I am probably known for being a bit curmudgeonly, let’s be honest!
When this post goes live I will be part way through a day of repeated Video Conference training sessions (the same thing over and over in 30 min slots) with a lot of top level Corporate people.
Which is fine! I’m happy to spend the day doing that, but it can be a little trying, especially as technology usually conspires against me in these things.
So, as it is Friday, the weekend starts at close of play today and while I admit that I am getting soft as I get older, here is a video that made me smile because of its sheer enthusiasm and fun. Plus it is still Apple related.
My favourite thing is the Apple Store Security, you’ll see what I mean at the end. I hope this video makes you smile
I am a self confessed Apple fan. Our house is well equipped with Apple branded gadgets and has seen several iterations of the current devices passing through it’s doors on the way out to eBay.
Currently I own an iPad, iPhone 3GS and a 4 year old 15″ MacBook Pro. My Wife has an iPhone 4 after recently upgrading from a Motorola V3 / iPod Touch combo. My kids even pretend to have iPhones and iPads all the time, not knowing anything else in their 5 and 3 year old lives.
I am not trying to show off here, I just want to make it clear how entrenched in the Apple Ecosystem I am at present. Yes, it is very sad! ^_^
The iPad Effect
The thing is, since taking possession of an iPad, I have found myself for the first time ever, thinking about selling my iPhone with out the express intention of replacing it with another iPhone.
In fact, I am actively seeking a replacement for my 3GS that includes the features missing on or equal to those of the iPhone but at a cheaper price.
These include a decent camera, HD video, Wifi hotspot sharing without the ‘Apple tax’ (i.e. extra charges just because it is an iPhone), and the fabled ‘openness’ of other platforms.
This is the enormity of the iPad’s impact on my gadget life.
First Candidate – Nokia N8
It is with this purpose in mind that I have applied to trial the Nokia N8 and I heard today that it is on it’s way. I can upgrade to the N8 with Orange UK for just £49.99 today, as opposed to £230-ish for an iPhone 4, but if I wait until June I can get the N8 free for £10 less than I pay now for the 3GS.
Once I have received the N8 trial unit I will be going ‘cold turkey’ and hiding my iPhone for the two week trial period. The N8 will be my only phone/mobile computer (other than iPad)/camera/video recorder for those two weeks.
I will be seeing if I can live without the App Store on my Phone, how the iPad works with a non-Apple phone, if at all and what the Ovi Store experience is like for someone so used to Apple’s way of doing things.
I will post here as much as I can about my experiences over these two weeks, but I will probably put out more regular updates over on Twitter.
Apple yesterday announced that the new iPhone OS 4.0 will be hitting the ubiquitous mobile phone/device/mini-computer in the Summer, but the iPad would have to wait a few more months until Autumn (the Fall as they would call it). Call it paranoia, but I have a theory why this might be.
The iPhone traditionally sees a new model around the end of June. So that would tie in nicely to the release of iPhone for OS 4.0. Many features, most notably multi-tasking, will not be available to older models except the most recent iPhone 3GS. So to get all the new shiny goodness of OS 4.0 on their device, many iPhone users will have to upgrade. This will generate a ‘need’ in consumers minds so that they end up buying new hardware to run the ‘must-have’ features of the new iPhone OS.
However, the iPad will still only be about three months old by the end of June, and Apple may well be planning to upgrade the iPad’s specs, but not that soon for fear of really, really, upsetting their early iPad adopters.
So I think that Apple will revamp the iPad in 6 Months time, about September-time, and coincidentally will release OS 4.0 for the iPad at the same time. This will drive many who had been critical of the iPad’s first incarnation to think again about purchasing now it has better specs and a shiny new OS. This will also give consumers time to get used to having OS 4.0 and its enhanced features, and they will be gagging to get this same functionality on their iPads too.
I don’t know about you, but when I am online, specifically when I am on Twitter I see numerous links every day to articles or blog posts or just sites and services that I want to check out, and usually I don’t have time to look at them. So I have become an avid user of the Read it Later service. But it is just about to get better!
I didn’t know about this tip, and as a Trainer I like to pass on the knowledge in the hope it will help someone, somewhere, have a better day.
So, the credit for this quicktip goes to Dave Hamilton from the excellent MacGeekGab in Epsiode 214:
I knew that on Mac OSX, if you click on the Airport icon in the menu bar, you would see the name of the wireless network you had connected to, and any others in range, plus a little padlock to the side to indicate if security was enabled on that base station. This is the standard view as illustrated on the right.
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So, the credit for this quicktip goes to Dave Hamilton from the excellent MacGeekGab in 
But what I did not know