A trip to wonderland (or my take on Mac OS X)

Let me start off by saying that I postponed writing this article as long as I could. From my point of view, splitting the main review into two reviews (hardware and software) is the only way to cover everything that matters.

It was easy to write about the unibody MacBook, as I mentioned everything that I loved about it. Writing about Mac OS X Leopard was much harder, as it contains so many things that it’s impossible to cover the platform completely. I have given it my best shot, by looking at aspects of the operating system.

So grab yourself a cup of coffee and join me in my trip to Apple’s wonderland.

Interface

One of the most important parts of the user experience. And it’s beautiful. Leopards’s aqua theme is so nice that I can simply stare at it and admire it. It certainly beats the pants of Vista’s Aero interface any day of the week.

I have never thought much about the Mac OS X interface before, but I quickly adapted to it. The menu bar at the top of the screen could be confusing at times, as the menus vary per application- hence why you sometimes have the wrong menubar open with multiple apps running. Nothing that a slingle tap in the right application can’t change, but nevertheless something you run in when coming from Windows.

One of the greatest strengths of the menubar is the selection of controls on the right. Quick connectivity as Bluetooth and Wifi and utilities like Time Machine and Spotlight. Doing a search on your machine is so nice with Spotlight as it’s very fast and the results show up in a neatly organized way. Much better than Vista’s idea of search, where the results are thrown upon a heap – regardless of file extension.

I immediately loved the concept of the dock. A visually pleasing way for one-click acces to your favourite programs and documents, in such a manner that also saves your desktop from being cluttered. It wasn’t until a week ago that I noticed tiny lights under program icons that reveal which programs are running. Such a subtle touch that went unnoticed for a couple of months, but now I actually find it useful to see at a glance what’s running.

Speed and stability

One of the things that make Mac OS X truly stand out (besides ease of use) is speed. Opening, switching and using apps is a breeze with minimum waiting time. The fact that I own a late 2008 MacBook with a 2.4 GHz processor and 2 GB RAM might help. However, I know for a fact that Windows Vista can make even the most powerful computers awful laggy at times. After tasting the true speed of Leopard, I haven’t used a Windows machine that didn’t appear slow to me.

Another blessing of the Mac platform is stability. I run a lot of applications, also a reasonable amount of third party ones. No crashes at all. No matter what I throw at it. Therefore, it’s the first computer that I have never wanted to break in a million pieces out of frustration (that would also be a waste of the gorgeous unibody). A true miracle!

Ease of use

It’s one of Apple’s main advertising points. Mac’s are easier to use. The people behind OS X haven’t achieved this by dropping features or options, instead they have put so much thought behind even the smallest things so that you don’t have to do the thinking. People can argue all they want about flexibility and such, things that work out of the box are just so much better. End of rant.

I love Exposé for finding my way around various open screens, the multi touch trackpad makes it even more convenient – as Exposé is always just a four finger-swipe away. Another advantage of ease of use: if the operating system doesn’t get in your way, than it also doesn’t interferes with your workflow. As a a blogger and upcoming journalist, this is very important for me.

Advanced functionality

Apple’s calls it the most advanced operating system in the world, and I tend to believe them. A Windows user might see it as yet another marketing slogan, but as a recent switcher, I’m still discovering awesome features on a daily basis.

I love how Finder works. I love the dictionary application, a must have tool for a lot of users – especially for writers. In my case, it’s ideal to further improve  my English. I like the Mail app, quick to use with buttons to create notes or tasks. It’s why I haven’t installed Microsoft Entourage, even though I bought Office 2008 for Mac. Give me the simplicity of Mail, iCal and Adress Book instead.

 

Finder, your friend in Mac OS X

It’s nice that Macs ship with iLife. I haven’t really played with iPhoto and iMovie yet, but I have used GarageBand a lot. I did gave iWeb a try, but it rather annoyingly tries to persuade you to get a MobileMe account. Not me, thank you. I also found it to be kind of limited for my needs.

