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15 August 2008 iPhone 3G: It's the little things...
In my last post about my new shiny gadget, I pretty much pointed out reasons why you wouldn’t want to buy an iPhone 3G. I’ve now had it for just over a month and I’m still loving it. But why?
It’s so easy to take the iPhone for granted. Tasks like browsing the web, sending and receiving emails, writing text messages, taking photos and (this next one is shocking, I know) actually making phone calls are all relatively painless and can be done without having to trawl through various menu options on a tiny keypad or remember shortcut keys. But here are a few small features which have made me realise how much I appreciate all the little things the iPhone does. (Disclaimer: These features may also be available in other handsets but my old Nokia N73 didn’t have them.)
Corrective predictive text
Predictive text on most phones is pretty good. But if you accidentally press the wrong key, your phone is never going to be able to spell that word properly. Thankfully, the iPhone also guesses what you were trying to spell. This is especially useful given that there’s no tactile feedback when pressing the keys, so it’s quite easy to hit the wrong one by mistake.
It’s not perfect by any means but it definitely saves me time when sending text messages.
One number, many contacts, no problem
Back in the old days when mobile phone address books just stored a single phone number against contacts, I used to have separate entries for e.g. ‘Jack’ (mobile), ‘Jill’ (mobile) and then ‘Jack and Jill’ (home). Then when mobiles started to allow multiple details to be stored against each person, I split them out so that Jack and Jill’s home number would be stored against each of their individual entries, meaning I had ‘Jack’ (mobile), ‘Jack’ (home), ‘Jill’ (mobile) and ‘Jill’ (home).
Of course, if someone called me from Jack and Jill’s home number, the phone wouldn’t know which contact it was so it would simply display the number which is completely unhelpful. What does the iPhone do in this situation? It tells me that Jack Spratt or Jill Hill is calling!
Furthermore, if they have the same surname, it just tells me Jack or Jill Hill is calling:
It starts to cheat a bit after that though:
This is such a simple enhancement but it impressed me when I first saw it.
Integration with my Garmin nüvi 610T sat-nav
My Garmin has built-in Bluetooth for hands-free calling. With my N73 hooked up, I had to manually dial the numbers I wanted to call from the sat-nav. Hardly hands-free calling. But with my iPhone, the Garmin can access my entire address book and recently dialled numbers, making it much easier to make calls.
Headphone-related niceties
Using the supplied headphones, you can pause and skip tracks. So if you want to listen to the real world around you or skip an awful album track, you don’t need to dig your iPhone out of your pocket.
If you’ve got music playing and you remove the headphones from the iPhone, your music is automatically paused. This is good because it means you don’t have to wake your iPod and stop it manually, and you don’t risk annoying others around you like you would if your music continued to play through the speakers. On a related note, if you do choose to play the music through the speakers, you’ll see that the iPhone has different volume levels for headphones and speakers. This is such an obvious feature but not all devices do this.
I’m sure there are lots more features I’ve forgotten about too. Whenever I come across one in future, I’ll try to remember to make a note (on my iPhone, natch).
If you’ve got an iPhone, which thoughtful features do you think makes it stand out from other handsets? Or are there any features that are annoying the hell out of you?
It’s so easy to take the iPhone for granted. Tasks like browsing the web, sending and receiving emails, writing text messages, taking photos and (this next one is shocking, I know) actually making phone calls are all relatively painless and can be done without having to trawl through various menu options on a tiny keypad or remember shortcut keys. But here are a few small features which have made me realise how much I appreciate all the little things the iPhone does. (Disclaimer: These features may also be available in other handsets but my old Nokia N73 didn’t have them.)
Corrective predictive text
Predictive text on most phones is pretty good. But if you accidentally press the wrong key, your phone is never going to be able to spell that word properly. Thankfully, the iPhone also guesses what you were trying to spell. This is especially useful given that there’s no tactile feedback when pressing the keys, so it’s quite easy to hit the wrong one by mistake.
It’s not perfect by any means but it definitely saves me time when sending text messages.
One number, many contacts, no problem
Back in the old days when mobile phone address books just stored a single phone number against contacts, I used to have separate entries for e.g. ‘Jack’ (mobile), ‘Jill’ (mobile) and then ‘Jack and Jill’ (home). Then when mobiles started to allow multiple details to be stored against each person, I split them out so that Jack and Jill’s home number would be stored against each of their individual entries, meaning I had ‘Jack’ (mobile), ‘Jack’ (home), ‘Jill’ (mobile) and ‘Jill’ (home).
