Phone-it pad jailbreak app, turns your iPad into a phone

I have had my iPad jail broken for a while now, and on the whole it's been a good experience, although not found that much in there for my iPad, I have experienced the issue with iBooks crashing which has been frustrating.

I have seen the reviews regarding the phone it pad app and have been waiting with huge anticipation for it to be available, so as soon as the news hit engadget that it was available, I went straight to Cydia and purchased it.

It's $20, so not the cheapest jailbreak app you will ever buy, but I have to say so far it's well worth it. Until I purchased the app I was using an O2 iPad sim in my iPad, and paying as I go for my data, however as soon as the app was purchased and registered my mobile broadband sim stopped working. I realised that the instant the app started, the O2 network recognised my iPad as an iPhone, and changed the apn to the pay and go phone apn.

I decided to stay with pay and go, I bought a text & web micro sim pack from work, and plumbed it straight in with a £10 top up, I immediately received the welcome texts from O2, but I didn't get the allowances activated until I put the sim into a regular phone. Once active I put the micro sim back into the iPad and the text and phone apps work flawlessly.

I have to say that I am mightily impressed with it all, it is immensely useful to be able to send texts from the iPad, I probably won't use it for many calls if any, but I never planned too!

To sum up, this is probably the best jailbreak app I have, and adds what surmounts to me as the missing feature from my iPad. If you feel like you need it too then head over to Cydia and pick it up.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Platform Wars

Platform wars, is Apples way the only way?

With the enormous growth of the smartphone, and the never ending war between platform makers to be the dominant force, are we looking at a future dominated by the curated, closed platforms, and will Android have to become more regulated to really compete?

Ok, ok, so I realise that android has grown at an exponential rate, and that more established platforms such as blackberry and SYMBIAN have suffered because of it, but is sheer handset activation numbers really enough?

If our smartphones live and die by the apps they run, then won't there come a day when android apps need to be curated? In the recent weeks upwards of 50 apps have been removed from the Android marketplace because they contain malware, is this the start of something, exploiting the openness of Android to harvest user data? Again for all you naysayers out there, I realise that 50 or so apps represents a small percentage of the total apps available, but even 50 malicious apps is 50 too many.

I was very surprised recently with the publication of figures that showed the OVI store ahead of Android Market in terms of revenue. I don't think those figures can be emphasised enough, the fact that an app store that supports a declining OS is out performing one the supports the fastest growing, must be sounding alarm bells all round google h.q.!

During the recent ipad2 event apple announced that the revenue paid to developers has just hit the 2 billion mark, 19 times that of the revenue paid to google developers, and this figure was achieved with all the furore around Apples's percentages being too high!

I think that whether you love them or hate them, Apple's strategy represents the most solid thinking and most robust way of winning the platform wars, I don't think it's a coincidence that Microsoft have adopted a similar strategy by defining minimum hardware specs, and a consistent one time update policy where all updates hit at the same time, (ok so this hasn't got off the the best start), as well as a curated app store, where they can control what goes on their devices.

By loosely defining the minimum hardware specs required for tablets to run honeycomb, have google taken the first steps towards a more controlled future, and therefore begin to reduce the fragmentation that has dogged android since the beginning.

For my money only the platforms that can update quickly and roll those updates to all it's users in a more uniform way will succeed, Apple definitely have it right, Microsoft are following that model, HP Palm control their hardware and software and so do RIM. Will Android follow or risk being left behind, only time will tell.............


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Data Caps, what's all the fuss about?

I was sat on the train this evening, on my way back from work, listening to one of my favourite tech podcasts, and one of the presenters told a tale about contacting his network about his account and being informed about a data cap on his account that he knew nothing about. He had a 500mb limit and never knew, when he asked about his use, hew was told that 300-400mb was his average.

I work for o2 in the UK, and we were one of the first networks to introduce data restrictions and some of our customers, me included, were not happy.



We timed our new reduced data with the launch of the iPhone 4, and back then I thought it was a mistake, but it would seem that I was completely wrong, and I don't mind admitting it!


Not only have most of the major network operators in the UK followed suite and capped their customers use also, it would seem that almost everyone severely over estimates their data use.

I remember lots of customers complaining that 500mb is not enough, " I am a power user", " I'm always connected" and " I need unlimited data".



