Notification centre is definitely the biggest and most significant update. I got my first smartphone a while back, a Sony Ericsson Android phone. It doesn’t run the most up to date version of Android but you can immediately see the difference in notifications between it and the iPhone. You swipe down from the top of the screen and see all of your notifications. Apple have clearly neglected this important area of the device for some time now but thankfully they look to have done a great job in updating it.

Now, instead of being greeted by one notification at a time, each in a big blue bubble, now you see a sleek list of individual notifications. Each of which you can swipe to go straight to the corresponding app. It’s so much more functional now especially if you get a lot of notifications that you don’t want to miss. Like android, you can access the list when the device is awake by sliding your finger down from the top of the screen. It’s far from revolutionary, but to be fair, they do implement it well even if they did copy from Google.

PC free and wi-fi syncing is also a great addition. It, combined with all of the iCloud features will finally stop the critics who say that the iPad is not a true tablet computer but an oversized iPod Touch. It can now plainly go head to head with any traditional tablet in terms of functionality. This also is available on iPhone and iPod Touch, where it’s welcome but not as necessary as it is for iPad.

The wi-fi syncing is also welcome. If you can plug it in to charge using any device or better yet unplugged, then this could be very useful for me, but regardless, it’s nice to see something people have been requesting for a long time now being added.

iMessage is an interesting one. On one hand, surely we already have enough methods of communcation. Texting, email, twitter, facebook etc. You would be forgiven for thinking “why do we need another one?” I’m struggling with this question myself. It would be nice to have a method of communication between iDevices, but how confusing will it be for iPhone users who already have an identical looking texting app? It takes away the simplicity and speed of texting, as you’re relying on 3G or wi-fi, both battery draining. The jury is out on this app I think. We’ll just have to see how it pans out when we get to use it.

News Stand is an interesting idea, and looks to be the fourth separate store Apple are starting, this time dedicated to all newspaper and magazine subscriptions. I like the idea of integrating it directly into the home screen. It makes you wonder why they didn’t do that with iBooks but are here. It’s a bit inconsistent. If it is built into the OS by default as opposed to a download like iBooks then it would be further adding to that inconsistency.

Other improvements of note include Safari, which now has an instapaper clone built in that syncs with iCloud, the reader feature that the desktop version has had for a while and tabbed browsing on iPad, all nice improvements but not earth shattering.

Reminders is pretty self explanatory and looks nice, although I’m so used to Google tasks by this point. You can now use the volume up key to take photos and it’s quicker to jump into the camera app which is a nice touch. The photos app allows simple editing such as cropping, red-eye removal and auto-enhance. Again, all welcome additions.

There are other new features, but most are not really worth talking about, especially Twitter, which seems a bit pointless from where I’m sitting, since you can do all of the things they advertise, albeit slightly less well integrated, by using the official Twitter app which many have already.

Overall though, I think iOS5 is a pretty impressive update and a step forward in many ways. WWDC in general was a triumph. I love iCloud and iOS5 especially and I don’t think they could have done much better with anything they showed on that day.

I’m keenly looking forward to the next Apple event to hear about new iPods, that new iPhone everyone’s speculating about and of course some new computers.

Image via Wikipedia

To be frank, I thought the Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s open letter was a waste of time and extremely long overdue. It should never have come to this. I don’t understand why he wasted so much time talking about a burning platform. He should have just got straight to the point and told his company that their products are just rubbish when compared to the competition and that after 4 years they still don’t have a product that can even come close to the iPhone experience.

To their credit, essentially no other company has been able to produce a product that matches the iPhone in quality so at least they’re not the only ones. The problem is that their competition are generally running Android, and Nokia’s devices are several steps behind even these. In addition, they have announced some kind of deal with Microsoft. I’m not sure if it’s an exclusive deal to run Windows Phone on their new devices, but even a partial deal would be a mistake in my opinion. The industry is clearly moving towards iPhone and Android as the two main operating systems. Blackberry is still using their own OS but they don’t really need to compete with the other major mobile OS makers as they have a more dedicated following of users.

I don’t care what Microsoft are saying, I just can’t see them challenging Apple and Google any time soon and will probably stay a distant 3rd or 4th in the OS race. I suppose the change from Symbian to Windows Phone 7 or the next version will be a step forward, but it’s not a big enough one for Nokia, who are in trouble if they don’t make a success of their next generation of devices.

They should be following Sony Eriksson and others who have seen the light and decided smartly to jump onto the Android bandwagon as opposed to supporting their own faltering OS efforts. Nokia should at the very least start producing good quality but affordable Android phones in order to quickly turn their fortunes around as much as possible in the short term. They have to work quickly as they have essentially warned potential customers off purchasing one of their current crop of smartphones.

