iPhone official leak, St Pat’s Day.

David Perry wrote on Twitter this morning Looking forward to the 17th, to hear Apple detail v3.0 of the iPhone OS vs Windows Mobile 6.5. I need a new phone, now my bet is on Apple! David is a ‘son of Northern Ireland’ – one of our Tech Heroes. He’s commenting on the news that … Continue reading “iPhone official leak, St Pat’s Day.”

David Perry wrote on Twitter this morning

Looking forward to the 17th, to hear Apple detail v3.0 of the iPhone OS vs Windows Mobile 6.5. I need a new phone, now my bet is on Apple!

David is a ‘son of Northern Ireland’ – one of our Tech Heroes. He’s commenting on the news that on St Patrick’s Day this year, Apple will open the curtains on iPhone OS 3.0 and show us what to expect. This is similar to what they’ve done in previous years regarding the iPhone – it’s great for building expectations and giving a taste of what is to come. It also sends the other mobile OS providers into a flurry of photocopying every feature.

David is also commenting on Windows Mobile 6.5. Recently outed as an unwanted stopgap, we’re all left waiting for what will eventually be Windows Mobile 7 with this release as ‘filler not killer’. At Microsoft’s Public Sector CIO Summit in Redmond, Ballmer admitted the company was falling behind its rivals. “We have a significant release coming this year,” he said. “Not the full release we wanted to have this year but we have a significant release coming this year with Windows Mobile 6.5.”

The solution – “Wait til Windows Mobile 7” which neatly echoes their desktop/laptop/server strategy “Wait til Windows 7”.

This has been a successful strategy from Windows pre-version 1 so why change a winning formula.

iPhone links.

Apparently, “71 per cent of the 147 games professionals taking part in the Multimedia Research Consultancy’s (TMRC) first online survey rate the Apple platform as the best, while 77 per cent believe it has ‘revolutionised the way that mobile games are sold’.” – Mobile Entertainment According to MacWorld, France is getting a second iPhone carrier. … Continue reading “iPhone links.”

Apparently, “71 per cent of the 147 games professionals taking part in the Multimedia Research Consultancy’s (TMRC) first online survey rate the Apple platform as the best, while 77 per cent believe it has ‘revolutionised the way that mobile games are sold’.” – Mobile Entertainment

According to MacWorld, France is getting a second iPhone carrier. Bouygues Telecom will begin selling the Apple smartphone at the end of April, in competition with France Telecom’s Orange.

and Gartner reports that the iPhone market has grown 245% over the last year. While Nokia is the world leader in shipped phones, their smartphones sales actually fell nearly 17% compared to the year ago quarter.

Q. whom I should follow on Twitter?

I can give you an idea of who I *think* you might want to follow 🙂 but that’s not the same thing. There’s social media “experts”, VCs and Angels, technologists, entrepreneurs and they’re mixed with stay-at-home mums and make-up fanatics. There’s plenty of arseholes too – but then it’s the Internet 🙂 I’ve stopped following … Continue reading “Q. whom I should follow on Twitter?”

I can give you an idea of who I *think* you might want to follow 🙂 but that’s not the same thing.

There’s social media “experts”, VCs and Angels, technologists, entrepreneurs and they’re mixed with stay-at-home mums and make-up fanatics. There’s plenty of arseholes too – but then it’s the Internet 🙂

I’ve stopped following most of the “A listers” like Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble – because they

a) follow too many people and therefore they would never hear you
b) constantly babble which means you miss good stuff from others
c) are wrapped in their own ego bubble.

I still follow Michael Arrington/TechCrunch because he’s very real – he only follows 590 people but is followed by 203000 people. Compare that to Scoble who follows 75000 people and is followed by 68000. If you follow too many people then you’ll be labelled as a spammer.

With Twitter, the emphasis is on listening, not talking. Who do you want to hear from?

San Francisco

I’m over in San Francisco for three days trying to pull together three or four meetings which will have some impact in the Northern Ireland economy. Some damage has been dealt with the resumption of violence in Northern Ireland. The night before I left two soldiers were shot and four people injured up in Antrim … Continue reading “San Francisco”

I’m over in San Francisco for three days trying to pull together three or four meetings which will have some impact in the Northern Ireland economy. Some damage has been dealt with the resumption of violence in Northern Ireland. The night before I left two soldiers were shot and four people injured up in Antrim and last night a policeman was shot dead in Lurgan.

That’ll be fun to return to. It’s certainly ruined some plans here as attention in the higher echelons of power are dedicated to putting a face on this events – but the real issue here is whether this will be a campaign or opportunism? Think of the families already affected and the effects still to come.

Anyway, posting some images taken from the plane on my flight over. I don’t want to think about the doom and gloom.

These pics are

1. Route
2. Reykjavik
3. Glaciers and Mountains in Greenland
4. Rift in California.
5. Getting really close to the water.

