iPhone 5

Following my 24 hours with a Samsung Galaxy S3, I pre-ordered an iPhone 5. I didn’t really think I needed one at first, and I still don’t need one if I look at it philosophically, but I wanted one. At first I wasn’t going to buy one, but my justification was that my iPhone is my single most-used possession, apart from perhaps my flat or my bed, which don’t really count.
I’m happy justifying more than the cost of a new iPhone just on annual insurance for my motorbike, so why shouldn’t I get a better phone handset that works a little faster and has some better features?
So because I was about 5 minutes late ordering at 9am on launch day, my delivery time was estimated around the beginning of October. My brother ordered one the day after me and got a delivery time the day after too… so it surprised me when I went to visit at the weekend that he was sitting there with an iPhone. He told me his nano sim arrived so he went to the apple store in Brent Cross to check out the phone, and they had some in stock so he bought it and cancelled his apple store order. That of course prompted me to visit every apple store in London, but alas it was nowhere to be found (in stock) so I ended up just waiting for mine to arrive!
So far I’m very happy with it. I’m concerned that I’m slowly turning into an apple fanboy, and part of me wants to buy an Android phone for no other reason than to redress the balance, but that would be silly.
My biggest bugbear, aside from numerous applications crashing unexpectedly, is apple maps. It’s not completely useless but it is a huge downgrade compared to Google maps. Yesterday it told my friend to turn into a restricted bus-only traffic lane, which he did, only to realise it was restricted. I hope he doesn’t get a ticket! It’s not very good at finding things and the interface is very clunky.
But I know my way round most of London so hardly ever need to use it. I hardly ever needed Google maps either, so I guess it’s a moot point, and I am confident apple will fix it, especially after they issued their apology.
My other problem with it is the lightning connector. I prefer the connector itself, but it’s just rendered all my dock connectors and charging cables useless, and at £15 a pop the replacements didn’t come cheap.
Finally I have a problem with my mobile phone insurance company, who won’t accept apple’s PDF proof of purchase with a serial number on it as proof that I bought the phone. No, they want one that has the IMEI number on it. What a farce! I’ve complained, and they’ve tried to call back twice while I’ve been unavailable and they want me to dial a premium rate number to get back in touch with them. Fat chance of that happening. I do need to sort my phone insurance though!
Oh well, I guess that’s the price you pay for being one of the cool kids

24 Hours with a Samsung Galaxy S3

What’s wrong with all you people? Why do you keep buying this phone? What’s so amazing about it?
I suppose I should start with my phone requirements. Perhaps I’m special, or perhaps I’m just not afraid to say what I think about this craze for big screens on phones.
So here are my requirements:
1. My phone should be a smart phone. This means it should have a decent data connection and access to apps that I find useful.
2. I should be able to use my phone with one hand. This is very important. If I have to use my phone with 2 hands, I can’t even walk down the street while using it. That's not because I walk on my hands, but because a 2-handed phone naturally requires more concentration.
3. It should fit in my pocket comfortably.
4. It should have a decent battery life.
5. It should have a good screen resolution.
6. Using it should be more pleasurable than painful.
How does the Samsung fare?
1. It’s smart, but perhaps too smart. The data connection is fast, but it struggles to switch between wifi and data, and the result is that no matter how many cores the processor has, the phone has to keep up with me as I walk through the city, rather than being fast enough for what I want to do.
2. The screen is way too big. I can only imagine that Koreans all have huge hands, or the phone has been designed for gorillas. If I try to type with one hand, my thumb can’t reach across the screen and if I try, the inside of my hand touches the screen and messes up what I’m trying to type. I ranted about this on facebook and the response was that there are increasing media requirements from most people that need bigger screens. Seriously? Guys, if you want to watch movies on your phone, perhaps you should consider investing in a television. Or a tablet.
3. It doesn’t fit comfortably in my pocket. It’s too big, and sticks out of the top of my jeans. I couldn’t ride a bicycle with this phone in my pocket, so whilst I appreciate how thin and light it is, unless it folds like a piece of paper it’s no good for my pocket.
4. It passed this test. Battery life seemed good. Certainly better than my iPhone.
5. The screen resolution is good, and the colours are vibrant. But you can’t see it in direct sunlight. What’s the story with that?
5. Using it was more painful than pleasurable. The reason for this is that I would have had to spend a long time setting up the way I wanted it to be. I would have been fine doing that if I’d bought one, but it seemed like a lot of hassle for a phone that was already troubling me due to its physical size.
In case you’re wondering, no I would definitely not buy one. And now I’m worried that the iPhone 5 is going to be too big for my thumb as well

Mobile Phones

I suspect the Google crawler will love this one.

So I, like everyone else these days, make extensive use of my mobile phone. I use the word phone sparingly, as it's actually more like a pocket computer. Well it is for me anyway. I use my phone for mobile data, accessing facebook, my email (work and personal), then for text messaging, and then for actually making phonecalls. My phone gives me at-a-glance notification of the weather, how many messages I have and what my friends are up to (via facebook).

Now I have used the same type of phone for several years. None of this fancy data stuff is very new to me, but since I have been using my phone I've been frustrated by how annoying it is to operate. I've spent money on third party applications for it that supposedly make things easier, but these are not perfect either.

After several years of honing, I have my phone set up to do most of what I want, and were it not for the fact that the phone is frustratingly unresponsive and often crashes, I would be perfectly happy with this setup.

Why is this a problem, you may ask?

Well, due to the frustrating crashes, I am always on the lookout to replace it with something better. Therein lies the problem. Nobody (yet) makes a phone that seems to meet my requirements (which come from the setup I have on my existing phone).

I've tried Android, (HTC Hero and HTC Desire) but it's lacking in widgets that do the same thing as the widgets I have on my existing phone, and unless I hack it to FroYo 2.2 I can't get direct push hotmail on it.
I've tried iPhone 4, but it has no widgets at all, and no way to customise the main screen to show me anything at a glance other than the number of messages in my inbox. It's also too big to fit in my pocket and costs £600. £600 can buy a lot of burritos.
I've tried the Nokia E72, which would be a fantastic phone were it not crippled by Nokia's insistence on using their own applications for everything (which are basically fudged together for a terrible user experience).

So what's this magical yet frustrating phone platform I can't escape from you may ask? Well it's Windows Mobile 6.5. And what's more annoying is it looks like Windows Mobile 7 is going to be lacking in features too, meaning my phone is on its last legs as soon there will be nothing available that meets my requirements. Great :(