iPhone 4 - Ho, hum

The title says it all really. We wanted another iPhone and it seemed pointless to get a 3Gs when the next model had already been released and the price point for a 3Gs was not that attractive compared to the price of the 4.

If you care about design, this is a nice looking piece of technology. The problem however is that it's too thin. If you have big hands then you'll like the old 3Gs better probably. It had a bulge on the back that fitted nicely into your palm and altogether it felt better to hold and use. What is good about the 4 is that it doesn't have the "slippery" character of the 3Gs - the tendency to slide off things and to be slippery in your hand. It's about a draw in my view: the iPhone 4 is designed to sit on a flat surface more than anything else!

If you're using a 3Gs with the latest iOS then you won't actually notice a lot different with the iPhone 4. Yes granted the phone is slightly, and I mean only slightly, quicker. It's not an "oh wow" thing though. It is just a tiny bit more responsive.

The screen on the 4 is however gorgeous. Indeed the screen is the one stand out on this phone. Without the new screen I'd say it was simply a nice revision of an existing product. But this new screen is very luscious. The retina display makes the task of using a small screen just that much easier and it looks delightful. I can't speak for all iPhone 4s but mine certainly has a greenish yellow cast to the screen. It reminds me of the 1980s Nikkor ED lenses. They had a very similar cast and it added a brightness and spark to photos taken with them. I can't tell whether the screen is supposed to have this cast, as mine does, but if it is supposed to be there then I bet it's about making the screen appear as good as it possibly can. The cast is strong enough that it is just barely acceptable. Whites certainly ain't white!

Speaking of colour casts the camera on the 4 is shocking under tungsten or fluorescent light. It simply doesn't know what white balance is. In daylight the camera produces nice photos, but under artificial light it's simply a shocker.

Now for the real cruncher: It doesn't keep the proper time! How hard is that? If you set the time to automatic it is always slow. Please don't give me rubbish about cell towers and carrier software. When sat alongside a 3Gs, using the same tower, it is always, always slow, as it is compared to a MacBook using a time server or any other item of timekeeping equipment. This and the camera and the screen colour cast, taken together, represent my biggest beef with this phone. It isn't ready for real life. Apple need to fix this NOW.

Other issues and problems with the iPhone 4 for me are:

• In iTunes it repeatedly throws errors saying that it requires backups to be encrypted. I don't want my backups encrypted but iTunes with iPhone 4 won't backup at all for me without encryption turned on. When I turn encryption on that's it - I can find no way to turn it off again! What's that about? Also the whole issue of encryption passwords is buggy. I really don't know what my encryption password is because of some aberrant behaviour around setting and changing passwords. That is very bad in my view and requires an early fix from Apple. (iTunes 10.0 (67))
• iPhone 4/iTunes 10 reject perfectly good provisioning profiles for beta software. I have one that's good for another month and it simply won't install the software.
• The home button occasionally does nothing...that feels really buggy;
• Battery life is NOT better than my old 3Gs. I used to barely get a working day from the 3Gs and I barely get a working day from the 4. That means say 6:00am to 6:00pm - it will often shut down on the way home. I religiously charge it to 100% every night but it simply doesn't last the distance. I use it all day every day at work with both private email accounts and several Exchange accounts as well as shared calendars. That's the way my life is and I suspect that's why the battery life is so poor. It isn't good enough though. I find myself obsessing about making sure I have a charger and USB cable everywhere I go. Not terribly useful;
• Now this issue isn't an Apple issue but it really, really bugs me: On the 3Gs I had a great silicone case. It had, in addition to a cover for the back, a piece that covered the home button and a similar piece at the top and was thick enough to provide some grip and protection to the iPhone. The silicone cases I've seen for the iPhone 4 and the one I have are, in a word, useless. They are these little soft skinny things that seem more like a little black dress than a working item. They give the phone no protection, they come off when you pick up the phone or pull it out of your pocket. They seem designed only to show off the iPhone 4 in all its anorexic, super model skinniness. These are working tools not fashion accessories. Can't some manufacturer give us a decent silicone case that stays on and protects the phone? It's not that hard...you did it for the iPhone 3 so you know how.

So overall a pleasant upgrade to the iPhone but nothing startling and with some unresolved problems. I haven't had the death grip problem but its country reception is worse than the iPhone 3Gs.

Whinge, whinge...

