BitDepth 645 - September 16
20/09/08 13:38 Filed in: BitDepth - September
2008
iPhone
@ work
There are far too many silly and repetitive applications on Apple's iPhone App Store, but there are few software development kits that have produced more than 3,000 new products in less than four months. Among them is Scrabble, just the thing for meetings that are late to start (or boring to attend).
In practical day to day use, the iPhone offers as much as it takes away. If you're used to the tactile feedback of a regular phone, which allows you to figure out which side is up and where the keypad is by touch, then the iPhone is going to be a bit of a surprise.
The first few times that you hold the phone, it's hard to avoid the feeling that you're holding a half used bar of soap. Tapping and swiping the screen with your fingers also takes a bit of getting used to, but not as much as you might think.
Zooming in on information in the web browser is so utterly useful (you touch the screen with two fingers pressed together and spread them apart) that not only is web browsing actually useful on the phone's tiny screen, you'll begin to wish that you could do the same thing on your regular computer.
There are dozens of other subtle, seemingly gratuitous touches throughout the interface. Press any icon on the home screen for a while and all the icons begin to bob like unmoored boats; you can then push them around into the order you wish.
At first, the phone's ability to sense its position seemed limited to automatically rotating the screen when you turn it from vertical to horizontal, but a number of games make inventive use of this feature.
Your list of contacts seems to be mounted in a slot machine display, so scrolling through a particularly long list is simplified by more aggressive swipes of the finger, which spins through the list with a satisfying blur.
The virtual keyboard pops up larger letters when you touch the keypad, offering fast visual confirmation. Typing by tapping away with a single finger isn't as sophisticated or as fast as you can manage by touch memory on a mini-keypad equipped smartphone, but it's much better than number pad as keypad solutions.
Breaking the software lock
As the iPhone has matured, so have the enterprising coders dedicated to 'jailbreaking' the device. Early hacks were complicated and sometimes physical. I've seen iPhones prised open to retrieve errant SIM cracking sleds (tiny slivers of circuitry that directly hacked the interface between iPhone and SIM card) and watched Matrix style code scrolling on an iPhone screen all in the service of extracting AT&T's claws from the mobile phone's guts.
At the end of the day, though, the iPhone is really a computer that makes phone calls and the new Pwnage Tool crack both updates the iPhone to the newest software incarnation and breaks AT&T's grip on the phone in a simple fifteen-minute procedure. It's hacking for dummies.
I had some issues going to version 2.02 of the system update and had to settle for 2.01. Pwnage Tool is updated frequently though, so I may go back to it later on.
Continuing annoyances
This is a sweet time to get an iPhone from a US based buddy moving up to the 3G model. These phones will have been "zapped" by Apple, who demand to see the old phone before allowing reduced cost upgrades to the new iPhone and the process returns them to their factory standard state.
On its own, the new version 2 software offers some subtle but valuable improvements to the interface, but the biggest value of the new software is the treasure trove of new software on the App Store, which is blocked to users outside the US.
For some bizarre reason, Apple has tied transactions on the App Store to the rules of its iTunes Store, which bars payments on credit cards that are not drawn on a US bank. This makes sense for music and movies, the copyright holders of which have made these transaction demands, but pointlessly limits potential sales for software programmers with wares to sell. This is, frankly, a bummer, because even the nifty free applications aren't available to iPhone users.
Among the freebies are Audi's free A4 driving game, which proved well beyond my navigation skills, multiple Twitter clients and eReader, which makes it possible to read short stories and novellas in eBook format on the device.
But all is not perfect with Apple's newest product, and competitors are moving fast to offer many of its innovations on their newest devices.
Part 2 in a series about using the iPhone in Trinidad and Tobago.
Part 1 is here.
Part 3 is here.
There are far too many silly and repetitive applications on Apple's iPhone App Store, but there are few software development kits that have produced more than 3,000 new products in less than four months. Among them is Scrabble, just the thing for meetings that are late to start (or boring to attend).
In practical day to day use, the iPhone offers as much as it takes away. If you're used to the tactile feedback of a regular phone, which allows you to figure out which side is up and where the keypad is by touch, then the iPhone is going to be a bit of a surprise.
The first few times that you hold the phone, it's hard to avoid the feeling that you're holding a half used bar of soap. Tapping and swiping the screen with your fingers also takes a bit of getting used to, but not as much as you might think.
Zooming in on information in the web browser is so utterly useful (you touch the screen with two fingers pressed together and spread them apart) that not only is web browsing actually useful on the phone's tiny screen, you'll begin to wish that you could do the same thing on your regular computer.
There are dozens of other subtle, seemingly gratuitous touches throughout the interface. Press any icon on the home screen for a while and all the icons begin to bob like unmoored boats; you can then push them around into the order you wish.
