AlistairCharlton.com

Mobile Navigator (UK) by Navigon - £37.99

So with the release of iPhone firmware 3.0, app developers can now include turn-by-turn directions with their mapping applications - which means the iPhone now has proper sat-nav. The only issue is that developers cannot use Google’s maps due to legal matters, so they have to being their own.

While TomTom were present at WWDC and demonstrated their sat-nav application, complete with external speaker and windscreen mount, their app isn’t out yet and the first proper sat-nav app to hit the market is Mobile Navigator by Navigon. Until June 30th the app will set you back £37.99 for maps of the UK, and £54.99 for maps of the whole of Europe. While this may sound expensive for an iPhone app - we’ve got used to spending £5 at the very most - this app has the ability to replace a stand-alone sat-nav unit costing in the region of £100.

Before trying it out I purchased a windscreen mount from Griffin, which was £20 at the Carphone Warehouse. It holds the phone very securely, with different mounts for the iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPod touch - the 3G mount will work fine with the new 3GS.

Once I’d got the phone is a decent position I fired up Mobile Navigation, hit ‘Take me Home’ - having already entered my home address to the favorites list yesterday - and set off back from town. The app found a GPS signal as quickly as the iPhone’s own Maps app does and provided my first direction.

The app looks like and behaves just like any other sat-nav with a clear 3D view of the road ahead and your route coloured orange. There is a night mode which turns the usual background colour of white to black - I guess this will make the screen much darker, thus reducing the risk of distracting the driver. One issue I would like to raise now is that this is a mobile phone and I’m - sort of - using it whilst driving. Does the law make exception to this?

Probably, I just wasn’t entirely sure.

Anyway; the voice is a clear, well-spoken English woman who speaks plenty loud enough to be heard when driving, although if I had the window down or music on I may  have struggled to hear her. The Griffin mount came with a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable so I guess she would speak through that if you plug her….sorry, it, into your car stereo.

Directions given are displayed as small symbols to the left of the map as they are said, and any direction can be repeated by tapping on the relevant symbol. You can also switch to a 2D birds-eye view by tapping anywhere on the map, but to go back to 3D you have to tap a very small ‘done’ button in the top right. Not ideal if you’re tapping on the move.

When negotiating Huddersfield town centre the app did give some slightly unclear directions, like ‘bare left’ when really it meant for me to stay in the left lane - this was right where there is indeed an option to bare left, which could have confused anyone not familiar with the area.

If you do take a wrong turn - as I did on purpose on the ring road - the app takes about 5 seconds to re-route you. This was effective, but did ask me to make a U-turn where it would have been very inappropriate to do so. But having said that, it appeared that this would have been possible, given earlier warning.

The app does not yet allow you to enter full postcodes, which is annoying, but by entering the city or town, then street name, then building name or number does work just fine and took me to exactly the right house.

While on the move the map is very clear and concise, but does include points of interest. On my journey I noticed it showed petrol stations and a BMW garage. You can search for points of interest and the categories it offers include; Petrol stations, parking, restaurant, hotel, cash machine, bank, shops, train station, sports and business facilities and hospitals, as well as a few more.

The app hasn’t crashed or slowed down at all while I’ve used it and it’s worth mentioned that if you receive a call it will resume your journey when you finish the call. Also, the whole app works in either portrait or landscape mode.

Finally, battery life. I’ve only used the app for about 25 minutes so far and the battery has certainly gone down a bit - although I do have Wifi on too and brightness set fairly high - but I’d imagine the app can run while the phone is charging, so get yourself a car charger and you’ll be good to go. Otherwise expect no more than a couple hours of sat-nav use.

I’d like to see an update to add full postcode search as that would be far quicker than entering street names, and would provide less ambiguity between locations.

For £35 - plus £20 for the car mount - Mobile Navigation is well worth the money if you don’t already have a satnav, which I didn’t. The TomTom app may well bet better when it comes out, but combined with the car mount I can see that being somewhat more expensive that the Navigon system.