In mid-July Steve Jobs announced that the iPhone 4 would be released in Australia on July 30. I've come to a couple of conclusions since then: firstly his definition of "released" and mine differ; secondly Apple has become insufferably arrogant towards its customers.

What has Apple stuffed up this time around? Well let's try this for starters:

1. They offered to keep us informed about the launch of the iPhone 4 if we registered our email address. I'd expect that they would email me to tell me about the upcoming launch and to tell me how to get my iPhone 4...if I wanted one. Instead they emailed me at 20:30 on 30 July...that's about 20 and a half hours after they "released" it. That's early notification isn't it Apple? And the email told me nothing useful.
2. Right through the day that Apple say they released the iPhone 4 the Apple website said "coming soon". Was it released or wasn't it? Only at about the same time as the email did it change.
3. When the Apple website changed to show it had been released the pathway that it sent you on to determine where to buy said iPhone petered out, with no actual advice on buying it.
4. The Apple retail stores wouldn't talk to you on the phone about the iPhone 4, even after it had been "released" so you had no idea whether they had stock or not. As it happens it was largely "not".
5. Attempting to order an iPhone 4 online led to the information that one would be available about 23 August...not 30 July.

What is apparent is that the iPhone 4 was available through the telco partners on the day of release, and it appears to have continued to be available there...but only on a plan. Some few were also available from the Apple stores on 30 July, but that seemed to be for show.

What appears to have happened is that Apple has left about a month for their telco partners to sell the phone on a plan, before they "really release" it to the general public.

Now you can be sure that Apple don't really care what you or I think about this. They are probably more concerned with the traffic jam in Cupertino, caused by the trucks bringing in all the money that the company is making! Whether you or I think they behaved badly is of no concern to them.

The thing is that the buying public have long memories. When Apple's long line of product successes deserts them, as it will at some future point, then the buying public will take the opportunity to twist the knife. What might otherwise have been a minor hiccup could well turn into a mass desertion. Why's that? I think that the reason is that Apple is progressively squandering the very strong base of consumer support that they have enjoyed. They are treating their consumers, their customers, carelessly and disdainfully. It will come back to bite them.

What should they have done? Two easy things would have kept me happy:

1. For all those people who registered to receive an email: send them an email around 26 July saying: The iPhone 4 will be available in very limited quantities from Apple retail stores from Midnight 29 July, it will be available in greater quantities on telco plans from the same time. Apple recommends that you order your iPhone now, through our online store. We expect full stock levels from around 25 August;
2. Place the same clear and simple message, prominently on their website 24 hours later;
3. Allow the pre-registered people to order from 26 July through the on-line store for later delivery.

Problem solved, I'm not in receipt of instant gratification but I know where I stand.

Underlying all of this is another more interesting issue: Apple doesn't seem to have its supply chain in order. Not only can it not supply iPhone, it can't supply simple things. The new Magic Trackpad is reportedly "released" as well. The problem is I can't find anywhere in Melbourne with stock, including Apple's own shops. I'm not ringing all around Melbourne to find one, but the inquiries I have made in the logical places have drawn a blank.

So the consumer happiness issue would go away if Apple sorted out its apparent supply chain issues. If you release a product on 30 July then make sure you have stock and intend to make it generally available. The better alternative would be to announce a real release date and make sure you have sufficient stock to supply demand. It's not like you haven't had a chance to see the stock implications of iPhone and other new items. And as for no stock of a simple thing like the Magic Trackpad...really Apple that's just silly.

Celestial Navigation - With an iPhone Touch!

How many of you have got one of these? How many of you use it? I'm very fond of my Cassens & Plath. It's both a connection to the past and a thing of today. It's accurate and it doesn't rely on satellites. It also gives me a huge kick every time I reduce a sight and draw a line of position on the chart.

My problem is that I hate paying money to somebody for the tables and the almanac. I keep forgetting to make sure that they are up to date and they always seem to disappear just when I want them.

For some years now I've been using StarPilot for the Texas Instruments TI-89 Calculator. It's simple and robust and has a heap of functionality. But as with most calculator applications it's limited by the calculator interface. The calculator interface is not what you'd call modern!

The solution is at hand however. For the past couple of weeks I've been testing StarPilot for the iPhone and for the iPod Touch. It's brilliant! The functionality is much the same as the calculator version but the interface belongs very much to 2010.

I'm not going to do a detailed review right now. But just a brief run through. A more detailed review will follow.

