David Emery OnlineOf 3G iPads and MiFis
Today I asserted on Twitter that a 3G iPad is far superior to a WiFi iPad paired with a MiFi device. To save myself answering the "why do you say that" question twenty times, here's the tl;dr version.
I disagree with Fraser on this – I’m incredibly happy with the combination of my WiFi iPad and a 3 MiFi. I think a lot of the problems he’s encountering are down to being in a poor signal area; for example, he says he gets around 2 hours battery life whereas I’ve used mine for 6 hours without it running out.
I’ve also been very impressed by the speed of it as well; maybe I’ve been dulled by the combination of O2’s poor coverage but I’ve always assumed that mobile broadband could never approach the speed of fixed broadband; the MiFi proves this is not the case. For normal browsing, it’s pretty indistinguishable from a normal connection, which is pretty amazing I think.
Sure, he’s right in that you do have to take a little bit of time to turn it on, but when I’m out and about I’ve just left it on without any problems so it’s not much of a big deal.
In short, I’m very happy with the £50 I saved going the MiFi route rather then then built in 3G route.
Visit ➔Kazaa, Skype Founders Launch Twitter-Like Music Service Rdio
Janus Friis with Niklas Zennström, who disrupted music distribution with the Kazaa file sharing service and phone companies with Skype, unveiled their Twitter-like version of a digital music service at the crack of midnight Thursday morning.
Rdio offers instant access to more than 5 million tracks from all the major labels and several indies to listeners in the United States and Canada through a web browser, downloadable software or mobile app. It’s available for free for three days and then for fees of $5 (web only) or $10 (web plus mobile).
Looks like a great service, but I can’t help but think that the pricing model doesn’t quite work; the lack of a free, ad-supported version (even if it’s limited to x amount of hours per month) is going to hamper adoption.
It’s why Spotify is doing so well, obviously; their subscriber levels are doing nicely, no doubt in part due to their mobile app, but I don’t think they’d get many people starting off on the paid plan without growing to love it via the free version first.
I also imagine it’s exactly the existence of the free plan – the one that makes it all work – that’s stalling Spotify’s launch in the US.
Visit ➔The Wired App
Whatever happens, and whatever conventions we end up with, I suspect that the reality will be at once quite wonderful if you stop to think about it, but disappointingly dull and prosaic on first impressions. I doubt we’ll have a wow moment from it, which is, I think, kind of the point.
I found myself nodding along whole heartily whilst reading this post. Yes, the Wired app isn’t perfect – especially in its construction – but it’s a pretty good first effort.
Visit ➔The Inevitable Post Where I Talk About The iPad
Back when I first started this blog I used to churn out words about whatever gadget Apple had just launched all the time; it was, for all intents, an Apple blog with occasional off topic posts. However after a while I realised that the last thing the world needed was yet another blogger banging on about Apple stuff so I cooled off, leaving the rest of the Internet to it.
Blogging about Apple is a bit like painting the fourth rail bridge; it’s a never ending task, and someones probably doing it already.
Also, I quite like this site being a site without topic or purpose – while focusing on just Apple or just music or just whatever would no doubt result in more traffic that’s not why I write. I right for me, and publish in the hope that someone out there finds it interesting (it’s a big Internet, after all).
The iPad, then.
I won’t deny that I wasn’t smitten the first time I saw one, and the decision to purchase was fairly swift, but that’s not to say I was entirely convinced. Yes it looked cool, but ultimately cool but only partially useful. I bought mine basically to act as a...
Read more ➔Is This Really The Future of Magazines or Why Didn’t They Just Use HTML 5?
However, what strikes me most about the Wired app is how amazingly similar it is to a multimedia CD-ROM from the 1990’s. This is not a compliment and actually turns out to be a fairly large problem…
I’m a fan of the Wired app – more on that soon – but its construction (lots of .pngs with some XML glue) seems woefully inefficient.
Visit ➔How The UK Times’ New Paid Website Will Look
While I’m a long way from being convinced that the paywall is an idea that’s good, or that it’ll work, this redesign – going from these screengrabs – looks like it’s actually a pretty good one.
Visit ➔Leave Britney Alone! (Where by Britney I mean Steve, Mark and Jimbo)
The problem here is one of perspective. We hardcore internet users might do well to realise that, just because we spend our days trawling TechCrunch and TechMeme and Hacker News doesn’t mean that the wider world shares our belief that privacy settings for photos we’ve chosen to post online, Flash on the iPad or our God-given right to see erections on Wikipedia are the most important issues in the world today.
I’m beginning to link to every column Paul Carr writes for TechCrunch, because he’s the only one in the tech media that seems to have any sense of perspective.
Don’t agree with Apple’s App Store policies? Don’t buy an iPhone.
Don’t agree with Facebook’s privacy policies? Don’t use Facebook.
It’s not difficult.
Visit ➔On Turning The Page
Just let me scroll, please? I’ve been reading stuff off the screen seriously for what, 15 years? More? Scrolling is fine, you know.
I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the whole “pages versus scrolling” thing and I have to say I’m veering towards – at least on touch-based devices – pages being preferable. On the desktop, with scroll-wheel mice, scrolling works well but the incessant “swipe, swipe, swipe” method on mobile devices is pretty tiresome – especially as commonly there’s no quick way of jumping ahead like there is in a regular scrolling environment (which is one of the key benefits of scrolling).
Visit ➔Facebook Breached My Privacy, And Other Things That Whiny, Entitled Dipshits Say
In other words, their problem is not that something ended up online, simply that they were unable to keep control of something they willingly shared with at least a portion of the world. And it’s that attitude that needs to change – from one of retroactive bleating about privacy to one of proactive filtering of what we choose to share in the first place.
Blaming Facebook’s flaky approach to privacy for the ills of the exhibitionist generation is just yelling at the stable door, long after the horse has bolted.
Surprisingly for something on TechCrunch, this article is right on the money. I appreciate that, judging by the amount of people on Twitter* that seem to hate Facebook, I may be in a minority in my peer group but I have no problem with Facebook, and a fairly relaxed attitude to online privacy.
The key to me is just to assume that everyone can read or view anything you put on the internet, wherever that is, and act accordingly. It's the internet: you don't have any control, so don't worry about it.
* Most of which have public Twitter streams, Just sayin'.
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