I’ll give Mobile Navigation an 8 out of 10. It’s cheap when compared with stand-alone units, is easy to use and is the first to market. If postcode search is added then the app will be very good indeed. And remember - that introductory price is only available until the 30th of this month.

Appstore Link

Alistair

Alistair Everyday Life, Mac Hardware, Mac Software, Other Tech, Uncategorized, iPhone Apps apple, iphone, navigon, sat-nav

As the 24-hour karting race - held at Le Mans, France - is now just 12 days away, I thought I’d post again now that all my gear has arrived.

The helmet is an AGV Stealth and was bought from SportsBikeShop.com for £180 and the gloves and boots are both from the Alpinstar Tech 1-K range. The gloves were about £50 and the boots £70; these are at the more expensive end of any karting range but I figured I’d be getting at least another 2 years use out of then, so I may as well spend a bit more and get some kit I’ll really enjoy using.

And this is certainly the case.

When it arrived, my helmet was a bit tight - it’s size small - but after wearing it for a few hours it now fits perfectly, without giving me a headache as it did at first. This also applied for the boots and gloves, which were both a bit tight but after use now fit just fine. The boots are surprisingly comfy and I’ve been wearing them for long periods of time around the house with no complaints at all. The gloves are also comfy and provide a great, snug fit. I’ll avoid saying “they fit like a glove” - ha ha.

So that’s it really; I must admit that the exercise planned a while ago hasn’t really happened. I’ve used the dumbells quite a lot but don’t really feel they’ve made any difference yet. To be fair, they were never really going to have much effect in just a couple of months, but I’ll stick at it and will hopefully see an improvement  over the next year.

I’ve got my travel insurance sorted - it was about 5 quid but doesn’t cover the karting, which was to be expected.

Just need to collect 2 fold-out chairs from my Dad, get some Euros and arrange how I’m getting down to Surrey for our departure on July 2nd.

Oh, and I’ve always splashed out a bit on a new lens for my SLR. It’s a 70-300mm Sigma lens and was about £130 from Amazon, should be delivered next week. Before anyone pipes up, I know cheap glass is very rarely the best, but it’s all I could afford and I don’t consider myself a good photographer in the slightest, just wanted a decent zoom for photos while I’m not driving. The lens will go to the British GP with me next year as well - I didn’t have the cash to go this year, sadly.

Together with the SLR and lenses, I’ll be taking my Macbook Pro to back photos up to - wouldn’t want to loose or damage my SD card with no backups - and to write a blog post of the race while I’m not in the kart.

We leave in 12 days time and I’m stupidly excited. Might post once more before I leave and I’ll have a huge post with many photos to upload when I get back.

Alistair

Alistair Everyday Life, Holidaying, Karting, Mac Hardware, Other Tech, University Life

So the 3.0 firmware for iPhone and iPod touch was officially released yesterday evening and by approximately 9:30 this morning there was a working hack available for Internet tethering.

Tethering is a new feature with the 3.0 firmware and allows you to send your iPhone’s Internet connection to your laptop - I’m using a 13″ MBP, but more on that in another post. This connection can be shared by either USB or Bluetooth.

Jolly good, you may be thinking, but hold on. For a start, AT&T aren’t even offering tethering in the USA yet, and here in the UK our provider O2 want to rob you of £15 per month for the privilege. That’s right, 15 quid a month to send the Internet connection that you have already paid for (!) to your laptop.

But fear not, because Richard Lai of The Internet has made a little download file that enables tethering for free. His blog post can be found here and it does work perfectly. When you go to his site - on your iPhone - click Tethering, then United Kingdom, then O2 Contract. You’ll also want to alter your MMS settings, as explained by Richard at the foot of his blog post.

Ok, so after I first tried it my phone did reboot after a couple of minutes of USB terthering - not sure why, but I was half asleep - and then the tethering option disappeared from the phone’s menu - again, not sure why. But I simply followed Richard’s instructions again, downloaded his file, and I’m tethering once more.

