I’ve tried a few podcast players on the iPhone, but nothing until now has come close to matching the built-in software (which itself isn’t anything special – it’s just solid).

Instacast (made by Vemedio) feels like a polished product (the other apps’ I’ve tried did not).

Here are what I consider to be the pros and cons of this app, followed by a few feature requests that would for me take this far beyond anything Apple has done to date.

Pros

This isn’t a complete feature list, it’s a list of the features I appreciate.

• You can lock your phone or exit the app whilst a video is playing and you still hear the audio. I’ve been eager for Apple to do this for some time.
• You can sync podcasts without the need for iTunes or WiFi (ie. it works over 3G).
• Of the shows you subscribe to, as well as the shows you’ve downloaded, you’re also able to stream shows straight from the net. There are a few key shows I must hear, and so I download (aka Cache) these when they’re released, but for the rest I’ll just stream there and then, or download just in time for my trip home from work. This helps to free up space on my phone and means I can sub to more shows (including video feeds) without any disk space price to pay.
• It makes it easy to filter the shows you’ve cached from the shows you’ve simply subscribed to.
• It includes the show notes when you’re listening/watching a show, including the all important hyperlinks. That’s turned out to be surprisingly useful when listening/watching to a show.
• It provides a chronological order of the newest shows you’ve subscribed to (a “river of shows”).
• In-app subscription with a decent selection of podcasts to choose from.
• It makes it relatively easy to move from iTunes to Instacast via the importing of an OPML file.

Cons

• I miss being able to subscribe directly via my desktop PC.
• As the option is there to stream or download on demand, I find myself subscribing to more podcasts ‘just in case’. This has resulted in a longer and messier list of subscribed shows. I’m starting to feel like I’m missing out on some shows because it’s harder to get an overview of what I have available.

Feature Requests

• There are some shows I want to watch each week, whilst there are others that I could skip a few weeks of and not care. Instacast (like Apple’s own software) treats all podcasts equally. I’d like to be able to tag podcasts/feeds, allowing me to organise my podcasts in a similar way I manage my RSS feeds (most importantly with a “Must Read” tag).
• You can have the app auto cache (ie. Pre-download) podcasts, but from what I can tell this is all shows or nothing. That would soon fill up my disk space with shows I don’t really care about. It would be nice to have it auto cache only certain shows or certain tags (see above).
• I’ll sometimes jump from podcast to podcast. One afternoon I’ll be in the mood to listening to The Talk Show, but in the morning I might be more in the mood for The StackExchange Podcast. It would be good to have a timeline of what I’ve been listening to recently so I can easily jump back to a previously incomplete show.
• And of course, my killer feature (as mentioned a few posts back) would be the ability to start a podcast on my iPhone, stop it and the pickup where I left off using a different device (eg. my media pc).

At the moment I’m a very happy Instacast user, and I think it has great potential. It’ll be interesting to see if Apple have anything to announce at WWDC 2011 this Monday that might bring me back.

I won’t go into a big review, but If you want that, then check out Shawn Blanc’s review.

What I will say though are the bits that appear to have converted me. As an overview, it’s the fact I can achieve most of what I did in Twitter for iPhone all from the main timeline (ie. I don’t need to go from screen to screen to find what I’m after). Most of it can be achieved from gestures. Namely…

• View the tweet’s conversation by swiping left to right on the tweet.
• Viewing the responses to a tweet by swiping right to left (I don’t believe this function actually exists in Twitter for iPhone, but it’s something I’ve been after for some time. Quite often someone would ask a question and I’d like to see the responses.)
• Viewing the link contained within a link by double tapping the link.
• Viewing the user’s profile by tapping their profile picture.
• Retweeting by triple tapping (this needs to be configured)

Here’s hoping they do an iPad app now.

I had a real day of First World Problems yesterday, and it all (possibly) started with a twig.

I was out mowing the front lawn with my pride and joy (the Bosch Rotak 34). A couple of hours earlier me and Becky were commenting on what a great investment it was. Handles even the longest of post-winter grass, can hold about a lawn’s worth without having to empty it and seems sturdy enough to last for years. Well worth the ~£100 we umm’ed and arr’ed about paying.

I was cutting over a twig when I cockily thought to myself “that twig would have broken my old lawn mower’s blade – not this bad boy though!”. With that, the noise the mower made changed. The vacuum was working, but the blades had stopped.

After much arsing around, we deemed it faulty. So Becky said she’ll call Focus to find out what we can do given that we have no receipt.

