PALM have been getting loads of coverage for their imminent Pre iPhone beater. I've read many of the stories and reviews of pilot units, but I did not realise some of the limitations of the Pre–in particular that it does not work on GSM networks and will not work outside the USA. As far as I can remember, this hasn't been mentioned in the publicity so far. This morning Engadget published an alleged leaked document from AT&T which compares the Pre (unfavourably of course) with the iPhone. It's a compelling list and has removed much of the interest in the Pre as far as I am concerned. It looks as though they have a long way to go to match Apple on this front, even if they eventually bring out an international version.
EU acts on data roaming charges
AS PREDICTED by MacOldie yesterday, data roaming charges within the EU are to be capped from July 1. From that date the "wholesale" charge (that charged by the remote network to the home network) must be no more than one euro per megabyte of data. However, I see that the cap is €1.68 even at the moment when some operators charge up to €10 a megabyte (€10,000 a gigabyte). So we cannot expect roaming charges to drop to anywhere near the wholesale price unless there is sustained pressure on operators and on EU Telecoms Commissioner, Viviane Reding.
There is some actual good news: the roaming charge for text messages must be no more than 11 euro cents (14 US cents) from July 1. This is the consumer price, rather than the wholesale price, so that is the maximum European subscribers will pay.
Commenting on the new measures, Reding said: "Using your mobile phone abroad in the EU should not cost unjustifiably more than at home, whether for making calls, sending texts or surfing the Web." She went on, "Europe's 37 millions tourists and 110 million business travellers are waiting for the promise of the borderless single market to finally have a positive impact on their phone bills.
The GSM Association, which represents major mobile operators, has said the latest measures were unnecessary and that data prices were already falling. Well, they would, wouldn't they and they aren't, aren't they? With current charges of up to €10,000 euros per gigabyte they are proving that this assertion is nonsense; they are doing very nicely, thank you, on the backs of the poor European consumer.
Every reduction in data roaming charges had been forced through, cent by bloody cent, against the active opposition of the telecoms operators. Charges are still far too high and will remain too high. Even at the consumer price of €1 per megabyte they would still be too high as far as MacOldie is concerned.
Download volumes are rising all the time as applications and data use up more space. Even €1,000 per gigabyte (at the proposed "wholesale" price) is usurious and it wholly unacceptable by the consumer. Anyone who downloads a movie or television drama episode while sunning on the beach still faces a bill of over €10,000 for the privilege. Mme Reding please note: MacOldie is watching you.
Switching: the business perspective
INTERESTING article here on MacWorld by Michael Schneider (in turn reprinted from PC World). The piece charts his company's migration from PC to Mac and provides a number of interesting points about switching from a business perspective. The item also includes a number of useful links for anyone contemplating the move to OS X.
Botnets shun the Mac
THIS MORNING'S BBC news item on the Ukrainian botnet reports that almost two million computers worldwide had been recruited by the criminals. Some of these compromised computers were inside Government departments in the UK and USA. However, there is one telling snippet. According to the BBC:
"All of the infected machines were Windows-based PCs and the vulnerability was targeting security holes in Internet Explorer and Firefox."
Almost half of the infected machines were in the US and six percent were in the UK, including a single computer at the BBC!
Lest we feel too smug, have a listen to Rich Mogull on MacVoices discussing the fact and fiction of Mac botnet infections.
Billion apps on target
WE'RE INDEBTED to TechChrunch for news that the App Store will clock up one billion downloads sometime later today (April 22). The time target appears to be moving a bit, depending on the rates of download, but the best current estimate is that it will happen in the very early hours of the morning Pacific Time. That means it should happen early evening here in Greece. By any standards this is a wonderful success for Apple and just underlines the popularity of the iPhone throughout the world.
Apple’s iPhone locking policy
I'VE ALWAYS hated the locking of mobile phones to one carrier. Sure, in many countries, particularly the UK, locked phones supplied under a contract can be extremely cheap. And unlocking of the average phone is simple and costs peanuts; so there are some arguments in favour of locking.
But with the iPhone we have the worst of all worlds in many countries, including the USA and UK. The locked phone is supplied at a discount, as you would expect when signing a 12, 18 or even 24-month contract. Unlike other phones, though, the iPhone cannot be unlocked–unless it is jailbroken, which is not for everyone. More annoyingly, Apple have one chosen partner in every country. While I have been very happy with my O2 contract in Britain and with Vodafone in Greece, I would have liked a choice of carrier. Many would-be iPhone users are put off because they want to stay with their current supplier.
