RyuKent on Life

With the excitement growing over this Monday’s announcement of the new iPhone (yes it still hasn’t been confirmed) the important question is now growing – do we actually care? More importantly, will this be the moment I finaly make the switch to Android. I’m pretty sure now it’s a matter of time rather than if.

There’s an interesting article called 10 things Androd does better than the iPhone and so for convenience sake, I will set out my reasons below according to this list.

1 – Multitasking: This is indeed a big problem for me in my iPhone usage. I frequently read the news in MobileRSS on the train home, only to find a text message from my wife skips out of the application and I have to load the whole thing again. Why can’t twitter update itself without needing 101 push alerts bugging me every 5 seconds. Apple to promise to fix this in the upcoming OS4 though, so I will for now not use this as a reason to switch. Battery life is important here too. I don’t want all my apps running all the time, but I do want at least a choice.

2 – Homescreens and Widgets: The iPhone was clearly not designed to have hundreds of apps as in the beginning there were only a few. Apple never really solved this problem properly and although fanbois claim style superiority, most will agree the iPhone homescreen is badly in need of an overhaul. For me though it’s widgets that are key. I used to think the whole idea of widgets was crap. But increasingly there is information such as the weather, my tweets etc. that I would like to have displayed. I shouldn’t have to stop all the other apps and open a slow loading specific app just to get this. Further more, apple has even banned a legitimate widget like app just because it looked like a home screen. Is this a hint at what is to come. Better hope so or I will be disappointed.

3 – Apple has a better app market: This is true at the moment, but hardly a long term argument. The iPhone launched its app store long before Android did and also there are still many more iPhones out there. This will change as there are many more Android handsets being sold. Plus it is easier to develop for Android. Interestingly, Android phones used to be limited in the apps they can store by the internal memory. With FroYo Android 2.2 though, you can install onto the SD card. Because of this, expect to see much larger applications becoming available, especially games which were limited before. Finally… isn’t it nice that Android phones don’t have to use the google store. So Steve can’t stop you from installing things h doesn’t like. I jailbreak because I need extra functionality, so this is an important issue.

4 – Android gives you better notifications: Yes, as I mentioned above widgets and the lack of the huge iPhone popup that dominates everything and steals focus are definitely luring me in Androids direction. Again, apple has suggested this will change. We shall see.

5 – Android lets you choose your hardware: So does the iPhone, but then again there’s not much choice. I guess this is less of an issue for me as the iPhone format is quite similar to what I want in a phone. If I wanted something smaller then it would be a problem. Actually I’d like something a bit bigger and with a better camera and an FM or DAB radio please. Android can do that. Steve’s gonna have to pull something out of the hat on Monday to sell me over the HTC Desire.

6 – Availability on different networks: I think this is no longer relevant in the UK. Crap O2 performance will probably mean I leave for a better network though.

7 – ROMS: There is so much potential here. iPhone users can jailbreak, but Android users can run whole different version of the OS on their phone. Like SenseUI on a Nexus One or custom patched Androids that remove vendor customisation crap.  I think we’re going to see a lot of development here.

8 – Android lets you change settings faster: One thing that I completely rely on with my iPhone is the SBSettings by BigBoss. This allows you to quickly turn WiFi and 3G on and off. By default I keep everything off to save battery life and only turn on when I need it. This can be done quickly in Android but the iPhone requires you to go into settings and is very long winded. I think this could be solved quickly in the new OS4, but I somehow doubt Steve will bother. If I couldn’t jailbreak my iPhone to do this, I would probably have to bin it.

9 – Android does integration: This is a killer that might well clinch the deal for me. Apple are never going to allow other applications to integrate into their locked down systems. But sometimes integration is a really good idea. Why not have facebook and twitter integrated into the address book. Why not have the option to automatically upload pictures to flickr without having to run a whole new app and close everything else down. To me this is common sense. Unless Apple seriously rethink their entire paradigm on control, Android will keep biting them in the ass on this, over and over again.

10 – Price: The simple fact is Apple stuff is overpriced. Some people don’t care, but eventually it will matter. As Android phones are cheaper, more people will have them. When more people have them, the services on offer will be better. This is the current argument for buying an iPhone. Give it 12 months though and the tables will be reversed. I’m happy to be ahead of the game and spend my saved cash on a nice SD card that iPhones don’t support.

Beyond these key points I’d like to raise the general point of customisation and freedom. A friend said to me recently “I don’t care about open source. It doesn’t help me. I just like my phone to be easy to use and look good.” He had a fair point, but ultimately an open system that you can change and improve will look better and be easier for you to use. Why should I put up with what Apple have designed when a 3rd party can do better?