“How am I going to find the number?” she asked. As I often do, I got my iPhone out and did a quick Google. Passed her the phone and she tapped the number to call.

After the call, she put the phone back down on the recycling bin outside. She started telling me what Focus said, and then it happened: my iPhone slid off the bin and on to the concrete floor.

“Fuck!!” I shouted. The neighbours behind us laughed. Cretins…

We checked the phone and the front screen had been completed shattered.

Gutted. The iPhone was/is probably the greatest thing I’ve ever purchased. I use it all the time for all sorts of situations.

After giving 3 a call – who passed me on to Apple – I was told that I’d need to pay £140 to get it replaced. As I was thinking more >£500 I thought that was reasonable – not that we can afford it (along with a new lawn mower and other things that have gone wrong recently (boiler, PC power pack, replacement car wheels etc)).

Still, I get the replacement phone on Thursday.

Until then I’m phoneless. It’s really quite an odd feeling. Other than the fact I go to grab it every 10 minutes, it’s also weird being without SMS – or more to the point, not having the occasional non-important text from Becky. I wonder what sort of day she’s having? Mine is a bit meh, and I’d quite like to inform her of that fact…

It’s also meant I have nothing to read on the train or in the bath (for some strange reason the iPad doesn’t get signal in the bath – it does on the toilet though half a meter away though..). Which isn’t such a bad thing. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like knowing there are RSS feeds going unread, or that I’m completely out of touch with what’s happening in Libya and the rest of the world. But if I had one complaint about the iPhone (or rather, smart phones in general) it’s that it’s stopped me reading books. And so I’ve taken this opportunity to have a crack at reading a book.

I’m hoping I get so engrossed in the book by Thursday that I’ll stick with it rather than revert to the quick and easy win of a web page, or quicker and easier still: a tweet.

The book I’ve chosen is one my brother got me for Christmas a couple of years back. Days of War, Nights of Love. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but it’s quite an eye opener. From what I gather, it’s a series of essays written by anarchists explaining their beliefs. I’m quite susceptible to other people’s views so it feels almost dangerous to be reading it. One thing it encourages is for you to stick it to The Man. Hopefully I don’t do just that the next time my boss speaks to me. I need my job.

They do speak a lot of sense though, but their views tend to contradict my own so right now I’m confused what to think. My political and moral views are already deemed a bit of a joke in work, so I wonder what they’d think if I started preaching the book, which is far more extreme than what my colleagues already deem extreme.

Still, if I do turn to anarchy, I’ll blame that ruddy twig!

PS. Enjoy this post’s name-sake embedded at the top of the page: a bit of classic Modest Mouse, before they polished up their act.

However, after listening to the Pipeline podcast with Garrett Murray as the guest, I wanted to check out a short movie he had made: Forever’s Not So Long (the film is embedded at the bottom of this post).

(As an aside, I found it a really good show this week. As well as a maker of short movies, Garrett Murray is a software developer who creates apps on the side of his day job. I found it quite inspirational)

As my train was delayed by 16 minutes this morning, and as the short film was 12 minutes long, I decided to try watching it on my iPhone 4 whilst standing on the platform.

I have to say, I had no issues doing it. From a technical point of view the bandwidth held up well enough that it didn’t once pause, but more importantly from a personal point of view I found myself getting lost in the film. I’d totally forgotten that I was stood on a cold platform watching it on a tiny screen with earphones in. Who’d a thought it?

Granted, it’s only 12 minutes long, but from my point of view if I can get engrossed within 12 minutes then there is a good chance I can do it with feature-length films too.

The film itself was good. The plot is simply that the lead character knows his city is going to be destroyed in a few hours time, and these are his last few hours. There are some nice touches of humour in it. I especially appreciated the pause as they’re cleaning their teeth, and the smoking news anchor.

The Retina display just isn’t that interesting. Yeah, when you’ve been spending quality time with a super-high-res device like an iPhone 4 or Nexus One, you notice that the iPad screen looks a little fuzzy here and there. But who cares? Not the kazillions of people who are buying iPads.

via ongoing by Tim Bray · Tab Sweep — Technology.

I disagree with this. At least from my point of view, the display quality is a big deal. The only issue I have with the iPad is it’s low resolution, especially after using the iPhone 4.

For me the tablet form factor is great for reading. Unlike a desktop and laptop you can’t create on it (eg. for me that’s programming) but the iPad is great for sitting on the sofa, relaxing and reading with – especially when compared to a laptop or desktop.

I’m finding the nicer the screen though, the more enjoyable the read. So if you buy a device to read with, the display should be a feature and not a ‘could be better’.

