Blog Archives
Siri Inspires Technology’s Aural Evolution
Apple Siri
It’s still only a matter of weeks since iPhone 4S day but already I find myself wishing that Siri, Apple’s all-hearing personal assistant, might be magicked somehow into the majority of my other household devices and appliances as well. While Apple’s genial Genie is likely to stay locked-up inside its lamp for the time being, we’re beginning to see evidence that when rubbed the right way it has enough power to cast its voice recognition spells upon my alarm clock, television and even my motor car.
“Hello alarm clock. Wake me up at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning, please. What? A touchscreen interface? How quaint.”
“Can you record Eastenders on BBC1 for me tonight?”, “Can you record and series link Family Guy on E4 later?”, “Don’t let my kids watch anything featuring scenes of nudity. Or Jeremy Clarkson”.
“Hello new alarm clock, set my alarm for 7am please. But first, tell me a story. Go on…”
Nokia Nostalgia – Nokia 7650 Cameraphone (2002), a smartphone ahead of its time
*** UPDATE May 2011 ***
Click below for an exclusive Techspot.tv ‘Retro Review’ video of the Nokia 7650:
Still recovering from the torrent of mobile telephone tech unfurled at Nokia World earlier this week? Calm yourself, put down those paracetamols and take some deep breaths because here at the Techspot.tv Surgery we have concocted the perfect antidote…
Back in the heady days of 2002, Japan and Korea hosted an enthralling football World Cup, Tom Cruise’s hit Minority Report inspired a generation of user-interface design, and the all-conquering Nokians from Finland were at the top of the mobile pile with their four digit handhelds.
Nokia 7650 in action
Amongst Nokia’s headline acts was the 7650 which introduced a number of ground-breaking features to the consumer mobile market: it was the first Nokia camera phone (in fact Nokia was one of the first consumer mobile makers to combine phone and camera), one of Nokia’s first colour screens, their first Symbian OS phone and the first in a long tradition Series 60 devices still going strong today.
We’re suckers for a spot of tech nostalgia here at techspot.tv, and with Nokia attempting to rock the world with their tempting new releases, we had all the excuses we needed to dust off, charge-up and power-on the vintage Nokia 7650 to see how it compares with the current crop of smart phones. A day’s use down the line, and this is how it fared:
Features – undoubtedly, this handset was way ahead of its time. Aside from featuring a camera (heralding a new age of MMS bullying and citizen papping) which could record and send both still snaps as well as movies (which Apple’s God-phone didn’t get around to until 2009), it also featured downloadable applications and a multitasking OS. Above all, the Symbian S60 operating system made – and still makes – it a pleasure to use.
Battery Life – surprisingly good: still sporting its original battery, after an overnight charge it lasts all day having made a few calls, taken a few snaps and played a few games of the timeless classic Snake.
Pocketability – it is a tad bulky, but no more than many of Nok’s newer smarties; the compact slide-out keyboard stows away tidily and, despite the lack of touchscreen, many functions are fully accessible when the keys are hidden.
Killer Apps – “What do you mean, your phone has a camera? It’ll never catch on.”; Snake.
Eight years on and the Nok's still got a solid slide
Multimedia – A let-down by today’s standards, its Achilles heel being its proprietary headphone socket and a meagre 4MB of RAM. But perhaps this isn’t surprising: Creative’s DAP MP3 player was still niche in 2002 and Apple’s iPod was still Mac/FireWire only, so solid state music hadn’t captured the public imagination quite yet.
Connectivity – Bluetooth, Infrared and GPRS GSM; unfortunately 3G wasn’t yet a feature on phones of 2002 (and still isn’t on some Blackberrys of today) and Wi-Fi was just beginning to gain acceptance. It is email capable but web-browsing was courtesy of a the hapless WAP. Nevertheless, it featured both Bluetooth and data-cable tethering to a PC via the Nokia Data Suite, along with phone backup, syncing etc.
Screen – retina display it ain’t, but a bold bright and colourful display it is, blowing away the mostly monochrome mobile market of the time.
Cool Factor – the phone benefitted from being promoted in one of the top-grossing sci-tech films of the year, Minority Report, and its quirky retro-future looks still imbue it with gallons of geek chic.
We’ve loved having this phone out and about for the day. No, perhaps it’s not the all-singing, all-dancing and all-enveloping mobile experience to which we’ve slowly grown accustomed but, perhaps surprisingly given its age, in many areas it can still stand proudly on its own as a remarkably capable smart-phone. We look forward to seeing if the newest bevy of smart phones announced by the Finnish wizards earlier this week will still fare as well in another 8 years’ time.
