Well I have been away for the past 7 days with very little Internet access so my idea to blog while away using my iPhone didn’t go to plan. I never really noticed the lack of 02 3G coverage in the UK until last week while on the east coast of Yorkshire. In fact there was little EDGE access and id often see the O icon indicating the slowest access I have ever come across, in fact my speed test.net app said i had 6kbps Down and 2kbps Up! Anyway lets get back on track now I’m back.
Luckily the intermittent web access I got allowed me to pull in my twitter stream and so I was able to keep in touch with the majority of happenings within the world of Tech. So what has happened well…
Apple introduces the iPhone 3Gs
iPhone 3Gs Few new Features no New Body!
It was obvious Apple were going to unvale a new iPhone but I must say I expected a little more from the fruity company. A Digital Compass, and Voice Commands, 3MP Camera oh and an up to 2x speed increase are nice additions/upgrades but somehow i expected more. I don’t know what exactly but something a little more. Firstly the Digital Compass does seem to be a good idea. The ability to not just locate yourself using the GPS but know which way your facing could be useful but I am not sure how useful it would be to me. However I must say this past week has been so much easier thanks to my iPhone the maps did help a lot, when I got an Internet connection to load the map that is so walking around York the compass may have been useful. Next is Voice Commands, brilliant about time, well for voice dialling anyway. But I don’t know why Apple couldn’t just let 3G users get this ability in the 3.0 software. After all it’s software that runs it not hardware but I suppose there would be an even bigger reason why not to update! Apple have upgraded the camera to 3MP, wow nice, my Sony P1i (not a specific camera phone) had a 3MP camera back in 2007 now I know the iPhone isn’t a camera phone but come on i would of thought Apple who love to go that little bit better could of put in a nice 5MP Camera! So whats next? Arh an up to and I have to stress “UPTO” 2x times faster. This is probably great for those more demanding apps and especially when you have 8 tabs open in Safari but for me I haven’t come across many “Speed” problems but have come across battery problems. Well not problems, but I do find the battery dies after a fair amount of use throughout the day and I don’t mean constant use! Apple claims the new iPhone 3G S does have a better battery life but not all users may notice! Oh 1 final update is the phone will be available in 16GB and 32GB – which was also obvious!
TomTom Arrives on the iPhone
TomTom for the iPhone
At WWDC TomTom announced that they have developed an App which brings the TomTom to the iPhone. This is no real surprise as TomTom had developed an App for the iPhone ages ago but the iPhone didn’t have the APIs TomTom needed. However when the 3.0 software preview was shown and Apple announced a Turn by Turn API it seemed obvious to me TomTom would officially release the App. It seems in order to use the TomTom software which will be available from the App Store soon you will need a special TomTom Holder as it enhances the GPS of iPhone which in my opinion is needed as the iPhones GPS doesn’t always seem accurate.
That’s enough iPhone …. for now on to Windows 7!
No IE for Windows 7?
No IE with Windows 7
It seems that Microsoft are not bundling IE with Windows 7, well that’s if your a European customer. For along time the EU have been putting pressure on Microsoft and fining them over antitrust charges after receiving complaints from other browser developers who claim that users don’t use their browsers due to IE being bundled with Windows and therefore giving Microsoft an unfair advantage. Therefore the next release of Windows will give users the option to install IE but it wont be installed automatically. European Regulators suggested that Microsoft give users the choice of which browser they wish to install however the response to this suggestion wasn’t well received by both Microsoft and other browser developers so it seems Microsoft feel the best option is just not to provide any unless the user wants to install IE. I personally use Chrome for the majority of my Internet browsing and am using it now to blog to you! But many applications seem to require IE in order to work correctly this is gradually opening up to other browsers but there is probably going to be a reason I shall have to install IE when using Windows 7.
BT – Sick of Video Services “Free Ride”
Finally BT (British Telecom) who are the main providers of Internet in the UK have gone public with the “free ride” that video services such as BBC iPlayer are getting and are requesting funds from the BBC in order for people to have access to the iPlayer service. BT have recently admitted throttling the iPlayer which has restricted some users from being able to stream the service without interruption. However BT is saying the iPlayer is using far to many of it’s resources and affecting the whole network. I recently had problems with streaming from the iPlayer especially during peak times so it wasn’t a surprise when i heard they are throttling the service. Also in the BBC’s defence the iPlayer is only a small part of the Internet UK users access, I haven’t heard BT complain about YouTube!
Anyway that’s my update for now, and I am now back on track!
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General by Mark