The Nokia E71 syncs to computers using Nokia PC Suite, which is the most rubbish syncing app I have ever used. Thankfully, there is no PC Suite for the Mac! Instead, you can download a plugin for iSync, which gives you the pleasure of a simple application which does a fine job at syncing to iCal and Adress Book (no notes though). I have only synced to my MacBook using Bluetooth, as it’s easy and fast (notice how I love those two things, easy and fast). iSync is perfectly stable too, as is Leopard as a whole to me.

I have mentioned in earlier blog posts how iTunes has come a long way since my first iPod. I manage my whole music library with it. Syncing my iPod Touch to it, and configuring what to sync is great. Therfore, I am looking forward to syncing my nex generation iPhone to it.

Last but not least, the tool that might save you and your data one day. The Time Machine. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to use it, since I have no external drive at my disposal. The reason is that I’m waiting for 1 TB 2.5 inch drives to hit the market.

Conlusion

A lot of Mac owning readers will probably have skipped this article since I mention so many things that they have known for years. However, for somebody coming from Windows Vista (a.k.a. the seventh layer of hell), moving to Mac OS X as my sole platform has been like a trip to wonderland.

After only a short period, I don’t want to use anything but Leopard. The only thing I’d rather use is Snow Leopard, the upcoming version of Mac OS X. I’m simply addicted to what probably is a combination of the best hardware and the best software. Therefore, I will not only say my traditional “I hope to keep this <insert gadget here> for a long time”. I hope that I never return to the world of Windows, and instead stay in Apple’s wonderland.

Speedtest.net as an iPhone app

Many websites and blogs use Speedtest.net when benchmarking network speeds, especially James and Kevin from jkOnTheRun use the service often. A speedometer shows you your up- and download speeds when you test your connection, and you can also select your server on a map. After being around for a long time, a Speed Test application suddenly appeared in my Top 25 of free apps in the App Store. I gave the App Store page a quick look, only to install a few updated apps. 

Today, I got curious and downloaded Speed Test for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Their application looks, unsurprisingly, as slick as the website, with a familiar interface. Just press the ‘Test’ button and the application will perform a speed test. It might not be an application that you use everyday, it can be very useful to troubleshoot or test your network. Therefore, I’m keeping it on my iPod Touch for now.

Below are the results of speed tests of both my home network and the 3G connection of the Nokia E71. N0tice how I said yesterday that 3G speeds felt like an (slightly below) average WiFi network, wereas the 3G speed is now shockingly low. I was also surprised that the free version of JoikuSpot allowed the Speed Test application to do the test, as it’s supposed to only give your browser an internet connection. Perhaps the local app uses the Speedtest.net website in Mobile Safari?

 

Testing the speed of my home network

 

Testing the speed of my 3G connection

Tethering my E71 to my MacBook

You can say many things about third party software for Symbian S60, and the majority of those things will be ugly. A poor selection of freeware, unupdated software and most paid software is expensive (compared to Windows Mobile and/or iPhone). However, we S60 users have one application that many users from other platforms can only dream of: JoikuSpot- tethering software that is quick and easy to set up. Not only does it require little to no effort to set up a network, it also offers a fast and stable connection. It comes in two varieties, a free, light edition and a paid edition.

The light version only can set up unsecured connections, so you will have to be careful when using it in public- as you share your connection with everyone. It has a forced landing page in your browser, which is only a slight annoyance. The big reason to buy the paid version (together with the security) is that you can only use your browser when tethered to your phone, that means no connectivity for email, skype or messaging applications. The paid edition can set up secured networks, has full internet support and currently costs € 15,00 (which according to JoikuSofts’s website is a 40% discount).

Tethering to my Mac

I have been aware of this application’s existence for a long time, but I just downloaded it last weekend. I desperately needed an internet connection, hence why I did a quick Google search on my E71 and downloaded the free version in a matter of seconds. I installed it, fired the application up and an unsecured wireless network was instantly created. The network showed up as a wireless device on my MacBook. I was delighted about the speed of the connection, browsing on my laptop seems even faster than browsing on my phone. Now I must say I’m definitely blessed with HSDPA signal pretty much everywhere I go, living in an urban area in the small country that is the Netherlands. It is probably because of this good signal that tethering to my smartphone seems like being connected to a (slightly below) average WiFi network.

