Results tagged “iphone”

Well, not exactly... I wish Nokia all the best, but I've got a couple questions:

• In my experience, v1 Nokia Symbian firmware is always rough (I suspect there is internal pressure to release new devices from groups that think more in terms of hand-feel and physical device than software-led user experience). Both my N73 and my N95 were essentially unusable out of the box (unusable = requiring a hard reset more than one per 15 minutes). They do get better but if you want to go after iPhone customers you're going to need the software to work pretty much straight away. In the case of the N97, an early-ish 2009 launch in restricted markets (USA) means that in reality, us Europeans won't have a good N97-based user experience until Q1 2010 by which time Android will have a wider developer pool and Apple may well have come up with even more challenging goodies
• I'm surprised to read that Nokia can't use multi-touch and that Apple has a patent on the process. I thought the system was developed by Jeff Han at NYU and later developed into a shippable product by his own company? I guess not, if anyone can fill in those blanks I'd be curious to hear.
• How social is the social? I'd love to hear more about the value-creation network Nokia is proposing to set up with the N97 as a hub. Also, will the social survive the firmware? I guess we'll see.

Well, I don't do Lowest Common Denominator Design.

Lowest Common Denominator Design is a sure road to dumbed-down, content-deprived, interfaces that feature themselves. LCDD is based, at its heart, on contempt for users and for content.

You tell em Ed ;-)

(www.edwardtufte.com/)

Lolo	1962	Helga
Ansel	1974	cinéma

(there is also "infrared" but it weren't very nice)

Aside from the absurdity of camelCaps in blog post titles, isn't the camerabag iPhone app groovy? I mean I've hated the iPhone camera from the start and this was compounded by the zero quality improvement in the iPhone 3G release but this app somehow manages to make taking rubbish quality digital photographs fun again. It's a bit like using the Nokia 6600 for the first time...

extra credit for those who can name the movie

Well you can't, or at least I can't:-(

Instead, I have to tether my device to a master file system (my PowerBook) using a funny white stringy thing that need to keep in my bag (my usb cable).

Both my laptop and my phone are running FreeBSD, an advanced, Unix operating system the runs rsync (a native unix application all the more fabulous for its power and simplicity) out of the box. Both my laptop and my phone have advanced networking features with options to create or open sockets across a wide array of transports (IP over Firewire anybody?) so why doesn't this just work?

Rsync could run as a cron job and every 15 mins it would try and connect to a known host over the air (including connecting to the host via IP over the cloud, not just bluetooth or 802.11 lan) and voilà! A lovely synced up iPhone without the hassle.

I mean how hard could it be?

OK, I think O2 wins this donkey's current "Edge du Jour" tag.

Take a look at this wizard-style information display from the O2 self-care website. I landed here as I had just invested a chunk of my free time trying to review my invoice online having received my monthly your invoice is ready html email. Of course I failed, and I then failed to refresh my password, and sent a few paragraphs of vitriol to the support email only to be told that O2 can only be contacted using their customer contact wizard (perversly named "email us").

So before you even get started, what does this display suggest?

1. O2 only gives customer service to customers who know their details. This could be a problem for new customers who may not yet have received all the cryptic bits of misorganised pseudo-information that O2 sends out in a bid to help new customers settle in. This might also be a problem for existing customers who are on holiday or away from their base (imagine being in an internet café in Belize City trying to get help with your phone).
2. Assuming a customer has their details to hand, O2 will only engage in dialogue with users who can pass security. Now, this is a support email for crissake, what the hell kind of security do you mean? I just want to email you to complain or ask for help and you will only hear me out if I can give you secret password (which I've either forgotten or never had to begin with). This is just ridiculous
3. O2 will only listen to queries for internet users who get through steps one and two above

This is bad on a number of levels but the most obvious one is that the experience design takes no account of context-of-use.

If you are designing a support interface you can be pretty sure that most of the users who engage with it will have negative context-of-use issues. A big part of the interface's success will be taking into account why the user might feel upset or confused. Think of issues like:

• my phone is broken
• there's a problem with my bill
• I don't understand something and need help
• I'm in unfamiliar surroundings
• I don't have access to my own computer (with its cookies and bookmarks)

I think it's obvious from the entire interface that the O2 team took no account of these issues.

This is bad on further level. Dialog and transparency are now key elements of most sensible corporations' comms strategies. There is no point having your CSR team and your marketing folk writing about how open you are to dialog when your website clearly isn't.