All this said, I’ll probably go out and buy an iPhone HD or whatever it’s called after Monday. But I will have high expectations. The slightest disappointment and HTC is already there for me. Go on Steve, impress me.

The iPhone on O2 in and around central London at busy times like 5 in the afternoon simply doesn’t work. On 3G at least, you have to wait half an hour for a connection and even then, receiving any kind of data is like pulling your hair out. It seems now, O2 have actually apologised but all this is hot air if they’re not going to do anything about it. What is the point of spending £45 a month for a service you cannot use at the one time you really need it.

What gets me the most though is the fact that while using 3G I have to wait 20 minutes to even receive texts and frequently people who call me are greeted with the answerphone despite my phone being on and in signal.

New York have taken a novel approach. Apparently Apply have actually stopped selling iPhones to people with NY zip codes. Is it really the case that our 3G networks cannot handle this much data? I never seemed to have a problem using the Three network. Loads of people are using Three USB dongles without this kind of issue. It seems strange to hear AT&T would prevent people from buying iPhones rather than investing in their network.

Disabling 3G and falling back to EDGE only seems to help, but does mean you are stuck with a much slower transfer rate. To me this is preferable to no transfer at all. I had thought of taking out the tethering plan. I will think again. go on O2, sort your network out, or at least stop selling more iPhones that don’t work in London like AT&T!!

This is a quick note to tell the world how much I appreciate good customer service and especially that offered by O2 broadband. Having previously suffered at the hands of Tiscali who have fittingly joined the evil that is Carphone Warehouse, I was presently surprised to be treated like a human by the O2 team.

Little things like receiving texts when you order is going through and being able to check the status online made all the difference. They checked that I was on the right package and genuinely seemed to care. This is a commodity that is becoming all too scarce in this country. People just simply don’t take pride in their jobs any more and don’t care about customer service.

Sure, everybody wants cheap, but at what cost? Having being conned into a terrible deal with Tiscali where by my 10 days cancellation period expired before my service was even connected (it took 2 weeks) I can safely say that I will never get involved in another year long contract with a company that doesn’t take customers seriously.

Which brings me ironically back to O2. Has anyone else noticed that at around 9am and 5pm, despite having great signal strength in the London Bridge area, it is simply impossible to use the 3G network? I mean yesterday it took me over half an hour to send a text. Checking train timetables on my iPhone just didn’t work. I’m not alone here and it is definitely not a handset issue as everywhere else is no problem.

Clearly O2 have overstretched their network. I’m n0t sure if they can do anything about it because of the limit in spectrum available, but I would seriously consider changing networks (when Orange and Vodafone become available) based on this. There’s no point in having a phone that you can’t use. Have emailed them and will await the reply. I look forward to posting it here.

Since iTunes 9 was released many programs such as iTunnel have stopped working. Despite various posts claiming they have been updated, I simply couldn’t get them working. However, there is a new program that is fully iTunes 9 compatible and allows you to transfer files to and from your iPhone over USB. It comes with a lovely looking GUI and does not require SSH to be set up or any complicated configuring.

i-FunBox can be downloaded here. It is very easy to use. One word of warning – I couldn’t connect just after I installed iTunes 9, but then restarted windows and it worked fine. This is definitely the best USB iPhone connection software I have used!

It seems it is possible to synchronise your iPhone to more than one computer at a time, thus negating the need to erase all data if you are often moving your phone around, maybe using a work and home PC etc.

The process involves changing the Library Persistent ID so that both iTunes copies believe they are in fact running from the same library. You’ll need to get down and dirty, hacking the library.itl file using  hex editor, but as long as you take a back up, there will be no danger involved and I found the process quite enjoyable.

Full details can be found over at ismashphone.com

TechCrunch is reporting that a new application will allow push email notification for gmail on the iPhone. The system apparently uses the IMAP IDLE function and sits in the background allowing the authors server to ping your phone when an email comes. The only drawback is that you have to give away your username and password to a third company. We are still not sure how secure that will be.

The app, called GPush has been submitted to the appstore for vetting. Who knows whether Apple will agree to it. As push gmail is already available on other phones maybe there is some reason why Apple are allowing Yahoo but not Google. Anyway, it would be welcome for all us gmail users who are willing to risk our passwords and need instant gmail, not being able to wait 15 minutes for the system to dial in. Watch this space. I’ll keep you updated on when this app is available.