The other thing the company needs to focus on is their long-time speciality: cheap, simple and fashion phones. Even now, if someone who isn’t that tech savvy asks me to recommend a phone to them, I’ll recommend a cheap Nokia. They are almost indestructible, have big buttons and for the most part, simple interfaces that anyone can understand. They have a lot of competition in this area now but such is the norm for all mobile products. They have to find a way to separate themselves from the competition once again and continue their dominance of the low cost phone market. This has been keeping the company going in the last few years, but they have to continue to innovate to bring in the funds to develop their smartphone program further.

Overall I think this is the start of the company’s turnaround. By being so honest and open about their problems, they’ve put themselves in a back against the wall situation, which is good as it will force them into a state of urgency and hopefully quick recovery.

Image via CrunchBase

I wrote a while ago about whether iPhone photography, or iPhoneography as it’s often referred to is good or bad for photography in general. I was fully in support of these kinds of apps which allow anyone to really bring out their artistic flair while taking regular snap photos.

Hipstamatic is similar to Instagram in many of the things it does, but rather than you taking a photo first and then applying a filter afterwards, Hipstamatic is designed to invoke the feeling of using analogue cameras by allowing you to change your virtual lens, film and flash. Each of these things has an impact on how the picture and the frame turn out, and a lot of the fun is in trying to find your favourite combination, and seeing how making small changes effects your shot.

The interface is designed to immerse you in this feeling by actually showing a limited viewfinder and a shutter release button on the back. It’s a typically very stylish iPhone interface that really immerses you more. While the small viewfinder isn’t the most practical idea ever due to the fact that you’re wasting the large touch screen, it doesn’t really matter as long as you can frame the shot well enough. I think that losing the larger framing ability is made up for by having a large shutter button located in the top right corner. This allows you to get a much better grip of the device when shooting and is the closest we’re probably going to get to a dedicated camera button for quite a while I would imagine. We don’t know if Apple sees this as a priority and they always like to reaffirm their belief that touch controls are superior to buttons most of the time. Therefore, I wouldn’t hold your breath for a dedicated button on the iPhone 5.

The optional in-app purchases of new lenses, films and flashes in bundles known as hipstapaks is a bit  sneaky in my opinion, as each one costs about half the price of the app itself. If they could lower the prices of those by about half then I think that would be fair. Especially because you really don’t know how the effects are going to work in practise on the shots you take until after you’ve purchased them, so they may end up being big disappointments.

While I am a huge photography fan, I have to admit that without the digital revolution, I just don’t think I would have gotten into it as much as I have. Analogue is great now because it’s an extra option to play with as a novelty, but for everyday use it’s definitely a huge chore and too expensive to be viable today. This is why this kind of app is a great fun tool for everyone to be able to bring back the feel of analogue photography in a sense, but without any of the cost.

Purists will disagree of course, but even they must admit that just trying to recreate the look of those classic cameras is still a great thing, especially for young people who will have never used an analogue camera while growing up. Mine was probably the last generation to not have digital cameras readily available and cheap enough to make the old one-use and regular point-and-shoot film cameras practically obsolete.

Another benefit of this type of photography is that it really allows you to get back to basics, forgetting about complex SLR settings and just letting you focus on composing your shot and being as artistic as you can. Because the resolution of the iPod Touch camera is so low, it adds even more to the fun as you know that no matter what you do, the shots will never look even close to what you can get out of an SLR. You can let the content itself speak for the quality, and the customisable elements have an even bigger role in making the end result look good.

As I wrote in my last post on this subject, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if many young people had gotten into photography seriously as a result of playing with apps such as these, and that is of course still a brilliant thing.

The reason I decided to download Hipstamatic today was because I saw the following article linked to below on Mashable about a UK art gallery putting on an exhibition of Hipstamatic photos. It’s a modern concept and I really like the idea. It promotes pure artistic vision over technical know-how and that’s what photography should be all about at the heart of it.

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• UK Art Gallery Showing Hipstamatic Exhibit [PICS] (mashable.com)

Instagram is a free app available on the app store which combines all of these things, but also adds fun into the mix with a series of filters which are designed to make even the most drab and boring of photos into masterpieces. As someone who appreciates photography in all forms, I really like the concept. It allows everyone to be artistic in their photo taking and I think that’s a great thing. While you lose the photo quality, customisation options and the coolness factor of holding an SLR in your hands, it makes up for those things in sheer fun.