With the new iPhone expected mid-year (and the new 3.0 software certain for June) I've got to thinking about the iniquities of the exclusive deals that Apple have made throughout the world. Apple can claim with some justification that they have chosen partners that can provide reliable and universal 3G coverage, but I suspect the main reason for the system is the financial benefit that Apple gets from signing these exclusive deals. In my view it was wrong for a consumer-oriented company such as Apple to go down this route.
In several European countries, France and Greece to my knowledge, locking of phones is either illegal or not normal. So, for instance, I get an unlocked iPhone from Vodafone (official Apple partner) in Greece and I can use this anywhere in the world with a local SIM card. I routinely use my O2 SIM in this phone when I am in the UK. Meanwhile, I have a completely unused (but locked) iPhone which was supplied under the O2 contract. I paid £150 for this phone and this was a complete waste of money.
The fact that I have to have two separate contracts is also a scandal, but this time the finger points at the cellular phone networks rather than at Apple. Roaming charges are exorbitant and, in my case for instance, I could not rely entirely on roaming because I spend large chunks of the year abroad. Hence, I need two separate contracts. I pay a total of £80 combined ($116, €90) a month for my UK and Greek contracts which give me unlimited (fair usage) data downloads and an adequate number of voice minutes and SMS messages. This is probably not expensive, but it would be nice to have only one number and fair roaming charges on one contract.
I foresee a time when the whole of Europe will be regarded as one area for cellular network purposes. It is geographically smaller than the United States, for instance, yet roaming charges are a fact of life for many Europeans. Those living close to borders–sometimes borders that run through the middle of a town–have to be very careful they don't inadvertently rack up data roaming charges of up to €10 per megabyte or a staggering €10,000 a gigabyte. Thankfully, the EU is doing something about this and caps will be placed on roaming charges. Not before time.
CPT, the Cassette-Powered Tinosaur
by Paul W. Evans
The all-female staff of the CPT London headquarters were fanatics. They believed implicitly in the future of their system and any mention of PCs or "personal" word processors was accompanied by brays of utter scorn. I swear they had a regular happy-clappy collective experience every morning, including singing the CPT company anthem. I entered the fray as an experienced user of WordStar, then the leading PC-based word-processor, so I had a clear benchmark. The massive and massively expensive new CPT on my desk left a lot to be desired as I soon found out.
It did have some attractive features, mainly the paper-white on-end portrait screen that faithfully mimicked a sheet of paper. At the time, most PC displays had blurry white-on-black or green-on-back displays and were usually square and no bigger than 12 inches. The CPT screen was magnificent in comparison, and the on-screen copy was as near WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) as could be in pre-Windows or Apple Lisa days. But there the good experience ended.
The massive 8-in floppy disks stored very little, as I remember, and the method of constructing documents relied on a strange, already archaic one-page-per-file system. It was just about acceptable for a single-page letter, but any multi-page documents required endless fiddling, especially if large amounts of text were inserted or deleted. I did hear that experienced users found it all very easy and Government departments and many large companies relied exclusively on CPT. I suspect, though, that the enthusiasts had come straight from typewriter to CPT and had not experienced the relative freedom of a good PC-based word processor.
I never once managed to produce a reasonable report on the CPT and soon lost whatever enthusiasm I had gained on first acquaintance. I realised that WordStar, primitive as it was, was years ahead of the CPT in all but on-screen display.
Nevertheless, the ladies of CPT saw no writing on the wall and continued promoting their square-earth philosophy for more than another decade.
My relationship with CPT ended fairly abruptly and I cannot now remember whether I was given the boot or the other way round. I suppose my lack of enthusiasm must have been obvious. It was a great relief to have the CPT equipment collected and to continue with my tried-and-trusted WordStar.
Saving the world with the TRS-80
Thirty years ago today MacOldie Corporation acquired its very first computer. The Tandy (Radio Shack) TRS80 had 8KB of RAM and a cassette input device. Hopes were cherished that this rather neat little box would handle all the MacOldie Corp. accounts, compose and print letters and reports and even make the tea.
