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…

Are the robots taking over the world? Not yet, but Google is having a good crack at it. In a twist worthy of a William Gibson novel, the search behemoth’s operating system Android is penetrating the mobile phone market faster than cheap cocaine on the streets of London. That Google has built themselves yet another killer piece of software is one fact slowly becoming obvious to the masses. It remains to be seen however, what the phone makers will do with it. Are they putting Ferrari motors into Lada Niva chassis?

Samsung, the Sony of South Korea, has recently released an Android phone they hope will be seen as more Ferrari than failure. Does the new Galaxy S live up to their dreams of being a sexy, slick, iPhone killing objet d′art?

We’ve taken the opportunity to check this for ourselves, and we’re pleased to report that Samsung might be onto something with this little beauty. For starters, they’ve done what any sensible manufacturer would do with a relatively ‘novel’ tool like Android. They’ve slotted it into an immediately marketable package with bags of designer flair, an iPhone case. Well, it’s not quite an iPhone case, but it’s close enough that the Apple fanboys won’t notice you don’t have one. At least not until they realise that while they’re off to the local aftermarket phone addons supplier to get a booster battery, you’re still busy texting and surfing the web. Uh-oh, the gig’s up. “What do you mean, this isn’t an iPhone? It looks like one, it feels like.. no wait, it’s lighter than an iPhone, and dude, what’s with this screen? It’s craaaaazy!”. Yes, the similarities end with the near-identical packaging.

We’re not kidding about the craaaaazy screen by the way. Samsung have taken the sensible decision of sliding an uber-cool “Super AMOLED” screen into this phone, and all we can say is ‘holy direct-sunlight readability, batman!’. What’s all this AMOLED tomfoolery about you say? Well, without resorting to quoting Wikipedia, let’s just say it kills iPhone screen technology. Even the iPhone 4 doesn’t have the goods in the screen department; Apple has spent what is presumably millions of dollars developing their ‘retina display’, which we feel is little like flogging a dead horse; it’s simply based on inferior, fundamentally outdated hardware. What’s the difference you ask? It’s like comparing your old bedside telly to a new plasma display. The screen on this thing rocks. The brightness, contrast, and colour depth are outstanding. It has a slightly lower resolution compared to the iPhone 4, but in practice this won’t make a difference to anyone except the myopic amongst us who’ve gone out and purchased the latest nosetip phone holders.

So we’ve wibbled on about the outstanding screen. What else is there to this orange in apple’s clothing? Well, you can change the battery without needing a set of tools that instantly labels you as a massive nerd. Need we say more? Just go out and get it! Seriously though, this is one of our pet hates about the iPhone, that you have to resort to discovering your alarming lack of surgical skill to change the battery. A deft thumbnail twist (watch the polish, ladies!) and the Samsung Galaxy S’ rear case pops off to reveal a battery that can be swapped out with ease. Big points gained here in our book. Hang on, what’s this funny little slot next to the battery? Oh wait, it says ‘microSD’. You can add memory to this phone? Surely not! Surely yes! For those of us who like to store our entire DVD collection on the phone for those long-haul flights to nowhere-in-particular, adding some extra space is a doddle. Just slip a 32Gb card in there, and your phone suddenly becomes a data store sizeable enough to hold the entire internet. Well, maybe not the entire internet, but at least the contents of Apple’s complaints forums. Oh hang on, they deleted most of that.

Ok, so we’ve made it clear we think Apple are stooging us all with their deliberately under-done but cruelly cool gadgetry. Rejoice though, because now we have an alternative. It looks cool just like an iPhone, it runs Google’s rapidly rising and simply rapid Android operating system, and it does so on hardware that ticks all the boxes for both nerds and the herds alike.

You might think we’ve been hoodwinked, and that somehow our review phone was dusted with powdered love potion. No, we have our quibbles with this phone, but they’re not quibbles that make us think twice about having bought it. Not ever. We can’t say the same thing about the iPhone. Ok, that’s the last time we say anything negative about the iPhone. It looks lovely, really.

———————————–
The Good:
- Bright, colourful, craaaaazy good screen
- Relatively long battery life for a fully-featured smartphone
- Expandable storage (microSD)
- User replaceable battery
- Open-source, increasingly well supported operating system (Android)
- Some may disagree, but we love the plastic rear case. If it scratches or cracks, just replace it. It won’t cost you a fortune and you can do it yourself.
- Native tethering support

The bad:
We struggled to think of anything, but…
- Wifi reception seems a bit on the average side
- Samsung Kies software is slow, but also unnecessary. In our opinion, you don’t need it anyway.

