Finger off the pulse

I'm now in Beijing for the start of a one week vacation and the following week, presenting on the Mac Mania 09 tour.

As I'll be a little out of touch with the Mac world for the next two weeks, I'll probably not update this blog with Mac related stuff.

Consequently, if you want to see what myself (and Leo Laporte) are up to over the next two weeks you can either:

Follow me on Twitter - @donmcallister

Check out my experimental iWeb site - http://www.screencastsonline.com/macmania09

or checkout the tumblr blog I've setup:

http://screencastsonline.tumblr.com

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Covering iPhone Apps?

I always try to get the balance of shows right, trying to alternate between decent third party apps (both free and commercial), iPhone and iPod touch apps and using OS X itself.

This week is one of those weeks where viewers already have all the applications installed on their machines, so no additional expense required! (presuming they're on 10.5 of course).

I love doing shows (especially members shows) where the application is free or relatively low cost.

The last couple of shows have had iPhone or iPod Touch components included and again, I’m conscious of the fact that ScreenCastsOnline is all about “Getting the most of your Mac”. My feelings are that a good percentage of the typical ScreenCastsOnline audience are likely to have these devices (if not now, then some time in the future) and as they are so much a part of the mac ecosystem, it’s perfectly valid for me to include iPod touch or iPhone apps going forward, especially if the app syncs with a Mac application.

What do you think?

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3G S First Impressions...

I've had the iPhone 3G S for less than 24 hours, but I thought I'd post some of my first impressions, mainly those that I've not seen commented on elsewhere:

Performance: Pretty snappy but not as earth shatteringly faster as I'd expected when using the standard interface and menus. Where it does shine, is in application loading times - much,much quicker. This does enhance the overall experience and does make "switching" applications much less troublesome. Oh, and search is blindingly fast on the 3G S, they just need to expose some of the configuration settings in search, that would be a great bonus.

Camera: Much improved. Auto focus and auto everything else seems pretty spectacular. It makes you realise just how bad the camera in the 3G is!

Video: Game changer. No more to be said.

Screen: The 3G has a oleophobic coating. This is wonderful and even after using the phone for a couple of hours, there is hardly a smudge on it. I can really see this technology as an enabler for much larger handheld devices (Ahem!). It also feels much slicker to use. A great addition.

Voice control: Works seamlessly, without having to train your iPhone with your voice. It takes a little too long to invoke the feature from the menu button for my liking as you have to hold it down for a few seconds. However, you can control it from the supplied headset, which seems more transparent. I can see myself using this feature a lot whilst driving, especially controlling the iPod playback. I would imagine this feature will be updated significantly over time, with updates at each firmware revision allowing for more control over more features. It's also something I could see third party hardware manufacturers exploiting, especially now they have the ability to interface devices to the iPhone. Apple just need to release the voice control API.

Compass: Works suprisingly well, although the feature is a little bit hidden on the Maps. You need to go into the compass application and access the maps through there, then hit the map button a couple of times. Took me a little while to find it and  it may be lost for some people if they don't know it's there. Update: You can access the compass through Google maps, just tap on the location button twice. Every time I've tried to use Google Maps on the 3G, especially when walking in a city, it has been frustrating, as you don't know which way you're facing. The compass has fixed this and made it a killer feature.

Mains Adapter: Wow! They've built the charger into a standard plug. Amazing! Update: See the @DavidBCohen picture and @sydov picture for a comparison

I'm sure that there are more features that will impress me as I use the device from day to day, but the 3G S is certainly a big step up from the 3G and gets two thumbs up from me.

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Waiting patiently...

Well it's iPhone 3GS launch day and as expected, there aren't throngs of people queuing down at the Apple or O2 stores here in the UK.

What a shocker - NOT!

With the pricing debacle, the large numbers of existing 3G users locked into a contract and the ability to pre-order for home delivery, long queues and the usual buzz about the launch was never going to happen, at least, not to the extent of the previous iPhone launches.

As an aside, I witnessed first hand the huge leap in usability the new 3.0 software has proven to be.

I'm one of those who decided to pre-order and first thing this morning, I had to nip out to the Doctors for a routine blood test. So, sitting in the waiting room with 10 minutes to kill, I did my usual thing of whipping out my iPhone 3G and checking Tweetie.

I casually tweeted that I wondered if my new phone would be delivered today. I've ordered it from the CarPhone Warehouse and other than an order confirmation, I'd received no word on delivery.

A minute or two later, I received a tweet back with a link to the CarPhone WareHouse tracking page - excellent (Thanks @HadleyHope)

Now to find the order number?

Switched over to my email client and realised that the order confirmation was in an Archive mailbox on the MobileMe service. No problem! Using 3.0 I can access that mailbox and enter a search term. 3.0 couldn't find it on the cached version of the phone and asked if I'd like to search the server. Result!

