Review – Page 2 – ɔimoɈɒ

MWSF2008: The Good, the Bad and the Fugly

Every year we wait for the new and sparkly stuff from Apple and we often get it. The move to Intel. The iPhone. the 17″ and 12″ Powerbooks wayback when. This year is no different. We have a new subnotebook, software updates and a glimpse into Apple’s plans for everyone. MacBook Air Some correspondants on … Continue reading “MWSF2008: The Good, the Bad and the Fugly”

MacBook Air

Some correspondants on Damien’s blog don’t think it’s up to much (and this is before touching the device). One commenter wrote “Certainly itâ€™s some kind of breakthrough, but then shit-flavoured ice cream would be, too.” I think that’s more than a bit harsh but then it explains why Apple always dips straight after MacWorld even if the product announcements have been insanely great. A lot of people were expecting Apple to go after the eee PC market and produce a subnote that was cheap. People, seriously. Subnotebooks are not cheap. If you don’t mind running a machine with a 7″ screen, that is light but bulky, only has a 2 hour battery and has barely enough storage for the OS plus any media files, then by all means run, don’t walk, and buy a eee PC. It’s ugly (and yes, I have one here).

The MacBook Air is aimed at people who would buy the Sony TZ series of subnotebooks. No-one would ever accuse Sony of being a cheap brand so I wonder why people expect Apple to suddenly, after years of being a premium brand, flood the market with Â£200 laptops. The Air would have to be beautiful, it would have to show something new and exciting and it would have to beat the best, not beat the cheapest. It’s thinner than the TZ and cheaper than the TZ.

My beefs with the MacBook air are simple. It’s only got one USB port. Though I seldom have more than one thing plugged into my MacBook Pro, there are times I have two. I might be charging my iPhone while playing Battlefield. And no, wireless mice are not good for the First Person Shooters. This happens infrequently enough that I’m not concerned about it. I’m also not worried about the lack of an ethernet port because, frankly, it’s been months since I plugged my laptop into ethernet and that was when I was at a client site. I usually carry a Airport Express with me if I’m unsure of wireless at the next location. I’m also not that concerned with the lack of RAM upgrades and the inability to remove the battery. 2 GB of RAM is a goodly amount for the target market for this device. I am curious that they didn’t bring out some sort of dock, I guess you plug in your USB hub, your power and your video out and just work on. It’s a sleek machine, underpowered for what I want (mostly in the graphics card department) but tempting. I don’t consider the multi-touch trackpad to be a big deal – if it’s not a touch laptop screen I don’t see the point. That said – touchscreens tend not to be thin if they are of any size.

In all, the MacBook Air is not for me. I’m not THAT much of a road warrior (heck, my laptop is 17″ and seldom leaves the house). It would serve a lot of people I know, probably more than they realise especially when they consider exactly how often do they plug anything into their laptop!

Lack of ethernet? Yes. I really wanted to drop over a grand on a laptop and then run wires all over my house, chaining me to certain parts of the room.

Scores 8/10 in my opinion. I’d have liked a 11″ machine.

iPhone update 1.1.3 (also for iPod touch)

We knew this was coming and it’s just like it said on the tin. Maps will now find your location pretty effectively using cell tower triangulation. You can move icons about. You can add bookmarks to the home screen for the bazillions of web apps out there. Texting to multiple persons doesn’t inspire me in the implementation but that’s a UI thing. Song lyrics? If I had any. iTunes rentals? If they were available in the UK I might care but I have Sky and more movies than I can watch anyway. And for iPod touch owners, $20 for the update isn’t a big deal. Sure, it’d be nice if you didn’t have to buy it but then 5 apps for $20 means apps are being targetted at around $4 each. Is Apple laying down expectations for pricing for iPhone apps bought through iTunes later this quarter?

A solid enough upgrade I guess – I don’t get lost very often though. 6/10

Apple TV update

This makes the Apple TV into an interactive device rather than just something to view media with. It becomes a realistic option for people who have broadband and don’t want to pay for cable or satellite TV or on-demand services. Of course, you can’t buy movies on iTunes in the UK and neither can we rent them via Apple TV. So if you’re in the UK, this is a useless update and another example of how if you’re in the UK, Apple doesn’t really care. Just keep buying their stuff. This is pretty much a 1/10

Time Capsule

The Airport Extreme with built-in hard drive is the only thing that really impressed her-indoors. Everyone should be backing up and with having to plug in disks, it can be a pain having to do so. This removes that pain. This I would place as the most impressive release in the show.

