Tag Archives: n73

apple, iphone

Why didn’t you buy an iPhone 4 ?

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I seriously did consider buying the new iPhone 4 on the day of release.

However when I was faced with this…

I couldn’t face the idea of queuing. I also had to be somewhere else too…

I am still in two minds about buying the new iPhone now, or waiting until my contract ends.

Yes it has some great new features that I would like to see and try like the new camera; however part of me is thinking is this just because it is shiny or something new and different!

What about the reception left hander issues?

Personally I think, yes there may well be an issue, but is it really worth all the column inches that have covered this? There may be a design flaw, but all devices have design flaws, doesn’t mean they don’t work most of the time. My Google Nexus One for example, if it gets too hot (from being on for too long and doing stuff) the touchscreen stops working! My old LG Viewty kept turning itself off and the only way to turn it back on again was by removing the battery! Where was the Guardian and BBC on that issue?

Of course the iPhone is selling really really well. Some estimates say 1.5million of them have been sold. So that any flaw in the design is going to impact on a lot of people, a lot more people than the flaw in the LG Viewty! That’s probably the reason behind the column inches.

I do like that even though we have moved from analogue newspapers to online news sites, the term “column inches” still works. Thought I suspect a lot of people might think “inches” what are “inches”? Wonder what the metric or European term is for “column inches”.

Anyhow even with the reception issue, I don’t think that would stop me buying one.

I have already installed iOS4  on my iPhone 3GS and am finding it useful. I like the rotation lock. I like the quick App switching. Folders I am less keen on, but they do mean I can now see all the Apps on my iPhone, whereas before some were off the screen at the end! I like the spell checking (this is also on the iPad) and as someone who can’t spall it’s grteat! Not at all impressed with the digital zoom, but then I have never been impressed with any digital zoom. Less impressed with the home screen wallpaper, the first one I tried made the whole phone look cluttered… The Nexus One does seem to do this much better. Keyboard support may be useful in some instances, I do do a lot of writing.

So what will the iPhone 4 hardware provide that is so “essential”?

Facetime sounds great, but really we have been here before. My old Nokia N73 had a front facing camera and could do video calls over 3G. Well actually I never did do video calls, the main reason was that no one I knew did video calls, so I never had one. Also when I got the N95, I tried to call myself to just see how it worked, and it never worked! Facetime only works over wifi, if I have wifi I probably have a laptop or my iMac so I would be more likely to use Skype. Another big reason I wouldn’t use Facetime, is that very few people I would call in this way would have an iPhone 4. Like the idea, but can’t how it would benefit me at this time. Should I be buying two iPhone 4s then? No I think not.

I do like the concept of the retina display. I really like the display on the Nexus One which is sharp and looks great. The 3GS has a 480×320 resolution, the Nexus One has 800×480. The iPhone 4 has 960×640 which is to be honest incredible for the size of screen, but is not that far off the Nexus One. It would be interesting to compare all three.

I do like doing video, and though many phones I have had, can do video, none have really got there. The Nokia N95 which took great images had an okay video camera, but not fantastic.

This video was taken with the iPhone 3GS and is actually not bad, certainly much better than the N95.

If the video on the iPhone 4 is as good as the video that is been shown on the web, then I would be impressed. I also like the idea of the iMovie App. I must remember though I have ReelDirector on my iPhone, I have only used it once or twice in anger!

I do like the idea of a 5MP camera, as I do use my camera a lot on the iPhone 3GS for taking images (in the main for uploading to TwitPic). Of course 5MP is nothing new, I did the same for many years with the Nokia N95.

Of course the front facing camera on the iPhone 4 is only a 0.3MP camera like most other phones that have front facing cameras. Two 5MP cameras would have been nice…

No idea if the battery life is any better, the stats indicate it is, but I suspect that this may not reflect actual usage. 6 hours on 3G doesn’t really cut it for a full day in London at a conference and for the train home.

So at this time, I am in two minds about the iPhone 4. I think I would like one, but whether I would really like one right now, I don’t know.

conference, iphone, nokia, sony, video

Packing

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Well I have started packing for the Plymouth e-Learning Conference. Well less packing and more charging. I seem to take more and more equipment to conferences these days. Some of it will be used in my workshops, some I will use to blog and twitter, and some I will bring because I think I might use it, but generally don’t.

Apart from the workshop equipment I usually like to have the following on me at conferences (and a jacket with big pockets to carry it all).

Laptop – though I have a selection of micro-laptops or UMPCs I generally always fall back on my reliable MacBook Pro. In the main as it has a decent keyboard, partly as I have a spare battery for it and it has a built in camera.

Phones – normally two, this year three. Not for making phone calls mind you. I have my work Nokia which is what people at work will be able to call and SMS me on. I have my home T-Mobile Nokia N95 which I use for internet, either on the device or configured as a wireless router, a digital camera, a video camera and a broadcast camera using QIK. This year I will also be bringing an iPhone!

Digital Camera – despite having the 5MP Nokia N95 I do like to have a proper digital camera with a proper lense. I would love to bring my Canon DSLR, but it’s too heavy, so I have a little Sony pocket camera which does the job.

