A number of pretty interesting posts popped up over the weekend by a couple of guys that I really admire and finally they got me to return to this forum.
The first post is by Robert Scoble “Why I can’t kick the iPhone habit” Like Robert I have had the Desire, The Hero, The Nexus heck I even had the Droid, nice naming protocol by the way HTC and in the exact same manner as Robert I am of the opinion that I am much more productive on the iPhone as opposed to any of the Android handsets. I have tried seriously to get into the Android and even put away the iPhone for a month I simply feel Android is just not there yet even though long term I know and have written that its going to be the winner, it will get there but not yet, the store feels clunky even on the 2.2 release and the UI just doesn’t seem to flow as well as the iPhone.
Next up is Louis Gray “Why I turned in my iPhone and went Android”
Again lovely guy but I think his argument is incredibly weak, he opens with choice and openess, this openess thing on Android is a myth in my opinion and if you want choice walk down to your local phone shop there is plenty of choice.

“A bet on iPhone 4 today may be a vote for the best phone of today. But a bet on Android is a bet on the future. I am betting on an ecosystem and an application environment that encourages best of breed developers”

Well if thats what you think I wish you the best Louis, I think you are wrong, I think that Apple may have a chance of suceeding also, I also believe that Apple “advertising” system will bring huge rewards for developers in the future far above and beyond Android.

I am not an Apple fanboy though and have serious issues with the device, the battery is weak, 3.25pm everyday its dead unless I get some power into it that morning, I carry a supplementary charging device with me everywhere and the data usage is huge whilst roaming. It is however unrivaled for the moment and I stress “for the moment” , I would never write off Nokia though, they are just too big a company not to come back and for anyone writing them off I would remind you of one word “Motorola” and no I don’t feel like a victim James.

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Some interesting news floating around regarding Apple and its interest in purchasing iCall a USA VOIP provider.
iCall allows iPhone users when in a hotspot to divert calls off of the GSM network and onto the WiFi network. I have been testing it for a few week now and quality appears to be as good as cellular and at the prices being bandied about it seems like Apple are buying it for the domain as much as for the business.
Obviously Apple are in the next 12 month going to end exclusive carriers deals for the iphone and this may be a play for Apple to become your defacto carrier of choice when in a wifi zone.
Devicescape recently conducted a survey and found that 82% of those surveyed wanted their service provider to offer special 3G/Wi-Fi packages.
It looks like Apple could become that service provider and if you could pay for that airtime through your iTunes account even better in Apple’s view as it practically elimanate the fraud issue which plagues voip providers.
The real interesting part of the puzzle in the iCall offering is that it detects incoming calls and routes them to Voip if its available saving your minutes usage if you are in a country like the USA where you pay for inbound and outbound calls.
This is a worrying time for companies who have bet the house on being the wifi/voice provider on the iPhone/iPod Touch

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It appears that Irish mobile network Meteor are giving full 3G data free of charge.

Chris Kennedy drew my attention to this early today.
Meteor’s standard prepaid data costs €1 a day for 50 megabytes and 2c per kilobyte thereafter.
However its appears that there is a exploit on Meteor’s prepaid data billing system.
Chris has been running full 3G Meteor data for the last 3 days with only 1c credit on his account which is not reducing as you can see from the video below.

It appears that once you keep a positive on your account and keep it below €1 data is free.

A few people suggested that Meteor would retrospectively charge for usage once we added credit to the sim, we added credit and as you can see from below, credit remained as before.

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Its like the team the never learns at O2 Ireland
Its beyond disgraceful and they just don’t seem to give a damn about the Irish consumer on the Iphone 3GS launch.
Check the UK prepaid pricing out here
Check the Irish prepaid pricing here

Retail for 8GB iPhone 3GS
Ireland €519
UK €522.77 (Equivalent)

Packages
Ireland: free wifi roaming-Data roaming 99c a day, capped at 50mb
UK: free unlimited wifi and data usage for no cost.

Its really quite incredible, cost of purchase and ownership of the device for one year costs the Irish prepaid consumer AN EXTRA €361.35 if they use the data connection daily compared to the UK purchaser.

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Well I wrote a post almost a year ago entitled
Will iPhone become the junkyard for Facebooks failed voice applications
At the time we hadn’t even seen the app store but over the past week I am convinced I was on the right track
Christmas week saw huge sales of a fart application which whilst funny is not what I would have expected to make it through the app store regulations.

Released today is an app that allows your to track your multiple partners menstrual cycles
Are you fucking kidding me Apple?
Seriously this app is a bridge too far
See for yourself
“I am a Man” will help you with your private life planning. You will know about your girlfriend’s period and her mood. You can plan your dates, evening and save some money.

