Archive for June, 2009
The Apps Your iPhone Shouldn’t Be Without
9Today is iPhone 3GS launch day. So, you’ve probably picked up your new shiny device and are wondering what wonderful productive and time-wasting apps you can download to fill it to it’s capacity. Let me help you.
Here’s a list of some must-have apps, for every iPhone user.
Tweetie [iTunes] : If you have a twitter account then you need this. Don’t try or buy the others because like me you’ll only regret having spent more than you need to: Tweetie does it all with a beautiful and uncluttered interface. The best twitter app bar_none. Great price of £1.79 to boot. Tweetie for Mac is also available.
Shazam [iTunes] : The gem of the app store if you are a music lover. How many times has that DJ played a song on the radio and doesn’t mention who the artist is? For me Shazam is a DJ in my pocket – he knows pretty much all there is to know about every song ever made, almost! If you hear a song on the radio and don’t want to take a chance on waiting to see who’s behind it, just fire up Shazam, point it to the speakers and press Tag Now. It will listen to the song, send it, analyze it and bring you back the results with name of the artist and track. There are rare occasions where the results come back as unrecognised, but 99 times out of 100 it does it’s job. And it’s free.
QuickPigeon [iTunes] : This is a new app for me and I have yet to see whether it can be something I will use regularly, but is an awesome idea which is what gets it on my list – along with the fact it has push notifications especially for iPhone OS 3.0. Say you want to ask a friend something which requires a Yes or No answer, such as “Coffee at 1?”. You fire up QuickPigeon, ask the question, pick ‘members’ (that’s people in your address book) click on their e-mail address and then it will send that question to them via HTML e-mail and when they hit the Yes or No button then it will send that notification straight back to you, like so…
If I can get my other iPhone friends to install this (hint hint), which is absolutely free, then I could see this proving handier and much quicker than going into Mail app to ask a simple question. You can watch a video demonstrating it’s usefulness here.
Peggle [iTunes] : After reading a review of Peggle and then downloading the trial version for the Mac, it was 10 minutes in before I bought this for the iPhone. A wonderfully addictive game which just keeps you going back if you fail to get through a game. I completed the Adventure in around a week and now I’m desperate for Peggle 2. If you aren’t entirely sure what Peggle is all about, like I was, then I recommend downloading the Mac or PC version so you can get the hang of it. Peggle costs £2.99 in the app store.
Chop Sushi [iTunes] : From one addictive game to another. I’m on my second round of the Adventure stage and this game NEVER gets old. Great music, great colourful graphics and characters. Tom wrote an indepth review of this game over at tomacintosh.com, complete with screenshots. Priced at £1.79 for the full version with Lite version also now available to try it out.
Convertbot [iTunes] : Aside from this being one useful little app for converting everything from currency, length, speed, temperature and more, Converbot has a beautiful sleek interface. An app just to fire up for it’s sounds and UI. Thankfully this app has beauty and brains for just £1.19.
Paper Toss [iTunes] : if you’ve ever sat in the office bored, rolled up a piece of paper and see if you can throw it into the nearest rubbish bin then this is for you. Strangely addictive – and free.
FStream [iTunes] : Great app for listening to radio stations on your iPhone – even the BBC stations. Read my indepth review here.
IM+ [iTunes] : Now, I’m not the biggest IM-er in the world admittedly. Infact I can count on two fingers the amount of times I’ve opened iChat this year. But, it’s good to be prepared for any eventuality and IM+ is the nicest Instant Messaging app for the iPhone. I grabbed this for the sale price of £2.99 earlier in the year and at the time of writing it’s at the sale price of £3.49. This has push notifications, so is OS 3.0 compatible.
SKY News [iTunes] : I was pleased to finally see an app for SKY News for the iPhone as it’s the news channel I tend to watch. Excellent app with Top Stories, UK News, Sport, Business News and more. Also includes a video section and ‘Your Report’ so you can snap a photo of a potential newsworthy story and send it directly to SKY News from the app.
Instapaper [iTunes] : With Tweetie having Instapaper integration so I can save links my contacts have tweetes to look at another time, Instapaper Free is a great solution for me. Basically it’s saving web pages for offline reading later. Instapaper for your browser too!
So, those apps should keep you going for a little while. My faves list changes all the time with wonderful new apps being introduced regularly, but the above are with me all the time. Touch Arcade is a great resource for discovering newly released games and price drops of existing games.
The 9 Month Itch
162 years ago
It’s been 9 months since I bought my iPhone 3G on o2 and chose the £35 per month tariff which got me 600 inclusive minutes, 500 texts and unlimited data. As a fairly low user it came as no surprise that I wasn’t even touching the edges of this allowance each month.
With o2 in the UK, we can downgrade our tariff after 9 months. So, last week I called o2 and downgraded to the £30 per month tariff which gets me 75 inclusive minutes, 125 texts and unlimited data. As you can see there is quite a big leap in allowance between the two tariffs for the sake of £5, but it’s better off in my pocket than o2′s. I’m sure the £30 per month tariff will be more than enough, but it’s good to know that I can upgrade again at anytime if my usage increases especially since MMS uses 4 SMS messages. I think popping back up to the £35 per month tariff may come sooner than I anticipated 
Which brings me neatly to the iPhone 3GS that was released today. AT&T in the USA and o2 in the UK released their pricing and eligibility for upgrade details shortly after the Apple event at WWDC last week. Unlike July 2008 when existing iPhone 1st gen customers could upgrade to the iPhone 3G by simply signing another new 18 month contract, customers must now wait until their current contract expires before being eligible for an upgrade, or they can pay up their existing contract and then sign a new contract for the iPhone 3GS.
