Tag: Windows Mobile

bookmark_borderiPhone Apps

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I’m still loving my iPhone, despite it’s foibles (why can’t I send a link of my current location from the Maps application to another iPhone user? Or even a weblink to Google maps? Or.. you get the point).

To capture my current usage I thought I’d jot down the apps I currently have installed. Because, you know, blogs, lists.. etc etc. So without further ado other than the default applications my iPhone runs:

  • Twitterific – paid version – still a little buggy but easily the most used application other than the SMS and phone functionality.
  • Mobile Fotos – after ditching my Windows Mobile phone a couple of years ago, one thing I missed was Shozu which allows you to upload your photos to Flickr. Shozu is available for the iPhone but Mobile Fotos is a more rounded application.
  • Digital Clock – I have a dock, and can set this application running, set an alarm (turn on Airport mode) et voila, my own alarm clock. Oh yeah, you need to change the screen timeout as well. ONE app to do all of those settings would be worth money to me.
  • Instapaper – paid version – a simple bookmarklet which I was already using to track articles to read later on. The iPhone app lets me read them when I get a few spare moments (yeah, on the loo!).
  • Airsharing – free version (was only available free for a limited time) – lets me easily moves files to and from the iPhone meaning I can do away with my other USB drives.
  • Zenbe – a list application that syncs from the iPhone app to my online Zenbe account and vice versa. Has replaced TaDa lists for me purely because of the iPhone app.
  • Here I am – a simple app that emails your current location (long/lat). Haven’t used it much, kept ‘just in case’.
  • Movies – to quickly find the latest movie times, not used often but v.useful.
  • Palringo – a bit like Trillian, lets me log into multiple chat clients on my iPhone. Not used often.
  • Light – cos sometimes you need a completely white screen when you don’t have a torch handy.
  • VNC – so I can VNC to my computer. Works FAR better than you’d think!
  • WeightTrack – in an effort to lose some weight I thought I’d gadget/geek up and use my iPhone. Had the application for 3 weeks and entered 2 weights so far. Must do better!
  • iChoose – a coin flipper/decision maker type app. Silly but.. MAY be useful someday?
  • Cube Runner – simple tilt based game. Navigate the ‘ship’ through the cubes as you fly through them.
  • Lightsaber – ohhh shut up. I’m a geek and I like Star Wars, I can’t NOT have this on my phone!
  • iPint – really should delete this…
  • Monkey Ball – another tilt based game, guide the monkey in the ball through the courses. Simple, frustratingly hard!
  • Brain Challenge – a nice diversion which has the added benefit of stimulating your brain, keeps track of your progress too.
  • HoldEm – poker game which is curiously addictive and has helped me understand poker a LOT better.
  • Oblique – an iPhone app of the Brian Eno Oblique Strategy cards designed to inspire you to think different.
  • Last.fm – installed after a recommendation, have yet to do much with it.
  • Simplify – iPhone app to hook into the Simplify Media server which runs on my home computer (primarily to let my PS3 see my ‘media’).
  • TV Plus – tv listing application that can hook up to your Sky account and send remote record requests! VERY slick and waaaayyyy better than the sky website. In saying that I think my Sky box needs set up again or something as it’s not managed to work for me, yet.
  • PhotoFrame – nice idea this, if you set the screen timeout to never turn off, run this app you get a digital clock, date and picture slideshow. Only 6 photos at present but looks good. Another app that would be way better if IT could change the settings for the screen timeout (if it’s docked and getting power, leave the screen on).
  • Exposure – location based photo app (amongst other things) which I don’t really use. Can pull Flickr photos based on location… interesting but not hugely useful.
  • Vicinity – location based app that will give you listings of useful numbers (restaurant, taxi and so on) depending on where you are. Not often used but COULD prove useful in the future.
  • Google – quicker than firing up Safari and going to the search bar there, that’s the only reason I use it.

I also have home screen links to Google Reader and the new iPhone optimised Flickr webpages

Blimey, that’s more than I thought. There are a couple there I should remove and I’ve installed at least twice as many as listed here but ultimately these are the ones that currently work for me.

I know a few of you have iPhones (and yes I know a few of you think they are over-hyped) so do let me know if I’m missing out on the MUST HAVE application, won’t you?

bookmark_borderOhhhh Two?

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The contract for my mobile phone is up at the end of the month. So I’ve started looking around for alternatives, starting as ever with consideration of what I want it to do, because that’s what I do you see, research, plan, consider… I am gently mocked for this by my own wife and friends, but I knew they would, you see, having considered their reaction to my over-pondering of things, see how this works? iPhone

Having spent many years with a Windows Mobile phone (varying models), I grew used to having contacts and calendar sync’d, keeping me on track during a busy day and giving me the comfortable fallback of having enough information at my fingertips that I didn’t need to carry anything other than my phone.

18 months ago I decided to simplify things a little and try and rid myself of gadget lust. It seemed to be working:

I find that I’m not using my new mobile phone for much more than phone calls and text messages (sorry txt msgs). This, in part, in because the phone itself isn’t as functionality complete as my old phone so I’m just not using the same set of features. Yet the thing is, I’m not missing anything and it’s liberating to NOT be able to check my email at a moment’s notice. The way I use my mobile phone is regressing back to being, largely, just a phone. However that’s more the technology forcing me to make specific decisions so isn’t quite the same.

Alas the last line of the above quote is the most telling. iPhone

Increasingly unreliable, recently it’s stopped ringing at all it seems, the Samsung D900 has been (form factor aside) a failure. Whilst it looks good and feels good in the hand, the software provided is shoddy and managed to triplicate my contacts as well as randomly delete some with no rhyme nor reason. Being without a reliable calendar or having any confidence that my contact list was up-to-date has led me to hack my way to some semblance of a workable system. Thankfully having most of such things covered online (contacts aside, why HAS no-one cracked that yet?) it’s not too bad… but even that is made worse by the grindingly slow internet browser that comes with the Samsung.

Basically, my experiment failed so straight to the top of my list are the ability to easily talk to my calendar and to keep my contacts sync’d safely and to be able to browse the internet. The latter requiring a nicer, bigger, screen than the Samsung offers. iPhone

OK, a quick question, has anyone read this far and NOT figured out where this is heading? iPhone

Cutting to the chase, it looks like a straight fight. In the (red) corner (geddit!!) we have the new iPhone 3G, in the blue corner the, Windows Mobile based, HTC Touch Diamond. Both are touchscreen and… well they both do pretty much the same kinda thing. Feature wise the HTC is the richer, but since when has any Apple purchase been down to features?

Having had a quick shot of the current iPhone, and the iPod Touch, there is a lot to be said for the way it “just works” – an awful phrase that one. The iPhone also gets free bonus points for being associated with the same people who made my MacBook and the operating system which all so “just works”.

Ohh hell, who am I kidding, come July 11th I’ll be yet another ‘fanboy’ touting his iPhone around. I don’t care if it has flaws, I don’t care if it’s not the best fit to my needs, I know that everyday I pick it up I’ll enjoy using it.

Which, in contrast to my current phone which makes me want to throw it off the balcony in our office into the fountain below, and then fish it out, stamp on it then run over it with a tractor… is a good thing I think.

If nothing else it’ll help keep my blood pressure down (ahem, worst argument ever?).

Ohh and once I DO get said iPhone, I promise I’ll try not to go on about it too much.

Hey, I said “try”…