Do you have an old mobile sadly gathering dust in the cupboard that could give some of today’s super-phones a run for their money? Leave a comment below and let us know…
Like this:
Apple iOS 4.1 update promises relief to Bluetooth headset and car-kit users
Meet Mr Bluetooth. He’s a long-established personal area network wireless standard who promotes cross-platform and cross-device compatibility, famed for both his hands-free convenience and his fist-clenching fiddlyness. He’s also responsible for more annoying flashing blue lights than a Glasgow derby. In spite of that he’s a friendly sort of chap who gets on with almost everyone; that is except for Master Apple, whose friendships with Dr Wi-Fi and Prof 3G have also been rather strained of late – come to think of it, Master Apple hasn’t been getting on very well with anyone from Wireless Avenue recently.
Since the release of iPhone OS3 last summer, users of Bluetooth headsets and car-kits have complained of their functionality being stripped away: either some functions (e.g. Play/Pause) or their entire devices stop working altogether. The release of iOS4.0 earlier this summer ensured that most remaining Bluetooth functional car-kits also stopped working, much to the chagrin of many Parrot ‘Made for iPhone’ Bluetooth car-kit owners.
Thankfully, Apple’s iOS 4.1 – released today – promises to mend at least the Bluetooth relationship without recourse to a Relate councillor.
The latest Supported Bluetooth Profiles article on the Apple website boasts A2DP and AVRCP Bluetooth support, the latter (re-)enabling the play/pause, next/previous track buttons in many devices. Furthermore, the iTunes library reorganisation introduced with iOS4 which put paid to many Parrot Bluetooth streaming devices is also due to be reworked.
So far, we’ve only been able to test the Sony DR-BT21G Bluetooth headphones (originally tested here) against iOS 4.1 and we’re delighted to report that full-function has once again returned to these headsets with full play/pause next/previous control. Watch the Parrot forum for an update on iOS4.1 compatibility with the Parrot MKi9200 and its associated iPhone-friendly Bluetooth streaming car kits – we’ll also be testing one over the next few days.
Tablet Supertest: 2010 Apple iPad v 2006 Samsung Q1
Picture the scene if you will: an impassioned nation gears up for a World Cup, armed with “the best team since ’66″; an excited tech community gets hot and frothy about a ‘new dawn of tablet computing’. That’s right folks, the year is 2006. How times change.
Four years ago Intel and Microsoft’s ‘Origami Project‘ promised – much like Sven-Göran Eriksson’s England football team – to be easy on the eye with some swish moves and quality goals, but in reality it pretty much folded in the group stages. Just like major sporting tournaments, it seems as though tablet computers come and go every four years leaving us disappointed with what could have been.
But wait: as Apple’s latest signing finally makes its entrance from a brief pre-season stint in the US, and only a matter of days before South Africa hosts its continent’s first World Soccerball Fest, will Team Jobs’ latest addition to his squad be a match-winner? Or, just like in 2006, will poor penalty performance mean an early shower?
To get some perspective on the iPad’s cup-clinching potential, we’ve taken inspiration from years of television football punditry by carting out an ex-player from a previous campaign who thinks he can still do better…
The Only Q1 ‘ere in the Village
Hands on a Samsung Q1
Much has been written about the iPad in 2010, but in 2006 the Samsung Q1 was one of the Origami Project’s fanfare tablet PCs heralding a new age of portable but powerful computing, the fêted form-factor bridging the thriving PDA and throbbing laptop markets. All well and good, except that approximately nobody seemed to want buy one. In spite of the tablets answering almost universal prayers for increased portability, what seemed like a ‘really neat idea‘ at the time never really caught the public’s imagination. Nobody’s, that is, apart from ours (as we wrote about here) and after having a good play around we bloody-well loved it.
So, having had an extensive run out with both the 2006 Q1 and the 2010 iPad here at Techspot Towers, how do we think they measure up to each other? Does the old-school Samsung still have some tricks up its sleeve to show up an Apple a mammoth 4 years – a lifetime in PC-tech terms – its junior? Well, yes, perhaps it does:
Sex Appeal
Without a doubt both tablets are pretty damn sexy in their own right: Samsung’s recent partiality for shiny black slabs of plastic is in evidence even in 2006, but the industrial sleekness and economy of the iPad’s design is certainly more pleasing to an average 2010-er’s eye.
However, pure aesthetics aside, the iPad must be laced with that same potent pheromone as the rest of the Apple stable which renders their hardware utterly irresistible to anyone within a couple of mouse clicks of an Apple Store.
