I finally submitted to the marketing and general buzz surrounding this particular iPhone app. My first impression was that its impossible to control. It felt like there was actually no way to control that little bubbled monkey.

After about 1/2 hour of playing around with it, I started to get the hang of it. I noticed early on that its not the monkey you control, you actually tilt the entire level. What makes it hard is that when you tilt the plane, the monkey faces in the direction of the tilt and the viewpoint pans in that direction, so you end up tilting the plane on a constantly changing way. Its hard to adjust, I ended up constantly twitching the iPhone around to try control that perky little monkey. Its hard to explain, I guess the closest thing to it is the feeling of first reversing your car when you are learning to drive. The car goes in the opposite direction when you turn your steering wheel.

In the end I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, I’ll try it again tomorrow and try get through level 10!

I’m very happy that V Card imports now work in iPhone. Contacts can be added directly from the Mail interface.

I’ve not seen this mentioned much on the blogosphere and I know it was one of the complaints in the past. Of course Apple’s push on business apps it would be a huge omission if this wasn’t a feature.

I love the fact that Solitaire is listed in the Business section of the iTunes App Store.

It kind of reminds me of this:
manual solitaire

Did you find any other amusingly mis-placed apps?

Nit-pickers unite - new Wifi store icon on Phil Shiller’s demo iPhone at the iPhone Roadmap event today (the purple one at the bottom left).

Screenshot attached. If anyone else noticed it, blab about it in the comments. I’d be intrigued by what this is all about. My take its that its just a new, better icon, that actually represents the fact that you use it for music (maybe, just maybe?).

Today I was at the NME Big Gig at London’s O2 Arena. From one minute to the next my iPhone was gone from my pocket. I had standing tickets, and I’m hoping that my phone was not stolen, that the person who now has it is wondering how to return it, or even wonders if they could get some repayment for returning it to me. I will offer cash in return for my phone back.

If you have an iPhone in your hand right now that you found at the O2 Arena today 28th of February, perhaps you remember finding it during the Kaiser Chief’s set in the standing area, I would ask you to email me at felixkunze at gmail dot com. I don’t mind anonymous comments left on this post either.

My hopes aren’t high but it would be something for which I would be forever grateful. I can uniquely identify my iPhone by external marks and also what is on the iPhone itself. I also know its serial number and am willing to offer a cash reward for anyone who returns it to me safely.

For search engine purposes, I am including the following keywords: lost iphone at the O2 Arena, NME Big Gig, NME awards, The Cribs, The Klaxons, Bloc Party, The Kaiserchiefs, The Kaiser Chiefs, Manic Street Preachers, The Manic Street Preachers.

Thus it is with my brother’s love for Biffy Clyro. I had seen them at Wembley, where they supported Muse. While my brother was jumping up and down with excitement, I stood by and tried to judge the performance, the music, the lyrics, the melodies. I went away thinking that they were a good band, but nothing to write home about. Muse blew me away, in fact they didn’t just blow me away, they took me to another place, somehow managed to tug on my heartstrings in a fashion that no other gig has done since. But the difference was that I wasn’t judging Muse, I didn’t try to figure out in myself if I was enjoying myself. I knew completely that I was. The Muse Gig on that June afternoon has and always will be a defining moment in my musical explorations. A time when I found the true joy that music could bring me, the feeling that’s better than most other stimuli that live can throw upon someone. That day I came away with only one disappointment - the fact that all subsequent gigs would judged on this one Muse gig, whether I liked it or not, I would judge them.

Come forward to late January 2008. My brother invited me to come see Linkin Park, supported again by Biffy Clyro. He was more excited about seeing Biffy Clyro and had made this abundantly clear. He also loved the newest Linkin Park Album (Minutes to Midnight). I listened to it and while I felt no dis-like for it, I did find myself having a preconception as to what this gig would be like.

We had already gone to see the Foo Fighters at the O2, and I was sure Linkin Park would make great use of the venue. My trepidation that I would not entirely enjoy this gig wasn’t helped by the super-devoted fans rushing to get straight to the front of the pit. For some reason that always irks me just a little, although in an entirely hypocritical way (I could name a few acts for which I would do the same).

The show started with Biffy’s performance of the same bunch of songs I’d heard before at Muse. Again I found myself judging them, again I found myself enjoying it, even singing along, but not being swept off my feet, attention not totally fixed. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the Biffy set, and imagine that they are someone I could LOVE to see live again, but I am finding myself thinking that thought rather than ‘feeling’ it. And that’s why I am having to portray them in a negative light in this article. This thought prevailed into the first number of Linkin Park’s set.

I was busy ‘thinking’ about LP’s music - And then it happened: Despite myself, I started feeling completely engrossed in the experience. It wasn’t about the music or the energy or the lyrics or any one single factor. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” is the closest I can get to a technical definition of why I started absolutely loving this gig. And any idea of me judging was gone.

