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iPhone 3GS

Mike Evans
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THE S stands for "speed" and this is the new version of the iPhone. Silly name and a disappointment (MacOldie favoured iPhone Pro) but let's hope the reality is worth waiting for. There will be no front camera and the appearance of the phone will be more or less the same as the current phone. However, the "insides are all new". New features are:

  • Faster processor 

  • 3 megapixel autofocus camera with tap-to-focus

  • Video recording 

  • Voice control 

  • Digital compass (with new compass app)

  • Data encryption (surprise here…) 

  • Improved battery life (up to 9 hours surfing, 5 hours 3G talktime) 

And the price? $199 for the 16GB model in the US, presumably with a long contract from AT&T. The new 32GB size will be $299. The existing iPhone 8GB will continue at $99. The new iPhone 3GS will be available in eight countries (including the UK) on June 19. Many more countries will be added before the end of the summer. 

iPhone 3.0 OS available June 17

Mike Evans
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THE NEW updated operating system for the iPhone will be available for download free from the morning of June 17. iPod Touch users will be asked to pay $9.99.

London Mac Users’ Group in session

Mike Evans
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THE MONTHLY meeting of the London Mac Users' Group this evening coincides nicely with the WWDC opening in San Francisco. Almost all LMUG members are now sitting in the basement meeting room of the Hobgoblin pub in Balcombe Street, Marylebone, with their MacBooks on the table in front of them. Thanks to the Group's free wifi, we are all getting a blow-by-blow update of Phil Schiller's conference-opening speech. With all the rumours that abound before an Apple conference we tend to think we know what is about to be announced. This time, however, there are a number of surprises coming up, including the upgraded MacBook Pro range and a clear September date for the release of Snow Leopard. This, incidentally will be launched at a very attractive price of $29 or $49 for the family pack.

Remote clear for iPhone

Mike Evans
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HERE'S A SURPRISE new feature of iPhone 3.0 OS–the ability to remote wipe a stolen or lost iPhone. All data will be cleared so the thief will have no access to your private data. If the phone is subsequently found, all data can be recovered by a restore from iTunes. Very useful.

Tethering comes to the iPhone

Mike Evans
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AMONG the slew of new features in the forthcoming iPhone 3.0 OS is tethering–the ability to access the internet on a laptop by connecting through the 3G modem in the phone. While AT&T will not be offering this in the States just yet, it looks as though it is going to be available here in the UK on O2. This is an important benefit for those laptop owners who don't subscribe to a separate 3G data card. For all users it is likely to work out cheaper by using one data contract for both phone and computer. We shall have to see if carriers such as O2 want to charge extra for tethering before we can be sure it is a good deal, particularly since unlimited data is available via a 3G card for as little as £10 a month here in the UK. 

MacBook Pro updates slip through net

Mike Evans
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THERE ARE always surprises at WWDC but news of the upgraded MacBooks came right at the beginning and it seems that the rumours hadn't got this one. Faster processors, much better battery life, an SD slot, RAM up to 8GB and improved displays. All this adds up to a significant improvement for the range. A gnashing of MacOldie dentures here: A 15in MBP had joined the stable only six months ago. At least the rumours had one thing right–the aluminium MacBook is to be known henceforth as the 13-in MacBook Pro.

iPhone Pro

Mike Evans
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WHAT'S IN A NAME? Many suggestions have been made for a name of the new iPhone to be launched later today. MacOldie favours "iPhone Pro" rather than the suggested iPhone Video or iPhone 3GS. It sounds right, it follows the MacBook naming convention and it will appeal to the business user. The entry level phone, probably essentially the existing model with 4 or 8GB, can remain as the iPhone. Eventually, however, this is likely to be replaced by a smaller, cheaper iPhone–the Nano?

WWDC dawns: rumours swirl

Mike Evans
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TODAY'S THE DAY when we get some facts after all the rumours of recent months. The Apple World Wide Developer Conference kicks off late this afternoon (London time) and Mac fans will be following the news live on sites such as MacRumors and MacWorld. MacRumors, as usual, has provided an excellent roundup of all the tips from dozens of sources and it seems clear that the new third-generation iPhone will be the focus of attention.