Bluetooth tethering wasn’t really working but I have since found Apple released a Bluetooth update for OS X yesterday and, after installing this and rebooting my Mac, Bluetooth tethering works perfectly.

Just turn on Bluetooth on your Mac and iPhone, click your phone from the Bluetooth menu on your Mac, click connect to network and away you go. Simples!

I only have a poxy GPRS signal here in deepest Yorkshire, so it’s not really usable but with 3G this will be great; just a shame I already pay £15 a month for mobile broadband from T-Mobile. Oh, and with regards to battery life, I’ve only tried for a few minutes but tethering will probably murder your phone’s battery, however this is yet to be proved.

One final note; don’t take the piss and start downloading torrents, otherwise O2 might be a tad annoyed with you. Also, I don’t know if O2 will block this or just bill you for it anyway, so please be aware that this is a hack and not officially supported by Apple or O2 or any network.

Alistair

Alistair Mac Hardware, Mac Software, iPhone Apps

So Apple released the iPhone 3.0 firmware to developers at WWDC and from  June 17th we’ll all be able to get our grubby little mits on it.

But, as is the way with the Internet, I’ve got hold of the copy released to developers and it’s sitting on my iPhone right now.

Right then, let’s get started:

Copy and paste; this works really well and in all apps. You simply tap on the text, the option to copy (and cut where possible) appears, you tap this and are presented with two handles to grab and move to either side of the text you want to copy. You then click copy - or cut - and move to where you want to paste the text, be it in the same app or on any other app on the phone. To paste, simply tap where you want the text, the paste option appears, tap that and your text appears. The action can by undone by shaking the phone, which displays a message asking if you want to undo or not.

MMS; as soon as the phone activated after 3.0 installed I got a text message from O2 saying MMS wasn’t yet available and they’d text me when it was. A few seconds later I got a message saying MMS was now available and an image attached. MMS seems to work really well, the images received appear as a small thumbnail in the text itself, you just tap on the image to see it full screen and you can then save the image to your phone.

To send an MMS simply tap the camera icon in the messaging app, select if you want to take a new photo or use one from your camera roll and the image is added as a thumbnail to the message, simple as that!

Spotlight search; this is a whole new page to the left of the home screen that has a search box. When entering text into the box Spotlight searches your phone and provides results instantly as you type each letter, these results include applications, contacts, songs, artists etc - pretty much anything! Obviously you then tap on the search result you want and you’re taken right to it. Spotlight is also included at the top of other apps, including Mail, iPod, Phone, Address Book and Notes.

Landscape keyboard; this was previously only available in Safari and in some 3rd party apps. Now it’s available in every app in which you need to type, so that’s Mail, Messages, Safari etc.

Internet tethering; this will allow users to use their iPhones internet connection with their laptop via USB cable or Bluetooth. Sounds great but, sadly, O2 want an extra £15 a month for the privilege of using the exact same data you’ve already paid for and beaming it to your Macbook. Also, it doesn’t seem to be working yet.

Find My iPhone; this is a service that’s part of your Mobile Me subscription that shows the location of your iPhone on a map

in any Internet browser. You can send a message to your phone over the Internet, this message appears instantly on the phone and an alarm is sounded, even if you leave your phone on silent. If this doesn’t help in reuniting you with your iPhone, you can remotely wipe the phone of all personal details. These can be restored from backup, should the phone be returned to you at a later date.

There’s a nice voice recording app, which is nice and not much else; oh and the Stocks app can now be rotated to show a large graph.

So on the whole 3.0 is a solid update but merely brings the iPhone on par with other smartphones already on the market. But, this being Apple, MMS and landscape keyboards are praised as innovations.

Oh, and finally, I sent an MMS earlier with a photo taken on the phone, over GPRS - that’s all we get up here - it took a good couple minutes, but over 3G I guess it’s much quicker.

Alistair

Alistair Mac Hardware, Mac Software, Other Tech, Uncategorized, iPhone Apps

So now I’ve had a good look through the Apple store site and watched yesterdays WWDC keynote here’s an in-depth review of what went on.