When you first start StarPilot you need to enter some data in Settings. Things like your DR position, the ZD and Watch Error and the Date. In addition you enter IE for your sextant and Height of Eye. Once you've done that StarPilot is basically ready to go. First step is probably to compute the sky so that you know what sights are available. You can project forward to a future time and indeed you can also compute the sun and the twilights so you have a good feel for the time that you want to compute the sky for.

Having computed the sky you get a plot of the sky with a series of "triads" which you can cycle through. Each triad consists of three sights with suitable azimuths. Touching any of the celestial bodies brings up details - name, Hc and Zn - I've done that for Betelgeuse. In use it makes a very good star finder. You can also list the bodies and their ephemeris data in text form.

Having shot your bodies you then choose Sight Reduction. For each sight you simply need to pick the body from a searchable list and enter the Watch Time from a time picker and the Hs. StarPilot calculates Ho and reduces the sight - it's fast and simple. Once you've entered the first WT StarPilot offers that as the first choice for your next sight.

Once you've entered a set of sights you can use StarPilot to produce a fix - based on your DR and speed/course parameters. Fixes can be arrived at by plotting or by computation.

There are also a bundle of useful utilities in StarPilot for calculating things like the Sailings - either Rhumb Line or great Circle, distance off, set and drift, wind and a range of utilities for things like UTC by Meridian Passage and the one I like: UTC by Lunar Distance.

If you are stuck at home, away from the sea, there's no better test of your skill with the sextant. Shoot a few Lunar Distances and you'll really find out how good you are. This particular process dates from the time before time - at least the time before reliable chronometers. Through a time consuming process of calculation - called "clearing" - you can derive your time from the distance measured between the moon and another celestial body. StarPilot takes the grind out of the calculation. You just have to measure an accurate Lunar with the sextant and enter the data. Great fun and a test of skill.

This is the quickest of overviews of StarPilot on the iPhone/iPod Touch. There is so much more there. What I would urge you is if you are a celestial navigator, a user of StarPilot on the calculator or if you have always hankered to use a sextant then check out StarPilot. It will be in the App Store in the next few days. There is no other application like it as far as I can determine in the App Store. It's brilliant.

When I've a little more time I'll write up the step by step process of using StarPilot. Until then get a copy for yourself and have fun!

Apple's new iPad

I know many of you are sick of hearing about this thing already - and it was only launched a day or so ago. Nevertheless I thought I'd have my two cents worth on the basis that I have previously said what I wanted in a device like this.

Let's start with a caveat: I haven't seen or handled this device yet. Indeed many hours after its launch it wasn't even on Apple Australia's website, though it is now. Rather I'm basing my response on Apple's published material.

Firstly, this thing will sell, and sell lots. Apple is a good marketing company and this will sell. I've no doubt that it will change and morph over time and that will make it sell more. But right now here's my scoreboard.

iPad = iPhone - voice + screen size - portability

The key issue here is that this thing feels like a first edition. We don't see any startling new developments in multi-touch; we don't see any startling new capability; it seems like a larger, less portable iPhone. I think the screen real estate will provide an awesome browsing, reading game-playing experience. The problem is that iPhone "works" because it's in your pocket. Not because it's the best and brightest screen to work on or the simplest interface, rather it works because it is the best compromise and above all it's with you.

Not so the iPad, it's too big to be "always-with-you" and I'm sorry Steve but I don't think it's small enough (or sexy enough) to be "intimate".

For me though the killer is that it isn't a productivity machine. If this was to work for me I need to be able to leave a gadget at home when I travel. At the moment I travel with iPhone and MacBook. I need iPhone for voice communication and I very much like its app ecosystem (though not its closed nature) and its pocketability. I use the MacBook for real work though, composing lengthy emails, working on documents, spreadsheets, databases. In addition my MacBook has two Java apps that I cannot do without. One of them is an XML editor and the other is the local client for our Component Content Management System. I can't travel without them. Simple, end of story.

In addition every bit of productivity work I do sees me switching between applications - often the email app and the browser with a word processor interspersed from time to time. Or alternatively the local client and the XML editor. The iPad doesn't support multi-tasking and even though I'm a bloke and I'm not supposed to be able to, I do multi-task.