Finally, the contact form has an input box which I think demonstrates the marketing team's deep understanding of the customer:

Now I'm pretty sure most iPhone customers can't tell the difference between an N95, an iPhone and a K800i. I know i certainly struggle with that one every day;-)

Well I've been running the iPhone plugin for movable type for a while now but had never used it in anger.

So I'm sending this entry as a test.

Fingers crossed:-)

You know it doesn't get more cutting edge than this. First, after much stress and waiting, I jailbreak my iPhone and go in search of hot software. Great, open, free liberating productivity apps here I come and lo, I end up with the iFart, which pretty much does what it says on the can...

So yeah, post Jailbreak briccups (handset would cycle instead of turning off--made reseting impossible), have replaced iPhone and wait patiently for the 2.0 firmware to be delivered via proper channels and sync away with itunes and visit the app store and yes! I know have the iPhone light-saber app installed.

Surely our parents could never of conceived of such a wondrous world;-)

OK so it's now Stevenote - 7 and my iPhone is stuck in an imap loop and when I turn it off it reboots instantly. Of course plugging it in and clicking "restore" (which theoretically wipes your iPhone and restores it to OEM condition) doesn't fix the problem so I'm sort of hoping the 2.0 firmware will sort this...

...but I keep trying to decide if I should continue to put up with the phone. So many aspects of it drive me crazy. Take the battery for instance. On my N95, when Symbian thinks it's the best mobile OS on the planet but gets it wrong, the phone lets me take the battery out. This is kinda like the handset saying "sorry" like a grumpy two-year-old, a good thing. When it turns out iPhone needs to be disciplined, Steve just repeats "no, mine!" like another kind of two-year-old, a very bad thing indeed:-(

Well, on balance I think my iPhone sucks, but it sucks less than the other twenty smartphones I've lived with over the last couple of years.

It's not all handset woes, take for example O2's brilliant Apple-approved billing structure. Unlimited data (unless you instal a demon in which case the fair-use policy kicks in) and a set number of calls for a set monthly price. That is (almost) exactly what I want except that when I call my bank, or the power company, or I want book a movie ticket or call a helpline I have to pay extra for the 0870 local-call number. Never mind that I haven't got the choice. Powergen hasn't got a local extension I can call so the word from O2 is "tough" :-(

Not a big deal you might say but my £45/month all-in contract quickly becomes an £80/month which is way way more that I want to pay for the service.

I thought O2's iPhone contracts might have jogged the other operators into finding some sense so I checked my fave, Orange (France Telecom) to see what unlimited data contracts they had for new users.

Well, surprisingly, as of 2 June 2008 not a sausage

Sigh... crap really.

Question: why does my iPhone not sync automatically (or even manually) with with my Powerbook via wifi when both are on the same network and iTunes is running (hell, why isn't their a syncd process running in the background).

I'm finding the 'tethered device' design of the ipod increasingly annoying but for the iPhone which is by nature a wireless device to still follow the same method is just silly...

So hopefully by now you will have noticed the in-your-face red stripe at the top of the page and made a note of my new number (07515661655).

So I can take it down and resume normal service.

OK, so I'm finishing the Orange gig which means new phone. I picked up an iPhone on Sunday and so far, the experience has been mixed...

I'll add to this as I get used to the device...

If Nokia were running the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, New Orleans would be 20 feet above sea level by now.

I've not read Michael Mace before but with a quote like that he's being added to my feedreader:-)

Mobile Opportunity: The war between Nokia and Apple (thanks phil)

After DVD John's first iPhone hack the elusive SIM unlock comes one step closer:-) Neowin.net - Hackers saw through iPhone AT&T shackles

Wey hey, a sim unlock for iPhone is on it's way... DVD John has already made an activation server so network-free landscape iPods might be just around the corner...

It'll be interesting to see how mobile operators react to this. As consumers try and create increased value with the iPhone by making it work the way they want it to the trad operators could feel a little threatened. Most of them are still focusing their business on 'offers' rather than building value creation networks with their customers.

I'm still waiting for the operator that lets me build my own billing plan. Any takers?

So it turns out Cisco have a corporate blog:-)

They even use Movabletype, very kosher. Not sure who is the mind behind the stories, it seems like a PR firm is uploading stuff prompted by employees. In this instance, a note from Mark Chandler, Cisco's SVP and General Counsel on the iPhone trademark infringement thing. No amazing news but I'll be keeping an on it...

Jason D. O'Grady is blogging the conference in real time. They did it!!!! They really did the iPhone thing it wasn't a red herring!!!

MSWF07: Live blogging the keynote address | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

ooops, ran out of battery right in the middle of the keynote...