As mentioned before, sharing is a big part of apps like Instagram as well, as it allows you to upload to all of the familiar destinations: Twitter, Flicker, Facebook and even Foursquare along with a location sign in. For free, it’s definitely a must download, and there are other similar apps that play around with the old school way of photo taking and manipulation, but with a modern twist.

One last cool thought would be that if these kinds of apps ignite an undiscovered passion for photography in someone, then that’s another great benefit.

Image via CrunchBase

When I come to think of it, Skype has become an indispensable tool for me recently. I mostly use it to keep in close contact with someone very special to me, and the fact that it’s free to talk to someone in another country for hours every day in perfect sound quality is amazing to me still. I guess it’s only when you really find a practical application for something like this that it really makes you realise how truly useful it is.

Imagine a world without services such as Skype now. Phone bills would be a killer, especially from mobiles. Even text messages to international numbers are ridiculously expensive considering how simple it must be for carriers to transmit that data by this point in time. I know first hand how much international text messages drain your phone credit. You have to strike a balance between wanting to communicate with the person in question and how much you’re willing to give to your rip-off phone network.

Until recently I think I was paying around 20p per message. I then looked at Skype’s SMS charges and found that they only charge 6p per message internationally. I then decided I would use Skype credit for texting whenever I can avoid using my phone. The coolest thing about this service is that you can even validate your phone number with Skype. This allows you to send texts from any Skype app, desktop or mobile and they appear to the person you’re sending them to as just a regular text message from your number.

This is the only Skype premium feature I make use of currently but it’s all I really need right now. They offer a vast selection of cost saving services and while it can appear confusing upon first glance, I think most internet users, especially those comfortable with VOIP should be able to make the most of it with relative ease.

Before I wrote this post, my original plan was to just talk about the new mobile video for iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s something I was hoping they were going to add as soon as I saw Apple unveil FaceTime on iPhone 4 with the front facing camera. It was an obvious next step for mobile Skype that I’m glad we now have.

While I’m not the most comfortable person appearing on video, I can say that the technology itself seems to work brilliantly. The quality was very smooth from what I could tell from my end when I’ve had trouble recently with my MacBook camera.

Aside from the recent major outage, Skype is always a fantastic tool for communication and I look forward to seeing them continue to innovate in both free and paid services. It would be a sad day if we ever lose the ability to call anyone, anywhere for free so I hope we never have to now.

Image by David Armano via Flickr

Facebook places is the latest major feature addition to the massive social network. You can use your iPhone or other compatible phone or iPod Touch presumably, and check in to any location when you’re out. You can describe what you’re doing and tag friends who are there with you. Essentially, you can look at this as a simplified version of foursquare built into Facebook itself.

The similarities with foursquare don’t end there though as interestingly, the logo for places is actually what looks like a 4 in a square. In an interview, the lead designer on the project has said that it’s purely coincidental and that the team had found the news stories around the web on the subject funny.

They are probably telling the truth but I can’t help but feel that they must have had foursquare on the brain while developing this, and for no one to see the 4 in the square is quite surprising really. Nevertheless, the service is here, and while it does lack the badge gaining and rewards system that foursquare has, what it does have in its favor is instant access to potentially half a billion registered users right out of the gate.

I say right out of the gate, but in truth the service is rolling out slowly, first across the US at the moment, and then later everywhere else. To be honest, as much as I would like to say how much this is a terrible idea and how everyone should just use foursquare, I can’t help but feel that this is a better implementation. It’s all integrated, there are no unnecessary gimmicks and it’s easy to understand. Obviously, privacy is going to come into play here, but there are ways to make sure that only your closest friends can see where you are by using friends groups.

No one is going to be forced to use this and therefore I can’t see any big privacy backlash incoming. For those who use it, I think it could prove useful. The original premise of Twitter was to communicate with close friends and possibly meet up with them. Twitter has since morphed into more of a social discussion tool instead and this and other similar services like foursquare and gowalla fill that original spot in the market much better.

The foursquare founder recently said in an interview that he thought this new service was uninteresting and that there wasn’t much to it, but I disagree. I think that simplicity is key and that this service has potential to be more useful than his one is. It’s still fun as well but not in such an obvious way.

This kind of location based social networking seems to be the latest trend with most main services integrating it in some way. Google have latitude which allows you to track your friends on a map using mobile or iGoogle. Twitter now also have a location system. It’s slightly different to Facebook places and others in that you don’t check in to a location but rather post in as much or as little detail as you choose, where you are when you post. This is entirely optional but is more proof of how social networking is set to get more and more intrusive into every aspect of our lives. This trend is set to continue but hopefully we’ll always have control over the privacy of these location services.