That means that when I travel I still need my iPhone - the iPad has no voice comms capability (yes I know about VOIP over 3G but I need real ubiquitous calling capability); I also need my MacBook because the iPad won't run my workday applications. The question then becomes "Does the iPad add sufficient value that I can add it's 600g or so to my carry on baggage?" Despite the welcome addition of iWork the answer is no.

There is one "maybe" though. It does make me wonder whether you might ditch the iPhone and revert to a $100 simple mobile phone and then the iPad might have a place alongside the MacBook. In the end I think that it just means that your bag got heavier for not enough reason really.

So the iPad doesn't create a place for itself in my bag. Three simple additions would get it there though: multi-tasking, support for Java apps and a move away from the closed App Store ecosystem to allow me to place my applications on there. Oh and a fourth thing: a real and accessible file system.

Beyond that I'd like support for modern wide-screen formats, HDMI out, an iSight style camera (making a cool Skype conferencing device) and a true "next-gen" multitouch interface.

What do you think?

Telstra Enables iPhone Tethering

OK, for all you patient Telstra iPhone users get on with it and upgrade to carrier settings 5.1. Do it right now because you will get tethering.

More after I've tested it but the tethering button is there in Settings>General>Network

16:58 EST

Back after a few minutes and all I can say is well done Telstra and Apple. Tethering rocks!!

I don't know what the maximum speed we are supposed to get is, but it's certainly faster than the Telstra pre-paid USB dongles. I'm not even going to say "about time", I'm just happy it's here.

The next killer iPhone App

I'm going to tell you about the next killer iPhone app. It hasn't got a name yet because nobody's written it. At least not that I know of. So this is more like the Business Requirements Spec.

I'm getting sick of managing the flow of stuff that comes into my iPhone. There are 7 email accounts - yes I need them all. Then there's some Twitter accounts in Tweetie 2 (great app but let's not get distracted). Next there's the Messages app where the texts come in, and the phone app for missed calls, and Pocket Weather(AU) for the weather, and Skype for chats, and a few instant messaging accounts, plus NewsStand (I love it).

So my problem is that I can (and do) spend a lot of time flicking from one app to another to see who's sent me what. It's particularly frustrating when driving with Google Maps or the very excellent aSmart HUD 3D+ - bad name but great app and you hear a buzz from the phone.

So all you iPhone devs out there here are the four things that this new app has to do. I'll give you the specs and you go off and develop it please. I will help you beta test it BTW.

So four things you have to do:

1. Aggregate incoming communications from all those sources and a few more;
2. Display incomings as a ticker tape, on-screen, wherever I am in the iPhone, even when it's locked and only when you are needed. I also want you to do portrait or landscape automatically and I want to be able to say top, bottom, left vertical or right vertical in your settings;
3. When I touch one of the incomings you have to take me to the relevant app and message;
4. When I'm finished with that message you should deliver me back to wherever I was before I touched it;

See not hard at all is it? Can I have that before Christmas please? I promise you'll make a lot of money from this killer app.

No charge for preparing the BRS by the way - you can have that for free -;)

And if by chance this already exists can somebody please, please, please tell me its name?

Mornings

My significant other isn't an early waker, so that's always meant that I have a solitary half hour or so first thing in the morning. I used to jump up and do my email and maybe some work on the laptop. But that's all changed.

Now I reach over and pull the phone off charge and start a bit of a morning ritual. First cab off the rank is my email. Who's said what to whom overnight? Any issues that need to be dealt with? What sort of continuing conversation is going on in the Apple Support forums about the Mail.app?

Then it's off to Pocket Weather (AU) to see what the forecast is and also to look at the weather radar to see what's coming. If I'm planning on flying I jump over to NAIPS for iPhone and get a briefing of wherever it is I'm intending to be flying. I've done that the last 4 Tuesdays in fact and each time we've ultimately ended up not flying due wx. My daughter and I have been hanging out to go off on a Tuesday jaunt somewhere, taking alternate sectors as PIC. Hopefully next week!

The news is next. The ABC's iPhone app is simple and works well. I'm addicted to the Justin news section on their website. The iPhone app dishes it up in an easy to read format. Then I might look at the AP app from Associated Press or the very classy Time app. Time have managed to shoehorn a weekly magazine format and the classic "Time look" into an iPhone app. It looks and works really great. Final stop in the news round is TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog. This is a site that really does what it says it does. The volume of content is good, it's in bite size snippets, it has an opinion and the app works well enough. If you want commentary on Apple, iPhone, apps or anything related this is not a bad place to go.

