March 28th: Technology, toilet rolls and sparrows

Our best friends FaceTimed me this morning. A 100% rock solid video chat on my iPhone whilst sat in my kitchen. It's a technology we now take for granted, but what if we didn't have it? Only yesterday I was chatting to my daughter about how she's keeping in touch with her boyfriend who lives a few miles way, but she now can't see for the foreseeable future. I mentioned that if this was the "old days" the only way they'd have of staying in touch would be a telephone call, and before telephones were invented by writing letters (as my parents did). And for those of a certain era - mine, what about "pen friends"? Remember those? I had a penfriend in Brunei. Had to write proper letters on airmail paper (lightweight so it was cheaper to airmail). Nowadays with FaceTime/Skype (other apps are available) you can video call anyone anywhere.
And as if my magic, there's a thought provoking article on the BBC website this morning asking how we would have coped if this virus outbreak had happened in 2005? It's not that long ago, but technology has moved on immeasurably in those 15 years.

However, having praised the technological era we currently live in....
I'm trying to find a way for the cricket club committee to "get together" as we are due a meeting in the next couple of weeks and we have a lot to discuss. There's about 14 of us, so the tech options are great, but the problem is our technical skills range from the excellent to the luddite, so not quite sure how it's going to work yet.

My wife and I went for a 30 minute constitutional around the local park this afternoon. Not many people about as you'd expect, a couple of families kicking a ball about and a few dog walkers. Still feels very odd and slightly disconcerting consciously moving well out of the way of people as they approach. At the end of our walk we went to our local Lidl for a few essentials. Bread (which was almost non-existent (it was 3pm on a Saturday), a few fresh vegetables, tomato puree (none). There were some toilet rolls, and we did buy some, the first time we have since "toiletrollgate" kicked off. Walking back to the house I mused that 1) there was almost a feeling of guilt for carrying a pack of toilet rolls, and 2) we were quite possible a high target for a mugging for the same reason.

Still on toilet rolls, saw this photo on Twitter posted by the author Stephen King. Thought it was quite funny. If you're not a SK fan, you'll have to Google It (see what I did there? 😉).

Copyright Stephen King

Whilst I'm trying to keep this log of my experience of the whole coronavirus situation fairly light touch, and not dwell on the science, politics and so on, be in no doubt about how serious this is. I saw another tweet earlier that suggested we were fighting two things. coronavirus and stupidity, and there's enough of the second to make you wonder just how idiotic some people are. Like those people from Bristol who today were urned back from walking up Pen-y-Fan by Brecon police, or those out in the Peak District having a picnic. This isn't an excuse for a holiday folks. This is serious. And if you didn't understand that, then the news today that the number of UK deaths has risen above 1,000, but that the Medical Director for England thinks the UK will have done well if it can keep the number of deaths below 20,000 should make you stop and think. That's another 19,000 deaths - and if that is the figure we'll have done well........ that's why we're doing what we're doing what we've been asked to do. Stay at home. #stayhomesavelives

Cat update.
Me 1 : 0 Cat
Saw her sneaking round the side of the house with a sparrow in her mouth earlier. Got her to drop it, and for a moment I though it was an ex-sparrow lying there apparently all mis-shapen and breathing it's last but as I went to pick it up to dispose of it, it flew away. That's one life saved anyway.

Footnote. I know this blog only has a handful of readers (thank you all). It's as much a cathartic experience for me as anything else, but please feel free to share.

4G: Godsend or liability?

I have recently received notification from O2 that I can now access 4G. Sure enough my free 4G bolt on has been activated on my iPhone 5s (by the way it's space grey, not gold as O2's 4g checker insisted). In the week or so I've had this enabled, I haven't seen a 4G signal anywhere near where I live in South Wales.

Also, for information (bear with me, this becomes relevant shortly), I have a 1Gb data "bolt on". I've recently upped this from 500mb a month as a couple of times I've just tipped over the 500mb a month limit. I also NEVER stream video unless I'm on a wifi connection.

Yesterday I travelled to London on a 2 day business trip. I was delighted as my train approached London to see a 4G signal, and indeed, the connection on the normal apps I use (Twitter, Facebook, email, seemed quick).

Last night in my hotel room I checked my data using the O2 app and saw that I had 943 Mb available for the remainder of my contacted month (to 25th March). As I had a 4G signal, I attempted an iPhone FaceTime (video) call home to my wife. This turned out to be very short because the connection at one end (not sure whose) wasn't great. According to the call log, the call lasted 2 minutes and used 5Mb of data. Then, using my iPhone in no different way than I normally do, including some limited tethering to my iPad, by about 8pm my remaining data had dropped from 943mb to about 740mb. Odd, but I wasn't entirely alarmed.

