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iPhone unlock - No thank you sir!

@NickyColman — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 15:32:21 GMT

After months (probably even years now) of being intrigued by the hidden abilities of an unlocked iPhone, I decided to give it a try.

Downloading the 'BlackSn0w' app from my iMac straight down to my iPhone and then unpacking an app called 'Cydia' (the black-market App store if you will) was easy peasy!

But that was where the fun and games started!

After installing a few different apps and unlocks from the Cydia app my iPhone started behaving like a spoilt brat! Slowing, stuttering, tripping over itself whenever I asked it to do something. I constantly encountered the spinning data circle normal fixed in the top bar when you're accessing the web, this time it was centre of my screen - SPINNING ENDLESSLY.

iPhone eventually gave up and resorted to displaying the large Apple logo centre screen until i forced it into recovery mode.

I'm no technophobe - At 24 years old I'd like to think I'm quite technically minded and "down with those kids" but this takes the p*ss.

It was the experience I didn't want to have. It was the experience Apple doesn't want me to have either.

I have now slung my phone into recovery mode and iTunes is busy syncing over my precious content back into its pristine 16GB brains whilst I run back to the safety and comfort of the App Store.

Apple - I love you, will you take me back?

When All-in-ones attack

Ben — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:13:35 GMT

What is an iMac? Well, it's a laptop, with the screen where the keyboard should be. Sat bolt upright on your desk.

While never strictly true, that used to be a fair description. Not any more.

Today's top-of-the-line iMac is a Quad Core Intel i7 powerhouse, with the 'computer' almost entirely hidden behind a screen so beautiful you'd be forgiven for wanting to reproduce with it. Hell, with my brains and the looks of this thing we'd finally have a being capable of reclaiming Saturday nights from Simon Cowell.

The Good

Intel, for their sins, have allowed the modern iMac and, to an extent, all-in-ones in general, to be thin and compact and yet so powerful that no 'normal' computer user would be left longing for more under the hood. No longer does a Photoshopping iMac user feel like a mum with 4 kids in a clapped-out Ford Ka. Oh no, boys and girls, the aforementioned user now feels like Kylie Minogue with 4 bags of Harrods shopping in a BMW X5 x-Drive48i M Sport. Throw in a new 2TB hard drive, with a density surpassing even that of Alex Reid, and space for up to 16GBs of RAM and you are, quite positively, 'sorted'.

By design, cable clutter is no more. The only mandatory cable is the supplied power cord, and even that is Apple-white and made of some sort of magical material that necessitates an unnatural amount of appreciation. There's also nothing to kick under the desk, given that it's all sat right there in front of you, which is a bonus of Brucey proportions.

But what if you want to use the sexy 27" IPS panel to display something that OS X doesn't want you to? Such a shame to confine a monitor of this calibre to just a computer, forever. Never fear, bi-directional mini DisplayPort is here! If you can cobble together the right cables you can display external sources through your iMac screen with no trickery required.

The Bad

The only user-upgradable element of the iMac is its RAM. To get to anything else, you'll need suction cups. Not to scale the walls of Apple HQ in Cupertino to get permission from Steve Jobs, though he'd prefer it if you did, but to remove the huge piece of glass covering the only entry point into the computer. Screws, which are ugly and so very PC, have been replaced with strong magnets. But even if you do make it inside you'll be dealing with something designed to be so compact and unforgiving that, like with most laptops, you simply wont bother to proceed.

The at-the-end-of-the-day

Improvements in components are the biggest reason why the 27" iMac is a winner. The design is incredible, thin, sleek, stunning, but when 90% of what you're looking at is a massive screen Apple's biggest design success with this iMac was simply keeping everything else as unobtrusive as possible.

With such a good specification available now it's unlikely that any buyer of a high-end iMac would feel the need for more power during the useful life of the machine, which I'm pegging at 3 years. Given that we're still using Core Duo iMacs at the office of 2006 vintage I have no qualms with asserting this conclusion.

As a desktop computer the iMac is, in my opinion, an unbeatable package. The proportion of the computer-buying public for which an iMac would now be a suitable purchase is vast. The biggest barrier to adoption will be the mindset that the buyer might want to upgrade this, or might want the option to do that at some point in the future. What most people who dismiss the iMac will fail to see is that, actually, Apple has created an optimised product that effortlessly caters for the needs of what the overwhelming majority of computer users actually use their computers for.

