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.

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

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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…

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…

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.

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!

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.

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…

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…

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.

My switch from Windows Vista to Mac OS X Leopard has been a pretty smooth ride. No nasty surprises, only joyful discoveries. I will publish my take on the Mac platform soon, but I can tell you already that there isn’t a single thing I miss from the Windows platform. The only thing that has caused some irritation is the built-in browser. Safari regularly says that there’s no connection, even though the MacBook is still connected (I’m a 100 percent sure!). It happens it multiple connections, over WiFi or ethernet. So it’s the browsers fault. While my Mac as a whole is screaming fast, Safari also sometimes freezes. And I usually don’t have that many tabs open at once. So that’s not like it should be.

Back when I used Vista, I ditched Internet Explorer because it started to cause all kinds of problems. Poorly rendering of all websites and such. I downloaded Firefox, something that I had to do much earlier. It was so much better then IE, and the time I spend with it was short but sweet. When buying a Mac, I wanted to use Safari. And I like the speed of WebKit, when Safari works. Obviously, I downloaded Firefox for the Mac. Firefox was back. Flexibility and add-on tools. However, something didn’t feel right. From my point of view, Firefox lacks the true look and feel of Mac OS X. It may look a lot like Safari, but I still prefer Safari’s look and feel. 

But that wasn’t the reason to get rid of the fox. It had a problem of its own (at least on my system). I had to press the “reload page” every time I launched a website, at least if I wanted Firefox to load the page within ten minutes… That did it for me, so Safari rules the dock one again. It all seems to be fine again, for now at least. To be continued (or not)… 

In case you wonder about the image, I am getting a bit more proficient with Photoshop. That only means I’m now actually able to find certain buttons and options… It sure is a huge leap from Paint.

When I posted about the new 2.2 firmware for iPhone and iPod Touch, the thing that excited me was the ability to directly download podcasts on your device. I often only fire up my laptop to update the podcasts, something that now thankfully belongs to the past. But although the experience is decent enough, it is unfortunately not quite there yet.

Duplicate files

When Podcaster was banned out of the App Store, some tech pundits speculated that Apple did this out of fear for the user experience (one of the many possible reasons). The application would download podcasts alongside the iPod application, duplicating files and such. Well, the same has happened to their own implementation of downloading podcasts. If I download a new edition of a podcast on my iPod, iTunes will also automatically download it when launched. That makes sense of course, because iTunes doesn’t know I already have this episode on my device.

But let’s say I haven’t finished it yet, and I sync my iPod to my computer. The next time that I will play the podcast, it will be marked as a new file and it will start playing from the beginning. So the version that iTunes downloaded has replaced the one that I haven’t finshed yet. iTunes should check the content on my device first, before pushing the new stuff on it.

Podcast episode lists

Let’s say I’m travelling, and I want to download the latest edtion of the Macbreak Weekly podcast. I press “Get more episodes”, and I get to see a list with episodes. I can’t see which ones are already on my device, and there’s not enough room to display the full name of episodes, so I’ll either have to look at the release date or guess (or do both). There could be technical limitations to the iTunes app, hence why it only displays what you can download and not what you already have on your device. The limited room for episodes title surely isn’t. I think this is just a clunky way to present your podcasts…

2.3 firmware?

Us iPhone and iTouch users can finally download podcasts wherever we are. But in the spirit of Apple (and Steve Jobs), the given method isn’t perfect (yet). This current implementation leaves me wanting more, so I hope this will get fixed in a future firmware version- sooner rather than later of course.

When it rains in my tiny gadget world, it truly pours. After thinking about going back to a real phone, I have considered a lot of different smartphones. It had to be a front facing qwerty device, just like my trusty HTC S620. I have tried a slider, and it was nice but I do prefer the front facing phones.

After my recent hands-on with the E71, I was impressed with the build quality. The phone looked really good, and it was also really slim (Nokia in fact claims it is the slimmest qwerty device in the world). That sure is a big difference when compared to my bulky TyTN 2… I previously said that I thought the keyboard was good albeit narrow. On second thought, every front facing qwerty keyboard feels narrow when compared to an ultra wide slider one. Except for the Blackberry Bold, that smartphone is one wide beast (I had a brief hands-on with one too).

So the E71 was a logical pick on the hardware side, on the software side not so much. Any regular reader will recall that I have never been positive about the Symbian S60 platform. The horrible device that was my Nokia N73 somewhat hampered my user experience to say the least. Still, moving over to a operating system that I’m not fond of is quite a gamble. But I have been with Windows Mobile long enough to want to try something else. So what must a mobile tech enthousiast do? Bite the bullet of course.

Yes, you read it right. Apparently, you’re not the only one visiting my little blog every now and then. There have been a lot of months during the past year with around 50 visitors a day. Except for the week I wrote the “Why I can’t stand Apple” article, that skyrocketed the visitor count to around 500 (!) people a day. Unfortunately, it only lasted for about a week, plus the majority of folks were angry Apple fans… 

So, after many days with a low amount of daily visitors, the amount has (finally!) doubled. I nowadays see around 90/100 visitors a day, which makes me happy. I have the Blog Stats widget on my website since the beginning (look at your right), and at the time I’m writing this, the count is 13.803 hits. Come on people, let’s get the number up to 15.000 hits before 2009!

Monthly number of visitors 

I need a real phone, that’s a fact. My pocket pc phone just doesn’t cut it anymore. Anyone who says that a Windows Mobile Professional device is basically a pocket pc with a phone bolted on top is right. Since I have used WinMob for quite some time, I can say that I’m able to handle a certain amount of clunkyness. But even I have a limit…

A clunky smartphone is one thing, but if it also freezes and crashes a lot, then it’s no good for me. Yes, my TyTN 2 was stable and even kind of snappy at first. But suddenly it has started to behave wonkey (maybe it’s angry because I own a Mac now ). No signal, Pocket Internet Explorer freezes upon start, switching between or closing browser taps freezes everything, not even a few soft reboots help.

Anyway, I don’t what’s the reason for this odd behaviour. I have not installed new software, let alone tweaked something. The only thing that I do know is that I’m fed up with this situation where you have to do all kinds of stuff just to get things working. If you experience the “It just works” feeling, then it’s very hard to accept anything less I’m afraid. What will happen with the TyTN 2 is still a question, but don’t expect it to linger around much longer…

I thought that writing this review would be easy. But it isn’t. In fact, I could write more about a Bluetooth keyboard or headset. That’s because there so much to love for me about the new aluminum MacBook. I’m afraid that I already mentioned everything that is awesome in my previous post. I will repeat the stuff that makes me want to keep this laptop forever (i.e. until something better comes out). I love the trackpad, the aluminum unibody, the keyboard and screen. I also love the processor power, Leopard is already snappy but my 2.4 GHz processor with two gigs of RAM certainly helps speeding up things even more. Gaming is fabulous, and to be honest I was amazed how many games are available on the Mac platform.