By this time my iPhone was sat on the desk in my hotel room and although it was tethered to my iPad, the ONLY thing I was actively doing was watching a film on the iPad. It's important to note that the video file was actually physically on the iPad (that is, it was NOT being streamed to the iPad from anywhere). The iPhone had no open apps running (as far as I could tell).

Imagine my surprise therefore when my iPhone text alert went off at 21.17 to say I had used all my UK data for the month!!!!! Somewhere between about 8pm and 17 minutes past 9 I had used almost 3/4 gig of data doing nothing other than looking at twitter and during which time I had streamed no video or used any other data intensive apps, and was predominantly watching a local video file on my iPad about 6 feet away from my iPhone.

I immediately bought (rather begrudgingly) a further 1GB bolt on as I've still got nearly a month before my data monthly rolling contract end. At the time of writing this, about (24 hours later), according to O2's app, I have only 420mb of that available, so the best part of another half gig of data has disappeared.

What the hell is going on? How can I have used nearly 1.5Gb data in around 4 hours, doing nothing other than the things I normally do, that in any normal month, leave me using around 500mb data?

The ONLY difference as far as I can see has been the enablement of 4G and being in a 4G area. 4G should use MORE data, it should just make it quicker.

I am perplexed, and if this is the 4G experience, then frankly I don't want it.

So, I spoke to a very pleasant girl at O2 tonight who told me that although this amount of data consumption was unusually high, it was because she could see that my phone was downloading "updates" at 12 midnight and 3am and this was consuming the large amounts of data.

Now I'm REALLY perplexed. According to my phone iTunes and App Store settings, automatic downloads is turned ON for music and apps (though I've downloaded none of either in the last few days, and is OFF for updates. Additionally the "use cellular data" (for automatic downloads and iTunes Match (which I don't use) is OFF.

Basically, the girl on the O2 call told me that was that. She was sorry, but couldn't offer anything other than suggesting I take the phone to an Apple Store to have it checked.

I can't see that's going to help. I'll keep a close eye on my data use age, but worryingly I suspect that my two day jaunt into a 4G area has something to do with this. It shouldn't have, but there's no other conclusion I can draw


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad Mini

An Apple a day

OK I admit it. I'm an Apple fan.

Not a "fanboi" in the sense that I don't believe in any tech other than that coming out of 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, but over the last 5-6 years I've slowly moved to an entirely Apple setup.

As the photo shows, I now have the complete set. An iPhone 5s, an iPad Mini, a 13" Macbook Pro, and the latest addition, a 21" iMac desktop.

I don't hate Windows as an operating system - I use it every day in work, and there's at least 3 Windows boxes/laptops loitering around the house. My Apple kit though offers everything I need, in every form factor I need (for the moment). And I'm very happy with it. It works, it synchronises together seamleslsy, and combined that many of my "go to" applications are now cloud based (Dropbox, Evernote, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail etc) it means I always have access to what I need.

I've been fortunate enough that circumstances have allowed me to migrate to Apple devices on a "want" basis - I want it, I don't "need" it. And I'm grateful for that.

The latest piece of kit is that gorgeous 21" iMac. It's the "base" model - but that still comes in at a hefty price. In part you're paying for the Apple brand, but you do get what you pay for. All my Apple devices are stunningly designed, they work pretty flawlessly, and they last a long time.  My Macbook Pro is over 4 years old now, and but for a swap out of the original hard drive for a bigger SSD a couple of months ago, and a RAM boost a couple of years ago, works as well now as it did when I first got it. And it still looks as good as new. The iMac though is the pick of the bunch. It wouldn't look out of place anywhere. It's amazingly thin considering that monitor house all the gubbins. There's only 1 lead - the power lead. It's a work of art. the mouse and keyboard are wireless - the keyboard itself is stunningly engineered - how can you say that about something as mundane as a keyboard?

It's kit that wants to be used. And it's a pleasure to use it.

iPhone time

I've had my current iPhone ( a version 4) for almost 3 and a half years now, and it's showing signs of wear, tear and slowdown. It's time to upgrade, and I'm looking at an iPhone 5s. I've dallied with the idea of moving to Android, but I'm a die hard iPhone man at heart, and it complements my iPad Mini and Macbook Pro. I've got a birthday coming up to, so nows the best opportunity to get one. I don't expect one for my birthday, let's get that straight - they're a LOT of money, but a contribution in lieu of a gift wrapped present would be ideal..... Ooohh, shiny...