Now, if only Apple made a phone...

Wants vs Needs vs... the world.

Ben — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 13:39:15 GMT

I picked up an article from Twitter this morning. It's a Guardian piece about consumers, consuming. Electronics, to be precise.

I'd be lying if I said that the article blew me away, but I do appreciate the sentiment. When I think of the things I have bought over the years that I not only didn't need but had no practical use for it makes me shudder at the thought of the money I could have saved and the energy that could have been conserved.

Many of the electronic items I have bought and seldom used made great claims about what they could do. In reality, they couldn't, and that's the single biggest reason why they're all tucked up in my draws (the pull-out variety...).

The HTC TyTN is a good example. Billed as a mobile data extravaganza, in reality nasty materials meant I didn't want to use it and a much nastier OS meant I practically couldn't. Windows Mobile is certainly the leading OS of paperweights.

Then there was that bloody HP iPAQ. Two, in fact, as my H5450 was replaced with a H5550 when it repeatedly failed to, you know, work. If ever there was a device that was second to the pen and paper then this was it. It felt gorgeous, though, and I carried it around religiously despite its flaws. Again, the Windows OS was the primary obstacle, but like most devices of the time it also lacked oomph.

I could go on. And on. I could probably hit the keys on this MBA until your eyes bleed, but I know a good 99% of you would have stopped reading long before then. I'd have fun with that remaining 1% but I digress...

Every product we purchase has required a great amount of energy in order to create it. That energy is increasingly subsidised by debt, as energy costs are rising and will continue to do so. In my view, then, it has never been so important to make accurate and justifiable buying decisions as it is now.

There's some crap out there. A lot of crap, and just because something is 'high end' doesn't mean that it wont also be crap. However, it is often the case that if we spend a little bit more we'll end up with a product that better fits our requirements of it and will last longer to boot.

A bad example, but last night in Pizza Express a woman was telling her partner that she'd rather he buy a cheap car so that they could go out more rather than a half decent one. From first hand experience I'm going to put myself out on a limb and say she was greatly underestimating the significant improvements to quality of life that buying quality products can result in.

I've made some good buying decisions in the past. All of my Apple gear is evidence of this. Looking forward, I'm 'investing' in high end appliances from Miele and others (that come with a whopping 10 year warranty) as an alternative from the practically-disposibe Hotpoint and Electrolux cheapos that most of us consider entirely normal. I'm also shifting towards a repair philosophy, and hope to keep more things, primarily electronics, running in a useful way for longer unless they're incredibly inefficient.

But I need to stop hoarding things that have fallen out of use. I've countless mobile phones lying around, old laptops, computers, all sorts of bits. I have no idea what to do with them, but I can at least make a point of ensuring anything I stop using from now on gets appropriately 'disposed' of. Some are barely used, and some simply fell out of use due to being rapidly superseded by newer equipment... bad me.

Maybe I should even break my eBay silence and start selling bits on there? I think I'd rather eat a pesto made from toenail clippings, so if anyone has any alternative suggestions then please, let me hear them! It's clear that, despite my improving efforts, it's unlikely I'll use everything I purchase from now on until it actually dies and is beyond repair; sometimes new technology does make a new purchase justifiable. Therefore I need to find a better way of recycling those no-longer-used bits and pieces.

iMac, evolved.

Ben — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 01:10:51 GMT

A lot of people share their computers. At work, at home, it's not uncommon for several people to make use of one machine.

Well, for the last 3 years I've been sharing my computer with up to 8 people. At the same time.

You see, my 2006 Mac Pro was loaded with Mac OS X Server, a really superb server operating system that handles your 'usual' client-server stuff, such as having user accounts that can log into any client machine on the network. Every day it effortlessly manages tasks such as this, reading and writing terabytes of data and sending it flying around the network in all directions, while I hammer away with my usual clutch of applications and dozens of open windows.

Somehow it has always managed with ease. But I starve it, with only 4GBs of RAM in 512 sticks (I was on a budget drive at the time, what with kitting out an entire office and all), and both my usage, and that of the staff connected over the network, continues to intensify. I need to separate off my own usage and let the Mac Pro concentrate on being a server.

This decision was brought about by the wondrous New Year's gift of a dead 30" Apple Cinema Display welcoming me back to the office. Yes, despite being in desperate need of an update, the 30" ACD is still available to buy from Apple and mine, conveniently, has died just outside of extended warranty. I can't spend £1,199.00 on exactly the same display, not one that still uses bulbs, and while I might try and get it repaired I've taken a leap of faith and ordered a Core i7 27" iMac instead.