Of course, if someone called me from Jack and Jill’s home number, the phone wouldn’t know which contact it was so it would simply display the number which is completely unhelpful. What does the iPhone do in this situation? It tells me that Jack Spratt or Jill Hill is calling!
Furthermore, if they have the same surname, it just tells me Jack or Jill Hill is calling:
It starts to cheat a bit after that though:
This is such a simple enhancement but it impressed me when I first saw it.
Integration with my Garmin nüvi 610T sat-nav
My Garmin has built-in Bluetooth for hands-free calling. With my N73 hooked up, I had to manually dial the numbers I wanted to call from the sat-nav. Hardly hands-free calling. But with my iPhone, the Garmin can access my entire address book and recently dialled numbers, making it much easier to make calls.
Headphone-related niceties
Using the supplied headphones, you can pause and skip tracks. So if you want to listen to the real world around you or skip an awful album track, you don’t need to dig your iPhone out of your pocket.
If you’ve got music playing and you remove the headphones from the iPhone, your music is automatically paused. This is good because it means you don’t have to wake your iPod and stop it manually, and you don’t risk annoying others around you like you would if your music continued to play through the speakers. On a related note, if you do choose to play the music through the speakers, you’ll see that the iPhone has different volume levels for headphones and speakers. This is such an obvious feature but not all devices do this.
I’m sure there are lots more features I’ve forgotten about too. Whenever I come across one in future, I’ll try to remember to make a note (on my iPhone, natch).
If you’ve got an iPhone, which thoughtful features do you think makes it stand out from other handsets? Or are there any features that are annoying the hell out of you?
21 July 2008 iPhone 3G: One Week Later
When the iPhone 3G was announced on 9th June, I was immediately convinced that I was going to get one. Then I realised it still had a crap camera, no MMS and would probably cost me an arm and a leg. And then I changed my mind again just last week and ended up queuing outside an O2 store in Sheffield on Friday, eagerly awaiting their 08:02 opening and the launch of the iPhone 3G in the UK. (Queuing was actually pointless as the store quickly ran out of its stock of just ten iPhones, but I was luckily given a tip-off at lunch time and managed to get one from another store.)
Anyway, I’ve now been using the phone for just over a week, so I thought I’d post some of my early and honest observations. I’m likely to go on a bit, so don’t read this on your iPhone because your battery will be dead by the time you’ve finished... ;-)
First impressions
It’s slick, easy to use, has a really smooth user interface, has some great features and, perhaps most importantly, it’s shiny! However, it does lack some features that many other phones have. And I’m not talking about a one billion megapixel camera (because the camera produces really good, sharp pictures), voice calling (who uses that?) or MMS (because I can live with using email instead); I’m talking about different profiles (e.g. silent, sleeping, work, meeting), the ability to delete individual text messages, display how many characters are remaining when sending an SMS to someone and other little things like that – but the innovative features definitely outweigh all these minor annoyances and these are all things that may still (hopefully) be added in future software upgrades.
App problems after first sync
Putting aside all the initial problems of getting my phone line activated with O2 and then activating the handset through iTunes, I was pretty happy with my new phone’s capabilities after playing with the App Store and downloading a few free applications. (If you’re interested: iPint, Alarm Free, Banner Free, BubbleWrap, TapTap Revenge, Facebook, Shazam and Midomi.) The problems came when I synced my iPhone with iTunes for the first time.
I don’t know whether the problem occurred because I had originally activated my iPhone on a different computer, but after syncing with my main desktop PC none of the apps I’d downloaded to my iPhone would work. Each time I clicked one of the icons, it opened the app for a second or two and then immediately closed it down again. After removing them from the iPhone and re-syncing, everything worked fine though.
Contact syncing issues
Given that my old Nokia N73 made a complete mess of my Outlook contacts when I tried to synchroise them, I decided to enter all my contacts into my iPhone manually with the intention of syncing them with either Outlook or my Google Contacts later. Last night, I decided to sync them back to a folder in Outlook (since my Google Contacts are a real mess due to all the times Gmail added people to my contacts just because I’d emailed them a couple of times). Oddly, not all of my contacts were transferred to Outlook. They were literally nowhere to be seen. I deselected the folder in iTunes, removed all my contacts and tried again. This time, iTunes managed to copy all my original contacts from Outlook to my iPhone – despite still not being able to see them all in Outlook!
