Who's there? Vielleicht ist es der Weihnachtsmann und bringt nen Kasten Bier? Since there should be a sufficient stock of beer in the fridge, Santa can bring something more useful. I promised it more than once, but didn't find the time to implement.. But here we go (after the break)

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life, Media at 07:00 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Well, I just have to do a blog posting using this topic – I really have to. Joern started it, and even the Grützekraftwerk had some musings to add to this topic. So this is my official coming out. I’ve bought expensive shit, too. Not only that I’ve switched to a 4GB Ipod Nano as an Mp3-Player, but I also couldn’t resist in buying an Iphone, when I was on holiday in the states. Well, to my defense I want to add, that it was a bargain – 500 USD for 16GB Iphone is even cheaper, than the cheapest Ipod touch 16GB I would get here in Germany.

After toying around with the Wifi-capabilities for the first weeks, I’ve now been using the Iphone for about 3 weeks as a replacement for my S/O/N/Y P1i (I switched after I got subscribed to a data rate, which gives me 200MB of traffic a month using GPRS/EDGE or UMTS). The much I was impressed by the great mobile web-browser and other data application the more I’m now disappointed by the native phone features.

My impressions can be summarized quite simple: Apple just is no phone manufacturer. Therefore the Iphone is no capable replacement for my P1i. There is a bunch of feature I love on my P1i which I can’t get with the Iphone:

• Bluetooth communication. Apple doesn’t need to work with standards – they just set their own. Instead of equipping the Iphone with a capable Bluetooth stack, like other phone manufacturers do – enabling a fast possibility of exchange functions, Apple just implements their own rudimentary version of Bluetooth. Therefore
  • My expensive AVRCP and AD2P headset is able to get calls transferred, but that’s everything. No access of the phonebook to dial using the headset, no music transfer, no remote control of the phone.
  • You need that contact? You want that picture? You want that song? Phone content can be exchanged really easy using my P1i – Apple won’t give you that option.
  • My car is compatible with AVRCP, it works perfect using the P1i – but I can’t get it working properly with the Iphone. Judging from message boards, I would have to exchange the Bluetooth module in my car to get the Iphone working. Thx BMW, thx Apple…
  • There is no compatibility with Bluetooth GPS receivers. I’m using TomTom on my P1i with a Nokia LD3W GPS mouse – I would have loved to see a navigation software on that big Iphone screen…
• Dialing via voice recognition. I don’t even demand such a complicated service like the new Nokia phones come with (you don’t need to save speech patterns for contacts), just a simple pattern based dialing mode, where you set the contacts voice code personally would suite me well.
• MMS. Not that I would have used that feature too often during the last year – at least not phone to phone. But I’ve set up my o2 communication center to forward certain important E-Mail via MMS + I can send MMS to E-Mail for free, and use this for mobile blogging. No native support on the Iphone. I’ve tried Swirly-MMS a third party application, but it doesn’t work properly.
• Video capabilities. With 3G phones it is a native phone feature – just record little video clips to send them via MMS or as UMTS video calling. With those great internet and Web 2.0 features the Iphone is aimed to, it would be just too great, to get videos directly to Youtube…
• FM Radio. Well, no native phone feature, and why FM, if you can have Internet Radio over Edge? This is probably Apple’s argument – but I really love this feature.

There is just one feature I would really really need, which is the car compatibility – but the other missing things are annoying, too. So I’m currently waiting for an o2 multicard to use the two phones simultaneously.

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Daily Life, Media, mobile at 18:15 | Comments (4) | Trackbacks (0)

August this year I bought myself a pretty new phone. A S/O/N/Y P1i, not the smallest phone, but a smart one with touch screen, and loads of interesting applications. Of course I need a lot of memory in this phone, to store a map of Europe for navigation, to have pictures to show my friends, and to listen to loads of mp3s. The phone came with a 512MB Sony Memory Stick M2, surely not too much memory for all those things. And Memory Stick M2... I've got plenty of SD cards, even a spare 2GB one, but well, Sony had decided to have their own format So I got myself a bigger 4GB card, probably 2GB would have done the trick, but since I had to buy a new card anyway...

I've got this beautiful docking station, which connects the phone to my PC, and the M2 card can be addressed as a drive through it. But the speed is really depressing, less than 1MB/sec. That means it would take 1-2 hours to fill the whole card!!! How can those engineers equip the beautiful phone with such a slow interface???

But of course there is a workaround, inserting the M2 into my memory card reader (of course I need that special adapter from M2 - MS Pro Duo first), I can access it with a maximum speed between 3-4MB/sec. But there is still a problem - the cards eject mechanism and the cards size! So far I have dropped the tiny card countless times and had to search for it, since it tends to disappear in disorderly environment. After one of those incidents at Vlogeurope07 even a video was created, to document the problems. Do any of those product creators think about usability?

Posted by Jürgen Hösch in Lost and Found at 22:33 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)