The new twitter

Twitter relaunched their website today with a new look and more features to allow users to interact with the site. Through signing agreements with 16 media companies you will now see embedded pictures and videos in the site without the need to move to another window.

The ui has also been changes to have two panes - one with the timeline an the second with further detail showing the embedded media and other detailed information such ad conversations.

The changes were made to improve the user experience as over 50% of twitter updates are done via the website.

The changes are slowly being rolled out globally.

You can find out more here http://t.co/E9Dbh0H

Is there a real voip solution for mobiles so I can have a data only tariff?

My mobile contract is due to finish in November and I am contemplating where to go next. I currently pay £65 per month that gives me 10gb of data, 500 text , free national phone calls and 600 minutes of talk time for other numbers.

Since getting broadband again my data usage has dropped to under 3gb, I only send under 100 texts a month and I hardly make or receive any phone calls. Therefore I am thinking should it be payg, sim only or mobile broadband. I know I don't want a contract and to pay for unused call time.

I was thinking that I want a data only tariff and use a voip service such as Skype or Truphone for making calls and send text. However I am not convinced that voip over a 3g network is mature enough to be a viable option. If google voice had been available then I could just keep the data tariff and have one number for incoming but assign several numbers to it for example the mobile broadband. Whereas I have used Skype and it only runs really on the n900 whereas I am currently using an iphone and have found it to be a kludge.

My objective in all this is to save money but have a cheap reliable service to make and receive calls when needed but also be able to send/receive the few texts but have a 3gb data Bolt on. Ideally the calls to landline numbers should be free after paying a subscription such as my £3.30 per month to Skype. But the problem with the latter is I cannot text. With trephine I can text but their call tariffs are not as cheap as Skype

I will continue to do research over the next few months before I decide but ultimately a talk time and text tariff are a waste on me as only data is needed. But again the data only tariffs are very poor and I don't believe I could transfer my existing mobile to a mobile broadband only sim.

So I am between a rock and a hard place but hopefully I will find an answer soon.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Infinifolders

One of the best things with ios 4 was the introduction of folders. This has meant my application icons rather than taking up several screens can now be placed in a folder.

I now have all my applications organised on one screen in separate folders depending on the category.

Apple replaced a restriction of only 12 icons per folder which is okay if you don't have many applications. But being a heavy mobile user I have a lot of applications installed.

Through jailbreaking I have been able to install an application through cydia called infinifolders.

The application is priced at $1.99 but has removed this restriction and now allows more icons in a folder and you scroll to locate them.

The following video shows this in more detail and the various options infinifolders has.

This is a very cheap and recommended enhancement if you have jailbroken.














- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

In my fathers house there are many rooms

It was good to see a recent jailbreak of the iphone 4 where all you had to do was go to a website, click on the jailbreak me switch and within a few minutes it was all done. However there are serious security implications of this jailbreak as all it required was to download a pay loaded pdf file which then allowed remote code to be executed which effectively compromised the phones security within seconds. Whilst apple believe a controlled environment can always ensure a more secure safer experience this is a prime example that this philosophy is not always true.

I also believe that because apple cannot easily roll out an over the air update to fix this issue if there were several hundred iphones within an enterprise to update then hooking up to itunes via USB is just not practical.

There are two distinct types of iphone users now the jailbreak has come along, Consumers and customisers. A consumer will use a phone how it has been designed and will not venture far from doing stock processes on it. Whereas a customiser is usually someone who has had another phone and knows how much apple have locked it down and what jail breaking can do to release it.

Whilst in church many years ago I can always remember the verse "in my father's house there are many rooms". I believe in the iphone church that the two distinct types of users above are in two rooms - consumer and customiser. Since jail breaking my iphone and showing my colleagues who are living in the other room as a consumer, I have shown them the phone is capable of becoming a mobile hotspot, I can filter calls and SMS automatically, I have access to my calendar on the lock screen, I can multitask with any application, I can receive notifications on the status bar instead of the annoying messages that are pushed and I can also control my ip connection with the firewall application.

Whilst some of the applications I run are specialised such as the firewall and mobile hotspot; from demonstrating the cosmetic changes to the notifications and lock screen summaries using intelliscreen and notified, my colleagues are beginning to see how much of a blinkered life they have led.

Recently I have also purchased the wifi sync app which removes the need for a USB cable and again mouths have just dropped in belief as they thought this was impossible.