SIGNS

Got this through GAS: Watch, then read on… Related posts: The Broadband Blueprint (re DETI Telecoms Consultation) Streaming Video: who pays the cost? On The Box 18/100 Just Jump Into Podcasting – Heres How

Got this through GAS:

Watch, then read on…

Continue reading “SIGNS”

Working on reducing numbers (specifically, waist)

Back in December I dragged the Wii Fit out from under the sofa and did the Body Test. Boom. I’d managed to turn into a complete porker again – I put this down to the Honeymoon cruise in August (where we ate rich and wonderful foods constantly) and a general contentment post-wedding due to the … Continue reading “Working on reducing numbers (specifically, waist)”

Back in December I dragged the Wii Fit out from under the sofa and did the Body Test. Boom. I’d managed to turn into a complete porker again – I put this down to the Honeymoon cruise in August (where we ate rich and wonderful foods constantly) and a general contentment post-wedding due to the fact that we’re both foodies (in the sense that we love taste more than presentation).

There was bugger all point starting some sort of weight regime before Christmas as it was setting myself up for a big heap of failure so I put it on the back burner and in mid January I started to examine my eating a bit more.

Temptation is an irresistible force at work on a moveable body.

: H. L. Mencken

The thing about losing weight for me is that I love food. And I dislike denying myself the luxuries. No surprise there. If my friends are over for a game, I’d much prefer to chow down on a take-out meal rather than wolfing down a ‘portioned’ meal (which is a little like trying to stem a flood with a packet of kitchen towels).

Loving the luxuries means having some sort of control elsewhere. So, I reduced my portion sizes across the board. Instead of having two packets of sandwiches every lunchtime, I reduced to one. I’m also using fresh fruit in work for snacking rather than a stock of chocolate (which was how I whiled away my time at $BIG_COMPANY – amazing how much chocolate you can swallow when you’re deeply unhappy about the day job!)

I’d also discovered that I have no idea what it feels like to be “satisfied” when eating. I know what “full” feels like because I could barely move afterwards and I didn’t like that feeling (and feel a little ashamed that I’ve experienced it too). So I spent a little more time examining my timing with meals. I’ve always been a vacuum cleaner for food – even when I was a skinny teen (which was a change from being a chubby toddler) – and the end result was when I hit my mid-20s, I filled out both in build and in bulk. Sorting out portions was therefore important.

30daysoffit

I’d considered doing more exercise but that’s a struggle considering that I’m already pushed for time as it is and finding it hard to get to bed before midnight anyway. I followed Nigel’s 30DaysOfFit last year and I think I need to be a bit more serious about it. That’ll be something I look at more seriously after this coming week. I’m off to San Francisco for three days and that means airplane meals, hotel meals, an official dinner and effectively no control over the quality of food I eat. With the other things going on, it’s just too hard to organise eating as well.

So, that was the promise. Reduce my portions. Take my time over meals to rediscover “fullness”. Enjoy my luxuries because Life Is Short.

So, what was the result?

In two months, from around the first half of January, to the first half of March, I managed to lose 17 pounds (1 st, 3 lbs) – which is around 2 lbs a week – a healthy rate. This was calculated by using the Wii Fit – so I’m pretty happy with it’s reliability as it also tracks the last time you were measured and gives helpful and patronising suggestions. I have noticed that the clothes which fit me at my “heaviest weight” are now loose on me which is a real-world result.

I’ve set another goal of another stone by the first week of May. We’ll see how I go.

What would you Push?

LifeHacker writes: back when the App Store was announced. Push notifications, which let any software firm’s servers publish data updates to your device, were initially due in Sept. 2008, and they’re still not here. Nobody knows quite what the problem is, or how big a fix it requires and linked to Gizmodo: As you can … Continue reading “What would you Push?”

LifeHacker writes:

back when the App Store was announced. Push notifications, which let any software firm’s servers publish data updates to your device, were initially due in Sept. 2008, and they’re still not here. Nobody knows quite what the problem is, or how big a fix it requires

and linked to Gizmodo:

As you can imagine, this makes push notification a Holy Grail for users and developers alike. The only people who may not be happy about these are the carriers. After all, the idea of an instant messaging application with push notification services taking over their lucrative SMS business doesn’t seem like a very good one.

Or maybe I should take off my tin foil hat and just assume that Apple has hit a roadblock that nobody at engineering ever expected. But a two month delay? Why? It just sounds too weird.

I think the issue has many parts.

There’s the initial technical issue of creating and scaling a secure service that will work with nearly 25 million iPhones and iPod touch devices. The latter are a challenge because they’re not connected all the time. We can point at RIM and say that “They managed” but RIM’s service is slightly more managed and we’ll get onto that in a moment.

The second issue is one of economics. It’s absolutely true that carrires are not happy about instant messaging on phones using all-you-can-eat data plans. Don’t believe me? Look at the furor created when Nokia bundled Skype with their latest phones – Orange and O2 indicated they might refuse to stock the N97. Those lucrative 600 texts I get a month used to be insufficient for my needs when I only had text and telephone to communicate. With all-you-can-eat data, I’m using less than half my allowance every month and my talk minutes usage has decreased even more.