At first, the phone's ability to sense its position seemed limited to automatically rotating the screen when you turn it from vertical to horizontal, but a number of games make inventive use of this feature.
Your list of contacts seems to be mounted in a slot machine display, so scrolling through a particularly long list is simplified by more aggressive swipes of the finger, which spins through the list with a satisfying blur.
The virtual keyboard pops up larger letters when you touch the keypad, offering fast visual confirmation. Typing by tapping away with a single finger isn't as sophisticated or as fast as you can manage by touch memory on a mini-keypad equipped smartphone, but it's much better than number pad as keypad solutions.
Breaking the software lock
As the iPhone has matured, so have the enterprising coders dedicated to 'jailbreaking' the device. Early hacks were complicated and sometimes physical. I've seen iPhones prised open to retrieve errant SIM cracking sleds (tiny slivers of circuitry that directly hacked the interface between iPhone and SIM card) and watched Matrix style code scrolling on an iPhone screen all in the service of extracting AT&T's claws from the mobile phone's guts.
At the end of the day, though, the iPhone is really a computer that makes phone calls and the new Pwnage Tool crack both updates the iPhone to the newest software incarnation and breaks AT&T's grip on the phone in a simple fifteen-minute procedure. It's hacking for dummies.
I had some issues going to version 2.02 of the system update and had to settle for 2.01. Pwnage Tool is updated frequently though, so I may go back to it later on.
Continuing annoyances
This is a sweet time to get an iPhone from a US based buddy moving up to the 3G model. These phones will have been "zapped" by Apple, who demand to see the old phone before allowing reduced cost upgrades to the new iPhone and the process returns them to their factory standard state.
On its own, the new version 2 software offers some subtle but valuable improvements to the interface, but the biggest value of the new software is the treasure trove of new software on the App Store, which is blocked to users outside the US.
For some bizarre reason, Apple has tied transactions on the App Store to the rules of its iTunes Store, which bars payments on credit cards that are not drawn on a US bank. This makes sense for music and movies, the copyright holders of which have made these transaction demands, but pointlessly limits potential sales for software programmers with wares to sell. This is, frankly, a bummer, because even the nifty free applications aren't available to iPhone users.
Among the freebies are Audi's free A4 driving game, which proved well beyond my navigation skills, multiple Twitter clients and eReader, which makes it possible to read short stories and novellas in eBook format on the device.
But all is not perfect with Apple's newest product, and competitors are moving fast to offer many of its innovations on their newest devices.
Part 2 in a series about using the iPhone in Trinidad and Tobago.
Part 1 is here.
Part 3 is here.
|
BitDepth 644 - September 09
08/09/08 19:45 Filed in: BitDepth - September
2008
iPhone
initiation
The App Store, accessible from the built in browser in Apple's iTunes software, offers a wide range of recently created applications for iPhone users.
With its newest software update for the iPhone, Apple has taken its mobile into a new phase of its development. The product had already cultivated a strong user base on the strength of its Mac OS X based interface, a fluid mix of icons and touchscreen based navigation that's surprisingly easy to master.
The face of the phone is a slab of glass backed by brushed aluminium, an obsidian slate with just a single button at bottom centre.
There are three other buttons tucked away on the edges of the device, an on button on the top edge, a volume rocker on the left side and a ringtone silencer just above it.
It's undeniably hefty for a phone, but astonishingly small for a device that's just a hair's breadth away from being a full fledged computer.
Turn on the phone and you're presented with a screen full of bright icons; each of which takes you to software designed to handle one aspect of the phone's capabilities.
The phone has become quite popular with local smartphone users, particularly with those who want to make the best use of their data plans and feel the need for an alternative to the Blackberry.
Popular, pretty
I've seen iPhones on the hips and in the handbags of a surprising number of local executives and even on the desk of a TSTT manager who shall remain nameless.
In February, Net Applications, which surveys Internet use, found that iPhone based Internet use in Trinidad and Tobago (compared with other methods of accessing the Internet) placed the country third among nations which are not officially part of Apple's licensing plan, behind Equatorial Guinea and the Ivory Coast.
That rating has slipped recently down to 16th place as other countries continue to adopt the mobile phone, regardless of whether Apple wants them to.
Because WiFi access on the iPhone is a matter of just flipping a software switch, you can clear e-mail and browse the web without having a data plan at all if there's a WiFi transmitter around.
With its version 2 update to the iPhone OS, Apple has kicked down the development door it kept closed to third party coders until just a few months ago, prompting a rush to create applications that hasn't been seen on a handheld device since Palm issued its first software development kit.
There are now hundreds of tiny applications available on the App Store; a subsection of the iTunes store accessible from any installed copy of the company's free music player and synchronisation software.