Next stop is Tweetie2 (have you tried this new version of Tweetie - yes it costs but boy it's good). I like to see who has said what outrageous thing about what overnight. It's the good thing about living downunder: people are working for your enjoyment whilst you sleep -;)

The final stop is Appigo Todo and the Calendar app. This is where I find out what's on my list for the day and what appointments I have.

In half an hour I feel like I'm informed and in touch. Ready to start the day.

Then it's time to get up and make the coffee for my loved one.

Show Us Your iPhone Home Screen!!

Inspired by First and 20 I decided to show you my home screen on the iPhone. Also inspired by them I thought I'd do another post with the best half dozen or so of your home screens.

So here's how it works. You send me an email with a screen shot of your home screen together with a coherent description of why it's like it is and why the third party apps have earned their place. I will take the best emails and post them in a future blog post for the world to see -;). Tell me in the email how you want to be credited in the post - your bloggers name, your name, your first name, whatever. Also tell us where you come from.

OK here's my home screen:

To start with there's only one change to the Dock icons along the bottom: I got rid of the iPod icon and replaced it with Appigo Todo. I couldn't do without Todo so I stuck it there and in fact I think the iPod icon is due for relegation to page 2 entirely. I use it but only when I'm travelling or in bed at night!

The remaining 3 icons in the Dock and the 3 directly above them are the heart and soul of my iPhone existence. I use then all the time, every day and I like them just there. Why, Apple, did you think it was a good idea to have the Phone icon and the Messages icon the same colour? Where were your interface guys to tell you about colour cues? I get them mixed up all the time - hence why they are not lined up one above the other.

Next row: I don't use maps all the time but regularly enough that it earns its place there. I think it's a great app and since they added traffic for Australian major cities it's even more of a winner. Pocket Weather (AU) is an app I've blogged about before, can't do without it and the wx radar is a must have. ThinkDigits is a newbie on the home page but I'm increasingly liking it and I've written a few routines that I use regularly so it scored a spot in prime real estate. Settings gets used often enough that it stays there too.

I've already said that I think the iPod app might go to page two and the same is probably true of the Calculator app - it's currently on probation whilst I see whether ThinkDigits is a complete replacement. It's just that the Calculator is very simple to use for simple calcs. The Google app is brilliant, I like the voice recognition and it works well, as well I like the access to other Google functionality and the "figure-it-out-as-you-type" way that it manages searches. ANZ - well you have to manage your finances on the road and this is a well done little app.

Top Row: the Photo and Camera apps are used often enough that they need to be on the home screen, but they score the lowliest spot. I wish there was a simple app that replaced the Stocks app with real time data but until then it stays. I find myself using the Clock regularly because of the timers, alarms and the world clock functionality - good for working out whether I can reasonably Skype a particular person right now!

Just as a bonus, here's my page two:

The ones that are worth highlighting are:

• TramTracker - if you live in Melbourne and you use the trams you can't do without it. What's more the development team are really responsive;
• Manifesto - I've fallen right out of love with Manifesto. I think it's buggy - it only appears to deliver half of some feeds. Somebody give me a good alternative feed reader please so I can trash Manifesto;
• iLogger - this is a great app, it allows you to set up templates and then record events or places using those templates. I have one for a particular financial transaction and I've written one for recording airstrips - good because you can geotag and add photos;
• iDecide - this is a very schmick application that allows you to set up decision criteria and then to see how the options stack up against the criteria. There's good science behind it and it's a very good app;
• NAIPS for iPhone - I've already blogged about this and it only keeps getting better. Now it has charts and the ability to file and modify a flight plan. This is an absolute winner;
• CoPilot - this is a new addition. The flight planning functionality is good but I bit my lip at the price - it's the most I've paid for any app. Laurie is very responsive to queries. I found an error in the waypoint database with the second waypoint I chose - YCDE for the Australians (it is about 400nm miles away from where it should be but soon to be fixed). Laurie says that it's only the second error reported in 10 years using that database. I'll blog about this app more after some more use.
• FarFinder - this is also an absolute winner. I have a dynamic IP on my home network but with the FarFinder app on my Mac(s) and this app I can access everything on my home network from anywhere and also use the camera on Macs at home. It's a great app and the support is very prompt. It's so good I could see what DVD was in the drive and take a picture of my son watching the movie from 1,000 miles away. I texted him the photo and asked what the movie was like - not impressed LOL.