After much confusion and experimentation with various configurations, I somehow managed to wipe all my contacts from my iPhone apart from the few that I could see in Outlook. So I then tried to sync with Google Contacts just to see what that would do. This was a complete waste of time because it synced all my Google Contacts, including the new “Suggested Contacts” groups which seems to include everyone I’ve ever emailed!
In the end, I decided to export a spreadsheet from Outlook based on my old N73 contacts, clean them up a bit and import them back into Outlook before syncing again. So far, everything looks good but this should have been so much easier! Things weren’t helped by the fact that iTunes has no contacts manager of its own which allows me to select which contacts to import (like it does for tunes and podcasts).
Something else I’ve noticed is that my contacts list can be pretty slow loading at times, although it does seem quicker when accessed through the Phone icon rather than the Contacts icon.
Visual Voicemail setup problems
Since I was porting my old mobile number across to O2, I waited until this had been done before I tried to setup my visual voicemail. After following the on-screen instructions, entering my chosen password and failing to save my greeting several times (the last step in the process would just keep reloading the page) I decided to phone O2 Customer Services. They suggested dialing 1750 to switch on Visual Voicemail (which I’d already done), switching it off and on again by dialing 1760 and then 1750 (which I’d already done) and even suggested a full software restore (which I had done before trying to setup it up for the first time). After being passed through two iPhone specialists, they decided I had a faulty handset and would need to return it. However, before I managed to hang up they suggested that I could dial 901 just to prove to myself that my voicemail was up and running. And guess what. Dialing 901 asked me to choose a password and record a greeting, after which my Visual Voicemail worked fine!
Actually, one further problem was that when I accessed my voicemail and selected a message, my screen was going black. After a few quick tests, it seemed this was due to my screen protector interfering with the proximity sensor. As a quick solution, I got my hole-punch and made three holes in the protector to line up with the light and proximity sensors which means everything now works fine! (And it doesn’t look as bad as it sounds either because you can’t see the holes for the case.)
3G and battery life
When the original iPhone was announced, many UK and European users were puzzled why the handset didn’t have 3G. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, Steve Jobs basically said that they didn’t include 3G because the chipsets were too big and would drain the iPhone’s battery too quickly. I seem to remember people all over the world complaining about this, demanding that Apple should let its users make that decision for themselves. This time around, Apple added 3G and many users are choosing to switch it off to gain more battery life.
My last phone had 3G, and moving from a 3G device to a non-3G device would obviously be a step backwards for me, so I had no intention of buying the original iPhone whatsoever. Of course, the irony is that now I’ve got an iPhone 3G, I’m using it with 3G switched off most of the time in order to save battery life! Generally speaking, I don’t even notice the speed difference though. The websites I use a lot while I’m on the move – like Google Reader, Facebook and FF To Go – have all been optimized to make them fast to download on mobile devices (including the many first generation iPhones without 3G).
The main problem with the iPhone is that it’s such a great mobile device that you want to play with it all the time, and that obviously means the battery isn’t going to last very long!
If I discover anything else about the iPhone which I fancy sharing, I’ll be sure to make a short post about it straight away, instead of making one massive post like this each month, which is what I seem to have been doing recently...
[Image courtesy of Apple.]
Anyway, I’ve now been using the phone for just over a week, so I thought I’d post some of my early and honest observations. I’m likely to go on a bit, so don’t read this on your iPhone because your battery will be dead by the time you’ve finished... ;-)First impressions
It’s slick, easy to use, has a really smooth user interface, has some great features and, perhaps most importantly, it’s shiny! However, it does lack some features that many other phones have. And I’m not talking about a one billion megapixel camera (because the camera produces really good, sharp pictures), voice calling (who uses that?) or MMS (because I can live with using email instead); I’m talking about different profiles (e.g. silent, sleeping, work, meeting), the ability to delete individual text messages, display how many characters are remaining when sending an SMS to someone and other little things like that – but the innovative features definitely outweigh all these minor annoyances and these are all things that may still (hopefully) be added in future software upgrades.
App problems after first sync
Putting aside all the initial problems of getting my phone line activated with O2 and then activating the handset through iTunes, I was pretty happy with my new phone’s capabilities after playing with the App Store and downloading a few free applications. (If you’re interested: iPint, Alarm Free, Banner Free, BubbleWrap, TapTap Revenge, Facebook, Shazam and Midomi.) The problems came when I synced my iPhone with iTunes for the first time.