What does this tell me? Apple wants people to have more than one Mac. That seems obvious but Time Capsule is designed to back up multiple Macs. The MacBook Air is not designed as a standalone machine but rather as a portable machine which provides you with a companion to your powerful desktop at home. Leopard options like “Back to my Mac” show that being able to access one Mac from another Mac is an important part of their strategy. They’ve convinced a lot of people to buy one Mac so far and when you’ve managed that, getting them to buy another Mac is a no-brainer.

Time Capsule gets a rather spiffy 10/10 from me. Would have been 11 if it had AirTunes too.

Next?

We’re now counting down to the release of the iPhone SDK.

Tom Raftery on the Nokia N810

Tom Raftery rips Nokia a new one with his review of the Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. Last summer there was a huge amount of interest in the Nokia tablets after the 770 was available for a knockdown price. I was about to go on holiday for a week and couldn’t wait for the 770 to arrive and so I bought an N800 model (which I reviewed earlier). I’ve not yet upgraded to Internet Tablet OS 2008 but that’s because I’ve been using my iPhone pretty much 90% of the time (and the other 10% has been with this laptop).

First off the maps for the GPS are terrible. … and the GPS application doesnâ€™t plot routes either.

Next is the low memory of the device. I only had around 3 applications running at the time so I was surprised that this consumed all the RAM on the device.

The UI is really clunky. I mean really clunky! In this regard I have been spoilt by my iPod Touch experience.

It is slow opening/running applications and the browsing experience is painful compared to Safari on the iPod.

The display doesnâ€™t change orientation if you turn the device through 90 degrees.

It is a brick – big and heavy. Am I likely to carry this and my N95 with me when I am traveling? I donâ€™t think so!

I have most of the same functionality with the combination of the iPod Touch and the N95 as I do with the N810 and the N95 for a fraction the pocket real estate!

Ouch!

Admittedly I didn’t find the N800 to be as much hassle as Tom describes and there are some times I wish it had had the hardware keyboard of the N810 model (Nokia needs to talk to Apple about onscreen soft keyboards). But it did save my geekness while I was in Skegness.

I guess we’ll have to wait until February to see if the iTouch and iPhone really start to challenge the Nokia internet tablets in terms of available software. We’ve already heard that SAP is building their native application for iPhone and there’s the recent news that Sling Media were also building for the iPhone/iTouch too.

The Nokia wouldn’t be enough for me to ditch a laptop and frankly neither is the iPhone or iPod touch. The issues with the iPhone/touch are 90% in software. I need more and better apps. But it’s getting close that these small devices could change our lives.

The other issues with these devices is also their strength. There’s something nice, something essential about using a proper keyboard. Finding a keyboard for the N800 was difficult enough that I eventually gave up after buying one and finding it wouldn’t work. If someone made an external keyboard for the iPhone, even a wired model, I think they’d be onto a winner.

I can’t wait to see what Nokia and Apple are going to bring out next.

Unqualified Reservations talks Google Android.

From Five Problems with Google Android: The quality of the user experience on the iPhone makes a major difference to Apple’s bottom line. The quality of the Android experience has only a slight connection to Google’s. Sure, everyone on the project would like it to succeed. It’s not about the users. It’s about the advertising. … Continue reading “Unqualified Reservations talks Google Android.”

From Five Problems with Google Android:

The quality of the user experience on the iPhone makes a major difference to Apple’s bottom line. The quality of the Android experience has only a slight connection to Google’s. Sure, everyone on the project would like it to succeed.

It’s not about the users. It’s about the advertising.

The rest of the article describes some of the issues facing customers and developers of Android. The fact it’s a plain-jane implementation of an OS. That the development environments are Java and Javascript. That it breaks no new ground.

A very good read.

Magic 8-ball says: Outlook not so good

That’s a pretty brief review of Outlook 2003 when connected to an Exchange Server. When my IMAP server isn’t responding, I still have my local data. And it works. And when things change, they sync up nicely. Yesterday I spent the morning restarting Outlook as it kept crashing every time the network connection went down. … Continue reading “Magic 8-ball says: Outlook not so good”

That’s a pretty brief review of Outlook 2003 when connected to an Exchange Server.

When my IMAP server isn’t responding, I still have my local data. And it works. And when things change, they sync up nicely. Yesterday I spent the morning restarting Outlook as it kept crashing every time the network connection went down. Today I have this:

The little exclamation mark shows that I can’t get access to my Exchange Server. This means that at intervals the application freezes up. Considering that my calendar is part of this application as is my mail and most of my to-do list, I find myself pretty much unable to be 100% effective.