The aluminum unibody

I still have to find a single scratch on the thing. It’s really tough and beatiful on the same time. It’s a real eyecatcher, I personally find it to be a lot nicer when compared to older MacBook Pro’s. I find myself stroking the laptop when it’s closed because the surface feels so smooth (please don’t laugh…). This awesome casing should prove to make the computer last for ages,  as I want to keep this laptop for a long time (and the general consensus is that Macs last longer too). The aluminum also makes the laptop run surprisingly cool most of the time.

The battery status indicator is a small touch but one that makes a big difference for me. Seeing how long you can work on that single charge is always just a tap away. It’s great that the indicator also works when the computer is turned off.

The only trouble that I have with the new MacBook isn’t a fault, I have yet to find a nice sleeve that fits. The new model is a bit thinner and longer than the older models, and tight sleeves like “The Gimp” from Crumpler don’t fit. There does seem to be a sleeve or two that fit however, so my search continues (I know carry the MacBook around in my big 15.4 inch laptop bag). 

The trackpad

There has virtually been no learning curve for me with using the multi-touch trackpad. It has increased my workflow seriously, switching and navigating between screens takes no effort at all. I have said before how using the new trackpad makes using all other laptops with smaller trackpads a nightmare. You are warned. Fortunately, my device didn’t suffer from the trackpad issues that plagued a lot of users. But I installed the update to be sure, props to Apple for releasing it so fast by the way. Now I don’t use the trackpad as a button thingy. It’s great, but I prefer double tapping as I always do this. 

The screen and keyboard

Not much to say here. The screen is still bright and vivid, and I can’t believe how thin it is. Just don’t crack it since Apple will have to replace the complete upper part of the laptop. 13.3 inch is still plenty of screen space for all of my computer needs. I haven’t used to the iSight webcam to date, so I can’t tell anything about it. 

I’m still typing away on the keyboard, I love it to bits. Notice how commonly the word “love” is mentioned by me in this review… The backlit keys come in handy at moments like these, were I sit in a room with not much light. Very pleasant.

Conclusion

Like most switchers, I am very satisfied with my new computer environment. It is the best laptop for me, compact, powerful, tough and beatiful. You get what you pay for… Stay tuned for a deeper look into Mac OS X Leopard from the perspective of a former Vista user. You guessed it, that can’t possibly go wrong! Everything is nice if you come from a computing hell, but I will look at how Mac OS X fits in my daily life.

I have a data contract with my smartphone, but I still download my email manually. I don’t know why, probably because I’m used to doing this since my WiFi-only only period with PDA’s and such. I never felt the need to “fetch” or “push”, I don’t get that much daily email anyway (if you would send my some, I might feel better about myself ).

Yesterday I expected a number of important messages, so I enabled the fetching in order to not forget it. I set the interval to fifteen minutes first, only to change it to thirty minutes later on. I did this because I could literally watch the battery level drop down every minute. Thirty minutes was enough for me, and it was nice to see email flowing in by itself (Blackberry, anyone?). However I did experience one of the main points of critism of push/fetch email, and that’s loss of productivity. I found myself looking for a blinking orange light often, I even randomly turned my device on to check if anything happened. 

Productivity and battery life aside, I still like the whole email fetching thing and I feel like I have missed out on something for a long time. But I don’t feel the need for actual push mail, even if I can use my free Exchange account for this purpose. My already not so great battery life took a dive since yesterday, so I don’t want to know how badly my TyTN 2 would scream for a charge with push mail enabled…

This is what happens when you rely on the cloud for getting your stuff. Maybe I should choose another way to read my rss feeds instead…

With all of the madness going on in the US last friday, sounds about discounted applications in the App Store started to pop up here and there. Now I have to admit that before this year, I had never heard about Black Friday (let alone Cyber Monday). But I sure took advantage of it, downloading three applications for free.

They are two games and a productivity app. The games are Pathways and 2079. One is a great puzzle game, while the other is your typical invaders-style game- although with a different gameplay which makes it awesome. The third application is TapToDo, a task manager (surprise surprise). I use iProcrastinate Mobile, but I just downloaded the paid applications since it was free (sad, I know). 

I saved a couple of bucks with Black Friday, adding two more games to my already impressive collection. I recently bought Bike Or Die 2, and just today I downloaded the free tower defense game called TapDefense. I haven’t played it much, but it seems to be nice. But I’m still keeping my eye on the paid game FieldRunners though. My total score? 32 games and counting…

Everybody knows that the goodiebag is one of the most important aspects of a gadget event. And the goodiebag from the Pocketinfo & Microsoft Meet’N'Greet was a rather interesting one, filled with some nice stuff. Below is the stuff that came in a messenger bag with the Microsoft logo on it.

• A 4 GB MicroSD card loaded with the movie Hancock.
• A small device to back up the contacts from your SIM card.
• A Windows Live OneCare subcription.
• A Microsoft Skydrive USB keychain.
• A Windows Mobile mousepad.

4 GB MicroSD card

This was a nice gift to receive, even when already owning a 6 and 8 GB MicroSD card. The fact that it comes with a movie on it is a nice touch. I have yet to try the card out on my smartphone, as the movie is encoded for smartphone screens. But I don’t think that my TyTN 2 will do a good job at playing the movie… The card came from Sony Ericcson by the way.

SIM backup device

It sounds useful, but I doubt it to be honest. Why? Since SIM cards have a limited capacity, you can only store a very small amount of data about every contact (only a single number I think). My contacts feature adresses, notes and pictures, so my SIM card is empty.

OneCare subscription

The irony of life. You leave the Windows platform behind, tired of battling malware and such. After moving to a Mac, Microsoft gives you a free OneCare subscription for all your security needs for up to three computers. Nice that they gave this to us visitors, but again, it’s kind of ironic in my case…

Skydrive USB keychain

During the Windows Mobile speech, we were informed about a 25 GB USB in the goodiebags. Although a strange number (memory usually comes in 16 and 32 GB flavours), we were happy about this. A geek can never have enough storage. Well, it turned out to be a fake USB stick, just a mere keychain with the Skydrive url on it. Err, Microsoft, nice joke (NOT).

Mousepad

The mousepad says “Do more with a phone that runs Windows.” I rest my case.

The Meet’N'Greet was an awesome event, and the goodiebag was also nice. I’m curious about what will be in it next time.

