The iPhone after next?

I'm breaking my silence here for a technology forecast about the next generation in personal portable (wearable?) devices. I have a feeling that it might be a QD Laser projector enabled thing that enables a Sixth Sense User Interface, thus making screens, keyboards and other such gadgets redundant. I'm looking forward to it!

Gone Navigon

Well, I've taken the jump at last and bought Navigon from the App Store. My trusty old TomTom GO 700 will be gone by tomorrow, and so will the special price for Navigon (hurry if you're planning to do the same). But that's not the only reason: I've been waiting for the TomTom app to come out because it is the market leader, but reading comparative reviews, the two competitors seem to be running side by side, with a slight advantage for Navigon. For me, the main reason for choosing Navigon over TomTom is that their coverage is substantially better (more countries in Eastern Europe). The substantially better price (for now) is rather convincing, too.

I've already tested Navigon a little bit, and it works well. The only issue is its massive drain on the battery, especially when listening to music on the iPod while driving. But this will be addressed by a phone stand charger. I've seen two interesting models so far from Belkin and Griffin. So, even the announced, but as yet unavailable TomTom stand is no argument.

Another trip, another gadget

Coming home from my latest London trip on Thursday night, I found a nice surprise: Following my rather favourable comments and suggestions about their mobile charger, Lifetrons sent me their Xmini capsule speaker�- thank you very much! Now, although you're apparently not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth, that's exactly what I'm going to do:

The Xmini is a tiny technical miracle the size of a golf ball that's been chewed on by Laika - when closed. When opened, it folds out like an accordion to provide the resonating cavity required for a mighty big audio effect. Hearing is believing! It comes with a double mini-USB cable that plugs into the device and a powered USB port (for charging only) or a 3.5 mm audio out port suitable for most devices. An amazing little thing!

But again, under-marketed. Those Lifetrons guys need to do something, and quick, the competition isn't sleeping. Compare the Powerstick - it doesn't even pack a sixth of the performance of the Lifetrons product (which is still not available on their own web store!)�with a similar form factor, but it is much more visible and will therefore sell a lot better. Wake up, guys!

SBB's iPhone plans

This blog is slowly mutating into an iPhone blog, what with the slow frequency that my few readers must have noticed. The reason for that btw is that I've become more active on facebook for very short links and notes and stuff. If you want to keep up with what's going on, move over to my fb profile and find out whether I want to be friends with you ;)

But back to the topic at hand: Yesterday, the Swiss Railways SBB have gone public with a mobile phone based ticket shop. Me being the avid rail traveller that I am, I tried to upgrade my account to it straight away, only to find out that the shop is not compatible with iPhone! Seeing how iPhone has a wide distribution in the Swiss market, and iPhone users tend to be heavy web users on the road, that surprising, to say the least.

But chances are that this is a transient issue, as I heard today from SBB: A version 2.5 of their app is already in the works and scheduled to see the light of day at the beginning of March. This version should take care of the stability issues that continue to crash the app on my phone. And by mid year, the app is planned to include the mobile ticketing feature! Now if that doesn't sound like good news!

Hidden gem for iPhone

If you think, like I do, that iPhone's only real hardware shortcoming (software ones such as missing video recording will hopefully be dealt with soon) is that there is actually too little of it, i.e. that its battery doesn't survive a day of heavy usage, then I have found a must-have little gadget for you: the portable charger LT025 from tiny Swiss firm Lifetrons. The charger takes a charge of 4800 mAh (probably about 3 iPhone charges), which it delivers actively to iPhone, i.e. it is not an external battery pack that needs to remain connected to be effective, it actually charges iPhone, and it does it very quickly. The gadget's power input is USB and it charges lots of other mobile devices via a plethora of adapters for its USB cable. The device's footprint is smaller than iPhone's, but it is about 2 2.5 times thicker. The device is well designed and nicely executed.

But as the title of this post holds, it is a hidden gem. So much so, in fact, that I only stumbled across it in a duty free catalogue. Strangely, Lifetrons only distributes via airlines and duty free shops, and they don't market their wares actively - it is not even available in their own online store. At least not for the moment, I'm told by their CEO. Another instance of under-marketed Swiss engineering ingenuity? You bet! I hope they get their marketing act together really soon, because they deserve it!