Leap of faith? We've got Core Duo and Core 2 Duo iMacs. They're good. But they're not exactly powerhouses. They're also 3 years old now, and while laptop parts (used in these very slim, compact all-in-ones) have progressed no end, back then they didn't quite have enough oomph for a full-on desktop. As such, I've always thought of the iMacs as, well, what we sort-of use them as; fancy network terminals.

Since the revision to the aluminium iMac this seems to have changed. Primarily, Intel's Core 2 Duo processors have evolved leaps and bounds. My MacBook Pro, a 2.4 from 2007 I believe, could easily act as a desktop, and more recently still both MacBook Airs, despite low clock speeds, offer phenomenal performance (but then that's SSDs for you). The Core i7 architecture is another massive step further, and I'm certain that the quad-core processor in my new machine will pack no end of punch.

Screen size is also a draw. I can stomach 27", but the previous sizes would have been too small for me to work effectively. Other aspects such as increased HDD density and RAM capacity have also contributed to the compelling package on offer today; 2TBs of storage and 8GBs of RAM are ample by all but the highest standards.

Of slight concern... the iMac will be significantly more powerful than the Mac Pro. But then OS X Server handles the connected clients with great efficiency, it's primarily me and my raft of office, virtualisation and browsing software that taxes it.

The other negative: Untangling years of my own stuff from the server itself.

iPhone liberated

Ben — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:44:16 GMT

I think we've reached a stage of mass enlightenment where I can say that the iPhone 3GS is quite simply the best mobile phone that money can buy without fear of swift and harsh retribution from ant-apples.

Not because the rivalry between iPhone users and users of other devices/platforms has lessened in anyway. Just because it's true.

If only finding the best mobile network was as clear-cut. Mobile coverage is still so 'thin' that finding the best mobile network is incredibly location sensitive. As we can't roam onto an alternative network when our own one craps out we have to choose very carefully about which one we commit to. Though, thanks to SIM only's (massive?) success, commitment doesn't have to be an issue these days.

(PAYG? Sorry, it's a good idea, and it's popular, but no. Hassle. And often expensive.)

One network, however, has steadfastly refused to continue the buildout of its network, most notably in the region of 3G. Despite the overwhelming consensus that wireless bandwidth will be essential to future offerings.

That network is O2.

Their refusal to roll out sufficient 3G, in fact, has resulted in conflicts with the regulator over the terms of the 3G license, which mandated 80% population coverage within a few years. OFCOM also recently released 3G coverage maps, shaming O2 as the least developed 3G network.

But O2 have never hidden their strategy, so users of their network have been making a choice. For years they shied away from pushing 3G handsets and services and instead concentrated on a strong retentions strategy and text-heavy offerings with an overall focus on the youth market. More recent deviations into music (heavily with their string of concert venues) and 'treats' seem to have bolstered this approach. They also grew their subs via predominantly voice and text based MVNOs like Tesco Mobile.

When you consider that 'mmO2' was, by some way I'd imagine, the least-well-financially-backed mobile operation in the world's most competitive mobile market it's not hard to see why they avoided capital expenditure and instead exploited their existing assets - probably with a view to a sale all along. I believe they had a plan to maximise return for the shareholders, and it was, for the most part, beautifully executed.

A hefty subscriber base and current brand no doubt made them attractive to Telefonica.

What they should never have done is bid for the iPhone.

Sure, the original iPhone was a 2G handset, but right from the start it was known that a 3G version would arrive. The 3G iPhone's massive sales exposed the weaknesses in O2's infrastructure from day one, and every day since their exclusive holding of this magnificent handset has been a complete farce.

It's not like their 2G network was even good enough - I should know, I've spent most of the last 17 months on it! :mad:

Now Telefonica have been in the picture for a while, and O2 has more than its fair share of high end data-centric devices, things will improve. They must have so much data usage information now that they should be able to properly target their investments, too. O2 recently announced that they will build out their network next year. For many iPhone customers, however, that will be far too late to make any real difference - there'll be plenty of carrier choice by then, and many of us who switched to O2 for the iPhone feel a little cheated that they've waited so long to start the heavy lifting.

You simply cannot take on such a massive undertaking with such flagrant disregard for the user experience.