If you look to the right on my website, you will see the website ‘Pocketinfo’ sitting in my list of favourite websites. It’s a site that only the Dutch people among the tech aficionados will recognize, since its Dutch (duh). Pocketinfo organised a Meet’N'Greet which took place this week, on monday evening. This event was also organised by Microsoft (the Windows Mobile team to be precise), and sponsored by Sony Ericcson. Microsoft participated to get in touch with its end-users, and Sony Ericcson gave away a Xperia X1. So besides getting in touch with the folks I already talk to in the forums, it was a nice opportunity to have a dialog with the WinMob people too. Not that I actually did that, but more on that later.

There was a panel developing contest for the Xperia X1, and two ladies walked around with Xperia’s so that people could play a bit with them. I wouldn’t run this blog if I didn’t wanted to play with it, so I did indeed. And I will keep my verdict short and simple. I don’t like the Xperia X1. Yes, it has a nice built quality. But the keyboard is crap, with tiny keys and little travel. I still truly loathe the optical d-pads in the smartphone world, and this one was no exception. The panels were to slow to be usable, and the rest was Windows Mobile style (I don’t think I need to explain that further). When this device was first announced I followed the hype, but the device completely underdelivered. So that’s 800 euro’s I won’t be spending…

It was nice to see that Microsoft supported the Pocketinfo community by participating in this event. However, I didn’t expected much of their speech besides the usual public relations stuff. They did this speech the Steve Ballmer way (without the monkey dance and “developers!” screaming part), by saying how Windows Mobile is all about choice and flexibility. And how the new browser would come to new, more powerful devices. If you ask me, Microsoft screwed us smartphone users royally by not making the browser available as an update. Not that I expected otherwise, but still. Imagine if Apple did the same with their firmware updates… Apologies for going on a tangent here.

To come back on the Pocketinfo event, it was great. I met a lot of other tech enthusiasts from the forums, exchanging opinions and information. It took place in the conference room of a hotel, which was a nice location. But guess what, no accessible wifi… Pocketinfo organises these events a about two times a year, but this was the first time I actually went to one. I enjoyed it a lot, and I’m looking forward to the next meeting.

This morning, I was reading my usual tech news feeds on my iTouch while sitting on the couch. When reading through PDA247’s feed, I almost dropped my device when reading a certain post. Bike Or Die 2 is available on the iPhone! Boy, I suddenly felt a warm feeling when reading those mighty words “bike”, “or” and “die”. I sure saved myself a lot of times from dying from boredom in class with this game and my Palm Tungsten T..

Now, if you don’t have any Palm OS roots, I can understand you don’t know this excellent game. I feel sorry for you, I really do. But if you don’t know the game because you don’t play games on your devices, then I don’t understand you. You should really try mobile gaming, you don’t know what you’re missing…

Anyway, let’s get back on topic. Bike Or Die is a trial bike racing game, and I found it to be one of the best games on the Palm OS platform. I’m sure that a lot of people would agree with me on that. While it features simple graphics, it is addictive as hell. The Palm OS version has 25 built-in levels, with over 2000 third party levels available for download. The iPhone version now has an astonishing 2500 levels. When I played Bike Or Die on my PDA’s, the application was around version one point something. Version two has better graphics and background music.

Bike Or Die has a community on the website, because you can built your own levels and submit your scores to the Hall Of Fame. So that’s another example what makes this game so great. Visit the Toyspring website for more information and to check out all of the improvements in the iPhone version. I’m ending this post right now, because there’s a button called “BUY NOW” waiting for me in the App Store…

Apparently, high speed internet has come to the Netherlands…  Finally! Not exactly mobile news by any means, but we all love the internet. And the faster, the better of course. I took the picture in Amsterdam, with the crappy 3.0 MP camera from my TyTN 2.

I’m writing this using the free wifi in my hotelroom, just like yesterday’s post. The WordPress application is stil going strong. However, if there wasn’t a wifi network here, I wouldn’t be able to post this using my iTouch. And that’s how I thought about the topic of wifi in hotel rooms.

It may seem like accessible wifi is everywhere and especially at places like hotels, but that’s not true. Sure, you might have experienced this differently, but it all depends on your location- and I for one have often been disappointed when traveling around. And I’m not just talking about travelling abroad here, I also experience the absence of accessible wifi in hotels in the Netherlands a lot.

So, what bugs me during my visits to these hotels? Three situations may occur when I slide one of my devices out of my pocket:
A) There’s plainly no wifi. Sigh.
B) There’s only a wifi signal in the lobby. To make it even worse, this situation is often combined with the third situation.
C) You have to pay for the wifi. Nowadays, a lot of wifi is offered for free. But when you are at a place were you have to pay for wifi, it’s often expensive too. This situation can especially be a bummer as you happily see that these networks aren’t secured, only to find out that you have to pay when you launch the browser of your choice…

Boy, it seems like with every new firmware version on the iPhone/iTouch, more anticipation builds up before the release. Except for the 2.0 firmware release of course, nothing can beat that one with the addition of the App Store… I was excited to read on Google Reader that 2.2 is finally available for download.

Like most of the previous times, the rumors were pretty accurate. That also means still no notification system for multitask-ish kind of stuff. Not that I have much need for it at the moment, but I sure would if I used an iPhone as my only device. Let’s hope that Apple takes its time to make the notification system perfect, just like they are still working on cut and paste…

The 2.2 feature that was rumored and everbody wanted (including me) was the ability to download podcasts on your device using Wifi or EDGE/3G. I’m really glad that it came out, as I often boot my laptop in a rush during the morning just to download the latest podcasts. Now I will be able to do this everywhere in the house, and it saves me the time from using my computer. I do not envy iphone owners who can download podcasts over their carrier network, since this isn’t possible with files larger than 10 MB.

Last but not least the Google Maps improvements. I love Google Maps. It’s a shame that I can’t use it all the time on my iTouch, as it’s much nicer than the version for Windows Mobile. The 2.2 updates adds some features to it, sadly us iPod Touch users will not see them. One of the guys from jkOnTheRun said that he didn’t saw some new Google Maps features on his first generation iPhone, and iPod Touch users wouldn’t see these features either. The reason was that it required the GPS and 3G connection of the iPhone 3G.

I couldn’t tell, as I have yet to download and install the firmware update. That’s because I’m not at home at the moment, nor have I brought my shiny new MacBook with me. As a matter of fact, I’m sitting in a hotel, typing this blog post on my iPod Touch using the awesome WordPress application… If you want a complete overview of changes within the 2.2 software, head over to The iPhone Blog for a nice review.

Amongst all these Apple related posts, it’s time to put things in perspective again and mention my Windows Mobile smartphone too. Until a few months ago, I actually loved Windows Mobile. The whole interface, and how most of the stuff worked. But slowly, the iPod Touch sneaked into my head with its gorgeous interface, making me want to buy an iPhone. I have also said many times before that I’m waiting for the third generation iPhone to come out. But until July, I’m afraid I have to wait some more (read: eight freaking months!).