OK so now it's over to you. My email address is in my profile so send me your Home Screens and their story. BTW to take a screen shot hold down the Sleep/Wake and Home button simultaneously. The screen flashes over and it's in your photo album.

iPhone for Pilots - ThinkDigits

ThinkDigits is a great application if you're a pilot. What's more, it's the brainchild of a very smart guy in Melbourne - made in Australia! Initially it's hard to describe what ThinkDigits is, partly because it's an entirely new class of application as far as I can tell.

I think the best way to describe ThinkDigits is as a "mind-mapping calculator". You create mind maps which are actually "flows" of calculations or "calculation models". This is quite interesting in itself because it lays out the logic of solving the problem in a visual fashion so that you can think through it. What's more it's easier to audit than an Excel spreadsheet and easier to use.

The simplest way to show you what ThinkDigits does is to work through an example. My first example is calculating crosswind component - let's imagine you get the ATIS and think "ooh that's a big number". You'll more than likely be interested in knowing the crosswind component. There are of course rules of thumb for doing that and the whizz wheel but ThinkDigits does it pretty nicely as well.

First I created three "bubbles" to take the data inputs: Rwy direction; wind direction; and wind speed. You create these bubbles by typing a number in the keypad and then dragging the result to the page. Then you can format and label the bubble. In order to update the value in a bubble you simply type a new value in the keypad and drag it over your existing bubble.

OK we've now got our data values, now we want to calculate the answer, which in this case is the crosswind component.There are a number of steps to do in order to get there. ThinkDigits has a wide range of functions built in, including trig functions. My first step was to created a simple "calculation bubble" which subtracted rwy direction from wind direction. To do this I "dragged" the function key across to the page and in the menu that popped up I selected the function (subtraction) and the various format options I wanted. Once the calculation bubble was ready I simply dragged wind direction across to it and when the bubble "pulsed" I released the wind direction bubble. A window opened and I selected which "slot" in the calculation I wanted that value to fit into (the first one). I did the same for the rwy direction but attached it to the second slot. The calculation bubble now showed me the "relative" wind direction. Next I created a new calculation bubble to convert the relative wind direction in degrees into radians. This was simply a matter of creating the bubble, selecting the radians function and connecting my last calculation bubble as the input. Each calculation bubble shows the current result of the calculation it's doing.

Next step was to calculate the sine of the relative wind direction - another calculation bubble and join the radians bubble to it. Finally a cacluation bubble for the "answer". This bubble is labelled "Crosswind" and it takes the wind strength and the sine of the relative wind direction and multiplies them. Giving a crosswind component in knots with negative values for left crosswinds.

I like it because I now have a little visual calculation page that doesn't strain my tiny mind. I have bubbles for each of the three required inputs and I simply put the values into those bubbles and I get my answer.

What you can't see in this screenshot is the the intermediate bubbles that calculate relative wind direction, convert it to radians and calculate the sine. They are all there - you can see the connectors running off the page - and you can scroll to them with one flick if needed!

I've constructed a similar page for headwind/tailwind component and I'm working on one for density altitude.

The punch line to a long winded story is that I really like Thinkdigits. It appeals to my visual nature, it's much more powerful than you first think and it is simple to use. What's more it now has a facility that allows you to share your models with other ThinkDigits users. You can find ThinkDigits in the app store and their homepage is here.

Brand Loyalty & The Viable Alternative

I've been doing some musing on this subject over the past month or six weeks. First you need some background to set the context.

This is about Apple. I've been brand loyal to Apple for the whole of the life of their flagship product - the Mac. I've either owned or used the Mac for all of that time. At various times I've run whole businesses on the Mac and since the late 1980s I have owned a Mac or Macs continuously. I like the product and despite the limitations of the earlier operating systems I've stuck with it. There are multiple Macs in the stable at the moment.

Recently an iPhone 3Gs was added to the collection. That is the point that got me wondering seriously about the other side of Apple. The iPhone is a pretty cynical exercise and I've blogged about both its shortcomings and its benefits - I'll leave you to find that. But here are two examples of a pretty cynical approach to me - the brand loyal customer:

First is the matter of Bluetooth. In the iPhone Bluetooth is a crippled shadow of its true self. Now this can't be a technical limitation because Bluetooth is a mature capability that is widely and effectively used in mobile devices by many manufacturers. I've come to the view that the limitations in Bluetooth (try sending a contact to your mate with a "brand x" mobile via Bluetooth from your iPhone) are simply driven by Apple's cynical view of what it wants to achieve with the iPhone. Note that - it's not what the user wants to achieve, rather it's what Apple wants to achieve. Pity about the customer.

