What do you mean I haven't posted for 3 months?
26 November 2008

"Freesat are branding PVRs as Freesat+... I wonder where they got that idea from?"

First of all, I must apologise for having not posted to this tech blog since August. I can't believe I've left it so long!

The truth is, I've been hard at working coding a new Mac application in Objective C and this has taken all of my spare time. I've either been coding, blowing my sax, walking Misty, eating, sleeping or catching the odd programme on TV. No I'm A Celebrity... trash for me this year, there's just no time to get dragged into all that...!

Technology-wise there are two things worth commenting on in since my last blog entry. Freesat+ and first of all, the continuing saga of the new iPhone 3G.

Ring ring 3G months on
I've owned my iPhone 3G now for 3 months and have had a good chance to take it through its paces and use it in all sorts of different scenarios. A good time, then, to reflect on how it's serving its purpose.

A couple of weeks after buying the new device, I went on holiday to a cottage in Norfolk. Due to being in a dreadful O2 blackspot, I only managed to use the phone by carefully placing it at a particular angle on the bed in the spare room. If I wanted to make a phone call then I had to use hands free as moving the device even just a little bit killed the connection. Even then, the service was up and down like an Olympic high jumper.

Of course, this isn't the fault of the device itself, so I'll move on to how it was in use when I wasn't in the cottage. The GPS facility must take centre stage here. It was truly useful, being able to drop a pin literally "on" the map to show where I'd parked the car and then use the iPhone to guide me back to it after going for a walk was simply brilliant. The killer feature for me, though, was being able to search for eating and drinking establishments in the same GPS interface. With a couple of touches on the screen I could call them or view their web site to find out if they allowed dogs in their restaurant. Fantastic! The same principle worked for finding cashpoints, car parks, shops and just about anything else you can think of.

The iPhone 3G works very well as a PDA or Smartphone (call it what you will) enabling sending and receiving of e-mails, viewing web pages, contact details and appointments. Other phones do this too, of course, but the iPhone 3G does it with a certain amount of Apple's flair that you just don't find on any other device. At last, the interweb on a phone is a usable feature!

Lots of additional utilities have started to appear for the iPhone since the launch of the App Store during the summer. There are some really innovative and useful applications available, many at zero cost. I've downloaded several free programs and have bought one game (Real Football 2009) which is a very playable and great fun 3D football game.

Even now that the novelty has worn off, the iPhone has turned out to be a great all purpose device in your pocket, well worth the increased dosh it's costing me to run each month.

Amongst all this fluffiness, however, there is competition lurking on the horizon in the form of the first phone running Google's Android operating system: The G1 available through T-Mobile. The device is touch screen and has a copy/paste facility that is yet to be added to the iPhone firmware, however T-Mobile's device doesn't include the gestures that make using the iPhone such a pleasure. At first glance, the contracts on offer look good value with lots of bundled minutes and T-Mobile's 'Web 'n Walk' internet included. Personally, I think that without the gestures a touch screen is pretty useless and you may as well use a joystick type controller. Will the punters realise that? Only time will tell. For my part, I'm in no doubt that I made the right purchasing decision getting an iPhone 3G.

Freesat PVR finally shipping
At long last, this week Humax have started selling their new personal video recorder (PVR) for use with the fledgling Freesat service. Freesat are branding PVRs as Freesat+... I wonder where they got that idea from? The unit is a twin tuner HD receiver that you can plug into an existing Sky dish (or a new one, of course) and HDMI to your HD Ready TV to give you HD recording abilities for no ongoing cost. The device comes with a 320GB hard drive giving about 70 hours of HD quality storage and significantly more at standard definition.

Although in short supply at the moment, this will no doubt help Freesat add even more to their already rather impressive sales figures: over 100,000 Freesat digital boxes were sold in the first 6 months of the service. This is healthy (and very welcome) competition for Sky's HD service that otherwise would've had a virtual stranglehold over the future of UK broadcasting.

Personally, I plan to migrate to Freesat HD (with a PVR) at some point to replace my standard definition Sky+ service, but as this will involve the purchase of a new television I'm not in any great rush. What would help push me into parting with my hard earned readies is more HD content on Freesat. BBC/ITV: are you listening?