So my titan of a smartphone (the HTC TyTN 2 that is) will have to do in the meantime. Luckily, there exists a little company in Russia called Spb Software House. Their applications tend to make things on the Windows Mobile side of life a somewhat easier. Except for their RSS application called Spb Insight, of course. I’m using Spb Pocket Plus and Mobile Shell at the moment.

Spb Pocket Plus

Pocket Plus is more like a suite of utilities than a visible application, which is good. Everything is integrated in the interface, and as a matter of fact, many people call Pocket Plus the software that should have been built in by Microsoft. And indeed, the app is solving a number of WinMob’s flaws. It has some fuctions that are already covered by HTC on my smartphone, and it has a function on which I rely. And that’s tabbed browsing. The ability to have multiple websites open at the same time makes me more productive. And that’s pretty much what I use Pocket Plus for. But it’s worth it. Below is the stuff that I already have in my ROM.

It features an ‘X’ button that actually closes stuff, but HTC was kind enough to already provide me such a button. It has a Today screen plug-in which allows you to create shorcuts for programs and other files, and it also integrates other Spb products like their calendar and weather software. However, I already use the HTC Homescreen Spb Mobile Shell. For the people using devices without touch scrolling (I feel your pain), Spb has enabled that feature too.

Spb Mobile Shell

Mobile Shell makes Windows Mobile a lot more finger friendly. Although flicking your way around the operating system is nice, you can really tell the difference between it and the capacitive touch screen of the iPhone/iPod Touch. The latter is simply more accurate, and the os itself is (a lot) more responsive). At least it’s easier on the eye than the standard affair. And finger friendly icons and menus are quicker to use when on the run, as I spend most of my time. The downside: a overall slower system. I’m not sure whether Mobile Shell causes this slowdown, but then again I didn’t experienced this before I installed the application. Fortunately, my TyTN 2 is a lot faster than my old HTC Touch. It remains annoying at times though.
So that are my two software picks which make my Windows Mobile smartphone nicer to use, what are your picks if you own a smartphone?

I have mentioned my problem with ’scattered data’ a few times before, and unfortunately it still exists. Now that I use an iPod Touch alongside my smartphone, things haven’t got any easier. If the separated data within my PIM applications wasn’t enough, I know have two different calendars that don’t sync. Why? Because of two reasons. a) My Touch syncs with Outlook but my TyTN 2 doesn’t get recognized by Windows Mobile Device Center. b) I use a free Exchange account for my PIM data on my smartphone, but I haven’t got it to work with my Touch.

So I have two different agenda’s, with the one of my iPod being used the most. It lacks the hardware keyboard which I always wanted, but the interface is so nice to use that I prefer the Apple’s mobile calendar above the Windows Mobile one. So I enter the majority of my appointments in my Touch, but if I leave it behind, I’m not able to view those appointments on my phone. Fortunately, now that I have left my Windows computer behind, new possibilities arise.

I often receive an email from PocketMac when they release new software, but until now, I wasn’t able to try those applications out. Now that I own a Mac, I might give their syncing application for Windows Mobile a try. If everthing works out like it should, my  calendar would be up to date on both my iPod and smartphone, on iCal on the MacBook and on the Mail2Web Exchange server. Nothing beats having a backup plan! And my contacts would stay up to date too as an added bonus…

For Mac users only

I said that I would buy the new aluminum MacBook next year. But with the huge amount of (video) reviews, each day I spent with Vista seemed like a freaking week. After I had visited the Apple Premium Reseller for two times for some playing around, I couldn’t get a hold of myself. I went there for the third time and bought it… Usually I’m not an early adopter for many reasons. But his time I am one, and I don’t regret it one bit. I opted for the 2.4 GHz model with 2 gigs of RAM, a 250 GB harddrive and a backlit keyboard to top it off. It’s not exactly cheap (at least not for me), but being a student, I got a five percent discount. Thank you, Apple!

So how’s life? In a single word: superb. Mac OS Leopard is the best thing I’ve ever used, it’s super fast and intuitive. I’ve already grown accustomed to this totally different platform, even after a single week of use. Mac OS is filled with useful stuff and I’m enjoying the ride. Now that I’m using a Mac fulltime, I noticed how slick and shiny everything is. I’m afraid I’m becoming an Apple fan all the way!

I’m already used to the trackpad too. As a matter of fact, as I’m still transferring files over from my old laptop, I constantly try to right click on it by using two fingers… I don’t like using other trackpads now, since this one is so spacious and the multi-touch is so convenient. The backlit keyboard is a dream for me to type on. The aluminum body is just as beautiful and rigid as other bloggers claim. The bright, 13.3 inch screen seems to be the perfect size for me, it’s big enough to use the MacBook as my main computer but at the same time it’s small and light enough to carry it around without hassle . I just love this laptop to pieces…

I have barely scratched the surface of the many aspects that make this computer so great. Therefore, I will write more about my experiences with the new MacBook in future posts.

I use my smartphone to stay on top of my RSS feeds. I have used Spb Insight for a long time on the Windows Mobile platform. It is still a great application, with offline reading of whole articles with images. However, it has a nasty bug where it will randomly delete all your feeds. This could happen after a week, month or after multiple months. It always happens at the times you most need it, like when on a long trip or something. It was especially terrible if it happened on my HTC Touch back when I didn’t have a data contract. In that case I would have to attach it to my computer of find a hotspot to manually restore everything. And finding the right urls can also be a pain, it features a search function- but it’s severely limited. You might know where I’m heading, it happened again on my TyTN 2 recently.

NetNewsWire

But this time, I didn’t bother to hunt for the correct urls in order to restore my list of feeds. I went looking for a different solution. At the beginning of the App Store, I tried the free NetNewsWire application from Newsgator. It required an account which was set up in less than a minute. I downloaded this app because I wanted to know how it was to read my feeds on the iPod Touch. The downsides of this app are that you have to set a period after which your items are deleted (it can’t be disabled). It also needs an active internet connection in order to download image within articles, so offline viewing is a pain. The last problem wasn’t the fault of NetNewsWire; the (read) items on my smartphone and iPod got out of sync. This was really annoying, as I already have enough trouble battling scattered data... So I had to let Newsgator go.

I continued skimming the App Store to check if any decent RSS readers had appeared, unfortunately most of these apps make use of the iPhone’s connectivity (requiring an internet connection to view the articles/images). A lot of those apps even won’t display the full article, which I hate! Some would synchronize with Google Reader. And that’s when it hit me. Using Google Reader would allow me to view the same content on both of my mobile devices, and on any other computer as a bonus. The fact that I would have to be near a WiFi network to read my feeds on my Touch, I took for granted.