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.

Choices, choices

So the time has come. My iPhone 4 has served me admirably for almost 40 months, but it's time to change.

It still works. It still does the things I want it to do. But it is slowing down. Things that used to happen quickly seem to take longer - apps opening, screens refreshing etc. I did a restore a while back and it improved things a bit, but not much. It's starting to look a bit tired too. A couple of scratches here and there and some damage to the casing in a couple of places and a tiny crack on the topmost left of the screen. Hardly noticeable, but there nonetheless.

Apple have just announced two new phones. The "budget" 5C at a whopping £479 sim free. Essentially it's an iPhone 5 in a coloured case. And the 5S, same form factor as the current 5, with a choice of 3 case colours, but faster, better camera and a fingerprint scanner. If the 5C is budget, the 5S isn't. The cheapest variant weighs in at £549, £80 dearer than the 5C and £20 dearer than the current 5.

I've toyed with the idea of getting an Android device. The Galaxy S4 and HTC One look nice. They rock bigger screens than the iPhone, and Android has certainly come a long way, but.....

Despite those who say the iPhone is lagging behind, it isn't. I played with some Android phones in a shop today. They're good. Very good. But pick up an iPhone and it just oozes something the Android devices just don't have. It's not the OS. It's certainly not the hardware although Apples kit is still lovely stuff. It's something in the ether. It's smoother, silkier in use. It's comfortable to hold.

And the killer for me, is the seamless integration across my phone, my tablet (an iPad Mini) and my MacBook Pro itself now 4 years old but still a honey...

No, I'm afraid it's going to have to be Apple and the iPhone again. The only question is which variant. £549 is eye wateringly steep for a skinflint like me, but then it's "only" £80 more than the 5C which is effectively last years model in a new skin. As I change phones so rarely, the sensible choice would be to get the best I could afford.then again I could get the 5C with a view to upgrading when the iPhone 6 arrives next autumn.

Choices, choices.......

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad Mini

Gadget dilemmas

Generally I'm a happy iPhone 4 user. Since the mad rush of blood to the head when I stood in the opening day queue for 5 hours for my "4"  to replace my iPhone 3G I've enjoyed using the phone. When the 4S cam along, there was little in there to persuade me to upgrade, and since then - almost two and a half years now, I've been content.

The arrival of the Samsung Galaxy SIII earlier this year did peek my interest. It's a great phone, with a fantastic screen, and great specs, and over the summer I started to waver just slightly, but have always held back because I still liked the iPhone 4, and I have a Macbook Pro, and I'm getting an iPad, and Apple stuff, well...'just works'.

The other thing I was holding off for, was the arrival of the iPhone 5. I was keen to see what Apple would do to counter the charge of the SIII as one of the flagship smartphones. Well by the time Apple announced it, we all knew anyway because of the leaks. And I have to say, I'm a little disappointed. I was most hoping for a bigger screen. What we've got is a 'taller' screen. Other than that, and a few inevitable tweaks in processor/camera it's much the same as the 4S and arguably 4 before it.

Those in praise say it's all because it's evolutionary rather than revolutionary and why change a winning formula? The critics say Apple are running out of ideas. I'm largely with the former camp, but I was hoping for a bigger (i.e. taller AND wider) screen. My eyes aren't what they used to be, even with glasses. The SIII screen is very appealing.

Additionally, having played with a 5 a couple of times, it's newfound thinness and loss of weight makes it feel....let's not beat about the bush. Cheaper. Although clearly it's not with the cheapest unlocked version (the way I prefer to buy) weighing in at a very hefty £529.

And more worrying, one of the 5's I've played with, and reports from more than one person I know who's got one, have suggested build quality isn't quite what it once was - despite Apple's reinforcement of matching parts. One of the units I saw had a distinct rattle if you tapped the rear plate. The user had been told it was the vibrate unit in the phone. Sounds very dodgy to me.

The synchronicity I have with my Apple devices is re-creatable on Android & the SIII with Google and Dropbox - and I already use Gmail as my default mail anyway. I can get an unlocked SIII for under £450.  So what's stopping me shunning the iPhone 5 and going with the SIII or keeping the faith and upgrading to an iPhone 5?

Well firstly, either way it's a lot of money. £450 - £529's worth to be precise. I can do a lot with that sort of dosh. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly (and sensibly), at the moment, my iPhone 4 is still performing admirably. Arguably it does all I need from a smartphone. I won't be doing anything differently, or new if I had a 5 or an SIII. I'd just have a newer device, and be lighter of pocket.