On the other hand, using a more decoupled service like IMAP with subscribed ICS feeds (a la Google Calendar) I’d still be able to work. At the moment I can just sit and look at the wait cursor and the little exclamation mark. Most of my work is, to be honest, in message passing and making sure people are doing things. As such, my reminders lists, calendars, follow-ups and email are crucial. When I can’t access the server I can’t even search my email. (and yes, I know I could change some of this, if I had access in my profile/policy to change things).

This is why I’m keen on decentralised outsourced services. If you’re not an IT company then why have a server on site. Why tie yourself down like that. Use decentralised services so if your broadband goes down you can pop down to any WiFi hotspot and use theirs. If your hosted email service goes down, you’ve still got access to other services and plenty of opportunity to change to a provider that won’t go down. This is why I use Pair Networks – pretty unrivalled in terms of reliability.

I loathe Windows and Outlook.

Microsoft reviews the iPhone: “a lousy iPod”

Is it a qualification or essential criteria to be an idiot if you work in the higher echelons of Microsoft? From the NYTimes, J. Allard, chief of Microsoft’s competing Zune unit whines about the iPhone: Itâ€™s a lousy iPod. You canâ€™t skip a track without looking at it. You canâ€™t go running with the thing. … Continue reading “Microsoft reviews the iPhone: “a lousy iPod””

Is it a qualification or essential criteria to be an idiot if you work in the higher echelons of Microsoft?

From the NYTimes, J. Allard, chief of Microsoft’s competing Zune unit whines about the iPhone:

Itâ€™s a lousy iPod. You canâ€™t skip a track without looking at it. You canâ€™t go running with the thing. It is the first consumer product that has done browsing [on a cellphone] extremely well.

Actually J, if you double-click the little headphone switch on the iPhone, it forwards one track. You can do this with one hand. And no eyes.

I’d heard the one about not running with scissors but….can’t run with the iPhone?

Microsoft brings out two music players by themselves and they think they can comment? Apple has FIVE. Shuffle, Nano, Classic, Touch, iPhone. You’d have to be Golgafringian to not find one that fits your specific niche.

Wireless carriers kept Microsoft from making good phone software.

Er, right. Who stopped Microsoft from making good desktop software?

The fact is that there was nothing to copy. Microsoft did well with a GUI eventually by copying Apple. They build Windows mobile by copying themselves. Of course it was going to be a disaster. Don’t believe me? What do you get if you put a turd in a photocopier?

This is a plain cop-out.

We didnâ€™t create the Zune because we were dying to get into the hardware business and take inventory risk. We felt we had to do it.

Because you’d tried killing the iPod with the “PlaysForSure” brand and that didn’t work. So you made a handheld that wasn’t compatible with “PlaysForSure” and screwed over your old partners.

See. That’s what happens when you base your lifeblood on Redmond. They screwed Creative, Napster, Yahoo, Real and dozens of other “partners” who bought the party line. Did they honestly think it would play out any differently? When Microsoft enters your market, best thing to do is change markets.

I think it’s funny that they’re not denying the possibility of entering the phone market with more than just software. Wanna bet?

Make hay while the sun shines, guys.

Microsoft has still declined to release the Zune outside the US. That’s because there’s no way anyone outside the US would actually buy it.

Windows was incredible. We got to create most of the magic and take none of the financial risk.

Are we meant to ADMIRE you for this? Going back to the earlier statement of why you couldn’t make good phone software? Who was stopping you from making Windows good? Was it simply that you didn’t have to because there were a million idiots who’d buy it anyway?

Playing all of you for fools.

Remember this is J Allard. Don’t know him?

One of these pictures was taken before he got to work on the cool stuff. Wanna bet they used Windows Live Search for “image consultant”.

iPhone.

Oh golly oh gosh oh wow… Yes that’s my review. Related posts: One restaurant I’ll never go to… Who wouldn’t choose Google over Microsoft? SchrÃ¶dinger’s Microsoft Microsoft reviews the iPhone: “a lousy iPod”

Oh golly oh gosh oh wow…

Yes that’s my review.

Nokia N800 versus iPod touch

Let’s face it, with a title like that you kinda hope there’s going to be a winner and a loser. I bought my Nokia N800 during the summer this year because I was spending a week away from the laptop and because I wanted to familiarise myself with the whole experience of a modern palmtop. … Continue reading “Nokia N800 versus iPod touch”

Let’s face it, with a title like that you kinda hope there’s going to be a winner and a loser.

I bought my Nokia N800 during the summer this year because I was spending a week away from the laptop and because I wanted to familiarise myself with the whole experience of a modern palmtop. The iPhone had been announced a few weeks and the Irish blogosphere was waffling about Nokia 770 tablets for under a hundred quid. I ordered one but the device wouldn’t have arrived before my trip and so I opted for it’s younger brother. I’ve spent a little time detailing my love affair with the device which waned every time I needed to reboot the machine from USB using a PC and wipe it and restore. I never got round to getting a compatible keyboard nor the GPS unit. My frustrations with the OS and interactions with it were enough.