But it’s not all!

You can add several girls.(Really how fucking wonderfully 21st century Apple, what a shitty deceptive little app this is) The program helps to avoid misunderstandings and preserve your relationship. Even if your girlfriend accidentally bumps into this application and makes you enter the password – she will be the only one to appear on the list, because “I am a Man” program implies personal passwords for each girl!

Features:

* Trace your girlfriend’s periods
* Trace your girlfriends periods
* Set a master password for the whole program
* Set personal passwords for every girl
* Make calls by simply tapping on her name
MORE

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Just discovered a very useful new application on the iPhone APP store designed by an Irish company, is this the first Irish iPhone APP?
EirText designed by Vincent Coyne aggregates your free online SMS from the carriers and allows you to send them from your iPhone.
Works from Vodafone, Meteor and O2
Very clever, well done Mr Coyne whom I have never met but hopefully will remedy that soon.

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Well today was the day and all went well in the end.
Its a real simple process and you are not interfering with the phone itself in anyway whatsoever. Watch the QIK below and you will see an iPhone 3G running on Vodafone 3G

I have tried every option so far and none of them worked but I got a sample pack a few weeks ago from SIMable and decided to try that, it worked first time and with a little bit of chopping and changing I have the phone running on 3G vodafone.

I have one SIMable to give away, leave a comment if you want it and I will pick one comment

Disclaimer
SIMable tell me they aren’t guaranteeing anything on iPhone, I made now changes except on 3G and it worked first time.

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It’s my first week with the iPhone 3G and I thought I had better write a little.
Firstly power is a serious issue I have not gotten a full day from the phone on 3G whilst accepting incoming calls for the day only (I will not use O2′s network to make a call and have my vodafone and my voip numbers forwarding to the phone) but the same problems exists with my Nokia N95 8GB so it not a killer. I have ordered one of these external power packs so that will help.

On pictures the phone performs adequately on the 2 megapixels, in fact a lot of pictures seem to be of better quality.

Activation was a complete and utter disaster with mobileme still not functioning correctly and O2 have STILL not done a database sweep on accounts set up as prepaid with people still failing in their set-up procedure.

The phone itself is a joy, vocal quality is excellent and signal is loud and clear easily matching the RF radio in the Nokia.

Now for a couple of wonderful things which set the phone apart, the APP’s store is a joy, I would love to have the choice that the have in the USA but that is an afterthought, I am loading testing and deleting lots of them, I have given Apple and I hope a lot of small business at least a couple of hundred dollars this week.
One’s that shine through so far are
Truphone
Amazing, problems with set-up were sorted by the wonderful Katie Brimble but after that its a joy, am receiving all my calls here in Spain on MAXroam (disclosure I am founder of MAXroam) and making internationals calls for cents on Truphone, quality is definitely 5 by 9 and interface is idiot proof.

Twinkle
The number one twitter application for the iPhone in my opinion, easily to load pictures and to post to twitter plus structured conversation. The have recently added a locate me feature which is very impressive.

Google Apps
This became available in Europe yesterday and opens the Web search box and links to Gmail, Calendar and Reader up at the top of the screen for quick access.

Twitterific.
Same as twinkle but a little more difficult to follow the chat, doesn’t have the occasional load problems that twinkle seems to have though.

Hellotxt
Cross posting to all the social media sites.

Lots of other fun ones, mobile flickr, ShoZu, TalkBubbles, Linguo, Vicinity, Shazam and twitter search are amongst the best.

All in all an excellent first week, no voice minutes used as I am not going to get caught in the trap of paying O2 one cent more than I committed to for 18 months.

Lots and lots of others but those are the main bunch I am using at the moment.
Any must have APP’s suggestions would be really appreciated

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A friend gave me his iTunes login today to download the Google application for the iPhone 3G and I was shocked to see exactly what we aren’t getting in Europe.

Firstly movie rental no sign of it on European store, why not, surely its a global market.

Second TV series, I am a huge fan of “Run’s House” and “Anthony Bourdain” no option to get these either.

Onto the apps store, no Google apps, no games, nothing, its really incredible what we are missing here, surely it can’t be royalties when I can buy everything I need by walking into a USA store and bringing them home with me.
Apple are definitely loosing revenue here also with the weakness of the Dollar

USA paid apps

Europe Paid apps

USA free apps


Europe free apps

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I have been looking for this since I got the phone, its a tiny hack and allows you to take screenshots from your iPhone, I presume it works on iPod touch also but haven’t confirmed this.
Here is one I done early

You click your home button and your power button at the same time, please note its a click not a hold works perfect everytime.
Small demo video below

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