Tethering to my iPod Touch

Another great usage that I have found for JoikuSpot is surfing the web on my iPod Touch. With a 3.5 inch screen, a great mobile browser plus a large array of iPhone-formatted websites, it is not strange that I prefer using my iTouch for mobile surfing whenever I can (i.e. have acces to a network). Unfortunately, that previously meant that I could only use the Touch at home and at the rare unsecured network I ran into. Thanks to this great tethering application, I can now use my iPod Touch with internet acces pretty much wherever I go! I just need to be careful that nobody connects to my own little network as well- as I’m not planning on buying the full version anytime soon (I think I have bought enough software at the moment). That also means I won’t be able to use any application besides Safari Mobile, so no App Store, iTunes Store (mainly for podcasts) and apps like Twitter clients.

Disadvantages of tethering

The Nokia E71 has a fabulous battery life under normal circumstances (see upcoming review), but tethering truly sucks the life out of it. Once the connection between my phone and laptop is up and running, I easily forget the time while browsing and blogging. In most cases, I had used the E71’s connection for over an hour, which costs around half of the battery (I use the phone heavily and I still get up to three days of battery life out of it). I also noticed that the E71 can get very hot when acting as a modem, though that may also be due to its metal casing.

JoikuSpot let’s me see how many devices are connected to my network, how long the connection is active and the amount of used data. In most cases, I used around  5 MB of data per hour while using the MacBook. However I only went to websites that I needed to visit, and I didn’t stream or download anything. Surprisingly, using Google Reader on the iPod Touch used the same amount of data in half the time. This could be something unusual, I haven’t tested data usage extensively so I can’t make any conclusions. I do hope that the used data won’t end up on my monthly contract bill, as I haven’t opted for any kind of special tethering plan (I wouldn’t even know if my carrier offers one). I can only hope that my usage slips under the radar as I limited the amount of used data. We will know more in a couple of days… If my carrier doesn’t punish me for tethering my smartphone, I will surely do this more often when I need an internet connection.

 

As you can see, I’m still practicing with Photoshop

 

A leather case for my E71

The E71 ships with a Eseries case, but it is rubbish. It is very awkward to insert the phone in the case or to take it out, as  the opening is located on the right and upper ends. It might be hard to use the case, but don’t make the mistake to think that you get decent protection in return for it. You must pray for the safety of your device if you ever drop this case. Almost the whole side of the E71 is exposed, and the back and front of the case is made out of a thin sheet of plastic (doesn’t even look like leather, but nowadays only few manufacturers ships cases with their devices).

As I wasn’t happy with the quality of the standard case, I immediately ordered a decent one. Unfortunately, the case arrived too late as I already dropped my phone once. My jacket felt, the case with the phone felt out of the inner pocket, rubbing the exposed side of the phone against the concrete floor (Murphy’s law in progress). This incident left an ugly scratch on the front and side, ouch! So that’s a downside to a metal casing on your phone, I dropped my HTC devices plenty of times and their plastic casing had no scratches whatsoever…But I got over the fact that my phone was no longer in mint condition (shallow, I know), and I eagerly waited for my new case to arrive.

I had ordered a slip case a case from Beyza. I like the slip case best of all types of cases as I had two of them, they shipped with my Dell Axim X51v and HTC Touch. A slip case offers decent protection, while still providing easy acces to your device. I bought a flip case for my HTC S620, which I never got around to review. That case came from PDAir and I liked it very much. You flip it open to use your phone, afterwards a magnetic closure holds the cover in place. The advantage of a flip case is added protection as your smartphone will never be ‘naked’. That’s also is a downside, as the case makes your phone thicker and bigger. The case often got in my way, and I therefore bought a slip case for my iPod Touch instead. My HTC TyTN 2 got carried without a case, as it was bulky enough already.