Little surprise, then, that O2 did indeed lose exclusivity. O2 seemed prepared to do anything for Apple (including truly unlimited data, after that gaffe at the start when it looked like it'd be massively capped) apart from make capital investment. Some things never change...

After 17 months you'd think my memories of Vodafone's rather solid network would be left in the distant past. Not so. In fact, it has taken just a matter of days to get from O2 back to Vodafone, which would have been my network of choice, since the official iPhone unlocks became available. Finally, it would seem, I can enjoy the optimal iPhone experience.

It's not just me and it's not just Vodafone - it seems many are reaching for the unlock keys and setting their iPhones free on the networks that work best for them. Of course this raises the questions of carrier exclusivity, national roaming, regulation and more. But at the end of the day, I'm just glad my time with O2 is over.

It will be years before all the networks are truly in a position to offer the coverage and speeds that devices like the iPhone will require as our hunger for data-centric services grows. Will the investment be there? Is there the vision and leadership in big business these days to plan ahead more than 10 minutes? Will shareholder short-termism and greed prevail?

From what we've seen so far, I'm pessimistic.

Why we REALLY need inflation

Ben — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:13:56 GMT

Ever wondered why economists and the media are so obsessed with inflation? It's a helluva lot more complicated than you might think.

Our monetary system actually requires a stable level of inflation to function, a number that our government puts at around 2%. What that means is that the amount of money in circulation is growing faster than the value of 'real things', be it food or houses, that actually exist. As a result, you need more money to equal the perceived value of a given 'real thing' - money itself, remember, has no value whatsoever.

So why can't we target a 0% rate of inflation, so the value of 'real things' only changes depending upon things like supply and demand rather than the money supply?

Quite simply, before long there would be no money left.

Banks make loans. They don't give away money they have in a safe somewhere, they actually 'make' the loan - it's brand new money, usually created against the value of something, like your house.

You then pay that loan back to the bank, using money from the money supply - i.e. earned via your job. But that's OK, you boosted the money supply by the same amount when you took out the loan and paid the seller of the asset.

Wrong. Why? The bank adds interest to your loan. So you don't just repay the 'new' money, you have to repay the interest, too, the bank's profit. Where does the interest come from? Well, that also comes from the money supply... but if all money is created as loans, as debt, then surely by now you can see the problem - there will never be enough money to repay all the loans plus all the interest from a money pool that only consists of all the loans.

Loans (money in circulation) < Loans + Interest

As a result, some people will not be able to repay their loans. Usually that's not a problem for the bank, because they get to seize the asset, i.e. the real value. But the recipient of the loan is, well, screwed.

But the system would still break completely unless there was a mechanism for keeping the money supply growing. That mechanism is inflation.

Our monetary system requires that we keep borrowing more and more money, injecting it into the money supply, so that the majority of existing loan holders can suck that money, plus interest, out of the system to pay the banks. This ever-increasing amount of money required in circulation means that asset prices can also keep increasing, meaning each new loan can be for a larger and larger amount. The inflation also devalues the loan itself - in a perfect 'debt money' world, our house value increases during the life of our mortgage, so the debt effectively shrinks.

Unfortunately inflation means that if you hold cash then you need a very good rate of interest to be paid on it, at least equal to the rate of inflation in the money supply, or the value of that cash will actually be shrinking!

Deflation, then, isn't scary because people will hold off buying things until they get cheaper. No, BBC News, that's really not it. It's scary because if the value of 'real things' is going down, then the value of new loans will probably also go down, and that means less money being injected into the money supply, less money to go around, and more people defaulting on their loans. Eventually it means that the system will collapse completely because the banks will end up with all of the money and all of the assets. Fun for them.

This is why, then, it has been necessary for the Bank of England to hurriedly inject hundreds of billions of pounds into the money supply by buying our government's debt. It's basically giving the government a huge credit card and allowing it to spend new money into the money supply to make up for the fact that the banks aren't creating enough in new loans to keep the system afloat.

Sounds great! Free money for all! Sod taxes, lets just keep the government creating all the free money it needs to pay for unlimited public services. Hurrah.

No.

As banks start lending again and the money supply rapidly increases, inflation will get too high - I don't know, maybe 10% or more wouldn't be unimaginable with all that cash sloshing about. Remember, it's 'real things' that have value, not money, so more money just means that the price of everything goes up.

How will that be fixed?