The problem I get is I start listening to a podcast on the way home from work on the phone, but before it finishes I’m home.

I then want to listen to it either on the desktop or on the media player. The problem is, they don’t always know where I’m at in the podcast. Granted, it doesn’t take a huge effort to jump to a certain point in the podcast (ok, it potentially can with Boxee due to it’s streaming nature) but it would be neat if the applications knew where I was in terms of each podcast.

Going from the iPhone to iTunes tends to work following a sync. Although strangely it doesn’t work (for me at least) the other way round.

Boxee is completely out of the loop. To try to get around that I installed iTunes on the media PC (thereby completely ignoring Boxee) and enabled ‘HomeShare’ in iTunes. I was hoping that the two instances of iTunes would pass along the meta data required to know how far into a podcast I was. Nope.

So my ideal, would be a place on the internet/cloud which stores the point at which you’re in a podcast, which any podcast playing software can (and does) read from. As a side effect you’d also have one repository of the podcasts you subscribe to. So next time you find a new podcast to listen to, you don’t have to subscribe to it both in iTunes* and Boxee (they’be both read the list of subscriptions from this central repository). Same for removing them etc.

So far I’ve not found a way to achieve this, and due to the closed nature of iTunes and even ignoring that the sheer amount of work involved, I’m not in a position to develop it either.

* Let me be clear. I don’t think for a second that even if such a service did exist that Apple would support it. Maybe if they provided a means to write plugins for iTunes it could happen.

The price of music albums should be slashed to around £1, a former major record label boss has suggested.

via BBC News – Album price ‘should drop to £1′.

As the article states, it would be a huge gamble to take because once you slash prices that far, you can’t go back. But from my experience with Apple’s App store, items that cost insignificant amounts (ie. micropayments) can cause you to spend more.

I unknowingly spent £20+ on apps when we got our iPad in a matter of days. If asked when I got my iPad if I’d be willing to spend that much on apps in a week I’d say no, but with each app costing ~£2.00 I didn’t give each purchase a second thought. £2.00 just isn’t worth giving that second thought about.

God knows how much I’ve spent on iPhone apps since I got it, but I’d bet good money it exceeds the amount I’ve spent on CDs during that time. Buying a CD has become a treat – something I need to decide on whether it’s worth it or not, and something I need to pass by the Mrs – but buying an app is a total non-event.

That said, that total non-event feeling is one reason why I don’t download music illegally. I quite like the fact that when I buy an album, it deserves some attention because I’ve paid a significant amount for it.

As an aside, I wonder at which point in my life £7.99 became a significant amount?!

Note: View the 24/04/2011 update at bottom for details on iPhone 4 usage

I’m the sort of person sad enough to seek out reviews of something as mundane as earphones, so it seems fit and fair that I’m also sad enough to write those reviews.

I’ve just purchased a pair of Sony MDR-EX38iP ear phones.

I use my ear phones on a daily basis for music and podcasts, and a bad pair can really frustrate me. Due to a lack of money, now more than ever, purchasing a pair of ear phones is a big risk. Get the wrong pair and I’m stuck with them for months, if not a couple of years.

It’s for that reason that my previous 3 pairs have all been Sony MDR-EX52LPs. I doubt they’re the best, but to me at least they sounded good, fitted in the ear nicely and didn’t do anything annoying (like tug down as I’m walking). Tried and trusted you could say.

However, this morning the latest pair broke. So it was time to seek out a new pair.

The reason I finally took a risk and jumped the EX52LP ship is because – well – two reasons:

1. The MDR-EX38iP has a remote for the iPhone and iPod.
2. I’m impatient and didn’t want to go several days with 1 ear’s worth of earphones whilst I wait for Amazon to deliver a pair of EX52LPs (HMV didn’t have them in stock).

The Review

Sound Quality

First off, to my untrained ears the EX38iPI sound comparable to my old EX52LPs – which I consider to be good. I should stress now though, I’m no audiophile. Heck, I can enjoy a 128kbs MP3 as much as a higher rate one. All I can say though is I’ve heard a lot worst than these.

Comfort and the Cable

The earphones fit nicely into my ear. They provide you with three sized earbuds, so there is a good chance one of them will fit nicely. The default ones work for me fine.

I’m sad to say I’ve had some tug when walking around (eg. I can feel the earphone gently pull from my ear. It never comes out, but it’s still annoying). I tend to have the cable under my shirt. Putting on earphones is now part of the getting ready in the morning experience for me. You’re as likely to find me without a shirt as I am without ear phones.