Such hopes were very soon dashed, not surprisingly with 20:20 hindsight, and the little computer proved utterly useless for business purposes, although it was well regarded by the hobbyist and still has a strong following. It languished in the cupboard and an electronic single-line display typewriter was purchased from Olivetti. This had a fiendlishly difficult method of viewing and correcting documents and proved to be short lived.
Then along came the Superbrain, a one-piece terminal-style unit in a cowl that would not have been out of place on the Starship Enterprise. This, with it's twin 5.25in floppy disks and a tad more memory, proved an altogether more useful asset. The introduction to Superbrain came from a small north-London company peddling accounting software and MacOldie, who always had a penchant for mechanisation of the bean counting, soon had a reliable and serviceable business system. Letters and reports were rattled off on WordStar and clients began receiving personally-addressed mail-merged letters, the wonder of the age.
No looking back from then for an increasingly digitised MacOldie. Soon the Superbrains were replaced with Apricots, still running the CPM operating system, then came the first Dells with MSDOS. WordStar, the early-80's word processor of choice was ditched in favour of Microsoft Word, pre Windows of course. Windows provided a real breakthrough in useability and served MacOldie Enterprises well for many a year.
Pretty soon MacOldie got to worrying about data security (as he was to do on and off for the next thirty years) and a decision was made to acquire a hard disk. This came in a substantial metal enclosure and stored a massive five megabytes of data. It cost a fortune and, today, it would just about hold one medium-size photo from Aunt Flora MacOldie's digital camera.
So it was a very experienced Windows user who finally converted to Macdom in 2005, 25 years after the first byte was bitten. The speed of development has continued to accelerate throughout the past 30 years of the personal computer and these days we take a massive leap forward every year, particularly in terms of memory and storage. In those early days 5MB was an inconceivably large amount of spare disk; now we are on the verge of ditching the gigabyte in favour of the terabyte and the fabled petabyte is on the horizon. Of course, everything we use–operating systems, programs, data–get bigger in line with the increased memory and storage so we are still sometimes scrambling for RAM or disk storage.
Windows switchers start here
by Giorgos Simonides
There is no end of advice out there for the switcher who wants to try a Mac in order to see if it beats Windows. But I was highly impressed by the article by Preston Gralla of Computerworld published this week on MacWorld's web site. Preston Gralla, as I learned, is a die-hard PC fan who has often come under attack from Macistas for his fervid support of the Seattle OS. Now, though, he has written about his experience of giving up his PC and living for two weeks with a Mac.
The result, surprisingly for PC fans, is strongly in favour of the OS X operating system which he reckons beats all current versions of Windows. In getting to this verdict, though, he went through a number of hoops that will be of interest to any Windows users who fancy changing to Mac. The whole process is relatively simple, as Preston says, and the result is well worth the effort of learning some new ways.
He also installed a virtual PC machine within his Mac. For economy he chose the free Virtual Box from Sun, although he could have gone for the more mainstream (paid) options of either Parallels Desktop or VM Ware's Fusion. Whichever you choose, you have the ability to run Windows within the Mac OS, in a window or full screen, with very few compromises.
For some strange reason, the Mac he was presented with was the Air. He loved it (and has now gone on to buy one because he reckons it is so lustworthy) but the Air does have one or two quirks and compromises. While I think he would have done better with a MacBook, he liked the Air so well and didn't dock any marks from the overall Mac experience.
If you are thinking of switching, you must read this article before doing anything else.
i-Doodz for your own avatar
Regular readers will know that MacOldie is far too ancient to be turned on by computer games. He's made of far more serious stuff than that. However, one little fun application for the iPhone has got the MacO juices running. That's i-Doodz which was used to create that nice picture of Fergus MacOldie clutching his iPhone in front of his iMac.
The Doodz are a couple of British guys, one an artist and one a computer nut, who put their talents together to produce a handy little application which enables users to create their own avatar. It is a good illustration of the way in which many entrepreneurs have taken advantage of the billion-download iPhone Apps Store.
When you open i-Doodz you're presented with a selection of chubby naked bodies on to which you hang shoes, hair, underwear, tops, pants, hats and accessories. This is a really fun application and actually has a useful purpose. MacOldie has never looked so handsome, I'll wager.
New to the i-Doodz stable, apparently, is i-Doodz Sexy, which is no doubt far too exciting for MacOldie's venerable ticker and he hasn't yet downloaded it for fear of shock. Nevertheless it might appeal to more adventurous blogees who want to while away the hours on their own iPhone.
