Changing the colour/color* on your iPhone calendars
Here’s some instructions on how to change the colours within iPhone’s calendars.
Since iPhone OS 2.0 was released, I’ve been slightly frustrated that the calendar colours on the iPhone are not the same colours used for the same calendars in iCal. For Windows users, I understand the same problem arises with Outlook calendar colours. Colours on the iPhone seemed to be assigned at random.
It’s only a small thing, but it’s slight mental disconnect. Such inconsistencies detract from the overall experience of a polished device.
(more…)
Firefox for Mobile – ‘Fennec Alpha’
So the Mozilla foundation have a new browser, aimed at mobile. It’s excellent news that we will have another browser entering into the marketplace soon.
Mobile web browsers are the first point of call for internet users in developing countries in Asia and Africa, truly giving people means to live and connect with family and business contacts. The mobile is also the first internet experience for many handset owners in India. There is a deeper penetration of the internet using mobile than desktop in these continents.
(more…)
The Cons of the iPod Touch making it big in the world of the Nintendo DS
So my daughter’s best friend got an iPod Touch for Christmas. And she brought it round to our house. Whereupon a light went on in my daughter’s head and she asked to borrow my iPod Touch. Being very tech savvy (hey, it runs in the blood, you know?), she showed her friend how to browse the App Store and grab freebie after freebie.
Move over DS?
They were hours playing around.
Leaving aside the question of whether the iPod Touch (or iPhone – and either way, the iPhone platform) can replace the Nintendo DS as a mainstream kids gaming device, lending my iPod Touch out in this way brought out some interesting observations. On the plus side, the kids loved playing the games, demos and novelties. Loved. With a capital ‘L’. The App Store discovery process itself became a shared experience for them (“Hey, search for YYYY, it’s really cool”, etc.)
However, on the negative side, I have to balance this against a number of cons that rear their ugly head when you try and ‘share’ an iPhone or iPod Touch with another family member…
Comparing Google Sync and MobileMe
Google’s over-the-air synchronisation tool – Google Mobile Sync – launched this week, enabling sync between your Google account and your mobile phone. Here’s a quick comparison to Apple’s OTA sync service, MobileMe.
Nokia’s take on the iPhone’s innovation
No, no, not another post referencing the iPhone’s AppStore – and in any case, Nokia for one can’t be accused of going all me too on that front, since every Nokia smartphone since 2005 has had a ‘Download!’ on-device store (just not a very successful one) – what I’d like to focus on here are the innovations in the iPhone’s form factor and how Nokia and others are responding.
Cast your mind back, if you will, to the momentus MacWorld keynote at the start of 2007 in which Steve Jobs announced the iPhone to the world. The three main points which stuck in my mind about Apple’s new creation were:
- The way in which the ‘too much plastic’ problem was overcome. Now, full-screen PDAs had been with us for years, and some Windows Mobile smartphones were just that – full-screen PDAs with a phone tacked on. But Apple brought us a full-screen, purpose-built phone that aimed to compete with the ‘plastic-ridden’ qwerty-keyboarded smartphones at their own game, but without a physical keyboard.
- Finger touch was now OK. After years of everyone saying ‘Don’t touch your screen, you’ll get it dirty/greasy’, it’s now not only OK, but indeed the only way to interact with your device. Radical.
- The iPhone interface, seamless from top to bottom, doing away with menus and finger-friendly throughout. Purpose-built, you might say, even though in reality it sits on top of a version of Mac OS X.
Carnival of the Mobilists 160
Welcome to the Winter Carnival! It certainly seems that way, writing from snow-bound Britain. Thanks to all the contributors, and straight on to their posts. Everyone must:
BOW DOWN TO THE GOOGLE
Andrew Grill has an excellent post on Google’s Latitude and its competitors. He points out that, unlike Palringo, Latitude is missing presence. But for how long?
Jamie Wells wonders if the welcome is wearing a little thin on one of our new overlord’s offshoots, in “What’s This… Android on Shaky Ground?“. Just what is Google’s attitude to fragmentation and security on its mobile platform?
(more…)
Review: iPingPong 3D
Somewhere between the antiquated simplicity of Pong (the original 2D video game) and the reality of fast and furious world class table tennis, there’s a happy middle ground. Represented for most of us by a cheery game of ping pong on the family dining table. Or here in iPingpong 3D, which has much the same feel. It’s slickly programmed and has a fabulously smooth interface but somehow it never really rises to world class, either as a table tennis game or as an iPhone application.
iPingPong 3D
Read on for the full review…
The false panic over Crackulous
Yesterday Hackulo.us released Crackulous, which strips the DRM protection from iPhone applications. This allows any application bought from the App Store to run on any other iPhone. Writing about this, The Unofficial Apple Weblog has gone with “Crackulous is released, chaos imminent”. I don’t buy that.
Carnival of the Mobilists 159
You lucky people – not one, but two posts from Steve have made it into the Carnival this week. The second looks at mobile phone photography – and I have to admit it made me wince a bit. The quality of the photos from the Samsung INNOV8 is superb, and is a huge contrast to the 2MP non-flash effort on the iPhone. When the new revision of the iPhone comes out (around June, probably), I really hope that Apple bump the camera quality and software.
Read this week’s Carnival over at Mobile Broadband Blog. It’s not quite as jam-packed as in the past couple of weeks, but there are some excellent articles. My favourite was from James Parton (Head of O2 Litmus), writing on wipJam blog. He has an interesting comment on music and application stores:
Research has shown that over 90% of digital music catalogues are never downloaded. It’s an extreme example of Prato’s law. Are App stores already following the same path?
Read the full post for his surprising conclusion on the most important API of 2009.
Next week, stay tuned to All About iPhone for your Carnival fix!
Raise a glass to the iPod Touch… and its dinner partner, the Nokia N82
You may remember this post, in which I looked at areas of functionality in which Apple are very strong with the iPhone and areas in which they really should have stepped up to the plate, evening out the gaps. Recognising that there is something of an inbalance between the functionalities of different phones on the market though, I wanted to point out that there’s another option for fans of the iPhone OS, of the superb hardware and of the App Store.
Regular readers here will know that, although having access to iPhones, I (personally) use an iPod Touch. Not crazy at all, this feature will hopefully explain one of the reasons why I’m happy with the ‘lesser’ device. The other reason is ongoing network/contract costs, but that’s another rant for another day.
Raise your glasses to the iPod Touch
You see, for Apple fans who eye up the telephony, connectivity and photography advantages of the best of the Symbian/Nokia world, it really is possible to have your cake and eat it. Read on…