Archive for June, 2010

iPhone 4 Day!

Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Today was iPhone 4 day!  Yesterday for some very lucky folks.  Yes it is a great phone, and a big upgrade compared to my old 3G.  So there were a few upgrades for me that other people have already experienced with 3GS like the compass and voice control.  Finally multitasking, I knew what I was giving up when switched from Palm Treo all those years ago, but I did miss listening to the radio or Pandora in the background while I checked my email or surfed the web.

The display is truly crisp.  You can see the difference with the images and text.  I plan on testing some of my apps to see if upgrading the images is worth while.  I was so impressed with the 3G display, but now that I have used the Retina Display the 3G is not so great anymore.  It is amazing how quickly we become used to superior quality.

The phone is nice and fast, so responsive, I used my 3G quite a bit for small tasks and think that the new found speed is going to result in me using the iPhone 4 even more.

Having multitasking again is great.  If I remember correctly on the Treo you had to hold down a button to get back the home screen if you wanted to keep an app in the background.  I seem to remember that I had to consciously make the decision.  On the iPhone 4 all the apps are put into the background automatically, which I don’t really like as I now have to consciously remove them.  Maybe I will forget what is running in the background and let the system handle it.

Facetime is great, I tried it and it worked well so long as you do not pan too quickly.  Being able to switch between the front and back facing cameras is a fantastic addition, especially when you are trying to take a picture of yourself and friends.  The flash is a another nice addition.  I noticed that you can make the flash stay on when you do a video shoot.  No doubt someone will make a better flashlight app.

I had been reading that people had been having problems with the signal strength based on the way you hold the phone.  I am a lefty and this has not been and issue for me, my hands are usually quite dry so that could be a possible reason.

I took a couple of shots with the camera.  It works pretty well, but I find that images can easily become over exposed as can be seen in the photo I took with the rear facing camera.

I found the video quality to be great, and being able to record in HD is a big plus.  But also noticed the same washed out issue with the video as you can see in this short clip I took.  BonePony at Rhythm on the Rails.  I need to try the camera under different lighting conditions.  In general the colors seem to be enhanced to give a livelier image quality.

The one extra software feature that you can purchase is iMovie which you can download from the iTunes store.  iMovie will only run the iPhone 4.  This is very much reduced version of iMovie on the Mac, but you can make some cool little presentations.  I need to play around with that some more.

Time to play some more.

SafetyWeb is Live

Friday, June 18th, 2010

SafetyWeb is an app that I worked on quite a while back, but it was not released to the iTunes store as I was waiting for the marketing material to go with the application. It took just 7 days to be approved and that was with one rejection for using bad keywords. It is a neat application for parents of kids who are online. It allows you easily monitor their public information, or make sure that their information is not public. The app flags posts that are public, or have key words that are deemed to be warnings. SafetyWeb does require a subscription and also provides newsletters to help parents keep up to date with the trends and issues in the online world. You can download it here.

iPhone ordering Woes

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

I tried to order my phone online as soon as I woke up and had issues like the many other tens of thousands of people.  I tried the Apple website and then tried the AT&T website, which failed too.  I soon realized the issue was with AT&T and after exacerbating the issue by having multiple browsers open I decided to call AT&T.  After all, being the old company they were I figured that they probably had a mainframe that took the orders and that by bypassing the web the line would be shorter.  I was talking to a rep in no time, but had to get transferred  to the dreaded ordering process system that was a mess.  I was told it was a 5 minute wait, but after 40 minutes I gave up and called my local AT&T store.  Once again I was talking an employee quickly and they told me that the system was down, but that they were taking orders at the store manually.  10 minutes later I walked into a nearly empty store and placed my order and they ran my credit card using the old paper process.  10 minutes later and I was done.  Later that morning I was called by the sales rep as he was placing my order and had forgotten the CVV code for my card.  This was a good sign that my order was going it.  Sure enough about 2 hours later I received an email confirm and I verified online that my order had been placed.  Now for the waiting and the hoping that AT&T will ship on time.  I am not sure if AT&T will ship the phone or simply send the order to Apple.  But here is to waiting.

New AT&T data plans

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

As of tomorrow there will be two new data plans from AT&T. I have to admit that at first I was disappointed to hear the end of the unlimited data plan. AT&T has been under fire for many years as there service can really be below par in some cities. They have often blamed heavy data users for hogging the bandwidth. Unfortunately the data hogs are not likely to switch from the all you can eat plan to a metered plan. So in the short term I do not for see better experience for most of us.

The new plans start at $15 for 200MB and then $25 for 2GB. After reviewing my data usage I realized that I typically use less that 200MB. So I could save myself $180 over a year. The other nice thing is that when you do go over you simply start a new 30 day cycle, so there are no big penalties that can happen when you go over on your voice minutes. It would be really nice if the family plans would allow you to share your data plan like you can share minutes.

As there is now a much cheaper data plan getting an iPhone is now more of an option for a much wider range of consumers. I wonder though if AT&T will make you buy a more expensive plan to get a new subsidized iPhone.

Off to WWDC

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

WWDC is Apples big developer conference held once a year in San Francisco. This is my first time attending and I am looking forward to learning more about development for the various Apple products. The conference is typically focused on the iPhone and now the iPad too. This is also when the new iPhone is announced and we most likely will not be disappointed seeing as Gizmodo has already spilled the beans. I know there are going to be surprises and seeing as Google offered its developers a free phone I wonder if Apple will try to match them. I for one am looking forward to a better integrated camera. Plus the voice dial as I am still on a G3. I would say that I am a heavy user, so multitasking Is going to be a big plus for me. Better battery life is also always a plus. I have downloaded the WWDC app and now need to decide what sessions to attend.