The new phone is tipped to use the ARM Cortex processor running at a "disproportionally higher speed" than the current 400 MHz offering (said to be 600 MHz). Graphics chips licensed from the UK's Imagination Technologies will allow the iPhone to take advantage of more advanced 3D graphics. The current iPhone uses the fourth generation IT chip but the 5th generation is now available and is likely to be used in the new phone. A few months ago Apple bought a significant stake in Imagination Technologies and MacOldie squirrelled away a few shares against a rainy day. 

Other expected features are a magnetometer, an auto-focus 3.2 megapixel camera, video recording capability, models from 4G to 32G (with the possibility of the lower-end models being marketed as iPhone Mini/Nano at bargain prices) and 7.2 Mbps 3G data. This latter enhancement will be of great interest in those countries (including Britain) where faster mobile broadband speeds are becoming available.

The new iPhone will almost certainly retain the same physical dimensions and general appearance of the existing model. Suggestions have been made that the headphone jack will move to the bottom and that there will be a camera button on the bottom left-hand side of the case. But overall this will be an incremental update. It will be enough to encourage 1st generation iPhone users to stick with the brand in the face of the Palm Pre but it is unlikely to be a must-have for owners of 2nd generation phones. 

MacRumors believes that there will be little new in the laptop market, despite strong hints that the unibody aluminium range will all be designated as MacBook Pros, leaving the white entry-level model as the only MacBook. Of greater interest, there are indications that the much discussed MacBook tablet is in existence but will not be announced this week. 

Also, we must not forget that the new iPhone OS 3.0, which has been in semi-public beta for some months, is due for release. We're hoping it comes today because the additional features, including cut-and-paste, are sorely needed. This OS update is essential because it will give existing iPhone owners many of the features of the new 3rd generation phone and will keep them sweet until they have the cash or the contract-opportunity to buy the new model.

Back from the dead

Mike Evans
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IT FINALLY HAPPENED. After nine months of not opening a real, dead-tree book, MacOldie finally succumbed to the lure of a book review in last Sunday's press. "It's Paradise: My Life in North Korea" by Hyok Kang is an intriguing glimpse of everyday life in the socialist paradise presided over by the world's only dead head of state, Kim Il-Sung who popped his clogs in 1994. Now this is a book that is unlikely to appear in electronic form in the near future and it was not to be resisted. Yet it highlights the fundamental problem with the current ebook market: limited choice. 

Over the past nine months MacOldie has been ferreting around among Waterstones' limited ebook library and has been kept more or less fully entertained. But some publishers are entirely missing, some authors are absent and unlikely to appear. To add insult, most of the ebooks are more expensive than the paper versions sitting in the bookshops or advertised on the same web site.

This has to change, and it will change. Just look at the music market. CDs are on their last gasp and downloading of music is now the norm. So it will be with books and newspapers; it's just a matter of time. 

While we are waiting, here's an entertaining example of a maths conundrum from a North Korean textbook. This educational tome is definitely not available in ebook format:

"The people's army, after a battle against the armies of the American imperialist dogs and the South Korean puppets, took 15,130 soldiers prisoner. Among them were 1,130 more American bastards than South Korean puppets. How many American dogs and South Korean puppets were there?

Answers on a postcard, please, to Respected Great Leader and Head of State, Kim Il-Sung Deceased, c/o Dear Leader Kim Jong-Il, Pyongyang. Get it in quick because the Dear Leader himself is preparing to join the Great Leader in celestial retirement. Swiss-educated designated successor Kim Jong-Un would no doubt know the answer already.

