Apple iPhone 5 - The Maps Debacle

I've been sitting back and watching the Apple iPhone 5 release unfold with some interest.  It's kinda been the first really major release from Apple since the great Steve Jobs left this world and, personally, I was hoping for something that was actually a bit of a departure from the stock expectation.

Did Apple disappoint?  In some ways yes, in others no.  iPhone 5 saw an increase in screen size, a removal of the glass back and a slight change in the UI layout (if adding a row of icons can be described as a change in UI).  It also saw them take another step away from the shared Apple/Google ecosystem by removing the GMaps from the core OS as part of the iOS6 update.  The other major change was with the connector but that was in many ways expected.

Just briefly on the form factor change.  Really it was about time.  iPhone when placed next to any other high end smartphone looks like a poor cousin in terms of screen size and I'd have to say that the added real estate  has to be the most welcome change.  Getting rid of the glass back was something of a necessity as I suspect that the expense incurred by Apple through smashed chassis had to have hurt.  It also means that the phone can be a little lighter and a little thinner.  Headphone socket at the bottom... meh, I think you might find that there is an added reason for this with docks since the analog audio function has been removed from the dock connector but then it might just be because that's the only place they could fit it in.

Changing the dock connecter from the standard 30 pin to their new 'Lightning' connecter strikes me as a pessimistic and ultimately exploitive move essentially there to generate more income.  There is nothing (yet) that the connector does that a Micro USB connector can't do and, from a customer perspective, it means that everyone is going to buy a whole stack of new peripherals.  The Lightning connecter has an 'advantage' in that it can be inserted any way thus removing the frustration of trying to jam your socket in the wrong way.  What they seem to miss is that the Micro USB plug actually has a large 'B' on one side of it which means that you should be able to tell which way is the right way just by touch.  The other thing of note is that the Lightning connecter has electronics built into it that will make duplicating the cables a slightly pricier prospect and unfortunately for the consumer it means that it will be a long time before we can buy the $5 versions off eBay etc.  Once again Apple is treating their customers like money bags...

Other than a processor update and some other very small OS tweaks, the main thing that has been rearing it's head amongst the media has been the exclusion of Google Maps from iOS6.  Apple still has a year left on their contract with Google Maps and so had no financial reason to exclude it from the iOS6 release so we can safely assume that it is part of their greater roadmap to remove any form of reliance from their nearest competitor.  After dredging up some of the interweb scuttlebut I've discovered that their inhouse mapping App was shoehorned into the iOS6 release with a matter of weeks left and it seemed to have undergone the bare minimum of field testing.

I don't know about anyone else, but mapping plays a major role in my mobile experience.  I rely on it almost every single day and I take great comfort in knowing that if I get myself lost, I have a very powerful mapping tool to get me back on track.  I would go so far as to say that the mapping and navigation functionality of my mobile is the single most important application that it has, closely followed by its music capability and then email/messaging and finally as a phone.  For Apple to have pushed this out with such a small, apparent, amount of field testing shows a lack of foresight.  Apple are in a place where they are vulnerable to being shot down for the smallest failure.  With Steve Jobs gone, the tech world is waiting for Tim Cook to go to pieces and for Apple to follow.

An old boss of mine made a very astute call once.  He said "perception is reality".  This is very true, regardless of whether the mapping functionality of the iPhone 5 is actually any good or not, the media and those that are not enveloped in Apples 'reality bubble' are just waiting for any excuse to shoot them down and they gleefully lept on the mapping failure as ammunition.  To add to the fun, Tim Cook has issued a subsequent apology to the lack of apparent quality of the app and suggested using one of the other competitors apps in place - that being either Nokia or Microsofts Bing Maps.  What Apple has done is allowed for the perception of their product to be tarnished.  Jobs had a flare for dressing up his releases with a charismatic delivery of pomp and glitter that was swallowed up whole heartedly by the media and Apple fans alike.  Tim Cook has not maintained that, the smoke and mirrors have cleared and suddenly the flawless gem is a vat grown knock off with a big crack down the middle.

Apple are in a 'Tall Poppy' situation currently and they have handed the media and the Apple haters a massive chunk of ammunition to 'cut them down'.  Personally I've got no real problem with this because Apple set themselves up to be the elite in a seriously underhanded way through patent litigation and sometimes when you build a reputation on falsehoods and smoke and mirrors it comes back to bite you in the ass.  I don't like the way Apple do business.  I don't like the fact that they've just handed the world's landfills a huge array of old dock devices and I especially don't like the fact that they keep releasing the same device over and over with the only major changes being to take away functionality.  Yeah... I don't like Apple a whole lot.  I'm more interested, these days, in what Windows Mobile is coming up with but for now I'll stick with the environment that doesn't treat me like a slightly retarded purse...