As the features of the iPhone 3GS were being announced at the Apple event, the improved 3MP camera and video was something I was very pleased to hear. However, since my current contract doesn’t end until March 2010 then I don’t have the eligibility to upgrade right now. However, o2 have outlined ways of getting the new device, one of which would be to pay the remainder of your monthly line rental in one payment and sign a new Pay Monthly contract. Not an attractive option for me with 9 months left, but also signing a new 18 month contract means when the next new iPhone is released next June I wouldn’t be eligible for that one, which is bound to carry even more new great features than the 3GS, plus a new design I’m betting.
The other alternative is to buy the PAYG iPhone 3GS 16GB for £440, pop in my existing pay monthly SIM and then sell my 3G. That means I own the phone outright and my contract ends next March as usual, leaving me free to get the new iPhone in Summer 2010 (and sell the 3GS). This is a far more attractive offer and very many of my online friends have opted for this so they can have the latest and greatest device today. This is the route I would likely take, should I decide to get the 3GS.
Have you bought the new iPhone 3GS today? Are you going to buy yourself out of your contract? Wait until your 18 month contract has expired? Or like me are you considering the PAYG iPhone + your existing SIM?
o2 Activating MMS on iPhone
82 years ago
The much anticipated iPhone OS 3.0 landed this evening at approximately 6pm, British Summer Time. Everything went smoothly for me which I most definitely wasn’t anticipating, given that major releases usually cause the iTunes servers to collapse and curl up into the foetal position. However, I know the updating procedure didn’t go smoothly for everyone, with some reporting activation errors and a 2-3 hour wait before everything was complete.
Something else that I wasn’t expecting to be activated so quickly was MMS by o2. I received a text message, then an MMS message from o2 shortly after applying the 3.O software update letting me know that picture messaging was ready to use. I didn’t need to do anything to get that message, it came to me automatically. I know there has been some confusion over whether a persons iPhone is set up and ready to go with MMS, but you should receive this message when you’re good to go.
o2 tweeted this evening…
Huge backlog of requests for MMS. We are working as fast as we can to process the requests and everyone should be set up within a few hours (via @o2)
I’ve sent and received several MMS this evening and although I had initially thought it would be a feature I wouldn’t use much, now I’m not so sure. It is pretty convenient for sending photos quickly to people that you know haven’t got regular access to their e-mail accounts – or an e-mail account at all!
UPDATED
I’ve had a lot of people asking how I got MMS activated on my iPhone so quickly. To my knowledge I didn’t do anything. However, I know that I did activate Find My iPhone on my phone which may be purely coincidental (settings > mail, contacts, calendars > clicked on my MobileMe account > switched on Find My iPhone). Then I logged into me.com and clicked ‘Find My iPhone’ which located my phone. It wasn’t long after that when o2 sent me confirmation that MMS was activated.
Now, that may or may not play any part in activation, but worth a try if you still haven’t been set-up. I would recommend a call to o2 if you are still waiting for activation, just so they can investigate. There have been no further updates from o2 on twitter.
Another update: Twitter friend Sam received text from o2 stating…
“We know you’re waiting for MMS activation; you should be set up in a few hours”.
More of my twitter friends are reporting having received this message now. Hope everyone will be firing on all MMS cylinders by this evening 
WWWish List
5With the WWDC 09 Apple event tomorrow, I am getting increasingly excited about what we will be seeing. I don’t follow the rumour sites intensively thesedays as I would rather like a surprise, although to be fair it does seem like the iPhone will be getting all of the attention. More about that in a moment.
My laptop needs have always been fairly low. My main machine is a 20in iMac which I use 95% of the time. I also have a 15in PowerBook G4 that is perfect for using in the garden, on the sofa or in bed. However, the 1hr 30min to 2hrs that the battery charge used to last me for is declining rapidly, meaning I’m lucky to squeeze half an hour out of it. Unless I want to trail the power supply around the house with me then it’s not really practical anymore and I feel will soon be redundant.
So, my thoughts turn to netbooks. A perfect alternative to my aging PowerBook. I know there are small machines out there which are capable of running OS X – the Hackintosh, but I want something legit. An Apple computer running OS X. I’m a stickler for the genuine article.
My needs, like with most people in the netbook market, are really quite basic and leisurely. The ability to check my e-mail in Apple Mail, surf the web in Safari, chat with iChat and mess around in Photo Booth with an integrated iSight (this for the younger family members, obviously!!). A small 10-incher which is light and portable would be perfect. I am not particularly bothered about touchscreen as that would just send the price up.
As for the price range, I think for a netbook I’d be more than happy to pay anything up to £500. When we’re talking basic and leisurely needs I think it needs to be aggressively priced otherwise you’ll have people thinking they may aswell just plump up a bit more cash and go for the MacBook. £449 would be a great price, I think.
Since there have been no rumours, to my knowledge, of an Apple Netbook imminent then I doubt we’ll see anything of the sort tomorrow. All the news seem to point towards the new iPhone and some of the rumours I have heard are pretty exciting, although how much of those will materialize remains to be seen. I think a front facing camera for video iChat would be very well received. I don’t so much do video chats, but I would love to see an iPhone Photo Booth app if we do get the front facing camera…again for the young family members to play with that I alluded to before Ahem.
So, let’s see what tomorrow brings. Aside from what I mentioned above, I would also love to see the unveiling of Steve Jobs back on stage as the ‘one more thing’, but that’s just a personal request that will unlikely be fulfulled!
What are you hoping for tomorrow?
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