My biggest gripe with the earphones though is that they have equal length cables for left and right earphones (ie. the upper case Y configuration) rather than a short left hand cable with a longer right hand cable coming off that (so it can go behind the neck – ie. the lower case y configuration). I’ve got use to the lower case y configuration and I’m hoping it doesn’t tug down too much. It’s this sort of thing that can make or break a good relationship with your earphones.

iPhone and iPod Compatibility and Remote Control

So if I were Googling these earphones, this is probably what I’d be Googling for: Does the remote work with my device?

For me, the answer is yes and no.

First off, it doesn’t work at all with a 5th Gen iPod Classic.

My iPhone 3G is a little more complex. On the packaging it claims to work with the iPhone 3GS, so I wasn’t hopeful it would work with my 3G. I was more hopeful it would work with my iPhone 4 when I buy it later this year.

In terms of working with the 3G, it has limited functionality:

• Volume: Doesn’t work
• Pause/Play: Works
• Skip Next/Prev Track: Works
• Voice Over: Doesn’t work

I’ve read that all 4 bullet points work on the iPhone 3GS. I haven’t read anything regarding the iPhone 4.

I’ve yet to try the microphone attached, but if I do I’ll update this post.

I have to say though, even the limited functionality of the remote has been great. I didn’t realise what a chore having to get my iPhone out of my pocket to pause a track/podcast was (#firstworldproblems). The remote sits nicely on the left ear cable, it’s easy to access and you soon learn to use it ‘blindly’.

An ideal feature (although I really wouldn’t expect anyone to implement this) would be the ability to jump back 30 seconds in a podcast.

Conclusion

So overall, I’m pleased with them. The only thing that comes close to a revelation is the joy of the remote. I’m hoping that makes up for the tug I get when walking with them in (snigger).

But I’m not missing my tried and trusted EX52LP yet.

Update (18/11/2010):

Ok, after more use, I have to say I’m not exactly as keen on these as I was when I first wrote this. Everything is fine, except for the fact they pull. I spend half my time walking to work adjusting them, and pulling the cable out from under my coat. I believe this is as a result of the Y configuration of the cable. My hope was that the remote would make up for this, but far from it. I’m quite looking forward to these failing on me so I can truly justify getting a different set.

Update (24/04/2011):

Just a quick update to note that that mic doesn’t work with the iPhone 4 (at least I haven’t been able to get it to work). Shame. However, all other functionality does appear to work.

• It’s fast. Very fast. This makes it a real joy to use. Unlike my iPhone 3G.
• It’s working out well for the reason I purchased it: to browse the net on the sofa (Anything else is a bonus)
• It ‘boots up’ quickly. Or rather, it unlocks quickly. This is in comparison to a laptop (our previous tool for browsing the net on the sofa) coming out of hibernate. This makes it perfect for those “I’ll just check IMDB/Wikipedia” moments.
• It badly needs ‘profiles’. This isn’t required on an iPhone as it’s a personal device, but with both me and Becky using it, it would be nice if we could both see only our apps, our email etc.
• Content looks great on it due to the good quality screen. Along with speed, I think a great screen is key to an enjoyable experience with a PC like device.
• Photo’s look great on the screen. Big bonus for Becky who loves looking at photos, whether they’re of our son or on Facebook.
• The width of the device seems about right. One thing I’ve noticed since getting a widescreen monitor is that it’s actually easier to read narrow width text. Readability uses this to its advantage. So does the iPad.
• The extra screen space makes a real difference when compared to the iPhone. Developers have made good use of it I think.
• The resolution seems low. I imagine it would look shockingly low if compared to an iPhone 4.
• The battery charge is great. It’s lasting a long time (I compare this to an iPhone 3G though, so, well..)
• Flipboard is a bit of a let down after all the hype. I think I was expecting too much, or perhaps I just need to spend more time with it. I think combined with Twitter Lists (which it does) it might be a useful app.
• The Twitter for iPad app is good though.
• Having Stan (our son) means we can’t always have it at arm’s reach, which is a shame. It would sit nicely on the coffee table we don’t actually own.
• Works well as a portable podcast viewer. I got some housework done and brought the video podcasts Screen Burn and Gillmor Gang around the house with me.
• It’s a great sharing device. When Becky sees a photo she likes, she can easily pass it to me, unlike a laptop.

Overall, I love it. That might be novelty speak, but I honestly think I’ll still be using it in 12 months time for the use-cases I purchased it for.

