Month: May 2009

Palm Pre, iPhone Killer? Not Quite.

So with the upcoming release of the Palm Pre and the rumoured release of a new iPhone following WWDC. People are saying that the Palm Pre, is the iPhone killer.Palm Pre

Over the last few years touchscreen devices has become very mainstream and most brands have their touchscreen phone, however none of them have come close to what the iPhone has done to the market.

However even with the Palms quicker CPU and sleek design with a physical QWERTY keyboard, here are the reasons that the Palm Pre will not kill the iPhone.

  • The App Store, with over 1 Billion downloads since it’s launch there has never been a mobile software store like it.
  • Games, you may not think it but the iPhone is considered a gaming platform as well as a Phone, due to the App Store and the works of the likes of Electronic Arts, the iPhone have some high quality games. However at current standing the Palm Pre has no games and unless Palm allow deeper access to their SDK, developers will struggle.
  • Show off factor, Yes it may seem a strange thing to compare but if you pull an iPhone out people are drawn to it, they want to see the Apps they’ve seen on TV and heard everyone talk about, but with the Palm Pre people will just assume it’s just another touchscreen phone.
  • The Palm Pre does come with a 3 Megapixel camera with LED flash but for most people who own an iPhone 2 Megapixels works fine.
  • Easy typing, this is only true for some people but I now find it a lot easier to type on an iPhone keyboard than a normal mobile phone, however with a QWERTY keyboard it may be easier but the keys look small and aren’t as adaptable as the iPhone’s on-screen keyboard.
  • iTunes, Yes some love it and some hate it, but it gives users an easy well to purchase new music on the go and a central place for all their media.

Those are just a few reasons that I believe the Palm Pre will not kill the Apple iPhone, it may give a bit of a go at it, but overall the iPhone will remain at the head of it’s market, majority because of the App Store and the 1000’s of Apps.

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Music Videos in UK Blocked. Here’s a Workaround!

YouTube LogoSo if your in the UK, like me then you know that YouTube don’t allow you to view official music videos anymore due to a debate over pay to the artists.

But there is a way round all this!

You could use a proxy, yes but there slow and fustrating so use this easy tip to view videos if there blocked in your region.

Simply change the url from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<somecode&gt; to http://www.youtube.com/v/<somecode&gt;

And like that the video should play.

How Will In-App Payment Affect Crackers?

iphone30So if you use an iPhone or iPod Touch,  I’m sure you have heard of  ‘cracked apps’; these are App’s that have been legitimately purchased but then been cracked so that it can run on a modified device with no cost.

But with the release of iPhone OS 3.0 drawing ever closer, how will the cracks work with In-App payments?

Because if an App comes with just the bare-bones of the App and you must pay for the extras then using the cracked App in theory will not work, seeing as In-App payments will be done server-side and not in the App.

So if an App gets cracked and used then will In-App payments work or will they work a way out to crack those too. Anythings possible but just an interesting theory.

The Music Industry Isn’t All Evil

YouTube LogoIf your like many you use video sharing sites such as YouTube, to view your music videos online. However most of the time it’s through the official music label’s YouTube, as they remove most videos that users have uploaded off. However 99% of the time the user who uploaded it doesn’t get a say in things, YouTube will automatically take down the video once a claim is made.

But it’s not all like this. Some of you will have heard of You Me At Six, a rock band from Weybridge, Surrey.
With the upcoming release of their new single, Finders Keepers, many fans flocked to YouTube to try and find the music video. However for the first few days only bad quality TV recordings were available. However You Me At Six posted the official video to Myspace and so I took it from Myspace and put it up on YouTube, therefore becoming the first high quality version of the video.

After a few days the band put up the video on there channel and so messaged me to take it down, not just taking it down as other bands would. However I was reluctant seeing as on Bebo its had a total of 115,555 views and is on 881 profiles, so I added in the album & single pre-order links to my video to see if this would be okay.

However today I recieved an email from them saying:

Hi Sam,

Really sorry but the label are insisting that you take the video for Finders Keepers down as they really want people to view the video on our channel.

We would really appreciate it if you could help us out with this as its puts us in a difficult position.

Thanks for your help in promoting the video especially on bebo.  If you could direct anyone to the official video we would be eternally grateful!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sDeFnljmNo

Thanks a lot

x

As a result I will be taking the video down as I’m a big fan and think that it’s fair that the original band should get credit for their video. But unlike other artists, You Me At Six understand that me uploading the video is promoting it whereas most artists believe it’s stealing from them.

Goes to show that not all of the music industry is evil.

iPhone Headphone Problems

iPhone HeadphonesI’ve had my iPhone 3G for about 3/4 months with frequent use and my right headphone is starting to deteriorate, so I searched for a replacement pair from Apple, thinking that this problem was maybe caused by myself, however to my suprise the reviews on the Apple store page shows that everyone has this problem. Here’s just a few:

When I first got the phone the headphones were nice and loud, now after a few months they started to fade and get lower soundwise, and a few days ago the right ear completly stopped working.

——

I’ve had this headset with my iPhone for 6 months. Already after about 2 months the first problems started showing: Little digital clicks when you wear the phones and walk. The clicks got more and more frequent with time and use. After about 3 months the answer butten started getting dodgy, and now after 6 months it isn’t working at all.

Reviews

So as the reviews show people are having numerous different problems with Apple’s iPhone headphones, most people after 4/6 months experience the right headphone to completely stop working, currently mine has just got really quite causing me to have to put my iPhone on full volume or use the left headphone.

Apple need to fix this problem as I don’t want to spend £19 every 3 months on a new pair of headphones, please Apple fix this otherwise I will just buy a more expensive pair of 3rd party headphones.