sinéad's lifestream

As promised the HTC Legend (thank you Meteor) is now up for auction on ebay. Proceeds from this eBay auction will be donated to the Irish Autism Action charity. The reason I choose this charity is because I wanted to highlight the need for the donation and recycling of used iPhones and iPod Touch, for children with Autism, so they can avail of the incredible Grace App – Picture Exchange for Non-Verbal People

A simple picture exchange system developed by and for non-verbal people allowing the user to communicate their needs by building sentences from relevant images. It can be customised by the individual using their picture and photo vocabulary with the user taking photos and saving pictures to the app.

The application works in real time and allows the user to select their preferences, then rotate the device to present a full sized sentence to the listener – who will read it with them and respond to their request.

The beauty of Grace is that it ensures the interaction of the user with the listener, and mutual understanding of the user’s real needs help to increase communication opportunities and build trust.

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I had set myself a challenge to swap my iPhone for a HTC Legend for a whole week and I completely failed. After day 4 struggling with what had evolved into over-complexity I just gave up and happily retreated back to the “evil” non-open source iPhone and heavily policed iTunes.

During this experiment I also had to discontinue using the Meteor network due the 2G to 3G handover problem (there’s a neat little video demonstrating this here) which left with me with no signal far too many times, but the phone worked perfect on O2. Hoping Meteor can fix that issue promptly, as many other HTC users are reporting this issue in the customer forums.

Day 4 With my Android

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I went along to a Meteor blogger event yesterday where we chatted about their new pay as you go data charges (250mb free if you top up by €20 per month, as well as free  Meteor texts – not bad at all) and us bloggers got to try out all the iPhone alternatives you could shake a stick at. They also sent me home with a HTC Legend.

Only last week I had tweeted about how I really wanted to try out an Android handset to do a compare and contrast against the iPhone. I usually change my phone on a yearly basis, and my iPhone 3G is nearing its first birthday, so trying out an alternative is a great way for me to discover if I should stick with Apple or not.

Before I got my iPhone a year ago I had always been a huge Nokia fan, what changed my mind was trying out Jen’s iPhone (she’s an avid Apple fan, so of course she had one months before me) as I was simply blown away by the web browsing experience, something that previous Nokia smartphones (running the Symbian operating system) I had owned simply didn’t compare to.

First Impressions of Android

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I keep on coming across the same Pat Phelan reaction to the iPhone pricing and wondering…

Am I the only one who has ever noticed how expensive ALL of the mobile phone tariffs are (especially the data charges), on ALL of the networks in Ireland, in comparison to the U.K? The phone prices are also very different, and the range of phones.

It’s nothing to do with the iPhone itself, it’s the same old adage in this country it’s “what the market can bare” rather than “best value for money”. O2 keeps its prices high because they can, and people are still going to buy the iPhone despite the download cap and excessive pricing.

As far back as September 2007 I suggested that those desperate for an iPhone would be better off with an iPod Touch instead. The iPod Touch has everything the iPhone has except it’s not a phone (though the iPhone isn’t exactly brilliant at being an actual phone – no MMS messaging, difficult SMS input etc.,) oh and let’s not forget that the iPod Touch doesn’t have that god awful 2 megapixel camera, what a loss.

Buying the iPod Touch is even better advice today because of the Joikuspot Software. Or, you could take Pat Phelan’s advice and go to the North, buy the iPhone and get it unlocked to use on any network. But that means being stuck in an 18-month contract and paying a monthly fee for minutes you will never get (though I doubt this is possible as you need to be a resident of the U.K to sign up to a mobile contract IN the U.K).

Even if you DO have an unlocked iPhone and use it on another network – you will still have to pay the high prices for Edge mobile data, so what’s the point?

It was an easy prediction for me to make (even back in January) that the iPhone would (eventually) launch in Ireland on the O2 Network. Seeing as the iPhone is launching in the U.K in November exclusively on O2, it’s an even easier prediction to make now. But O2′s data packages are very expensive – ask anyone who ever attempted to use their ill-fated iMode to do anything productive. For instance 25MB of data is currently €19.99! To put this into perspective, 1MB is approximately 20 webpages. Not websites, pages. So much for that “mobile internet device” we’ve been promised.

Speaking of which – I’ve finally hit the 1GB download allowance (a.k.a fair usage policy) on the Three Network. Considering its taken me 6 months to do so, and at only €20 for the privilege, I’m very impressed. 1GB went a very long way – from checking my email every available second using the fantastic Gmail Java Application, to looking up cinema times, browsing Bebo and even the occasional “attempt” at cheating in quizzes. If I was on O2, this would have cost me over €800.

I’m uncertain as to whether my next Internet bundle purchase will last as long, as they are supposed to expire after the allowed 1 month but if my previous experience is anything to go by it should be fine. This is just another fuel to my disappointed over the iPhone being released without 3G capabilities. Not only would have it been cheaper to run (on the Three Network at least), it would have made my mobile browsing a much more enjoyable experience.

Using EDGE technology is slow and O2 are quoted as having only 30% coverage in Europe. In the UK, O2 have attempted to overlook this issue by offering free access to over 7,000 wifi hotspots. I can’t imagine them being able to pull off a similar deal in Ireland – especially when the major wifi hotspot provider is Eircom.

All usability studies show that fast response times are essential for web usability. The lesson from this? If you want Internet on the move that is actually usable rather than frustrating, don’t even bother with an iPhone – it’s a glorified widescreen iPod, overpriced and over-hyped. I’m not slating the device itself, as it does boast a very user centred design. The user interface is beautiful and intuitive. A list of its strengths and weaknesses can be found here. (It does fail to mention the lack of multimedia messaging (MMS) capabilities though). Also check out “Living with the iPhone” over on Infosync.

My advice to you, prospective Irish iPhone buyer – try to get an unlocked one online, choose whatever network you want for voice and txt, then forget about connecting to the Internet unless you’re at home in your own personal wifi network, otherwise this thing will cost you a fortune in monthly voice, text and data from O2. And no, there won’t be any pay-as-you-go iPhone out there.

Or, you could just buy an iPod Touch. It’ll definitely work out cheaper.

There has been a huge amount of speculation online (for years actually) about Apple producing a PDA or a Phone. Recently Steve Jobs introduced the world to the iPhone which is being marketed as an iPod, phone and Internet communicator. The iPod and phone part I get, the Internet communicator, with regards to an Irish market, is a bit of a stretch. This is definitely a device designed with the American market in mind.

The problem with any kind of mobile Internet is that none of the current networks in Ireland offer any kind of reasonably priced data packages that will allow for anything more than e-mail usage from the iPhone (unless connected to a wifi hotspot – pretty slim chance of finding many of those in Ireland). It’s a real pity the iPhone isn’t 3G compatible as it would be perfect for the 3 network’s eagerly anticipated X-Series. Unfortunately the iPhone currently only supports EDGE.

EDGE and 3G are the technologies that allow for high-speed mobile data transmissions, the most notable difference between the two is the speed. With EDGE you can connect to a mobile network at up to 384kbps but with 3G it’s up to 3.6mbps. It’s that huge difference in speed that allows you to make video-calls on a 3G network, which means no video-calls on the iPhone.

Currently only O2 and Meteor support EDGE, Vodafone and 3 surpassed this lesser technology to install a 3G network. Therefore the iPhone, as it is now, will only work on O2 or Meteor. It definitely limits your options and seeing as O2 is already a Apple Reseller, for now I’m going to assume that when the iPhone does launch in Ireland, it will launch on O2, only.