First up; Macbook:

The 13” Unibody Macbook has been given a firewire 800 port, better quality screen, a backlit keyboard as standard, a new battery similar to that seen in the 17” Macbook Pro, which is said to up battery life from 5 to 7 hours and offer 1000 charge cycles before degradation - up from 300. The Unibody has also been given an SD card slot and while the audio in port has been lost, the headphone jack is capable of both in and out. The processor has been bumped to 2.26 and 2.53 GHz, 8GB of RAM is now possible - but at the hefty upgrade price of £700 - and hard drives range from 160GB to 500GB, while SSD’s are available from 128GB to 256GB.

The point was made that this Macbook is becoming almost identical to the 15” Pro and so the Unibody Macbook has been rebranded as the 13” Macbook Pro - the first true relative to the iconic 12” Powerbook.

The 15” Pros were also given the improved screen, battery and SD slot, which replaces their ExpressCard slot. The 15” ranges from 2.53GHz up to 3.06Ghz and with either 4 or 8 GB of RAM.

The 17” Pro remains unchanged and the Air has received a performance increase, as well as a price drop - significantly with the high-end model, which now retails for $700 less than before.

Next up was Snow Leopard:

SL is the next major operating system to replace Leopard and is due for release in September. While not providing any new features as such, Snow Leopard has been almost entirely re-written from the ground up, making the system run much better than was possible with Leopard. Figures outlined at WWDC claimed that SL can be installed 45% faster than Leopard and also take up 6GB less of drive space once installed.

Some small changes have been made to Finder and the desktop; for example Exposé can be launched from the dock, by showing only the windows relevant to the application who’s dock icon is clicked - if that makes sense!

Snow Leopard will be shipping from September and available to current Leopard users for the incredible price of just $29 - of course it could be argued that SL is merely a service pack, but compared to the usual retail from of OS X of $129, this is quite a bargain. The family pack - which can be installed on up to 5 Macs will be $59. No word on UK prices but even with the Apple Tax, £29 would be a steal. Also worth noting is that SL will only be available to Intel machines, so for anyone running a G4 or G5 Mac, Leopard is the end of the road.

Next, iPhone 3.0:

We’ve all seen the many new features of iPhone 3.0 before but here’s a quick run-down to remind you:

Copy, Cut and Paste
MMSLandscape keyboard in all apps
Spotlight search in all apps
Spotlight search page to the left of home screen
Improved calender and stocks apps
Internet tethering - although this will cost £15 per month from O2
Login names, passwords and personal details can be saved by Safari to autofill forms
Voice memo app

Yesterday we were told that 3.0 will be a free download for iPhone customers and a $10 dollar purchase for iPod touch owners and will be available on June 17th. The Golden Master copy is available for developers to download now.

And finally; iPhone 3G S

A new model of iPhone was announced yesterday and will be available from June 19th in 16GB and 32GB models costing $199 and $299 respectively. These prices translate to £185 and £274 on 18 month contracts from O2. Or £87 and £175 on 24 month contracts. It’s unclear as to how much a customer mid-contract would be expected to pay, and how much the 3G S would cost during the contract renewal process.

What the iPhone 3G S offers is speed, with most processes running twice as fast at the current 3G model, allowing developers to create even more detailed and graphically intensive games and applications.

Externally the 3G S looks identical to the current model - so no front facing camera or matte black case as rumoured - but does boast a 3MP camera with autofocus, auto white balance and auto exposure. We were also shown examples of the touch-to-focus feature, which focuses on whatever you tap on before taking the photo - and it seemed to work really well!

The camera - which looks identical to the old model - also records video with audio, albeit at just VGA quality. To be fair, it did look alright on the iPhone screen, and there are options to crop clips once recorded, before uploading your video to Mobile Me or YouTube.

The 3G S also packs Voice Control - something I had in my Sony Ericsson T29 many years ago. Anyway, it does seem to work really well, by letting you call a contact, dial a number, change a song, ask for the song name, ask for a genius playlist, amongst others. This does seem to be just a software add-on, but apparently not available to standard 3G customers.

