Be Excellent To Each Other

Ticket to Ride is 69p on the iStore. I done downloaded it last night and am yet to play a lot, but it seems a pretty good recreation of the board game from first glance.

You are ignoring SIM-only contracts in your calculations; these typically offer the same plans as a normal tariff but for £15-20 per month less. That £15-20 is the handset subsidy, i.e. it's what you are paying for your 4S.

But if you kept the same handset you currently have, you could drop down to a SIM-only contract for ~£20 per month, that you can cancel at any time. It doesn't look such a good deal then, does it?

I will never enter into another long contract again - I will always buy a handset outright and use it with a SIM-only contract from now on.

I've played it a fair bit over the last week or so and it's really good stuff. I'm going through a bit of a boardgames phase at the moment so it's an excellent methodone hit.

You should have come to the cottage!

Or not. I'm still only on my second lap of Formola 1, and getting sleepy.

Ticket to ride is indeed wuite nice... Expensive on ipad though... Iphone version in big mode is nice on ipad too though

I've managed to drop the 4S more in just a few months than I ever dropped my 3G in 3 years

And now, I've cracked the front by dropping it in a car park. The screen still displays OK, and responds to touch, but the outside glassy bit is covered in cracks

I imagine I'm far from the only one to have done this. Are repairs feasible, or should I just look to see if I can get a replacement?

Repairs are possible, but the first thing I would do is book an genius appointment and take it to the apple shop, and see how much they will charge tio fix it or replace it.

Assuming it's the same as an iPhone 4, replacing the front glass is fairly straightforward, provided you download a guide, have a "screw chart" (as pretty much every screw inside the phone is different) and have a fairly steady hand.

You'll have to get a new glass/screen/digitizer unit from eBay as they're all fused together.

Handy links (note: these assume they're the same as an iPhone 4 - research first!)

iFixit repair guide

I've done it twice, first time took a couple of hours but I can do it in 20 minutes now that I know exactly what I'm doing.

Also echo'ing Trooper's advice, I'd see if Apple can help you out first.

Not wishing to jinx you, but there are tales of Apple replacing for free, or for £59. I wouldn't expect that, but it is a possibility, so worth trying first.

I'll try an Apple shop first, however my nearest one is a bit of a trek. My own silly fault for dropping the phone in the first place I really.

Thanks for the info, chaps.

With the rumours of iPhone 5 appear on June 5th, I'm mightily pleased my current contract expires in June. Hurrah!

Rumours, though, from publications with about as much accuracy as a seriously pissed up snooker player with one arm and who's just been spun round 65 times before taking a shot.

Isn't that rumour based on the fact that Foxconn are ramping up hiring to get more people in the factories. Which obviously has nothing to do with the new regulations that their staff can't work as many hours...

I'm just pleased to be part of the hype machine. I feel I'm contributing by propogating information and speculation, regardless of its veracity. I'm part of soemthing, a cog in a machine, a gear in the transmission of technology, a grain of flour in the cake of the future, a cardomon pod ground into the keema of progress.

Better fucking not be out in june, I've just ordered a 4S.

I don't feel like the 4s has even been out that long.

Good luck with that. The 4s was due in June, then July, then August and so on.
I'd be surprised if its less than 12 months after the previous model.

No it wasn't. It was rumoured, but that's not the same thing; Apple didn't say a damned thing about it until the week it launched, so it wasn't "due" anytime until then.

Okay, iPhone get. Any must have "apps"?

Gridrunner.

Instagram.

Too expensive.

For me: QuadCamera, Train Times, Instapaper, Reeder, Tweetbot, Remote, BBC iPlayer, Wikipanion, WeatherPro, TuneIn Radio, Flixter, TV Guide, eBay, GoodReader, Dictionary, Dropbox, Weightbot, Runkeeper, Drafts, Animoog, Capture.

And games-wise: Hero Academy, Forget-Me-Not, SpellTower, Blueprint, Bit Pilot, BlowUp!!, Dark Nebula 2, Dungeon Raid, Eliss, ElectroMaster, Grim Joggers, GoatUp, Gridrunner, Monsters Ate My Condo, Mos Speedrun, Orbital, Osmos, Par Out Golf, Rat On A Snowboard, Robo5, Saucelifter, Sol Free, Sonic Racing (All Stars), Strategery, Trainyard, Zookeeper, Triple Town, Beat Sneak Bandit, and loads more.

MLB.tv At Bat 12 is the only essential one right now. Oh, and Tweetbot.

Solomon's Keep!

The "app" store is overwhelming.

Is Garageband any good for someone who's not very musical, but enjoyed dicking around with Music2000 back in the day?

Yep. There's plenty of 'smart' instruments and you can get something sounding quite good with the most modest of musical talent.

Z Day. It's text adventure zombie survival game.

Well fuck me:

http://i.imgur.com/Bmkcd.jpg

I'd never even tried to hold down on the .com button before.

You have to be kidding.

Didn’t realise you were a Kiwi.

It's not my screenshot!

Streuth!

On the subject of NZ, this is worth watching if you have 5 mins or so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CpzIScQlek

(It's a bit of standup.)

I'm looking into my next phone, and wondered what the iPhone is like for tethering. I need to tether an iPad and a laptop to whatever phone I get.

I am aware that some networks make a fuss about this and want to charge you extra to use tethering on top of normal mobile Internet, despite it being the same thing. Presently I tether my custom firmware HTC desire for free and t mobile don't give me any shit, but then I had to hack my phone because their branded firmware was an abomination.

I have read that in 2009 some networks were disabling the otherwise quite usable tethering from the iPhone. Is this still the case? I always tout that the point to an iPhone was that one didn't have to put up with networks adding their bullshit to your phone.

Look what he's become!!!

I think that was the case in 2009. Certainly O2 have it on all their current tariffs when I upgraded out of necessity in December. However, in doing so I lost unlimited data. Swings and roundabouts.

Tethering support is entirely down to the network. On Three, I get it as part of my (expensive) plan (The One Plan, £25/mo (no handset subsidy)). On O2, last year I had to pay -- either £8/mo fixed or £2ish/day that I used it. It's a racket, sadly, but there's no skirting it. The O2 daily £2 charge wasn't too bad in a pinch, I suppose.

Tethering itself works fine. You can connect to the phone over Bluetooth, Wifi, or USB, so pretty much any other device will attach to it. I've used it to get my iPad online through the iPhone numerous times.

You can skirt the charge if you jailbreak the iPhone. There are apps in Cydia, the jailbreak app store, that let you do it for free. How easy or inconvenient jailbreaking is comes and goes as Apple and the jailbreakers tussle -- sometimes, for example, the only jailbreak for recent firmwares is "tethered" meaning you need to have the phone connected to a computer via USB every time you boot it up or it boots unjailbroken. That's a pain in the arse, obviously.

Malc

Press the home and power button at the same time. It’ll blow your fucking mind

Fuck you, buddy!

Thanks chaps, it seems unlikely I'd go for one over an android phone at this stage, then. In fact there's really not a deal on anything anywhere that gives me a slightly improved phone with the same bundled stuff for the 20 quid I'm paying now.

My present tmobile tariff has 3 gig a month and I can tether happily without interference. Think I'll keep it going for a few years and just save for a new network free phone.

How do the networks actually know you're tethering on you're iPhone so they can charge you for it? My o2 contract technically forbids it but I've been doing it for years on various Android phones with no come back.

The phone's firmware disables tethering unless your operator turns it on.