These are the spoils of our success

Of course, I assumed this is because the iPhone software is buggy and/or Mr Jobs doesn’t want us to use SMS or some other conspiracy theory.

Upgrading the software on the iPhone to 2.0 didn’t help.

Restarting the phone (having to do that a lot recently) didn’t help.

I even called O2 and asked if there was a long standing network problem between mine and my wife’s network/phone.

Texting to/from other people seemed fine.

Anyways, this morning I was astounded to find four text messages from my wife on the iPhone. Imagine my surprise!

Turns out, she turned her RAZR off and on, and now it all works fine.

Not sure what we can learn from this, but possibly one or more of:

• Never assume it’s your iPhone that’s broken.
• Never assume it’s the network.
• Never assume a v1 RAZR is incapable of blowing goats.

http://iphone.wordpress.org/

edit: it can do pics to.

We have some nice waterways around where I live - the Regents Canal, Limehouse Cut, Lee Navigation and others, so assuming you don’t get mugged, stabbed or mown down by a large lady on a bicycle (you know who you are) it’s a pleasant enough place for a wander.

If google hasn’t blown goats, you can see the walk here.

The top right part is close to where the London 2012 Olympics are going to be, but I didn’t see anything resembling stadia.

The bit around Bow is quite pretty with lots of assorted birds and I took some pics, but I think the ones here look nicer.

I think I might work up to doing this every weekend, a little faster each time. Took 2 hours 15 mins this time, but that included the cider shopping at the end.

Who knows, I might even get to jog around it one day.

Anyways, I’ve spotted a bit of a flaw in the iPhone App Store.

The App Store is the only way you can legally develop and distribute apps for the iPhone and you have to publish them via Apple. This introduces a huge amount of convenience, but you also lose a lot of control.

Eg, suppose you (or your customers) spot a critical bug in your app? You may be able to fix it within a few hours, but how long before Apple get it out on to the App Store and subsequently out onto your customers’ devices?

A couple of examples. Cube Runner is a great game I’ve seen on other people’s iPhones, but I can’t get it - it’s been withdrawn from the App Store. I think the developer found an issue and wanted Apple to pull it rather than leave the buggy one hanging. And the slowness of Apple means we don’t have the update.

Another example is a diet tracking app that comes with a “do not install because it’s broken and Apple haven’t updated it in the store with my fix” message.

Both developers are exposed to excessive reputational risk - I’m not sure I’d want to do the same if I was a developer. But then, there’s no other (legal) way.

Getting the 2.0 software was a little problematic. It wasn’t available until late on Friday evening, and the re-blast process was quite painful. Half way through, iSync kicked in and confused it, so I had to manually do the update again.

I already had a .Mac account and of course now it’s called mobileme. The branding is a bit confusing though as there was no corresponding OS X update, so everything is still called .Mac and addresses are mac.com instead of me.com. It all works though, but confusing nonetheless.

[Update: this finally got fixed with an OS X system update]

I suppose the two biggest changes in 2.0 are “push” calendars, contacts and email, and installable apps from the App Store.

Push works very well, although the Preview 4.0 version of Safari I’m using has trouble with the web apps. Mails, etc do get pushed to the iPhone in a timely manner so all is well there. No more docking/syncing to keep everything up to date.

There doesn’t appear to be any ‘push’ support with OS X desktop apps - maybe there’s isn’t supposed to be, I don’t know. Bit of a shame though.

The App Store in both iTunes and on the phone work very well. 

I started with NetNewsWire, Facebook, Bloomberg, Crash Bandicoot Nitro Racer (Mario Kart clone), AirMe (photo->flickr app) and a few random things.

Mostly good. Nitro Racer is a laugh, but not as good as Mario Kart on DS.

AirMe looks like it could be interesting as it posts snapped pics to Flickr, titling and tagging based on location and weather. Example here.

Emailing a photo from the iPhone still shrinks it down to 800×600 and seems to strip out the geo-tagging data, so AirMe is somewhat essential. This pic was emailed from the normal camera app (and shows the screenshot capability of iPhone).

Oh, the other app that is quite useful is the remote control. Lets me control the iTunes library on my Mac Mini without having to have its screen switched on. Very useful that.

In summary, it all seems very good. Not sure I want/need to 3G version yet. Certainly not for £149 (or whatever) for the 16GB version. I think I’ll be quite happy to stay with the 2.5G one for some time. 

OK, enough iPhone posts for a while

However, a few will. At least one person I know at work managed to get an online order in and is waiting for DHL at home this morning.

Others I know will be camping out outside O2 or Carphone Whorehouse shops at 08.02 (about 5 mins ago) to get theirs.

For me, I was going to be satisfied with the 2.0 software upgrade on my ‘old’ iPhone, but sadly, this was not available at 7am this morning when I had to leave for work.

All a bit of a downer really.

And I have a hangover.

Update: bloke at work waiting on DHL? O2 said he didn’t actually make an order at all, even though they told him on two occasions that he had.

I received a text message from O2 at 08.09 on the 7th telling me the website to let me upgrade was open from 08.00. Of course by that time it was completely hosed, so I tried again at a quieter moment at work about an hour later.

Still hosed.

And quite possibly the worst website ever, with each step requiring a multi-minute round trip to the O2 server. Why did it need my phone number? or account number? It knows who I am.

Anyway, at around 10.30 when I did finally manage to get some kind of order in, the site completely went hat stand, offering me, variously, blank forms, semi-filled in forms, stupid messages, etc. I gave up in the end.

Of course, the 16GB version that I wanted was completely sold out by that time anyway, so why O2 couldn’t just say so is beyond me. There were probably only about three in the entire country anyway.

Anyways, come Friday 11th, I shall upgrade the software on my current iPhone and just get on with life.

I don’t need GPS nor 3G, so really, I don’t need an upgrade at all.

I will upgrade at some point, but probably in a few weeks after the first batch of phones is cleared, 3G reception issues identified and other faults resolved

Tale of India was contacted.

Curry arrived.

Curry consumed.

Sated.

Still some left for tomorrow

Also went to pub where CBT can be found and had a wander through the woods.

Most pleasing day.

And Herman enjoyed a zoom aboot.

And Dom gave me a few glow stick items to play with