One flaw in the plan though: Becky really likes it too. Part of me was hoping for this. She agreed to spend a large amount of money because she liked the looks of it – which is surprising as tech really isn’t her thing – and it’s refreshing to see her get excited by a piece of technology. So far for her use cases consist of viewing Facebook on the sofa, doing Internet banking on the sofa, finally having a way to view all our photos (hadn’t got around to setting it up for her) and… Angry Birds.

However, the backfire in this plan is that I’m struggling to find the chance to use it. There is more likely a novelty factor at play with Becky than me, but there is a good chance it’s for keeps. If that’s the case, my so-far joking comments of getting a 2nd iPad just so I can use it might become a real request. Not that we could actually afford that.

Google Instant is a new search enhancement that shows results as you type.

via Google Instant.

I’m very impressed with Google Instant. I’m always using Google Search in my job (sometimes it feels like I actually Google for a living), so any improvements are very welcome.

I’m already noticing the difference in how I search and how often I search. As searching is now quicker and easier, I’m even more inclined to try a search that I might otherwise have considered more effort than it’s worth. On a related note, as my iPhone 3G is no longer painfully sluggish, I’m now reaching for that much more than I use to (and probably as much as I did before it got painfully sluggish). Basically, the easier, quicker and less painful you make something the more I think you’ll use it.

Google Instant has led me to make www.google.com my ‘new tab page’ in Firefox. It’s been a while since it’s taken that position, as I usually just Google via the address bar. Thanks to the fact they focus the cursor on the search box that’s working really well.

Now there is just one more step I’d like to see from Google and I’ll be happy: Keyboard navigation of their search results.

The introduction of Google Instant means I want this even more than before. It now feels like I’m doing much more keyboard work when searching than before (I’m probably not), and getting quicker results. I naturally want to hit j and k to navigate the results and continue to get to my target site as quick as possible. Instead I’m finding myself refining my search to a ridiculous degree just so I can “feel lucky” and visit the site by hitting down and right when it’s the number one result.

One final thought… it’s a strange, unnatural feeling typing in your search and reaching for the mouse without hitting ‘return’. I get a similar incomplete feeling when I don’t  have a lingering sugar taste resulting from the final bit of a cup of tea (ie. I don’t finish drinking a cup of tea).

When you download it to your Android phone, it integrates AddThis sharing right into the phone’s native user experience. Simply long press any link on your device, touch “Share page” and AddThis will help you share to any of the ~300 social networks, online tools, and services that we support.

via AddThis Blog » Blog Archive » AddThis Android App Makes Mobile Sharing Easy.

The fact the {en:Android_(operating_system)} allows developers this sort of integration into the OS is what tempts me away from the {en:iPhone}. Developers simply can’t provide this on {en:iOS}. This isn’t me speaking as a developer but rather as an end-user. And in terms of being able to easily share, it doesn’t help that it’s a pain in the arse to create a bookmarklet too.

As I’ve stated a couple times, I use MobileRSS for my {en:Google Reader} client on the iPhone.

One of the features I like is the ability to add a page to Read it Later. However, to do this I have to open the page before I can mark it to read later.

This doesn’t sound like much, but when you’re on the train and signal is tweak, it can take up much of the journey opening the page. And if I’m reading a good post with lots of interesting links out (Nat Torkinson’s Four Short Links series is an excellent example) then I can kiss goodbye to that journey. Not only that, but it interrupts your flow of reading the article.

What would be much better is to have the option of pressing and holding a link, and along with the option to ‘Open’ and ‘Copy’, you could also have the option to ‘Read it Later’. It should be a simple feature to add, but a very useful one at that.

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I’ve just added a new page called Recommended iPhone Apps. Like the Recommended Podcasts page, I aim to try and keep it up to date.

To save you the click, I’ve included the page’s content here:

HippoRemote

HippoRemote is an excellent app that allows you to control either your Windows, Mac or Linux PC with your iPhone. These apps are quite common already, but HippoRemote offers a couple features that make it more useful than most.

First off, it has profiles. Profiles are screen layouts created especially for certain apps. So the {en:XBMC} profile has buttons specifically created with XBMC in mind (eg. play, pause, volume, OSD etc) and the {en:Firefox} profile has buttons specifically created with Firefox in mind (eg. New Tab, Search, Find, New URL etc). This essentially creates a keyboard that adapts to the app you’re using. This works well on the small screen of the iPhone, but I’d imagine it would work really well with an iPad.

The other feature I like is that when you switch profiles, it also switches the app on-screen. So I can easily switch between {en:Boxee} and XBMC with a couple taps.