Apple are a marketing goliath and whilst they have been successful In the marketing of the iphone and iPad they should be looking to the jail breaking scene and embrace it like palm did Through banning applications such as the wifi sync, camera+ from using the volume button as a camera button and tethering applications they have really limited the device. Although their domineering approach to approving applications is known as being ruthless, even if they allowed these applications into the app store they could still ensure rules are not being broken or that consumers are being set up to fall.

My iphone is a great device with decent hardware and battery life. Now it is jail broken it is a more useful device that I am more akin to with android, maemo and symbian.

It may never happen but I am excited to spread the good word that jail breaking is beneficial other than what is perceived and being marketed.

Wifigate Part 2

Those of you that have been following me on twitter know recently I have been having issues with my IPhone 4 and WIFI. My Ipad using the same applications and access point downloading the same podcasts does not struggle whereas the IPhone 4 does. The files it really struggles with are the Phones Show chat and Video.

Recently I have stopped with a friend for a short break who gave me access to the Internet via his netgear router. I wasn't really expecting anything better than I currently had at home in terms of performance of the IPhone over WIFI but I was surprised - the phone just worked as it should do. I did some testing of the podcasts that has previously caused issues and it just worked.

I subsequently checked my friends settings and found they were all similar to mine and started to look around on the Internet for answers. From reading it began referring to threshold settings for the wifi and retransmit values to try but I found my router did not have this level of configuration.

I already have 2 wireless routers on my network set up as access points to ensure I am connected as I move throughout the house. These are not using the WDS (wireless distribution system) as they are not compatible. However I have found using both my netgear DG834PN and the supplied O2 wireless box III neither work well with the IPhone 4.

I decided to test a third router I had lying about - a Huawei DMR100 which us a 3g router. I configured this as an access point and to only use the DHCP server on my main router. This was then connected to my LAN using homeplug over a 11mb connection. To my surprise it is performing just as it did at my friends house and is downloading the podcasts with no issues at an acceptable speed. Whereas connecting direct to my main router or the wireless box when I used this both was very slow to the point of not usable.

So whilst I am lot happier to have found the issue and been able to get a workaround it does prove one thing - the IPhone 4 is certainly picky on what router it wants to connect to and after trying 5 I am glad to put this problem to bed. It also has the plus that I will now keep the phone for a little while longer.

The shackles have gone

Last night I went to the site http://www.jailbreakme.com on my iPhone 4. After a few minutes I had successfully jail broken my iPhone and now have the cydia store installed.

Apparently this is possible due to a bug in safari when downloading PDFs, but I have no further information on this.

The first app I loaded was mywi which has allowed me to use my iPhone 4 as an access point. This will allow me to use the extra data I pay for for tethering. I have also installed backgrounder which allows apps that cannot multitask to be sent to te background. These two apps out of the hundreds available are a reason enough to jailbreak.

It's early days, the jailbreak didn't work on my iPad and there's a rumour that mms will no longer work on my iPhone 4. I don't care about the latter but really want to jailbreak my iPad.

So let the games begin.

Iphone 4 wifi issues

I have had the iphone 4 since the launch on June 25 and have been happy with its performance overall. The only niggling thing that has been annoying me has been the poor performance over wifi.

As I download a lot of podcasts over a month as I follow 16 separate shows this can usually mean over 2gb in downloads. Originally I used to do this over 3G but since getting broadband at home and wifi I have been attempting to use this instead and preserve my 3G data usage.

Originally I was using podcaster and then drivecast to download the podcasts but was swapping forwards and backwards between the applications due to the poor performance of each application crashing or slowly downloading over wifi. It even got bad with some podcasts in that I elected to switch back to 3G which was totally defeating the object.

Recently I have purchased an iPad. Again using the same drivecast application via the same access point I am getting expected download speeds over wifi. This in my eyes proves the issue is with the iphone 4. I have also observed using the good reader application to access my google documents accounts that the ipad is quicker than the iphone 4.

Although I am aware of the death grip issues and am happy to receive a free case I haven't really experienced any issues of this nature. However the wifi on the iphone especially since the 4.01 upgrade has seriously degraded the phone. There was mention that the wifi on the ipad used to be terrible but I never saw this first hand as I upgraded to the new ios on the same day I got my iPad.

I do hope Apple like the issues with the death grip also get the wifi issues sorted soon as it's just plane useless for downloading my media direct to the device. Further I believe it tarnishes my usage because with this phone at the moment I have no other major complaints.