Massive tax increases and cuts in government spending. The Bank of England will be repaid for all the new money injected into the economy, with interest, from the money supply just like any loan. The rate at which this loan is repaid, and therefore at which we are taxed and services are cut, should mean that the BoE and the gov't can control inflation by sucking money back out of the money supply until we're back at a situation where almost all money is private bank loans - debt, to you and me.

When we get to that point, all the BoE and gov't will have to control the money supply will be interest rates again - making loans cheaper or more expensive as a way of fuelling or dampening our appetite for them.

I believe that inflation comfortably above 2% will still be allowed, however, to devalue the debt faster and, in theory, make the massive borrowing splurge cheaper. The rate of inflation was allowed to soar before the credit crunch hit, too, probably with the same reasoning that the country was shouldering massive amounts of cheap debt (the broken global banking system was resulting in very cheap credit regardless of the BoE's interest rate setting efforts, plus the Labour government ran up huge deficits it couldn't pay for). Unfortunately nothing could have prevented the meltdown that occurred due to scrupulous and, often, stupid international bankers and banks - national monetary policy just isn't enough in a global economy.

It's a diabolical situation. Creating all money as debt, enslaving a society (economic slavery), just bizarre. Yet we allow it. So, as we're being walked all over already, we'd better hope that inflation picks up to reduce our debt (and if you don't think you have any, you do, tens of thousands of pounds, in fact, borrowed on your behalf by our government).

Going Snow Leopard

Ben — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:02:11 GMT

It's officially time for the Macs at work to go Snow Leopard.

With the exception of one refusenik who's still clinging on to Tiger (which is a fantastic OS, but I am doing everything in my power to ensure this situation does not persist for much longer...) the office is a Leopard paradise. Credit where credit's due, Leopard has been really great for us - smoothing out some of Tiger's rough-around-the-edges bits and providing very reliable client-server networking.

Now that Snow Leopard 10.6.2 is out, I'm comfortable that enough bugs will have been discovered in the server version (it always takes longer for the lesser-used stuff to get a good testing, especially when most businesses don't jump right on these sorts of upgrades). Hopefully the upgrade process on the server side will be simpler than it was from Tiger -> Leopard, where quite a lot changed and much of Open Directory was broken. With a miracle, it'll be as easy as upgrading regular client Leopard, which is barely more than a regular update.

One thing I am pleased about this time around is Apple's pricing for 10.6 Server Unlimited Client Licence - it's the price of the old 10 client copy. Shockingly, the 10 client copy does actually include some usage restrictions. This could be a one-time affair due to 10.6 being a 'maintenance' release, but hopefully this new pricing structure is here to stay.

Everyone should be pretty happy with the update, though I suppose most people wont notice the difference!

Too many numbers

Ben — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:25:32 GMT

Typically a SIM and a handset can only have one mobile number. As mobile phone 'enthusiasts' typically have many handsets, we also tend to wind up with many numbers.

I've always shied away from porting, as, IMHO, it's a broken system. On the operator side call termination charges are all screwed up, and prefix-routed SMS delivery is also screwed. The result of this is that I have three contracts with 3 different networks.

Ideally I'd be able to use all of these numbers via one device, having full use of each without swapping SIMs etc. Even better would be to retain the ability to be connected to multiple networks at the same time and use the one that works best. Pipe dreams!

Prompted by the impending end to O2's exclusivity of the iPhone, it's time to have a long-overdue number cull. And, shudder, embrace porting at the same time. It'll be my oldest number, from Orange, that I keep - porting to Vodafone either with a new iPhone 3GS or my current one graciously unlocked by O2 (watch this space...).

Having one number for personal and business use could be a bit of a muddle. But when you've got an iPhone you don't want to carry around anything else, so one number it will have to be.