This is the first post by our newest commentator extraordinaire, the prodigious Aikenthumb.

Today I had an epiphany. I really am as dumb as I look.

I jumped onto my laptop with a fresh Windows 7 installation and decided to play with some photos for a friend.

I hunted around for my image editing program and, lo and behold, I’d forgotten to install it. Being as time pressed as the rest of you lot I decided to hit up Google for a solution. That’s when I came across Pixlr.

This is an amazing use of web technology and is a preview of what is to come. Technologies like Chrome OS or Android (or most likely a merged version of the two) from Google will essentially run your whole computer from the web browser and store everything online. The “programs” will also be hosted remotely giving you the most up to date versions available. But dear lord I digress into areas not remotely linked to what I was first talking about.

Pixlr, is basically a cut down version of Adobe Photoshop/The Gimp but delivered to your computer online. That way no matter what computer you are using, as long as it has web access, you’ll have access to this slick image editor.

Features include:

• Cropping
• Resizing
• Auto levels
• Contrast/brightness control
• Multiple filters (e.g. Tilt shift, pixelate, Swirls, etc.)
• Layers

Other pieces of greatness are the save as multiple file types and opening from a URL functions. Sweet.

Anyway – have a play. It’s definitely a great backup in case you’re stupid like me. Ciao.

In this day and age it’s too easy to feel overwhelmed by life, the universe and everything. We’re all time poor and super stressed, just wishing to shut-down and rest when we’ve got down-time. Or you just might be a lazy slob who can’t be stuffed. Whatever, I really don’t care in the nicest way possible.

But hang-on a minute, is that an iPhone in your sweaty sausage-like fingers?

Here is a brand new (for Melbourne) way of getting off your behind and exploring our great town..

Foursquare is a social networking, location based, smartphone and web-based game of sorts that runs on iPhones, Android phones and the venerable Blackberry. The nutshell version is that you run the app and, by using the inbuilt GPS and 3G connection, get a list of nearby funky places. These could be pubs, clubs, cafes and the like. The idea is that you go to the venue and “checkin”. You then score points for said “checkin”. Easy as pie. I can see you getting up of that Futon already.

How many points do you get? Well, for the first visit to a venue you score yourself 5 points. You get bonus points for stopping at other places during the night out (weekdays 4pm to 8am and anytime on the weekend) and, to promote cirrhosis, you receive extra bonuses for going out more than one night in a row.

What about during the day? Yes, you can still score the “first visit” 5 pointer and points for visiting places anytime on the weekend. Sweet.

Why would I want to do this? Well there are other cool features and apparently more to come. You’ll:

• know where your friends are on your nights out. You can even give them a “shout” to tell them to head on over.
• find out which places are pumping – click on the place and see who’s there.
• find out what’s done at each place – click on tips and find out that they have a huge beer menu.
• get maps to places.
• earn badges based upon how prolific you are or how adventurous.
• become the Mayor of a venue by checking in there the most times.
• see if you’re the king of your whole town by looking at the Leaderboard- your stats are the red ones. And yes I am the king of Melbourne (for now – until the weekend/people start using foursquare).

King of Melbourne

So what will the future hold for Foursquare?

Location based technologies are taking off in a huge way thanks to the accessibility of GPS enabled smartphones. In the States, where Foursquare began, it is huge. People vie night after night to be mayor of any place. But what about other aspects of this technology? By my reckoning you could soon expect (probably from Foursquare – thanks to their huge userbase):

• Location based advertising – walk past a McChucks and your phone may vibrate with the message “buy a burger – you look hungry”
• Location based discounts – this I would like. Visit Brunswick street and as you walk past Polyester Records you get sent a flyer that gives you 20% of anything in store if you walk in within 20 minutes – sweet.
• Instant friend notifications – if a friend is nearby your phone will buzz and let you know – privacy be gone!
• Plus lots more – I have too many ideas!

Lastly a word of warning.

While the website lets you set levels of privacy you should always be careful about who your friends are. I could easily see some bloke befriending you only to find out when you’re away from your jewelry at home.

Be warned – play nice.