May
24
First there was the Facebook iPhone app, and lets be honest it isn’t the greatest feat into application engineering.
It is clunky, it crashes, it forgets things or shows you the wrong things and is generally not very good. Read More
Apr
13
The BBC has been gradually updating its mobile website over the past few months, bringing it more in line with the web version of the site, using responsive design.
If you look at the new mobile site you will feel as at home with the design and structure as you would if you were to look at the web version or even look at it on a tablet – and this is just an early tech preview.
But it isn’t just the news website that has been given a refresh, the radio pages are changing, the food page is changing and the homepage is the big one to change – looking VERY familiar to anyone used to the new look BBC homepage.
Kate Milner, mobile product manager for BBC News said the new mobile news site was designed to work to the device it is being viewed from.
She said in a blog post: “Now when you browse the mobile site, what you see will be tailored to the device you have in your hand, for example the way you move around the news sections and the number of images you see.”
Eleni Sharp, product manager of the BBC mobile Homepage said one in seven of visitors to bbc.co.uk were now coming from a mobile platform.
She said the role of the homepage was to bring together all the different areas of the BBC and showcase the absolute best of BBC content.
Personally I think the various mobile changes are a good first step and an innovative move as mobile web moves to dominate. Although a you still can’t do better than a solid app – if only the BBC would enable Downloading in the iPlayer App.
Jan
6
I’ve been a smart phone user for a while now, albeit a smart phone user at the lower end of the smartphone market – HTC Tattoo right now and before that a HTC ‘insert name’ Windows Mobile phone.
This was over the period of about five years. Read More
Jun
17
I’ve had ‘the middle’ iPod in one form or another since the first iPod Mini was released in 2004.
And ever since, from the very beginning of my iPod ownership life, music and speech have been fighting for dominance of the limited space. Read More
Apr
12
My most recent gadget acquisition is a HTC Tattoo, the low end small screen Android based handset from the Taiwanese-based manufacturer.
This is a great little phone, it’s easy to hold, fits in my top pocket with my iPod, feels great to hold and is actually pretty quick. Read More
Nov
27
To fully understand this post you’ll need to appreciate that I’m a geek and so have the normal geek armoury hanging off my shoulder more or less everywhere I go.
Within that I have a camera, two mobile phones (one for calls one for internet), a NDS, a book, a notebook, a netbook, a video camera, an audio recording device and a few other bits and pieces.
That’s the reason I have a bad back BUT more importantly it’s the reason I rarely get bored – everywhere I go I carry a full on entertainment system with me and am ready to cover any news story that might break around me.
Because of always carrying a good camera I’ve managed to get photos of armed sieges, gas leaks, protest and more that I wouldn’t have got to in time if I had to go back and get a camera.
But I got thinking the other day – with mobile devices becoming more comprehensive in their feature lists and with each individual feature becoming more usuable – do I really still need all those devices.
I could get an iPhone or a new Android based phone that can take photos, video, get online, act as a mini computer, do video, let me read books, record audio and even let me send anything I gather straight to the internet.
But, it’s main purpose is the internet device, the mini internet device – it LETS me do all of the above but none of it to a standard a device designed with the purpose in mind can.
Do I think the dawn of the single device is upon us? No not even a little bit but I do think we’re entering an era where every individual device will be able to do many of the things every other device in my bag can do – to a limited extent.
It’s only a matter of time before my camera has internet access (some can already do video) and every other device can do a little bit of everything.
I see a world not so much built around one device doing everything reasonably well but a selection of devices each doing one thing really well AND a selection of other things reasonably well.
That was if you do forget one device there is something else that can fill in behind it – just not as well as it would have done on its own.
I’ll settle for mobile phone pics if I forget my camera, I’ll settle for reading on a netbook or browsing the web on my phone if I forget my book or netbook – but neither is how I’d CHOOSE to do it.
Interestingly – my wife who isn’t exactly a geek has a camera, mobile phone, iPod and NDS in her bag and carries them more or less everywhere she goes – even if they are all pink!
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