O2 contracts and free wifi

Mike Evans
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By Michael Evans

Apple_iPhone8GbBlk_main SATISFACTION with my iPhone has been matched by my regard for the UK's chosen carrier, O2 Telefonica. I came to O2 from T-Mobile simply because I bought an iPhone. I was quite happy with T-Mobile, but I have to say that I am quite happy with O2 and the service they provide for the Apple phone. For £34.26 a month I get 600 minutes, 500 texts and "unlimited data", more than I ever need. I suspect there must be some form of fair usage policy on the data, but I have never used enough to know. Despite hefty web browsing and energetic emailing (but little watching of U-Tube videos, I admit) I have used only 400 MB of data in two months. All in all, you get a lot of functionality for very little data.
Undoubtedly, though, the low cellular data use owes a lot to the free wifi services that O2 include with the iPhone bundle. This consists of BT OpenZone and The Cloud, two of the leading wifi hotspot providers in the UK. If I leave wifi switched on (which I don't do all the time to conserve battery power) I am constantly finding myself logged on to wifi. Many coffee shops and businesses offer one or other of the two services and I find that there are public BT hotspots all over the place. Even sitting on the top deck of a No. 94 in Oxford Street I find myself going in and out of BT zones as the bus inches its way to Marble Arch.
This is good for the iPhone user of course. But remember it is even better for O2 because every megabyte of data drawn from a hotspot is a megabyte for which O2 don't have to provide cellular bandwidth. They have no doubt done good deals with the hotspot companies and the result must be a dramatic reduction of data usage on their "unlimited" plans.
It is very fortunate that these wifi opportunities are built into the contract because my subjective view is that 3G availability is not as extensive on O2 as it is on rival networks (in particular on Vodafone). I spend a lot of time looking at the E symbol rather than the 3G and, many times, I have to put up with the dreaded circle, signifying 2G slow coverage. Whatever the situation, we are now so much better off in terms of mobile internet access than we were even twelve months ago.

Ruminations on an iPhone theme

Mike Evans
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By Michael Evans

WHILE waiting for the clutch of announcements this weekend, I've been ruminating on my experience with the iPhone 3G and wondering if I could ever be tempted to try a Pre. I have to ask myself what I don't like about the iPhone. And the answer is not much. In the past I've wrestled with Windows Mobile, Symbian on Sony Ericsson smartphones and, even, the Palm Treo running the old Palm OS. I really hated Windows Mobile for its unreliability, fiddly interface and frequent crashes. In many ways I preferred the Palm OS Treo to the later WinMob Treo.

In contrast, the iPhone has been a revelation and it is my constant companion. It is reliable, intuitive, easy to use. If you overlook the lack of cut-and-paste (to be rectified next Monday) I have been totally happy with the iPhone over the past 11 months.  I cannot say this about any previous phone or PDA that I've owned over a number of years. I use my iPhone more for web browsing, email and applications than I do for making phone calls. But even as a phone, the Apple offering is streets ahead of, say, Windows Mobile devices. It just works.

The Apps Store and the thousands of wonderful (and cheap) applications are just icing on the cake as far as I am concerned. Several, such as OmniFocus, Currency, Bloomberg, PocketMoney, Skype and Momo, are my constant daily companions. It is difficult to see how Palm and even RIM with the BlackBerry can ever catch up with Apple in terms of scope, choice and ease of App Store use. 

While penning these thoughts I was directed by MacWorld to an excellent article from InfoWorld by Galen Gruman. His detailed analysis, Deathmatch: BlackBerry versus iPhone, does a comprehensive assassination of RIM's still-popular phones. Many of his comments remind me of why I never got past the first post with the BlackBerrys I've tried. Final comment from the article says it all:

"….the BlackBerry is yesterday’s mobile messenger, way past its prime and heading toward retirement. The iPhone is light-years ahead of the BlackBerry on almost every count. RIM should be ashamed."

June 1: Phone wars hotting up

Mike Evans
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Palmpre15 WE ARE now into the week before the week of revelation. It's pre-Pre week and also pre-Apple WDC week and the rumours are now turning into facts. Look at this Boy Genius review of the Palm Pre and you'll get a good idea of what is coming on D-Day. While Nik Sarkozy and Barak O are making sand castles on the Normany beaches (with Gordo Brown buried up to his neck in seaweed), Palm are introducing the much-hyped Pre. If Boy Genius is to be believed, there are some flaws in this resurrection of the Palm brand. Noticeably, the physical keyboard is not as good as RIM can produce for the BlackBerry and not as quick as Apple's soft keyboard. And, while the screen is rated as excellent, the build quality gets a definite thumbs down. 

