Multi-tasking in particular is a feature that adds a great deal of extra functionality to the phone.  The key-note was fantastic, and 45 minutes in, we were left chuffed to bits that we’d bought the right phone, and that it would remain the greatest phone in the world thanks to great updates like this.  Oh how wrong we were…

At around the 50 minute mark, good old Steve-o announced that the updates would only be compatible with the iPhone 3GS and later.

I have (and this has been verified by a third party), the most immaculate iPhone 3G anyone has ever seen.  It is 1 year old, and half way through a 2 year contract, this being the cheapest way to get one at the time.  Now it’s being made effectively obsolete.  No more updates will be available for it, and pretty soon, apps will start being available for iPhone OS4 only.  However, reports soon started circling of Jailbreak users successfully using OS4 on a 3G.

This isn’t the first time Apple has done this to me, in fact it isn’t the first time in the last month!

Last month, after reading on the Apple site that bootcamp 3.1 was to support 64bit Windows 7, I immediately purchased it.  It installed perfectly, but upon trying to install bootcamp from the Snow Leopard DVD, I was told that 64bit Windows wasn’t supported on this iMac.  Outraged, I searched the net and found a very easy work-around which bypasses the check and installed the bootcamp 64bit software without a hitch.  Then updated it perfectly fine from Apple software update.

Earlier on in my mac life, I wrote about Time Machine backup not allowing you to use any old network drive, but instead requiring Apple’s own network drive.  Again, a simple hack, and there’s no reason you can’t aside from Apple saying you can’t!

So, how am I supposed to react to these acts of bullying from Apple? ” Oh, ok Steve, of course I’ll go out and spend hundreds of pounds on your latest product”.  No, I’m sorry, I won’t.  In fact, I will never buy another Apple product again.

Say what you like about Bill Gates and Microsoft, but Apple are scamming even their own faithful customers.  Is it any wonder they are a minority?

Did you know, the first computer mouse was invented in 1964?  Sure, it wasn’t anything like what we use today, but the basic concept was there.  For some time now, mice have had 1 or 2 buttons.  Later on came the scroll wheel.  Now, with optical technology, wireless, and the addition of a few more buttons, the mouse is a technical marvel compared to the old ball mice of the 90′s.

Where is this going you might ask?

I used a classic mac in secondary school.  One of the all-in-ones with the square mouse with one button.  This worked fine.  Why then, have Apple felt the need to mess with the design of the mouse since then?  The hockey puck, that rotates in your hand, meaning you get tangled up with the cable, and can’t press the button.  Then there was the mouse where the entire shell pressed down.  More recently came the “Mighty mouse”.  Every single one of these had a stupid wheel, which while nice to use, eventually stopped working.  It also had a one piece shell, but had two clickable regions.  I always had trouble with the right mouse button clicking when I didn’t want it to.  Now, the Magic mouse has arrived.  No wheel on this one, but it has multi touch capabilities.  You have to sit through a tutorial on how to use the most basic peripheral that’s been around since the 80′s…

A colleague recently compared me buying a Logitech mouse for my mac to “putting a K&N filter on a Ferrari”.  I replied with, “a Ferrari wouldn’t need a K&N because the standard filter works perfectly well”.  Said colleague has since purchased a Logitech mouse for his MacBook Pro…

Unfortunately Apple seems to have a style over function attitude in this respect.  A mouse has 2 buttons and a scrolly wheel.  Apple, pay Logitech to make you a nice white mouse, your users will thank you for it!

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First impressions are, it is faster, but it’s not the huge gap I was expecting.  Apple have re-written the entire operating system to run natively in 64 bit.  Good news since Apple have been pushing 64bit Core 2 Duo processors out for a few years now.

I was teetering on the edge of swapping back to a dedicated Windows machine.  Those who read my last post would have seen me surprised to see how well Vista runs through Bootcamp.  Well, I decided to run a little test.

Photoshop CS3, 141 JPG images and an automated action with the following commands:

1. Auto levels
2. Auto colour
3. Resize to 50%
4. Save for Web
5. Close

So, Snow Leopard was first, and completed the test in 6:55.  Windows was booted up, and I opened the images.  I wish I had timed the opening of the 141 images, as Windows was considerably slower.  Once it finally opened, the action was run.  Windows completed in 7:45.

Both tests were run from a folder on the desktop, both from the same hard drive.

I think if the RAM was upgraded, the Mac would have steamed ahead thanks to it’s 64bit-ness.

So, for now, I’m back on the Mac side of the fence…

Previous readers will have read my opinion of Vista and Microsoft in general since I became a Mac user.

So, what happened?  Well, a friend sent me a link detailing the upcoming release of a new series of Monkey Island games.  To your average nerd, this is the best news since, well, the last Monkey Island game!  This presents a problem to the Mac user.  A productive, stable machine it is, but a games platform it isn’t.

So, Bootcamp was installed, and then Vista was dusted down and installed.  I am slightly concerned to say, that Vista appears to run quicker and more efficiently that Leopard.  I know that I need to install Anti-Virus etc, but I was expecting to install a great big turd of an operating system, as I remember it on my laptop, but it just doesn’t seem to be.  Maybe the service packs and general updates have improved it, but I am actually enjoying using it again.  Plus, I much prefer Photoshop and Dreamweaver on the PC.  They just seem to work nicer, however I’ve been using video capture recently, and also iDVD, and these run nicer on the mac than the PC…

Never have I had any trouble doing whatever I need to do, and it’s been perfectly reliable.  So much so, that i recently swapped my Windows mobile HTC mobile phone, to an Apple iPhone, which is the most impressive little device I’ve ever seen.

Now, my first ‘real’ pc was a lowly AMD powered Windows 95 machine.  I have owned at least one computer with every major version of Windows since then.  Each one was a big step forward in terms of what you could do, and how easy you could do it.  XP is by far and away the leader in terms of amount of users with around 70% of computers on the internet using this OS.  Next in line is Windows Vista, presumably, because it comes pre-installed on almost all laptops now.

Now, I haven’t heard of a single place of work upgrading their office machines to Vista.  Being the sole person in charge of this at my place of work, I will never put Vista on any of our machines, and I know most others in my position feel the same way.

So where does this leave Microsoft for the future?  They have again extended the time they will keep providing OEMs with Windows XP.  They are never going to infiltrate the average office with Vista, their flagship OS, so what is their next move?  Windows 7 is in public beta, I’ve not installed it since I don’t own a PC anymore, but early tests indicate it is a vast improvement over Vista, with quotes like ‘substance over style’ appearing everywhere.  It appears Microsoft is trying to remove all the annoying parts of Vista and start again.  Surely then, starting from XP would be a better bet than starting with Vista?

I’m also keen to see how they deal with keeping 3 versions of their operating system supported.  They can’t leave reluctant sysadmins with vulnerable XP systems, and they have to keep supporting Vista…

Apple’s market share is getting larger by the month, and with more accessible versions of Linux around, as well as the infamous Firefox, Microsoft is losing its grip on the PC world.  I am now a Mac user, but I wouldn’t like to see Windows die a painful death.  The fact remains however, if they shoot themselves in the other foot with Windows 7, they are going to find it very difficult to get back up.

First impressions?  Well connecting my network hard drive and copying my stuff over went very easily.  The most impressive thing I’ve found so far is that copying my entire photo collection (18GB) over to the mac’s hard drive was relatively painless.  In Windows Vista, trying to copy such an absurd amount normally resulted in either an estimated time of about 3 days, an error, or just a complete lockup.  The mac just settled down and did it over about half an hour.

The second thing, is so far, I’ve managed to replicate all the software I had on my PC.  Obviously all Adobe stuff is the same, Filezilla, and there’s even a handy little app that uploads to your Picasa web gallery.  OpenOffice has been replaced by NeoOffice, and all my old documents open fine.

Oh, and the joy of unwrapping it was nice as well.  As usual, Apple’s packaging is nearly as good as the product itself.  The setup was very easy too, was very nice not to have to start installing drivers from disc before you can get on the internet.

My only gripe so far?  I was looking forward to having Time Machine functionality.  However, it doesn’t work with a network hard drive.  There is a hack, which lets TM see your network drive, but on trying it, it gives a “Failed to create image” error.

UPDATE: Found a tutorial on the interweb, and now my machine is successfully backing up to my network drive via Time Machine.

So, I guess that means no gripes then…

By the way, if you’re having the same trouble making Time Machine work with a NAS, then try this link, this is what sorted it for me.

http://www.readynas.com/?p=253

It’s something I’ve always been against, but I’m finally about to make the move to Apple.

I’ve been comparing it to ‘getting old’ in the computer world.  Gone is my desire to play games on the PC, I just want a computer to do what I need it to, without any issues.  I think this has come about due to Windows Vista.  On XP, making a computer do what you wanted was easy.  It’s (comparatively) simple and streamlined.  You put hardware in, you download the latest drivers, and you play your games, or do whatever you need to do.  Vista just seems to complicate things, for no good reason.  All the programs you might have got used to don’t seem to work the same, and due to the way technology is going, it’s even more difficult to build a futureproof computer.  Also, I HATE, when you buy a new windows machine, and it has been customised for the manufacturer, and there’s rubbish software all over it.  Dell for instance, you buy a new work machine, and the first thing you need to do is uninstall more than half of the software that comes on it.

So, enough about Windows…

I’m looking at the higher specced of the 20inch iMacs.  I had a play with the 24inch the other day, and while it would be nice, I can’t really justify the extra money for a very similar spec machine but with a bigger screen.  I’m currently selling anything in the house that’s not been used in a couple of days to buy it.

I can’t wait!