Poor Service

AndrewBrocklehurst — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:13:11 GMT

Thanks Ben for your kind offer to share my terrible 3G experience with your forum members! I recently purchased a 3 mobile dongle and duly proceded through the online top up process, to find after 4 days surfing and no downloading my £10 credit had run out! Confused and frustrated I eventually spoke to a very nice lady in the Indian sub-continent who explained my failure to convert the top up to an add on, hence being charged a highway robbery rate of use, rather than the normal mugging rate of use. Keen to learn from my mistake i wanted to top up my dongle online only to find that my debit card will take 7 days to register (why! - I give you money - debit card simples!!) so the very nice lady suggested my only option was to venture out into the cold, wet, dark evening to but a voucher! Does anyone still do that with over the phone and secure online transactions? Excuse my ignorance but I believed this was going to be really easy, hence my utter disgust at your customer service and my enthusiasm for telling this forum about my experience. My 3 dongle will now be used as a door wedge just to remind me to relate my bad experience to all my friends, family and colleagues. I have looked at reporting this mugging incident to Ofcom but they do not seem interested in mobile broadband communications, little bit like the FSA not being interested in Banks! Please feel free to respond and explain your companies position, then Forum members will be able to judge for themselves about your service delivery, pricing, customer care etc!!! Kind Regards Andrew Brocklehurst

Apple embraces Intel's Desktop Processors

Ben — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:48:13 GMT

Yesterday's new iMac unveiling had something of a surprise with it. For the first time, starting this November, Apple will sell the iMac with a desktop CPU - namely Intel's Core i5 and Core i7.

Now, I don't know a lot about the Core i5, but the Core i7 is the next generation Intel architecture that includes an integrated memory controller and the ability to shutdown some cores and over-clock others, making it the master of both multithreaded and single-threaded performance.

The iMac, having previously only having used laptop CPUs, has always been a 'desktop laptop' in my view. Yes, laptop chips are more than powerful enough for a desktop computer now, but the iMac has always been a little constrained by the choice. Now, then, we have a true Mac desktop. Even if it is still an all-in-one.

A 27" iMac with a Core i7 CPU and up to 16GB of RAM sounds like a very tempting proposition. I'm not in the market just yet... but I can see me buying one of these...

Mobile Handsets - paving the way into 2010

Hands0n — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:31:21 GMT

The past few years have been dominated by one handset above all others, the Apple iPhone. And rightly so, I would contend. The device and it's OS have set the bar at a height that other manufacturers are struggling to reach, and have been since its launch. But the point of this blog is not to recap on history.

As we draw to the end of 2009 I am taken with the recent number of new handsets coming out that are vying for the crown held by the iPhone. Each new iteration of handset seems to be taking the game closer to Apple, but so far no manufacturer has quite made it. And the answer as to why not is quite subtle really. In a word, it is the Experience that no other manufacturer has been able to match, yet.

An iPhone is not simply a handset; it is also an operating system and a cloud network that blends together seamlessly. Everything you do "just works", and does so remarkably well and integrated. Apple have managed to perfect the symbiosis between iPhone, Cloud and Mac or PC like none before it, nor since to date. But the race is hotting up.

Firstly, I have to make a mental note to disregard the Palm Pre. This Cuckoo of a handset is a cheat, in my opinion. While it does sport the remarkable WebOS it simply copies the hardware design any number of other smartphones. But for me the worst element of the Palm Pre is its attempted use of iTunes as its platform to manage media. Arguments rage about this, but at the end of the day iTunes is proprietary Apple, it is offered as such and that is that. Palm would have been better off to make use of Double Twist than playing silly games that will only end up hurting their own customers.

Windows Mobile 6.5 has turned up a few interesting handsets. I personally have never been much of a fan of WM, but the recent Acer neo Touch has made me sit up and pay some attention to this platform. I do not know what they have done to make it function so quick, but it is slicker than a very slick thing. If this is the future for WM on modern and capable hardware then it is in with some chance. And we have to keep an eye on the Redmond giant - they are not going to let Apple get away with all of the spoils. The MS Marketplace for Windows Mobile is due out in November 2009, shortly after WM 6.5, to take on the App Store and Google Market. So Windows Mobile is serious about taking on the competition.

And then we have Google Android which, at the time of writing this blog, has 12 handsets either out or poised to be released any day now. Now this may not be very many, certainly not in comparison to WM. But Android is not a mature OS, manufacturers have been busy maintaining their business while preparing Android handsets to add to their portfolio. But I do believe that we must expect to see Google Android devices grow rapidly in number during 2010. Also, too, there must be an increase in the performance of Android handsets. The OS is very capable but the hardware, and possibly the OS code efficiency, are resulting in handsets that are a bit awkward to use. Most noticeably they can suffer from dreadful lag in use. The HTC Magic is a case in point, delightful but maddening with its OS lags and freezes if you have anything much running in background.