 

The PDAir Leather case for the HTC S620

 

My slip case of choice for the Nokia E71 is from Beyza, a beautiful leather case. Never having tried Beyza before, I suspected their cases to be high quality. Shipping reasonable quick, the case even came with it’s own case to store/protect it… High quality indeed, there are many cheaper cases but this one’s worth it. I got a black one, but they come in many colours and styles. The leather has a fine texture and the inside of the case is covered with a very soft material, so you know your baby won’t get scratched up. The bottom is open which makes getting your device out very easy. Just push it out with your finger, that’s also the only option as the case is a real tight fit. Unlike the Crumpler slip case, the Beyza case doesn’t loosen up. The company logo’s at the front and back are discrete which adds style to it. I simply love this case, and when I eventually buy the next generation iPhone, I will certainly take look at Beyza’s website for a decent slip case as well.

 

The Beyza SlimLINE Vertical Leather Case for the Nokia E71

Day 1 on Twitter

Twitter down! Although it only lasted for less than a minute, I encountered this problem after a single day of Twitter usage. The cloud must be getting real crowded these days… I hope this message will stay away in the future, and the cloud won’t turn against us like it did last time. I’m having a blast though, finding all the people on Twitter from the websites I read daily. 

So far I have installed Twibble on my E71 and both Twinkle and Twitterfon on my iPod Touch. I couldn’t get along with Twinkle, so I downloaded Twitterfon- another free alternative. I haven’t tried Twitterrific, as I don’t like the ads on the free version but think that € 7.99 for the full version is quite steep. Twibble for Symbian has been reasonable, but it’s menu-driven system is rather unpractical (as using the app takes a lot of time). 

If you care to follow me on Twitter (or just want to see my page), you can click on the widget on the left of my blog. If you’re to lazy to even watch to your left, you can also follow this link to my page.

Should I give Twitter a try?

To Twitter or not, that’s the question I have been asking myself lately. Social networking has never been my thing (I don’t count blogging as social networking). The thing that attracts me to Twitter is the large amount of tech people using it. You name a blogger of tech journalist, and he or she will have a Twitter account. As a community type of guy, I like having a chat with other tech writers and other enthusiasts, and they all seem to be active on Twitter…

So what keeps me from signing up? One is a fear for information overload, as I already struggle with reading my RSS feeds every day. Also, many people Twitter ridiculous things. It’s not like we need to know every tiny detail about someones daily life, but that’s just my opinion. However, the tech people I would like to follow on Twitter seem to have interesting conversations, and that’s what I’m after. A quick and easy way to keep in touch with people. Dieter Bohn from Smartphone Experts doesn’t think it’s better than SMS for nothing you know…

I don’t know anybody in my personal life who actually uses Twitter, because not many people in the Netherlands use it. It would be nice to Twitter with my friends, but alas I can only use it with people who I know from the internet (for the meantime at least). My final doubt about it is that I wonder if I have thoughts that fit in 140 characters and are worth sharing at the same time. But there’s only one way to find out…

Decision made. Now I need the right tools for the job. Today I have been checking out a number of clients for Twitter. They are for my Nokia E71 and iPod Touch. Due to my App Store addiction, I was already aware of the many Twitter applications for the iPhone/iTouch. Twitterrific is quite popular, the free version is ad-supported whereas the paid version costs € 7,99 . Then there is Twinkle, which is free and also praised. It’s location aware and has an interface that looks like the iPhone’s threaded SMS app. These two apps are the most important ones on the iPhone platform (if you don’t agree and have another software title instead, please comment). 

On the S60 platform, things aren’t looking too good when compared to Twitter clients in the App Store (as with Symbian third party software in general). Twibble Mobile is a client which looks rather bland but has some nice functionality like location awareness and picture uploading TwitPic. It works on Blackberry’s as well. It is still in beta though, with the current version being 0.8.7. Therefore it might have bugs and/or become a paid application when out of beta. Fring supports Twitter as well, so that’s an alternative. 

I have come to the end of this post, and I have made up my mind. I’m off downloading some Twitter clients for my mobile devices, and I will get a account as well. By the way, the Mac OS X article is coming tomorrow. That’s all folks!