Comparing the two might not seem fair. The Nokia N800 was announced at CES in January 2007 and the iPod touch wasn’t revealed until September 5th of 2007. The N800 does a lot more but to be honest I don’t think it does it well.

I’m not going to delve into deep specifics here.

Both have touchscreens, WiFi, USB-based connectivity (useless except for treating the devices as peripherals) and a headphone jack.

The hardware itself is a major difference. While the Nokia has to squeeze in a VGA webcam, 2 SD slots, speakers and bluetooth as well as a stylus, the touch does away with those and just includes 16 GB of storage. The difference in the size of the units in every dimension is astounding. The Nokia N800 makes the iPod touch look like a large credit card and the touch feels more solid as a result though it’s nearly half the weight of the N800. You’re best with large pockets with the N800, a back pocket in jeans will do but it’s uncomfortable in the front. A jacket would be best because the heft of the N800 feels odd flapping about if you put it in the leg pockets on a pair of fatigues. The N800 has a big silver plastic border which is a little tacky and adds to the bulk of the machine.

The Interface is another area where there’s a considerable difference. The N800 comes with a 800×480 screen at 225 pixels per inch whereas the touch has a 480Ã—320 pixels at 163 pixels per inch. Seems like a big difference but to be honest the screen on the touch seems heaps better. The iPod touch interface is fluid, responsive and actually a pleasure. The N800 less so. It’s functional but tapping on the stylus is a pain and the data entry is … a real strain on the patience to the point it couldn’t be used as a proper terminal without an external keyboard (and it’s to their credit though probably with some chagrin that they’ve included a chiclet keyboard on the N810, the successor to the N800.)

Software-wise it’s actually harder to gauge. The N800 comes with Linux and there’s a raft of Maemo software for it. Flash, absent on the iPhone….kinda works though the underpowered processor on the N800 makes it a not-entirely lovely experience. It does have Skype and there’s a port of gaim/pidgin too. These apps are sadly representative of the problem with all of the applications on the N800 and, to a degree, nearly every open source application. In short, they look like ass. Pidgin, for example, wastes space so that the screen is filled with clunky icons and you don’t get enough space for the chat history and the text entry field. Similarly the email application has such a poor interface that you end up resizing columns – which again is slow.
Now, the touch doesn’t come with a mail application but a quick jailbreak later and we have it. I’m aware this means it’s not a fair comparison but we have to compare like for like. MobileSafari beats the pants off Opera. I’m sorry, there’s just no competition. And every application for the touch, whether it’s official or a hack, looks gorgeous. Considering the markets there, it’s evident that iPod touch hackers are emulating Apple and N800 hackers are just throwing together interfaces without thought to use. The N810 will fix some of this as the on-screen virtual mini-keyboard ends up obscuring things you’re working on, something I’ve not experienced with the iPod touch. And the full screen “finger” keyboard on the N800 is frankly awful. A lot of negativity has come about the keyboarding on the iPod touch and iPhone, but virtual keyboards are the future. And the Apple solution wins hands down. I suppose it boils down to your preference. With the iPod touch we’re still in no-mans land with hacks and no SDK until February 2008. With the N800 there’s the whole maemo community. The quality of the workmanship varies a lot between the two platforms.

It might seem fairer to have compared the N800 to an iPhone and believe me, I shall. The N800 exists somewhere between the two Apple products. The N800 comes into it’s own as an internet tablet when you don’t have a laptop. The Wifi and Bluetooth mean that with a Hotspot or a BT-equipped phone and a data plan, you’re always online. The touch only has Wifi which means you’re stuck with Hotspots. The iPhone has it’s mobile circuitry built in so no need for a phone.

One of the critical points is screen orientation. The N800 is solidly set in landscape mode. This means for applications that scroll, such as web pages or chat history, you can be at a disadvantage. The iPod touch can change orientation so that if/when there’s an IM client for it, it will appear much more suitable. Unlike the Newton, the touch is limited in its use of the orientation but this is a minor niggle – it’s like the Newton was in v2 of the operating system, as seen on the MP120 and MP130. Not bad for a first version.

Internet Tablet OS 2008 will be out in late November and will run on the Nokia N800 so it will be interesting to see where they’ve gone with it. Whether they’ve leapfrogged Apple’s iPhone with their work (they’ve had a while to work on it) or whether they’re content to sell to hobbyists?

By Feb 2008 I expect to have an iPhone too. We’ll see how that shapes up after the SDK is released.