Since the update to 3.0, things have become a little harder if you want to connect to your iPhone via USB and take advantage of the higher transfer speeds available. Fortunately, it is still possible. This guide reluctantly assumes a Windows environment. I use Vista (only when I have to).

What you will need:

iTunes 8.2beta (not iTunes 8.2) – get here.

iPhone Tunnel 2.7 beta – get here.

Note that installing iTunes 8.2 beta will need you to delete your existing itunes library file. It will also mean your iPhone then syncs to a new library. Only continue if you are happy to do that. Once you’ve installed iPhone Tunnel 2.7 beta, you will need to follow the following procedure to make it work.

Copy iTunesMobileDevice.dll from C:\Program Files\Common Files\Apple\Mobile Device Support\bin\ to C:\Program Files\iPhone Tunnel Suite 2.7 BETA\iTunnel\ and overwrite the original.

Make sure you run iPhone tunnel in XP compatibility mode and with administrator access. (In file properties). You will need to fill in all the details when registering your phone with the tunnel software. Then make sure you have SSH installed on your phone and you should then be able to run FTP over SSH by using the IP 127.0.0.1. I use FileZilla.

You should now be able to transfer larger files over much quicker than on WiFi. Good luck!

The National Rail app is perhaps one of the most controversial for the iPhone. The information provided is freely available on the web and worst still they’ve threatened legal proceedings against other applications that use this data. So the important question is: Is this app worth £5?

The answer is not so straight forward.

Good points include the GPS enabled find the nearest station feature and built in home station and departures lists. But the real benefit over using safari is the fact that you can use a native interface which is faster, feels nicer and is easier to use.

You really have to ask yourself, how often will I use this app? If your daily commute relies on it and you’ll use it all the time then I really think it’s worth it. If you’ll just use it occasionally then perhaps £5 is a little steep.

It’s a shame they don’t sell this for 2.99, in which case I’d be telling everyone to get it and nobody would complain. The fact is that they know they can skim the extra because they have a monopoly. Despite this, I still think it’s worth it if you use it often.

Price 1/10. App 8/10

Why would you want to jail break your phone? Why not? Doesn’t cost you anything, won’t damage it. Will allow you to  run a  host of great applications and make use of some features that Apple has left locked. Why have they done this? Not for your benefit, but so they can negotiate contracts that force you to buy their products or use their app store and ultimately just increase their income.

Is it illegal? Certainly not in the UK! You are not stealing, you are not hacking into someone else’s system. You own your iPhone, you are just modifying it. True Apple would like you not to, but they cannot do anything about it.

So how do I unlock my iPhone to the world of goodies? I might here you ask. This is pretty simple thanks to those great people over at the iPhone Dev Team. First you’ll need to download redsn0w. This can be found here.

When it’s ready, extract the files to a location of your choice. Remember, if you are using Windows Vista or 7, you will need to put the application in XP compatibility mode and give it administrator rights otherwise you will get the “redsn0w.exe has stopped working” error and it will crash during the upgrade. This can be done by right clicking on the executable file and selecting the compatibility tab on properties.

The next thing you’ll need to do is upgrade your iPhone to 3.0 in itunes if you haven’t already. When it’s all updated and ready, plug the phone into your PC by USB and then switch it off. Now run redsn0w.

You’ll be asked for an IPSW file in the process. This is the 3.0 software that you will already have downloaded in iTunes and can be found in the “AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes\iPhone Software Updates” folder within your user directory (parent of My Documents).

Follow the instructions given and with luck, your system should be unlocked (jailbroken) within 5 mins or so. Once unlocked, run the newly installed Cydia application and I’d recommend installing the following packages under the ‘Featured Packages’ section of the home screen:

BossPrefs – Configure your phone easily

MobileFinder – File management

SBSettings – One touch access to WIFI on off and other settings

OpenSSH – Secure access to your iPhone from your PC to upload files etc

There are many other wonders to be found in Cydia. Good luck!

RSS Runner is a great little program. Forget 101 news apps that are supposed to go online and download news from one provider who want to lock you in. Forget 101 apps that all have different interfaces and need to be loaded separately. RSS Runner is all you need on your iPhone.

Once you’ve got your favourite news sites registered (or any other RSS site for that matter and pretty much every decent site is), you can just touch the refresh button and it goes off and downloads all your articles for you. They’re stored in cache as well so you can read offline when you’re on the train and have no signal.

Great little extras include the facility to import your google reader feeds and there’s even a search option to find new feeds by topic.

Best of all it’s free. Don’t delay, download today!!! 9/10