I don’t know whether the problem occurred because I had originally activated my iPhone on a different computer, but after syncing with my main desktop PC none of the apps I’d downloaded to my iPhone would work. Each time I clicked one of the icons, it opened the app for a second or two and then immediately closed it down again. After removing them from the iPhone and re-syncing, everything worked fine though.
Contact syncing issues
Given that my old Nokia N73 made a complete mess of my Outlook contacts when I tried to synchroise them, I decided to enter all my contacts into my iPhone manually with the intention of syncing them with either Outlook or my Google Contacts later. Last night, I decided to sync them back to a folder in Outlook (since my Google Contacts are a real mess due to all the times Gmail added people to my contacts just because I’d emailed them a couple of times). Oddly, not all of my contacts were transferred to Outlook. They were literally nowhere to be seen. I deselected the folder in iTunes, removed all my contacts and tried again. This time, iTunes managed to copy all my original contacts from Outlook to my iPhone – despite still not being able to see them all in Outlook!
After much confusion and experimentation with various configurations, I somehow managed to wipe all my contacts from my iPhone apart from the few that I could see in Outlook. So I then tried to sync with Google Contacts just to see what that would do. This was a complete waste of time because it synced all my Google Contacts, including the new “Suggested Contacts” groups which seems to include everyone I’ve ever emailed!
In the end, I decided to export a spreadsheet from Outlook based on my old N73 contacts, clean them up a bit and import them back into Outlook before syncing again. So far, everything looks good but this should have been so much easier! Things weren’t helped by the fact that iTunes has no contacts manager of its own which allows me to select which contacts to import (like it does for tunes and podcasts).
Something else I’ve noticed is that my contacts list can be pretty slow loading at times, although it does seem quicker when accessed through the Phone icon rather than the Contacts icon.
Visual Voicemail setup problems
Since I was porting my old mobile number across to O2, I waited until this had been done before I tried to setup my visual voicemail. After following the on-screen instructions, entering my chosen password and failing to save my greeting several times (the last step in the process would just keep reloading the page) I decided to phone O2 Customer Services. They suggested dialing 1750 to switch on Visual Voicemail (which I’d already done), switching it off and on again by dialing 1760 and then 1750 (which I’d already done) and even suggested a full software restore (which I had done before trying to setup it up for the first time). After being passed through two iPhone specialists, they decided I had a faulty handset and would need to return it. However, before I managed to hang up they suggested that I could dial 901 just to prove to myself that my voicemail was up and running. And guess what. Dialing 901 asked me to choose a password and record a greeting, after which my Visual Voicemail worked fine!
Actually, one further problem was that when I accessed my voicemail and selected a message, my screen was going black. After a few quick tests, it seemed this was due to my screen protector interfering with the proximity sensor. As a quick solution, I got my hole-punch and made three holes in the protector to line up with the light and proximity sensors which means everything now works fine! (And it doesn’t look as bad as it sounds either because you can’t see the holes for the case.)
3G and battery life
When the original iPhone was announced, many UK and European users were puzzled why the handset didn’t have 3G. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year, Steve Jobs basically said that they didn’t include 3G because the chipsets were too big and would drain the iPhone’s battery too quickly. I seem to remember people all over the world complaining about this, demanding that Apple should let its users make that decision for themselves. This time around, Apple added 3G and many users are choosing to switch it off to gain more battery life.
My last phone had 3G, and moving from a 3G device to a non-3G device would obviously be a step backwards for me, so I had no intention of buying the original iPhone whatsoever. Of course, the irony is that now I’ve got an iPhone 3G, I’m using it with 3G switched off most of the time in order to save battery life! Generally speaking, I don’t even notice the speed difference though. The websites I use a lot while I’m on the move – like Google Reader, Facebook and FF To Go – have all been optimized to make them fast to download on mobile devices (including the many first generation iPhones without 3G).
The main problem with the iPhone is that it’s such a great mobile device that you want to play with it all the time, and that obviously means the battery isn’t going to last very long!
If I discover anything else about the iPhone which I fancy sharing, I’ll be sure to make a short post about it straight away, instead of making one massive post like this each month, which is what I seem to have been doing recently...
[Image courtesy of Apple.]