Google Reader

I started using Google Reader, and I liked it immediately. I find the star feature extremely convenient, saving lengthy articles for later when I’m just catching up to all the tech news. I would have to digg in my old, read items to find these articles in Spb Insight. Having the same RSS content on every device also makes my live a lot easier. For example if I’m speed reading through blog posts, I will save the comprehensive editorials and reviews for later. When I’m behind my laptop, I fire up the website and read the stuff with the comfort of the bigger screen. I also like the stats that you can view on your computer, showing you the amount of items you read. It also show you graphs of added posts and read posts. Nice!

There is one downside to Google Reader however. It lacks a unified interface cross-platform. The website does look the same on my computer and iPod Touch, with a nice, clean interface. But when I visit the website on my HTC TyTN 2, it looks like a typical mobile site. That means white and text-only (except for the images within items). The navigation is also poorly on my WIndows Mobile phone, as I can only go to older items when reading. On the iPod Touch, I can go to both newer and older items. The icing on the cake however [sarcasm] is the fact that on my smartphone, read posts disappear from the item list, while on the Touch read posts are marked grey. This hampers my RSS reading experience somewhat when being out and about.

Conclusion

While Google Reader is not exactly perfect, it is a fine tool for me to stay up to date. Using is on my iPod Touch is lovely, I grab this device when I’m home or at a hotspot. When behing my computer, Google Reader is even better- with everything being just a click away. When mobile, using it my TyTN 2 is sufficient. The experience could be a lot better, as it seems to be optimized for simple feature phones. I think I will be using Google Reader for quite some time.

Today, it’s exactly one year ago that I made my first blog post. The blog was set up a few days earlier, but this is the date that counts for me. That first post back in 2007 was a typical ‘hello world’ thing. In total, I have written 90 posts (including this one). Some long articles and some short posts. Some posts expressed the feelings about tech that other people also had, while others turned certain people against me. At least I have learned a few things since then, which I hope will help me to improve this blog. I have a number of articles in my head that I never got around to write, with mostly myself to blame. Since the technology landscape changes so quickly, a number of my drafts were rendered pretty much obsolete after a week or so.

I have stated a number of times that I wanted to do more blogging, and I think I’m on the right track now- with multiple posts a week. I want to thank my readers, and the people who supported me. My greatest supporter has been by far Shaun McGill, founder of PDA247, he mentioned me many times on the website and even bought me the domain name! I can’t thank him enough… I also want to thank Murray Alexander from Palm-Mac, a great bloke who mentioned me a number of times on this blog.

Anyway, I usually don’t get a lot of comments on the site- except for spam. I would like to get in touch with readers, so if you have any suggestions, ideas or just want to give your opinion, don’t hesitate to comment or shoot me a message (see about the author for my email address). During the second year of PDA Thoughts, I will continue with my thoughts, opinions and reviews. And about the image, I know it’s bad. I really do. But I had to make something quick with Paint, so forgive me.

When listening to the latest episode of the WMExperts podcast today, Dieter Bohn told that he received the the MVP award from Microsoft. That’s a big thing, as a lot of great tech writers are MVP’s. But Dieter sure deserves it. He is a true writing maniac on the Smartphone Experts sites, writing for TreoCentral, WMExperts, the iPhone Blog and even for the new AndroidCentral website! He uses a load of devices to keep up with all the different platforms. I know that I wouldn’t be able to do that… Anyway, he does a lot for the smartphone community, and he is one of my favourite writers.

After using the TyTN 2 for several months, I think I’m ready to to give my two cents about it. I will name a few aspects and describe my experiences with them. The fact that I use this beast of a smartphone alongside my iPod Touch influences my user experience, both in positive and negative ways.

The hardware

Like my previous experiences with HTC devices, the build quality is solid. Nothing creaks or moves, except for the sliding mechanism of course (but it doesn’t creak). This is solid too, with the spring-loaded mechanism requiring a subtle push in order to slide out- which prevents most cases of unwanted sliding out. I love the tilting screen, it’s also one of the main reasons why I preferred the TyTN 2 above the Touch Pro. It’s great when typing on the keyboard, or even when just viewing stuff. The tilting screen even makes using my bluetooth keyboard more convenient, I’ll post some pictures of my setup that will explain this…

I also really like the many buttons that the TyTN 2 has, there are more than fifty of them (keyboard included)! I really missed having these keys on the HTC Touch, which resulted in having to use the screen most of the time- while I prefer using the buttons single handedly. It therefore also lacked buttons to assing applications to, which makes life with the TyTN 2 both easier and faster. The screen is nothing special of course, being the standard 2.8”  QVGA screen. Switching between it and my iPod Touch, the TyTN 2 can feel cramped with the smaller screen. The capacitive touch screen from the Touch is also much nicer to work with.

Last and least important to me, the 3 MP camera on the back of the device is nothing to write home about. It doesn’t come near to the quality of the Nokia N73 which I used to have, which features a 3.2 MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics. Furthermore, it lacks flash like most Windows Mobile devices. Due to the camera application being slow, taking pictures is a real pain and takes quite some time. I don’t use the front facing camera, but it’s a nice addition (might I need it in the future).

The processor is quick enough for me, as I don’t do a lot of multitasking these days. I usually listen to music on my iPod while doing something on my smartphone, so it’s only doing one or two things at a time. I also use the iPod for movies (and pictures too), so the lack of graphics drivers don’t affect me. Doing less multitasking and no AD2P audio, my battery lasts longer- usually about a day with heavy usage. Which is crappy, but not surprising considering the array of features it houses.

The software

The operating system is pretty much the same as on my HTC Touch, except that I upgraded it to the latest version 6.1. The newer firmware should be more energy effecient and snappier with quicker screen redraws. Since I upgraded the system the same day I bought it, I can’t tell any differences or improvements. However I don’t think that it takes a long time to switch the screen from portrait to landscape- at least not for a Windows Mobile device. But since I use the iPod Touch at the same time, I really notice how slow WinMob is compared to mobile OS X.

The second iteration of the TyTn ships with the standard additional software- and a business card scanner. At first I thought this would be really useful, saving me the required time to create contacts for all of the business cards. It turned out that the software didn’t recognize a single business card, no matter lighting or positioning of the camera. That sucks. I didn’t install the provided Spite Backup software, as it used to crash my HTC Touch. Instead, I use the lastest version of Spb Backup.

One of the last effects that the iPod Touch has it that I don’t have much third party software installed, I nowadays play games and do other stuff on my Touch with its nicer interface and all. The TyTn 2 has become my workhorse for PIM data, GPS and document editing/creating, while my Touch is mostly for fun. 