It’ll be interesting to see how this works when they launch it here. It will also be interesting to see how it gathers the location, whether it be GPS, Wi-Fi or mobile phone towers, as well as how the service develops and how good the uptake is.

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• Facebook Places Designer: Any Foursquare Logo Similarities Were Not Intentional (techcrunch.com)

Smartly though, they made sure to provide some context and demonstrated how essentially all other smart phone suffer the same kind of reception drops when held tightly. They also noted that because the iPhone has slots in the case where the antenna are, they were a prime target for people trying to force the dropping of calls. Other smartphones don’t have an obvious weak spot that you can see like the iPhone 4 does. The data they had seemed to back their case up nicely and I think they’ve been unfairly ganged up on by the press.

Hopefully Apple can repair the damage to their reputation with these new measures. What they’ve basically said is that the phone is fundamentally ok and that there are no major design flaw that ruin the phone. However they will still do all they can to make customers happy by offering these options. I definitely think it was the right thing to do, especially as those bumpers were far too overpriced for what they are.

I think from what the data showed, there is a problem, but it has been blown way out of proportion. In reality the dropped calls are only slightly higher than with the 3GS. Steve Jobs put that down to the fact that there were more cases available at launch for the 3GS because of the design being almost identical to the 3G model. Because the 4 is so different in shape there were practically no cases at launch and therefore less being used. This probably meant that any antenna problems were lessened. Hopefully now the dropped calls will lower to below the levels of the 3GS when everyone gets a case, and in future Apple can iron out the possible issues a bit better than they have this time around. I’m sure they’ve already learned lessons from this and they don’t want to repeat them, but such is the price when you push the envelope as Apple are renowned for doing.

The boxy shape can come in very handy for propping the phone up when you want to do a video call or for when you want to either take a photo on countdown or record a video. Speaking of the camera, it has been improved significantly with full 720p recording now available. The megapixel count has gone up from 3 to 5 and they’ve made other improvements to allow better image quality, as well as adding an LED flash which is a nice added touch.

Not only have they made significant improvements to the outer camera, they’ve added one to the front as well for a new feature known as FaceTime. This is basically an Apple-Ism for video calling. I have heard arguments about why this isn’t iChat and why it’s not compatible with current applications. I think the fact is that Apple want FaceTime to be very simple. So simple you wouldn’t even think about how it works. They wanted to integrate the function directly into the phone aspect of the device and not in a separate application. This is a smart move because it’s inevitable that Skype, Yahoo, AOL and MSN will all come out with apps to make use of this camera. iChat is likely as well because Apple could just release it onto the app store for people who want that, so that they don’t confuse most users by giving them two ways of doing essentially the same thing.

I found it quite entertaining that Steve and Jonny Ive were talking as if video calling had never been done before. Of course, in the US it really hasn’t as far as I know. In the UK however, we have had such abilities for many years since the three network launched and touted the feature as it’s killer app of sorts. It’s also been done on PSP with collaboration from Skype and BT. It’s fair to say that the technology hasn’t exactly caught on well and the quality was never really good enough to justify the high cost. Now that we have wi-fi, this type of thing will take off without question. How long it takes to integrate this service into the 3G/4G networks while keeping costs down and maintaining video / audio quality is hard to say.

Moving away from the camera, I want to go back to the new stainless steel and glass design. The new steel band around the edge of the phone which houses the buttons is actually serving as the antenna for the phone network, 3g, wi-fi and bluetooth, as well as being the main structure of iPhone 4. This is very Apple-like innovation we don’t really see from any other company.

There are many other new additions in the iOS4 itself, but seeing as we already know about those from Apple’s event a couple of months back, it doesn’t seem worth going over that again. Just to quickly recap, that update includes big new features like multitasking, improved mail, speed improvements and many other things to enhance the experience.

Unfortunately for me and other first gen iPod Touch owners, the new update, while free (finally!) for all 3nd and upward generation iPod Touch owners is not available at all for first gen models. Of course, I understand that the hardware can’t cope with the demands of iOS4 but even so, it’s a bit grating to not only have to pay for the initial 2 or 3 updates to the OS and then be left out in the cold now. I’m running out of space on my 8gb now so I’m really hoping they blow us all away with the 4th gen iPod Touch later this year. I’m hoping for at least 16gb, iPhone 4 performance, a decent camera of at least 3mp. Video recording would be nice too. HD isn’t necessary for me but would be nice to include for people with more hard drive space available than I do, or for future use for me. A front facing camera and facetime is unlikely because it seems like a feature that fits the iPhone better and will be a real device seller for that product.