06 September 2007 iPod touch is phat. iPod nano is fat.
I have to say that the iPod touch is one shiny new sexy gadget I’m going to have to try my hardest to resist. I got my 8GB second generation iPod nano less than a year ago and I’m really happy with it, so I can’t really justify spending £199 on another 8GB player. (I guess I’ll just have to spend £269 on the 16GB version instead...)
But that’s not what I wanted to rant about. This is what I wanted to rant about: iPod touch’s fat little brother...
My iPod nano looks slim and sexy, but the screen is tiny and it can’t play video. Apple understandably had to do something about that, so they made this one a bit wider and shorter. And now it looks like the little fatty of the family!
So, with a bit of photoshopping, I given that fat little iPod nano a quick tummy tuck by moving the Click Wheel. People don’t need to see the Click Wheel in order to use it, so why not make the device smaller by moving it to the back? (There might need to be an option to flip the functionality of the Click Wheel though, as it should probably work the opposite way around with it being on the back, but some people inevitably wouldn’t be able to get the hang of it.)
Now doesn’t that look better? I’m no electronics expert, so I don’t know how difficult this would have been to put in to production, but Apple have proved in the past that virtually anything is possible when it comes to them cramming advanced technology into slick designs. I realise there are probably some issues with the physical size of batteries and memory chips, but they could probably have worked around that by making it a bit deeper.
What do you think? Would you buy a fatso iPod nano? Would you buy one of these? Would you like to buy me a 16GB iPod touch?
[Original images from Apple.]
But that’s not what I wanted to rant about. This is what I wanted to rant about: iPod touch’s fat little brother...
So, with a bit of photoshopping, I given that fat little iPod nano a quick tummy tuck by moving the Click Wheel. People don’t need to see the Click Wheel in order to use it, so why not make the device smaller by moving it to the back? (There might need to be an option to flip the functionality of the Click Wheel though, as it should probably work the opposite way around with it being on the back, but some people inevitably wouldn’t be able to get the hang of it.)
This design would be a neat first step towards the interface in Apple’s patent for Back-Side Interface for Hand-Held Devices – brought to our attention by Unwired View earlier this year – which consists of an active touchpanel covering the entire reverse side of the iPod that can be used to control the device.
What do you think? Would you buy a fatso iPod nano? Would you buy one of these? Would you like to buy me a 16GB iPod touch?
[Original images from Apple.]
15 February 2007 The Music is Back
Amongst my New Year’s resolutions this year, I was planning on playing my guitar more often and going to watch more live bands. As a knock-on effect of that, I’ve been trying to fill my iPod with some more recent music so that I’m not restricted to playing Bon Jovi, Guns N' Roses and Nirvana tunes like I used to when I was 15 years old. Current favourites include The Feeling, The Kooks, Razorlight, The Fratellis, The Killers, Snow Patrol, Arctic Monkeys, Feeder, Kaiser Chiefs and Kasabian (to name just a few).
All this has made me realise just how many really good guitar-based bands and talented musicians are still out there and emerging all the time. It’s so much better than some of the crap that was in the charts around the turn of the millennium – it’s like real music has actually made a comeback! And that’s just the chart-topping signed bands...
I’ve also been trying to search MySpace for some unsigned bands to support. I’d not spent too much time looking before I came across Sheffield band The Gentlemen (www.the-gentlemen.co.uk) whose funky riffs, tight rhythm and pure professionalism has convinced me to go and see them live at Sheffield’s Plug when they play there on Saturday, 2nd March, 2007.
For the past couple of days, I’ve also been listening to Out of the Gray (www.outofthegray.com). Maybe I’m slightly biased – because they’re from my hometown of Bolton and I went to Sixth Form with the lead singer’s sister – but I’m really drawn to their acoustic tones, passionate lyrics and Heather’s angelic-yet-husky vocals. So, I’ll be going to watch them too when they come to Under The Boardwalk in Sheffield on Friday, 20th April, 2007.
There must be literally hundreds more talented but unsigned or lesser-known local bands out there that need support and encouragement. Can anyone recommend any decent ones that I could catch playing in Sheffield?
All this has made me realise just how many really good guitar-based bands and talented musicians are still out there and emerging all the time. It’s so much better than some of the crap that was in the charts around the turn of the millennium – it’s like real music has actually made a comeback! And that’s just the chart-topping signed bands...
I’ve also been trying to search MySpace for some unsigned bands to support. I’d not spent too much time looking before I came across Sheffield band The Gentlemen (www.the-gentlemen.co.uk) whose funky riffs, tight rhythm and pure professionalism has convinced me to go and see them live at Sheffield’s Plug when they play there on Saturday, 2nd March, 2007.
