iOS 7: One day in

Like millions of others worldwide, I upgraded the OS to iOS7 yesterday on my iPhone 4 and iPad Mini. With less than 24 hours experience of the new OS, here are my initial, and very subjective impressions.

Lets get this one out of the way first. On my iPhone 4 which is almost three and a half years old, there are occasions when this shiny new OS is decidely laggy. That may be down to un-optimised apps (although the new iOS7 ready version of Facebook takes about 17 seconds to launch). It's more likely down to the ageing hardware. On the iPad Mini is zips along.

Ok, so here's the lowdown

The Good

• It's a shiny new interface bring a much needed refresh to a perfectly capable but tired looking OS
• The notification centre is FAR better and brings the iOS devices closer to what Android and other mobile users have had for a while
• Ditto the ability to quickly and easily change key settings like wifi, BT etc.
• Cool (but frankly nonfunctional animations as windows/apps open and close
• The swipe to close apps in multi-tasking - hey where have I seen that before? Oh yes, Palm's WebOS about 6 years ago.....
• A neat touch - on the iPad Mini at least - Messages where you don't have a photo for the contact show a grey circle with their initials
• Apple's weather app - looks much better, though I still use the BBC weather app as my preferred choice

The Bad

• Siri - never the greatest voice, but now sounds like he's talking through the back of a pillow after having downed eleven pints of lager (yes I know I can change it to that dreadful American woman's voice - or even a foreign language, as demonstrated by both my kids on their iPhones during a Siri-fest a few minutes ago)
• The keyboard. 
• The new keyboard is inconsistently applied throughout apps - most use the new one, some (including some of Apple's own - Pages for one) use the old version. Poor.
• Because the new keyboard is less shaded and the fonts are much thinner, it feels smaller to me. I know it's an optical illusion and I'll get used to it. But that's how it feels at the moment
• That shiny new interface? It looks like cartoons. Not yet convinced it's better than the old interface.
• Suddenly after three years of swiping emails left to right to call up the delete button I have to swipe right to left. Why?
• Reminders. Never the greatest app in the box, but it was vaguely functional (though I still can't get proper sync between my iPhone & my iPad Mini in this one app. Now it's far less intuitive (at least to me), and intuitiveness is something Apple prides itself on.
• Moving app icons around the screens. This might just be down to my ageing hardware and iOS7's performance on it, but I've found it MUCH harder to accurately drag and drop app icons without putting them somewhere I didn't mean to.

On balance it looks as though there are more cons than pros - that's not necessarily the whole picture though. I'll get used to the OS and some of those concerns will go. There may be some early bugs that a future dot release will improve on.

On the whole, I think it's better.

DVD Catalyst - great customer service

How's this for cracking customer service.

In the past I'd bought DVD Catalyst for ripping DVD's, but since an upgrade of my PC had managed to wipe the program. Downloaded the latest version which installed as a trial with no obvious method to upgrade the full paid version.

Fired off an email to support, and within minutes had a response from Mitch along with a link to download the full retail version.

I sent him another email thanking him for such a fast response, and he came back - again almost immediately with:

"My response was 1 minute faster than 2 years ago.

You asked me the same question on dec 14, 2008.

You just upgraded from a Palm to the iPhone at the time.

Thank you for using the same email for contacting me, it made it a lot easier to verify your order confirmation.

Sincerely,"

Now I'm impressed with that.

And it's a good program too!

PC Pro - smartphone labs

As regular readers will know, I'm a fan of PC Pro magazine/website. I find their "labs" comparisons informative and generally accurate, and as I've said on many occasions, have made many purchases based on their recommendations and have never been disappointed.

The current issue of the mag (April 10), has a round up of smartphones which makes for some very interesting reading. On some of the sites I visit, and PDA247 is the one that springs most to mind, the iPhone is generally seen as a decent "consumer" device but not really in the same league as Blackberries for real "power" users (whoever and whatever they are).

However, PC Pro gives the iPhone 3GS top spot and a place on its venerated "A List", citing slightly less than brilliant battery life and the tie in to iTunes as the only blots on it' copybook, whilst the Blackberry Bold aside, other BB's lose out due to high price allied to lack of features like HSDPA, washed out camera images, and no digital compass (C'mon - how crucial is having a digital compass for God's sake?)