GMail Skinning

Source: Google Blogscoped

Looks like GMail is getting skinning much as the iGoogle homepage has - it's always nice to get a big of colour on the subject. I wonder if you will be able to modify and create your own with pictures of your own choice...

Holy Android Flash Batman!

Quoted from Apple... "I've got that sinking feeling" (ok I'm joking but the following is a massive kick in the teeth for the iPhone)

Source: InternetNews.com

Google has a new ally in its battle for smartphone dominance: Adobe.

The companies today revealed that that Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) has made its Flash technology compatible with the Android smartphone operating system developed by the Google-backed Open Handset Alliance. As a result, the enhancement may give devices like T-Mobile's G1 smartphone and other Android-based phones access to a key feature that's lacking from the industry's darling, the Apple iPhone.

Andy Rubin, Google's (NASDAQ: GOOG) director of mobile platforms, and Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch announced the effort today at Adobe MAX, the company's developer conference. The two presented a demo of Flash 10 running on a G1, which is manufactured by HTC.

Other than a price drop on the mobile contracts to get the G1 adding the option of adding Flash to Android (including the G1) is going to get these handsets moving out the door quickly.

There is quite a bit of argument as to who is competing against who. Is Googles Android in competition with the Apple iPhone or are they in competition with the likes of Symbian and Windows Mobile (Microsoft).

To answer the question I think we need to look at why we are differentiating Apples iPhone from other smart phones. In my opinion the reason is that when the handset first was presented to the public is was not as the classic 'smart phone', such as the Blackberry and the MDA Vario, but as an everyday device for everyone that happened to have a very slick UI (user interface) and an extraordinary web browsing experience. Since the 2.0 OS update on the iPhone Apple have been working to change this and have integrated a massive list of enterprise capability such as push email and Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync and I believe that we should no longer be differentiating the iPhone from Windows Mobile or Symbian Devices.

Currently in these early days of Android it is in the same place that the iPhone was at initial release. It has no enterprise application but it holds the potential and as such it's difficult to make a 'smartphone' comparison with Windows Mobile and Symbian devices but easier against the iPhone as the majority of its users are everyday consumers.

Of course there will never be a case of Google holding their hands up and saying "yep we're directly competing against Apple on this one" for two reasons. The first is simply that they are attempting to change the mobile device landscape (no specific target) with a very different and open minded approach to development and the second is that Eric Schmidt (CEO of Google) is on Apples board of directors.

The addition of flash is a fairly major differentiation against the iPhone as Apples current Terms of Agreement for developers expressly forbids the use of Flash type technology on the iPhone hardware.

Source: WIRED Mag

"An Application may not itself install or launch other executable code by any means, including without limitation through the use of a plug-in architecture, calling other frameworks, other APIs or otherwise," reads clause 3.3.2 of the iPhone SDK agreement, which was recently published on WikiLeaks. "No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple's Published APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."

This can be fairly quickly changed but I don't see this happening any time soon, more likely Apple will develop a type of secure 'Flash player' to enable the use of specific websites and apps. Whether this will eventuate or whether it will be the best solution only time will tell. As for the other breeds of smartphones out there I think we will see them following suit sooner rather than later.

T-mobile G1 – The first of the Google Android Phones. Part 4

Web Browsing

My experiences with mobile web browsing have come in several forms, the obligatory laptop, the stripped down mobile and the seriously slick iPod Touch/iPhone. Of all of them so far my favorite has to be Apples implementation. It's simple, fast and instantly intuitive. In my personal opinion this is the standard that Android and the G1 was competing with. Has it succeeded? Lets take a look.

The first thing you notice is that the web pages are generally presented in the manner that you expect from PC browsing or from the iPhone browser with the exceptions of sites that offer a stripped down version like Google.co.uk


Hitting the menu button will open the browser options. Go to URL, Search, Bookmarks, Window, Refresh and under More: Close Page, Forward, History, Downloads, Page Info, Bookmark Page, Share Page, Zoom and Settings.

Under Settings there are a myriad of options including popup blocking, Turn off image loading, Enable/Disable Javascrip, Open new windows in the background and the ones you come to expect from a browser like cookie management and cache clearing.