Finally, there’s a digital compass which looks nice in its own app and also rotates maps to the direction that you’re standing.

To sum up, WWDC brought some great changes to the Macbook range, especially the new 13” Pro - which I am certainly going to upgrade to from my Air. The iPhone announcements, though, were less than impressive; I expected the 3.0 firmware to be shipping today and rumours suggesting a front-facing camera and matte black case would have been very welcome.

Alistair

Alistair Everyday Life, Mac Hardware, Mac Software, Other Tech, iPhone Apps apple, iPhone 3.0, iphone 3gs, Macbook, wwdc

So, you want WWDC in a nutshell? Ok then, here we go…

The MacBook range has changed, the 13” aluminium Macbook is now the 13” Macbook Pro and the plastic white model is now the only Macbook. The 13” and 15” have an improved battery and general spec increases, with up to 3Ghz processor and a massive 8GB of RAM.

Safari 4.0 is now available out of beta from today for all users.

Snow Leopard will be available from September for the very low price of a $29 upgrade for all Leopard users - $59 for the family pack. SL will take up 6GB less drive space when installed and 90% of Leopard’s code has been re-written to optimise the OS for 64 bit machine.

iPhone 3.0 firmware has everything that we expected - copy and paste, MMS etc etc - and will be available free to all iPhone users from June 17th.

Apple will offer Mobile Me users ‘Find My iPhone’ which shows your phone on a map if you loose it or have it stolen. A message is displayed on the phone and ultimatly the phone can be remotely wiped by the owner - and restored from an iTunes backup if you are reunited with your iPhone.

There is a new iPhone model, called the iPhone 3GS - the S stands for speed. The exterior is identical to the current 3G model with no front-facing camera. The rear camera has been improved to 3MP and the ability to record VGA quality video - yeh, that is a bit rubbish - but will offer basic video editing and the ability to upload to YouTube and Mobile Me.

Also the 3GS will offer voice support - allowing users to ask for a contact to call or a certain song or artist to listen to, as well as asking what song is playing and for a genius playlist.

That’s what I can remember, anyway; I’ll post a proper review tomorrow and there will also be a special episode of Tuck In To Tech with Ollie Parsley which will be released on Friday of this week.

I will also download the 3.0 firmware as soon as it is available and post an in-depth review the same day.

Alistair

Alistair Mac Hardware, Mac Software, Other Tech, iPhone Apps apple, iphone, iphone 3gs, Macbook, snow leopard, wwdc

So you join me at 4:30am heading from central London to Kingston on the N87 night bus. It’s slow, stops every hundred yards to pick commuters up for work.

Anyway, I’m here after watching Pendulum perform at the Fabric club. For a tenner it was a great night out with minimal queuing - we got there at about 11pm - and cheapish drinks. By cheapish, I mean £4.50 for a single mixer and £8 for a double. On the subject of drinks I’ve become a fan of vodka and Red Bull.

The club itself was pretty good, with three rooms playing different - but very similar - music.

Anyway that’ll do with my mindless rambling, I’m still quite drunk and a tad deaf.

Alistair

Alistair Everyday Life, University Life fabric, london, pendulum

While the weather in the UK is so good at the moment, we thought last night would be a great opportunity to buy one of those disposable barbecues from the supermarket.

As it turned out, the weather stayed gorgeous but, after several attempts at setting the field on fire and burning most of Greater London to the ground, we gave up with the BBQ and instead sang around a smoldering pile of coal, grass and very-well-done burger.

I’ve added a video to this post showing a few photos taken. If anyone is interested the camera was a Nikon D40 with the standard kit lens and the image were stitched together in iMovie with a splash of Bob Dylan for good measure.

Yes, I know the ‘Ken Burns Effect’ gets annoying - the zooming in - but it’s 1am and I couldn’t be bothered changing it. Enjoy!

