If in doubt, work it out

I was looking back over my blog history and realised I haven't published anything yet this year. Shame on me. It doesn't feel like that as I have been working on a few posts that haven't quite seen the light of day as yet. Perhaps that's why I hadn't realised or posted something sooner.

Someone once said that if you are struggling to write your posts, or have a few drafts waiting on their final edit, then just post something. Anything. A quick burst of productivity to get the ball rolling again.

So here it is folks, something short and sweet to show the blog is still active and that much more will be coming soon. In the pipeline we have a couple of reviews and a piece on learning and fitness apps. Hopefully they will be escaping from my drafts sections shortly...

One last wee bit to give this post some link back to technology before I sign off.

Its been an interesting week or so for apple. The iPhone 6 was released and snapped up by keen fans as always. However there are reports surfacing of problems with the phones bending if too much pressure is applied. Couple this with existing apple users, myself included, experiencing issues when upgrading their devices to iOS8, and problems after the upgrades is applied. Only yesterday apple withdrew the follow on 8.0.1 update as this had been causing some devices to loose connectivity amongst other issues.

It will certainly have been a week to remember for apple, both on the good and bad sides. The interesting part will be to see where they go from here. Can it be spun and resolved like the iPhone5's Antennagate issue? How quickly will the software updates appear and will users soon be singing their praises again?

Where is your phone just now?

A couple of recent incidents have raised mobile security or being able to easily locate your phone to the forefront for me.

One of the girls who works in our office lost her phone at the weekend. She was walking back from an evenings entertainment and dropped it on route. It being a white phone which was lost, on a snowy night, in the dark didn't give her much chance of finding it. Luckily a trip out the next day to retrace her route did the trick and she managed to find it before someone else did.

Something that would have helped in this situation would be a mobile security/finder app. These apps let you locate your phone on a website using the phones GPS or mobile signal. Handy if your trying to narrow down a search area or check if its even near where you think it might be.

I use an app called Android Lost. It has a range of features including phone location tools, enable ringer if phone was on silent. You can even use it to make the phone speak "I'm over here" or have the camera take a photo so you can see what's nearby.

Of course there is a more serious side to these type of apps. They can be used to lock or even reset your handset and delete personal data. Alert you if the SIM has changed and tell you the new number. You can even send a fake warning message to the phone which will then send you back a photo of the person reading the alert.

I started using this as a result of a colleague having his phone stolen. He had managed to track it with the police using his Google latitude account but alas the handset wasn't recovered. This caused us to look at a few of these apps before settling on one that seemed had the best mix of features at that point.

Some manufactures have their own apps which provide some of these functions. HTC Sense has a find my phone tool a few years ago. Apple have a locate my device function. As I said however most of these tools will do some basic functions, whereas a dedicated app offers a lot more, and may be less obvious if your phone is stolen, so have less chance of being turned off if it ends up in the wrong hands.

Everyone knows the saying about "shutting the door after the horse has bolted", but this is one instance where "better late than never" can also apply. One great feature of Google's Play Store and iTunes is the ability to push apps to your device. So if you do loose your phone you can push one of these apps on to it and hopefully still track it down.

That said however it is worth installing one of these apps now. Not only for the piece of mind it gives you but also because you may have to do some configuration once its installed to ensure you can use all the features and obviously you couldn't do this if you can't get your hands on your phone.

So do you know where your phone is right now? If you do, pick it up head to its app store and get one of these apps installed and hopefully then you will always be able to find it.

Update: 

A burglar was recently captured after stealing a couples car and phone using their Find my iPhone App. See T3 for more details. 

iPhone follow on

Since my original post on the new iPhone 5 there has been even more written and discussed on the successes and failings of the new handset. 

In short, yes the new iPhone is better. The screen size is more useful and the majority of apps have already had an update to make the most of the new screen space. The new handset is lighter, slimmer and possibly has a nicer feel depending on peoples personal preference. 

The one fly in the ointment which doesn't seem to be going anywhere soon is the maps issue. Perhaps apple could have saved some face if they had renamed it to navigation to emphasise the point of why the made the change. Here is a new app to allow iPhone users to access free turn by turn navigation which was missing from the native Google maps app but was present on the android equivalent. This would have lessened the emphasis on the mapping side of the application and its current shortfalls. They could even have kept the Google map app in place in this version of iOS for mapping whilst the Sat-Nav app developed and gathered enough map/search data in the background to make it more functional, then in the next iOS upgrade made the full switch and heralded it as the big shiny thing it would have then been. 


I read a good unbiased and quite well rounded review recently. I have attached a link as it is worth a look: 

Cult of Mac : Is iOS 6 holding back the iPhone 5?

One last thing for now, unless something spectacular happens, the next post wont be related to iPhones, so never fear we will be stepping away form the fruit based products. 

Much ado about nothing?

Oh well, the iPhone 5 got its official launch last week to a slightly better than mediocre response. Is this the first of the iPhone launches to miss the mark? 

It certainly isn't the set the web on fire, world beater that certain sections of the media may have expected from Apple. Quite a few commentators, myself included think its OK, but is that it? Apple could have taken the new iPhone and pushed the handset market forward again with a device that would still feel good to own in 2 years time (the length of most current contracts now). Maybe Cupertino's finest have become a victim of their own success and people were just expecting much more from them.

Image Courtesy of Mashable

Ok it has a slightly longer screen which adds an extra row of icons to the home screen but this still feels small against is main and current larger android rivals such as the Samsung Galaxy S3 and Note and the HTC One X.

Better camera features are always well received. In my opinion it's criminal when smartphone makers release a phone with a poor camera, there's no excuse for that. Certainly the iPhone cameras have always been very good and this one steps things up again. 

The new maps app which replaces Google maps with Apples own and brings free turn-by-turn navigation to the iPhone is a welcome addition, even though it has attracted less than glowing comparisons to Google maps. 

The other main feature change is one which already seems to have upset existing users, especially those with other pieces of tech which links into their existing iPhone, the new smaller 'Lightning' connector. This change away from the familiar 30 pin connector leaves users who have purchased expensive speaker docks or car kits having to now purchase a £25 adapter to make these work. There have been reports that certain items may loose some functionality and there is the added hassle of having to carry the adapter around, or buy more than one. 

Perhaps its just that the quality of android phones is now generally much higher across the range? There have always been handsets which have had a higher spec or better features than the iPhone but perhaps weren't so well known. Until recently for every great android phone there were many more poor cheap handsets flooding the lower end of the market and pulling down the overall reputation. This meant the early iPhone's could brag of being better and more stable than the early android phones. Now it seems the opposite, that this new handset is almost up to the standard of the best android phones, which means that in 12 months where will it place with any new handsets in the pipeline including the windows 8 phones from Nokia and HTC. 

Users who are now committing to a 24 month contact for their iPhone 5 may feel differently about it when they are a year in and the handset marketplace has changed. There will be more phones with Near Field Communication, or contactless charging to name but two features which were rumored for the iPhone but never made it. 

Already since the launch of iOS 6 on Wednesday the web has been littered with a slew of less than glowing comments on the new apple maps. Luckily iPhone users can still install the Google maps app and similarly a youtube app as this has been removed natively, however the iPad users don't seem to have their replacements yet. Again these features will no doubt quickly improve ans iOS 6 does bring other nice features so its certainly not a step backwards, just a change in direction. 

No doubt we will find out more today as users will finally get their hands on their new shiny iPhone's. It will be interesting to see the early feedback, will it be all people expected and more, or will they think why did I upgrade for this?