Operating System
Apple’s OS is built around the touch-screen input – the fundamental essence of a tablet – whereas Microsoft Windows XP, even in its Tablet Edition incarnation, simply isn’t. What Windows gains in flexibility, customisation and general fiddleability in comparison to Apple’s prudish portable OS, it loses in ease of access and execution. Windows XP is a proven operating system, but very much more geared towards pointer and keyboard use.
Portability
Both tablets pack a surprising but pleasing heft when held aloft and in terms of physical size there’s not an enormous deal to choose between them, the Q1 being the smaller but fatter of the two. It does come supplied with a handy slip-case and cloth, and one feels relatively confident that carrying the Samsung around in a busy backpack all day won’t result in a dented, smashed or scratched screen or body. Sadly we weren’t allowed to take away and throw the iPad into a rucksack, but we’d be pretty worried about it getting it dented and bented without a sturdy case guarding it.
However, a less-obvious portability issue is that the iPad does require a full-fat ‘mothership’ PC to whose iTunes it will sync. For some this is a deal-breaker, particularly anyone who thought they’d be able to live with just their iPad and do without a desktop/laptop PC altogether.
Apple iPad Hands On
Connectivity
The Q1 is equipped with a plethora of connectivity options. The inclusion of a Compact Flash slot hints a little at the Q1′s age, but a VGA D-sub, Firewire and USB ports aplenty can’t be argued with. The iPad is a comparative closed door, with its single Apple iPod connector, however flexible, pretty much summing up its connectivity credentials. Both sport Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but only the sportier iPads integrate a 3G modem – although, as ugly as it might look, the same could be perfectly achievable with the Q1 with the insertion of a 3G dongle into one of its USB ports.
Keyboard
In a fundamental oversight, both Apple and Samsung forgot to attach a keyboard – d’oh! Fortunately for us (and them) that they both provide on-screen virtual keyboards. The Samsung’s thumb-tastic ‘dial-keys’ was a valiant but flawed effort, the resistive touch-screen just not up to reliable finger-tapping. However the iPad’s keyboard is second to none, briskly whisking out URLs and emails with both accuracy and intelligent suggestions to spare our fat-fingered typos. Both units accept Bluetooth keyboards, only the Samsung accepting a standard USB connected device, but there is an Apple keyboard that connects via the iPad’s standard 30-pin connector.
Screen
The iPad wins hands down with a glorious capacitive XGA fingerprint-resistant touch-screen that is rich in colour and resolution. The Q1′s resistive touch-screen is dull by comparison, and really shows how far screen technology has progressed in the last few years.
Battery Life
Once again, in the battery life stakes it’s the iPad that wins outright claiming an astronomical 10 hours’ use – reinforced by real-life usage. The Q1′s battery is pretty poor by comparison, with any time over an hour and a half a bonus.
Apps
Apple introduced us to the App Store model and with its iPhone/iTouch-compatible back-catalogue of games, shopping list utilities and fart-noise-creation applications it is hard to beat. Windows itself boasts an enormous heritage of software for all tasks imaginable, but on the whole not software that has been designed for use in a touch-screen environment, and almost certainly not all marshalled, catalogued and presented neatly onto the shelves of a single super-department-store ready to take away instantly.
Accessories
Whilst the economy of several small countries is probably now based-around the continuation of Apple’s 30-pin dock connector, arguably more innovation has been possible thanks to the USB standard: USB fans, torches, battery chargers, memory sticks, robots, cameras, disk drives, remote controlled cars, rabbits – not all useful, but mostly fun.
Verdict
Clearly, the iPad is an entirely more desirable object than the Q1, as evidenced by the distinct lack of queue or Stephen Fry at the launch of the Samsung tablet. But whilst the iPad is no mere empty bragger when it comes to technical specifications, the Samsung Q1 still stands up in many ways to its junior, not least in terms of connectivity. However, as Apple’s iPhone has shown when placed against some technically superior handsets from HTC, its merit is in its smooth and friendly overall user experience – the customisation and expandability that a relatively small proportion of power-users crave could, if implemented, come at the expense of the ease of use and reliability sought by the wider user-base.
The iPad – Jobs a good’un.
First Hands on with Apple’s new Magic Mouse. You’ll like it…
There’s no denying it – Apple’s new Magic Mouse is a thing of beauty. Announced yesterday evening amidst other Apple MacBook, Mac Mini and iMac-shaped updates, the Bluetooth wireless Magic Mouse shipping with all new iMacs looks like a cross between a Storm-Trooper’s wotnot and the rarely-seen deep-sea manta-ray fleeing Richard Attenborough’s prying lens.
Apple's Magic Mouse. You'll like it...
