atomicvindaloo.com – the occasionally drunken ramblings of an urban philosopher

ios4 on the iPod Touch 2nd Gen

Ξ June 30th, 2010 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Me, Review, iPod |

It was free, so why not. Whilst I’m not quite at the stage of drinking the kool-aid, I have some respect for Apple products and was pretty keen to get my hands on iBooks. I’ve been umming and ahhing about splashing out for an iPad (I know, I know. I slated them earlier) or an iPhone 4 for some time. So could IOS4 on the Touch negate the need for the expenditure?

In a word. No.

So what does IOS4 bring me on my second gen iPod TOuch? Quite simnply, six things. Five of which are reasonably fun. One of which is a total deal breaker.

One:

Folders. Actually pretty useful. I’ve had the Touch for a while now and, subsequently, have quite a few apps installed on it. I’d got to the point of having to wander through six screens of apps to find the one I wanted – which was getting a little tiresome.

The folders feature allows me to group apps into folders meaning, in my case, that I can now get all my apps onto one screen. The downside is that each folder is limited to twelve apps (you can see “games” and “games2” on my screen) which is slightly annoying.

The way that the folders are portrayed though is very good. I can see (if I peer closely) the app icons in the folder and, when updating an app, the status bar appears underneath the folder – cumulative if there are several apps in one folder being updated.

So folders, all in all, a pretty good result.

Two:

Unified email. I’m a little more sceptical about this one. As you can see, I have three email accounts set up on my Touch. IOS4 gives me the first option of “All Inboxes” which unifies all emails into a single inbox. I can still access the accounts separately I suppose, but I’m not altogether sure of the benefit of the unified box.

I also have the option to thread messages within the inbox – which is slightly more useful.

Here you can see the options within the mail settings.

One groovy feature of IOS4 is that any dates or contacts within the body of the emails will automatically launch their respective apps. So I can tap on a date in an email and instantly create a calendar entry.

Three:

Eye-candy. I can apply wallpapers all over the place if I want to. Great. Very reminiscent of OS/2 and totally pointless. Thank you Apple.

Four:

Different Album view. See above. It looks nice enough, but I won’t be running naked down the street singing it’s praises.

Five:

iBooks. Well, yes, I’ve now got iBooks on the Touch – that much I’ll admit. As you can see from this screen capture though , it’s slightly less than totally useless.

The app itself is veeeeerrrrrryyyyyy slow with a significant lag in performing any actions.

More show-stopping though, is the fact that you’d need to turn over about three thousand pages of iBook text just to read a copy of the Beano.

Six:

Saving the most critical and significant change that IOS4 brings to last;

IOS4 will absolutely hose your battery on a 2nd Gen iPod Touch. I’m a pretty heavy user of my little pocket-friendly, slim and funky friend. I can generally go a couple of days without any need for a significant re-charge, unless I’m on a plane – where I leave it plugged in to the underseat charger.

Since installing IOS4, I can’t even get a single days charge out of the thing. I will turn it off in the evening with 80% charge left (after an evening re-charge) and, seven or eight hours later when I wake up, it’s drained to ten percent.

Before anyone writes in trying to help – yes, I do purge the battery every couple of weeks. So that isn’t going to help.

It’s infuriating. Bearing in mind the 2nd Gen doesn’t support IOS4’s multi-tasking, just what in the hell is it doing – whilst locked and inactive – that is plundering the battery?

Verdict:

RagingAardvark says don’t bother. I’m going to back my Touch out to version three. You can get hold of the firmware from here (http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=757) if you’re in the same boat as me.

My birthday is coming up soon. And I’m going to surprise myself with a 64Gig iPad. I run Joikuspot premium on my N97 mini – so I won’t need the 3G version.

HP Touchsmart – tm2 Review

Ξ June 24th, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Me, Review |

I’ve had this tablet for a few weeks now – I’d dithered between keeping the XPSM1330 and getting an iPad, or going all out and replacing the Dell with a tablet.

After much uming and errring I decided upon the tablet and thank god I did.

The tech specs are pretty impressive;

• Dual Core Intel SU4100 13.ghz, 2mb Level 2 cache
• 4Gig of DDR3 memory
• 320 gig SATA 7200 HDD
• Integrated 10/100/1000 gigabit ethernet and 802.11 b/g/n WLAN
• 12.1” WXGA LED touchscreen
• ATI Radeon HD 4550 512Mb graphics AND integrated Intel graphics
• Altec Lansing Dolby Advanced Audio speakers
• Fingerprint reader
• 5-in-1 card reader
• Bluetooth
• Webcam
• Multi-touch click pad
• 3*USB 2.0, 1*HDMI, 1*VGA, 1*RJ45 ethernet and combined mic/headphone jack

The whole thing also comes complete with a USB DVD+-RW drive with lightscribe, a lovely aluminium shell and weighs in at a very not portly 2.15KG. It also scores a respectable 4 on the Windows Experience Index.

The blurb boasts eight hours of battery life – I’ve managed six myself but haven’t just sat there watching  videos or anything simple like that.

So, to the tablet part of it …..

Never having owned a tablet before, I was a little sceptical as to just how well it would perform. The machine comes with a Wacom pen tucked into a slot at the left of the keyboard and, after a cursory couple of minutes spent “training” the thing to recognise my frankly appalling handwriting …

…. I wasn’t really expecting miracles. Except, miracles did occur! Other than the above example, this is all being written by hand, in that same frustrated doctor scrawl, and the tablet is having no issues in recognising it. Not only that, but it continues to “learn” your handwriting the more you use it.

Pretty much every application is tablet (and hand writing) friendly which entirely satisfies the main point of owning the thing – namely attending meetings with just the tablet – not laptop, charger, notepad and pen.

In terms of typing, things are good too. The keyboard is “chicklet” style and smaller than that of the XPS. Despite all that, the tactile impression is really good and much huge hands have no problem with hitting the wrong key. Some functions – PgUp, PgDn, Home, End etc – are accessed via alt+something, and a few of the keys have groovy leds behind them to indicate certain functions.

When it comes to hands, the screen too operates superbly. I can lean my hand on the screen whilst writing with no issues of false readings on the screen. The screen too can rotate through the cardinal points to aid writing comfort.

If I had to be really picky, the only gripes I could come up with are ;

• The screen picks up fingerprints. Well duh – I’m using my fingers all over it.
• The high reflectivity of the screen can prove a little annoying at times.
• The neoprene sleeve that the tablet came with is teh ghey.

Aside from the hardware, the suite of applications that came pre-installed and, after overwriting the OS with Windows 7 Enterprise remained in an install folder on the root drive, is absolutely superb. All touch enabled, all very pretty and all supremely functional.

I am so glad that I went with this rather than the iPad; Battery performance is comparable. When on mains, it switches automatically from Intel to the ATI video mode. I’ve got the pen input and touch too. I’ve got a full OS under the hood and, despite being thicker than the iPad, I still have the incredibly responsive touch screen or, at the twist of the screen, a full on laptop with keyboard rather than having to lug a separate bluetooth keyboard around.

HP Touchsmart tm2. R0x0r!

Multi-taksing

Ξ June 22nd, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Life, Me |

Well that’s what you get for trying to upgrade to IOS4 before work. I’ve now got to do the school-run and drive to work with the lap-top and Touch next to me on the passenger seat so that I don’t interrupt the back-up.

Isn’t technology wonderful.

Still, at least I know with the new tablet that the battery isn’t going to run out with ten minutes to go.

You can stick your iPad

Ξ June 21st, 2010 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Me |