Overall the iPhone announcement wasn’t exactly what I would call earth shattering. The fact that we all saw the leaked shots took away a lot of the mystique of the device. However, even having seen it before, it is a fantastic looking device now that we’ve seen it unveiled and explained properly. The retina display really looks to be a breakthrough and HD recording / iMovie are very nice additions.

I think it might be hard to sell the retina display to casual users though as it looks similar to how it did before. Similarly to sceptics of HD TV it may b a hard sell for some. That’s why I think Apple are smartly focusing their marketing efforts on FaceTime. They want to connect with you on an emotional level by showing all of the possibilities of the feature and I think that will help them sell a lot of phones, even if it is considerably gimped by being limited to wi-fi at launch.

Whichever way you slice it though, this is a much bigger update from the previous model than the 3GS was from the 3G. People still bought 3GS’s in their droves, and I would be shocked if it wasn’t even more people this time round.

Android has really been picking up steam recently and I have to say I didn’t expect it to start challenging Apple so soon. Yes, it has been 18 months, but that isn’t really that long when you’re faced with a monumental task of creating a brand new mobile operating system from scratch. Not only that, but trying to get a foothold in the marketplace with many established companies already creating impressive stuff of their own. Finally, they had to forge relationships with as many device manufacturers and mobile carriers as possible all over the world.

The stats that Google had to present at Google IO were very impressive. 100,000 new phone activations per day is a huge number. They are also now lead in US mobile browser usage, beating out the iPhone. Of course Apple only sell one phone and google have many partners making android handsets, but even so, this is impressive.

Another reason why this is impressive is because until recently, and to some extent even now, Android in my opinion is more of a geeky and less mainstream OS than the iPhone, and far less polished in terms of performance or intuitiveness. Maybe I’m just out of the loop and this is old news, but it appears that Froyo is taking further big steps in improving these areas. iPhone and Apple in general always seem to do the little things exceptionally well, and this is an area Google need to work on. The integration with iTunes is a huge selling point. The way everything syncs, including contacts and calendars with the desktop versions of those apps is so seamless. No other mobile company can match it, or at least until now potentially.

I use Google for a lot of things. If they can integrate their services such as contacts and mail to an extent where it is smooth enough to compare well with Apple’s syncing solution, then maybe Android can equal Apple in that department. In that vein, Google announced a multitude of changes intended to bring them right up to par with the iPhone OS. They’ve improved the browser considerably, even claiming that it is now the fastest mobile browser. I’m not sure I believe that but if it’s true then it’s fantastic for them. Other improvements include updating of apps on the device itself including auto-updating as well as a new desktop browser store which can instigate downloads over-the-air which is a nice feature.

There are many other smaller but significant improvements. These include better enterprise features, the ability to install apps on an SD card and a number of new APIs including a new advanced push notification system which takes Apple’s interpretation a step further with notifications that can automatically open apps and perform tasks on their own.

Overall, Android is very much on the up and Apple should be very wary of their threat. Google are not to be underestimated. They have an unorthodox business model but it seems to work well for them and Android seems to be very close to the level of Apple’s iPhone OS. I think it’s going to take them another 6 months to a year to catch up fully if they can at all, but with the market penetration they now have, the developers are going to be coming thick and fast in support.

Palm’s troubles seemed to start around the announcement of the Foleo which was seen as a failure of a product at the time. It was intended to be a small and basic laptop that connected wirelessly to a palm treo phone to provide business travellers with a larger screen and full keyboard for using to type emails quickly, have fast access to the web and for writing long documents. If it had been released and not cancelled, it would have been seen as the first real netbook type device. A category that has exploded in popularity in the years since.

Last year, the Palm Pre was deemed by many as Palm’s return to form and a device that could finally hold a candle to the iPhone and other similar devices. While the OS has received much praise and the phone noted as solid by many, they have struggled to sell large enough quantities of the device to really impact the market in a big way. One reason for this may be Palm’s decision to sign an exclusive deal with the Sprint network in the US which isn’t the biggest and is apparently struggling to keep subscribers.

Because of the struggling sales, Palm also had trouble finding developers to create apps for their WebOS platform when iPhone OS and Android had much bigger audiences to go after. Palm as made a mistake in not making the OS APIs available from the start. This may have also been a contributing factor in them falling behind Android and iPhone further.

However, now that they have financial stability after being bought by a huge company like HP, they are free to innovate and produce hopefully their best products to date. What HP has planned for palm is not yet known but they will surely keep the brand going and want to integrate it into the HP line of products well.

The future now looks bright for the company and I hope they really start to blow us all away with what they come up with next. HP certainly wouldn’t have spent 1.6 billion dollars on them if they didn’t think they were capable of great things.