Still listening to many tech podcasts

Ever since my HTC Touch, I listen to Windows Mobile related podcasts on a weekly basis. I started out with Modaco’s ‘WinMo Week’ that I followed since the beginning. A few weeks or so later, the WMExperts podcast was also born. After a year of using a number of different smartphones, I still listen to these two podcasts. Even if I don’t own a Windows Mobile device anymore, because the TyTn 2 had to leave after the E71 arrived.

The most recent episode of WMExperts is number 41, while WinMo Week’s most recent episode is number 21. How come? For starters, WMExperts podcasts come out more often, but there is another reason. After about 15 WinMo Weeks, a sudden silence took over MoDaCo’s podcast section- which seemed to hold on for months. In fact, if it weren’t for the automatically updated podcast feed from iTunes, I would have forgotten about Paul O’Brien and Chris Brunskill completely. So it was to my great surprise to see their podcast returning again, only to come to a standstill later on. Thankfully, they are back again (let’s hope they stay this time).

Both Windows Mobile related podcasts are recommended by me, I always like the humor of Dieter and Malatesta in WMExperts (not to mention Dieters soothing voice ). One of my favourite aspects of WinMo Week might sound odd, it’s the British accent. I love to hear a decent British accent every once and a while, therefore I am happy that MoDaCo is back. And because of their discussion topics of course.

Recently (before Christmas), it was getting kind of quiet on the podcast side of life- with everybody taking a break from work and such. I had a hard time dealing with this due to my serious podcast addiction. I always listen to podcasts when traveling by bike, which I do a lot. I fill this traveling time with many hours of podcasts, and I like it so much that I rarely listen to the 16 GB of music on my iPod Touch while cycling.

So with serious hour to cycle but not many podcasts to listen, what’s a man to do? Check out other tech podcasts of course! I tried MacFormat on behalf of Murray’s recommendation (from Palm-Mac). The content was nice, but they used a chapter technique where my iPod thought it was a movie, while it was a mere audio podcast. Therefore, I could not turn the screen of which bothered me. So that was number one.

Number two was Cranky Geeks, a show by John C. Dvorak who I know from This Week in Tech (Leo Laporte is great by the way). He is truly a cranky geek, so I assumed that his podcast might be entertaining. It turned out that the show wasn’t much entertainment for me, with annoying commercials and such. I understand that the stuff doesn’t pay itself, but at least Leo Laporte does commercials in a much more natural way with TWIT and Macbreak Weekly. I also wasn’t excited by the topics on Cranky Geeks, although I might have listened to the wrong episode or something. No offense to Dvorak, as I like him as a tech journalist, but Cranky Geeks is not for me.

PalmAddict Reader Awards 2008

I was reading Palm-Mac’s post about the PalmAddict Reader Awards 2008 a few days ago, and I was quite surprised to see the name of my blog amidst 16 other websites in the category ‘Best Palm Website / Blog excluding PalmAddict’. The first thing that ran through my head was that there must be a second PDA Thoughts blog, as I couldn’t believe that somebody actually voted for me. But somebody indeed voted for me, as I still have the only PDA Thoughts blog around.

In the ‘Best Palm Website’ category, I pretty much cover the bottom with 3% of the votes. In comparison, Murray from Palm-Mac got 8%, but he received two PalmAddict awards of excellence during the last two years. That puts me behind most websites, and only ahead of Foleo Fanatics (2%) and some other websites that were put together in one category (5%). Anyway, I appreciate the people who voted for me, so thank you. At least I think more than one person voted for me, as there were 82,363 votes in total in the whole PalmAddict Reader Awards. I can’t wait to see the outcome of next year’s awards, perhaps some hard blogging work could make PDA Thougths more popular…

Macworld and CES

I have been very busy with school lately, so I’m once again catching up on my RSS feeds. But with Macworld and CES during this time of the year, I have chosen the wrong moment to fall behind on tech news. I have a keynote to watch and about 500 posts to read. Skimming through the blogosphere, it is fair to say that every little bit of news has been covered by many sources. Therefore I have seen lots of posts about the Palm Pre, the 17 inch unibody MacBook Pro and DRM-free iTunes music.