It’s not quite as convenient as actually having a mouse and keyboard (especially on an iPhone 3G where it takes a while to open) but if you already own an {en:iphone_os|iOS} device it’s considerably cheaper and in some ways is better than a physical keyboard and mouse.

I use to it control the media PCs in the house. Both were created on a near enough £0 budget, so this £2.99 app was ideal.

MobileRSS

More than anything else, I use my iPhone to read my {en:Google Reader} RSS feeds. So trust me when I say I’ve tried a fair few. And of all those I’ve tried, MobileRSS is my personal favourite.

There are two things in particular that I like about MobileRSS:

1. Compared to others (with the exception of the buggy Byline), it syncs with Google Reader very quickly (ie. the content is there to read within a minute). When you’ve only got a 10 minute train ride to read your feeds, you don’t want to be waiting 3-5 minutes for it sync and download the content you want to read.
2. It’s got all the methods of sharing I need. And by that, I mean that I can easily share an article on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader and via Email. I can also easily add the article to Read it Later.

I appreciate most RSS apps on the iPhone can do number 2, although the last time I checked only MobileRSS and Byline can sync so quickly as well.

TuneIn Radio

TuneIn Radio allows me to listen to {en:BBC 6 Music} when I’m out and about. As well as 6 Music, it has tons of other radio stations.

Read It Later

Read It Later is a bookmarking service for articles you don’t have time to read, but you would like to read later. A similar service is {en:InstaPaper}.

Using a combination of bookmarklets (in {en:Google Chrome}, {en:MobileSafari}), a Firefox add-on and iPhone apps (eg. MobileRSS, Twitter for iPhone) whenever I see an article I’d like to read later, I can add it to Read It Later. I can then view that article at a later time using either the Read It Later iPhone app, or a web browser.

One of the things I like about Read It Later is that it tracks how far into the article you are. So if I get halfway through an article in {en:Firefox}, when I come to read it on my iPhone I can continue from where I left off.

National Rail

National Rail is a well designed app that among other things, allows me to see the status of my train. I especially like the ‘Next Train Home’ function when I’m out in Taunton for a drink after work.

Foursquare

Foursquare is a location-based social networking site. When you visit a location, you open up Foursquare and ‘check-in’. It then notes your location and assuming you have friends on Foursquare, they can see where you are.

I don’t use the social aspects of this app (solely down to the fact I have no friends on there. Bridgwater, Som, UK isn’t exactly “Silicon Valley”, CA, USA), but I do use it just to keep a record of where I’ve been. I don’t know why, but I like having a record of things I’ve done. That’s why I use last.fm.

On a recent trip to London I made a point of checking in everywhere I went. I now have a reference of what I did in London. This might prove useful next time I’m up there and want to go into the same restaurant as last time.

I only use it for irregular places I visit though. So for example I don’t ‘check-in’ to work every day.

IMDB

If I don’t end up using IMDB whilst watching a film (“where have I seen that actor before?!”), I certainly use it at the end in order to view the film’s trivia. Now I get to do it on the sofa, straight away.

iReddit

Reddit’s Official iPhone App to view Reddit. A way for me to get a fix of geek content when I’m done with RSS and Twitter.

Hacker News

An unofficial Hacker News iPhone app to view Hacker News. A way for me to get a fix of geek content when I’m done with RSS, Twitter and Reddit.

To tell you the truth, I don’t know which Hacker News app I downloaded. There are several out there. The fact it’s simply called Hacker News on the iPhone homescreen doesn’t help much either.

Football SC

Football SC offers up football scores provided by Sky Sports. Badly designed, but I get to view the scores at least.

Shazam

Let Shazam hear a track, and it tells you what it is. Sounds gimmicky but I use it a surprisingly often.

Amazon UK

The Amazon iPhone app provides a nice interface to make those impulse purchases on Amazon.

XBMC

XBMC Remote acts as a remote control for {en:XBMC}. Much like the Apple app Remote, which allows you to view and select from your iTunes Media Library on your iPhone and have it play on your PC, this does the same with XBMC. I find it to be an excellent way to choose and listen to music in the living room. It also has a remote profile similar to HippoRemote, allowing me to navigate the on-screen menu systems using my iPhone.

London Tube

I don’t get to use this London Tube app much, but when I do I find it very useful.

The general routine is as follows:

1. We’re up London and decide we want to go somewhere.
2. We find out where that ‘somewhere’ is using Google Maps for iPhone.
3. Once we’ve found it, we find the nearest Tube station to it using the map and also the nearest tube station to us.
4. Using this app (London Tube) I enter those two stations and it gives us the best route to get there.

