Uba Kontrovasie

My iPhone

I’ve had it for a few months now, yes I was one of those sad people queuing outside the O2 store during the first month they came out.

This little gadget has seriously changed the way I work these days, here’s why:

- It syncs with my calendar at the office
- It syncs with with my work e-mail in real-time via the exchange
- The internet is fast enough for me to read my RSS feeds on it each morning en route to the office
- I have a better back because I do not need to a lug a laptop with me everywhere I go mon-fri

I haven’t massively got into all the fun applications just yet, however, here’s my run down of the ones that I’ve found the most useful:

Shozu - lets you upload pics from your iPhone to Flickr
Evernote - my “cloud” notepad of choice
Facebook for iPhone, need I explain any further
Twittereffic - All things twitter
Wordpress - Blogging on the fly
Google.co.uk/reader/i - access to my feeds
Light Saber - Yes a Light Saber on your iPhone (hours of fun)

Another app I also recommend is EventSync for the Mac, not an iPhone App as such but it lets you sync all Facebook events to iCal and iTunes does the rest by syncing everything to your handset. I’ve given up on the Upcoming + Facebook app working, it just keeps dying and not syncing both ways.

My criticisms? bad battery life, I’ve had to drop the screen brightness right down to make the battery last a full busy day. Also the camera could be better, they could have quite easily incorporated an LED flash like they did on the Sony K750 a few years ago.

Rant and praise over, hope you guys find the tips useful.

Tags: 3G, Apple, eventsync, evernote, facebook, flickr, ical, iphone, phone application, phone applications, shozu, twitteriffic, upcoming, wordpress

Social Music

Yes I’m back….it’s been ages since I’ve blogged. I haven’t been walking around with my eyes closed though, my recent social media stumbling’s are as follows…

None of us are strangers to Last.FM or Pandora but I’ve recently become a fan Favtape.com an online service that makes a “mixtape” out of all your recently played tracks and stations.

Just a neat gadget I think not? This tool has the potential for a multitude of uses for clients within the music and entertainment sector and I’m looking forward to putting into some real innovative use.

Also another one out there for the garage bands types is amazingtunes.com, a great way to hear unsigned music.

Things have come a long a way since people just started tuning into on-line radio….we now have itunes, myspace and all the others I mentioned above.

The future in my opinion?

Well I think it has something to do with my earlier ramblings about smart phones and streamed music. In time I think we’ll start to see people move away from retained music on storage devices and instead have paid subscriptions for sites, which allow you to stream music to any device or computer.

Your whole itunes/music library could merely be a list held on line, which is then connected to a central music database. No running out of disk space or worrying about corrupt storage.

We’re already moving in this direction and some of the techies out there have got installations like this set-up via combining various technologies. As soon as broadband and 3G become a standard they will enable a mass-market concept like the one I’ve been discussing to become active. Who knows we might be waving bye bye to MP3’s and MP4’s in the near future.

Tags: 3G, broadband, Favtape, itunes, MP3, mp3's, on-line radio, online music, online service, recent social media, social media, storage devices, Tracks

Apple launch iPhone 3G

Steve Jobs officially unveiled the iPhone 3G at the WWDC 2008 event yesterday. What can I say…it’s already on my wish list! What’s even more impressive is that Apple provided independent developers an SDK, which has really improved some of the functionality the new phone has to offer.
With Apple and others launching SDK’s for their platforms, it won’t be long before we see media/creative agencies launching branded apps for the iPhone.

The keynote included a speech by a part time developer from the UK who built a music application in his spare time, the application was so impressive it’s now available to buy on Apple’s apps store.
Apple are being really clever about ways to fuel to their ideas. If 1000’s of independent developers compile useful apps for their hardware it’s creative fuel for Apple themselves to make their own applications better by getting soo much free exposure to good ideas.

Apple has made the iPhone 3G available for $199 USD across 22 core markets, which will eventually be 70 worldwide markets by the end of 2008. Apple making their phone affordable and attractive will increase the numbers of people who are on faster mobile bandwidths.

So is this truly the year for mobile? We hope so in the new media world at least. The iPhone 3G will have an effect on the 3G mobile market akin to the effect that Magners had on cider. The launch of one key product had a halo effect on sales for cider across the industry and across all brands.

3G has been around for years but with the launch of the iPhone 3G people will re-investigate the technology and Apples’ offering. Not everybody will go for the iPhone as some will still prefer Windows Mobile or Symbian powered handsets for the sake of full desktop compatibility.

The main point still sticks however, the launch of this phone will inadvertently increase the sales of 3G devices across the mobile sector.

Well done to Apple for not only developing a very slick piece of hardware but also adding a new lease of life to the 3G comms market.

Right…where’s my wallet and my PUK code ☺

Tags: 3G, 3G devices, Apple, iphone, media world, media/creative agencies, Mobile, new media, Steve Jobs, United Kingdom, USD