‘Let’s Rock’!
On the 9th September at 10am Pacific Time Apple are to host the ‘Let’s Rock’ event. It’s seems that new iPods are a certainty, but it looks increasingly likely that iPhone users may get something new too.
Firmware update 2.1 would be nice, especially if it put an end to the almost endless application crashing woes that I and many others have been experiencing (more on that later). But what if there was more? Could there be more to the ‘Let’s Rock’ theme than first meets the eye? I’m not usually given to wild speculation, but I’ll have a go this time.
How about Guitar Hero, or Rock Band for iPhone?
Just a thought. Any other guesses?
Battery life tip for iPhone gamers
It’s certainly encouraging to see Apple providing ‘Bug Fix’ firmware updates every few weeks. For me at least 2.0.2 does indeed seem to iron out a few of the strange crashes and laggy keyboard issues. However, one huge ‘bug’ is the rather depressing battery life. There are numerous ways to squeeze every minute of life from the iPhone battery, but by far the best that I have discovered is Airplane Mode.
If you are about to dive in for an hour’s worth of gaming on Galcon, or looking to channel water droplet during train ride home in Enigmo, then Airplane Mode will greatly increase your chances of coming out of the experience having only lost 15-25% of your battery life.
Sure you’ll be out of contact for duration, but your extra focus might just help you on your way to that ever elusive score of 6,000,000 on Pinball RC!
Well that’s my top tip for gamers, what’s yours?
Apple Store after sales service
A couple of years ago my Nokia N93 took some damage to one of the microphones, after a visit to my local Nokia Service Center I patiently waited for my beloved N93 to return to all shiny and new. I waited, I waited some more, phoned the service centre and was told to wait a bit longer. Eventually, after a mere 3 months, my phone was returned to me. Imagine my anger to discover that there was no improvement, the microphone was still obviously broken. After a 20 minute chat with a manager and another 4 days wait the phone was replaced.
After such a bad experience I was not looking forward to my trip to the Apple Store yesterday. With 2 broken iPhones in hand I approached the Genius Bar of the Southampton store.
Mellow yellow? iPhone 3G screen issue considered
Whilst some iPhone 3G owners have barely noticed the warmer hues of the new screen, others it would seem are becoming quite upset. In this video I take a quick look at the difference in colour temperature between both devices. What do you think? Is this something that Apple should ‘fix‘, or do you see this as an improvement on last year’s model?
Why multi-touch matters
Multi-touch. Most people’s first introduction to this futuristic user interface was the 2002 Spielburg movie, Minority Report. Manipulating a computer generated 3D environment with ease is where multi-touch comes into its own. For many, seeing Tom Cruise’s character flip and spin those images around was a kind of eureka moment, a realisation of how things might be ten years from now. What we didn’t quite know at the time was how we would get from the humble computer mouse to that super-slick UI. Did we ever imagine that it would be a phone?