iPhone/iPad Apps

[Rik]

[Simon]

Ouch! 

[Lance]

Time for handbags!

[Niall]

All this hype about these apps makes me wonder why people don't make them for other mobile phones. Obviously there are a few that are iphone specific (although now I think of it, the level/plumline one will work on my sony ericsson one), but in the main there's no reason why they can't be done on other phones.

It's the ipod all over again.

[Gary]

Mines

All this hype about these apps makes me wonder why people don't make them for other mobile phones. Obviously there are a few that are iphone specific (although now I think of it, the level/plumline one will work on my sony ericsson one), but in the main there's no reason why they can't be done on other phones.

It's the ipod all over again.

The OS allows greater flexibilty than some other operating systems Niall, Symbian would not work in this way, neither would Windows Mobile.

[Simon]

All this hype about these apps makes me wonder why people don't make them for other mobile phones. Obviously there are a few that are iphone specific (although now I think of it, the level/plumline one will work on my sony ericsson one), but in the main there's no reason why they can't be done on other phones.

It's the ipod all over again.

I think you can get many equivalents for the BlackBerry, which is also a lot cheaper than an iPhone to start with. 

[Sebby]

All this hype about these apps makes me wonder why people don't make them for other mobile phones. Obviously there are a few that are iphone specific (although now I think of it, the level/plumline one will work on my sony ericsson one), but in the main there's no reason why they can't be done on other phones.

It's the ipod all over again.

From what I can see, it's Apple's implementation, i.e. the App Store, that has made iPhone apps such a success. You can get apps for other phones/OSs, but it's the accessibility and installation that's much more cumbersome.

[Gary]

I think you can get many equivalents for the BlackBerry, which is also a lot cheaper than an iPhone to start with. 

I would say that the iPhone has an advantage as Sebby said in its ease of use, you pick an app and it installs, so simply and smoothly its a dream, the Blackberry is a good device, but until you see how fluid the iPhone is then you cannot compare, I am no fanboy but I have since purchase been in awe of how the whole system works, and with the screensize it makes most applications a joy to use. The iPhone is not hugely expensive, no more so that a Nokia N95 was when that came out on contract. All I know is having tried most phones on the market I now have a PDA that makes my life easy with great applications to simplify tasks and in a way that is also a joy to use, no menus to drill down, its there, easily accessible and simply elegant to use, the art of a good pc or smartphone is you don't have to get involved in whats behind the scenes, just enjoy the use of it rather than worry about botched installs and clunky confusing interfaces. I was a die hard "Not joining the bandwagon" but it makes me smile that I touch an icon and off I go, that's also how I want my computing to be, simplistic and elegant.

[Simon]

What's the email setup like, Gary?  One thing I like about the BB is push email, and I'd be reluctant to give that up.  I do see what you're saying, though, about simplicity.  My BB was upgraded (firmware), which stopped message tones from working in anything but the default theme.  I am now testing a leaked (beta) version of the next full upgrade, which is stable enough, and everything works, but there are a few bugs, and some of my existing apps won't play nicely with it.  On one hand, it's nice to have the flexibility of upgrading / downgrading software fairly easily, but on the other, it would be good if everything 'just worked'. 

[Steve]

Email set up involves knowing your email address and password and thats it! Same as on a mac.

[David]

I like Shazam l would use that one

[Gary]

What's the email setup like, Gary?  One thing I like about the BB is push email, and I'd be reluctant to give that up.  I do see what you're saying, though, about simplicity.  My BB was upgraded (firmware), which stopped message tones from working in anything but the default theme.  I am now testing a leaked (beta) version of the next full upgrade, which is stable enough, and everything works, but there are a few bugs, and some of my existing apps won't play nicely with it.  On one hand, it's nice to have the flexibility of upgrading / downgrading software fairly easily, but on the other, it would be good if everything 'just worked'. 

Push email works well Simon and many other applications use push as well, you have full control over that so you can switch it off and on as needed. I have a messenger app and if someone replies to me after I go offline and misss it, the message gets pushed to me. Email is simple smooth well thought out, and one again simple.

[Gary]

I like Shazam l would use that one

That is good, but i love going out and zapping bar codes, did it in PC world, some people next to me were looking so I showed them the price difference on a 50m Ethernet cable, Belkin make, PC world £40, iPhone comes up with broadbandbuyer as one cheaper result at £2.95. PC World are sickening 

[David]

Thats evewn better

[Sebby]

What's the email setup like, Gary?  One thing I like about the BB is push email, and I'd be reluctant to give that up.  I do see what you're saying, though, about simplicity.  My BB was upgraded (firmware), which stopped message tones from working in anything but the default theme.  I am now testing a leaked (beta) version of the next full upgrade, which is stable enough, and everything works, but there are a few bugs, and some of my existing apps won't play nicely with it.  On one hand, it's nice to have the flexibility of upgrading / downgrading software fairly easily, but on the other, it would be good if everything 'just worked'. 

It depends. With a Blackberry, you're paying for the Blackberry add-on with your provider. Without that, you wouldn't get push email. It's Blackberry's servers that are doing the work to push emails through to you.

On the iPhone, you can get push email with Apple's MobileMe, Gmail, or a Microsoft Exchange account.

[Simon]

Ah, so not with POP3 accounts, Seb?

[Sebby]

Nope. It works on the Blackberry because you're paying for Blackberry's servers to continually check your account then push messages through. What you can do with the iPhone is use MobileMe, and just forward messages to that, then they're pushed. If you use Gmail, you can get push now. Or, if you've got your own domain, get Google Apps (free), point your domain to Google, and then you can get push email (as they use Microsoft Exchange).

http://www.google.com/apps/
http://www.google.com/mobile/products/sync.html#p=apple

[Lance]

You can also set it to fetch email (ie pull) every 15 mins so that's not far off from real time. It's also really easy to check at any time, as it looks for new mail every time you open up the email app.

I've got my work email pushed, and my personal email pulled and it all works really well.

[Simon]

Thanks, guys.  Seb, I don't pay extra for BB email, it's part of my data package with O2.

[Gary]

Thanks, guys.  Seb, I don't pay extra for BB email, it's part of my data package with O2.

The blackberry server push is in the price I believe.

[Lance]

I downloaded and played with redlaser this morning and was amazed at how good the app is. At home over wifi and with good light, it had no problem scanning a variety of bar codes and quickly returning results. Just needs testing out and about now.

[Rik]

What does the scan, Lance, the camera?

[Lance]

Yep

[Rik]

Thanks, I was beginning to wonder if they'd started building lasers into the things.

[Lance]

I'm sure there is an app for that too!