It's inevitable that I will upgrade at some point. And it's probably inevitable that it will be a 5 as I do like Apple devices and the Apple 'ecosystem'. But it's not guaranteed - yet.

I'm off to count my money.....

Apple: Innovative, dominant or just control freaks?

Despite their über cool kit, and oh so easy to use OS's, Apple have a habit of rubbing it's own users up the wrong way from time to time.

One of the things that irritates a lot of people about the iPhone and iOS, is Apple's insistence on approving everything, and apparently vetoing apps that it thinks are too similar to it's own offerings. They usually cite the need for control and having a closed ecosystem does have positives, but I struggle to understand the rationale why when developers are coding better apps than Apple can provide.

Now I think it's fair to say that the general consensus, certainly amongst nearly all the iPhone users I know, personally and online, is that the iPhone's default calendar app is pretty crap.

There are all sorts of things that someone who makes a lot of use of a calendar (which is most of us I guess), that the in-built offering can't do. It's views are limited, it can't set a default alarm for new entries, and more.

So inevitably a plethora of alternative have sprung up. Some are relatively simplistic like Agenda and some like Pocket Informant try to cram loads of features in.

I like the principle of the default app but want something a bit more. Utilitap's Week Cal fits the bill perfectly and I've been using it for some months. I particularly like the the various views the app offers.

Tonight I noticed there was another update for this in the App Store , but imagine my suprise when checking the details of the update, its said, and I quote:

Apple ordered us to change the old month and change the day overview from Week Calendar. We had no choice but to comply, otherwise there would be no Week Calendar app anymore

This is astounding.

Apple must be aware that users want more from the in-built Calendar app - if they don't their head is in the sand. They are clearly aware that there are better apps than theirs out there. But to make a developer remove functionality and stubbornly fail to develop their own app to provide the functionality that users want (unless by some miracle it's coming in the iPhone 5) beggars belief and is arrogance in the extreme.

I am seeing more and more people starting to talk about the closed nature of the iOS system as a problem rather than a plus. If Apple keep doing this, developers will get fed up, and they'll go and code for Android (if they're not already).

Apple needs to take a long hard look at itself in relation to this. Idiots.

I've "downgraded" Week Cal with the latest update, but I'm never going back to the default Calendar app. It's been long consigned to an "unused apps" folder, along interestingly with the default weather app, the default stocks app.....get my drift?

Apple goodness....Lion, iOS5 and iCloud

For users of Apple products (and that's me with an iPhone 4 and a Macbook Pro), the keynote delivered by Steve Jobs and his crew at this week's WWDC has shown us some wondrous goodies that we can expect over the next few months.

I'm no techie, so I'm not going into any massive detail here, but essentially there are three strands to what's coming.

1. Lion - the new incarnation of Mac OSX - the core Mac operating system. Already a super slick user interface, Lion brings a whole host of UI enhancements, better and clevere multi-touch gestures, improved apps and a whole lot more. And all for $29.99 (though here in the UK that'll probably translate to a more expensive £29.99. And that's for a 5 license OS - yes, you can install it legally on 5 Macs!
2. iOS5 - the latest operating system version for iOS devices - the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Again a whole ream of developments and enhancements - too many to go into here, but some notable ones include improved notifications, better handling of previously purchased apps, improved mail app, and great use of the lock screen. It's coming in the Autumn.
   
3. iCloud. The new way to sync your data across all Apple devices. At the moment I use MobileMe (and pay for the privilege). That's now effectively dead in the water. When iCloud arrives it basically means if you change data on one device (my iPhone for example), that data is automatically updated on my Macbook Pro. In the words of Steve Jobs...."It just works" No set up, no fiddling, it just works. And.....it's FREE! Awesome.

If you want more detail about all this lovely Apple goodness, then trot across to any of the tech blogs/sites which are awash with the detail of these three core elements. Me, I just can't wait to get hold of them.

Keeping it all together

Regular readers will know that I've got a pretty eclectic approach to computing. I have no real affinity for any one OS, and have desktop devices running Windows 7, a Macbook Pro on Mac OSX and a netbook running Ubuntu netbook edition. Chuck in my ever to hand iPhone, and the challenge for me is keeping everything together and in sync.

In all honesty, it's made a bit simpler in that the Ubuntu netbook rarely sees the light of day. It's an old Asus Eee with virtually no memory or storage, and I put Ubuntu netbook on it more as an experiment than anything else (it works fine though).