That doesn't mean it doesn't rate any other smartphones. In fact of the 24 phones tested, and 15 that were worthy of a full review, four got a recommended award and one a best value.

If you're feeling snubbed by the iPhone's top spot, take heart if you have one of those that got a "Recommended". They were

• HTC Hero
• Nokia N97 mini
• Blackberry Bold 9700
• T-Mobile Pulse

The phone that walked away with the best value award was the HTC Tattoo.

Now as ever, everyone will have their own opinions, and I'm equally aware that a discussion about which is the best (or worst) smartphone can generate a heated debate. This at least is how PC Pro sees it. Other will see it differently. Don't blame me.

Gadgets I don't want. What about you?

Despite my love of gadgets and computer things in general, there are some thing that leave me pretty cold.

I've never been able to get into the whole e-book thing. I've tried, both on my iPhone, and before that on my Palm Centro. Now I agree that the Centro with it's small screen is probably not the most intuitive device to read e-books on, but it is possible, and I have done it.

The iPhone is obviously more suited to this, and I do have eReader installed in the device, with several books on it, but I just don't use it. I'd much rather have a real book in my hand/bag, despite the fact that it's another thing to carry around and I could get hundreds of books on my iPhone (if I wanted).

Thus, devices such as the Kindle and Sony's e-reader leave me stone cold, and I really have no desire to own or use one. Maybe it'll change in time, but give me a proper book with real paper any day. For me a book is more than just the content, it's an whole tactile experience.

The other thing doing the rounds at the moment is wild speculation about Apple's "tablet" device. I've never used a tablet PC, though I've seen some used by others. It may be the way of the future, and who knows, if Apple get their act together, they of all people will probably do it well, but for me at the moment a notebook like my Macbook Pro and a smartphone provide me with the mobile computing I need. I really don't hanker after a tablet device - yet.

Having said that, I can remember a time when the first proper smartphones started appearing, and I wondered who on earth would want to try and cram a computing experience into a phone. And now here I am, a smartphone evangelist!

Are you a gadget person who has seen gadgets that don't interest you?

Palm Pre - where is it?

I was at one of these large out of town retail "villages" this morning, and there was an O2 store there, with big posters of the Palm Pre stuck to all it's windows. Whilst the missus was off in another girly shop I snuck in on the pretence of having my first real life look at a Pre - purely for research purposes you understand.

I was disappointed to find that none were on display. There were two Touchstone chargers there, but sadly no Pre's sitting on them. I wasn't going to be in there long enough to ask them if they had one available to look at - and they might have thought I was going to buy one!

It's funny. If this had been the iPhone, I reckon they'd have had three of four out on display. Maybe they'd just sold the last one, though as this was early-ish in the day I doubt it, or maybe they hadn't got round to putting them out - in which case they're not very good at their job.

Palm Pre

So today's the day the Palm Pre hit the O2 stores. The coverage has been no-where near aswide as when the iPhone arrived, so it'll be interesting to see how it goes.

On some of the sites I visit (PDA247, Palm-Mac) there has been muted interest. One of the PDA247 regulars said they were in a store and had one in their hand, but my guess is they didn't take the plunge.

Personally, I was intersted when the Pre was first announced way back at the beginning of the year, but it's been so long coming any excitement I had has long since dissipated. As things stand, I'm very happy with my iPhone almost a year into my contract, and not really in the slightest bit interested or excited by any other platforms or devices to want to move. I've got another 8 months or so on my contract anyway, and will be happy to see that out and re-assess in the spring.

However, if someone out there would like to get a Pre and test drive it, I'd still be interested to hear how it goes in real life!

Treo Pro - again

I know I'm going on about the Treo Pro a bit - but it is rather exciting I think.

Anyway, the Treonauts site has got some rather gushing reviews of the device here and here.

I suppose you might expect a Palm focused site to be positive about a Palm device - even one runing Windows "Moble", and this doesn't disappoint. However, I think this is fine, because the reviewer makes a point to note that he's not used to WM, and therefore the positive reviews he gives this device coming from a Palm OS focus is actually quite refreshing.