As with the Apple browser you navigate around the page by dragging a finger. When you interact with the screen the Zoom buttons automatically come up and clicking on them will produce the expected result. It's this function that I find a little clumsy when compared to the multi touch of the Apple devices and after having used them I still find myself pining a little for the naturally intuitive fingers out, fingers in process of zooming.

There is a second way of working your way around a web page and that is by clicking on the cross arrows in the bottom right of the screen. This maximizes the web page so that you can see almost all of it and provides you with a magnifying square which can be dragged around the page and then released when you are satisfied that this is what you want to view.


The Android browser also has a version of tabbed browsing that is accessed via the Window option. This opens a screen that displays the pages that you currently have open.


When the phone is flipped onto it's side and opened it will give you the option to add another page. I think since the last update There is now the same option when the orientation is vertical.

You can change the orientation of the browser without opening the phone by going into the Menu then the More submenu and selecting 'Flip Orientation'. This is a clumsy and counter intuitive method of using the browser interface especially considering that the phone has a fully functional accelerometer. Hopefully this will be addressed in later OS updates.

The browser has some great functionality however it does need some streamlining. The G1 touchscreen interface does lend itself to a fairly pleasant browsing experience as does the keyboard. Small things like the screen orientation responding to the accelerometer and perhaps a different way of zooming the screen would make the experience a little more intuitive.

T-Mobile G1 - The first of the Google Android Phones. Part 2

After being left disappointed by the hardware of the G1 we get onto the really interesting part; the Android OS.

So what is Google Android?

Quoted from Wikipedia: Android is a software platform and operating system for mobile devices, based on the Linux kernel, developed by Google and later the Open Handset Alliance.^[2]managed code in the Java language, controlling the phone via Google-developed Java libraries,^[3]. Applications written in C and other languages can be compiled to ARM native code and run, but this development path isn't officially supported by Google.

The intention of Google Android is to produce an open source operating system that is able to be installed on any mobile hardware and subsequently be developed for by anyone using the free developers kit from Google. There are some fairly obvious restrictions that have been put in place when it comes to what the developers can access. Specifically the end users personal data and contacts. From the Android Docs:

Security Architecture

A central design point of the Android security architecture is that no application, by default, has permission to perform any operations that would adversely impact other applications, the operating system, or the user. This includes reading or writing the user's private data (such as contacts or e-mails), reading or writing another application's files, performing network access, keeping the device awake, etc.

An application's process is a secure sandbox. It can't disrupt other applications, except by explicitly declaring the permissions it needs for additional capabilities not provided by the basic sandbox. These permissions it requests can be handled by the operating in various ways, typically by automatically allowing or disallowing based on certificates or by prompting the user. The permissions required by an application are declared statically in that application, so they can be known up-front at install time and will not change after that.

This is the core to many peoples misgivings for the OS and hopefully their intention holds in the end product. We have already seen that the initial release has a major security hole in that it executes every typed command as Super User meaning that with a couple of key presses any user can inadvertently brick their phone. Not the best way to endear peoples trust in you looking after your personal data.

All the technical information aside lets get down to the T-Mobile G1 implementation of Android.
When you turn the phone on you are presented with the expected G1/T-Mobile splash screen and then a nice little pulsing Android Logo. After that you're presented with a locked status screen.

When you press the MENU button you are presented with one of the first cool innovations on the G1. Instead of a numeric or password based security lock Android uses a user defined pattern that you then repeat to unlock the phone. The share number of variations of the patterns is pretty mind boggling. After 5 attempts it starts giving you time outs before finally requiring you to enter a PUK code to unlock the phone. I'm not looking forward to my first drunken night out trying to unlock this sucker!

We're in! The front screen is actually one of three panels that can be accessed by a sideways sweep of a finger. Each screen can be customised with folders, widgets and shortcuts to anything from fast dials to web pages and applications. These can be organised by holding your finger down on the icons or widget and dragging them around or down to the tab at the bottom of the screen which becomes a rubbish bin. The wallpapers extend across the three panels rather than repeat which makes the wallpapers of a higher resolution than the phones 320x480 to 640x480.

There are two 'blinds' on the home screen. Across the top there is a notification blind that displays any conversations, text messages, emails and download/install status for any apps that you install from the Market. This is accessed by dragging the panel down with a finger.

On the bottom there is the Application Blind that is pulled up in the same manner as the Notification Blind. It can also be extended by tapping on the tab. This tab contains all applications including any that you have installed. They are organised in an alphabetical manner and once you have installed a few apps this becomes quite cluttered. I think that in future versions of the OS they should think about being able to change the organisation of this blind to allow defining of folders and/or arranging by relevance or use. The icons are a bit small and do not allow for a rapid recognition so you do end up searching a bit. Any of these applications can be dragged up onto the home screens by holding your finger on them, the blind will automatically close, then you can place the icon where you like. When there are more icons than can fit on one page of the blind you can scroll up and down by using a finger and dragging as you would intuitively expect.