MacOldie on MacDesertIsland
Our Mac musings are now established in a virtual Mac desert, the island of Mykonos in the Aegean Sea. Great scenery, great beaches, sun on the rise, but No Mac's Land for our favourite computer brand. There is one friend on the island who owns a G4 PowerBook and I sort of know of a white MacBook which comes to visit a neighbour's pad occasionally.
And I suspect there must be at least one other Mac on the island because I often see a black Mini Cooper sporting an Apple logo on its rump down by the harbour. Strange, that, how many Mini Coopers there are with Apple logos. Maybe its an on-going thing between Mac owners and Mini drivers.
Anyway, as you've gathered, this isn't the place to be if you need another Pro power brick in a hurry. The stores here on the little island (such as they are) cater exclusively for PC owners and, to some extent, that's typical of Greece as a whole.
As far as I can see, Greece is one of the few European countries without official Apple representation. Here you have to deal with a Greek importer and they have what appears to be a very sketchy operation. They do have an "Apple Store" in central Athens, on Akademias Street, but it is an extremely strange place. With all the Apple products encased in glass boxes, it's more like a mini annexe of the new Akropolis Museum. And don't ask to buy anything. Don't be ridiculous: you must order from the web site, which appears to direct all orders to Ireland. Fortunately for Athens-based Apple nuts, there are a few computers for sale in two or three electronics multiple stores such as Multirama and Public. It's no wonder Macs aren't popular, however, because the back-up service is extremely poor.
All in all, Greece isn't the place for Mac fans. I miss my regular fix at the shrine of the blessed Steve Jobs in Regent Street, and I dread anything going wrong because Apple Care doesn't seem to operate here. Until the worst happens, MacOldie will continue to click away on the blogging keys and keep you informed of developments here in the city of white-framed paving stones. At least the sun shines between postings.
Cut & Paste creeps in from the Dark Ages
Last month's preview of iPhone 3.0 software, which is due for release in June, brings a number of very welcome improvements to the ultra-successful phone/pda. For my money, the biggest of these changes is the addition of cut and paste. This is such a basic operation which has been available on personal computers since the early eighties, that it is truly amazing versions 1 and 2 of the iPhone software did not include it. No one seems to know why it was so difficult to implement, but we will have it at last in a couple of months.
The second advance for me is the ability to compose emails and text messages in landscape mode. Recently I have been using landscape mode extensively with the Momo journal application and there is absolutely no doubt that it enables greater accuracy and speed. The little keyboard of the portrait screen turns into quite a useful "full size" offering when you turn the phone round.
Two other useful features are the ability to send MMS messages, missing from the iPhone so far, and the facility to search the entire phone for information. This, again, is a basic operation which has been available on Palms and Windows Mobile devices for ages.
Multi-tasking of applications has been on most people's wish list for ever, but this is not going to happen. Apple say the reason is that multi-tasking will severely harm battery life and I tend to agree with them. The iPhone is just so useful that you find yourself using it constantly with the result that it needs charging every evening and, sometimes, early in the afternoon.
Probably the most important aspect of the new software release, though, is the addition of 1000 new APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) in the iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit). This will enable more complicated applications to be produced.
What hasn't been announced is a new iPhone to go with the new software (although, of course, the new software is will run on the existing iPhone). There's a general feeling in the rumour world that there will be a new iPhone, probably to be announced at the World Developers' Conference (WDC) on June 8 in San Franciso. Whispers speak of a better camera with more pixels and variable focus, and more storage memory for the phone; and, maybe, even a difference processor. We shall have to wait and see, but the money is on something being announced.
Instant data file availability on several computers
Since I use three different Macs regularly the importance of having up-to-date data files is more than ever important. If I pick up my MacBook Air and go out for the day I want to be sure that I have the latest version of my MoneyDance accounts data as well as other files I need to work on frequently. The combination of MobileMe and the iDisk is supposed to address that problem. While MobileMe works seamlessly to synchronise primary data (Address Book, iCal, Mail, Safari bookmarks and OmniFocus tasks) across several computers and the iPhone, the same cannot be said for iDisk. The Apple system is perhaps over-ambitious and becomes slow and unreliable. The iDisk, which acts as a mountable drive, has a mind of its own and often disappears and has to be fettled back into life. it is best used as a Cloud backup, but even then is beaten by Carbonite, Backblaze and other similar purpose-built solutions.