It looks like this device will be quite expensive unlocked in the UK. Clove are advertising it at £368 inclusive of VAT, so it's not soemthing you're going to purchase on a whim.

My HTC S710's got a day and a bit left on e-bay, but it's stuttering at the £90 mark, so I'm not going to make enough to justify being able to get a Treo Pro, ot that I ever thought it would. But it'll be gadget money in the bank I hope.

Palm Treo Pro - Official!

The Treo Pro is now available (not yet in the UK, although there seems to be a suggestion that it will eventually be available on Vodafone and O2 - no good for us T-Mob users!!) so all the rumours are now official. Check out the Palm site for this beauty. It's WM rather than Palm, but it still looks tempting......

UPDATE
Found this rather cheesy video on YouTube of some Palm VP's (Vice President's) talking about the new Treo Pro. All the usual fluff in here, but a couple of interesting comments that might slip by un-noticed.

Apparently the Treo Pro has been designed for and is aimed at the "heavy business or international user" who has "different needs and expectations to our (note "our") typical user".

Maybe what they really mean, is "we're not going to do anything for our typical Palm user", or put another way, if you're waiting for a new Palm OS, don't hold your breath.

Treo Pro

At first the rumours were just rumours. But then it became apparent that there might be a little bit more to this than just a wheeze or hearsay as more and more sites started reporting it. Palm look like they're bringing out a new phone, and although it looks like being a Windows Mobile job, there are some fascinating specs (fascinating not groundbreaking - unless it's on a Palm).

A quick Google will bring you no end of hits, but one of the best reports I've found is on WMExperts where you can find loads of pictures and some specs listed. As a taster, how about this...

• 400Mhz CPU , but allegedly a snappy response
• 256MB ROM, 128MB RAM! (Other reports show “In use: 43.96mb, Free 57.72mb”)
• 320*320 screen
• GPS !!!!
  
• Full Tri-band 3G, Quad-band GSM
• 2 Megapixel camera - much better - still not bleeding edge but better
  
• microUSB connector - at last!!!!
  
• 3.5mm Earphone connector - at last!!!
  
• 1500mah battery - this should knock the old Treo battery life issues on the head

I'll be watching this with interest...

Palm again...thanks Bacofoil

I'm having another bash with my Treo. I've got used to the Vox (HTC S710) but I don't "like" it. It's functional, but try as I might I don't like Windows Mobile - especially the non-touchscreen version I have, and although I originally thought the slide out qwerty keyboard on the Vox neat, it's nowhere near as usable as the Treo's front mounted qwerty keys, which make one handed operation easy and a joy.

So why else go back to the Treo? Well, two things really.

1. I've done the recent Treo update. Despite my original misgivings and problems with this update, a hard reset and restore seems to have sorted those problems. The claimed battery life improvement does seem to be holding some water. Although when I unplugged my device from a full overnight charge, with the battery indicator shoring green (full charge), the actual battery was reading 91%. Hmmm... not boding well. However, after some (not extensive) use today of bluetooth, email, web browsing RSS updates, the battery is still at 72% as I write. More impressive than before the update methinks.
2. I am still concerned that the Treo doesn't pick up and hold a signal as well as any other phone I've used (ever). That's not to say it''s bad, but in areas of "restricted" coverage, sadly at home for instance even though T-Mobile tells me it's fine for my postcode (maybe they should come and live here), it's not great. My signals bar shifts between 0 and 3 bars depending on where I am in the house. Sometimes it shifts between 0 and 3 bars just sitting on my desk in the study! Hey - maybe T-Mobile are moving the masts around?
   
   To try and improve matters I previously bought one of these signal booster things from e-bay for 99p that you stick in you battery compartment close to the antenna which is supposed to increase signal capture massively. I can't say I've noticed a difference, but it was worth a go for 99p.
   
   So, I'm taking an even cheaper Heath Robinson approach, and have stuck a square of tin foil in the battery compartment to see if that helps. I don't suppose it does, although the signal has seemed a little better in the last 24 hours. Maybe I'm just imagining it though.
   

Either way, I'm going to try and use the Treo as my main device again for a few days and see how I get on.

And I'm excited about that. I can't get excited about my Vox.