It will be the third anniversary of the iPhone since the 1st Gen (America Only) was released in 2007, and two years since the worldwide release of the 3G iPhone. To me this means one thing! All of the customers – worldwide – who purchased the 3G and in doing so signed up for a 24 month contract, are coming up to the expiry of their contract. What this means is that Apple will need to have something on offer to all of these customers with expiring contracts otherwise they will see people jumping ship to other recently released iPhone competitors.

Hardware wants…

I would love to see a front facing camera in the iPhone. I think that this is something that has been lacking since the introduction of the device. Just look at that awesome large screen, this is a perfect device for video calling either over a cellular network call or via a VOIP service like Skype.

A revised design. While the style of the iPhone is now almost iconic. The look of the phone itself has almost (in my opinion) started to date a little in comparison to some of the other smart-phones that have been released lately. I know that they have already done the phone with the metal back on it. But wouldn’t it be really nice to see an iPhone that utilised the unibody aluminium design like in the Macbook Pro’s – even though I know they ditched the old aluminium design for signal quality issues, but I can still want it right??

I would expect to see a newer, higher resolution screen on the device also. Technology has come a long way since the phone was originally released, and I can only imagine it would be inevitable for a new version of the phone to possess a better screen.

It would also be nice to see a refinement in the quality of the few buttons that they use on the device. To me the side buttons feel a little cheap, and not only that, I know of cases where both the flip switch between normal and silent modes has gone bung as well as where the ‘home’ key gets used so much that it also goes into a state of non-responsivness.

Software wants…

As far as software goes, the first thing on my list here is a big cry out to Apple. Please, please, please fix the damn Mail app. This program is so clunky and painful to use if you have any more than one email account. The way it expects you to have a separate inbox for each and every mail account is certainly not elegant, nor is the four of five finger taps it takes to get between two accounts. They need to simplify this and give you the ability to have one main inbox like they do in the Mail app for the Mac.

Ringtones are no problem on the iPhone, its simply a matter of either forking over a dollar or two and buying the ability to make one through the iTunes store. Or if you have a few more moments spare you can make you own either through Garageband for Macs, or through iTunes for PC. However I really think that it is time they opened up the ability to either buy additional SMS & Alarm alerts, or to give the ability to make them like it is done with ringtones.

One of the last things that I would love to see added to the software capabilities of the iPhone is the ability to have badges for apps like Mail, Messages, Phone appear on the ‘unlock’ screen after you have just woken your phone up so you don’t have to physically unlock you’re phone just to see whether you have new mail or have missed a call.

These are just a few of the things that I would love to see in the next revision of the phone and its software. Its a matter of a few months yet before we will even know. I’m just wishing and hoping *fingers crossed*

If you are anything like me, it drives me crazy when all I want to do is sync my phone with iTunes and every time I connect it – iPhoto opens. It opens whether there are new photos on my phone or not (thats possibly the most annoying part – please fix this Apple). So I went on a mission to find out how do disable iPhoto from automatically opening when you plug in an iPhone or digital camera. Turns out that it is pretty simple!

Essentially you just need to open iPhoto, select the ‘iPhoto’ menu > Preferences > General Tab > Connecting Camera Options > No Program

This will stop any programs automatically opening when you connect any iPhone or Digital Camera, and allows you to then manually open it when you see fit.

There are other options for doing this, such as using Image Capture. I think they may have taken this out in Snow Leopard 10.6 because I just can’t find it. But presumably in prior versions of OS X you can open Image Capture and follow a similar process to selecting which programs you want your computer to open when connecting a camera.

It’s here, Dropbox have released an app for the iPhone & iPod Touch. I have written several posts about dropbox now, and the more I use it the more and more I find it useful and this just adds to the argument. The beauty of Dropbox is that it creates a folder on all of you’re linked computers and anything that you keep in this folder will automatically be updated on you’re web account and any other computers that you have installed and authorised Dropbox to work on.

So back to the iPhone app! When you launch the application for the first time, you get a little intoductory PDF to look at which runs you through the ‘good to know’s’ of the application. After this you are prompted to input you’re dropbox log-in details then you’re phone will automatically reach out to the dropbox servers and bring back down icons for all of the files and folders that are currently in you’re dropbox folder.

For files like presentations, word documents, photos, PDF’s and so on, you simply tap on the representative icon and viola the file loads and you have a full screen and very legible copy of the document to read. Very handy for viewing files that you need on the spur of the moment or when you have left your laptop behind.

One of the other things that I find great about the dropbox app for the iPhone is the ability to shoot/choose existing photos & videos (for those of you with a 3GS) and upload these to you’re dropbox folder. This of course sync’s back down to any of the other computers you have linked. This is a god send for getting photos back to the computer rather than dealing with the time taken up to connect you’re phone and wait for it to sync etc etc etc all just to get a photo.

The other beauty of this app is the ease in sharing files in you’re dropbox. When you are in one of the selected files and in viewing mode, simply tap on the envelope in the lower left corner and enter the email of the person you would like to share the folder with. This sends the person an email containing a link which is valid for 30 days from time of sending. When the link is clicked the recipient is taken to a browser link to view the file.

To me this is just one more reason to use Dropbox on my computers at home, and for anybody who does use Dropbox – if you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, you should definitely give this app a go!!! To get the application on you’re phone or get extra information about Dropbox you can visit their site here: getdropbox.com

Google, through their Sync feature have enabled essentially an Exchange service for Gmail. This means that if set up properly on your iPhone you can get your email pushed to and from your phone just as if it was a mobile me account! Great news. I set this up today and gave it a bit of a test. To test this I would essentially send myself an email (lame I know) but within minutes my phone would buzz and a badge would show up on my mail icon to say that I had new mail!

For me this is just one more reason to set up a gmail account as an alternative to paying for a service like mobile me or dealing with ISP’s to set up your email. It really is a pretty easy set up process and the google website gives nice easy and clear directions. If you wan’t to set this up on your phone check out the Google Sync page here.

Email

First and easiest is syncing your email. To do this you’re email provider needs to support what is called IMAP, generally they will tell you to set up your email programs with POP3. The difference here is that POP3 is a system which downloads what is on your email server and stores a copy on your local system – this is excellent if you only use one computer. But throw in your mobile phone and your laptop on top of your desktop computer and you will be getting the same email showing as unread multiple times, and if you delete it on one computer it will still be on the other devices same with your sent emails – frustrating!!.

The beauty of using IMAP based email is that every-time your computer or mobile phone is told to check your mail it will only show you what is currently on the email systems server, so think of it this way: somebody sends you an email > it goes to your email providers central computer > your computer or phone checks to see if there is any mail > it pulls down a copy of this and shows you your mail > all the time keeping a message on the emails providers computers. If you make a change such as delete or move it to another folder the action is mimicked on the email systems server. Therefore the next time one of your other devices checks for new mail it will see exactly what is on the email server and refresh all of your devices.

Setting up an IMAP email is hard to document because every internet/email service provider is set up a different way therefore there isn’t one set way to do this, generally speaking by navigating through your suppliers support pages and by using google to search you will generally be able to find a way to set this up. If your primary email is done through a service like Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo etc this makes it easier because by nature these are already an IMAP way of managing your email just navigate to their websites and they will give you details on how to set this up for your email program.

Files

Mobile Me provides a service called iDisk, which is like your own portion of disk space on Apples servers. This means it appears as a local disk on your computers however it can be accessed by any computer you give access to or via the web. The nice thing about this is that if you work between multiple computers you know just what it is like to go out one day and have forgotten to copy the file across. My solution to this was to use a service called Dropbox. I have blogged about this previously so won’t go into too much depth, but for free with this service you get 2GB worth of space which I find is adequate for files and some pictures. You can pay for a larger disk space if you want to. This service provides the same function that I mentioned earlier about providing an online central place to store files, but the beauty of dropbox is that whatever you put in your dropbox folder on one computer is automatically synced up to the dropbox server and back down to any other computer that you have installed dropbox on!

Calendar

Another great feature of Mobile Me is the ability to synchronize your calendars across different machines and you’re iPhones, Mobile Me does a really great job of this by pushing any changes made up to their servers and back down to your other devices to be updated. There is one great way to achieve this for free and this is with Google Calendar.

Once you have a google account you have full access to this feature for free, the process is fairly simple however I won’t discuss it here for the fact that it is so in-depth, however if this interests you check out the links posted below to find out how to set this up. Below are the links to platforms and programs it is available with:

• Click here for links to set up Calendar
• Works with Mozilla Sunbird
• Apple iCal & iPhone
• Microsoft Outlook
• Windows Mobile
• Blackberry

Contacts

Google really provides so many great services at no charge and due to the nature of how your contacts with Google are managed – that is in the ‘cloud’, it allows them to offer this free synchronizing services for contacts as well. So like with the Calendar when you add or update a contact on your computer or phone, it will update this on every device enabled to do so. Again the explanation of how to do this is to in depth for me to cover here but if you would like to enable this as well check out the link here > Google Sync Services

I stumbled across this video on YouTube this evening, and after seeing the title I thought ‘oh this might be good for a laugh’. This video looks to have been shot at the time Apple launched the iPhone back in 2007.

In the clip Microsoft’s CEO Steve Ballmer, literally laughs off the threat of the new Apple device stating that there is no way they feel threatened by “the most expensive mobile phone on the marketplace”, now at the time this may have been a real thought for those guys at Microsoft, Apple had never been in the Mobile phone market before what signs were there to say they would be successful?

Well…weren’t Microsoft in for a suprise! I think that Microsoft were under the misbelieve that because they developed Windows Mobile they were somehow the market leaders and that nobody was going to knock them off their perch. I’m almost certain that Steve Ballmer wouldn’t be the one laughing now! Steve Jobs and the team at Apple would be sitting pretty now with their ‘revolutionary’ product. Even though the iPhone was seemingly expensive at the time the 1st Gen still sold like hotcakes, only to be severely outdone by the 3G, and again by the 3GS!!!

Its so apparent when we see behaviour like this from CEO’s and managers that they just do not understand the real threats that their companies and products are exposed to, even if you are the market leader it doesn’t mean you’re invincible. Businesses operating in these times need to be constantly evaluating what their competition are doing and attempting to stay a step ahead. I feel pretty confident in saying that I really don’t think Windows Mobile has a leg to stand on, and without knowing the real figures – I would hazard a guess that there is probably as many if not more iPhones out there as compared to Windows Mobile.

It is so comical to watch things like this and think how embarrassing it must be for the company to look back on. It’s this shallow minded perception of the marketplace that Microsoft exists in that makes me think that one day when they least suspect it they will be knocked out of the number one spot by a competitor in the market!!

I was reading the news story from the link above and it got me thinking. The article basically refers back to a case where a teenager had his girlfriends iPhone, it apprantly started hissing and then shattered, flying shards of glass around with one getting into his eye. The Child is said to be taking action against apple for this ‘faulty’ product.

In Apple’s usual manner when there is a story on exploding or overheating iPods, they have refused to comment or take any action on the issue. In my opinion I know that if there was a problem with the product Apple would probably be quick to replace all affected models, they have done his in the past with other products like laptops and iPods. Although from a public relations and reputation management point of view I believe that by Apple refusing to make any statements they are treading a very thin line which could impact on customers trust in the company and it’s products.

Rather than taking the path that Apple’s lawyers dictate each and every time I feel it would benefit the company in the long run to actually come out and say something in situations like these, something to reassure every iPod, iPhone and Mac owner out there that the products they are using on a day to day basis have been tested thoroughly, and that the situations where something is happening, are an anomaly and a small percentage of all items out there on the market. By taking this path rather than the path determined by the lawyers it would put them in a better position to recover if there ever was a situation where a batch of iPhones were faulty.

Apple you need to understand that while you may be sitting pretty now – if you continue down a path where you fail to recognize and rectify issues, these issues will one day snowball into a crisis and one that could impact how you proceed in the marketplace.

But then again, Apple never have been the conventional thinking computer company, have they?

Inductive charging is a pretty neat technology that allows you to charge devices without physically plugging them to a power cable. There are currently charging mats out there that are square little rubbery looking mats that you can sit several devices on and charge them.

The pictures above are of the Palm Touchstone, the idea here is that the round base is connected to a power source, and you replace the standard back cover of the device with the touchstone back cover – pictured on the left. You can then simply sit your phone on top of the touchstone base and it charges your phone for you.

I think this is a great idea and can’t believe that it hasn’t been implemented on more devices. It may be a little gimmicky as it is just another way of achieving the same result that you can get when plugging in a power cable but it is something I would love to have! With the current iPhone 3GS coming out last month, it didn’t really have any compelling features that have prompted me to break my current contract and upgrade to the new model, this inductive charging, if offered on the iPhone 3GS would’ve given me a good reason to upgrade!!

Twitterific

Twitterific

I have put twitterrific first in my list as this is an app that I use everyday without fail, whether its just posting a new tweet or just sussing out what is going on out there in the twitterverse this is what I use. I used the original version of twitterific as well however I think that the second version is a major improvement with all the added funtionality.

This is the main screen shown to the left that gives you the option to choose what you want to look at, theres the public timeline of course showing the most recent tweets from arround the world, there is of course then your feed from the people that you are following. What I think is a great idea but don’t use is the ability to service several accounts in this one app. Another thing I really like is the Nearby search. It uses Location services and finds other tweeters in your area, a really useful tool for getting in contact with people in the same area as you that you may not otherwise find.

This menu also gives the ability to see all trending topics as well so you can see what’s hot out there. Within the app when looking at your twitterfeed it is really fully featured and well laid out. And the best thing if you don’t mind seeing the odd advert is that this one is free, or you can pay a little to get the pro version which is not ad supported.

Facebook

Facebook

This app is possibly one of the reasons that I still actually use Facebook because it makes it so easy to access on the go and works just like you would expect it too. The home screen basically gives you access to all of your friends status updates, all of your notifications and invites. You can also toggle what type of view you want if you want all status updates displaying or a mix between that and what everyone is up to.

This app also makes it really easy to snap a photo and upload it straight into your account, which is really great for those candid photos you want to share straight away. You also have access to fully view other peoples photo libraries. There is the ability to use the chat function of facebook if that it what you’re into, while also being able to check on your inbox private messages while enabling you to send back and forward.

Another neat and possibly fatal trick with this app is the ability to use the accelerometer in the phone to refresh the page, simply by shaking the phone it updates! Eliminating the need for an actual refresh button to clutter up the user interface.

Shazam

Shazam

This is an app that I don’t use frequently but have found a lifesaver!!! As most people would recognise from the Apple iPhone adverts on tv this app listens to recorded music, searches its library and returns what the song title and artist is. I don’t know about you but it frustrates me to no end when I hear a song on the radio and don’t know the name of it – this solves that problem.

It is really simple to use, basically just open the app > hit the tag now button at the top right corner and hold your phone close enough to the music source so it can recognise what it playing. It will listen to the music playing for about 12 seconds or so. After this it will process for a few more seconds and if it can recognise the song (which 9 times out of 10 it does) you get a result. You can tap on the result to go straight to the iTunes store on your phone and purchase if you like, otherwise Shazam will store the result so you can access it later.

Simple and really handy! Solves a problem in a nice elegant apple kind-of way

Flight Control

Flight Control

Ok so I’m not much of a gamer but I do love this game. It got me HOOKED! Essentially the aim of this game is to act the part of Flight Controler and successfully land the aircraft onto their appropriate airstrips without crashing them into each other. Simple I know, but the game puts up a good challenge. There are a mulititude of different aircraft and they all fly at different speeds which throws a spanner in the works.

You basically use your finger tap on the appropriate aircraft and draw a line that you want it to follow to land on the correct air strip. The more you land the more planes you get coming onto your screen, it’s one of those games where you know you can do better so it just keeps you coming back.

Only today there was an update released for this app which gave different airfields and a bigger number of planes, as well as the ability to fast forward time. I don’t know about fast forwarding time as I have enough trouble at normal speed.

Wordpress

Wordpress

I have only recently started running a wordpress blog/website, and most of the time when I’m doing a post or updating something I am sitting infront of my computer at home. However I just love the possibilities that this app allows for.

It allows you to plug in the details for any amount of blogs that you maintain, it is a very simple setup provided you know your username, password and websites URL. After this you simply tap on the website on the screen shown to the left and your get thrown into your options. You can write a new blog, edit a webpage, make a new page and manage comments.

This is such a powerful tool as it allows you to post wherever you may be provided you have mobile reception or wifi access. On a trip and want to share an experience? Photos? You can do that with this app! No more waiting to get home or back onto wifi access for your laptop to be able to use this app. I posted one of my blog posts the other day with this all on my iPhone when we were running close to our internet limit, great hey

If you run a wordpress blog/website and have an iPhone, you must install this app.