However, in practice it really takes some getting used to: the mouse button/click action is perfectly responsive when using the mouse in its standard mode, but when trying to use ‘gestures’ on the mouse’s glossy white back it’s very easy to apply ever so slightly too much pressure and ‘click’ the mouse instead. We found that with judicious placement of thumb and little finger around the Magic Mouse’s sides, some more sensitive control was possible, but there may be a learning curve to master this one. MacOS does provide some configuration options to customise which gestures are enabled and which actions are performed.
Call us sticks in the mud, but ergonomically it just doesn’t seem as simple or intuitive to use as simply pressing a button or scrolling a wheel – we’re fans of Logitech’s range of rodents here, and whilst some of the successfully negotiated gestures seemed somewhat hit-and-miss with Magic Mouse, the immediate feedback of pressing a thumb button or whirling a scroll wheel are much more satisfying, accurate and, critically, require less conscious thought and effort.
Perhaps time will tell, but for us the key to successful mouse-manipulation should be involve minimising unnecessary finger and wrist movement rather than increasing it.
iPhone OS 3.0 – First Impressions
After all of yesterday’s hype (yes, which I subscribed to as well) at around 6pm London time the iPhone OS 3.0 software was made available to legions of iPhone (and iPod Touch) users worldwide. Inevitable teething problems ensued, but on the whole the upgrade seems to have gone fairly smoothly with only minor irritations being observed on Twitter.
So, what now?
iPhone 3.0
After all of the build-up, upon installing the software I was left feeling a little disappointed. With the exception of a new ‘Voice Memos’ application, an updated ‘Messages’ icon and a new search screen, my phone looked almost exactly the same. Cut, Copy and Paste looked pretty intuitive and the syncing of ‘Notes’ between phone and Outlook (when it finally worked) is going to be most handy. But other than this, I was left wondering why I’d been getting so sweatily excited about all day, nay, for weeks before the big 3.0 push.
But, you see, with 3.0 it’s not really about the big things – it’s all of the little tweaks and additions which you don’t always notice unless you happen to stumble across them.
For example, browsing email in landscape is a dream; listening to my ever-increasing influx of podcasts gets better as I can now set the playback speed to 2x which is still pretty perfectly audible, as well as email a direct link to the podcast, instantly rewind 30 seconds and, with video, perform hi-speed scrubbing to navigate to exactly where I want. Finally, there seems to be more intelligence built in to some of the keyboard displays so that frequently used symbols (e.g. underscore when entering email addressed) are more easily available. I’m sure there are many more that I’ll only notice when I come to use or need them.
I haven’t had a tinker with the new A2DP Bluetooth profiles yet, but will attempt some pairing action with the Sony DR-BT21G Stereo Bluetooth headphones I’ve written about and tested with the iPhone in the past.
Now, I’m off to do a Google on when OS 3.1 is due out…
More to iPhone OS 3.0 than meets the eye?
I’m sat here chowing down on some lunch in a balmy London SW14 Caffe Nero waiting impatiently for Apple to release its 3.0 software to an anticipative iPhrenetic audience.
I’m disappointed, as I was at 00:03 last night when I first clicked on ‘check for update’ in iTunes; and was again at 00:30, 00:55, 08:30, 09:30, 10:30, 11:30, 12:30 and 13:00.
To assuage my impatience, I decided to take another look at the Apple website to see exactly what it is that I’m getting, frankly, sadly obsessed with today. What I see before me reassures me that I do have due reason to be excited, at the same time perhaps a little frustrated, and almost certainly still quite sad.
iPhone SDK
The tech-press have been quick to relay the headline news of iPhone OS 3.0: MMS, turn-by-turn navigation, internet tethering and finally a fully accessible Bluetooth profile. However, taking look below the fold on the Apple software upgrade page I see that there are lots of other things I think may become just as important to the success of this software update, if not even more so.
A simple example is finally (I think we’ll all be saying finally for many of the tweaks contained in 3.0) the ability to sync ‘Notes’ (sticky yellow ones, not Lotus-flavoured ones) between computer and phone, something we’ve been using contrived and unreliable means to achieve in the past. Voice memos (finally) arrive – frustratingly so as I’d only a couple of weeks ago bought one from the App Store, partly as a result of an Apple advert. Shake to Shuffle also looks like a nice to have.
However, it’s when you look under the covers at the iPhone 3.0 SDK page that the real feature news appears and where the creative juices start to flow. Here we see news that 3rd party apps can make use of the iPhone’s 30-pin connector cable interface for both for input (i.e. getting data/info from devices) and output (perhaps using the iPhone’s multi-touch interface to control other devices); Google Maps can now be embedded within 3rd party applications (a subtle, but oh so important update to so many “where’s my nearest xyz” apps); iPod library access from 3rd party apps is another tweak which will make a subtle but notable difference.
