mp camera is actually decent, it snaps fairly quckly and the shots can be quite sharp. It’s certainly way better that my old LG Viewty which boasted a 5mp camera with HUGE lag and a decent flash.

Don’t get me wrong, the iphone is as good a mobile cam as I’ve had during the day, but in low light it’s bloody useless.

It’s great that it has video which really works nicely and enables you to trim and edit. Though I’ve never understood these sorts of tools on mobiles as they’re almost never used.

Cut/Copy/Paste
Believe it or not this was another reason why I didn’t want the first generation iPhone. Well, this the shite camera and the famed inability to send contact details, but finally THE BASICS ARE HERE!!!!

Yay.

What more is there to say other than: ‘Why the funk wasn’t it in the first phone’?

That said, the cut copy paste interaction is sweet. You tap to select then drag handles to position across the get you want to take. Lovely.

Also, you discover by accident that to ‘undo’ you simply shake the handset. I love this interaction because the input method (shaking) emulates the frustration you feel when you cock things up. Nice.

Gaming
I’m by no means a big gamer. We have a PlayStation and a Wii at home, but I never really got into the whole Nintendo DS and PSP thing.

Anyway like most people I have time to kill, especially on the train, so I’ve started buying games again. From the stupidly addictive PaperToss to RagDoll to Real Football 09.

The games are really well delivered, easy to play with controls presented on the touchscreen. Oh, and they are addictive.

Some games exploit the motion control capabilities such as Glow Ball or Rolando, but I think we are yet to see this come into it’s own.

In Summary
I read the other day that 75% of iPhone users spend 40% of their Internet time on their handset.

This may well be because they are now using the handset more than they would previously and are actually performing more Internet based tasks or it may actually mean a direct transfer of laptop tasks to the iPhone.

I know I fall into both categories as I quite often reach for my iPhone over my Macbook to do things that the later is arguably much better at, namely Reading blogs and surfing that webbernet thing.

Also im finding that I access the web when I normally wouldn’t have bothered and this is purely driven by the convenience factor.

It’s an awesome device. I dont regret buying it at all. It’s beautifully made and a joy to use and furthermore it’s actually useful as a handset thanks to the high level of custisation through applications.

It has immediately become more than a phone to me. It’s good as a phone, for browsing the web, for productivity, for gaming and has all kinds of utility depending on which apps you install.

It comes at a price though weighing in at around £1500 for 18 months plus apps (and don’t underestimate the cost of those).

However, it’s my new friend and I love it.

– Post From My iPhone

(Opt out links at the bottom)

Update:

Connectivity, the company that owns 118800 has ceased the UK Mobile Phone Directory indefinitely according to The Register. The company denies that the site has been taken down as a consequence of a deluge of request by users to go ex-directory.

Original Post:

WTF!?!?

A new mobile phone number directory is set to launch here in the UK. It will be set-up by Directory Business 118800 using ‘publicly available’ data. Although the numbers are not free to anyone you only have to pay £1 to get to person you are looking for.

The Queen please. Buckingham Palace. London

Apparently all this is cool with the ICO (Information Commissioners Office).

This is how the service works; a number seeker calls 118800 and asks the operator to look for yourname and location. If 118800 have you on their database they then call you while holding the other person on the line, and if you are happy to be connected (yeah right), they connect you.

Want to buy double glazing?

At no point are your details shared with the seeker.

I read that they get numbers from 3 main sources:

1. Market research companies who cold call and ask folk if they don’t mind their numbers being used for ‘commercial purposes’
2. From online businesses who ‘trick’ users by doing the check-uncheck opt-in at the foot of sign-up forms
3. dirty brokers who buy and sell peoples numbers

Want to Opt Out? – Yes Please!

118800 say it should be easy to unsubscribe and to do so you need to text the letter ‘E’ to 118800 from the number you wish to remain ex-directory.

Not sure I trust that.

Or you can visit their site to unsubscribe, though at the moment their site is down for ‘essential maintenance’.

Hmmm.

Seen on the BBC.

Update:

Connectivity, the company that owns 118800 has ceased the UK Mobile Phone Directory indefinitely according to The Register. The company denies that the site has been taken down as a consequence of a deluge of request by users to go ex-directory.

Kensington is an odd place to work. It smells of vast sums of money and has Range Rovers and their pavement equivalent, Bugaboos crawling all over the place.

‘Yummy mummies’ in giant sunglasses and bloody Ugg boots, ‘do’ organic coffee and say ‘yah’ everywhere.

Restaurants are alright and there is a rather nice sushi bar opposite Universal Music called the Hare & Tortoise (inevitably tagged the ‘hairy tortoise’). Here I saw this rather perculiar ‘brolly johnny’ machine:

It’s for putting your wet brolly in when you come in from the rain.

How polite I thought. How Japanese.

*disclaimer – sadly I’ve not yet been to Japan. But my good buddy Fosta tells me lots about it.

**apology – if this isn’t Japanese I’m sure someone will point it out.

It’s the sort of thing you see on BBC’s Dragon’s Den, a widget. A gadget. A thingmybob.

The idea of covering your brolly just so that it doesn’t get other people wet feels a million miles away from today’s “I couldn’t give a shit that I own crap headphones and it bothers everyone” culture we have here in the UK.

The lack of awareness for others is reallysrting to bother me. It might be age. Or I may be especially grumpy right now. Who knows?

Only the other week I was at a traditional village fair where a group of lads were happily skinning up spliffs and playing footy right next to a toddlers playground. To me, even with a realaxed attitude to this sort of thing, surely it’s inconsiderate? Surely this isn’t on?