The third issue is one of signal and noise. I think that Apple themselves are reeling from the fact there’s 25 000 apps in the App Store right now. I think they’re seeing the iPhone and iPod touch being used for much more than they planned and they’re working to accommodate that. And I think they’re being cautious about the process by which apps will be permitted to communicate by Push. If you have one instant messenger application and one email client, then you’re not going to see too many updates. But some people have 9 pages of apps. I currently have 33 non-built in apps installed. If half of those started Pushing notifications to me, I’d be forced to silence some of them. And this ability to push notifications also puts the developer directly in touch with the customer – something Apple has avoided for the most part with the current setup. They’re having to work out interface, policy and secure scalability.

It’s not just about messaging notifications – it’s about views. Being able to send a discrete message which will launch a view to fetch data. This allows you to keep your heavy business logic on your server – for your “Ghost” to be in the “cloud” and for it to send the notifications of the things that are important.

For example: We already have new details to our schedule being added by Push. What about a server based app that asks you every 15 minutes where you are? In order for it to tell you where you need to be to catch your next meeting. Maybe you can walk if you leave now? Maybe you’ll need a taxi if you leave in 15 minutes. Our mobiles know where we are, they know where we’re planning to be and they have access to maps, public transport, traffic reports and more. And that’s just using the stuff we already have! The possibilities are much more exciting when we think about the apps that haven’t been built yet!

I understand that this Push Server will take time to be built. I just wish it was here.

There’s an app for just about anything

Over the last couple of weeks, in line with recent developments in networks derived from companies interested in software innovation I’ve had to explain that the next generation of mobile phones are not actually phones but ultra-portable computers. And it’s not their surprising computing power which makes them special – it’s the fact they are … Continue reading “There’s an app for just about anything”

Over the last couple of weeks, in line with recent developments in networks derived from companies interested in software innovation I’ve had to explain that the next generation of mobile phones are not actually phones but ultra-portable computers. And it’s not their surprising computing power which makes them special – it’s the fact they are connected to an always-on telecommunications network and, for the most part, if you leave the house without it, many of us will return to the house to get it or face the day missing calls and contact opportunities.

We’re all Bedouin now we can carry enough computing power in our pockets to get through a day. Is it any wonder that sales of desktop computers are tanking?

It doesn’t matter if it’s an iPhone, iPod touch, Blackberry Storm, HTC Android or Palm Pre – this is the future of mobile phones – they’re here to stay. For all intents and purposes, taking advantage of the Third Generation of mobile phones for the enterprise, e-government, entertainment and connected health should be at the forefront of every entrepreneurs minds. When the other models mentioned above get enough market share, we’ll see apps like these for them as well. Apple has provided the pathway that others are plainly following because the opportunity to provide what consumers are willing to buy is immense and largely still untapped.

@doorofkukondo posted this picture to Twitpic this evening:

Photo © Ciaran Madden @doorofkukondo

See what it says under the iPhone3G logo?

“There’s an app for just about anything”

The following is from Youtube and I don’t think anyone in their wildest dreams would have seriously considered this on a phone before iPhone. Yes, we could play music using “music” featurephones but actual music creation was desperately difficult compared to this:

“The Mentalists play Kids by MGMT on their iPhones and iPod Touches, using only apps downloaded from the Apple App Store. Apps used Ocarina, Retro Synth, miniSynth, DigiDrummer Lite.”

Me: the Digital Pimp

MacSys are offering the current deal via Twitter: Free Pickup/DropOff For your Mac* (T&C’s apply) Call 02890832600 For Warranty & nonWarranty – Plus tomorrow is free Mac Health Check Friday! The guys in Mallusk are pretty aware that people are stretched in the current climate so doing free pickup and drop off will save on … Continue reading “Me: the Digital Pimp”

MacSys are offering the current deal via Twitter:

Free Pickup/DropOff For your Mac* (T&C’s apply) Call 02890832600 For Warranty & nonWarranty – Plus tomorrow is free Mac Health Check Friday!

The guys in Mallusk are pretty aware that people are stretched in the current climate so doing free pickup and drop off will save on taxi fares to Mallusk (and parking fees and long waits in Victoria Square).

Don’t struggle on the bus with your G5 Tower or Mac Pro!

Take advantage of it while it lasts!

The Ultimate Tool of Technical Freedom

I had coffee with @blaine, a really smart guy who really surprised me with his insight and humility. We only had 40 minutes to chat but I’d love to get another longer chat sometime. He also gave me something to google, “Matt Jones on The Demon-Haunted World” and I found this Archigram considered the car … Continue reading “The Ultimate Tool of Technical Freedom”

I had coffee with @blaine, a really smart guy who really surprised me with his insight and humility. We only had 40 minutes to chat but I’d love to get another longer chat sometime.

He also gave me something to google, “Matt Jones on The Demon-Haunted World” and I found this

Archigram considered the car the ultimate tool of technical freedom – whereas now the ultimate piece of technical freedom is a mobile phone.

and this presentation:

Thanks Blaine. Really enjoyed it. Til next time!