When the phone is opened sideways the screen automatically rotates to the side and the Application Blind is accessed by a sideways drag or a tap. I would've expected the contents of the Apps Blind to then be accessed by a side scrolling motion but you still scroll up and down. Personally I find this a little counter intuitive however until someone else uses it to confirm it may well just be me.


I will go into the applications and settings in Part 3.

T-mobile G1 – The first of the Google Android Phones. Part 1.

I swore black and blue that I wouldn’t succumb to the desire to get one of these as I felt that being an early adopter on this was not somewhere where I wanted to be. I was waiting for the release of the HTC Touch HD which hardware wise seemed to be a far superior option however on finding out the initial release pricing of £500 for the hardware alone (no contract), or changing suppliers to Orange for the privileged price of £40 /month and dishing out an extra £80 for the phone, left me cold.

The end result was that I called up my supplier (T-Mobile) which I was at the end of contract with and asked for an upgrade. They came back with a brilliant offer of £20 /month, unlimited Internet access (meaning 3GB before they ask questions) and the hardware for free. Now had they said to me that I would have to pay the £40/month new subscription rate I would’ve told them to take a long walk of a short pier. The question then is after having used the phone for the last week in anger would I change my mind on the initial release pricing? I’ll tell you at the end of this review.

So let’s take a look at the hardware and stats both from what is professed by HTC and also from what T-Mobile state on their website. The reason I have included some specs from both websites is that T-mobile have been a little more realistic in their expectations from the hardware especially in the standby time.


Plenty of good stuff in there and entirely what we would expect from a competing smart phone except perhaps the side - width and height seem fine but when you compare the depth to the current king of touch screen smart phones, the iPhone, we see that the G1 is a full 5mm deeper. This chart shows a direct comparison with some of the other smart phones that are currently on the market and we see that it is not quite the massive beast that it first appears to be.

Physical Features

The front of the G1 is not pretty. Whilst it is dominated by the 3" touch screen the buttons and trackball area really do look like an afterthought kind on tacked on the bottom. The buttons are fairly self explanatory in that starting from the left we have the call/answer button, then the home button, menu over the trackball (which is also a button), back and finally the cancel/hangup button. The configuration works very well and I have not been caught out hunting for buttons.


The Left side has the volume rocker button and also once you open the keyboard slide you have access to the micro SD slot.


The right side has nothing but the camera button on it but it is in the logical place as you would only really use it with the slider closed.


On the back is the speaker and the camera lens.


The bottom has a mini USB port that may look a little odd but works with any mini USB plug.


With the back open you can see the battery and also where you insert your sim so nothing special or surprising in there. Getting into the back is just a matter of levering it off much like some of the old Sony Ericsson phones.


Build wise the hardware has left me somewhat disappointed. The plastic that it has been made from is a bit flimsy and the way it all fits together leaves some odd gaps (as can be seen in the right side view). The feel of the buttons and the keyboard is just fine however I am a long way from touch typing like I could both on my Blackberry and my old Samsung D900.

Ergonomically the keyboard is ok and even with the raised button console on the bottom of the phone the keys are easily reached however my one call would be to make the buttons in slightly higher relief as there are times when you are not entirely sure that you've pressed them properly.

The slide mechanism has a good solid snap to it and doesn't feel like it's going to break. On extension it does look a little wonky which again lends itself to my rather disappointed build quality call.

Access to the Micro SD slot is a bit of a pain but to be fair you're not going to be swapping them over that often and it sure beats other phones that require you to remove the back and the battery for access.

Overall it is a perfectly functional body that isn't over sized and doesn't make me feel like I need to treat it like eggshell. The build could be better and things like the top of the slide and the body of the phone not meeting up and visible cast marks on the chassis that make it feel cheap especially when you compare it to the likes of the HTC Touch HD and the Apple iPhone.

In Part 2 of this review I will go into the functionality of the phone, the responsiveness of the touchscreen and best of all in depth into the brand new OS from Google - Android.

Google Android - T-Mobile G2?

It seems that the rumour mill has started and it's heading in a pretty predictable direction - Android is supposedly coming to the HTC Touch HD that I have previously mentioned.