Conclusion

After all this time that I lusted after the TyTN 2, I finally own it. But now that I also use the iPod Touch, I tend to use my smartphone less. However, the (work-related) stuff that I do on my TyTN 2, it does well. It’s reasonable quick, stable, and versatile with the connectivity options and operating system. It might be a brick, but it’s still my brick…

One of my favourite productivity apps on the iPod Touch is a taskmanager, iProcrastinate Mobile. My eye fell on it while skimming through the free applications in the App Store. I didn’t trust the fact that was full featured and free at the same time. But it wasn’t a lite version, it wasn’t free for a limited time- nor was it some subscription-based service. The developer of iProcrastinate Mobile has decided to give it away as freeware. There is also a desktop version of iProcrastinate for the Mac, which is freeware too.

Advantages

There are dozens of taskmanagers available in the App Store, ranging from free to expensive and from (too) simple to complex. I have tried a few free ones before, but each and every one has their own letdowns. And that’s why I love iProcrastinate Mobile so much. It’s very easy to use, requiring very little time to enter new tasks. But at the same time, it’s also a very powerful and flexible app, with a number of great functions. There are ‘Subjects’, which are basically color-coded categories. Then you have the ‘Smart Groups’, which allow you to see the tasks from different subjects together in a specified data range.

You can create tasks that contain multiple steps, which is handy for outlining the bigger tasks. There is also the option to add collaborators, you will be able to view their contact information and contact them. Since cut and paste is still missing, the developer has found another way to export the data. If you want to export your tasks, you can mail the list to multiple email addresses. I think that this application has an awful lot of functionality built in, but more importantly, it’s easy to use. Whether you want to add a simple grocery list or a full project for school with multiple steps and collaborators, it will be a breeze with the clearly laid out UI.

Adding new features

I haven’t mentioned on of the most important advantages of iProcrastinate Mobile yet, which is the red badge with tasks on your homepage. Just like with you email, you will be able to see the number of tasks that awaits you. The ability to configure the date range of tasks that should be showed on the homepage makes it even a more flexible application. The badge is a nice form of integration with the operating system, but the integration stops there- due to Apple’s current SDK. The developer Craig Otis states on his website that he will be adding reminders as soon as Apple unleashes its ‘Notifications’ system.

Craig is also busy with implementing recurring tasks, in order to make this great application even better. However, there’s one item that’s located higher on the priority list than recurring tasks, which is synchronization. Later on, users will be able to sync the mobile version of iProcrastinate wirelessly with the desktop client. That is a bonus that would really make it a killer app, hence why I expect it to enter the Top 50 list of iPhone applications.

CraigOtis.com

For more information, pay a visit to the website of iProcrastinate. The developer has a great sense of humor, so go check it out. Craig Otis is a student, and he would really appreciate a donation via PayPal. On a personal note, I will try out iProcrastinate on the Mac when I buy a MacBook. I can’t wait for the synchronization!

It was playtime for me, recently. I payed a visit to one of Apple’s Premium Resellers, in order to check out the new MacBook. It was also a nice opportunity to play with the iPod Touch 2G. I was really happy to be able to play with these devices, as I ususally don’t get a lot of hands-on action… Below are my thoughts.

iPod Touch 2G

I’ll start with the smallest device first. When seeing the Touch 2G, I was instantly impressed with its ultra-sleek form factor, borrowing the tapered edges from it’s big brother aka the iPhone 3G. At the time of the announcement, I thought that they couldn’t make an already very slim device even slimmer. And it sure feels great in your hand. The second iteration of the best iPod ever features some stuff that I would like to have in my iPod, like the volume buttons, speaker and improved battery life (browsing and gaming really sucks the life out of it). The volume button felt solid, like the whole device does.

The speaker is truly awful, I think that my Palm Tungsten T had better sound. With the volume halfway you can barely hear the music (if you’re not in a silent room), turn it up and distortion takes over. There are no sound holes of any kind, so that could be one of the reasons- alongside the fact that there isn’t much room available in that tiny package. Anyway, the sales rep said what I already thought. The speaker is suited for alarm sounds and gaming, not for music. It would be nice indeed if my Touch wouldn’t need the headphones for sound while playing games. The Touch 2G now features the same sounds like the iPhone, so all the ringtones are available as alarm sounds. That is something that would also be nice, as mine can only beep.

All in all, Apple did a good job on improving the Touch’s faults. You no longer need to turn the device on to adjust the volume, and you can record sound on it with a set of headphones which is separately available. The speaker is better than nothing, but it should be improved in a future version if they want to keep the iPod competitive. Of course I wasn’t able to check if the battery life is really improved, but I believe them since they are usually pretty accurate on it.

New MacBook

I read a lot of reviews about the new 13 inch MacBook, and I also watched a number of videos about it. Therefore, there were no surprises when seeing the laptop in real life. I played around with the trackpad and the keyboard. I absolutely love typing on it, and when I’m going to get one, I will be sure to get the model with the backlit keys. So far, I have heard nobody complaining about the new trackpad, and neither am I. The whole multi-touch concept is convenient and easy to learn. The four finger movement should prove to be useful for me when multitasking a lot, improving my workflow with less interruptions. The aluminum body feels sturdy and light at the same time, I also like the battery indicator on the left side. The screen is very bright with vivid colors. I am counting down the days until I buy it…

Last sunday, it was that time of the year again, requiring you to change the time on all your clocks and other devices. I woke up and checked my smartphone and iPod. My phone didn’t change automatically, something I have complained about earlier with Windows Mobile. I was surprised to found out that my Touch was showing the correct time. You can say what you want about the iPhone, but it changed the setting automatically according to DST. Windows Mobile is so powerful and all, but it can’t archieve this simple thing. It am truly disappointed, as this are the kind of touches that can make the live of a mobile device user more convenient.

Anyway, the Centro from my better half of course updated the time too- complete with a notification. Just like my trusty Palm TX used to do. But what my HTC Touch, TyTN 2 and probably also the S620 can’t do. Sigh. And now, I’m off to try some new software from the App Store…

This week, a new feature from the upcoming and delayed Windows Mobile 7 leaked out in the world of mobile tech. The technology dubbed ‘SideSight’ enables users to make gestures to the side of a device, like for instance rotating pictures. Looking at the picture, I assume the device has to lie down on a surface when using SideSight. This might narrow down its usefulness, but on the other hand, not having to touch the screen allows you to see everything on the screen while operating. What will happen with this new technology?

Frankyly, I am not expecting groundbreaking stuff. Just like Microsoft Surface, this is an innovation from the company that in general lacks innovative products. But both of these innovations raise the question if they are really useful. In my eyes, multitouch on the iPhone and Macbooks is an advantage for the users, allowing them to control their devices in a more convenient way. But what will SideSight give you, besides weird looks when using it in public?