It ended up being so stupendously fantastic that I came away from it not wanting to write a review. I did not want to subtract in any way from the experience in trying to describe my enjoyment, like a dream that was sweet only by being dream, you don’t want to recount it, you just want its aura to stay with you.

So lest I slaughter the ‘feeling’, let me say this:

Linkin Park passed my test - they took me, swept me off to another, happier place and made the hours pass without notice. They put me in a situation where I didn’t want the current sensory input to stop. In music, I can count similar moments on one hand. These moments come out of the blue, every now and again, and usually quite unexpectedly. They have no common denominator, no technical formula, they just ‘happen’. So again my love of music turns out to be more intrinsically subjective than I thought. They may not have exceeded my Muse experience, but in me Linkin Park have a new avid fan.

Pictures here
contact felixkunze at gmail dot com or comment below

Apple TV 2.0 is around the corner, and is sure to be a bigger hit than the previous iteration. But for those who don’t have $229/£199 lying around, I would propose a solution that’s markedly cheaper, and costs as little as $50/£39.

All you need is Apple’s Component AV Cable ($50/£39). It connects easily to your TV and lets you play movies, video podcasts, TV shows and music videos & photos on your home TV. The setup can be perfected with Apple’s Universal Dock ($50/£39) but this is not essential, it just makes it prettier and easier to use. Be careful to buy the correct accessory, the component AV cable is different from the Composite AV cable. The difference is that the Component cable actually outputs from your iPod via the three colours that together compose the output on your TV. The component cable has 5 connectors (3 for Visual, 2 for Audio). For higher definition content you will need the component cable. Most modern TVs have the inputs required for this. It also comes with a power supply which is especially useful as playing a video from your iPod/iPhone, is a real power-suck.It works with all current generation iPods and the iPhone (apart from the iPod Shuffle) and I am keen to stress that the quality is excellent. The video output, audio output and rendering are all fantastic.

If you add the dock, it gives you the ability to control playback & volume from your sofa using Apple’s remote control.

I tried this setup to play recently rented movies, it worked a treat. I was able to watch my video podcasts, playback iTunes Rentals (and in absolutely gorgeous quality), play photo slide-shows amongst other functions.

While this won’t replace the Apple TV, this simple solution has replaced any need for an Apple TV in my household. I do occasionally rip DVDs to watch on my iPod or on my Mac later, but have never been able to play them on my TV. I download Lost from iTunes and we all watch it together, I occasionally like to watch music Videos or Video Podcasts on my TV. But I never listen to music on my TV setup, I would not listen to audio podcasts and I don’t need a connection directly to my iTunes library.

A couple of points to note:
- I have not tried the Composite AV cable. The genius at the Apple Store I went to wasn’t able to tell me why anyone would use it over the Component cable.
- This setup will NOT allow you to play Audio-only files from your iPod/iPhone. The device will need to be “outputting to TV” which it won’t do for audio only.
- The quality really is fantastic. The video quality is in no way compromised by the fact that its playing from your iPod.
- I still can’t believe that my phone can actually play a movie to my 32 inch flat screen TV. It is an iPhone but the concept is still overwhelmingly amazing.
- When you play movies from your device, the device just shows the artwork for whatever is playing, it doesn’t play it at the same time, which makes it less distracting.

- If you receive a call while the movie is playing, the behavior is similar to receiving a call while watching a movie on your iPhone and receiving a call - the video pauses, doesn’t resume after the call is finished, but it does take you back to the menu containing the video.

I think this is a suitable setup for most users who want to simply play iTunes content on their TVs at home.

Pictures:

I rented Ratatouille and Superbad (hilarious) to test the alternate Apple TV setup

Diggnation playing on my TV from my iPhone

‘Sing for Absolution’ by Muse, on my TV, playing from iPhone

This is what the iPhone displays while a movie is playing

As you can see, the quality is fantastic.

Obviously you should select “yes”.

This setup allows you to control playback from your sofa

A power adapter is shipped with the cable, as video playback is very taxing on the device’s battery

Check to make sure you have the right connectors on your TV, the green, blue and red inputs (top three) are for video, the bottom two (white and red) are for sound.

This is the one to buy

The dock is very useful.

Apple introduced their new iTunes Movie Rental with much fanfare at Macworld in San Francisco last Tuesday. The selection is somewhat limited as yet but Apple promises 1000 titles for rent by February and an international roll-out by the end of the year “hopefully”. The system lets you keep the movie for up to 30 days, but once you start watching it, it will only remain in your system for another 24 hours. I rented Ratatouille to test out the system (This was the film Steve Jobs kept pushing in his Keynote).

The experience has been entirely positive. I would like to see the 24 hour “watch it” period extended to something closer to what you realistically get from Blockbuster (48 hours would be ideal) but that’s down to my viewing habits. There really isn’t much else wrong with the system. The download process is akin to buying songs, so most users will already know how to use it. The quality is fantastic. I rented the Standard Definition version and even on my 32 inch TV, the resolution was fantastic, the sound was great and the file played without any problems.