Recently we've seen a number of commentators taking the view that physical keyboards on phones are dead in the water. Most BlackBerry users swear by the keyboard and we've often had misgivings about even the best-of-the-bunch Apple soft keyboard. But it is a fact that a physical keyboard takes up space and increases the depth of the phone. Either it is on the front of the phone, as with BlackBerry, and results in a smaller screen, or it slides out, Pre-style, and increases the depth. We've never been a great fan of sliding keyboards because they emphasise any shortcomings in build quality. The iPhone, by contrast, is rock-solid with its glass screen and faultless build. It's a thing of beauty, tactile and pleasing. 

Palm clearly want to Pre-empt the launch of the new third-generation iPhone at the Apple WDC in San Francisco next Monday. Again, the rumours are firming up and it looks like we will see an improved phone but in the same form factor as the current iPhone and with a virtually identical appearance. Some commentators have suggested a matte rear case and, possibly, a metallic black or grey bezel. What is generally accepted, is that the camera will be uprated to 3.2 megapixels and will have auto-focus (particularly useful for copying bills for import into expense apps and storage apps such as Evernote. The lack of an auto-focus camera has held back this market.

We are also expecting a faster processor, battery battery life, MMS messaging and background running of selected applications (such as messaging apps where you need notification of incoming traffic). Apple have already told us they will not implement full multi-tasking because of the effect on battery life. It will be interesting to see what the Palm's battery life is like in view of multi-tasking availability on their Web OS system.

Whatever the shape and scope of the 3rd generation iPhone, it is already certain that many of the software improvements will be available for existing users. No one expects the new iPhone to be in retail stores next week, but the launch should whet appetites and prevent many original iPhone users from stopping their AT&T contracts: something that Apple fears and Palm is hoping for. 

Palm Pre in D-Day beachhead

Mike Evans
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Pre_hero_dialpad AS PREDICTED last week, the Palm Pre is to be launched before the Apple Worldwide Developers' Conference. It will be debut on Saturday, June 6, two days before Apple's expected announcement of iPhone updates. Priced from $200, the new Pre will be limited to the US market initially. 

There has clearly been intense pressure on Palm to launch the phone before Apple's conference and the company hope to take advantage of the marketing opportunity created by the expiration of the first batch of two-year-old AT&T contracts. It remains to be seen how many iPhone users, most of whom have invested time and money into building up their application libraries, will be prepared to ditch Apple and try a new platform. 

The majority of iPhone users who are also Mac owners will probably stay with the Apple OS for reasons of compatibility. But Windows users who have bought iPhones could well be tempted by Palm's innovative offering.

The choice of June 6, D-Day, for the introduction of the Pre could be significant and, probably, the coincidence has been overlooked by Palm in the haste to get in first before Apple. It will be interesting to see whether this will be a D-Day for Palm or for Apple.

The impending Pre launch is the first piece in the June phone-wars jigsaw. While we know that the iPhone 3.0 software will be announced on June 8, the appearance of the new updated iPhone hardware is less certain. There will certainly be pressure on Apple to bring forward the announcement. Meanwhile, no news from Microsoft and Zune.

Decline and fall of the bookish empire

Mike Evans
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Banner_main NOT ONLY newspaper publishers are finding it difficult to make ends meet these days. Book shops are closing down in ever-increasing numbers. London's Charing Cross Road, internationally famous for specialist new and second-hand bookstores, is now under pressure. One of the latest casualties is the crime-only Murder One store that was a browser's pleasure. Even though electronic e-book readers represent only a tiny percentage of the reading market, the main pressure seems to be coming from on-line booksellers, in particular from Amazon.