Whilst I’m here, there’s also new one update on the iPhone 3G S that has slipped under many people’s radars: Nike+ is now integrated in the phone. For many of us joggers, upgrading from iPod nano etc to iPod Touch (1st gen) or iPhone hasn’t been straightforward as the Nike+ dongle hasn’t been compatible with the newer phones. It’s the sole reason I still keep my iPod Nano in fact. However, with the latest generation of iPod Touch and now the iPhone 3G S we’ll finally be able to shed our Nanos. I’m hoping (although I doubt it will be day one) that this may too be opened up to allow 3rd party apps to make use of the Nike+ kit to make jogging even less tiresome.
Overall: good stuff Apple. Here’s hoping that the developer community have a good play with the new toys you’ve provided, thereby keeping us interested well in to our 18 or 24 month contracts. Honestly, this periodic software update nonsense is great – it makes me feel like I’ve got a new phone every few months.
iPhone 3G S iFurure (or: Oh Oh O2)
There’s been a lot of rubbish on Twitter and elsewhere about obselence-fearing Apple iPhone 3G users giving the UK’s sole iPhone provider O2 a hard time about not offering an upgrade plan from their existing less-than-a-year-old iPhone 3G to the newly-announced iPhone 3G S.
Hang on. Surely it’s the iPhone users, not O2, who’re simply being unfair and kicking up a fuss here.
iPhone 3G S - not that you'd know from the outside
The truth is, we all signed a contract for at least 18 months when we bought/upgraded to an iPhone 3G last year, so we can’t simply upgrade halfway through because a very slightly modified version of the phone comes out that we might happen to quite like the look of. That’s how fixed-term contracts work, isn’t it? I don’t know any other provider who’d let their users upgrade as soon as a new model comes out. But because it’s an Apple iPhone, O2 seem to be getting a hammering from consumers who should know better.
The real background is, I suspect, that because the upgrade from the 2G to 3G iPhone was (as I understand) subsidised by Apple on O2 in summer 2008, many iPhone fanboys are expecting the same deal now. Not O2’s fault, but Apple’s. However now O2 are getting their backsides whipped when they’re probably having to pay the full wholesale cost for the new units without subsidy from Apple.
Fact is, the hardware upgrades in the new iPhone 3G S are minor (compass, faster processor, up to 32GB, novely voice commands and Nike+ built-in): it’s the version 3.0 software that is the big story. Once that comes out, the furore will die down I’m sure.
2G iPhone (aka iPhone 3G).
After a couple of weeks of fretting over availability, a shiny new Apple iPhone 3G took pride of place in my lint-filled trouser pocket yesterday.
Upgrading from the tried and trusted iPod Touch 16GB and PalmOne Treo 750 combo, I’m already pleased at having one less device to carry around with me – and at having one more precious plug socket free when of comes to charging.
There will be things that I miss in this brave new iWorld, things that I’d begun to take for granted on my old Windows Mobile device and for which, in the absence of Microsoft’s ActiveSync software, I’ll no doubt need to find some workarounds.
Task/to do list management and synchronisation with Outlook, something which, having the memory of a sieve, I have tended to make pretty extensive use of isn’t there out of the box. There are a few alternatives in the Apple Apps Store but these don’t offer the seemless integration that I’d hope for. Similarly, having ‘notes’ synchronised between Outlook desktop and mobile was always handy.
However, the advent of the Apple Apps Store, new with version 2.0 of the iPhone software, opens a whole new world of customisation to all iPhone users. With new applications being added every day, some at cost and others free of charge, from a variety of software houses and from arcade games to productivity applications, the appeal of this device is significantly widened to cover business types to serial fraggers.
The integration of 3G/HSDPA wireless in to the phone – the feature from which the phone has taken it’s name – is perhaps the most eagerly anticipated of the updates. In real-world use, I confess to being rather unimpressed at the supposedly improved browsing experience. Network coverage, even in central London, hasn’t been brilliant and on more than one occasion I’ve found myself turning off 3G and getting improved reliability from the 2G connection instead. Needless to say, browsing and general iUse when within reach of a wireless hotspot is a dream.
All in all, my first impressions of the overall Apple iPhone offering, by which I guess I mean the iLifestyle covering hardware, software and services, is good. Regular software upgrades and tweaks mean that my interest will be maintained well in to the 18 month O2 contract too.