Surface

Surface has found it’s way to the real world, apparently it’s being used in a number of AT&T stores. Back when Surface was announced, a wide variety of mind-boggling possibilities were mentioned. I’m curious about how many of those are actually implemented in AT&T’s Surfaces. However, it’s already an achievement for Surface that it hasn’t died an early death like most of the products in Microsofts’s labs. An example?

Deepfish

Deepfish is a project which started a few years ago. At that time, I was using a Pocket PC (a Dell Axim X51v running Windows Mobile 2005). I payed attention to it, as it seemed to be a revolutionary browser. It was a proxy server-based solution for bandwith optimized rendering. Unfortunately it remained a beta, or a ‘technical preview’ like the folks from Redmond like to call it. I’m not the type that’s eager to try out beta’s, after some of them screwed up my devices in the past- so I never got to try Deepfish. Fast forward to the present, and the service has been discontinued since September 31, 2008.

The website states that Deepfish was a proof of theory that there was an unmet demand for a better mobile browsing experience. Sounds like the people behind it don’t want to admit its failure, especially since the positive reception of Deepfish hasn’t lead to anything but promises. If you don’t believe me, think about Pocket Internet Explorer. It has never seen major improvements and we are still waiting for Mobile Internet Explorer 6 which would fix everything that’s wrong now. Yeah, right.

The future of SideSight

It may seem as if I have gone off a tangent with Surface and Deepfish, but they are examples of Microsoft’s innovations that either haven’t lived up to their expectations, or have never become real products. There are more examples of their products which point out exactly the same. And that’s why I don’t have high hopes for SideSight to become a useful feature, let alone to become a wide-adopted technology.

Last week, the headphones that came with my iPod Touch broke. As usual with my headphones, one of the two earbuds has a lose connector or something - resulting in no sound. The rubber band wrapped around the ears was also broken. The rubber makes for a comfortable fit, but the fact that it breaks in just a few months is crap. I treat my headphones with enough care so they shouldn’t break in such a short period. I looked a bit around for new ones, but I didn’t wanted to spend a lot of money on it. I once bought the Apple in-ear headphones, which I frankly thought were too expensive for what they offered in quality and they also broke relatively quick. And I still got my bluetooth headset lying around, which of course doesn’t work with my Touch.

I was thinking about Sennheiser headphones, I used to own a pair and they offer reasonable quality at a good price point. I’m not exactly an audiophile, so I don’t need something like Bose headphones. Anyway, I bought the Sennheiser MX 460 for a mere €14,95 (which is half the price of standard iPod headphones). The person in the iCentre was honest to admit that the x460 actually sounded better than the basic Apple ones. Turns out he was right and I’m happy. It has some kind of bass system integrated which really works- and it’s not even an in-ear system! Let’s see how long they last…

I recently had some free time to waste, hence why I paid a visit to my local electronics store. I was happy to find out that new devices had been added to the ‘play corner’. The two smartphones that immediately grabbed my attention were the Nokia E71 and the HTC Touch Pro.

Nokia E71

I loved my HTC S620  with its front facing keyboard. I was using it at the time when the E71 first appeared. I thought that the E71 looked very good in the pictures, the downside being that I don’t get along with Symbian S60… Nevertheless, I followed the rumors and eagerly read the reviews. This was the first time that I actually saw the phone in real life. But what’s my verdict?

The build quality is very impressive. A solid, metal construction, which is something you don’t see often with smartphones. The second thing I liked was the quality of the keys. Good clicking response and the keys are also easy to find with your thumbs (not having to look is a real breeze). It’s not all positive though. I personally think that the phone is way to narrow for a front facing qwerty device. I can’t type on it without the width of a Motorola Q9, HTC S620 or a Blackberry. In that respect, the E71 is closer to the Palm Centro than for instance the older E61. And a lot of people can’t type with comfort on the Centro, including me and Murray from Palm-Mac…

HTC Touch Pro

At the time when I considered to buy the TyTN 2, the Touch Pro was already announced. I didn’t knew whether I should buy the TyTN 2 or hold out for the Pro. What I liked about the Pro: VGA screen, hardware graphics acceleration, more memory and a slick design. I didn’t liked the fact that it didn’t featured a tilting screen, one of the main reasons I considered the TyTN 2. The whole TouchFLO 3D thing wasn’t something that appealed to me. I used to love my first generation Touch, but nowadays there are too many of them on the WinMob market in my opinion. After playing around with the Touch Pro, I came to the conclusion that buying the TyTN 2 was the right thing to do.

The Pro might have better specs and a Touch Diamond styling, but it didn’t appealed to me. Before its release, a lot of fuss was made about the separate number row on the keyboard. Well, I think that HTC has messed up the keyboard by adding that extra row of keys. Being a slider, it obviously has flat keys. But making them even smaller doesn’t make for a better typing experience, I found the little keys to be horrible. I am not a fan of the direction pad from the Touch Diamond, and the same applies here. Pressing it makes half the front of the device move, it just feels flimsy. Such an expensive device shouldn’t feel so cheap. Back at its release, the intertubes also made fuss about its form factor, which was a tad ”brick-like’ and looked huge. Although it’s indeed shaped like a brick, it’s features pretty much the same dimensions of my TyTN 2. The flush screen is definitely an improvement coming from the TyTN’s recessed screen, but all in all I don’t regret not waiting for the Touch Pro. I will keep my TyTN 2 for now, thank you.

The title says it all. This week has been one of the most hectic weeks of my school career, with deadlines, deadlines and some more deadlines. Although it’s a perfect preparation of what I hope is going to be my career as a journalist, it leaves absolutely no room for other activities what so ever. That includes blogging, as you probably have noticed due to the lack of posts. It takes another day, and then it will finally be over. So I can finally continue blogging multiple times a week…

Today, a post from the Apple 2.0 blog about a new Apple factory grabbed my attention, as it was a hot post on the main WordPress website. According to Philip Elmer-DeWitt, future MacBooks will be made out of aluminum- just like the MacBook Pro’s are now. But it will be built in a totally different manner:

“What the Brick really is, according to Weintraub’s sources, is a block of high-quality, aircraft grade aluminum out of which Apple’s new laptops will be carved using robot-controlled lasers and high-powered jets of water in Jobs’ new factory.”

This sounds very awesome, I have always liked the build quality of Apple products and now it’s getting even better. I have not heard of the “Brick” before however. The author of the post has used 9 to 5 Mac and Computerworld Blogs as his sources for this information. Seth Weintraub from 9 to 5 Mac states a number of interesting advantages of the aluminum carving technique:

• No weak spots, folds, seams or screws in the casing, so it will be very smooth.
• A single piece shell makes it super strong, super light and super cheap (I can’t possibly think of a better ’super’ combination!)
• It allows for a more creative design (something where Apple already excels in).