Here's the anecdote of the purchase: I saw the description on my way to Brussels and decided to hold off on buying until I could do a little online research, which I did in Brussels. But it yielded very little, there's virtually no online reviews available nor, as mentioned, alternative distribution. So, I decided to buy on the way back, even though Swiss has all three colours as long as it's white/silver. But I created a bit of a stumbling block for the friendly flight attendants - the catalogue advertises that you can pay with M&M Miles rather than cash, which I wanted to. But their payment appliance didn't work, so we had to use a regular credit card slip. Now, I'm a little nervous that I am going to be charged CHF 22'000 for the device rather than 22'000 miles ... keep your fingers crossed!�

Google babble

With the new version 2.2 of its operating system, iBonePhone (that's my new wallpaper btw) has finally become a rock-solid, dependable everyday tool that does everything (& more) and is genuinely fun to use. The battery survives a full day of heavy use now, it doesn't crash, no dropped calls to date, the handling is responsive and smooth, and each day, you discover new things to do with it. Just check out the Google Mobile app, for instance: start it, lift it to your ear, state your search terms and listen to a soft babble for a few moments while Google does its thing until you're presented with the results for your query. The babble - it's just this sort of attention for minute, apparently superfluous detail that makes using it such an enjoyable experience. For my next trip to London on Wednesday, I'm not taking a laptop - enough said.�

Orange trickery

Kassensturz�revealed that my mobile phone service provider Orange has just hiked their talk rates illicitly (via small print) by moving from precise (per second) charging to charging in ten second intervals. This amounts to a hidden rate hike that will increase their revenue by about 15 to 30 Mio CHF per annum, according to Kassensturz. The programme is fair enough to mention that both major competitors (sunrise and swisscom) already charge in ten second intervals, so Orange obviously came to the conclusion that their more favourable terms are not paying off in terms of ARPU and/or retention. Alas, I'll have to have a closer look at what's on offer when my contract comes up for renewal ... meanwhile, tish & pish to Orange!

P.S. Most strangely of all, Orange has managed to charge my iPhone only yesterday, a full four months after delivery. Thank you for that unexpected generosity, Orange!

myPhone to go

As of yesterday, I'm a happy owner of a black 16GB iPhone 3G with an Orange plan. That's why my "old" one (after all, it's all of three months old) is now up for sale here, and it already finds quite keen interest. Which is unsurprising because I've pwned it (there's a new word for you!) for OS X version 2.0 with the Pwnage tool and paying close attention to this and this indispensable tutorial. The procedure is not as fool proof as Ziphone's (which is not available yet), but that's less a matter of IT knowledge rather than of dexterity in hitting the right buttons at the right time ... good luck!

At this point, an upgrade to 2.0 is not urgent for iPhone classic owners who use a lot of installer apps, because most of them have not been upgraded to the new OS version, yet. But there is one case where it's advisable to upgrade, and that's if you want to sell it. Only version 2.0 has a safe delete feature with which you can remove safely all the information you've put on your phone. If you don't do that, the buyer can get access to all your info quite easily. So, for once, it's seller beware!

Size matters!

This is a technology forecast of sorts. It is the result of using iPhone for the last few months, confirming my suspicion that iPhone indeed is the game changing device that it is heralded to be. Those who say that there's nothing new about it in technology terms are right, of course. But they suffer a very common geek mistake: it's not the feature set that counts, it is the mainstream ease of use of those features. Recently, I've had quite a enlightening insight into how that works when I showed my iPhone to a Lady in her seventies who had never even used a PC. Within minutes or less, she was happily zapping through photos, zooming & rotating, and she looked up stuff on the Maps app. I am pretty sure she is going to have one of her own soon, if they are available at all. I'm expecting my black 16 GB iPhone 3G with an Orange plan on Monday.

But that was no forecast, that's reality. iPhone shines because of its ingenious user interface with multitouch. As with every innovation, multitouch is now being tried on other devices such as laptops or computer screens. And here's my forecast: Those are going to fail utterly. Why? iPhone works because you hold it in your hand, so you can easily wipe its screen on your sleeve to get rid of those fingerprints. I'm doing that Monk-like almost whenever I use it. But try that with a laptop or - worse - a computer screen ... QED.

Locate me

Locate me is easily one of iPhone's hottest features: In the Maps application, that's what it does, and it does it swiftly without recourse to a slow response, battery hogging GPS. iPhone does it by using Skyhook technology, which maintains a geo-referenced database of WLAN hotspots and cellphone towers.

There's only two minor issues with that approach. Yesterday evening, I was enjoying a pizza in Manchester, UK - at least according to Locate me, I was. Unfortunately I was just about 3km from home. And the next is that Skyhook's coverage is somewhat sketchy in Europe, meaning that it won't usually work. Unless, that is, you submit the hotspot of your choice to Skyhook. The only thing you'll need is a bit of patience as it takes Skyhook a few days to update their database, your router's MAC address and your location. Which naturally seems to make the whole exercise a bit pointless, I admit, but isn't it great to show off the neat feature in the safety of your own home? Thought so ...