I think it’s possible to leave out the Google Maps step if you purchase an add-on. I’ve not looked into that though.

FindMeTV

FindMeTV is an app for TV listings. Other than to view listings without brining up the TV’s on-screen display (and so avoiding annoying the wife), it’s also useful for instructing our {en:sky_plus|Sky+} box to record a show whilst we’re out of the house – or if I’m feeling really lazy, just upstairs. Being able to record a show when you think of doing it rather than waiting until you get home and forget to do it is a great benefit.

The fact you can keyword search listings is also a great advantage over the TV’s on-screen guide.

via Daring Fireball: 4.

A pet hate of mine regarding the iPhone is that when you open a new tab in {en:MobileSafari}, if you then go back to view the previously loaded tab (ie. the one you were on) it often reloads the content.

This is a particular pain when you’re using {en:Google Reader} via MobileSafari. You go to view the web site of the RSS article and when you return to Reader you have to wait for the page to reload before finding and viewing the next article. This isn’t so bad on WiFi, but when you have a poor connection on a train, it can take up the remainder of the train journey loading the content.

To get around this I started using dedicated Google Reader applications (My current fav being MobileRSS). When it syncs, it affectively stores your articles offline so when you go to view them with a bad signal, it doesn’t make much difference (unless it’s a partial feed – in which case you go online to view the whole article).

Now I always assumed that the reloading of a web page when you return to a tab was a feature. You know, Apple trying to do you a favour by making sure you have the latest version of the page. It’s the sort of thing I’d expect from Microsoft, but not Apple. And so the quote above by John Gruber from his comprehensive iPhone 4 review makes much more sense: The page gets reloaded because there isn’t enough memory to store the old version.

Turn off Spotlight. Go to Settings, General, Home Button, Spotlight Search and just turn it all off. iPhone 3G is so resource constrained Apple wouldn’t even enable wallpaper. Indexing Spotlight in the background seems to be the straw that breaks the performance’s back. With Spotlight off, it’s a usable device again.

via How to improve iOS 4 performance on iPhone 3G | TiPb.

Ever since upgrading my iPhone 3G to iOS4 it’s run like a dog. I’ve found the advice above has helped a little though. Considering I never use Spotlight I’ve lost nothing by doing it.

Update (29/07/2010): It seems Apple are starting to pay some attention to this issue:

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/07/28/apple-investigates-reports-of-problems-with-ios4-on-iphone-3g/

As a result of this, the creator of Readability appeared on the Rebooting the News podcast.

What is Readability?

The idea of the app is it strips away all the unrequired graphics and ads of a web page and lays an article out in a consistent way.

Even whilst listening to the podcast, the concept didn’t appeal to me. Graphics and ads have never really bothered me. I’ve never been compelled to install an {en:Ad Blocker} for instance.

Consistency is Strangely Nice

However, in spite of that I figured I’d give it a try. {en:Dave Winer} seemed to be getting excited about it, so it was worth a look.

A week later and I have to say I’m very impressed. There is something to be said for a consistent reading environment regardless of the site. And the more I think about it, the more I realise that I prefer reading articles in an RSS reader to the actual site for that very reason. And especially on an iPhone (over Windows) because there are even less distractions.

How to Install

So far I’ve found the following ways to use Readability. I’m sure there are other ways, but these cover my needs at least:

• The original bookmarklet
• Firefox Extension
• Google Chrome Extension

Unfortunately I’m not overly impressed.

I’m completely OK with the fact the 3G is missing out on some of the new features that the more modern iPhones are getting. As I’ll note later, the phone is now struggling to handle the OS as it is, without chucking multitasking into the mix.

But it feels like that the negatives out-weigh the positives. And so it’s hard to call it progress.

Positives

First the positives:

• The first thing I noticed was the ‘Places’ tab in the Photos app. It’s great that the photos are back-dated so I can now easily spot the photos taken at our holiday in Minehead, or our day trip to Poole, and the whole two photos I took on my trip to the states!
• So far the new Folders feature looks good. I’ve now got my home screen down to just 2 screens rather than the sprawling mess it was before hand.
• Something I’ve been hoping for in a while now is a ‘Suggest’ feature when you search using Google (ie. start typing a word and it suggests what you might be searching for). This update brings that. Considering typing can be a pain on the phone, this is a great feature to have. Bit laggy, but to be expected.
• The ‘one inbox for all accounts’ is useful. I have a mail address especially for {en:Google Buzz}. Up until now I’ve been missing out on those emails but now I’m getting them again.
• The iPod app now shows the show notes for a podcast. This has already proven useful as it’s handy to see who is guesting on a particular episode.