And so into 2010 - the year is destined to be peppered with new devices, using new and improved processors is likely to be key to performance (TI's chipset is showing big performance gains against Qualcomm). New versions of OS are to be expected also. It will be interesting to see if Microsoft change their model to match OS X and Android. Or will they persist with their incumbent model where new versions demand more money, or perhaps completely new handsets also?

I forsee an exciting technological year for those that are into this stuff. It has been fairly quiet for the past two years in that respect. 2010 is a likely to be a great year for a mobile contract to come up for renewal.

Digital Money

Ben — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:49:18 GMT

There's no doubt that digital money is the future of our money system. As we rely increasingly on electronic devices, which are wholly incompatible with physical money, it is entirely logical that the transition to digital money must occur.

Currently almost all of our digital money is managed by private companies, and the balances of digital money, be it a credit or debit, are stored centrally, remotely. This is in stark contrast to physical money, where we can actually hold the credits in our hand and store them locally without relying on a third party.

Having third parties, particularly privately owned organisations, maintaining this data has several drawbacks. One is simply access - a data connection is required to the central storage point in order to make a credit or debit, and if this link is denied then you and I are left high and dry. Another is that private companies need to make profits, and that means introducing a 'charge on money', or an additional tax on money as I like to term it. Like inflation isn't a big enough tax on our cash already. When we pay with physical money in a shop the whole amount goes to the merchant. When we pay with digital money, in the form of credit or debit cards, this is not the case; roughly 1-5% of the value of the transaction is collected as a fee by the various organisations involved in the process.

If banks start charging a regular fee for the use of standard current accounts, digital money will be incurring yet another tax.

What we need then is the ability to store digital money locally. Now, before you laugh in my face, bear in mind that we store physical money locally and that much of it isn't massively difficult to counterfeit. I appreciate that, with digital money, there would be the potential to very quickly counterfeit vast sums of money into existence, but why can't we use technology to develop secure digital money storage devices and repositories?

The portable device could be charged with digital money and then used to pay merchants directly, both online and off. Charging would need to take place via a link, still, but it could be done both online and off via banks, rather than large single entities such as Visa, directly from (ideally) free standard current accounts. A certain amount of digital money could be stored on a larger, 'safe like' repository in the home.

The portable device could contain a rudimentary display and numeric pad for displaying the balance of of digital money on the device and for PIN verification in order to release funds.

If you lose your device, or if it breaks, then just like physical money the value would be gone. That's a major issue in terms of breakage, but if the devices are reliable enough then this could be acceptable to consumers - especially if recovered or broken devices could be taken into a bank to be returned to their owner/have the digital money recovered.

An actual device would likely be obsoleted by integration into mobile phones if the level of security can be guaranteed.

As has been clearly seen to date, the incumbent organisations that deal with digital money are not prepared for the digital age. Verified by Visa and Mastercard Securecode are a disgrace, offering a modest amount of additional security (perhaps only by obscurity) while burdening the consumer with huge additional liabilities (though Chip & Pin transfers a lot of liability to you and I also). Prepaid cards are now coming of age, but again these require us to deposit our digital money into a central store, where access is controlled by third parties and merchants foot the bill.

What I would like to see is a body such as the Bank of England proposing new digital money concepts. This could be true of all central banks where they are publicly owned. So not the Fed, which, I believe, is a private organisation - how this is possible defies belief but there you go. It is the responsibility of the Central Banks to ensure that we have guaranteed access to our money, and that it is available to us directly - not at the whim of private companies who have become the gatekeepers to a new, cashless world.

Mobiles vs Networks - it's all-change

Ben — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 11:22:36 GMT

There's no doubt in my mind that smartphones have reached the stage in their development where they're taking over as the primary computing and Internet access vessel for some users. I know two people now who have 'survived' for several days (or more) using just their smartphone and I find that quite incredible. The iPhone is so good that even I could probably survive one quiet day without having to whip out the laptop.

This is a critical turning point for mobile, and a massive change in how we live and work with computers and, in turn, each other.

While terminals are finally catching up to the promise of 3G and the mobile Internet (with the exception of the iPhone, which is way out in front, still), our mobile networks are not doing so well. Being limited to GSM is still a factor for many as they move around, particularly for iPhone users who are attached to O2's network of documented (by OFCOM) low levels of 3G coverage, and at the moment I'm struggling to even get GSM coverage in one location despite those infamous web maps suggesting it should be there.