If you want reliability and the ability to see and work on data files on a number of computers, the answer is Dropbox. I've written about Dropbox before, but I have now been using it for over six months and have been mightily impressed by the speed, reliability and integrity of the system. Essentially you file your important day-to-day data in a Dropbox folder which can sit on the desktop. Open that folder on any other machine (provided you have the passwords) and a replica of that file is available there. Work on that file anywhere and the latest version is replicated within seconds to all your machines. Unlike with iDisk, you are in full control and you can actually see what is happening.
I run Dropbox as an easy way of synchronising selected files although I also have Carbonite running in the background (on one master computer) and backing up all crucial data. Solutions such as Carbonite are great for the belt-and-braces security of off-site backup of a hard disk or a user folder, but Dropbox is better for precise control of synchronising and monitoring selected individual files. Of course, in addition to the features I've outlined, Dropbox also safeguards your files and provides Cloud access in emergency. The latest versions of your files are already sitting on all your computers as long as they are running and connected to the net.
Another useful feature is to attach your Dropbox to a specially authorised folder on a friend's or colleague's computer. I do the bookkeeping for a physiotherapy clinic in Athens and, of course, I am in another country a lot of the time. So I have arranged for the MoneyDance accounts file on the remote computer to be linked with my Dropbox so I can work on the file wherever I am. Back in Greece, the staff of the clinic can see the latest version of the accounts system when necessary (on a PC, by the way). Of course, sensibly you should avoid the danger of two people trying to work on the same file at the same time, although Dropbox will try to cope with this by storing temporary files. Best not to risk that, though.
There are lots of solutions out there to synchronise files across computers and across platforms. Evernote, for instance, is a wonderful way of storing notes, picture memoranda and data across several computers and the iPhone, and I rely on it constantly. However, the difference with Dropbox is that you can synchronise datafiles from all applications–Word, Pages, Numbers, you name it. All are fully addressable and available for update at any time. More than that, Dropbox keeps incremental backups of your files so, in emergency, you can go to the web interface and look through the history of a particular file.
Dropbox has many more features, such as folder sharing and photo publishing with friends and colleagues and works cross-platform on OS X, Windows and Linux. Eagle-eyed readers will see from the logo that the product is still in beta, but I must say that in six months it has been rock solid and I wouldn't suspected the beta status. As far as I'm concerned, it's ready for mainstream already. It's free, for storage up to 2GB of storage; above that it is $9.99 a month or $99 a year. I am still way under the 2GB with only 118MB in use, but I wouldn't hesitate to pay if I needed the extra storage. Here's a link to the installation page of Dropbox.
Steam-powered iPhone charger
Despite my love of the latest gadgets, I do have a soft spot for old mechanical contraptions such as typewriters, trams, cars and, of course, steam engines. So I am grateful to Engadget for news of the latest development in USB-charging power. An enterprising mechanic has harnessed a small steam engine to a generator in order to produce enough power to charge and run any device that can take a USB feed–including our beloved iPhone. Now this is much more fun than simply plugging the thing into the wall socket. It makes a lovely noise and you really get all the visual and audible clues that your device is being charged.
As Engadget says, this could be yet another example steampunk. There has been a recent revival in the construction of fantasy machines which look like Victorian science fiction but often contain modern equipment. An example would be a Mac Mini hidden inside a fantastic re-creation of Charles Babbage's difference engine.
I rather fancy a replica of Stephenson's Rocket in my garage, powered up to provide light and heat. What a wonderful concept! Come to think of it, that steam USB charger isn't as daft as it sounds. All you need is a drop of paraffin and you have enough power to charge a phone. When all else fails, this could be the answer.
Apple Phone: They’ll never do it!
When I first switched to Mac in 2005 I was still struggling with my Windows Mobile Treo and I soon discovered synchronization of data would be a problem. Even with the assistance of the excellent Missing Sync For Mac package, I was never happy with the Windows Mobile/Mac combination.
The App Store with its 30,000 applications and one billion downloads is just so far ahead that it is difficult to imagine BlackBerry, Treo, Android and the rest ever catching up. All are starting copy-cat application stores. The iPhone is certainly not perfect, and this summer's version 3.0 software will still not eliminate all the quirks. But it works and it has gathered a fanatical following. Important for Apple, too, is that many users are also PC devotees and their first experience of Apple with the iPhone will inevitably lead to more MacConverts.