Everything together sounds great in my opinion, especially since the words ‘better’ and ‘cheaper’ are usually hard to combine. The articles also state that this new factory will cut heavily into Apple’s resources,  but it will also put competition way behind for some time to come. That makes you curious about the new laptops that will be announced at the 14th of October, doesn’t it? I am thinking more and more about getting a MacBook, maybe next year then.

It has been rocky road lately, with my computer crashing a lot due to iTunes. I don’t know whether it’s incompatibility from Apple’s side, or crappy developing from Microsoft’s side. But it sure messed up my schedule a few times this week, as it was very time consuming to get everything back up again. So what happened?

Aside from the blue screen of death appearing a few times, iTunes 8 created a nasty error when syncing my iPod Touch where a dialog box would pop up saying something like “There is not enough storage available, 15 GB of free room required. Would you like to delete albums to free storage?”. I then replied “No”, since I had 14 gigs of free storage and not an additional 15 GB of media waiting to be transferred from my iTunes library on my laptop. The syncing process therefore ended with an another error message and I check my device. All of a sudden, all of my media was gone. No music and no movies. @#%$*!

I have around 13 gigs of music, so that would take a while to restore. Talking about restoring, I first had to restore the firmware from the Touch to get rid of my problems. And it’s not like I have jailbroken my device or anything. A big three hours later and anything was on my iPod again. Finally.

Four days later, I synced my Touch again to update all my podcasts and bam. I was screwed all over again. And like the first time, I had to stop whatever I was doing to get my content back again. Since then, I have been wary to sync. Fortunately iTunes was updated yesterday, to version 8.0.1. It might be just a small update, but it seems like everything has been solved now…

I bought this case a week ago on the web, and it rocks. ‘Crumpler The Le Royale for iPhone’ is its name, and I must say that I never hear of Crumpler before. But I find it to be one fine sleeve. It’s beautiful with red/white leather and stitching. Not everyone will like the color, but it comes in four different combinations. The leather feels like it’s high quality. It fits my Touch like a glove, and due to the special corners on the top of the case, taking your device out is a breeze. It was a bit tight at first, but since it’s leather, it stretches. Now it fits even better, taking just a second to take it out- which can make or break a case, it must never be annoying to use. Still, it won’t fall out easily either, so I have the piece of mind that my valuable iPod is protected.

I love to spend lots of money on gadgetry, but I also love me some bargains (with software, that is). I can be a cheapskate at times… Now, where would I be shopping for applications at the moment? At the App Store of course! I’m still nosing around there almost daily, checking for updates and new stuff. I found some great applications and games. I got a staggering four applications for free, due to offers that the apps are free for the first week or so (or until a certain number of downloads). Three of them have now turned into paid programs, so I was lucky to get my mitts on them in time. Before I start with the free stuff, I want to mention a low priced game.

Cro-Mag Rally

I bought Cro-Mag Rally for only $1.99, since Pangea Software has a sale of most of their titles. I don’t find it to be up to the level of Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kart 3D, with nothing to unlock and only two game modes. However, the graphics are nice, featuring some amazing landscapes with hills and such. You also see animals and mummies walking around in full 3D, I think it’s very impressive for a mobile device. This racing game is a true steal, get it while you can.

Air Sharing

First up is Air Sharing, which retails for $6.99. It’s an application which allows you to store all kinds of different items on your device, ranging from documents to media. You send the files over wirelessly from your computer, by mounting your iPhone or iPod Touch as a disk drive via WiFi. It supports a great deal of formats and landscape viewing. I also want to note that the help function is wonderful, very detailed (it even states that Windows users have to download a certain system update complete with the URL). Good job, Avatron.

Fuzzle

This is an excellent puzzle game. You start with an empty field, with a few coloured balls. You have to make rows of five balls of the same colour to make them dissappear. But with every move you make, more balls appear on the field. The goal of the game is to clear as many balls as you can, before you run out of space. Sounds easy but it sure isn’t. Great replay value I must say. It had a bug in the first version where your music would stop playing when launching the game, although Fuzzle doesn’t have its own music. The developer has already resolved this with an update. I still love how these are being pushed out by the way, since I otherwise wouldn’t be able to keep track of them. At just $1.99, it’s still cheap. A lot of puzzle games in the App Store are priced this low.

White Noise

I have seen a number of sound apps in the store, I don’t remember seing these kind of things on other platforms. Anyway, White Noise started out as a basic application that featured eight different sound to help you relax, focus or sleep. You could also set a timer to turn your device off after playing sounds for a while. The timer didn’t work on my Touch, I assume this is resolved in the new version (I have yet to check it out). The update brought an addition of fourteen sounds (!), and you can put your eight favourite sounds on the main screen. It seems that its icon has also been polished up, worth noting as it’s all eye-candy on this platform… It now costs a mere $0.99, the same price as two similair applications (Ambiance and aSleep).

Smart Time

The first productivity application on my device! I guess the Touch is indeed the “funnest” iPod ever… I downloaded this today so I’m not exactly sure how it works or how to implement it in my organizing habits. Its features are that it offers a floating time line where you can put your tasks and appointments. You can drag stuff around the screen, and tap it multiple times for editing. I think this could resolve a part of my ‘scattered data problem‘. The downside: the nature of the iPhone’s SDK prohibits the software from talking to the built-in calendar. So multiple entries of your data are required. However, the developer states that support for external calendars is just around the corner. I will review the software later on to see how well it works for me. Being free until the fifth of Octobre, be sure to pick it up before then. I don’t know what the retail price will be, but these kind of productivity apps often run you six, seven dollars or more.

Making the screenshots shown below is a piece of cake and takes no more then a second, thanks to the 2.0 firmware that allows you to make screenshots by pressing the home- and power button simultaneously.

Normally I wouldn’t mention my birthday, but I couldn’t let this one slip. So today is my birthday, and above is a picture of the cake that my family got me (click on it). That’s what you happens when you are the geek of the family… I thought the logo and cake were impressive, and I can tell that it was tasty too. Just don’t tell anybody that I use Firefox nowadays…

There were rumors of 32 GB iPhones and contract-free options a few days ago, which I both would love to see.The contract-free option was busted instantly, which I personally find less important then a 32 GB iPhone. If a 32 GB unlocked iPhone would indeed retail for up to a 1000 dollars as The iPhone Blog thinks, I wouldn’t even have to think about it. As I said before, I do ‘need’ 32 gigs of memory if I want to fit in my whole iTunes collection. All technical issues aside, I am keeping my fingers crossed… If this new iPhone is indeed coming out, then it will probably launch around the holidays (this is what the mentioned sources indicate). But of course I’m not after a 3G model, I’m waiting for next year’s iPhone, that’s when my contract is up for renewal…

Picture courtesy of The iPhone Blog