Suffice to say that I have since rented another film (Superbad - recommended for abundance of belly-laughs alone) and will be renting more. The service is sure to become a mainstay of my movie-watching habits.

Points of note:

- Apple claims that iTunes will let you know as soon as enough of the movie has downloaded for you to watch. I received no such warning.
- The download was incredibly fast for me, it took 1/2 hour to download 1.26GB. Keep in mind that I’m in the UK - that’s pretty impressive. My broadband isn’t known for its speed.
- To watch the file on your iPod/iPhone, you actually move the file, its not a copy. You will only ever have it in one place at a time.
- To move the file, iTunes needs an internet connection, I assume it registers it as “moved” with the store. Not sure why.
- The file stays the same, there is no compression. It just gets moved.
- When I moved Ratatouille to my iPhone, it gave me another 24 hours to watch it. Not so with Superbad. Wonder if there is some sort of hack that could be enabled.
- When the rental expires, the iPhone displays a message to that effect.
- We have a setup using Apple Equipment to watch these on the TV, and at 32″, the resolution is still fantastic.

A lot has been said about the Digital divide as a planet-wide problem. I wanted to add to the debate based on a project I saw in CNN’s Show and Tell podcast today. My thoughts on this are based partly on Georgia Tech’s project of amalgamating the ‘real’ and ‘virtual’ worlds to embed live video feeds into Second Life and Ewan McGregor’s “Long Way Round“. These ‘inspirations’ aren’t particularly relevant, other than to jerk me into writing this post.

Thinking this through a little bit and hunting around the web a little, I see 3 categories in the digital divide:

1) The Tech savvy individual who is able to access internet services with such ease that they can use them to better their lives and more easily communicate (exchange information) with others. They may or may not be in an economic position to afford the technology they need/want, but they are aware that it exists and can and do use it on a regular basis. Most internet users, particularly those who contribute in some way to the internet (YouTube, Flickr, blogging…). Most of the western civilization falls into this category. It is separated from the 2nd category only in willingness or knowledge.

2) Those who would have access to such technologies but choose not to use it. Includes those who shun mobile phones or even email. This could be sub-categorized into those who choose not to, or those who don’t know how to or those who simply are afraid of technology. My grand-mother would be an example.

3) Those who are simply not in a state to have access to the technology of the internet and the communication methods it provides. Economic trouble, war-torn regions, language barrier, out-right internet ban (North Korea for example) etc.

Arguably some people blend into more than one category. China has wide-spread internet usage but has a degree of censorship. This could also be a study of demographics but that’s not the point of my post.

The divide between 1 and 2 is particularly easy to overcome and it is only a matter of time in most cases. However, the divide is evident between these and the third category above. My recent purchase of the Long Way Round DVDs brought my point to bear. There’s Ewan McGregor, international movie star, riding into the deepest reaches of Mongolia or along the Road of Bones in Siberia, where his fame really means nothing (and credit to Ewan - he’s very aware of it) and where internet connections or broadband speed are the last thing on anyone’s mind. Villages without running water or heating are the norm and tarmac is something that has not come within 100s of miles of these people. They do not know a world where you can just pull out your iPhone and check for an email, look you your stock or check the top viewed Youtube videos. It isn’t just that its not available, its not even something anyone there would consider as something desirable.

The development path of the Internet and communications technology in the western world is almost predictable compared to an attempt to envision how the infrastructure could ever be built up in such far-flung regions of the world. Naturally, internet connectivity isn’t a priority over having maneuverable roads but even in some more developed countries, there are no server farms, established ISPs, Google Maps or even GPS-able land-masses. We do take a lot of granted, efforts are being made, the one laptop per child initiative is a great way to bring technology to developing nations. Much has been said about the project but even if the kids don’t take proper care of their laptops, if they are stolen from them or otherwise made unusable, exposure to the technology is worth-while, even in the long term. Targeting the campaign at children is the right step, but the larger rewards will be seen on a longer time scale.

I feel it is important to acknowledge these issues. The internet has a huge potential. Look at the US, the phenomenon of Ron Paul, the information that is out there for people to get real data on issues at hand. Used correctly, the net can help bring a society that isn’t governed by borders and where the people can have a voice.

The point is: start to think with these things, in terms of you, being here as a citizen of this same pretty lump of rock called Earth, don’t take it all for granted, and support programs that help bring real change. The internet can be a tool to deliver communication and exchange of ideas, enriching lives. It shouldn’t be a ‘nice to have’ and it has the potential to improve things. Its not the most important development (disease control, infrastructure and crime are likely bigger concerns in many areas) but a worthwhile one none-the less.

The biggest change that you can bring is to empower those in need to help themselves. Throwing money at a problem does not solve it, throwing charity at the poor does not make them prosperous and able to care for themselves. But enabling communication in many cases can help.