GITweekly

Call me cynical if you will, but by my reckoning the new fandango iPhone 4S from that mob at Apple strikes me as a fearful and cynical beastie. Why?

Here’s the thing. It’s safe. But disappointingly so. Perhaps it was the waiting. The months of conjecture. The “holding out”.

But at the end of the day it’s no Samsung Galaxy S2 which upped the ante. Bumped up screen real estate. Got skinny. Changed the game.

Where the iPhone 4 appeared to smash you in the face with amazing graphics, a beautiful camera, speed, design to drool over – instead the latest iteration is just that. An iteration. The same, just bumped up a notch.

Let us know what you think.

iOS 5 on the other hand…

Twitter is a remarkable beastie. The things you read. One such post from Mobile Muster, retweeted by the excellent* My Green Australia, said that you should drop your old phone into water before you send them the phone. This is because of the personal information that was still potentially stored on the phone. Will this work? Probably not is the answer.

How do I know this?

I’ve done it. By mistake. And don’t you, dear reader, pretend that you haven’t either!

The receptacle of choice in most cases is the toilet. Full of water and specially designed to accept all manner of foreign objects.

So what do we recommend and what can you do to salvage an accidentally flushed phone?

Here are our top tips:

• To potentially save a toilet dunked phone – remove all covers and disconnect the battery (iPhone users may have trouble). Go and rinse it under some fresh running water. After this you should pop it onto a heater vent overnight. It might just work.
• To get rid of your personal info, for most phones, you should Google – restore factory settings resetting – include your model number in the search. Once you follow the instructions you should start the phone up and try to access contacts and dialled numbers. Chances are that this has worked and you can save recyclers the delights of the moldy phone. Moisture and years of ear grease make for a yummy cocktail.
• If you are going to dunk the phone it probably should be in some sort of salty solution. Salt conducts electricity and will make a mess of a circuit-board’s ability to work. I’m just not sure of the complications at the recycling end. This is another reason you rinse the phone that’s been flushed. Urine** is full of salty bits.

I used to be the King of Melbourne. I sat atop the leader-board casting elitist eyes across the masses. My kingdom was new, slowly burgeoning, yet eager to gather the masses to its bosom. To be honest it’s never really got past that point. Sad really.

Move along. Nothing to see here.

Foursquare promised me excitement. It promised me multitudes of special deals just by checking in. The problem is that it turned into an unfullfilling, and sometimes petty, landgrab.

So it is with little regret that I say bon voyage, arrivederci, despedida, mwen kite nou, and adieu.

Sure I held many mayorships and I was glad to lead in an imaginary and metaphysical way. A sort of ghostette. A phantom nodding knowingly from afar.

I just wish there was more to keep me here. Entry into a draw to win a pillow just doesn’t tickle my….ooh I wonder if it’s allergy free?

Look I know. It’s been such a long time. How have you been?

Great. Knee not playing up?

Great. Me?

Yeah, I’ve been cheating on you with My Green Australia. Sorry. I like them. A lot. See, here’s a link of us together. Oh yeah, there’s this other thing. iFieldtests. It’s really a love hate thing though.

Sorry – let’s focus.

iFieldtests is a Tumblr page or Tumblog, if you like, of my experiences with the Vodafone network in Australia. True, it’s pretty niche as it only covers the places that I frequent. Makes sense though – if I’m having issues with my coverage in the areas that I live in there’s trouble to be had. And unfortunately there is.

So pop on over and have a peek at the pics I’ve posted. If you’ve had a good experience with Vodafone we’d love to hear it, along with the bad. Don’t hesitate to send us your screen captures (on the iPhone press the home button and the power button at the same time) and we’ll pop them up on the page – include your location and any other relevant details.

So what’s prompted me to create the iFieldtests page?

Well it’s a saga that’s been going on for about six months and began on the 3 mobile network. We began experiencing dropouts and call fails at our home and at several other places that we hang around. After a load of chatter between 3 and us we, stupidly, agreed to move to the Vodafone network to see if the coverage would improve. The answer was yes and no.

Since the swap to Vodafone we’ve seen an improved coverage, for calls, around our home. On the other hand we can’t go down to the family holiday home due to no coverage at the house and at the RSL next door. Due to the nature of my “day job” I have to be contactable at all times – with Vodafone I’m off the air. At least with 3 we roamed.

We’ve also seen that since the change from 3 to Vodafone the data reliability has been awful. Low speeds and frequent timeouts. Again we didn’t experience these issues as much with 3. With 3 I could even stream audio from the internet – now – no hope. As you’ll see, if you find it, compared to the 2008 average 3G data speeds of 759kbps I should be using my iPhone to its full capabilities. I can’t.

So that’s what I’ve been mulling over for the last wee while. Vodafone now tells us that for them to do anything they need to do a network check. They also say that this could take a month. A month! They could tell me that we live 2 streets away from a known black spot. These delays is what causes me to get so angry.

What do I want?

I want out. Out of the contract that I made with 3 – the same contract that sees me pay for 2 mobiles in our household that are so unreliable. Not once have we been offered recompense. Not once have we seen our service truly improve despite us changing carriers for them and changing sims for them.

Just do the right thing Vodafone. We want out.