I’ve had the Proporta USB TurboCharger 3400 for a quite few months now so I’m in a good position to be able to give a accurate account of how the TurboCharger 3400 might fit in to your daily smartphone usage. If there’s one item that has remained underpowered on all smartphones throughout 2009 it’s the battery. For those impatient types, or for those of you who are actively looking for a portable battery backup solution, let me cut to the chase. You need a Porporta TurboCharger 3400. With is 3400 mAh capacity and swappable charging heads, it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t want one.

I’ll give you three common scenarios – all real life examples – that should resonate with many readers.

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I’m absolutely indebted to antshez for emailing me with this tip. Earlier today the BBC started sharing detailed data on iPlayer usage. They revealed that there were 79 million requests for on-demand and live iPlayer content in October 2009, of which a significant percentage – 7% or 5.5 million requests – were from the iPhone and iPod Touch.

You can download the Powerpoint presentation directly here, but for me, the most interesting thing is not the popularity of the iPhone platform in iPlayer statistics. The most interesting part is the graphic on the front page of the Powerpoint file, which shows a brand new interface for iPlayer on the iPhone.

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LAST UPDATED: November 18th 2009

November 10th has come and gone, and O2 is no longer the sole iPhone provider in the UK. I already have an article describing the cheapest way to get an iPhone on O2, and to be honest, the pricing from Orange is quite similar – there’s no price war at the moment. But there are a few differences that could make it worthwhile choosing Orange as your iPhone network, if you’re basing your decision on price alone.

So, read on for a quick guide highlighting the total cost of ownership for a pay monthly iPhone on Orange (the Pay As You Go article will be along shortly…)

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I’ve written before that you can’t receive the national BBC radio stations on your iPhone, because it doesn’t play Flash. The workaround is to use the fantastic BBCStreams service, which transcodes the radio signal into a format that the free FStream app can play. I’ve used this service for a while, and it works pretty well, even over the mobile network.

And they’ve been busy: BBCStreams has just announced that you can now listen to all 45 BBC local radio stations, plus BBC Radio Russia and BBC Radio Arabic. They also have plans for an iPhone app that will allow you to listen to the Beeb’s radio ouput, including when you’re overseas. But they need your support.
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This isn’t so much an app review as an excursion into the hinterland of the unfinished iPhone user interface. There are always tweaks – and sometimes wholesale changes – to be made to an operating system’s interface. But on mobile devices these changes face higher scrutiny, as there are usually more constraints on the end-user being able to install workarounds to better suit their preferences. This is especially true on the iPhone and iPod Touch.

So this is a look at an app that provides a different way of navigating your iPhone, borrowing from Exposé and Spaces on the Mac’s OS X. But, because it radically changes the method of switching between pages of apps, you won’t find it in the App Store. This one is jailbreak only.
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I’ve been happily watching BBC iPlayer on my iPhone for a while now. It’s a shame the other UK channels haven’t followed suit in opening up their offerings to iPhone users, but it’s understandable given the problems that the Beeb have had with their shows being unofficially downloaded.

But what about live TV? Catchup TV is all well and good, but sometimes you just want to watch live. Unless you’ve streamed it yourself using Slingplayer, Orb or EyeTV, then you’ve been out of luck. That is, until a couple of days ago when TVCatchup opened up a beta of their new service.

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This will be the fifth Painting app I’ve taken a detailed look at. I didn’t set out to write a series of reviews on one particular genre of app but after looking at PhotoForge, it happened that I became aware of one interesting app after another. I had expected to come to the end of the road with the last of what I considered the big four, ‘Inspire’, especially as I loved its realistic painting simulation and thought I’d be ending the series on a high note. But wouldn’t you know it, just as I was dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s on the review, Autodesk released SketchBook Mobile.

This caught my eye for a couple of reasons. To begin with, it’s the first iPhone app I’ve tried that’s been produced by a grown up company. No offence to the developers of the previous apps but they are small (often one man) teams. Autodesk, on the other hand, is a big corporation. Not just that but it makes its money producing professional grade software. AutoCAD is one of theirs, the first choice of architects and engineers all over the world. 3DS Max is software used by hundreds of games developers and special effects houses. Although they dip their toes in retail with a few consumer packages, pro’ level software costing thousands is very much their business. I was curious to see how they’d apply their experience to the iPhone OS.

Secondly, the screenshots suggested a slickly designed interface – something I always look for. Third, a couple of the listed features sounded particularly interesting. Not only did it boast “a variety of customizable brushes, including pencil, paint, texture and airbrush” but “all the tools simulate pressure sensitivity, giving each variable width and transparency that takes mobile sketching to a new level.”

C’mon, how could I not take a look?
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I began a quest of sorts a few months back when I reviewed PhotoForge. This was the first serious painting app I’d used for the iPhone and while being very impressed, it whet my appetite to see how the other major Painting apps compared.

So, next came Layers with its unique (at the time) implementation of layers. The main thing that bugged me was the lack of a blend/smudge tool (which PhotoForge had included). Most recently, I looked at the original serious painting app, Brushes. It now included its own version of layers and had a very nice, if difficult to describe, ‘feel’. But, annoyingly, it also lacked a blend tool.

So, imagine my interest when I came across ‘Inspire’ whose key feature was, according to the developer, KiwiPixel’s description on the App Store, that it “simulates wet paint on a canvas, allowing amazing blending effects.” This I had to try.
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It’s rare for an iPhone app to make a splash out in the ‘real’ world but Brushes has. Famous for being used to paint the cover to The New Yorker magazine and a favourite of no less an Artist than David Hockney, it’s one of those rare apps to cross, at least somewhat, into the main stream.

Having recently reached it’s first anniversary on the App Store and with strong competition appearing all the time, Brushes was starting to look in danger of falling behind. Now, though, version 2.0 has been released. Has it done enough to retain the iPhone Painting crown?
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I’ve been reading 2000AD since I was 12 – with only a few years off as a poor student – and I still get excited when the latest edition comes through the door. I’ve also read some amazing graphic novels, and love the way that the artist, colourer, letterer and writer combine to tell the whole story.

As with other print publications, comics are moving to digital distribution. But can the experience of reading a comic transition to a digital device? Will sitting down with a comic on my iPhone ever replicate my weekly paper-based fix of 2000AD?

Comics, by Comixology, looks to do just that. So let’s get on with the drokking review!

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