A few seconds later, the email was there in front of me.

The order number was only 8 or 9 digits but with my short term memory being what it is (!), a quick tap and I was able to copy the number using 3.0, switch back over to Safari and paste it in.

The order tracking details popped up, along with a link to the carrier.

Tapped on the link and was sent over to the carriers website with the tracking number auto filled and bingo! The iPhone was out for delivery today.

So that's just two elements of the new 3.0 release that helped me out here but they make the iPhone just so much more useable.

Looking forward to seeing the performance increases on the new iPhone 3G S when it arrives later today.

BTW I didn't faint during the blood test - I was a brave boy :-)

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The iPhone Tethering Epiphany....

By now, most iPhone 3G users will have been able to download the new iPhone 3.0 OS upgrade. Contained within the upgrade is a feature to allow the iPhone to act as a Internet connection to your Mac, otherwise known as "Internet Tethering"

Apple have done a great job in implementing this feature, allowing you to use either Bluetooth or USB to connect your Mac to the iPhone and then use the iPhones internet connection to view your email, access Twitter, etc. It's all pretty seamless.

Plus, we're fortunate to have this switched on from day one over here in the UK, unlike our friends in the US who are having to wait for AT&T to get their act together.

However, there is a fly in the ointment - the cost!

Now the iPhone comes with an unlimited data plan included as part of the contract. This was a masterstroke by Apple when negotiating with deals with the carriers for the exclusivity of the iPhone as without unlimited data, the iPhone would not have taken off as well as it has. Sure, there have been other "internet enabled" phones before, but even if you could use the internet on the phone, it was an appalling user experience, plus you needed to be constantly aware of the charges you were building up.

The iPhone was the first phone with a credible user experience which actually made using the Internet on a mobile device easy. It's the first phone where you truly do have the Internet in your pocket, and the removal of the barrier of worrying about data charges just enhances that experience.

The problem with the iPhone 3.0 is that "Internet Tethering" is seen as an extra by most of the carriers (kudos for Rogers in Canada for not charging) and is currently being priced separately as a bolt on to the existing iPhone contracts

Over here in the UK, O2 are charging:

As pointed out in the comments, those prices are for Business users, it's even more expensive for normal users (Thanks Peter)

That's quite an expensive proposition if like me, I'd only really use tethering occasionally. Heck, I only use the thing as a phone occasionally and I'm already being charged £35 per month for minutes I don't use.

To wonder why they've done this (other than the knee jerk reaction of it being a money grab) you have to take the historical perspective. Back in the early days of "internet enabled" phones, people really didn't use the phone for internet access, it was just too painful. But hook up a computer and it worked. The metered data charges were still exorbitant, but we really didn't know any different and besides, it was pretty cutting edge!

Spring forward to today and we have 3G with pretty fast connection speeds and unlimited data on our phones at an all inclusive price.

So what about this epiphany?

Well, a couple of days ago I was in Starbucks with my laptop with the intention of doing an hours work. I fired up the browser to check out the options for wifi and was met with a demand for £4.95 for 90 minutes.

No way!

I took out my iPhone, checked a few messages, checked a few tweets and then carried on working on my laptop. After I'd finished (and after moaning about the cost via a Tweet) someone asked why I hadn't tried tethering. I'd never even thought to try!

After mulling this option over for a day or two, I realised that, even if I had been able to use tethering to access the internet via my iPhone, my usage would have been exactly the same. I would have accessed the same services via my tethered laptop, exactly as I'd done on my iPhone.

Exactly the same.

In fact, I'd even go so far as to say I would have used the exact same amount of data, regardless if I was using the iPhone on its own, or using the laptop tethered to the iPhone.

Yet, 02 want to charge me a minimum of £9.99 or up to £23.88 per month extra for the privilege.

But I thought on further.

It's possible that tethering could actually result in less data being used in some cases. Let's say:

Scenario 1: You're sitting in the coffee shop with your iPhone and your laptop with no tethering. So you pop out your iPhone and spend half an hour on line. No point getting out the laptop is there.

Scenario 2: You're sitting in the coffee shop with your iPhone and your laptop with tethering. So you pop out your laptop and spend 10 minutes online and then realise that you may as well get on with that proposal or presentation for a bit, seeing as you've got your laptop open.

OK, a bit simplified but it's possible! In fact, on my Starbucks visit, I spent more time online on the iPhone than I wanted to, had the laptop been tethered, I probably would not have.

The bottom line is with tethering, I wouldn't be using any additional data over and above what I would have used with the iPhone, in fact, I might even use less.

The old model of charging for tethering based on usage is just that, an old model, valid when data was metered. It makes no sense when used on the iPhone with an unlimited data plan.

So I guess my knee jerk reaction was correct - it's simply a money grab.

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