As I write this now two lads on the train are going on, very openly about how much they ‘get fucked up’ and wherevthey buy their ‘gear’ from.

I’m getting old.

Clearly being a dad makes me bothered about this stuff.

I want to live in a seaside town having japes in an Enid Blyton sort of way.

Innocence lost? What are my children growing up in?

I wrote about the Singapore Courtesy Campaign the other week and I’m staring to think we need one here.

We’re getting outdone for manners on our own turf.

Well you can’t blame them for trying, but this leaves a little bad taste in my mouth i have to say.

No, I’m not a priss, I’ve been sharing Jacko gags with the best of them, but this… come on.?

Is this good retail or just a bit distasteful? When would it be okay to do this..?

I guess it could have been tasteful had they put a little more effort into it and comp in an ‘In memory’ page with some considered imagery and respectful editorial or something.

But to hand crank the homepage to fill with Michael Jackson albums, videos etc without adding anything reeks of opportunism to me.

I say boo.

Original iPhone vs iPhone 3GS

Originally uploaded by Skedoozy

I’ve been stung by Apple more than a couple of times by buying the first edition of a new product, be it hardware or software.

I say stung because often these first editions are nearly always bettered within a year or two.

“Of course” I hear you say, “This is normal. Nothing new here”.

But Apple make things so damn sexy, so bloomin’ desireable and they can be so ruddy expensive that it’s MEGA FRUSTRATING to buy something, to love it, only to find your head turned by a feature update a year later. You’ve just outlaid £2000 on a shiny new MacBook Pro and then bam, processor update, you then find yourself indulging in feature hungriness.

I’m almost scared to buy Apple products these days because I fear they’ll ‘make’ me upgrade inside the natural life of the product I just bought.

It means that you have to make a decision; buy now and attain early adopter (read MacGeek) status or wait for the update and purchase in the satisfaction that while you waited and had that luddite LG Viewty handset for way longer than you would have hoped, now you can pimp the upgraded, super-fancy cut ‘N’ paste iPhone 3GS.

‘S’ for sucker?

(Apparently it HAS to be a big ‘S’)

Quite.

Anyway, today I shall go and buy one (if there are any in stock that is).

But O2 are making me jump to their tune

However, I’ve read through the new feature set which has been much covered in the blogosphere, not least at the actual time of the WWDC on Twitter. (Aside – God that was annoying – 10 people retweeting the iPhone features all at the same time.)

But, I digress.

I was particularly interested in the device tethering feature which basically allows you to use your ‘Unlimited Web Access’ iPhone as an access point for your laptop.

IF you are in the market for a decent 3G dongle for your laptop then this feels distinctly like one of those ‘two birds one stone’ moments.

Sadly not.

Here in the UK, O2 is CHARGING you £15 per month for the ‘Bolt-On’.

Not so bloody unlimited is it?

£275 outlay for the daddy iPhone 3GS 32Gb then a further £35 a month for 600 mins and 500 texts + unlimited web access + insurance (which you really should have). PLUS extra Apple Care for your ruddy software!!

That’s 275 + (18×15270) + (18×35630) + (12×10) + (1×59) = 1354

£1354 or one thousand, three hundred and fifty-four pounds.

I’ve just been fucked backwards.

This kind of marketing REALLY ANNOYS ME!

On one hand O2 are saying:

“Here is the convenience you’ve been waiting for! iPhone 3GS (read it… ‘S’) WITH TETHERING!!”

YES!!! FTW!!! – I say.

But on the other hand they are charging for the tethering saying”

“AH HA! FUCK YOU SUCKER! Yes we did say unlimited web access, yes we did say tethering, but what we didn’t say was ‘unlimited free access with you tethered devices”

It really annoys me.

But what annoys me more is that, I’ll probably still buy one as I’ve already waited 18 months.

Being a fanboy hurts your wallet.

Update: I have one. I am now officially a ‘3GSucker’.

I saw this sign on the floor in my local train station suggesting that we all ‘Slow Down – Accidents Happen’.

Anyone commuting in and out of London will recognise the pace and tension at which people seem to escalate their psyche to when traveling.

As for ‘accidents happening’ – well, they will if you put bloody signs on the floor!

Anyway, a while ago, when I was studying Product Design at Brunel I had to go on placement for a year and I chose to work in Singapore as I could kill two birds with one stone and go abroad and work at the same time. It was nice, but that’s not why I mention it.

While I was there the government were running a ‘Courtesy Campaign’ as people in Singapore largely had few manners (something important to a traveling Englishman) .

The lion was called Singa, and on writing this post the campaign seems to still be running.

It all started in 1996 according to their website:

In his 1996 New Year Message, then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong highlighted the need for Singapore to become a gracious society by the 21st century. Considerate social behaviour supported by a strong economy and good government will make Singapore the best home for its people.

There are pledges, a kindometer, TV Ads (I love the way the Lion scarily pans into shot) here:

If you enter your name you can see how kind you are:

I love the R is for ‘Respecting people’s property’

Visit the ‘Kindness Movement’ for more info.

We need more love here eh…?

Nothing to see here.

I just love seeing lots of the same thing together. Although users never actually see your site like this (of course not). I always find it useful way to stand back and see the level of complexity you may be asking them to navigate.

The ’stand back and go ‘ooh yeah, bit complex a’int it?’ test’™.

Fosta and I did a book about it once showing shops all with the same naming convention.