In many ways this is a pity. 84 Charing Cross Road, the hugely successful 1970 book by Helene Hanff epitomised the lure of the specialist bookstore. Now all this glory is waning. Perhaps fittingly, Charing Cross Road is the southern extension of Tottenham Court Road. TCR is sells computer, audio visual and smartphones. It is thriving.  South of Oxford Street, CXR was always bookland but is now sadly shrinking. It is a fitting analogy for the victory of technology.

But Blackwell's in Charing Cross Road have now launched the Espresso Book Machine (EBM) which will print off a paperback book in about 20 minutes. Presumably this idea, if successful, would enable booksellers to concentrate smaller stores on more popular books while relegating less popular and specialist titles to the Espresso machine. Good try, Blackwell's, but this is surely a rearguard action doomed to failure. 

Electronic book readers may still be a tiny part of the market, but they are clearly the future. Printed books will become curiosities. Because they are nice curiosities and look good on shelves, they will make a better job of surviving than the audio cassette, the CD or the DVD. Who could have predicted five years ago that electronic music downloads would be sweeping the world? Record shops are closing even faster than bookstores.

Dead-tree books and newspapers will be eclipsed within the next five years as the pace of technological advance increases month by month. This article in today's Times by Nicholas Clee heaps more books on the bonfire.

June rumour mill

Mike Evans
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NEXT MONTH is shaping up to be a major period for upgrades and new announcements. The Apple World Developers' Conference starting in San Francisco on June 8 is always a big event for Mac fans. This year it is generally accepted that we will see the launch of the new iPhone 3.0 operating system. This brings a number of long-anticipated improvements for existing iPhone users, including cut and paste. There are strong signs, too, that an updated iPhone 3G will be introduced. The consensus is that the physical dimensions will be the same as the existing model, but there will be a raft of detail improvements, including a 3 MP camera with automatic focus (instead of fixed focus) and a faster processor.

On the wider Mac front there are persistent rumours of some form of tablet or netbook computer pitched midway between the iPhone and the MacBook. Apple have already said they will not introduce a low-cost netbook, but bets are being taken on a Kindle-sized touch-screen device which could double as an ebook reader. One thing we can be sure of is that it will not be cheap. However, any announcement at the WDC is unlikely and it seems any such device is still months away.

Much interest lies in the wider phone market. Palm are due to introduce their new Pre iPhone slayer and current indications are that this launch will take place on June 7, one day before Apple's announcements, in an attempt to steal the initiative. There is no doubt that the Pre's specification and early demo models have won fans and it will be interesting to see whether the phone really will be an iPhone killer. This is surely a last-gasp for Palm and they desperately need the Pre to be successful.

Timing is crucial for Palm and Apple because June marks the end of the first batch of two-year service contracts signed with AT&T at the launch of the first iPhone in the USA in 2007. These early adopters will be looking to upgrade and much will depend on whether they decide to stay with the (much improved) iPhone or take a chance on the Pre. For this reason alone, Palm must announce in June or risk losing the advantage.

There has been renewed gossip about a new Zune device from Microsoft. Some commentators have urged potential buyers not to get an iPhone or a Pre until they have seen what Zune has to offer in June. This is particularly interesting because, of course, the Zune is an iPod competitor and a Zune phone had been seen as likely. A major problem for Microsoft is that a Zune phone would have to offer a new operating system if it is to have a hope of tackling Apple and Palm on equal ground. But a new operating system would mean annoying, perhaps fatally, existing partners using the Windows Mobile OS. It is difficult to see what room Microsoft has to manoeuvre in this tight market. 

By the end of June we will have answers to several of these questions. In particularly, we will have a good idea whether the Palm Pre is the next big thing or a busted flush. 

So far we have one sure fact about the Apple WDC: Steve Jobs will not be making the keynote presentation. He was due back at Apple in June and most commentators had hoped for a grand return at the conference. Instead, the conference will be a joint effort by senior Apple bosses. The stock market reacted negatively to the news that Jobs would not appear. The Apple Inc price is extremely sensitive to news of Jobs' health and his absence will no doubt take away some of the gloss from the new announcements. 

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