Apple

Once again, a lot of stuff about Apple has been rumored before, so the 17 inch MacBook Pro and DRM-free songs weren’t really a surprise. Although I didn’t expect the DRM-free rumor to be true, as a number of certain record labels didn’t want this before (out of fear for an iTunes monopoly).

So the 17 inch portable beast has finally got his unibody refresh. The non-user replaceable battery of the MacBook Pro will make many people angry, even if my opinion is that Apple compensated that with the ultra-long battery life of a claimed eight hours. You can configure it with a whopping eight  gigabytes of RAM and a with a 2.9 GHz processor that kicks the pants of almost every PC. And that for a mere 4.500 Dollars (fully configured)! 

The new iLife and iWorks suite are interesting, but I’m happy with iLife ‘08 as a non-iPhoto/iMovie user (or perhaps not yet).  And I use Office for Mac 2008 instead of iWorks. Still, it is good to see that Apple keeps improving their software.

Palm

Palm and their platform Nova. Fans of Palm have been crying for ages that Palm should come with something new, and many of those fans and regular tech people like me have feared that their attempt to survive would be ‘to little, to late’. But I must say that I was flabbergasted by the Palm Pre. I have to give credit where credit is due, so congratulations Palm. You have showed us all something that looks very promising, I would say it is more innovative than Android (which operating system didn’t got me excited). A platform which is focused on multitasking and does it in an elegant way. But what an odd name for a device, Pre.

The specs of the device are nothing special though, however the slide up keyboard could be smart move (although it does looks awfully Centro-like in size 0f the keys). Launching it solely on Sprint is one of the most stupid thing that they could have done. Yes, I get the point. Two companies on the edge of a cliff trying to save each others asses by making a deal. But what about the rest of the world? Palm should launch the Pre worldwide to make it a succes, and they could make both a GSM and CDMA version if they wanted to have an exclusive for Sprint. Now everybody’s excited, but nobody outside the US (except for certain countries) would be able to use it. That’s a poor show in my opinion.

So why do I praise Palm at first, only to kick them later on? Because they make a device that surprises everybody, and then they only make it available to a small amount of people. Perhaps I’m talking to early, and Palm already has a GSM version up their sleeve. But if not, then this is a major missed chance. They can’t wait to long with getting it on the market, as the next generation iPhone is coming somewhere around July…

Altec Lansing iPod dock review

Look what Santa brought, an iPod dock! It’s something that I wanted for a long time, although I never bothered to mention it on PDA Thoughts. I don’t listen to my CD’s these days, I always rip them and listen to everthing digitally. That means that when I listen to music, I either grab my iPod with the headphones or I listen trough the speakers of my laptop (which isn’t a joy).

With an iPod dock I can plug in my device whenever I feel like filling the room with my favourite tunes. It isn’t only very convenient, I would like to have decent sound as well. With not 500 bucks in my pocket to burn, the Bose and Zeppelin dock are out of the question (I think that Bose is overpriced anyway). So what’s the competitor in range? I’m glad you asked. It’s the Altec Lansing T612.

 

Opening the package

The first thing I saw was a big number of different power cables. It’s like Altec Lansing forgot to which country these iPod speakers were heading, and they crammed in every different type of power outlet connector to be sure. A nice little remote, check. AUX cable, check. What? Yes, an AUX cable. It allows you to attach any device with a 3.5 mm headphone jack, so that’s nice. If only the cable wasn’t so short, I would attach my MacBook to it more often.

Dock connector

Having never used an iPod dock before, I finally found out what the little plastic thingy in the iTouch’s box is. The dock adaptor that makes every iPod (and iPhone too) fit on my speaker. Now apparently, there was an issue with the iPhone 3G’s dock connector, as it was slightly different. Therefore it would not charge on existing docks. Thankfully, the Altec Lansing dock is both compatible with the iPhone and iPhone 3G, and with virtually every other iPod as well. This was an important factor to me as I’m planning to buy the next generation iPhone this year.