The second example is Telstra and tethering with the iPhone. On the message boards you'll find comments from users who report having been told by Telstra "Apple is stopping us from offering tethering". Then you'll find posts from users who report having been told by Apple "Telstra is the one who is stopping tethering". Well all I can say is that they can't both be right! Again a cynical approach to the customer. If Apple cared about the customer then I would be able to tether my iPhone. Apple could fix this if it wanted to. Instead they delivered a "fix" in OS 3.1 that stopped all the users who had hacked tethering. I hadn't BTW. Why is it that iPhone users can't tether? Why is it even a topic of conversation? Other mobile devices have been able to tether for ever, why the issue with iPhone? It should simply be able to be done out of the box just like every other device. Delusions of world dominance anyone?

I really feel that the customer isn't at the centre of that universe. This isn't about customer centricity but about the dominance of corporate strategy.

Let's move on to Snow Leopard. I've blogged about my issues with Snow Leopard. I upgraded because I had faith that Apple would have properly tested the system and done the right thing by the customer. As you know there have been problems and big problems, stop the business style problems with Mail. But let's be clear about Apple's priorities here, their corporate priorities: iTunes was upgraded to version 9 recently and in short order we got an upgrade to 9.0.1 - very responsive, only I don't know anyone who was having problems with iTunes. But of course iTunes is a huge money spinner for Apple, unlike Mail. Feeling cynical anyone?

That brings me to my theory of the viable alternative. In my experience people make change for one compound reason: They hate poor delivery and they hate hubris. They have one pre-condition for making change when they see poor delivery and hubris: they ask themselves is there a viable alternative.

Note that, it's not "is there something better", rather it's "is there a viable alternative". Put that another way: product excellence won't cut it over poor service and a perception of a lack of interest in the customer. Customers will "chuck out the incumbent" if there is a halfway decent alternative.

I'm personally at that point with Apple: I think there are viable alternatives. Are they better than Apple products - maybe not. Does Apple demonstrate that they care enough about the customer to keep me? No they don't. Therefore I'm open to viable alternatives. A Google Android device anyone?

iPhone for Pilots - Pocket Weather

Yes I know that you can get the weather through NAIPS, but there are a few other things you can't get there - like the BOM weather radar. That's where Pocket Weather (AU) comes in. It's from Shifty Jelly and costs $2.49 or free for the lite version. Pay the money!

This is the main screen - a weekly forecast for the location of your choice. The "Locations" button at the top left takes you to a view that allows you to choose an existing location or to set up a new location from any of the sites that the BOM has data for. You can choose which sites you want the forecast, observations and radar from and then save the choice - it appears on the Locations page as a choice.

In the main page the little icon with a green "i" in it gives you a pop up with the detailed forecast for that day and if there are any warnings then a red icon with a "!" in it appears - clicking the icon again gives the details. The radar icon on the centre right gives access to the animated BOM weather radar that you chose in the Locations set up for this location.

Clicking the "Radars" button on this screen allows you to choose the range of the radar and if there is doppler wind radar at that site you can choose that as well.

Back on the Locations screen you also have buttons for National Radars that gives you access to a composite national radar, an animated synoptic chart and an animated satellite view. You also have a tides button that allows you to choose a location for which you want the tides - the view is a very nice tide graph that includes sunrise and sunset as well as tide height. Landing on the beach anyone?

I think Pocket Weather is the bees knees, there's lots more in there than I've discussed including a choice of four skins - shake the iPhone to change them. The thing for me is that it's a great situational awareness tool. Often when you are flying VFR you want to know things like "how fast is that crap moving in from the west?" or "what's behind this current belt of showers?". Pocket Weather is ideal for that sort of question. Have a look at it - you'll probably like it!

TrafficTweet - Twitter that works!

I'm not convinced about Twitter, because at the core of Twitter is a problem: Twitter is the pumping station and all the rest of us are simply sampling the torrent from the fire hose. And most of us just give up. We can't sort the crap from the cream and there's no value in most of what's coming out of the hose.