This is a severe bottleneck. Smartphones need to empower all of us, not just those confined to cities that are saturated with a myriad of access points and technologies including WiFi. The real potential of the mobile networks is to bring high speed data to everyone with minimal cost, and I believe that any new spectrum released or reallocated by OFCOM must include provisions to mandate geographic coverage and not just population coverage.

AT&T have started deploying 3G in 850MHz and I think their customers will notice a significant improvement. Unfortunately the iPhone doesn't support 3G in the 900MHz band, which is likely where it will be placed in the UK within the next few years, and so owners of that device, like many others, wont see any improvement unless rollout continues in the 2100MHz band also.

Unfortunately it feels like the mobile networks may now be waiting to exploit other bands, like 900MHz, for 3G, and are so delaying further rollout plans until the regulatory dust settles.

So the device and mobile OS vendors have finally got their collective act together, with even Microsoft having two revisions of its mobile OS in the works for release within the next 12 months. Now it's time for the mobile networks to respond to the rapidly increasing demand for mobile data and fill out their networks accordingly. Stop being so bloody tight and build out accordingly - it'll be the players that didn't invest that will be left behind, not the ones that did. Do you honestly thing technology is going to pull away from cellular data and leave you high and dry within the next 10 years? No, it's not, so get your act together or you'll end up pushing it away.

O2: I know you've gotten to where you are today largely by underinvestment after inheriting a network largely created by BT. Cheap SIM only deals and text-rich plans won the day for you, coupled with subsidised mid-range phones and great upgrade deals. But now you're taking on multiple high-end smartphones on an exclusive basis, and if you think your network can cope then you're so, so wrong.

Technology aside

Ben — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:00:13 GMT

There are some great social technologies available to us today. Twitter and Facebook are particularly compelling, with Twitter in particular proving popular amongst Talk3G users thanks, at least in part, to the canny iPhone apps available for it.

But once you've Chirped to your Facespace and been labelled in some blurry phone Picasso it does rather beg the question of what these technologies are actually enabling.

Twitter has the interesting trends feature which, when working, shows the words/topics receiving most discussion. This is interesting, but not really that useful to you and me. It's probably useful to news editors, because unlike just seeing web-stats of what stories are proving popular they can actually see what stories people want to and are discussing.

Twitter's primary 'use', however, is really about gleaming little extracts from a person/organisation that you or I are interested in. A modern-day, moderated Big Brother that anyone can be involved in. Anyone following me, for example, will now know that I detest people who insist on depositing their gum in the middle of the street. This knowledge, it could be said, has very limited use to anybody. However, fans of Stephen Fry, and he has many more than I do, will probably find his facts and observations useful or, at least, entertaining.

No, I'm not a fan of other peoples kids when they're forced under my nose, either.

By the way, Stephen Fry follows 54,619 people/organisations at the time of writing, which surely renders Twitter completely hopeless because there's no way he could ever read all of those status updates.

As for Facebook, well, that's a lot less quirky and that does reduce its appeal somewhat. However, the rich features mean it's probably of more use - I mean, for planning events and keeping in touch with spread-out friends it's pretty damn good. Status updates are a little bit fluffy, but it brings that Twitter-esque 'quality' and keeps things fresh, even if most of the updates, including my own, are purely time-sinks.

Facebook remains, primarily, a lingering record of embarrassing photos and videos.

What we're left with is a new type of "community". A pseudo-community, where the participants need never to have even met each other. One has to wonder if these weak links, forged easily and hastily, actually have any value, or, indeed, whether the virtual links with existing friends act to bolster or erode those friendships. Time will tell.

Enthusiasts and the iPhone

Ben — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 23:28:30 GMT

A problem with the iPhone, through no fault of its own, is that it doesn't offer much to enthusiasts to keep them interested.

I used to fall into the enthusiast category for mobile phones until the iPhone came along. Unfortunately it has rather integrated itself into my day to day world so I couldn't really get rid of it now even if I wanted to!

For others, where the iPhone hasn't become so depended upon, the sheer simplicity of the UI and lack of customisation options are going to result in boredom. I used to get a new phone every few months, trust me, I know the feeling. This doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with the iPhone, though, it just means that some of us always want to be sampling the latest developments and a yearly release schedule is never going to satisfy that.

I used to keep two phones on the go, personal and business, to always be sampling the bleeding-edge. Now I've gone to just the one, the iPhone, I don't think I'll be going back - but to other enthusiasts, a two-phone approach may just be the best solution.