BBQ

Alistair

PS I’m using the updated Wordpress and don’t see how to embed the video….

Alistair Everyday Life, Holidaying, University Life

So with WWDC just days away, what can we expect? Well, we’re bound to see iPhone 3.0 software announced and released which will contain the holy grail of cut and paste, along with MMS - sending pictures through text messages - and a hole host of other improvements. But what I - and the rest of the tech industry - will be sitting on the edge of our seats for, is the new iPhone.

Ok, so we’ve had the iPhone 3G, but this will be the first ‘proper’ hardware upgrade from the original model first shown way back in January 2007, and we’re expecting an awful lot. Firstly, a better camera is badly needed; the current two megapixel offering is - let’s be honest - a bit crap compared to what the rest of the market is offering. So a 3.2 megapixel camera would do nicely, with autofocus and a flash - obviously. This would tie in nicely with rumours suggesting that Apple want to take on the Flip camcorder for the ultra-portabke digital video camera market.

Speaking of flash, one rumour I have seen is the inclusion of a xenon flash in the Apple logo on the back of the iPhone - which will glow Macbook-stylee when not in use and also act as a flash when the camera is used.

As intriguing as this - and the new camera - sounds, a leaked photo supposedly showing the rear of the new iPhone shows no changes at all, except the use of matte plastic opposed to shiny.

On the theme of cameras, the photo below, published by iLounge, shows what could be a new iPod nano with a small camera on the back. To be honest it looks very out of place and not ‘Apple’ in the slightest.

Other rumoured features include a magnetometer - basically, a fancy digital compass that will help any sat nav software, as well as the Google maps app; think Android-style navigation.

Oh, and on the theme of sat nav, I should mention that Apple have said that turn-by-turn mapping software will be available with the iPhone 3.0 firmware; but the app developer will have to being their own maps to their application, as the Google maps cannot be shared. That’s not a big deal as the likes of TomTom already have their own mapping images ready to port into an iPhone app - can’t wait for that!

I’m also expecting an increase in storage space, so we’ll see a new 32GB iPhone, as well as the 16GB model. This slightly contradicts with recent rumours, showing the death of the 16GB model, but I find this hard to believe.

Apart from all the iPhone goodness, we can also expect to see a preview of the newest Mac OS X - also known as Snow Leopard. While no new features have been promised, we are expecting to see a much smoother and better built OS, possibly suited to a smaller, netbook-style device? Only time will tell.

The chances of seeing a netbook at WWDC are somewhat slim, despite the rumours. This is a conference for developers, not consumers - the netbook will not be previewed here; and of it is, I’ll eat my iPhone!

All will become clear on June 8th.

Alistair

Nb, photos of iPhone and iPod nano from iLounge via Mac Rumors

Alistair Mac Hardware, Mac Software, Other Tech

So I went to the pub with the karting guys on Friday night to arrange who would take what positions in the club from September, as most of the guys have just finished their final year. I didn’t really want a specific role; partly because I didn’t attend the University Championship this year, but mainly because I’m lazy, but as it turned out, and after several beers, I ended up becoming the Head of Media - whatever that is.

I think basically it means I get the keys to the clubs Facebook page and I’ll be responsible for keeping it up to date; as well as whoring us out on all the student forums I can get my hands on. I might set up a Koks Twitter account and blog too, but I’m pretty sure no one else would know how / care about / or want to contribute to those.

I got talking to some of the older drivers and asked about how the timetable for driver stints will work at Le Mans and was a bit shocked to find that each of the 10 drivers in my team will probably do all their driving in one stint.

So that’s over 2 hours at once, or possibly 2 stints of an hour each. I was only expecting to do about 45 minutes at a time but longer stints do make sense as less driver changes means more time on track and a better result. Even if it means I’ll be practically dead after my shift at the wheel.

In other news, I’ll be purchasing a helmet in the next few weeks - probably wait until I go home - and I’ll look into getting a 300mm lens for my D40 to take some decent shots while I’m not driving.

Alistair

Alistair Everyday Life, Karting