Design

As with Apple products, the dock’s design is a major aspect. It may not be such a piece of electronic art as the Zeppelin, it’s beautiful and well made. It’s black at the front and back, with a silver trim on the sides and on top. The speaker leans a bit backward, as if it is presenting your iPod/iPhone. The buttons for power, volume, bass and treble are located on top of the speaker. The power, bass and treble buttons have a blue LED light next to them to see if they are active. If you adjust the volume, bass or treble, a number of blue LED lights will shine through the speaker grill- which looks very cool.

 

Sound

Of course this is the most important aspect of the dock, and I can tell you already that it is one hell of a speaker. The sound is very rich, powerful and warm. I am not a audiophile by any means, but it just sounds awesome. If you crank up the volume, you almost end up looking for the real speaker that must be producing all that sound. There is no distortion, only when you set the bass too high for the type of music that is playing. The bass is powerful to by the way, for a device without an external subwoofer. Since the dock is built for the iPhone (3G), the cell signal doesn’t interfere with the speaker. So bye bye horrible noises coming from the speaker when you receivc an incoming call or message!

Conlusion

After owning two iPods, I finally bought a dock for it and it is everything that I expected and more (in sound). It has its own spot in my room now, and I often plug in my iPod Touch just to charge- so it doubles as a charging dock when I don’t feel like listening to music. But when I do, the Altec Lansing T612 provides me the sound that my music deserves. Loud and rich. I highly recommend this speaker dock to anyone looking for a decent solution for his/her iPod or iPhone.

Nokia E71 in the house

Remember that I said that the Nokia E71 was coming? Guess what, it’s here! I gave up patience and ordered the thing. The time between purchase and arrival of my new toy was two days, which seemed like eternity to a mobile tech freak like me. Despite a number of initial fears about moving back to the Symbian platform, I was very eager to put the E71 through its paces.

 

When a small box was dropped off at my house, I immediately shredded it to pieces (not literally though) and the fun started. Due to an earlier hands-on, I was already aware of the amazing build quality. The solid metal body feels great in your hand. Other positive details of this business phone are the screen and overall speed.

The screen is very bright and perfectly readable in almost all conditions. The fact that is not a touch screen definitely helps. The overall systeem speed is also great, being very snappy. So it seems to have enough processor power and RAM, although I noticed how Nokia never advertises with these specs. Internal storage is a rather paltry 100 MB, but my 8 GB microSD card provides enough room for my mobile needs. Of course I use my 32 gig iPod Touch to carry around my multimedia collection. The E71 already ships with a 2 gig card by the way, which is a nice touch- even if those cards are dirt cheap nowadays.

In short, the Nokia E71 is a sweet smartphone and I haven’t been disappointed about anything (yet). A full-blown review is currently in the works, it will be published shortly after my article about Mac OS X. So stay tuned for more PDA Thoughts!

iPhone Pro and iPhone Nano

Now that the holidays are over, PDA Thoughts is kicking into high gear again. Just like the last month or so, I will post as much as I can- and I have some nice stuff that’s just begging to be written… So Shaun, don’t be afraid about me updating PDA Thoughts…

But let’s get to the real reason of this post, and that is the constant flow of rumors surrounding new iPhones that Apple would have in the pipe for us. The “iPhone Nano” rumors have been around for ages, and the iPhone “Pro” rumors aren’t new either. They also have something else in common, and that is that I don’t believe in either one of them. I think that these rumors are kind of silly. Mind you, I usually don’t judge rumors, so I might be completely wrong about it. But I will at least explain my thoughts. I have two categories for the iPhone rumors, Apple’s product lineup and consumer wishes.

Apple’s product lineup

A lot of speculations around future products from Apple are based around its product lineup. People look at the iPods and think that Apple should/will make an iPhone Nano. To be honest, I don’t see why. Yes, a cheaper iPhone would give Apple a bigger market penetration. But assuming that it would have the same form factor as the current iPhone, the touch screen would be very small. Perhaps that causes no problems in navigating around menus, but who would be able to type on it? It need a suretype keyboard or keypad in order to be able to use it for text input.

I also want to mention something that get’s mentioned more often by others, if the iPhone Nano has less functionality and a smaller screen, the unified platform that has been so popular until now will no longer be unified. These different circumstances would surely frustrate a lot of developers, so I just don’t see it happen. And who of you readers would want to have an iPhone Nano? I bet no one.