Video Camera – I have found my little Panasonic HD camera a great tool for conferences, at the ALT Conference I used it to create a little video that I then edited on my MacBook Pro (another reason to carry that around). Quick and easy to use, and records to SD cards so video clips can be easily transferred to the computer.

MP3 Recorder – I always carry this, thinking I should record some podcasts when I am at the conference and never seem to get round to it… this conference I hope will be different.

Chargers – as batteries never seem to last as long as the conference.

So what do you bring to a conference?

iphone, nokia

Nokia N97 – is it something special?

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Nokia N97 - is it something special?

Nokia announces the Nokia N97:

The N97 isn’t a device that will trigger knee-jerk hysteria, but instead it should breed cool-headed excitement at the prospect of a new era of mobile experience.

It may be an Nseries handset, but the N97 carves a new space in the otherwise blurred realm between smartphone and laptop – a product built on a foundation of rock solid mobile principles, Nokia innovations, and tangible new technologies, pushed to the extreme and embodied in a slimline pocket shell.

I really like the Nokia N95, as a phone it allows me to do lots of different things. The main weakness for me with the Nokai N95 is the browsing experience. More often I will use JokiuSpot on the Nokia N95 and use an iPod touch for web browsing.

I did consider getting the Nokia N96, however early reviews did put me off, though others did like it. Likewise having seen the adverts for the Blackberry Storm on the London Underground I was tempted by that (especially as I am having problems with my work Vodafone N73 which is due for an upgrade) however Stephen Fry put me off that one (and others it would seem). Another choice was Nokia’s E71, as that was getting some positive recommendations.

So do I have the obvious choice, Apple’s iPhone?

No, partly as when it came out it did not meet my needs, no tethering, no 3G, no applications. Even the 3G model has some limitations, in the main the poor quality camera and lack of tethering. With the Nokia N95 I can use it as a 3G modem or as a wireless hotspot, likewise the 5MP camera does make it quite capable of taking decent photographs.

The other issue with the iPhone was that at work we use Vodafone and my personal phone is with T-Mobile, do going with O2 was not really an option.

However I am not a fan of text entry on the Nokia N95, I have never liked entering text via a phone keyboard. The Nokia N97 looks like it could be a real option for me with the slide out keyboard, S60 operating system and touchscreen.

There are some early reviews out now, CNET and ZDNet.

Will have to wait and see how it works for real.

mobile, nokia

QR and Datamatrix Codes

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It would appear that the last mobile phone barcode I posted was not a QR code at all but a datamatrix code (thanks Roger).

This is a QR Code.

qrcode

I generated this code at the Kaywa website.

I am using the Kaywa reader software on my Nokia N73 to test the concept and it reads both the QR codes and the datamatrix codes really easily. I have done tests both on screen and printed.

Very clever concept and having showed a few people in college we think there are a lot of potential uses.

mobile

QR Codes

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The current craze in Japan is for QR Codes that allow information to be sent to a mobile phone via the camera.

Simply put the information or link is encoded into a barcode type graphic.

QR Code

You then take a photograph of the barcode, and with special reader software you are able to convert the barcode into information, which could be a link to a website or just plain information.

You can make simple barcodes on the Nokia website, there are also links to various applications which can read these codes.

altc2007, m-learning, mobile

cn we uz mobz 4 LernN?

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Today I ran my mobile learning workshop which I felt went really well.

It was much less about me talking, but much more about the delegates talking to each other and sharing their practice, issues and solutions.

I did ask people to scribe their ideas and then got carried away answering questions that I forgot to collect their collective writings in. Please pass them onto me, or hand them into the conference reception and I will pick them up from there.

In the workshop I demonstrated some mobile technologies and explained mobile learning scenarios that we are already using at Gloucestershire College or are planning to develop further over the next few years.

We had quite a bit of fun with Bluetooth, and for the first time ever, my Bluetooth photo printer was “hijacked” and some people printed their own pictures to them!

Excellent.

I did also show how to print from my Nokia N73 to the printer.

I also demonstrated ShoZu which worked well.

As usual never enough time to cover everything and discuss everything.

flickr, mobile, nokia

ShoZu

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So how do you get images from your mobile phone to wherever quickly and easily.

I have a Nokia N73 I use to…

Take a photograph.

Send it via Bluetooth to my computer.

Upload it to Flickr.

Of course this meant I needed both a computer and internet access.

The Nokia N73 does come with an application to upload images to Flickr, however this never worked for me, and I suspect it is because Vodafone (my phone provider) blocks access to Flickr as part of their content control!

So I was interested to see how ShoZu would work out.

Shozu is an application that works on a range of phones and allows you with just one click take an image (or a video) and upload it straight to a Web 2.0 site of your choice.

You give ShoZu your mobile phone number, they send you an SMS text message, you download and install the application on your phone.

Rather than use the phone to configure the destinations (though you can) you can configure your account via a web browser. Which is great if like me you don’t really like to input data and information via a mobile phone number pad.

Configured it all.

So in London for a meeting took a photo at Paddington station and after I had taken the photograph, up popped a dialogue asking me if I wanted to send it to Flickr, so I click okay.

The image is automatically uploaded to Flickr and then into my other online sites which Flickr feeds into such as Jaiku and the VLE.

You can also add the images to your blogs (as seen here).

Works really easily and simply.