Be Excellent To Each Other

Do they notice relativity effects at all?
(Is that what it's called? The thing where time slows down when you go faster?). Those satellites whizz around pretty quick..

I think it's fair to say 'ignore GPS capabilities until they are proved otherwise'. They could be handy in an emergency (like my N95 has been) but it's not going to replace your TomTom.

Yeah I noticed Medion now do a complete in car GPS road map, speed camera, everything system, with a screen for £40.

Fucking crazy.

TBH I was sort of hoping for an external (magically working and good antenna) bluetooth GPS thing to go with TomTom software on the phone - that would work with the old iPhone too.

On the other hand, if the built in GPS is really a good one (and no reason it shouldn't be other than cost, I think), it's neat to have it all in one box.

I wonder if this is why they made the back out of plastic on the new one?

I would have said off the top of my head that they aren't going quick enough but I would have been wrong. Each GPS clock is very minutely adjusted to run slow, which is compensated for because they run faster in space than they would on the Earth's surface as they're in a weaker gravitational field (note that this is General relativity, not Special relativity; Wikipedia explains more).

Regarding VOIP, Jobs has already said Apple's fine with such software appearing on the phone. Ultimately, it makes naff-all difference to O2 anyway. You're already paying for the contract, so it really makes no odds if you do some of your talking using something like Skype. For my wife, that would be ideal—she'd use the minutes in the UK, but Skype to call her friends and family in Iceland.

The pricing, however, is a surprise. I was very much expecting the usual Apple conversion, which would have resulted in (approximately) a £139 iPhone. Clearly, Apple is seriously going for marketshare here, and it's no surprise. People who review this kind of stuff for a living are often saying that this is the first time the technology's really worked. Yes, the phone has a few major shortcomings, but the UI and syncing are so good that it doesn't matter.


The usual Apple way is to dump the lowest model and install the upgrades at the same price-point. That might not be the case for iPhone, but I think it's fairly likely.

It's no coincidence that the me.com service was announced yesterday either. Cloud based contact and calender sync for iPhones could be a nice little earner for Apple.

I would previously have said that the opposite; that we would see existing models become cheaper as the iPhone market diversifies to different price points. Compare with the early days of the iPod, with the introduction of the Mini and then the Shuffle. However, at the current price points, it's difficult to see it getting much cheaper! So I guess I reckon you're right Craig.

I've got Skype on mine, it works as well as VOIP normally does (that is to say, not quite as well as you'd hope) but it's usable.

It's just a shame it's still O2 only. I'm due a new phone and that's now pretty much literally the only thing stopping me.

If you went to O2 you couldn't you also get cheaper broadband Dudley (you're with Be if I remember right?).

Yes but I'd also be with O2.

More interesting tidbits sneaking out. This one from MacFormat:



Mm. If Apple can sort out the occasionally shocking connection and speed problems that have affected .Mac, its web service has suddenly gone from "you pay for that? IDIOT!" to something that could potentially be good value.

What's up with that? Just that none of their plans suit you or something?

3 is the only people who've successfully ever managed to give me phone reception everywhere I go and they've done nothing to piss me off. Also I want to keep my number and transferring is liable to be hell.

Fair enough. After five years with Orange, I've been with O2 for six months and found them very pleasant. They keep giving me stuff (e.g. 30 off peak minutes a month for some random reason), their website is very nice, and I get english-speaking people in the call centres.

It is very easy these days as it is ruthlessly regulated by OfCom.

Transferring is easy and painless (half an hour on the phone at most), I usually do it whenever my contract expires to get the best deals. Also your experience of 3 is the opposite of mine, they were hopeless round here, although they were a fairly new operator then.

Then maybe I'll look into it once it's all announced.

What's so good about the iPhone's synching, anyway - is the new one going to do it wirelessly?

Yeah, this me.com service is over the air.

That's neat. It's always a bonus when I walk near a wifi spot I've got details for and my Zune informs me it's got a new podcast.

You own a Zune? Are they actually, you know, any good? I liked the look of them, but having never ever physically seen one (still not even released here, are they?) I've not been really tempted. I'm just using my W800i Walkman at the moment.

I think it's very good.
I've got the 80gb version from the USA (via eBay) for about £120, and I can't complain about it, really. Battery life is a little short (especially if you leave the wireless on all weekend) but wireless synch (like I said above) is super-ace, as is the sound quality.
[edit]You have to jump through a few hoops to get remote synch working - normal wireless synch only works on a PC with the Zune software (which is rubbish, but no worse than the horror that is iTunes).