For the past couple of days, I’ve also been listening to Out of the Gray (www.outofthegray.com). Maybe I’m slightly biased – because they’re from my hometown of Bolton and I went to Sixth Form with the lead singer’s sister – but I’m really drawn to their acoustic tones, passionate lyrics and Heather’s angelic-yet-husky vocals. So, I’ll be going to watch them too when they come to Under The Boardwalk in Sheffield on Friday, 20th April, 2007.
There must be literally hundreds more talented but unsigned or lesser-known local bands out there that need support and encouragement. Can anyone recommend any decent ones that I could catch playing in Sheffield?
06 February 2007 Screwed by Digital Rights Management
Seriously. WTF is going on with the music industry these days? A few years ago I decided to ‘go straight’ and stop copying CDs from my mates and give up downloading music ‘for free’ from the Internet completely. I decided that if I wanted a CD, I would buy it. And I’ve been doing that successfully for quite a few years now. But then the digital age forced itself upon us...
Last year, I bought myself an 8GB iPod nano and ripped all my CDs to it – all of which were originals and legally mine. I actually don’t know whether ripping CDs like that is legal or not, and nor do I care, but it’s not immoral and that’s what counts (your honour).
For one of my Christmas presents, I got an iTunes Music Voucher to buy some tracks that are only available through iTunes. I purchased and downloaded them without any problems but was slightly peeved that I had to “authorise” my computer to play them. I figured that I could probably live with that though and burnt a copy to CD just in case I should ever wish to play the songs I’ve purchased on another player.
And that was my first experience of Digital Rights Management. It wasn’t too bad. I’d heard so many people moaning about it but really didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It seemed fair enough to me. Until tonight...
When I got my new phone in December, part of my contract gives me £5 worth of free downloads each month. The great thing about the 3 Music Store is that when you purchase and download tracks to your mobile, you can also download them to your PC at no extra cost. That’s good because I don’t want to listen to music on my mobile; I have an iPod for that purpose. The problem? The tracks you download to your PC are DRM-protected WMA files. From the 3 Music Store FAQ:
Anyway, here’s where the music industry, the record companies, Microsoft, 3 and DRM all get together and screw me over. The first time I tried to burn the CD, it failed. I was trying to use some old blank CDs and figured I was trying to burn too fast. So I tried again at a slower speed. Still no luck. So I tried again in my other CD drive. That didn’t work either. Having finally found some better quality CDs, I thought I’d give it one more try with an old disc in the 2nd drive on the slowest speed possible. Surely that would work, right? Nope! Because I’m only allowed to try and burn the tracks to a CD three times!!!
What sort of craziness is that? Even though I legally purchased and downloaded that music, and was only trying to listen to it on my preferred music device, I am now only able to listen to it either through the crappy, tinny stereo speakers on my mobile phone or through my PC speakers. I honestly feel like I’ve been put into a virtual prison for a crime that I didn’t commit!
Tell me, is it really worth trying to play fair by supporting musicians through purchasing their music in this digital age when the record companies are punishing the innocent like this?
Last year, I bought myself an 8GB iPod nano and ripped all my CDs to it – all of which were originals and legally mine. I actually don’t know whether ripping CDs like that is legal or not, and nor do I care, but it’s not immoral and that’s what counts (your honour).
For one of my Christmas presents, I got an iTunes Music Voucher to buy some tracks that are only available through iTunes. I purchased and downloaded them without any problems but was slightly peeved that I had to “authorise” my computer to play them. I figured that I could probably live with that though and burnt a copy to CD just in case I should ever wish to play the songs I’ve purchased on another player.
And that was my first experience of Digital Rights Management. It wasn’t too bad. I’d heard so many people moaning about it but really didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. It seemed fair enough to me. Until tonight...
When I got my new phone in December, part of my contract gives me £5 worth of free downloads each month. The great thing about the 3 Music Store is that when you purchase and download tracks to your mobile, you can also download them to your PC at no extra cost. That’s good because I don’t want to listen to music on my mobile; I have an iPod for that purpose. The problem? The tracks you download to your PC are DRM-protected WMA files. From the 3 Music Store FAQ:
Just to confirm: even though I have just spent ninety-nine British pence sterling on one three-minute long music track (ignore the fact that it was actually free) they’re trying to tell me that I can’t play it on the device of my choice? No problem. I’ll just burn it to a CD and rip it into an unencrypted format so I can play it on my iPod. (Again, I don’t know whether that’s legal but it’s definitely not immoral... is it?)Is the service compatible with iPod?