When we deal with data in our daily lives we use a kind of three-step process. We say "What?", "So What?" and "What Now?". Put another way those three questions are saying "what's the data?", "what does it mean to me?" and "what am I going to do about it?". With Twitter we just get the "what" and more what, and then a bit more what. The companies that are making some sense to me are the companies that are creating apps that answer the next question: "what does it mean to me?" Because once I have help with that then I can get on with doing my stuff which is "what am I going to do about it?".

That's a long winded way of starting out talking about TrafficTweet. The name's pretty obvious, it's an iPhone app that lets me tweet about traffic issues. It gives me a nice interface to do that, means I don't have to write 140 characters of War and Peace, and keeps track of my location so that it puts the data in a sensible place. That tweet is then sent to Twitter (more on that later) and then collected back by TrafficTweet and displayed on a map in a form that I can interrogate easily.

Crowd sourced data, a great interface and all the hard work of synthesising and arranging the data done for me. I can get on with deciding to take another road or postpone my trip. I can get back to being an executive rather than a data analyst. The interesting thing is that all those tweets generated from TrafficTweet are available to everyone on Twitter. So Mobomo, the developers of TrafficTweet can only keep ahead of the crowd by the value added analysis and presentation that they undertake on the data.

I think this is a great app and the more apps like this we see the more chance Twitter has of prospering rather than churning. But come on all you people in Melbourne and the rest of Australia: Get onto the app store, download TrafficTweet (it's free ATM) and start tweeting about traffic. You'll add value and I won't feel so alone DownUnder. To see what the app can do just go into the app and search for "Los Angeles".

Mobomo's site is here.

Apple, How did you get the iPhone so wrong?

Let's get one thing straight: whilst all sorts of people, including Apple, no doubt, think that the iPhone is some sort of fancy portable information device, most of us buy it primarily as a phone.
I changed to an iPhone recently, from a 3 year old Sony Ericsson. As a phone the iPhone sucks in comparison to my old Sony Ericsson (SE). Three years, by the way, is like grandfather to grandson in generational terms - it's huge.
Just for context I've been a Mac user since 1986 and I've lived through this before. The Mac finally delivered on its promise with OS X. It took a long time to get there.
So what's wrong with the iPhone? Well let's be specific about this. Let's look at some "core" features we need in any phone before we add all the bells and whistles.
Syncing: With the SE it automatically connects to my MacBook via Bluetooth and syncs seamlessly using Apple's iSync. The iPhone on the other hand won't use Bluetooth to hookup and sync with the Mac. Why not!!! Bluetooth is simple and effective. Why on earth not?
Texting: The SE has predictive text that means that for most words I only have to push a couple of buttons on the keypad and it predicts the word. It's amazingly accurate and amazingly fast. The iPhone says it has predictive text all I can say is it doesn't propose anything, it's slow, the onscreen keys are too small for my fingers. The iPhone is slow and clumsy by comparison to the SE.
Sharing Contacts: Using the SE I do this every day. I use Bluetooth, I send a universally accepted vCard and I can send any of my contacts to anyone with Bluetooth and they can universally accept the contact - no special software needed. The iPhone is simply crap in this regard. I can send a contact - but I can't use Bluetooth to do it. I can download all sorts of apps to beam vCards via Bluetooth but all of the apps need to be on both ends of the deal or I need to use a paid service. This is crap - the iPhone strikes a giant step backward for functionality. I can send a vCard via MMS but many mobiles - perfectly good mobiles that know how to handle a vCard - don't recognise the iPhone's vCard for what it purports to be. And it costs me money for the MMS.
Battery Life: Well what can I say - the SE will do at least 2 days on a charge and sometimes more. The iPhone struggles to do a day. That's progress!
Call Management: On the SE I can choose what happens to calls when the phone is busy, when it doesn't answer...there's amazing granularity. On the iPhone I can either divert all calls or not. That's functionality from the early days of GSM. Another great step forward for progress!!
That's just a start but you get the picture. What this says to me is that in the core area of functionality - a 3G phone - the iPhone does a poor job. The interface is clumsy, the lack of alerts is stupid, and the mid-90s functionality is bizarre. I wish someone would explain this to me. And please don't tell me what the iPhone can do with other iPhones - that's like masturbation - interesting, handy if there's nothing else, but ultimately pointless.
It seems to me that the only people to benefit out of the iPhone are the Telcos and Apple.