So there are plenty of neat little touches that I’ve come to expect from Apple. Things that make the experience all the more enjoyable.

Negatives

But now the negatives:

• The phone has become somewhat unresponsive. The previous milestone update left it a little laggy but now it’s getting very laggy at times. Even writing an SMS is a laggy (and painful) experience now.
• The handling of video and audio has become somewhat buggy. Skip back 30 seconds and it stutters a bit.
• I’ve only one example of this (although I’ve only been in the situation where it could happen once) but when opening up another (non-Apple) app whilst the iPod is playing a podcast, it caused the podcast to stop. If this is how things are now, it actually leaves the 3G even less capable of multitasking than it previously was.
• On the day that followed the update my battery was gone by 10:30 (having been unplugged at 7:30). This might be due to me using the phone so much to try and find new things. So it remains to be seen if the battery life with this new OS is even worse than before.
• The gmail style email threading should be good. Although I’ve yet to see it work.
• The update (and in particular the backup of the phone prior to the update) to an incredible amount of time. After a hour an a half the backup was around 3% in. I left it going overnight in the end. What I don’t understand is why it took so long. A backup during an average sync takes a few minutes. Maybe this is a (far) more in-depth backup. This is a minor negative though, as it’s a one-off. Plus, I was lucky in that my data remained in-tact afterwards. A friend lost all his texts, contacts and worst of all photos. And due to the incredibly poor backup system Apple implements (I might write about that later), he couldn’t restore them from the lengthy backup he had to sit through.

The biggest of those is the unresponsiveness. It makes the phone less of a pleasure to use, which is a shame because until now the best feature of the iPhone has been how enjoyable it is to use.

One of the apps I’ve downloaded for it is Shazam.

I remember hearing about Shazam (or at least a service like it) a few years back. The idea was, you hear a song but you don’t know what its called. You ring a number, put the phone’s voice piece to the speaker and Shazam would tell you what it was. Neat, but at the time I considered it a novelty. To inconvenient to be useful.

Jump forward a few years and Apple have changed the smart phone market with their iPhone. Suddenly Shazam is more convenient to use, and thanks to the open web has more information to back the service up (beyond the name of the song).

I’ve been trying to think of when I’d use Shazam. First thought was when listening to the radio. The thing is, if the DAB Digital radio display doesn’t tell you what the song is, the DJ likely will.

Hollyoaks

Earlier today though I remembered that every time I watch Hollyoaks, there tends to be a song in the soundtrack (it sounds wrong calling it a soundtrack as its just a tv show!) that I really like. It happened the other day with a song that sounded like Coldplay doing a decent impression of Radiohead (and sounding better than usual as a result). I tried to find out the artist/song but the unusually the www was unable to help. So it occured to me, why not put Shazam to use on Hollyoaks.

So at the start of tonight’s episode I got Shazam going and touched ‘Tag Now’ (strange terminology). I had the phone with me on the sofa (ie. I didn’t put it up to the speaker) and shockingly it got it right! (Turin Brakes). Amazing!

So hopefully now I’ve thought of a use that works for me, I’ll actually use it and it will go beyond novelty status.

last.fm

I think a better use could be found for Shazam though. I try to scrobble as much music on last.fm as possible. I like stats. This works fine when I’m either listening to my iPod, or iTunes on my PC. However, if I’m listening to a CD or record (as I often do), my listens go unscrobbled. Wouldn’t it be neat if last.fm used Shazam to scrobble the music I listen to beyond my PC?

I should say now that’s I’ve not regretted the Blackberry (BB) purchase, however I’ve since saved up to get an iPhone once my 18 month contract is up.

Before getting my BB, I remember a friend telling me he purchased a BB over an iPhone because he wanted a keyboard he could blog on.

Soon after getting my BB I pointed out to him my one disappointment with it was that the keyboard was just too fiddly to write anything lengthy on.

And its because of that, I find it ironic that an hour ago – after writing a lengthy blog comment – that I figured that writing a blog post on the BB would be a piece of cake, and that I should start doing it.

And so here is my first Blackberry written blog post. Apart from the fact its hard to include hyperlinks, its worked nicely.

Its just a shame that in a couple months time I’ll switch to the iPhone and likely dislike that keypad even more :( until then though I hope to write more posts than I’ve been doing of late.