No. However, you can transfer your 3MusicPlayer tracks to any mp3 player which supports WMA format. Some third party applications exist for converting WMAs to mp3s but these are not supported or endorsed by 3.
Anyway, here’s where the music industry, the record companies, Microsoft, 3 and DRM all get together and screw me over. The first time I tried to burn the CD, it failed. I was trying to use some old blank CDs and figured I was trying to burn too fast. So I tried again at a slower speed. Still no luck. So I tried again in my other CD drive. That didn’t work either. Having finally found some better quality CDs, I thought I’d give it one more try with an old disc in the 2nd drive on the slowest speed possible. Surely that would work, right? Nope! Because I’m only allowed to try and burn the tracks to a CD three times!!!
What sort of craziness is that? Even though I legally purchased and downloaded that music, and was only trying to listen to it on my preferred music device, I am now only able to listen to it either through the crappy, tinny stereo speakers on my mobile phone or through my PC speakers. I honestly feel like I’ve been put into a virtual prison for a crime that I didn’t commit!
Tell me, is it really worth trying to play fair by supporting musicians through purchasing their music in this digital age when the record companies are punishing the innocent like this?
Labels: gadgets, ipod, microsoft, mobile, music, personal, rant
03 February 2006 Grumpy Old Man
I'm clearly turning into a grumpy old man. Each day something new angers me to the point that I have to have a rant about it to get it out of my system. Today's Grumpy Levels are extremely high.
First of all, I saw a child that could have been no older than ten or twelve years old throwing his finished cigarette end into the road. I detest smoking at the best of times, but when I see children as young as him smoking that really winds me up. Do his parents even know or care about his habit?
Then, 10 minutes later (before I'd had chance to calm down), I saw a chav at the tram stop open his cigarette packet – yes, this is smoking related too – take out his last cigarette and then drop the empty packet on the floor at his feet. THERE WERE EVEN TWO BINS NO FUTHER THAN 10 METRES AWAY FROM HIM!!! Oh, and as if he needed to wind me up anymore, he had some crap sounding music playing on his mobile phone!
So, you can imagine my joy when I got on the tram, opened the Metro and read about some cock trying to sue Apple because their iPods are ‘inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss’. People like him make my blood boil. The story's all over the news just because it's so ridiculous.
I've been close to writing letters to the Metro before, but this article actually made me do it. Here's my take on it:
First of all, I saw a child that could have been no older than ten or twelve years old throwing his finished cigarette end into the road. I detest smoking at the best of times, but when I see children as young as him smoking that really winds me up. Do his parents even know or care about his habit?
Then, 10 minutes later (before I'd had chance to calm down), I saw a chav at the tram stop open his cigarette packet – yes, this is smoking related too – take out his last cigarette and then drop the empty packet on the floor at his feet. THERE WERE EVEN TWO BINS NO FUTHER THAN 10 METRES AWAY FROM HIM!!! Oh, and as if he needed to wind me up anymore, he had some crap sounding music playing on his mobile phone!
So, you can imagine my joy when I got on the tram, opened the Metro and read about some cock trying to sue Apple because their iPods are ‘inherently defective in design and are not sufficiently adorned with adequate warnings regarding the likelihood of hearing loss’. People like him make my blood boil. The story's all over the news just because it's so ridiculous.
I've been close to writing letters to the Metro before, but this article actually made me do it. Here's my take on it:
Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.Dear Mail Metro,
Re: iPod user sues Apple over ‘risk of deafness’
Does John Kiel Patterson (Metro, Fri) lack any common sense or responsibility? The iPod is clearly not a defective or unsafe product. Apple includes a disclaimer explaining that hearing loss is possible if earphones are used at high volumes. If he's suffered hearing loss as a direct result of using an iPod, then it's his own incompetence that is to blame. Perhaps he also plans on suing car manufacturers because they allow him to drive his car at 35mph, which means he's twice as likely to kill someone as he would be at 30mph?
I recently purchased a Sony PSP and was angered to discover that the included headphones were “ear-friendly” and therefore capped at 90dB – which is apparently equivalent to the noise experienced in a loud factory. However, I soon discovered that I was unable to listen to my music on my way to work because the noise of the tram was drowning it out – even at full volume! Does this mean that my daily dose of tram noise is gradually deafening me? Perhaps I should sue...