Consumer wishes

The iPhone Pro, an iPhone that has almost everything that the current 3G one hasn’t. A sliding keyboard, a better camera, perhaps even more powerful. How can you even predict that Apple will make this device?! You can’t, you simply might want that Apple makes this device. And that’s what I think is what started these “Pro” rumors. The wishes of consumers. And surely a look at the current lineup of MacBooks, which falls into my other category of rumors. The iPhone Pro is especially popular amongst Windows Mobile users, who see the iPhone platform as a potential candidate to jump to but miss a hardware keyboard and stuff like extended Bluetooth functionality for AD2p and external keyboards.

The original image of the iPhone Pro belongs to Gizmodo, I only used the keyboarded iPhone part. Upon seeing the picture, a lot of users commented things like “Amazing! I hope that this isn’t a Photoshop”. <sarcasm> No, of course it isn’t… </sarcasm> Just look at it. It has the d-pad and A/B buttons from a Gameboy, whereas the keyboard comes from one of the Macbooks. That could never be a Photoshop!

I tell you, it isn’t going to happen. Apple doesn’t give people exactly what they want, Apple always goes their own way (which isn’t nessecerily a bad thing, looking at their products). The same applies to netbooks. Consumers want a cheap, small computer from Apple, but Apple won’t give it to them. Steve Jobs says that they can’t make a computer for 500 Dollars that isn’t a piece of junk. I believe him, since my previous laptops have always been crappy in one way or another. Apple might give them a larger version of the iPod Touch, which would be a netbook the Apple way. Unlike the iPhone rumors, I believe that the rumor about a big iPod Touch actually makes sense. Since it doesn’t fall into either one of my categories, this rumor isn’t bound to fail.

Palm-Mac has moved to WordPress

One of my favourite blogs has just moved over to my side of the blogosphere. Murray from Palm-Mac has moved his blog from Typepad to WordPress, mainly because the latter is cheaper and easier to use. I am also in love with their blogging application for the iphone, where the Typepad application seems to lack functionality… I wish Murray the best of luck with his fresh new blog, be sure to visit the website as his posts are always nice to read. You can find Palm-Mac at http://palm-mac.com/.

On a side note, Murray seems to have discovered the “snow-functionality” that WordPress kindly provides you. Enabling it results in snow falling on your blog, which looks nice. If you’re interested, you can read about it on the WordPress blog. It’s a funny addition to the many improvements that the WordPress team brings us bloggers…

Recovering from Christmas

Leaving the holidays behind us, I (and probably many others) am still recovering from the whole thing. I love holidays, but they make me lazy. I end up not doing anything, falling behind on my schedule- only to relax along. It’s important to relax, but I tend to relax a bit too much, hence why I have to catch up on everything afterwards…

Unlike last year, I haven’t wished to readers a merry Christmas this time. The thing is, a few days before Christmas, I photoshopped a nice Chrismas tree along with some great smartphones. I uploaded it on WordPress, and I saved it in a draft. Unfortunately, the celebration wasn’t at my house so I wasn’t able to use a computer until yesterday. Editing the draft on my smartphone was impossible as my browser crashed every time I tried to use the full-fledged WordPress website. Alas, no Christmas post. I sincerely apologize for this matter, and I hope that you found the mobile device of your dreams under the tree…

Geeky laptop sleeve

One of my favourite tech blogs is without a doubt, jkOnTheRun. And they just held their fift “Annual Geek Holiday Gift Guide”. It features ten must-have items for every (wannabe)geek. There are not a lot of items in the list that make me jump in my seat, but the number one item sure catched my eye… This is as far as mobile tech goes, and therefore worhty a post on PDA Thoughts.

Look at it. It’s just plain awesome. I have no other words for it. The My Document Laptop Sleeve comes from the ThinkGeek website, and it even features a pixelated cursor to match your nerdy look. It’s both hilarious and a statement. “I’m proud to be a geek!”. Now I would seriously consider it for my 13 inch MacBook, if it only came in smaller sizes than the usual 15.4 inch. Sigh.