Fascinating analysis of what goes on in the background on an iPhone or iPad as you listen to the radio or open a few (mostly Australian) apps — both in terms of bandwidth wastage, privacy and security: Secret iOS business; what you don’t know about your apps

Not that I’d expect Android to be much better; it’s all in the hands of the web/app authors, after all.

(via Kornelis)

Some thoughts on the iPad.

It looks like a giant iPhone. Having no lid to cover up the screen seems odd.

Some are ripping into its faults, including no iBook feature outside the USA (at least initially), no camera, no USB port, no memory card reader, no Flash support, no multitasking. Yikes.

But I do love the comments about the screen being bigger than an iPod/iPhone, like this is some revelation nobody thought of before.

“A larger screen means that games can be more immersive, as well as allowing for higher detail and bigger animations,” said Peters.

A bigger screen! Amazing!

You mean… just like every other notebook or desktop computer out there?

But hey, it does look pretty nice. I bet lots of people buy them.

I bet it could be almost as successful as the Apple Newton. *grin*

• Apple iProduct

Twitter shuts down outbound SMS updates for all users except in Canada, India and the US. Inbound via the UK number still works.

Understandable I suppose, given the huge cost they must incur from it. But must be annoying to those who use it.

A lot of Aussies in the initial comments, probably due to the timing of the announcements. Introducing an Australian inbound SMS number would have cushioned the blow.

It’s official — Vodafone will sell the iPhone in Australia. It’s not expected to be exclusive to them; I’d bet on hearing from other carriers soon confirming they’ll be selling it too.

And reasonably persistent rumours suggest it will be launched when the Apple Sydney store opens, towards the middle of this year.

(via Shane)

Rumours have been flying around about this kind of thing for months. Here’s more: Apple is preparing a 3G iPhone, and it’ll hit the streets initially on Telstra’s NextG network.

(via iPhonic)

Follow up from this rant.

I got so sick of my stupid Dopod 838Pro being incapable of operating like a phone that I decided to have a trial separation. I borrowed a colleague’s mobile phone and thought I’d have a go at using a separate phone and PDA for a while.

The separation didn’t last long… I’m back using my converged device again.

I was amazed at how hard it was to do common tasks with the mobile. For example starting a text message required 5 button presses on the phone compared to 2 on my device. Then entering the message is so much simpler on the Dopod’s Qwerty keyboard. Admittedly I’m out of practice with numberpad texting. Having a large touch screen is a huge advantage for a user interface.

So now I’m stuck with trying to figure out how to make the Dopod behave better as a phone. I’ve uninstalled lots of apps that probably suck a fair bit of cpu. Hopefully that’ll help.

I’m not very good at keeping a lot of information in my head at the one time. I have found that I need to record appointments and tasks to make sure I remember them.

So I used to record information in a paper diary. I never had much to record, so I used an A5, week to a page view diary that included a contact section for people’s phone numbers and addresses. However, the problem was that repeating appointments and people’s contact information that carry on from year to year had to be rewritten into a new diary each year.

So I bought a Palm Vx. This worked quite well because it would sync with my computer and display all the information I needed.

Then along came smart phones. I thought this was fantastic because I wouldn’t need to carry a mobile phone as well. Plus I only need to keep phone numbers in one place. Perfect! Right? Rather than having a Phone, diary, music player and GPS unit, you only need one device.

I’ve now owned three devices (O2 Xda II Mini, i-mate JasJar and Dopod 383Pro). They’re all great devices except that they are no good as phones! With my current device, I’d say 50% of the time when I hit the “Answer call” button the call is not actually answered, it just goes off to messagebank. A friend who had a Palm Treo used to answer a call and have to wait for 2.5 seconds until the caller could hear him. The JasJar would take so long to draw the screen when you opened it that you’d invariably miss the call.

All of the devices I’ve had will play music, but the interfaces are frustrating and the sound just isn’t good enough.

It’s so frustrating. I’ve bought a stand along MP3 player (a creative Zen that I’m very happy with). I’m nearly at the point where I’m going to give up and just get a standard mobile phone. Can I diverge any more??

The idea of convergence is just fantastic. However, the reality is dragging a long way behind.

This is one place I didn’t expect to see a review of an exported, cracked iPhone: Telstra’s Now We Are Talking blog.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace has pulled one apart and gives it the thumbs down. The bottom of the article notes what Apple’s competitors are doing in this area, with Nokia in top position.

Well, after much speculation, this morning (AU time) Apple announced a swag of new stuff, including:

• the quite ludicrously tiny iPod Nano (I reckon I’d lose it)
• the very expected Motorola ROKR mobile phone, the first to include iTunes (shame it’s a Motorola. I hate Motorolas.)
• a shiny new version of the iTunes software, featuring parental controls (woo hoo, does this mean no more Lenny Kravitz’s What The F%$# are we saying for my kids?), syncing data with Outlook (at smeggin’ last), playlist and shuffle enhancements
• some exclusive content to the iTunes store, which therefore means we CAN’T BUY IT IN AUSTRALIA (grumble)

Check the lost/stolen status of an Australian mobile by its IMEI. You can see the IMEI by typing *#06#

This is a classic: Retro Engadget (thanks Justine)

Tony: Rae actually discovered we can change our phone picture quality to high over the weekend so I’ve fallen in love with my phone all over again.

Daniel: Woo hoo! (Must put my phone contract expiry in my diary. Upgrade to camera phone top priority.)

Tony: The latest crop, the ‘i’ models for Nokia, have 1.5-2 mega pixel cameras now. Very very impressive.

Daniel: So by the time I upgrade, I’ll probably be able to get 3mp, which is what my Real Camera has! But even 2 is plenty for web use.

Tony: When I went to Canada all those years ago I had a 2MP camera and thought it was the bees-knees. I’m leaning more and more towards the phone being the great convergence technology. I can put a 1G SD card in to my phone now to turn it in to a more than adequate MP3 player, it even plays AAC files. A 2MP camera would do just fine for snaps. It already has the calendar feature and all my contacts. I probably won’t get another PocketPC when this one falls over.

Daniel: It makes a lot of sense, because making phone calls is really the killer app for mobile technology. I’ve long taken the view that I’ll carry a phone no matter what, so the more features I can pack in there, the better.

Tony: Exactly. The phone and keys are the two things you always seem to have on you.

Daniel: I might turn this conversation into a GR.

Tony: Cool.

The Hotspot index says Melbourne has 26,243 people per hotspot. Sydney comes in at 36,000, Australia as a whole at 42,850. US 38,632. UK 22,963. But the modern Asian megacities beat all, with HK at 19,654 and Singapore 12,604. In Melbourne (and I assume other cities) they were investigating the idea of hotspots on trains, which could be a moneyspinner. Would almost make an hour-long commute from somewhere like Frankston or Belgrave bearable.

The Queen has an iPod. Hmmm, can’t see her rocking out to Bohemian Rhapsody.

Meanwhile MP3 players and CDs appear to be killing off cassettes. Yeah, and good riddance, say I. Poor sound quality and no random access combined with a fragile physical media. But it does remind me of a classic line from Alas Smith & Jones: “What is Dolby? It’s basically a very complicated system for playing cassettes with the little green light on, or off.”