rowan.depomerai

Last week I shared some of my favourite iPhone apps. Here’s a few more, including transport tools, media apps and a set of web information tools…

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The percentage of my friends who have an iPhone is quite frankly incredible. So when we get together, once we’ve caught up on our latest news and got through a pint or two, the question inevitably arises, have you got any good new apps? Similarly when chatting to someone new who turns out to have an iPhone, the same kind of question pops up. The App Store is like a little club that we all joined, and sharing recommendations about the best downloads is a new game. So as to further ruin my conversation possibilities with my friends (one of whom says that my blog is great because she can keep up to date with my life without ever having to speak to me!) I thought I’d share the current contents of my home screen. Here’s part one…

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Microsoft recently released a public beta of Windows 7, which means you or I can go and download the next version of Windows right now and give it a try. This seems like a great opportunity to see what they’re up to, so I’ve had a quick play and I’ve read some reviews and articles around the web. Now we all know I’m a big Mac fan, so of course I have a habit of noticing the new features which bear a striking resemblence to existing MacOS features. And there are a lot. I thought about writing a post about that, but there were too many to mention, plus it would be pointless; good ideas are worth using, and Apple has certainly ‘borrowed’ features from Windows over the years too. Sometimes it just makes sense. So rather than moan about Microsoft stealing ideas, I thought I’d celebrate one idea in particular which they’ve stolen, because it leads to a big improvement in the usability of Windows. The feature I’m referring to is the task bar, which has undergone quite a radical overhaul in Windows 7. The thing is, some of the more vocal and established Windows fans seem to hate the new design – where I rejoice that it’s much more similar to Apple’s superior Dock interface, they complain that it’s too similar to Apple’s rubbish Dock interface. Hmmm… it seems this could be one for personal preference. Here’s why I like the Dock, and (mostly) Windows’ new taskbar.

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I’m starting this post with about 5 ideas in my head of what I want to talk about, and they’re only loosely connected. This is probably not a good way to write an engaging and well structured post, so I apologise now if it’s a bit rambling and rubbish. But bear with me; hopefully I have some interesting things to say, and I definately have some interesting links to share.

This week at CES, Palm announced the Pre and webOS, a new touch-screen smart phone and its associated operating system. Cue much media hype, cries of “iPhone Killer” etc etc. I got dragged in to the story a bit and my initial impressions were very favourable, however after a bit of reflection the story is a lot more complex than it looks, and interesting not just because of the Pre itself, but what it tells us about the iPhone, Blackberry and even media coverage of technology.

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The best thing about the iPhone these days is its software model. I’ve talked in detail before (1, 2, 3, 4) about the device itself, and mentioned the AppStore, but Apple Insider presents (as part of their extensive and pretty good series of posts on the iPhone 3G) a fascinating comparison of iPhone software versus Windows Mobile, Blackberry, Symbian and even PSP and DS software platforms. Read the rest of this entry »