The iPhone in T&T
An iPhone doesn't work out of the box in this country. It's SIM locked to the AT&T network in the US as part of that company's deal with Apple, though carriers in other countries have struck their own deals with the iPhone's creator. Getting an iPhone has also become a little more complicated with the subtle change in the relationship between the two companies when the iPhone 3G was released.
When the iPhone was introduced a year ago in the US, it was very much Apple's product on AT&T's network. Sold in both Apple Stores and AT&T outlets, buying and activation were two separate actions. You bought the phone, took it home and activated it online using Apple's iTunes software.
The newest model, the iPhone 3G, changes that system. Now you buy a cheaper phone, one heavily subsidised by AT&T, but you must activate it with a two-year plan on the spot. It's now AT&T's iPhone and the phone company wants to keep calls on the iPhone on its network.
That new wrinkle makes breaking the AT&T link to the iPhone a bit more complicated and the original iPhone becomes a more attractive proposition for non-US use at exactly the time that first generation users are getting rid of their early models.
For Trinidad and Tobago users, the changes between the phones are negligible. The 3G in the new iPhone's name refers to technologies such as UTMS and HSDPA which are not currently available in Trinidad and Tobago, so the first iPhone is just as capable here as the updated model.
Part 1 in a series about using the iPhone in Trinidad and Tobago.
Part 2 is here.
Part 3 is here.
The App Store, accessible from the built in browser in Apple's iTunes software, offers a wide range of recently created applications for iPhone users.
With its newest software update for the iPhone, Apple has taken its mobile into a new phase of its development. The product had already cultivated a strong user base on the strength of its Mac OS X based interface, a fluid mix of icons and touchscreen based navigation that's surprisingly easy to master.
The face of the phone is a slab of glass backed by brushed aluminium, an obsidian slate with just a single button at bottom centre.
There are three other buttons tucked away on the edges of the device, an on button on the top edge, a volume rocker on the left side and a ringtone silencer just above it.
It's undeniably hefty for a phone, but astonishingly small for a device that's just a hair's breadth away from being a full fledged computer.
Turn on the phone and you're presented with a screen full of bright icons; each of which takes you to software designed to handle one aspect of the phone's capabilities.
The phone has become quite popular with local smartphone users, particularly with those who want to make the best use of their data plans and feel the need for an alternative to the Blackberry.
Popular, pretty
I've seen iPhones on the hips and in the handbags of a surprising number of local executives and even on the desk of a TSTT manager who shall remain nameless.
In February, Net Applications, which surveys Internet use, found that iPhone based Internet use in Trinidad and Tobago (compared with other methods of accessing the Internet) placed the country third among nations which are not officially part of Apple's licensing plan, behind Equatorial Guinea and the Ivory Coast.
That rating has slipped recently down to 16th place as other countries continue to adopt the mobile phone, regardless of whether Apple wants them to.
Because WiFi access on the iPhone is a matter of just flipping a software switch, you can clear e-mail and browse the web without having a data plan at all if there's a WiFi transmitter around.
With its version 2 update to the iPhone OS, Apple has kicked down the development door it kept closed to third party coders until just a few months ago, prompting a rush to create applications that hasn't been seen on a handheld device since Palm issued its first software development kit.
There are now hundreds of tiny applications available on the App Store; a subsection of the iTunes store accessible from any installed copy of the company's free music player and synchronisation software.
The iPhone in T&T
An iPhone doesn't work out of the box in this country. It's SIM locked to the AT&T network in the US as part of that company's deal with Apple, though carriers in other countries have struck their own deals with the iPhone's creator. Getting an iPhone has also become a little more complicated with the subtle change in the relationship between the two companies when the iPhone 3G was released.
When the iPhone was introduced a year ago in the US, it was very much Apple's product on AT&T's network. Sold in both Apple Stores and AT&T outlets, buying and activation were two separate actions. You bought the phone, took it home and activated it online using Apple's iTunes software.
The newest model, the iPhone 3G, changes that system. Now you buy a cheaper phone, one heavily subsidised by AT&T, but you must activate it with a two-year plan on the spot. It's now AT&T's iPhone and the phone company wants to keep calls on the iPhone on its network.
That new wrinkle makes breaking the AT&T link to the iPhone a bit more complicated and the original iPhone becomes a more attractive proposition for non-US use at exactly the time that first generation users are getting rid of their early models.
For Trinidad and Tobago users, the changes between the phones are negligible. The 3G in the new iPhone's name refers to technologies such as UTMS and HSDPA which are not currently available in Trinidad and Tobago, so the first iPhone is just as capable here as the updated model.
Part 1 in a series about using the iPhone in Trinidad and Tobago.
Part 2 is here.
Part 3 is here.