Quite the bonus really - not only will it be coming to a piece of hardware far superior to the Apple iPhone but it will also be a later iteration of the Android OS which can only be a good thing. Staying away from early adoption is in many circumstances a good plan.

Android vs iPhone OS - Is open source to be feared?

With the impending arrival of the T-Mobile Android G1 phone there has been plenty of discussion online regarding the merits of the open source nature of the Android OS versus the closed nature of the Apple iPhone OS.

There is an inherent fear in users of having their personal information stolen and used for nefarious means like emptying bank accounts and credit card fraud. As our mobile devices become more usable and gain functionality they also increase the amount of personal information stored and as such increase the number of ways that thieves can get at our personal details.

There appear to be lots of pros and cons being discussed however there is one that really caught my eye that being the idea that Googles open source approach to development has some inherent issues when it comes to information security and venerability to viruses. In a recent Cnet article there seemed to be a confusion bought about by a statement of comparison between the iPhones locked down nature and Googles Android wide open nature.

On the majority of these websites there is opportunity for readers to comment at the bottom and once you ferret through the usual fanboy rubbish you eventually hit some people who are voicing some perceived concerns. Things like:


"Let the viruses, trojans, spam, and porn begin! Has no one learned from Microsoft's example?"

and

"There is nothing wrong with 'openness'. However, Android frightens me a bit. The idea of leaving it open to developers for modifying the OS can lead to issues. For example, I wouldn't want a scenario where I find an app and download it to later find that it's malicious. And then, it will track or steal my personal data. To me, it's all about user security and privacy. Apple's approach, however, I'm in much favor of. Now, that's not to say that Google's approach is malicious or harmful to privacy. It's just more exposed and a bit more vulnerable. Whereas Apple's much more guarded yet, still retains it's 'openness' in a safe manner."


One of my old managers used to hit us with a line that has stuck in my head for a very long time and I try to remember it as often as is possible, "Perception is reality", meaning that regardless of actual fact, a persons perception is their reality.

Android touts its main selling point in that it's an open source OS, that anyone can develop and publish applications for it, and eventually it will be available for any piece of hardware. This is all well and good but it has left an opening to other vendors like Microsoft and Apple to point out that open source means a field day for hackers and thieves. A very brief search will quickly bring to light that this is not the case. Googleing "Android Security" takes you directly to this page which outlines the measures that Google has taken to protect their users from malicious elements.


"A central design point of the Android security architecture is that no application, by default, has permission to perform any operations that would adversely impact other applications, the operating system, or the user. This includes reading or writing the user's private data (such as contacts or e-mails), reading or writing another application's files, performing network access, keeping the device awake, etc."


This is a pretty clear statement and further reading of the structure of the Android approach to protecting their users leaves me feeling confident that I am going to be safe using it. However if we go back to the "Perception is Reality" idea then I personally can see an issue that Google should perhaps be highlighting in a more active manner, that being that open source does not mean an open field day on a users personal information.

Currently the thing that puts me off Apples iPhone, i.e. it's closed control freak nature, is the one of the main things that allow people to feel secure using it. If there is anything that Steve Jobs is a genius at it is altering and controlling end user perception and in my opinion Google should be taking a page out of his book and be working to remove any doubts instilled by their competition. Security in both their applications and on their devices should be something highlighted as a main feature not just mentioned in passing.

Back on the Android T-mobile G1

Browsing through the online WIRED magazine I came across an article on the G1 phone and Android - brief but it does echo my initial sentiments on the state of the OS and the hardware.

From: WIRED Magazine
On Android:- "Google's Android OS for the T-Mobile G1 is pretty freaking on-point for a first-gen software release. Sure, it has bugs — web pages don't automatically resize and the zoom feature blows — but it's also remarkably polished, bristling with nifty tricks."

On the HTC G1:- "The keys are useful, but their physical location is a problem that ties into the most noticeable G1 bugaboo: its size. This is a big annoyance for us — nearly a half-inch thick — and its problematic girth is made worse by an annoying button bank."

I would say that T-Mobile have pulled off a pretty solid coup in the mobile world if they can remain the soul provider of Android phones for an extended period of time. Android is an infinitely more applicable OS than the, albeit flashy and well laid out, Apple iPhone has to offer. I have a hacked/Jail Broken iPod touch and I love it however I dislike the feel that I am being pressured into conforming to what Steve Jobs believes my user experience should be. Android comes from the opposite direction and is an 'enabling' OS that allows the user to define their mobile experience. I believe that as it develops Android will only get more applicable and more user oriented. I think Mr Jobs would do well to consider this sooner rather than later.