T Ruscoe
12 January 2006 Video Killed The Radio Star
A long time ago, I used to record Radio 1's UK Top 40 on a Sunday evening using my radio cassette recorder. I could then take the songs everywhere with me on my portable stereo system. (It wasn't made by Sony, so it technically wasn't a Walkman.) Imagine being able to take a full ninety minutes worth of music with you wherever you went! The fact that the UK Top 40 went on for three hours meant you had to edit out Bruno Brookes and cleverly select which songs you wanted to record in advance. Of course, you could always carry more cassettes if you wanted to really go wild... but those days are long gone. You can now store more than 500 times that amount of music on a device that's not much bigger than an old audio cassette. Amazing!
But just carrying music around with you is so 1980s. We want to be taking music videos, full-length feature films and TV series everywhere we go – just like they used to do in the future! Well kids, we're living in the future now...
The other night, I finally learnt how to convert movies and DVDs to a format which would play on both my PSP and Suzy's iPod without purchasing any software. Forget about buying Sony's Image Converter 2 (£13.90) and Apple's Quicktime Pro (£19.99) to convert your movies into a format that your PSP or iPod will recognise. You don't even need to spend money on UMDs that you can only play on your PSP when you've already got the DVD. All you need is DVD Shrink and PSP Video 9. (Yes, despite the name, you can also use this to create videos for your fifth generation iPod Video too.)
DVB Shrink enables you to “backup” your DVDs to your computer (or another DVD), removing any unwanted menus or special features along the way; you can then use PSP Video 9 to convert the movie to a number of formats, depending on what encoding or quality you require. For more instructions on getting your videos onto your PSP, read Getting Started with PSP Video 9. If you're converting your movies for use on your iPod, make sure transcode them using a compatible profile. I used the following:
Once you've transcoded the movie, you should be able to just open iTunes, add the file to your library and update your iPod.
Cheap and easy.
But just carrying music around with you is so 1980s. We want to be taking music videos, full-length feature films and TV series everywhere we go – just like they used to do in the future! Well kids, we're living in the future now...
The other night, I finally learnt how to convert movies and DVDs to a format which would play on both my PSP and Suzy's iPod without purchasing any software. Forget about buying Sony's Image Converter 2 (£13.90) and Apple's Quicktime Pro (£19.99) to convert your movies into a format that your PSP or iPod will recognise. You don't even need to spend money on UMDs that you can only play on your PSP when you've already got the DVD. All you need is DVD Shrink and PSP Video 9. (Yes, despite the name, you can also use this to create videos for your fifth generation iPod Video too.)
DVB Shrink enables you to “backup” your DVDs to your computer (or another DVD), removing any unwanted menus or special features along the way; you can then use PSP Video 9 to convert the movie to a number of formats, depending on what encoding or quality you require. For more instructions on getting your videos onto your PSP, read Getting Started with PSP Video 9. If you're converting your movies for use on your iPod, make sure transcode them using a compatible profile. I used the following:
SP/320x240/29.97fps/768kbps Stereo/128kbpsOnce you've transcoded the movie, you should be able to just open iTunes, add the file to your library and update your iPod.
Cheap and easy.
On a related note, Google recently added PSP support to Google Video. However, if you're getting “Unsupported Data” error messages or having problems viewing the video after you've downloaded it to your PSP, you might want to check that you're:(I've only tried to download a couple of movies from Google Video, so let me know if I'm wrong about any of the above points.)
running firmware 2.00 or above – it seems the PSP downloads on Google Video are in AVC format, which apparently isn't supported in earlier versions
naming the file correctly – i.e.
MAQ10001.MP4– where theMAQ#####.MP4naming convention is used for AVC format movies (and SP format movies useMV4#####.MP4)copying the movie to the right folder - i.e.
E:\MP_ROOT\100ANV01for AVC format (andE:\MP_ROOT\100MNV01for SP format) whereE:\is the drive letter of your PSP
02 November 2004 Ashlee Simpson Karaoke Edition iPod
So, Apple have released a U2 iPod. Well that's nothing compared to this special edition! As the designer says: "If only an iPod existed that would make lip syncing fool proof so we wouldn't have to know that our musicians only pretend to sing live. And then we could go on with our lives without having to worry wether or not the person performing on television was lip syncing or not."