What's actually wrong with iTunes? Everyone says that it is crap but I've had various versions on my PC for a few years and haven't ever struggled to do anything I've wanted to or noticed it doing anything intrusive to my computer.

I agree with MarkG actually. I'm normally the first to get frustrated by bits of software that do stuff for me but iTunes has never annoyed me.

Might have to look in to that. Do you know, perchance, does the Wireless syncing work if I have

Zune --> Wireless Router --> Access Point --> Ethernet PC?

The PC used to have a wifi card but it's much easier to have the AP these days, as it feeds the Xbox and 360 as well.

Also, iTunes *on the Mac* is quite nice and usable. *On the PC* I found it to be horribly slow, clunky, and kept wanting me to download Safari. I've just gone back to using Winamp after a few years of being a QCD/QMP man.

It's REALLY hideously slow, has a bizzare interface on windows (may be 2nd nature to mac heads), installs several pieces of what I would term malware that are always resident (including an "ipod helper" even if you don't own one) and forces you to install quicktime even if you don't want it.

All of these were true 2 years ago, I haven't touched it since. Any program that couldn't play a simple video podcast on an AMD 3500+ deserved scorn. The same files were a breeze in VLC.

To be fair though, iTunes originated on the Mac where QuickTime is a core component of the OS, so it's not that surprising the Windows version requires you to install it. Same with regards to the UI, it's very in keeping with the Mac OS - though I agree it does look out of place on Windows.

Still, since abandoning the Mac in favour of a self-built PC, I still use iTunes all the while for my music.

Yup. Assuming the PC has the Zune software on.

I'll have to have a look-see and check the Zune stuff works with XP x64, but I feel a potential purchase coming on.

I ran XP 64 on the desktop for six months. I feel your pain.

It does.

I've run it since it came out. No problems here, I'm just aware that for a £120 purchase I should check first

Seriously, I'm not sure where the XP x64 hate comes from. Sure it had no drivers to begin with, but with SP2 it's just as compatible as Vista is, and more stable to boot.

Download the software first and see if it installs. I run all my games in the XP64 mode of my dual-boot PC.

Access 2007 ODBC drivers don't work. Or is that Win2k3 64-bit.

Anyway, a bit more iTunes love here. Well, I wouldn't go as far as "love", but as long as it got its fair share of rounds in or something. It isn't perfect and it is slowing down as I get a *really* big music collection into it, but it is better than just about anything I've found for managing 11,000+ MP3s.

Which is a bit like saying it is "Holland's Greatest Mountaineer". I still half fancy writing my own Music Manager in VB.NET, just so it works exactly how I want it to.

It does suffer on driver support here and there. Admittedly the only pain I felt on my workstation was having to run some cockingly old ATI driver and iTunes not being able to import CDs. However it was a work machine for work stuff so I didn't really push the envelope with its software loadout anyway.

The "x64" version complains it's not running on Vista. But it's just a .inf it's checking and with a little tweaking, it installed perfectly well.

Yeah I know that. Which makes the fact that the MSI doesn't work out of the box all the more offensive and indicative that XP64 is something of a redheaded stepchild. As it happens I didn't import any CDs those six months, and hence never had to solve the problem.

I meant the Zune one, specifically. iTunes installed with no fiddling, and worked 100%. And then got uninstalled. I've had to "tweak" maybe..oooh...4 things since installing this OS, and at least 2 of those were no-cd cracks to get round invasive copy protection drivers that simply won't install on X64.

Good. There's a special place in hell for apps that use ODBC connections to Access back ends.

Since this has come up, I actually completely stopped using itunes when they broke it on x64... and didn't tell anyone. It just randomly stopped working one version.

I dare say that's fixed now.

I couldn't install it when I got the iPhone a month or so ago.

Sometimes you need it to do something. And we needed it to do something.

I was wondering whether that was a board filter - what's it supposed to say?

I think it might be Podcast

Edit - That confirms it then. Pod Cast (but without the space)

podcats

p o d cast, I believe.

Always shitting in my flowerbeds

Or perhaps, indeed, spodcast.

Taxalot: set fire to their nest, that's the beteo way.

Really.
/shouts
Oh, Myoptika?