What is happening therefore, is a slow and gradual transition to cloud computing. Applications I tend to prefer are cross platform, and with an ability to sync seamlessly with whichever device I'm using . I'm not a complicated, or power user, which makes life simpler still, and what follows is a brief description of my key picks.


Dropbox
If you work in different locations on different computers and haven't used or come across Dropbox yet, you're missing out. You install the Dropbox client on all the devices you use and it creates a Dropbox folder - so it's installed on all my PC's, laptop, netbook and I have the iPhone app. Whenever you are connected to the Internet, whatever you have saved to this folder is synced to Dropbox. Then, whenever you connect using one of your other devices, all the changes are automatically synced back to that device. Simple. Add in versioning, so you know which is the latest version, and the fact that it's free for up to 2GB storage, and you not only have a way of keeping everything in sync across multiple computers, but some free online storage too.

If you are going to check it out - drop me a line first. I can refer you, and that helps me boost my storage space!
Highly recommended.


Evernote
One of the things that many people require from their computing devices is a good way of collating all those snippet of information, notes, screenshots etc. There are literally hundreds of thousands of solutions out there, but one of the best is Evernote.
Evernote, like Dropbox is cross platform, and you can sync to all your platforms. Like Dropbox it's also accessible online, and like Dropbox free at the basic level.It also has browser extensions so you can clip all, or bits of web pages directly to your Evernote account.
You can record text notes, voice notes, photo notes, documents - pretty much anything. It's fully searchable, you can have multiple "notebooks" within your account, and use tags on notes. A Premium version (which I use) brings added benefits, but for most people, the free version is just fine. If you need to store "stuff", then this is the way to do it.
Brilliant!


Email/Contacts/Calendar
Gmail is my preferred email route, because everything is available on any Internet connected device. It's got a a lot of functionality too - more than most people realise, you've just got to dig a bit to find some of the optionsd and settings.


My calendar and contacts are all handled by Apple's "MobileMe" service. You have to pay for it, but it keeps my calendar and contacts beautifully in sync on my Macbook and iPhone (I tend not to do anything that needs calendar and contact access on the PC, although I could always access Mobile Me through the browser if I wanted to.

I've tried a few times to manage contacts via Google Contacts, but I find there's always some corruption/duplication though the sync process back to the iPhone/Macbook. I know some manage this perfectly fine, but I've never managed to do so to my satisfaction.

So there you have it. Core functions of email, contacts, calendar, notes and document sync/storage handled through some first class online/cross platform applications, that are free.

It's a no brainer.

Week Cal for iPhone

For many iPhone users the default Calendar app is OK, but for others it's perceived as one of the weaker areas on the device. For a generation brought up on Palm's calendars, or third party offering like Datebook, the standard iPhone app just didn't cut the mustard.

Many pretenders to the crown have come and gone, often stymied by Apple's reluctance or stubbornness to let developers get right at the heart of the functionality they need to produce a decent competitor.

But then along came Week Cal by Wasabi Apps, http://www.wasabi-apps.com/weekcalendar/.

All of a sudden, here was an app that looked like it could offer a decent alternative including that fabled week view missing from Apple's native app. It got some pretty decent reviews, and I decided a few months back to stop using the default Calendar app in favour of the new pretender. And I liked it. It wasn't particularly barnstorming for me, but it was efficient, and that week view certainly made it better.

It's just gone to v3.0, and there are some great new additions to it's functionality. It's got a new year view - OK, not much detail here on an iPhone screen, but very easy to quickly navigate to a month/day.

More tellingly, and something that will possibly swing it for ex Palm users is a terrific Agenda/week view that you can customise with up to 8 different layouts. It almost looks like a Palm! (Note to self....move on...Palm's gone).

Additionally you can rotate views and have a different view depending on whether you're in portrait or landscape mode. For those that want it, there.s a global birthday alert (I have a wife for that). There are a myriad of other features including various full screen options, the ability to auto-hide bars, have different badge alerts according
to your preference, show or hide week numbers and change font sizes.

The neat ability to tap and hold to start data entry makes it feel much more useable than the native app, and generally this whole app gives a feeling of being very polished. I highly recommend this app for anyone who's serious about using a calendar on an iPhone. It's miles ahead of the native app, and Apple really should take a long hard look at this.

Hidden data use and the iPhone

A salutary tale

I'm on O2 as my carrier using an iPhone 4. I, like most people was a bit miffed when O2 slapped on a 500mb cap on data usage. On reflection though, I rarely get even close to using that. Sensible use on 3G, plus using wifi wherever I can, including at home means my typical monthly data use over 3G is in the region of 80mb - 100mb.

A couple of days ago I paid a cursory glance at my usage in Settings/General/Usage and it was around the 30mb mark. About right given my billing month runs from 25th of the month.

Over the weekend I've mostly been at home (on wifi) or at Cardiff City Stadium - where regular readers will know I don't get a data signal. I haven't been doing anything different, or downloaded any new apps - though I have updated a few existing ones.

Imagine my surprise therefore when at 8.57am this morning a text from O2 pinged in saying I was at 80% of my data limit and they'd let me know if I went over it. Sure enough a quick check in settings showed around 400mb used. Somewhat perplexed, but with no time to check anything (I'm a busy man) I vowed to check things out this evening. Then 30 minutes later I got another text saying I'd exceeded my limit and now needed to buy a bolt on.

I suppose at least they told me rather than letting me carry on and shafting me with a hefty bill at month end.

Anyway, busy I may be but not that busy. I checked again, and use was at 477mb according to Settings. I re-booted the iphone and made sure there were no apps running. What I should have done was check what apps were running - but as I've said before I wasn't doing anything differently to normal.

I then contacted O2 - via chat as it happened. Their phone lines - my first port of call said they were very busy, but within 20 secs of being on the web site I was offered a chat session which I gratefully took.

The next 20 minutes basically confirmed what I'd been told by text. Yes I was over my limit, yes I'd need a bolt on and given I said I'd not normally come near this level of use, they did agree to "look into it", but I suspect they won't find anything.

So, for a £5 bolt on I've got another 500mb to tie me over to my next billing date in 10 days time. Worryingly, I still have no idea which app was the culprit.

My vague recollection is that the following were in the multi-task bar - but remember these apps re supposed to be in a suspended (ie effectively stopped) state.

Sky Sports Football, Safari, Mail, Twitter, Messages, ECB Cricket, Notes, Reeder, Facebook, Contacts, SafeWallet and Angry Birds. I don't (or rather very rarely) stream video or music and certainly haven't been doing this in the last few days. One of them though, appears to have been doing something rather naughty. Two pieces of supporting evidence were significant battery drain - down from 100% at 7.30am to 68% by 9.30 when normally I'm not down to 68% by the end of the day, and the fact the phone did appear to be quite warm at one stage.

So, conclusions?

Well, clearly not all apps go into a suspend state when you open another app or return to the home screen, despite what most people would have you believe. I've heard of this with apps like Pandora and Spotify but I don't use those. Gavin suggested it might be a location services issue, although I don't think I've changed anything since yesterday.

A bit of a mystery then. One things for sure. I'll be paying a regular trip to the task bare to check what's there and clearing them down, and I'll be paying a bit more attention to my data usage over the next few weeks.

T-Mobile have kicked up a bit of a fuss by saying they are going to cut the unlimited mobile data use for it's customers to 500mb.

For those used to getting (and as importantly paying) for "unlimited" data, this came as a bit of a shock to say the least. If it had been me I'd have been really hacked off, but fortunately I'm not on T-Mob any more, I'm on O2.

Oh hang on, I forgot, my data cap is 500mb anyway. D'oh!

Anyway, turns out T-Mobile weren't quite right in what they were saying. They are only going to apply the cap for new customers and those upgrading from (I believe) 1st February. Those currently on "unlimited" data plans can stay on their current useage plan.

But here's the rub. When they say "unlimited" they don't mean it. It's not unlimited at all. There's a fair useage policy which basically limits the data you can use to 3GB. If you go over that (routinely) you'll be told politely by T-Mob to stop using so much, and if you persist they might well take more heavy handed action (knocks on the door in the middle of the night?).

I'm not sure how often that happens in reality, but that's not the point. The point is, today you get unlimited (sorry, 3GB) for your money tomorrow (or from 1st Feb) new customers or those upgrading will be getting 500mb for the same money (more or less). Hardly seems fair.

And in an increasingly connected world, giving people the tools to use data easily, but then restricting what they can do with those tools seems a bit arse about if you ask me. and it's not OK to just say find a wifi hotspot, because in many places - including most of the places I go, they're not abundant.

The theory is that a few data "hoggers" are ruining the bandwidth for the majority, but penalising everyone because little Johnny is misbehaving doesn't seem to be the right way to go about solving the problem.

I'm going to stop now, and enjoy using my 500mb data cap by browsing and tweeting and so on.

Remember though, use wifi where you can and it won't be an issue!

Are you receiving me...?

I've posted before about my frustrations of not being able to get a data signal on O2 at the Cardiff City Stadium on match days, and anecdotal comments by various people about the connection being "switched off" on match days, although other people on other carriers seem to do OK.

I got so fed up with this that I sent a "Mr Angry from Barry" email to O2 yesterday.

This afternoon a very nice young lady from O2 rang me to discuss this. Initially she suggested that the lack of connection was due to the mass of people at the match until I pointed out that:

1. People on other carriers seem to do OK
2. It's only Cardiff City match days - Wales international matches and Cardiff Blues rugby matches don't seem to have this problem (though admittedly the crowds for both are smaller than Bluebirds games)
   
3. I can text/SMS OK but get absolutely no data signal, almost as soon as I'm in sight of the stadium
   

She seemed genuinely willing to want to help, but was stuck on the "it's the volume of people" approach. I then told her that I'd heard (from two separate sources) that the data signal is turned off by O2 on CCFC match days. This threw her and she said she'd need to speak to someone else and promised to ring back.

She duly did 20 minutes later. She told me that after speaking with the "network infrastructure" team (or something like that) they could "neither confirm nor deny" that the data signal is turned off. Hmm....interesting. Sounds like a government or military sort of response!

She said that the mast was a small one and 0.4km from the stadium and that the most likely explanation was that in order to ensure a continuous connection for existing O2 users who reside in the vicinity when there are large crowds in the area, the likelihood is the connection is reduced (or switched off, but she could neither confirm nor deny that).

It doesn't help me, but at least now I know - I think. In addition she has arranged for a small discount on my monthly bill, as I complained (nicely) that in effect I'm paying for a service which is available but being denied to me in the 8-12 hours a month I probably spend in and around that area. A result!

The other option of course is to switch from O2 to a carrier that doesn't have the signal problems in the area on match days, but I don't want to do that....yet.

Maybe if everyone complains, they'll put a bigger, closer mast up??

Christmas goodies: Flip Ultra HD

I must have been a good lad this year, as once again, Santa left some techno goodness under the tree for me.

I'm now the lucky owner of a Flip Ultra HD 8GB pocket video recorder. It's a marvellous, and very simple piece of video recorder gadgetry. Smaller (but about twice as thick) as my iPhone 4 - bearing in mind the iPhone is the "world's thinnest smartphone", there's really not much to this recorder. You turn it on, press the big red button and it records. To stop, press the big red button again!

To upload video, just "flip" out in-built USB adapter, whereupon on first connection you get the chance to install the Flip software (to Mac or PC), and off you go.

The only other two buttons on the device (other than the on/off and big red button) are a review and delete button. The settings are basic - language, whether you want sound on button press, the red recording light to show etc).

It runs on the inbuilt battery, which is removable, and replaceable by 3x AAA's. The 8GB holds about 2 hours worth of the HD video it records. Note that it doesn't take stills.

You wouldn't want to record an epic on it - or even anything overly lengthy. It's ideal for short clips which you might want to email, upload to YouTube of embed on a site.

The Flip software is pretty basic, but does allow you to do some pretty limited editing and movie creation. You van of course import it into any video editing suite that you may have that supports it's native MP4 file format.

It complements my Samsung FD30 perfectly. If I want longer scenes, with bigger zoom (the Flip has a pretty limited and digital only zoom) and fancy effects (which I never use), then the Sammy gets the nod. If it's quick clips and I don't want to lug my Samsung around (which is slightly smaller than a can of coke anyway) then the Flip will do the business.

Why have this and the iPhone that records HD video as well? The iPhone's definitely a good backup and is with me all the time, but for longer clips the Flip is easier to hold, is easy to upload, holds 2 hours without me worrying about either space or battery life on the iPhone.

It's beauty is it's pocket-ability and the high quality of the video you get. It's a far, far cry from the cumbersome handled recorders of some time ago.

I love it!

Apple: It just works. No it doesn't

You know, for a company that prides itself on ease of use and the "it just works" principle, Apple have sometimes got things horribly wrong.

Take calendars, and three Apple specific elements.

1. An Apple Macbook Pro
2. A pricey (by most people's views) subscription to Apple's Mobileme cloud/syncing service
3. An Apple iPhone 4

Now then, let me see - oooh, I have all of those. And what I want to do is have my calendars on the two bits of hardware to be seamless. Update one, the other one updates. And it works, mostly.

I have two calendars on my MBP that are "subscribed calendars". These are calendars that someone else has built. You download them, and then subscribe to them, usually for free (in my case, a calendar of all Cardiff City's fixtures, which saves me having to type the darn things in at the start off a season, and a UK holidays one so I don't have to add in things like "Christmas Day" or "Easter Sunday").