As we got more used to the idea that data was being capped and we began to look at customers use, It became clear that 500mb wasplenty of data for almost everyone, in fact, o2 told us that leading up to the restriction, network studies showed that average use was about 200mb. I saw evidence of this on several customers phones when checking their iPhones data usage counters, the difference between what they thought they used and what they actually used was huge!

Perhaps we need to understand more about our phones and how we use them, most of our iPhone customers had no clue that their phones actually tracked data usage, ( reminds me of the iphone4 v evo video clip) except the customer keeps asking for unlimited data.



So far I have met 1 person through my work who regally uses more than 500mb, and I meet a lot of our customers everyday, so I guess data caps aren't as important as they seem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FL7yD-0pqZg&feature=youtube_gdata_player


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sony Ericsson Live View, my thoughts

I ordered a Sony Ericsson live way back in November, and I was excited to use it in conjunction with my X10 mini-pro, however things didn't get off to a great start, let me explain ...........

After receiving it and un-boxing and charging an things, I started using it, but my first impression wasn't a good one, my live view had absolutely terrible battery life. I could only get about 2-3 hours from it, regardless of set-up or even use. I had installed some plug-ins from the market place, and I removed all of these and stripped it down to it's basic functions but still no good. So I packaged it back up and returned it, a combination of snow and Christmas post meant that I have only had the new unit for a couple of days, and I wanted to make sure this was a good one.




I'm pleased to say the new live view is much better, although strangely it's not a UK model. When I received it in the post, it came complete with a mains adapter to go with the 2 pin wall plug supplied in the box. This has left me wondering if there UK models have the battery issue that I was experiencing, and so an international model was sent instead.

So, how is it, I hear you ask, well let me tell you ..

I use the live view as my watch, I guess most people will, and it's pretty useful, comfortable to wear even with the supplied strap. It is a little bit thicker then a standard watch, but hey, a standard watch doesn't let you read text messages.





Day to day use of the live view is very easy, there is the occasional bluetooth issue, annoyingly this seems to present itself just after I'm asked "what's that thing on you wrist" to which I reply "oh this, well let me show you" and then as I'm about to show my James bond style ability to read messages from my watch, I get the screen that indicates a loss of connection! Rather embarrassing I'm sure you will agree.

That aside, it works very very well, using it at work where I can't always have my phone to hand, it's immensely useful for notifying me of new message sand emails, the subtle vibration is enough to alert me to new messages.

The screen works really well, and the touch screen responsiveness works great for flicking through the menus.

There are a few niggles, the random loss of connection is puzzling, especially as I can leave me phone in my living room at home and easily walk all through downstairs and stay connected, and yet it will randomly decide to just loose all connection.

To sum up my thoughts, I like the live view, it's cool, and works on the whole pretty well, there are bugs and it's not a perfect relationship between my mini pro and live view, but hopefully Sony Ericsson will continue to refine the firmware on the live view.

On the whole I can recommend the live view, it's useful, well made, and a cool gadget, and after 48 hours without a charge and 2 full days of use, the battery had just moved from full, very impressive, if you have a compatible device, then get one, I think you will like it




Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Verizon iPhone, at last!

http://images.fastcompany.com/upload/verizon-iphone4.jpg

So Verizon and Apple finally got together and announced that the iPhone would be available on the Verizon network in late February.

So obviously this doesn't change much for us over here does it? Why do we care that the iPhone will be available on other carriers in the USA. Well I have to wonder about the timing of this announcement, we were all expecting a new iPhone sometime during the summer weren't we?

If you live in the USA and you hear this announcement would you rush out and get the iPhone4 on Verizon knowing that there is a pretty good chance that a new version will be coming in just a few months?

So it's got me wondering, why wouldn't apple have coupled this announcement with the new iPhone announcement later in the year?

Would that have made AT&T mad with rage? Probably, but with Verizon now on board would apple really care that much. I still can't help but wonder if this will change the release schedule of the iPhone, as all the new customer that will supposedly flock to Verizon, won't they be totally deflated when the new iPhone comes along in summer.

I guess the answers will come along soon enough, and this year maybe we will see the most radical revisions of both the iPad and iPhone.

Best wished go out to steve jobs, as he announces another break due to health reasons.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad