Techno Thoughts!

Apple just announced the new ‘iPhone 3G S’ at it’s WWDC 2009 conference.

The S stands for ‘Speed’ and the new iPhone will contain the following new features:

• Faster
• 3 mega-pixel camera with auto focus and auto macro
• Video recording and editing
• Voice commands
• A digital compass
• Improved battery life

The exterior of the device will be the same as the current iPhone 3G.

Apple today confirmed, at it’s WWDC 2009 conference that the previously announced 3.0 firmware that has been in beta for the last few months will be released on June 17th.

The update contains many big features such as Copy & Paste and MMS but also includes 100 updates and 1000 new API calls.

Many years ago I remember that 0800 numbers were free to call from mobile phones as well as land lines. That all changed a long time ago though and 0800 numbers are chargable calls - which is annoying when most phone call packages come with plenty of minutes nowadays.

Here is a neat trick though to be able to call 0800 numbers using your inclusive minutes.

1. Go to 0800buster.co.uk

2. Note the number in the top left hand corner of the page (this is randomly displayed from their pool of numbers so if one doesn’t work, just refresh and try another!)

3. Store it in your mobile for when you need to dial an 0800.

To call an 0800 you can now call that 0800buster number and enter the 0800 you would like to call, followed by #

You can even store numbers in your phone book by using the pause function on your mobile - see the 0800buster site for details

There have been several rumours recently about the spec of the next, rumoured iPhone.

The Apple iPhone Apps site has given a good roundup and review of them - see here. All sounds plausible to me - certainly along the lines of what I was thinking!

* 32GB and 16GB to replace current capacities
* $199 and $299 price-points to be maintained
* 3.2 Megapixel camera
* Video recording & editing capabilities
* Ability to send a picture & video via MMS
* Discontinuation of the metal band surrounding the edge of the device
* OLED screen
* 1.5X The battery life
* Double the RAM and processing power
* Built-in FM transmitter
* Apple logo on the back to light up
* Rubber-tread backing
* Sleeker design
* Built-in compass
* Revolutionary combination of the camera, GPS, compass, and Google maps to identify photo and inform about photo locations.
* Turn by turn directions
* July 17th, 2009 release date

The article also

Sorry for the lack of posts recently - I was on holiday in Florida for 2 weeks in April (and getting packed etc for it before) and then since we got back i’ve been getting over the jet lag and sorting & packing up to move house. We are still waiting for a moving date but hopefully it should be in the next week or so.

Will do some more blog posts soon!

Days after a great 1st race of the season where Jenson Button drove an excellent race and drove from a great pole position to win the race with a Brawn 1-2, the whole race is surrounded in controversy.

The problem is not with Jenson Button but with Lewis Hamilton. Lewis drove a really good race in a car which was way off the pace. He kept out of trouble, kept pushing and with the events of a late crash by 2nd placed Vettel and 3rd placed Kubica he ended up in 4th place. The odd thing at the time was that when the safety car came out, Lewis was showing in 3rd position (I had the live timing on) and then at the end of the race he was in 4th, even though overtaking is not allowed under the safety car.

It turned out what had happened was Trulli was in 3rd and had gone off the track and Lewis had obviously gone past, hence showing in 3rd. Trulli then took the place back, which is why he finished in 3rd and got the podium.

After the race however, Lewis said that his team had told him to let Trulli back through (and Trulli said that Hamilton had slowed down, allowing him to pass as he thought Hamilton had a problem) and later on after a stewards enquiry, Trulli was given a penalty for passing under the safety car and Lewis was promoted to 3rd – an excellent result when his car was so far off the pace.

The problem is, it didn’t finish there. On the Thursday after the race, the stewards summoned Hamilton and Trulli back in and after more investigation have disqualified Hamilton (and Mclaren) for misleading the stewards.

It turns out what had happened was that after the above happened, Hamilton and Mclaren both went into the stewards enquiry and told the stewards that they had not let Trulli past.

What doesn’t make sense is that Mclaren knew that the FIA listens to the radio transmissions and had been asking race control several times whether Hamilton had to let Trulli past but did not receive a response because race control were busy dealing with the accident. Why would they lie knowing this information was public? – it just doesn’t make sense to me.

Mclaren claim that they didn’t lie or purposely mislead the stewards but rather just assumed that because the FIA listen to the radio that they knew about the conversation but this seems the opposite to what the FIA are saying.

All very odd!

More information:

• The stewards decision
• Interview with Mclaren
• The Mclaren radio discussion
• FIA response

UPDATE: It doesn’t explain why they lied when they knew the truth was public, but at least this explains what happened: Q&A with Lewis Hamilton - credit to him for standing up and admitting he made a mistake.

There has been talk (and demo videos) for a long time about SlingPlayer on the iPhone (and iPod Touch). It was reported last week that it was finished and had been submitted to the app store for approval.

Now it’s reported that the SlingPlayer for the iPhone will only work on the newer Slingbox models.

What’s more is that apparently it did work in the beta versions and it’s not a hardware thing but a greedy move by Sling to get people to purchase new hardware.

I always did find it frustrating that after buying the device you had to pay for the mobile version of SlingPlayer - but I did buy it for Pocket PC and Symbian as it wasn’t too expensive.

However, I certainly wont be buying new hardware just to get it on the iPhone / iPod and I certainly wont be recommending Slingbox to anyone if they are going to do that

http://www.tuaw.com/2009/04/02/sling-rains-on-its-own-parade/

http://www.theiphoneblog.com/2009/04/02/slingplayer/

Well that’s something you never thought would happen - Microsoft are working on Office for the iPhone.

They are also apparently releasing a web based version which will work on both the iPhone and Linux.

Now that a lot of my software wishlist has been answered in the iPhone and iPod Touch 3.0 firmware, i’m now excited to hear what they are going to add to the next hardware version of the iPhone which will likely be announced at the WWDC in June and I am madly hoping will be out shortly after that.

My wishlist would be:

Relistic additions:

• Better camera
• Flash
• Video recording
• Faster processor
• More memory
• 3G optimisations for better signal and faster data

Ideals:

• Bigger, higher resolution screen
• Removable battery
• SD Card slot for extra memory

It’s good to see that the latest rumours are at least pointing to some of them becoming reality:

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/03/31/report_two_distinct_iphone_models_nearing_production.html

Finally! - Apple has increased the “9 pages of applications” limit (148 apps) on the latest iPhone / iPod Touch 3.0 beta to 11 pages (180 apps) - still not ideal but at least a little more ability to install new apps without removing old ones.