The beauty of a subscribed calendar is, if the data is updated - say a CCFC fixture v Middlesborough on Saturday is moved to a wet Tuesday, the calendar automatically updates with the new data - I don't have to do anything! Marvellous!

And it works except.....that the subscribed calendars don't sync. A "normal" local calendar syncs to Mobileme and to the "other" device, but the bloody subscribed ones don't.

It's such a pain in the arse. A beautiful elegant solution that's been hamstrung for Lord knows what reason.

You'd have thought Apple would have been able to make it work, but it doesn't. And that means they are driving people to alternative solutions like third party sync tools and Google. Surely that can't be good for business?

Come on Apple, make subscribed calendars work with Mobileme.

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!

iPhone round up

iPhone 4 owners can now order their "free" case from Apple using the iPhone 4 Case Program app. This is Apple's attempt to appease the wrath of iP4 owners suffering from the "Grip of Death" signal attenuation problem by giving every iP4 owner a free case.
It's a neat solution. Download the app, sign in using your iTunes login, and you're presented with a selection of cases to choose from. Choose the one you want, hit "Place order" and that's that. Your details come up for confirmation and you then sit back and wait 3-4 weeks for delivery.

Notwithstanding the view of many that this is a bit of a fob off by Apple, the delivery concept is great.

Also out today is the BBC News app. This brings BBC's news service it's own dedicated app, which also plays video - something not possible via Safari because of the Flash on the BBC site. The app looks good, seems quick and configurable to a degree. Early days, but worth having on your device.

Worst news of the week must be poor old Murray over at Palm-Mac who's brand new iPhone 4 has started coming apart at the seams - literally! His case has warped and is bulging out at one corner. Hasn't been dropped or knocked - really bizarre, and a problem I haven't seen reported anywhere else. Obviously it's going back to be exchanged, but very, very odd.

Zagg Invisible Shield

I'm not normally one for cases and protectors, but I had heard from a few sources that the iPhone 4 back was prone to scratches - even though it's supposedly made of an especially toughened glass.

Sure enough, about 4 weeks in I found a tiny scratch on the back of the case. A few of my techie chums have espoused the use of a Zagg Invisible Shield protector, and so with the confidence that comes from having known these chaps for sometime (at least in the virtual sense) ordered a back protector direct from the Zagg website.

You can get the protector for front screen as well, but I think that's probably overkill - I never got a scratch on my virgin 3G screen in 18 months of use, and I think a protector of any type - even a supposed "invisible" one, must make some sort of difference.

The protector arrives in a box with a spray bottle of some sort of liquid and a rubber squeegee. Basically, you peel the protector off it's backing, spray it with the liquid, apply it and squeegee out the bubbles. Care is needed not to overspray and end up with a mess of liquid seeping out of the sides of the protector, but it went on easy enough. At first it looks a bit messy - even with all the main bubbles squeegee'd out you start thinking "oh, don't like the look of that", but miraculously after about 24 hours it's fine. You can tell there's a protector on there just y looking at it, but it's flattened out fine. It lends a slightly tacky, more grippy feel to the iPhone which is no bad thing for those of you that have held this wonderful, but thin and slippy device. I'm impressed and now have a layer of protection which I'm happy with - this stuff is apparently very tough.

Make sure you read the instructions. You need the surface of the device you're applying this too pristine, with no particles, and the instructions recommend you washing your hands thoroughly and wetting the finger tips with some of the spray solution if you don't want to end up with fingerprints stuck to your protector.

All in all, a worthwhile purchase.

I'm also getting a silicon case in a day or two courtesy of one of said techie chums who had a few going spare. I should then be well protected.

So, nothing to worry about

So his Stevieness has spoken. There is an antenna problem, but hey, all phones have it, and we'll demonstrate it for you too.

But because Apple loves all it's customers, they'll give everyone a free case and refund the cost of those who have already bought one.

I suppose you have to hand it to Apple. Despite a thrashing in the tech media this week (and a bit longer to be honest), they've come out and said there's a problem, but it affects only a tiny minority of people, bu we'll give everyone a free case because we're nice.

On top of that, reading between the lines, it sounds like they're pretty miffed by this antenna issue (which isn't surprising) and that they're already working on further antenna development. Be interesting to see how that pans out - no doubt future Apple devices are going to be subjected to more scrutiny than ever both by Apple's R&D people and by the public when they get their hands on kit.

So no recall. I'm still more than happy with my iPhone. It's a brilliant device, and I really pleased with it. Might get a free case if they're giving them away though!